I had so many pictures, it made sense to just put them into a slide show - check it out at the bottom of this post! I was thinking it would be fun to write a post about how busy the springtime is - that was two weeks ago! As I thought about what I wanted to write, it was important to me that a post about busy-ness didn’t sound like a post that was complaining. Being busy with farm chores is a different kind of busy than the rest of my life. Sure the work never ends, but there is rarely a rush to complete things. The goal is to complete as much as you can squeeze in until you lose daylight, then go to bed, and start again the next day. So often my work life is the other kind of busy. It’s the kind of busy that’s rushed. As a teacher I am constantly gauging what needs to be covered and by when. I am frequently eyeing the clock, do I have enough time to get through everything today? There are emails to respond to and forms to fill out and these need to be done, usually, within a day or two. There are meetings to attend as well. And grading - there’s always grading. The busy I feel at work is similar to the farm - more to do than I can accomplish in one day - but the urgency is different. It’s more emotionally draining. Farm work is a steady busy. Additionally, farm work can be prioritized, while at work, it often seems that everything must be done now. As long as everyone gets fed and watered, I can consider farm work “done” for one day. Work life, as you all know, can rarely be boiled down to just the basics. And farm work is therapeutic. I can see the results of my labor and I fall into bed with a feeling of clear accomplishment. Anyway, here are the tasks at hand this spring... Poultry Between retirements and deaths, we are down to only 2 ducks and 5 chickens. One of the ducks is a male and, as of recent, we have learned that one of the chickens is a rooster. Our female duck lays consistently and 3/4 hens lay regularly, but we like to get closer to a dozen eggs a day, so that we can sell a few. Plus, more hens ensures we're covered if one or two fall prey to an angry opossum! So I decided to pick up some chicks from the farm store this year. Well, between my two local stores, they had some breeds I was interested in and, over the course of 2-3 visits, I ended up with 8. Then, a few weeks later, we bought 4 more. I don't know why I did such a thing, but now I have 12 (I think)! We also raise turkeys every year. You must over-buy turkeys because they are VERY good at killing themselves in their first few months, so I bought 4. So far they are all alive.... but it's early. Once we had one drown in a kiddie pool. The darn bird could have touched the bottom and his head would have been above water! All I can imagine is that it panicked? Another day, the boys begged and begged to get 2 more ducks. The farm store had marked down the first batch of ducklings because they were two weeks old, so I gave in. So, we now have 2 ducklings too... That's 18 chicks (I think). We always start them in the garage in a large stock tank, but the turkeys quickly begin to fly out and the ducks spill/play in any water that's available, so as soon as they began to get their real feathers (instead of their baby fluff) we move them to the chicken coop. They can't live with the adult birds because chickens, as you may know, can be quite vicious and they would totally peck the babies to death. So we divided the inside of the coop in half and have the babies on their own side. In terms of work load, chickens are pretty easy once their grown: collect eggs each day and make sure they have food and water. I also keep a pool of water available for the ducks. This needs to be dumped out and fresh water added about once a week. Chicks, however, eat from smaller feed/water containers, so they need food and water almost every day. Four of the chickens I added to the mix late and I realized they were not doing so hot with the bigger babies. They were getting trampled and continued to end up on the bottom of the heap at sleep time. One was hanging out, by herself, in the corner - never a good sign. So I moved 5 of the smallest ones into a box to keep them safe until they get a bit big. In adult chicken news, my rooster recently came out and now he and the Muscovy duck (also a male) seem to be having a battle for male dominance. The Muscovy likes to protect his lady friend, so he hisses at anyone who comes near when she's eating. Most of the hens just stay away, but I was in the coop last week when the rooster challenged him. There was much flapping of wings, but ultimately the duck won and proudly strutted about with a mouthful of rooster feathers after the incident. Lambs The lambs are just as cute as ever. We let them out in the yard to graze whenever we're home and it's nice out. Interestingly, they prefer to rummage in the meadow than eat the new, lush grass that's beginning to grow. There must be delicious weeds in the field! They are starting to have some personality too. Rocko, for example, has a way cuter face, but he is perfectly content to eat and ignore me. Bacon will graze for a while, then come find me for an ear scratch, and then go back to grazing. They are still living in the garage and that's getting old because they are getting a little stinky. Plus, it's a pain to drag the saturated straw out weekly and replace it. Chris is working hard to get the fence built, but between his busy work schedule and the start of the boys' soccer seasons (as well the fickle, spring weather), the progress is going slowly. This summer we'll work to get a barn built. Once the barn is finished, we're going to combine the chickens and sheep so that we can get rid of the old chicken coop. They are growing fat little tummies and are still super sweet, but more and more they would prefer to munch than be snuggled by me! A nice thing about having them in the garage is every morning when I leave for work I say, "bye lambies" and they reply with gentle baas. Bees Not a whole lot to report on the bees, as they only just arrived. We picked them up on a cold, sleeting morning, so we just put them on our front porch for now. Yesterday was warm and sunny and I did notice they were out flying. In fact, I walked into one, absent-mindedly while walking around the front of the house! For more on our beekeeping, you can check out my beekeeping blog! Bee updates will be there more regularly than here. Garden You know how I mentioned prioritizing? Well the garden has fallen down the list this year. I did start seeds, but I like to start seeds every 2 weeks so that my harvest comes in in spurts. This year I have only started one tray so far. I started tomatoes, zucchini, green beans, and pickling cucumbers. I also have some good growth on my thyme, parsley, and rosemary in small pots. Soon I'll start some lettuces in a pot. Last year I grew lettuce in the garden, but I didn't go out there frequently enough to catch it young. So, I'm thinking I'll plant some in a pot and keep it on my back porch for easy access! We wanted to till the garden at least once by now and throw some old chicken bedding in, but that hasn't happened yet. Maybe this weekend! We did, however, till half of the pasture space and throw a forage-mix seed for the lambs. Hoping that these last few days of rain will get things going.
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ArchivesAuthorMother of boys, teacher of English, preserver of food, grower of veggies, raiser of sheep, collector of eggs, keeper of bees. |