October 12, 2015
First, some pics from last week. Here is the damage to the coop. I will not show you the damage to our flock (you’re welcome). 
Raccoons ripped the door clean off!
On a lighter note, we had a more varied harvest this week. We had our normal tomatoes, raspberries, and green beans. We also harvested some carrots, celery, our first peas, and cucumbers this week!
This week, we boarded up the coop to keep the raccoons out. Since the chickens did not have a chicken door to go in and out of the run, we opened the big door and let them free range a couple of days. They ate into a watermelon a bit so we went ahead and harvested it. Thankfully, it was very sweet 🙂 It’s nice to get a late watermelon (we aren’t as excited in September when we are eating them every day)!
My husband put up a new wall on the side of the coop and an overhang. For some reason, that side of the coop alone has been rotting over the past three years. Raccoons had already ripped a hole into another part of it previously but were (thankfully) unsuccessful at gaining access.
I put the shingles on the overhang this past week (quite the feat for this 24week pregnant old lady!) and painted the first coat of paint. I am going to paint the second coat on the wall this upcoming week.
I also need to re-cover my brassicas (uncovered because of high winds of Joaquin), plant some more greens and root veggies, harvest, and spread compost this week. I am having the hardest time getting everything done now that we’re doing school again. The kids concentrate better in the morning so that is when we do school but most of my energy is gone by 1pm, when we’re done with school, so gardening as gone by the wayside. 😦
Check out what other gardeners are harvesting at Our Happy Acres 🙂
Gardening Without... 
Oh no…so sorry to hear about your poultry 😦 Raccoons are mean little buggers! Your harvests, though, are lovely! That watermelon has me drooling as every last one of our melons never made it to full maturity (the squash bugs were pervasive this year, I’ve never seen anything like it before!).
Take care of yourself and have a wonderful week!
Yes, the raccoons got 8 in all 😦 The squash bugs won’t allow me to grow very many summer or winter squash but they never bother my melons (knock on wood). I wonder why…?
Hmmm…not sure! Maybe they don’t even like melons but we’re so pervasive here hey we’re still hungry after devouring every last one of our squash?!
Geez…maybe *they were (stinkin’ auto correct!) 🙂
That is a lovely watermelon, esp. for a late in the season one! It’s good the chickens left you most of it ;-).
Oh man! Raccoons are taking over NC. We lost 5 hens to a hungry raccoon in the past few weeks. I fixed both the coop and the run so many times, but somehow he always found a way in. Then, I started closing the chickens in the coop at night, and guess what? He figured out how to open the coop! So now I tie the door to the fence every night. He is still coming back every night but he can’t open it now.
I placed a trap one night, in the morning I found it closed, the marshmallows gone, and no raccoon! I didn’t get the chance to set it again, maybe I’ll try cat food next.
Anyway, I hope “your” raccoon is not going to keep coming by every night.
ugh. we need a (well-trained) dog!