Happy Earth Day! Update on Injured Hen, Backyard Garden Work Time

Happy Earth Day!
Happy Earth Day to everyone! I hope you all are doing what you can to keep us all spinning!
Here's our little bit of Earth-

Update on Injured Hen-
I wanted to update on how Gwynne my injured chicken was doing. For a few days I saw zero effect with using the Arnica. After that things went downhill fast since she stopped eating and wasn't moving around much. After talking to a friend, whose husband used to work in the poultry business, I switched to baby aspirin. I also moved her down to a lower part of the coop at night. I thought she might not be coming down since she was afraid she might fall again. I put her in the large double nesting box at night with food and water. I started her on ground up baby aspirin and water using a oral syringe. I noticed within 24 hours she came out of the coop on her own and I've been bringing her in twice a day to feed her.

Friday night I bought a bag of fresh spinach, one of her faves and some dried meal worms for protein-

I brought her in after work and I put a bowl of water with ripped up spinach in it and she attacked it! She wasn't sure about the meal worms, but she did start eating some. The next morning I brought her in again, now she's eating more normally, seems to have her appetite back which is good. She still limping, but not as much, I'm going to stop bringing her in for food Monday, back to work, unless she needs it. I will just take food out there and try to get her back onto her feed. This morning when I gave her the liquid with the aspirin her comb and wattle started turning purple and I thought she might have aspirated on the liquid. I had taken her out, but brought her right back in. She recovered after 15 minutes, no more liquid like that. Chickens have a very narrow windpipe for sure, not worth the risk. So all in all it's been very frustrating and scary, but she seems to be on the mend. Lesson learned try different things and be creative!

Last collard greens

Backyard Garden Work Time
Dave did a lot of work yesterday on the garden. I had a really bad night sleep Friday, my back was really aching so I stayed inside and did some other things. Last weekend I harvested the last collard greens in the raised bed that had wintered over. Dave turned all the compost, put several inches on the raised bed. I mulched some baby Lavenders I planted last fall. He worked on various parts of the backyard, trimmed all the berries, did a light pruning of the apple tree. He took the lower window off the coop since the weather is much warmer, around 70, and put the big hardware cloth screen on. I'm leaving the plastic sheet on the coop door for now in case it gets cold and windy to keep the upper roosting area out of the draft. They basically created a hanging plastic adjustable curtain that works great. During the day I can open it up to let the air circulate more and that night I can close it easily keep the draft down. You want good air circulation in a coop, but during the night you want to make sure there's no breezes if it gets colder. It was 42 last night so it works really well. Today we be planted vegetables in the raised bed- bush peas, Italian Kale and some pansies for color, we covered with row cover to protect from the birds-

For vegetables in the raised bed I bought a couple different kinds of radish seeds and carrot seeds, will plant this week-

I have a lot of seeds I'm going to scatter for various types of poppies in the front and back yard.We're going to plant some potatoes soon in a garbage can to try that, probably Yukon golds. It's funny living in Idaho people always wonder why would you want to grow your own potatoes in the potato state? The reality is potatoes in the stores are probably a year old or so and are nothing like fresh potatoes. I bought some potatoes at a farmer's market a couple years ago and couldn't believe the difference! They were creamy and had a very different, unique flavor. So we will plant those in the next week or two. I made my favorite Muffuletta Sandwich for dinner last night, since I knew we'd be busy all day. I made the olive salad part ahead of time and actually wound up taking a nap because I was so tired. It made for a great dinner and I have learned to appreciate naps as I have gotten older. I realize if I'm really overly tired on a weekend and can take a nap why wouldn't I? It's amazing how much more rested you can feel after a one-hour nap! The weather was great again today, 65, and I got more done since I finally slept last night.