I still grow my own cucumber, squash, cut flower, lettuce and brassica transplants, but because of our lack of heated greenhouse space and the length of time that tomato, pepper and eggplant starts need to spend in the greenhouse (8 to 12 weeks), I’ve decided to let other people grow them for me.

In any case, we came home with a whole load of plants: Sun Gold and Juliet tomatoes, Ichiban and Burpee’s Best eggplants, Gypsy and Big Bertha peppers are just a few of the varieties of plants that we bought.

We spent all day installing trellises and drip irrigation and transplanting our new plants into a mat of hay mulch.

At the end of the day, poof! We had an “instant” garden.

We rewarded ourselves with a trip to the comedy dinner theater put on by the acting and culinary arts classes at Central Carolina Community College in Pittsboro. We enjoyed the spirited and well-rehearsed show and a tasty meal: polenta and a 15 minute comedic rendition of Hamlet as well as two other one act sketches. A very unique experience.

We do our best to protect our birds from predators, but we do usually lose a few chickens a year to them. In general, I think that we have been relatively successful in our efforts so far.

If you’re squeamish, don’t read any more of this post!

Each predator has a characteristic way in which they kill the birds. For instance, opossums tend to bite their heads off and suck/eat the chicken’s guts out through their necks.

We had heard and read about fox attacks, the proverbial fox in the hen house, and we have always been worried that a fox would attack our flock. However, in the 12 years that we have kept chickens, we had luckily never had a fox attack our birds.

Our luck ran out two nights ago. As soon as I went out to tend to the birds first thing in the morning, the devastation was apparent. There were chicken carcasses all over the pen. It was a bloodbath.

Six birds were killed, and three were maimed. None of them had been eaten at all. The predator had just gone on a killing spree and then left. It had to be either a fox or a dog. Since the bite marks on the birds were relatively small, we think a fox is the culprit.

After we buried the dead birds, and medicated the injured birds (one of them is still alive and hopefully well this morning. The other two didn’t make it), we set about moving the chicken’s pen to a location that’s about ten feet from our house.

We are also building them a new and even more secure coop. The new coop is built so solid that I was worried that it would be airtight, so we drilled a bunch of holes in it and installed some hardware cloth vents to allow air circulation.

The surviving chickens are still happily going about their daily tasks, but Dave and I are still pretty upset and concerned about them.

The crowns grew last spring and made ferns that stood tall well into the fall. Then, they went dormant and I have dutifully been piling composted horse manure on them all winter.

For the past month or so, I have been checking our asparagus patch regularly, looking for evidence that our plants had made it though the winter.

Today, a big fat asparagus spear poking up through the mulch gave me my answer: at least one of our plants has made it though the winter! Hopefully, its brethren will start sending up shoots soon.

Even if the plants make a lot of spears, I have to resist temptation and keep myself from sampling them. Asparagus plants are supposed to be left to grow for at least three years before the spears are harvested.