Gardening Donkey

It's kind of like a garden gnome, but way more fun. The cast aluminum swing got its coat of rustoleum last weekend. Orrin constructed a cantilevered beam and angle iron frame to hang it off the playground this afternoon.

Emmet promptly banged his chin on the top of the ears, but made a quick recovery. He's not quite tall enough to take advantage of the mechanism that makes the donkey swing though.

The donkey probably weighs 30 pounds, so despite Orrin's excellent engineering the entire playground creaks and sways when Silas really gets it going. Eventually we'll move it over to the A-frame. Right now the tire swing and baby swing occupy the space.

Orrin spent the morning mountain biking. I took some treats to the neighbors and ended up hanging out with them for lunch and consulting about their plans for chickens.

We worked in the backyard the rest of the day. I finished tilling the garden. I'm embarrassed by how worn out that made me. I wasn't even shoveling, I had a tiller. last week we planted kale, onions, broccoli, brussels sprouts, chard, asparagus, and mustard greens. The garlic, strawberries, rhubarb, horseradish I planted last fall have come up. Though only a small fraction of the strawberry plants. I cleared out the old raspberry canes, Orrin burned them, and the remaining canes have flower buds. The blueberry bush and apple trees are about to blossom too. Today potatoes, edamame, carrots, beets, radishes all went in the ground and Emmet helped water them.

The ducks also enjoyed the beautiful day, as they got to roam around the backyard, nibbling grass, and bugs. Originally, I wanted ducks because they are supposed to be good at "weeding" and keeping pests out of the garden. But it turns out they are the pests. Chomping on lettuce, peas, etc. So they are only allowed to be free range when someone is outside to chase them away from the garden. I plan to add an annex to their living quarters so they can get some grass more regularly. Right now their fenced in portion is an indoor coop and a cement slab with a wading pool. One of the blue swedes will be leaving us soon, to make way for the two chicken hens. City ordinance only allows for 4 birds, and no roosters. So the exotic "mystery" chick is going to be departing soon too.