Spring Cleanup

I know it's not spring yet, but I feel like it motivates me to think like that, when I have pre-spring chores to do.  I needed to get out in the yard and clean up some dying plants from the dose of winter that we've been having.  I planned to tweak Ella's green roof project, pull up the onions and broccoli that were damaged recently, and start planning for chickens - I don't know when that will be, but I can plan, right?

Fixing the green roof project didn't take too long, and I pulled up the onions and some of the weeds and got bored - I've had a long week and it was a little colder than I wanted.  When I moved to the beds with the cold-damaged broccoli, I was surprised to find very nice heads on these plants, despite the dying foliage all around.  I pulled some weeds from the beds and decided we're going to have to eat some broccoli this week.

We've been talking about getting chickens for a while now.  We(I) finally got a dose of what it would be like to have chickens when neighbors went out of town for Xmas and asked us to take care of theirs.  They have five hens, two of which are laying.  I've read a lot about chickens, so I think I know how all of this works, in theory - reality is a different thing.  I had plans to build the perfect coop and henhouse with nesting boxes, etc, but the chickens hardly used the henhouse, didn't like being cooped up - they liked being free range in the yard, and they laid their eggs next to the A/C unit.  It was an eye-opening experience - now I just have to take in all I have learned when working out plans for chickens in our yard.