Baby chicks, incubator, saffron update,winter veggies under the frost blanket

Long post but decided to put it all in one while I was here posting. :O). 

I am very pleased so far with my winter veggies!

Things do grow slower in the cooler weather but the trade off is I am growing things now that have not done well for me in the spring. We turn off warm / hot fast here once spring hits. 

I am excited as I think growing right through our winter is going to be great.

 The gals blog I follow that has inspired me is Mother of a Hubbard. She grows 365 days a year in zone 6. She has a harder winter than we do in zone 8. Her winter garden is incredible!

 

                                 Pulled these this morning :O)

So recently we used some of our Amazon points to get a incubator. I planned to use it in the spring. Welllll two of our girls went broody. Esmeralda who hatched out two baby chicks and has been raising them outside. It was early enough in November they were ok out there and now have enough feathers with mom as back up for nights to do just fine outside.

Goldy went broody a bit later, I gave in and gave her some eggs. She just would not snap out of it. Welllll the last week she was broody she was taking more and more breaks from the eggs. Long story short she decided being a mom was over rated. So I had a pile of eggs as she kept stealing eggs as the other girls were still laying. All the eggs are bantam eggs.

So I had this pile of eggs of different ages lol 

They are in the incubator and so far 6 have hatched out and another one is working on joining the world as I type this. It will be interesting to see how many chicks we get.

I am raising these this chicks since its to cold to put them outside now. 

Oh the stuff rabbits, well they were upset and scared at first so I put the rabbits in there for them to get under. Calmed them right down and they love getting under them.

 I dont have the eggs on the auto egg turner because they are all different ages and I don't want one to hatch out and get stuck in the auto egg turner. Ideally you would have put them all in at the same time. Then 3 days before they are to hatch you take them off the egg turner. But since Goldy kept stealing eggs well they didn't all start getting sat on at the same time. I know my bad but well it is what it is. Its working out okay.

For anyone curious this is the incubator we got.. 

Came with a light to candle the eggs

The auto egg turner. 

 I will tell you the directions were very vague that came with it LOL. But luckily my best bud has an incubator and she was able to tell me what to do :O).

 It has a digital thermometer and humidity reader, I forget what that is called. It also came with a manual old timey one that you lay inside the incubator.
Then it also has a digital days read out that counts down the days.

 I have to tell you when that first baby chick hatched out I was just giddy! Then the second one and so. It was fantastic! :O) I told honeyman I could be dangerous with this. Chickens everywhere!!! Its unbelievably cool!

Sorry no pictures of the saffron bed, just info.

My saffron is alive! I had totally given up on it. Figured the bulbs all rotted and well ok it was an experiment.

Then a few weeks back I go out to look at the raised bed thinking ok I am going to move this out of the middle of the back yard. What do I see but Saffron up everywhere! I was just shocked. 

With working so much I don't always get to see everything everyday.

So I am thinking well if it can just bloom before the first freeze maybe I would get some saffron. 

Well the rabbits were just as thrilled as I was that it was up obviously.

They ate it down to about 3" tall! POOF

So I am going to have to put a netting over it to keep the rabbits from being able to get in the row. I have netting on it to keep the squirrels from digging it up. It is laying on the top of it on the row. But that didn't keep the rabbits from eating it.

I will for sure be covering it with plastic the whole row again as soon as it dies for the winter. I do not want to risk it rotting. 

I think I will eventually learn what I need to know to actually get some saffron!

I do plan to redo the row add more sand for even better drainage. 

I just need 48 hours in a day!