Fuh-reakishly excited about this

Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait! So glad I happened into the co-op this morning and found a flyer announcing this workshop:

Backyard Winter Gardening: How to Build and Use Low Hoop Tunnels to Extend Your Growing Season

I've been thinking for some time about a multipurpose 'structure' around my garden beds to reduce damage due to malicious squirrels. I've even created plans for a 10-foot-tall enclosure built of 2x4's and chicken wire...a bit like a greenhouse, but designed exclusively to keep those corn-slaughtering, tomato-stealing, sunflower-ravaging, fluffy-tailed rats out of my garden. A structure that huge would certainly be unwieldy. 

Inflexible. 

Aesthetically lacking.

100% permanent.

It's something I don't think my neighbors would ever understand, nor forgive me for. They've taken the chickens in stride...don't wanna push my luck so early in the game.

So, I've begun looking into low tunnels, recently. Those are small 'hoop houses' that fit over the top of each garden bed. Like this:

Dreamy! Most people use them to extend the growing season, but I would be using a few different materials on the hoops themselves: thick plastic for season extension, light fabric to keep cabbage worms off of my broccoli, and wire mesh to keep squirrels off of my ripening tomatoes. Low hoop tunnels are perfectly modular, customizable, and much more aesthetically pleasing than the 'prison yard' feeling of a framed garden cage. There are so many variables, however, that I'm completely overwhelmed with my options. Enter the free, local workshop co-sponsored by my local extension office and the Master Gardeners *sigh* It's a dream come true. We will actually construct a low hoop house and one of the attendees will get to take it home as a door prize. Oooooo!

Of course, this means I will have to miss a stake Relief Society conference on Saturday, which is a serious bummer, but my heart is sending me outside this time around. 

Speaking of outside, my chicken coop and attached run is finally in working order. The chicks are sleeping in it tonight. Overnight lows look to be in the 40's, so I stuck the heat lamp in the coop with them. It's sure to attract oodles of flying insects, which I hope my little ladies devour with glee. Mwah ha ha haaaaaaaaa! Buddy and Alice joined the chicks inside the chicken run for the first few minutes. Robert tried to climb the gangplank into the coop and burst into tears when I told him the coop was just for chickies. Poor fellow.