It has been another interesting week on The Geek Homestead. Josh has been home this week because of feeling ill and had to take off from work. He is feeling better today and hopefully will be completely better in a few days. He isn’t feeling up to writing our weekly homestead post though, so I’ll be the one writing this week.

This past week, we moved our middle batch of chicks out of the chick cage in the coop and into the actual coop with our older chicks. Smokey Jr., our second Easter Egger, still thinks she is in charge and has been having an attitude with the older chicks. Peckachu and Cheeto especially haven’t been taking her attitude and I think she is close to being put in her place. Smokey still picks on the two younger California Whites though, Thunderbird and Phoenix. I still can’t tell the two California Whites apart. Gwen has to be with me to tell me who is who. Thunderbird and Phoenix like being around people and will come up to say hi when you are near the coop or in the coop.

Zee-zee, Peckachu, Torchic, Charmander, Cheetoh, and Carmen in the middle with Thunderbird or Phoenix hanging back on the right side.

For a few days, we were actually wondering if Smokey Jr. might be a rooster, but I do think we have all hens. We will find out for sure in a few months!

Our baby blue-laced red wyandottes are still in the house with us. Josh expanded their home to two boxes and it took them awhile to decide it was a safe box. These babies are growing in their feathers quickly and are starting to look a little bit scruffy. We can’t wait to see what their colors will be like once they are grown. They love being hand-fed and will go crazy if you feed them their favorite snack, Scratch and Peck organic starter.

Since Josh was home this week, he was able to work on our garden beds (with many breaks so that he didn’t overdo it).

All the garden bed fencing is up. We have a lot of rabbits and other wildlife in the area that would love to get into a garden, so Josh and the boys put all the fencing up first. The garden beds are now ready to be filled with dirt. I think Josh will be going to pick up dirt tomorrow so that he can start planting. We are expecting only to be able to grow veggies in the garden until about June or July because of the heat here. Then, Josh plans to grow winter veggies starting in October or November.

Our fig tree also came in that we bought from our power company. The boys were able to dig a hole for it, but the tree still needs to be planted. We are hoping it will grow quickly to be shade for the chicken coop. In the meantime, we will probably need to put up some sailcloth this summer to shade the chicken coop instead.

Our prickly pear patch over by the garden beds will be flowering soon! There is nothing quite like cactus flowers. I think they are my favorite flowers.

I had to venture out on Thursday to pick up groceries and that was quite an experience. There are still many empty shelves out there. It also felt a little bit like a vacation after not leaving the house for two weeks. We are doing mostly fine with our supply of food and definitely use up leftovers. Example: Josh smoked a turkey breast last Saturday and I think I used it for two or three meals. I also froze the bone so that I can make turkey broth later. By the way, smoked turkey breast is amazing. We will have to post about it sometime soon. Josh actually said we can have smoked turkey breast as part of Thanksgiving and that is high praise because we usually don’t have turkey; we have a ham instead.

I was sad I wasn’t able to find eggs, but we do still have one package left. I just won’t be able to bake very much for about a week.

We also have continued to homeschool here on the homestead and decided to take no days off until everything opens back up again. Because of the great weather we’ve had the past week, after school and during recess, the kids have been outside playing. As you can see, our back patio is nearly covered with chalk drawings!

Stay healthy, everyone! It’s Sunday, so it’s time for church. If you’d like to join us, here is the link to our church here in Tucson! Thank you for taking the time to visit The Geek Homestead!

-Lynn