The chickens & the world

It hit me that I had described a wide ranging list of subjects for this gemlog, and then went on to write exclusively about code and stuff I've coded. I guess that "look at what I've made" is what comes easiest. It's low risk (at least in this context) and carries with it a certain amount of self- validation. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, and having a log of what you've accomplished is a good tool to avoid feeling useless. So I'll keep doing that, but I also want to push outside of that comfort zone, to write about non-tech stuff that I'm less confident about.

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Like the ugly but functional "furniture" that I'm building for the basement (a workbench, a shelf for planks, and a pair of sawhorses). Or maybe the planned seedlings for this year, I'm thinking of planting some Siberian and Buena Mulata chilies today. Last year taught me to be careful about planting too early. We have moved two climate Zones north, from Skåne which almost doesn't have winters, to Västergötland where we might have some last frosts in June. So last spring I lost a lot of seedlings to frost, and the rest got a bit too spindly waiting indoors.

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Chickens are amazing creatures. They forage freely if you let them and they eat pretty much everything. Grass, weeds, kitchen scraps, insects, and grit, it all goes down. In return you get an egg roughly every other day. While it's preferable that food gets eaten by us humans we no longer have food waste in the normal sense of the word, it's chicken food.

Normally the chickens range freely around our property, but right now there's avian flu spreading in Sweden, so they how to stay in their yard and be fed indoors to minimise the risk of infection.

The chickens are obviously displeased with this arrangement, and it pains me to keep them like this. When not foraging they become sedetary and understimulated, which can lead to both mental and physical health issues. It's kind of odd how this mirrors our lives with Covid. The big difference is that if they get the avian flu then that is a 100% death sentence for the entire flock. So they might be annoyed by their captivity, but at least they are blissfully ignorant of the threat.

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The other worry is that it's getting a bit too cold in the coop. While chickens are pretty cold tolerant they run the risk of frost damage to their combs. When we hit -18C in January I saw a bit of purplish bruising at the tips of our roosters comb, but it has healed nicely. Hopefully the electrician will get here soon so that we can get the heat lamp set up.

But today is a day for planting and taking cuttings. I have my eye on some winter-spindly geraniums that need a trim. There's also a vigorous elderberry bush by the road to the woods that I've been waiting to take winter cuttings from.