Thursday, July 5, 2018

Not a lot happened at home yesterday...so we are skipping to today's update.

Last year I decided that I wanted to raise meat chickens. I'm not 100% sure when I decided that or what my inspiration was. If I'm honest, I'm guessing that it may be because of Justin Rhodes and when he did a big ol' meat chicken harvest that probably happened during their 2016 100 Days of Growing Food challenge. I believe that harvest was in late Spring possibly early Summer.

Anyway - I had it in my head that we would raise some meat chickens in 2017. It didn't happen not in the way that I had in mind. My vision was to get a batch of chicks in the mail (?) and bring them home and do what all the cool people are doing. Well, the Rhodes family and other homesteader types around the US. As it happened, last year was not the year of the meat chicken. Which is just was well I'm not sure that the timing was right. We did process our unwanted roos though, so we did do a super mini harvest last September.

Still, if this was going to be a thing, we would need to build a house of sorts.

Enter the Stress Free Chicken Tractor by John Suscovich. Not long after watching the  GAFT video that featured Camps Road Farm I ordered myself the book and totally got excited about starting on a new adventure.

Fast Forward to March of this year - we built the Chicken Tractor! It's about time right?

Then in April I went to the Jenks website to workout the ordering of the birds. We decided to go with the Freedom Ranger - a slower growing bird (around 3 more weeks) than the Cornish Cross. My other reason for going with the Freedom Ranger is based on the fact that these tend to be a little more active and don't have nearly as many physical problems as the CC might have. Also, because they are a little more active I have read that they might have better thighs and legs and a more lean breast. Which is fine with me as we prefer thighs and legs.

Today was pick-up day and since the hatchery is not terribly far away - less than a hundred miles - we drove to pick them up. If they were shipped they would not arrive until the weekend and if I can avoid the post office, that's okay by me.

We left Starbucks at 9:30 and arrive a little after 11am. The gas station had food so we grabbed some lunch and waited for the chicks to arrive.

The Jenks van snuck in...we got our chicks and then we went home!

In the box and ready to go home.

After an uneventful drive home we got them all set up in the brooder...

The new babies all settled in!!

My understanding is that they were hatched this morning - so they are still just a little fragile. They all had their little beaks dipped into the water and they are curious enough to figure out the food. 

After letting them settle in a little bit they seemed to be all happy and zipping around in their temporary home. In a month they will be going out on pasture!

Operation Grow Your Food...

Farm Life is the Best Life!

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Yesterday turned out to be a much busier day than I thought and by the end of the day I was exhausted!

I spent part of the morning working outside and getting the area where we plan to put a food forest all prepared. Right now the space covered with wood chips that were delivered last fall, and then later spread by the chickens.

At the time I didn't have the thought of doing a food forest, I just let the chickens have something to do while they were in that space. A couple of weeks ago or so I had an idea - because that's what I do - and asked Tom what he thought. Well, what else can he say? He thought it was a good idea too.

For the longest time he has wanted some sort of berm, so this would fit the bill. I never understood what the purpose of a berm would be, as I don't have any sort of landscape designing skills. A food forest berm would do though. I can think of all sorts of stuff that we can place in the area - which is actually a good size space.

Last fall I ordered a fig tree that will need a new home at some point. Right now I've got it in a pot, but that will do for now - especially since I will continue to transplant it into bigger pots until we are ready to start planting in the new space. I am also envisioning berries and perennial flowers as well as some herbs. I also have Crocus Sativus on order. That would be the variety of Crocus that Saffron is harvested from. Those will be coming in September so I'll have to get those into a temporary spot until they can be transplanted to the food forest.

My plan is to add some more grass and get it all watered in then pull one of the tarps over it. To be honest, I have no idea what I'm doing, but that's the beauty of experimenting. Just do it. If it doesn't work out, rethink the project and try something different. No harm, no foul...hahaha.

I also got the ice cream maker out for the first time this season and made a salted caramel ice cream with nuts and chocolate mixed in. It's pretty rich and caramel is not a favorite of mine, but Tom seems to like it and he is the ice cream lover in our house anyway. Just for something a little different, I got some ice cream cups on Amazon, so we have some individual servings. It's a little more waste, but this will work fine since the ice cream freezes up pretty solid and can be hard to scoop out. 

Once again I worked on dinner. Since I have limited time during the week cooking during my vacation time is a welcome activity. So what was for dinner last night?

Risotto!! One of my favorite things to make!! 

Vacation time has been great! Farm Life is the Best Life!

Vacation Day #2

Sunday, the day of the week that can be busy or quiet. And this past Sunday was filled with more commitments than the average Sunday. It's all good as we are usually with friends and enjoying fellowship in the process.

July 1 was Fiona's 4 month birthday.

At 4 months old Fiona is approximately 60-65 pounds. A couple of weeks ago we used a trick to guestimate her weight and she was just shy of 60 pounds. I'm not sure how much weight she puts on in a day or week, but according to Farmer Jason, the pigs are growing well. She is a little aloof, but  will keep still long enough to get a belly scratch. Overall, she is a sweet girl and we have hope that she'll be a good momma when it comes to it.

June 30- Vacation Day #1

This week's posts will be a diary of sorts so that I will have a record of what happened while I was off work.

• Transplanted the last of the flower plants - Love Lies Bleeding
• Reseeded the two rows of flowers that did not germinate - Bachelors Buttons in one row and the Seed Savers Bee Feed Mix
• Moved the ducklings from the side yard to the backyard 
• I actually cooked dinner - to a point. There was a three pound pork butt in the last Butcher Box - Carnitas! I found a really good recipe on Pinterest https://www.mykitchenescapades.com/pork-carnitas-recipe/ Check it out, it was pretty easy and I had almost all the ingredients needed.
• The hens started laying again - I think the broody girls are back in production mode. Friday was an all time low since the winter with three eggs. Yesterday we gathered 7 eggs!

I had intended to make asparagus chowder, but decided that resting would be good as I have been so tired in recent weeks.

Love Lies Bleeding

The row on the left is Bachelors Buttons and the Bee Feed Mix on the left. 

Here are the pigs...just for fun...