He's a Keeper

You will find me, a lot of days, looking at the scene above. The chickies are still fun to watch and the difference between the Jersey Giants and the Australorps is mainly size. They are all foraging and scratching up a storm in different areas in their paddock. Right now we have them behind the garage again, but this time have incorporated part of garden space from last year as well as one of my garden boxes that has some old clover in it. Looking forward to planting there this fall!

As I have mentioned in a previous post or two, we have four young roosters. That's three too many. We have already decided that we will keep one, but which one? Over the past couple of weeks I have really started to pay attention to the little roos. There are two that are a little bully-ish and I have no interest in having them stay - they may be the two that were always at each other when they were in the  brooder around 5 weeks old. I would have thought that maybe by now they would have realized that this is it. The reality is that they are not making a very compelling case for themselves. They may outgrow this phase, but I'm not sure. 

The other two appear to be the larger of the boys - and very lean. Not that the two bullies aren't big, they are just not as big. It's hard to believe that these dudes are not done growing yet! 

Anyway, from those two, there is one that is mostly calm and the ladies seem to like nestling in with him after they have eaten in the evening. He likes to lounge near the chick mobile and sometimes one of the other roos will settle down with him until they decide it's time to go to bed. He has been "challenged" a time or two by the others, but not that often. I've noticed that he tends to sit off by himself sometimes. Perhaps he feels pretty comfortable and doesn't need to make a scene...hard to say. 

Most evenings are spent trying to figure out which is which. Last night I was able to figure out who is who and the one we keep. He will be called Thor and this is he... 

Very handsome cockerel!

Right now the only identifying thing is that he has one little tail feather that sticks up at a different angle. Hopefully his feathers won't change too much before we can tag him. I want to make sure that he is the one that we keep and not one of the bullies who might catch up in size and pretend to be the good one.

We don't need tricksey roosters...just a good leader for the little ladies!

Dual Purpose?

So, these dudes & gals are part of a big plan. If you just wandering into this space these chicks are Jersey Giants. Yes, I called them chicks because they are only 13 and 14 weeks old. What we have are pullets and cockerels. Four cockerels to be exact - we are observing the boys in the the group and making mental notes for now. Once they are old enough, and filled out enough more, 3 of the cockerels are going to be "processed." There is no good reason to have more than one rooster. If there is I probably will still keep the "best" one. Besides I only thought of one rooster name - Thor. One of these dudes may be Thor, it's hard to tell at this point.

Anyway, back to the original thought...

Chickens can have more than one purpose with the most obvious purpose being egg layers. However, who knew that chickens could be for different purposes? I certainly didn't...chickens can be:

• egg layers
• grown for meat
• good at being broody 
• ornamental (?)
• for show (?)

Our little ladies and little roos are first going to be egg producers. Well, not the cockerels and especially the 3 that are destined for the freezer. And there is the second purpose...when the ladies are no longer laying as often we'll have to rotate a new bunch of layers to replace the ones that will turn into stewing chickens. So yeah...FOOD.

While those are the two main reasons why we have chickens there is another reason to add to the list of things that they can do - prepare a garden!

Oh yeah baby! Living rototillers!! If you have ever seen Justin Rhodes - Abundant Permaculture. He is the "Apron Wearing Permaculture Chicken Ninja Master" and swears by having the chickens do the work. We are just now starting to let the chickens into the areas that we mean to use for growing veggies. They have been happily scratching up a storm in the area that they are now occupying. The weeds have been picked at and they are kicking around all sorts of stuff! Just this past Sunday the little ladies and the dudes figured out that the garden box filled with old clover from last fall is a fun spot to root around. We'll keep them in here for a time, let them do the initial clean up and then we'll get the bed ready for the fall garden. I know that the ground will still be hard, but with all the poo that they are leaving behind the prospect of the soil being more fertile is what I'm looking for.

OH, one more to add to the list - garbage disposal. Until the chickies arrived we used to dump all of the kitchen scraps into the compost bin. However, when the chickies started staying outside full time I started to dump buckets of compost from the pile into their paddock to get them used to what to expect. So why not feed most of the kitchen scraps (including meat scraps) to the chickens? They eat most things and the things they don't like will continue to be scratched while they are out foraging which help the composting speed along. We have been able to give the chickens more of the old veggies (i.e. forgotten items). Which will help cut down on the amount of

The chickens are more than food providers (eggs & meat)...I never knew how valuable they really are! Here's to many more years of chickens on our farmstead!

