Insurance

All packed. Now here is a report on the greenhouse.

Regular readers (there are a few) may remember we had to kick the ducks out of the outside pen because a raccoon was ripping the poultry netting and using that space to enter the barn and take a bite out of a different chicken every night. All the birds had one entrance, through the barn, so now everyone stays locked in the barn all night, not a mode the ducks prefer but at least the predation has stopped for now.

So Risa moved several years' accumulation of extremely rich bedding from the pen, found the soil very compacted, tilled the remaining rich dirt, and started a fall garden in July. That might have been a bit early, but you do things things when you can do them; who knew all of our summer heat would come in September?

Here's the pen right before tilling:

Here's the garden growing:

And here's the "greenhouse."

Well, really, just a very kludged lean-to grow tunnel. The budget did not really admit of anything pretty; so Risa spread three odd-shaped pieces of plastic (left over from other jobs) over the poultry netting as best she could, then salvaged boards to attach the bottoms and is holding the whole thing down with salvaged eighteen-gauge wire from around the place. The idea is to keep the family in kale, collards, beets, onions, peas, cabbage, and chard in her absence. These things sometimes make it through the winter here, but sometimes they don't. The polyethylene is insurance.

Also, the cover is intended to have these plants get by on well water instead of rain water. In times like these, that's insurance too. Such as it is.