State of the Farm

What is there to tell you?

We have plenty of frozen chickens looking for bellies to fill.  All but one frozen turkey is claimed.

Garlic planting is truly, abysmally late this year.  There has been too much for James to do and not enough evenings (he and the big kids are in taekwando two nights a week and he teaches at the local college one night a week).  The plan is this weekend.  It's a good thing this year's harvest was beautiful and we have plenty of fresh garlic to enjoy.

Tonight we shifted more chickens.  With hatching new flocks, weeding out the bad in old flocks, and needing to retire a chicken tractor, we've had all kinds of moves.  Four of our oldest hens are now in with the teenagers. Unfortunately, we had to butcher Aragorn, our best rooster, because he was tearing up his ladies.  That's a no-no in a land where roosters are expendable.  Sadly, a juvenile rooster perished shortly after being introduced to his own flock.  I don't know why, since he didn't show signs of injury.  Our oldest chicken tractor will hit the recycle pile this winter, and next spring James will construct a new one.

The summer's downpours did a number on our soil fertility, and I'm not sure how many strawberry plants survived.  They're currently invisible beneath the weeds, and I haven't found a good weeding routine.

The weather is (finally, slightly) cooler.  There's plenty of clean up this fall in preparation for a smaller farm next year.  We may not raise any meat chickens and instead focus on turkeys.  There are big trips in store for next summer, which makes the garden hard to keep.

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Sink or Swim

We knew rain was expected this week, so we prepared by moving all the coops to fresh grass.  There seemed to be plenty of room between the chickens and the ditches, so we thought we were okay.

However, the rain began around 8 this morning and continued for another 7 hours, until the rain gauge registered 3.2" of rain.  On our way home from therapy at 11 am, in the midst of the endless pouring rain, I passed paved roads through town that were underwater.  When I reached out outskirts, I found the road to our neighborhood flooded twice.  By the time I turned into the road that ends at our neighborhood, I called my sister to help me decide if I should turn back.

I continued on, and the scene I discovered at home made me nauseous.  The three laying hen coops at the bottom of the property were knee deep in water.  These pictures don't even express the full severity of it, but know the chickens had to either swim or be on their roosts.  I called James home, and I don't think he comprehended the severity either until he drove the tractor down into it.

Thank God for the tractor and a skilled operator.

 This coop was by far the worst off.  James unfortunately found the rooster dead in the water as well as one soaked hen.  We've been able to revive the hen, but here ends the days of A.J., a beloved one-eyed rooster.

 See that water behind the strip of green grass?  That's the road.  Where James and the coop stand was usually on dry ground even in the wettest of weather.

The water is finally receding, but we are tentatively expecting 2+" of rain today and chances of rain over the next three days.  We will do our best to provide plenty of dry bedding for the hens and extra food, and then we will all have to sink or swim.

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Weekly Recap

Maybe if I make an effort to recap our week, I can get back into the habit of blogging.

There's always (always) weeding to be done.  And lest you think our property is perfect and we've got it all together, behold just one rock...  The kids decided to decorate the top with pulled weeds, but there are still plenty more to tackle.  We have come a long way, but, please, don't be too impressed.  I don't take many pictures of our messes.

What's sprouting?  Radishes and summer squash are sprouted.  Strawberries and cherries are forming.  The garlic is now waist high.  I didn't even know garlic could grow so tall!  I certainly hope this means we'll have splendidly large bulbs in a few months.  The rhubarb is finally looking healthy, although watering it regularly remains a challenge.

What are we planting?  Tomatoes are two rows down, a million to go.  (Not literally.  There are still eight flats sitting on the deck awaiting my attention.)  I've also planted herbs and flowers.  The basil seeds are high on my list for some soil and water.

What are we harvesting?  Asparagus and eggs are keeping us hopping.  We're trying new laying boxes to foil our egg eaters.  Thus far, I'm disappointed in the lousy boxes, but our efforts are to make them work.  Our two sheep are at the butcher, so I've cleaned out two of our deep freezes while they're empty.  Soon enough, with sheep and chicken, we'll be full again!

What about those chickens?  The layers are now moving to fresh grass each evening, meaning the yolks are during the delicious, deep, orangey-gold that no store egg can match.  The layers-to-be remain in our stationary pen until James has time to build a new tractor for them (and who has time in the spring?!).  Our meat chicks are busy growing too, and while on grass, don't get moved every day (yet) until they can tolerate less heat.

 We are moving along with the business of living and growing!

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Spring

We are ever threatened with tornadoes and high winds, but this has been a spring mainly devoid of such excitement.  Despite 2"+ of rain, the ground is still thirsty.

The parade of the chicken tractors has begun, with the layers being moved once a day.  They are so thrilled to see new grass that they will avoid their feed until the grass is cropped.  This is, of course, what we want, and we look forward to the deep gold/orange yolks of our well-pastured eggs.

