Lavender Chickens?

The husband is doing a concrete job down in the valley. The owners put in a big hops farm and processing center last year and now they are building a sales office. The wife also breeds show chickens. She had 10 hens, each a year old, that she didn’t want to breed, so they came to live here. I am hoping that having a few more hens will be a distraction for the roosters. She told the husband that they were all Leghorn varieties, including some lavender ones. Lavender is a recognized color in some chicken breeds—like Orpingtons—but I am not sure how stable the genetics are. These almost look like Ameracaunas to me, so they may been crossed with lavender Ameracaunas at some point to get the coloring. I’ll take some pictures today.

I live in a zoo. No bear sightings, fortunately. And the hummingbirds came back. They seem to be late this year,—I expect them at the beginning of April—but at least they are here.

The weather was nice yesterday afternoon, so I went out and worked on the second half of the garden. I replaced the cardboard around the berry bushes and pruned the currants, then raked up all the debris into a couple of piles. (I also displaced a family of voles, which did not bother me in the least.) When the husband got home, he burned the piles for me while I cooked dinner. He also fixed the grape trellis as it was starting to come down under the weight of the vines. I’ll work on what’s left today and tomorrow, and we’ll be all ready to set plants out the last weekend in May.

The greenhouse is such a beautiful place right now with all our seedlings. I’ve got about two dozen Dirty Girl tomato plants:

These all came from the one seed I got from Susan last year. It grew into a plant and I saved all the seeds. I will plant some of these, but I will also make them available to other people. I love the potato leaves on this variety. Many heirloom and open-pollinated tomato varieties have these kinds of leaves.

I saved seed from my biggest Oregon Star paste tomatoes. I’ve only got a dozen of those, though, so they will all be planted here.

Fortunately, I also have Amish Paste and Purple Russian paste tomatoes started, so I should have plenty for sauce.

Things are looking good and we are right on schedule. Yay! I need to call the John Deere dealer today, though—they have my tractor but were waiting on the bagging attachment to arrive so they could install it. I’m going to ask them if they can deliver the tractor anyway and install the bagging attachment later, because who knows where it is being held up or how long it will take to get here. We’re going to need to cut the grass in another week or so. The mower comes with a mulch setting, so the bagging attachment isn’t critical.

Sewing is on the back burner for the moment, although another weather system is supposed to come through this weekend.