well the winter destroyed the feeble attempt to maintain the green house. A heavy snow and hurricane force wind collapsed the reinforced pvc structure. now it is planting time again and the wind has not cooperated even in the least. 

Plans are to buy a tubing bender and create a more rigid hoop structure from galvanized steel tubing this season. Having had the experience from last season and knowing the expectations we will have for fresh veggies I would like to make the replacement a good bit larger then the 10x20 foot print of the first attempt but I will have to find a reasonable resource for covering materials and perhaps use some of the pre-fab devices to fasten the covering and allow ventilation etc so I have a great deal of planning and preparation to do before I build hoop house II.

 I acquired an inexpensive incubator and have had great success hatching our new chicken crew. There were two hatching cycles which resulted in 16 chicks. Plenty of young chickens and hopefully some of them will be laying blue and green eggs if the genetics prove correct and the Amerucana roosters have done their job. I do not know what I will call the cross breeding that I have but it will be interesting to see what these chicks look like when they are older.

I will be improving the hen house and making the chicken yard much larger this year. I would like to be able to house at least a dozen laying hens and perhaps a few more which means improving the hen house a bit adding perching area and mostly enlarging the yard. I think going up to 50x50 will be good but I still am worried about the marauding pack of coyotes. the fencing will need to be very high and will likely need a hot wire around the top. more planning and prep!

We will see how much I am able to accomplish this season!