What Are We Watching?

We don't watch a lot of TV. There are shows that we enjoy watching so if we happen to have downtime and it's a time when the show is on TV we'll watch it. Like right now I am liking the Masterpiece and ITV shows (Grantchester, Downton Abbey etc). On network TV we try to catch the Big Bang Theory. Yeah, that's how we came up with the names for the goose (Leonard) and the duck (Sheldon).

However, when we are done with dinner or our chores we like to sit down and watch our favorite YouTube videos.

Here are our faves:

1. Justin Rhodes (abundant permaculture). He's and his family homestead in the mountains of North Carolina. He and the Beautiful One have 4 kiddos and they are currently on what they are calling "The Great American Farm Tour." Check them out HERE.

2. Art & Bri - Another Homesteading family in North Carolina and friends of the Rhodes family. We started watching their videos back when they were really just getting started with their journey. So much has happened in the last year! Go HERE to check them out.

3. Sew the Land - a family of three who left Southern California to move to North Carolina to start a homestead. Their story is so inspiring as they left the life they lived for so long to do something entirely different. This just proves that you can do anything you set your mind to. Especially if you have left behind all of your friends and family. Go HERE for more.

Are you sensing a trend here? North Carolina is a hot spot!

4. John Suscovich - Okay, this is where we diversify! This guy and his wife manage Camps Road Farm in Connecticut. Now this farm is interesting to me because it is diverse. In addition to growing vegetables, he is big into growing chickens for meat as well as pigs. There is also a brewery on site as well as a brand new tasting room/farm store. Yeah, if we lived closer I would be visiting this farm for sure! Check out his video channel HERE.

5. Diego Footer - The host of Permaculture Voices. He has a YouTube channel that we try to watch, but to be honest it is hard to get in all of the videos I like to watch before it's time to call it a night. He is very much a food grower in a neighborhood setting. Also, he is in Southern California. Check him out HERE.

There are other channels, but I just wanted to list my favorites and channels that are farm related. Check them out and let me know what you think - OR - share what you are watching.

A Day In A Life

So, our days get pretty full and by the end of the week I am ready for the weekend for sure!

This is a run down of the day - keep in mind we are now training for a half marathon, so the training runs are happening in the morning which just makes the time at home jam packed until I leave for work!

What our day looks like:

0415 - usual waking time. It makes sense when we run, but otherwise it's just plain silly. Waking up is a process for me, so I need a little time to make friends with the day - which includes a cup of coffee and playing on my phone and kindle checking email and checking what's "trending" on facebook and Instagram.

0457 - the Dude alarm goes off - Time to feed the cat! By this time we should be ready to head out the door.

0500 to 0510 - we leave separately for the current run training. We run separate as it motivates me more to keep going. It really is a little creepy to be out so early on my own. At least Tom and I cross paths at some point.

0530 to 0600 - depending on the distance we return back to the house.

0545ish - this is the usual time to go and start the chicken chores. Give the little ladies and little roo's their breakfast and let the two hooligans (the duck and the goose) out for pool time and their own food time.

0615 - Tom gets into the shower.

0630 - I get into the shower and get ready for work.

0715-0725 - head out to a well known coffee spot for ANOTHER coffee, sometimes breakfast and a visit with whoever might be lurking about.

0745 - time to go to Hazel Dell.

0800-1130 - work, Work, WORK!

1130 - 1230- Lunch time!

1230 - 1700 - More work, Work, WORK!!

1700 - done at work! Time to go home!!

1715ish - arrive home.

The rest of the day consists of eating dinner, conversation on my day and Tom's day, watching our favorite YouTube videos.

THEN

Anywhere from 1800 to 1900 - we start the evening routine of getting the chickens fed and the hooligans watered and fed. This includes pool time for the duck and the goose. They like to wander around the property to forage on weeds and grass.

By 2000 - the boys need to be led back to the chicken corrale and I have to get my garden stuff done.

Yes, I have a garden too. If you look at my last post you'll see that it's mediocre at best.

