Saturday in the garden – Sunshine, spring clean-up and our chickens

Today we spent hours outside, soaking up the sunshine and cleaning up our backyard. I wish I had taken before/after photos – it looks a million times better than it did this morning.

• We washed and wiped down the backyard toys
• We threw away broken and old toys that the kids no longer use
• We raked, raked, raked
• We used our leaf blower to clean up a lot of leaves in the front
• We cleaned our front entry way area – wiped things down and swept the porch
• We cleaned the chicken coop out

The chickens got to run around the backyard for most of the day and the loved every minute of it. I took a ton of photos of them, to share with you.

If you’re just now meeting our chickens, here’s what we have so far:

Amelia – Black & White Chicken – Light Brahma – The boss of the group, she’s in charge.
Princess Lay-a-negg – Yellow Chicken – Buff Orpington – Loves her picture taken. Has wild look in her eyes. 🙂 
Girly – Brown Chicken- Partridge Cochin – Always looks a bit perplexed and often off on her own.
Chena –  cross between an Orpington and a Jersey Giant – Follows around Marmalade
Marmalade – cross between an Orpington and a Jersey Giant – Follows around Chena.

My raised beds are a certified DISASTER. But the girls help us weed them today. 🙂 We’ll work on weeding a bit over the next week or two.

Marmalade in my raised beds.

They’re best friends. Can’t you tell? Walking around, looking for bugs and grubs.

Princess Lay-a-negg hanging out in the shrubs

When we’re home, we leave the coop door open and the girls can come and go as they like. They usually stay outside until the sun starts to set or we shoo them back in.

Lined up and chowing down.

Miss Amelia.

Girly. My son’s chicken. He loves her so much. She wants nothing to do with him. LOL.

If you’re just now joining my gardening journey, I’m learning as I go grow and sharing along the way:

• First I built the raised beds
• Then I added dirt
• Then I added plants
• and for fun, we created a DIY Worm Compost Bin

What’s going on in your yard this week?