February Gardening Chores

Today was a busy day. First order of business was moving chickens. Finally, my greenhouse is quiet, no birds! Hopefully in a day or two the smell will diminish. Nineteen birds went from the greenhouse to the chicken tractor, 12 birds were moved from the chicken tractor to the old coop, and the 14 birds in the old coop were separated, 7 went into the new coop with the 13 mature birds, and the remaining 7 were placed in a large dog kennel to finish out. They were a bit small for the freezer so I will allow them to grow for another week or so. All coops, tractors, and cages were mucked and cleaned and got fresh hay/bedding. Just cleaning the new coop took over an hour, but I wanted the girls to start the laying year in a Spring cleaned coop. All the birds seemed happy with their new digs, AND I got a lot of nitrogen rich green poop for my raised beds and compost bin.
Skyguy worked on the herb beds. He cut the landscape timbers to length and laid them out on the ground. At the moment, we only have half of the timbers we need, but we have enough for one course and that allows us to see how the finished layout will look. The area was slightly sloped on one side, so we took turns tilling up the soil and sod to re-level the low side. We don't have a tiller, but we do have a Tanaka straight shaft weed trimmer that has the cultivator attachment. It worked fine for the task at hand, but it is a workout on the biceps when you get going with it. He has a bad right elbow and I have a bad left elbow, but as a team, we got it done. I'm not sure who is more excited about the new herb bed, but it is looking good. I've always wanted a kitchen herb garden, where you can walk outside and clip some fresh basil or oregano as the need arises.
I spent the late afternoon planting Tribute and Tristar strawberries. I had 25 plants of each variety and I planted Tristar in the top tier and Tribute around the base. It is forecast to rain and then snow tonight, with a low in the upper 20's, so I 'dusted' the bed with some hay.
The other big job that we did today was to move the compost bin. I have a large 4x12 compost bin made of pallets. It was in the center of the garden, but due to the need for additional garden space, Skyguy disassembled it and we reassembled it outside the garden fence. The purpose of the fence is to keep out deer, but last time I checked, deer are not that interested in compost, so outside the fence it went. Now, I have space for yet another bean trellis. Woohoo!