Everyone knows to watch for deer on roads at dusk and dawn, but during the daytime, it’s those silly turkeys crossing the road to watch for
Last summer, the tarps covering two of the chicken runs were tattered. Leaky, and dripping water with every rain. Of course the solution was to replace the tarps with metal roofs – nice tight structures that channeled the water outside of the runs. (After all, they’re chickens not ducks!)
Unfortunately, the “wise” farmer wasn’t thinking about snow; but Murphy was. So Murphy’s Law came into play while shoving out for the next round of snow. BTW the runs on both sides of the isle are four foot high!
Even though it was 34 degrees yesterday, the snow continues to fall. So over Winter!
Had a couple hundred mile road trip yesterday. Luckily, I left before it started, but when I returned home there was 10” more new snow. Looks to be about 22-24” on the ground now. Thank goodness for John Deere and his muscle machines.
When the Polar Vortex brings -26 degrees still air temp ( and who knows with a wind chill), even your eyebrows get frosty!
2019 was the year it became time to renew the egg hen flock. The remaining hens had a good life producing lots of eggs over their years of production and could now live out their lives 8n the retirement flock.
Last Spring, when chicks were readily available at local feed stores, it was time to start a new flock. There were so many nice varieties available, it was hard to chose. In the end, the new flock would consist of Australops, Americanas, Barred Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, ISA Reds, Gold Lace Wyandottes, and Silver Lace Wyandottes. The plan was just a few of each. Factoring in a few losses, a mixture of 6-10 of each (but only 2 Australops) totaled 46 chicks. True to realistic planning, only two didn’t make it so that left 44 – or more than double previous year flock size. Of course the extras could be sold off, but the decision was to keep the whole batch and maybe sell eggs in the Spring, once they started to lay.
Along comes late October when the egg flow began. Even with colder temperatures, lower light levels, and all of the conditions that are supposed to work against egg production (include 1 Americana who started crowing), these silly chickens have laid 660 eggs this Winter! Selling eggs has started a bit earlier than expected
We’ll be growing several varieties of each of these during the coming growing season: leaf lettuces, salad greens, kale, spinach, salad turnips, radish, green onions, chives, peas, asparagus, salad micro greens, beans, tomatoes, broccoli, various summer squash, garlic, sweet peppers, pac Choi, Napa cabbage, gourmet potatoes, onions, winter squash, pumpkins, and cabbage.
In addition there’ll be asparagus, Rhubarb, strawberries, honeyberry, several colors of raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, elderberry, apples, Apricots, and maybe our first cherries, grapes, and pears.
Late New Years Eve it began to snow. Slowly at first, then steadily. It didn’t quit until well into New Years Day dumping a mass of 14” of new snow.
This is why I have a small car AND a 4 wheel drive big pick-up (and two John Deere tractors with front end loaders)!
The really bad news is that the temperature is forecast to near zero tonight. The good news is that by Thursday it’ll be into the upper thirty’s and hopefully low forty’s!
Sometimes its just hard to chose!
