It's bright and early Sat morning and we're getting ready to head to our local farm store to pick up our chicks. We've got the shed near the house converted to a coop and have a fenced in area for the chicks to run around.
At the store, we look over all the different chicks, all about a week or two old. We try to pick some bigger chicks with the hopes that they will be healthier. We end up bringing home 2 Rhode Island reds, 2 New Hampshire red and 2 Black Sex Links. They are just too cute!
We refer to them as 'the girls'. We were told not to name farm animals like pets, but it's hard just calling them 'the black one' or 'the red one'. We decide we will name them, but not cute cuddly names. We decide that since at some point, after they stop laying, they will be dinner, we will name them after chicken dishes. Our 'girls' are: Blacky (short for Blackened), Nugget, Pollo, Kiev, Cordon Bleu, Coq au vin.
We read a great book by Gene Logston and were introduced into the world of cold frames. What a great idea! A mini greenhouse... we'll get veggies even sooner.
How to build one? Well, we have some left over square bails of hay. That will make a nice insulated 'frame'. When we bought the property, we replaced the basement all glass doors with something a little more secure. They'll be our cold frame 'lids'.
We proceeded to plant in our cold frames. Tomatoes, cukes, peppers, etc. Nights are still getting below freezing, but daytime temps into 50's and 60's. Easy enough, put the lids on at night take them off in the morning. Hmm... we have a quandry... today the temp is only going to get up to upper 30's. We'll play it safe and leave the lids on and head out to work. We decided to check the weather from work..... holy crap...... it's almost 60 out and we left the lids on!!! (which means it's probably at least 100 under the magnifying glass like lid.) Crap! Upon arrival home, we run to the cold frames yank the lids off. Little plants wilted and burned. Crap!
We'll have to get a handle on this cold frame thing.
