Just before all the rain hit recently we did more gardening with Jane!  This time she's planting out carrots and lettuce.  Normally we wouldn't do this in the middle of April but it has been so warm we just decided to try anyway and see what happens!

It's plowing time and of course I'm using my Gravely two wheel tractor!  This interesting implement is called the Gravely Rotary Plow and it is designed to create 8-10 inches of fine tilthy soil for planting in.  It has taken me a long time to tune this plow and make it work properly but I think I've got the hang of it now.  This thing is sort of like a post hole digger but with a shorter shaft.  It really did the trick!  Check out the video!

It's time to start thinking about integrating my little chicken family of mother hen and four children into my other flock of four laying hens.  In fact it is from this flock that the mother hen originally came but she has been gone from that flock for 2 months and as a result has sort of lost her "status".  Chickens have a complex social order that must be worked out every time a group of hens get together and live in a group.  This is called a "pecking order" and we use that term regularly in our day to day conversation to describe essentially the same idea among people, co-workers, family etc.  So as soon as our broody left the coop to rear her young the four remaining ladies had to work out their pecking order.  Now that they've done that we're about to upset that pecking order by not only bringing back broody but also her four chicks!  This is a pretty big deal socially to a chicken and I had to to a lot of research before I plunged in here.