So, yeah - this is a typical day. However this doesn't even include the extra stuff that comes up like appointments and friend time and stuff like that.

Now that we are running regularly again (this week) I'm pretty tired by the end of the day. I try to maintain, but sometimes a girl's gotta have a little downtime, but WHERE would that fit in?!

We are following a 10-week training plan for the ONE event that we will be doing this year. We are only finishing up week one. The mileage ramps up quite a bit, so I'm not sure how we will accomplish all that needs to be done (training runs that are more than 4 miles) in the already jam packed first few hours of the day...BEFORE work!! Oooh...a challenge. Just what I need!

Well, at least we are living life to the fullest...I think I need to nap :)

Wait...WHAT?!

Wowie! June is gone and it's now July 12th?! My last post was on June 8th?!

To be honest, the garden has been somewhat disappointing. I've been busy being a chicken, goose & duck mom - which means the garden falls behinds just a little while we get the chickens raised up.

A sampling of what is growing in the boxes.

The Garden Boxes - These have been doing really well! I rotated where I plant certain things and all is happy. At the beginning of the season I had two boxes readily available (after some weeding) to plant. One box has my greens and the other peas and carrots. One box is still full of the cover crop that went in last fall - crimson clover and the other box contains leeks. The leeks, once they were rescued from all of the weeds, are doing well. They are on the small side, but will be easy to use in whatever recipe calls for leeks.

The rest of the garden and all it's glory has been hit and miss. I know what needs to happen...compost and/or cover crop to amend the soil. If I did a soil test that would be helpful...hmmm...maybe I need to get on that.

Potatoes (Yukon, Red Norland, Fingerling and purple) - This year's experiment includes growing the potatoes in laundry baskets. It took a few weeks, but they all sprouted! We'll see how that experiment turns out. Right now, I'm not terribly impressed so this might just be the only time we use the laundry baskets for this purpose. As I only put one layer of seed potato pieces in each basken we had TONS of potatoes pieces to plant in other parts of the garden. So yeah, let's just say that we might have a pretty good harvest of potatoes this year and we won't be running out as quickly as we did last year. There probably will be enough to share with friends, family, neighbors...passer's by on the road...anyone who dares to make eye contact!

Green Beans (Bush) - Even with the poor soil the beans were doing good until a critter got to them. Every single one of the bean plants was topped off. I'm guessing it was a deer, each plant was missing its true leaves. Fortunately, there are still buds that will sprout and there will BE plants, they will just happen later. DANG! My plan is to plant another row of beans and try this succession planting idea that I have read about in different books and magazines and on the interwebs. It's experiment time!

Green Beans (Pole) - Tom decided to plant some beans in the front yard that has been transformed into a garden. I want to say that the pole bean seeds were old seeds and that they were past their prime. There were only 4 or 5 seeds that germinated. He has his own critter problem in the front - bunnies. They nibble on everything! Again

Tomato Plants - Fifteen plants were transplanted and one was topped by a critter. Not bad for the tomatoes. It has been awhile since I had non Cherry Tomato plants in the "free range" garden so this is almost like an experiment. So far half of the plants are doing pretty good, but the others are still sad looking. In an effort to help them along I added some mushroom compost to the anemic looking plants and half of those are not looking nearly as sad. We'll see how it goes. Tomatoes may go into a low tunnel or hoop house next year.

Flowers - I am extremely disappointed with the flower seed situation. I decided to do Cosmos, Bachelor Buttons and Sunflowers. Some of the cosmos germinated a couple of the bachelor buttons and NO sunflowers. How is it possible that the flowers are doing so poorly - I better do a soil test.

I know that I need to amend the soil and I am hoping that we might be able to get some compost to apply to the beds that are sucky and use those for my fall garden. Maybe we are just trying too many different things. If that is the case our little hobby farm might just be the Bean, Tomato, Potato, Egg farm. It wouldn't be the end of the world, but I do like to try new things and hope that this problem will be corrected before the next planting.

Back to the books!

Once the poultry routine is not as extensive we have settled into a reasonable routine life will be more than just working on the hobby farm. Although, there will ALWAYS be something to work on.

This life is a good life and we'll keep at it for as long as possible!

Now, back to that garden, but first...look at this guy!