Saturday Journal

• Planted seeds: beets, carrots, summer squash, zucchini, beans, and sunflowers
• Planted onions
• Strung up peas
• Bought more chickens (fluffy white ones), this time broilers and one mystery chick
• Thanked God: for the rain to water the garden, the coolness to help the cabbage and Brussels sprouts take root, and the overcast sky so that the tomato plants didn't get scorched.

On Monday Jason came home and said to me (Delia) in a mischievous voice: "I have something for you!" To which I responded, "It better not be a puppy or I'll kill you." He took me to the porch and presented me with a box of fluffy, yellow, peeping chicks. "They are broilers! Meat birds."

That night we constructed a new home for the ducks, a dog kennel wrapped in wire and cardboard, and put the new little chicks where the ducks once lived.

For a few days everything was fine. Then the Reds got bigger. Bigger and flapping. Flapping, jumping, and perching on the water jars. Flapping and jumping to get over the gate to visit the new chicks. I said to my Mom, "One of these days we are going to go on the porch and a Red is going to be with the Broilers."

Sure enough later that day Mom went out on the porch and a Red was laying down with the Broilers.

I worried that the Reds would get hurt trying to get over the fence, so I removed it. Everyone is happy, healthy, and getting big and strong!

This week in the garden we hope to:

• Weed the peas
• Mulch the strawberries
• Plant pumpkins, squashes, cucumbers, potatoes, watermelon