Projects, projects...

So I had a wonderful Mother's Day, puttering around with all my current projects:
The pond, which is ground-zero for the hydroponics attempts, was emptied and the hydropipe repositioned so it flows but sits entirely out of the water and has an adequate slope to keep the water moving without rising more than an inch or so. The plants that had survived in there for the past few months had shown serious signs of too much water- pale, stunted and barely holding their own. So now I'm ready to try the next run of plants- this time I'll focus on herbs since they require less fertilizer and grow smaller so I'll have less of a tipping issue. I will also think about different ways to set the pot on top and hold the growing media in, since that was part of the tipping issue as well (lost a lot of perlite that way).
One interesting outcome of my time emptying the pond is that I found out that chickens like fish as much as cockroaches! There were hundreds of small fish in the pond, mostly volunteers from who-knows-where: mosquitofish, killifish and varigated mollies. Invariably, some fish got caught in the bucket I was baling with and ending up flopping on the ground as the water drained away. The chickens saw them flopping around and had a seafood feast. I still saved plenty of fish to put back in the pond but the girls had a great time dispensing with the overflow.
Last, but not least, the garden's soaker hose was repaired so now I can be sure that my tiny garden will get watered- at least until the rainy seasons starts. I planted this garden very haphazardly over the course of a week and it shows in the growth of the plants. I don't mind the lack of organization but I wish I hadn't planted the beans so close to the fence. The girls have quite long necks when they are reaching for a tasty treat and all the leaves nearest the fence have been picked and poked. Ah, well... It'll be good for the eggs.
Next possibility on the research horizon- rabbits!