Meat chicks (114) arrived Monday and are safely installed in their tractor.  Once the weather warms up and the chicks get bigger, we'll divide them into two coops.  For now, they are easier to warm in one coop.  We've lost several to "pre-existing" conditions, but if last year was a good teacher, we should be done with those losses soon.  With our order arrived one exotic breed chick, almost certainly a male.  I think he was a crevecoeur, a created breed.  The deck was stacked against his survival, being half the size of meat chicks and with curled toes that made his balance terrible.  We tried to create a boot for his toes and sequestered him inside, but he wouldn't eat and I think he was too frightened too survive.  That, my friends, is the difficult part of raising animals.

Our asparagus is fat and delicious.  We've been enjoying an okay harvest, eating it every few days, and clearly need to fertilize and stay on top of the weeds better this year.  Roasted with salt is the way to go!

Our new business cards arrived, and I'm excited to quit saying, "We haven't ordered any yet!"

Planting and weeding are, for once, not tasks sorely neglected.  Having the watering system in place has greatly facilitiated by planting in a timely manner.  I'm also trying to plant some of the many flower seed packets we've accumulated but never used!

Enough for tonight, as we are anticipating bad weather and I should sleep while I can!

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Chick Season!

Please forgive the sporadic pictures.  Jimmy helped with picture taking, so we have a little bit of everything.

Soup is a hot broody mess each February, apparently.  Last year, she successfully hatched out Chicken Little.

 This year, we ordered an incubator, had Soup in a much chick-friendlier location, and got busy on our dreams of hatching our own flock.

 All seven of our eggs inside successfully pipped and hatched out.

 They were successfully incorporated into Soup's own brood of seven of eight eggs hatched.

Sadly, this morning, I discovered one of Soup's chicks had fallen (been ejected?) from the nest and died.  Still, we stand at 14 chicks.

Now to see how many are roosters.

Ice, wood, and furnace

My breaking ice for the last two weeks has resulted in piles of "ice pucks" near each coop in the yard.  I'm ready for a few of the piles to melt away in the comparitively sweltering highs in the 50s for the next ten days. I don't know how other people manage water for their chickens in cold weather, but heated waterers aren't feasible, so, depending on the severity of the cold, I haul water four (or more) times a day.

 I am grateful that these chickens seem to suffer less frostbite than our turkens.  I think this improvement is a result of both breed and superior coop construction.  James is definitely stepping up his game with each coop.

In addition to chicken chores, I've been streamlining my wood hauling.  Our wood burning stove insert is in the basement, so our wood piles are under the deck.  The challenge is, however, to sort the wood.  Our upstairs fireplace can fit quite long logs, but the stove is significantly smaller.  While I'm loading my wood cart, I find myself creating a new wood pile of logs that won't fit downstairs.  I'm interested to see how much would was usable, especially since we rarely use the upper fireplace.

Oddly enough, in between the original draft of this post and the finishing of it, our electric heat pump failed.  Funny the things I learned about my AC/furnace when it stopped working.  The wood hauling served me well, as the primary heat to the house for 48 hours has been the stove.  I've done pretty well, if I do say so myself, but the new furnace, to be in place tomorrow, will be welcome for bedroom heat!

Some part of me would love to not have a furnace, but the reality is this: I can't chop wood right now.  When I'm pregnant or caring for a newborn, I can't haul enough wood.  We need the AC in the summer, as our house is not built to circulate air efficiently.  Still, this was a worthwhile experience in knowing that I can heat the house in a "disaster" with very little interruption to our lives.

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

A Day

Eggs.  We love eggs.  Averaging almost a dozen a day, I think I need to freeze some for the winter.

 Poor, outcast Toeless.  She's alone in the old turkey coop until her battered head heals.  She wants companionship, but I don't want her to die.

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Chickens

Ah, chickens.  I spend a lot of time thinking chicken, in case you didn't know, as I am the main tender of the coops.  James builds and moves, I water, feed, check for eggs, clean, pester James to add straw, and watch for sick chickens.  Somehow, however, James usually picks up on sick chickens first.

Take Toeless, our current hospital chicken.  She is an Easter Eggers pullet from the "Green Whale" coop. Recently, James and I both saw her laying awkwardly on the ground.  The next day, her head was pecked into a bloody mess.  We rescued her, isolated her inside a crate in the main coop, and fed and watered her well.  Our hope (my hope, really) was to rerelease with the others. It's worked before.

Not this time.  After four or five days of isolation, she was healing nicely and in good spirits.  We had noticed one of our Plymouth Rock chickens was muttering threats at Toeless through the door, but hoped for the best.  Alas, despite our caution, Toeless was a bloody mess within hours.  My mom helped me rescue her, and now we have to decide where she can live.

As an aside, she's called Toeless because, as a chick, her middle toe was partially severed.  We separated her for several days, and she reincorporated into this same coop in May with no problems.

Our current choices are to let her become a free ranger with the other two, but they have attitude problems and are bigger, so I fear for her life.  Also, I don't want a big free ranging flock, as they get picked off by predators and poop on our front sidewalk.  We may add her to our juveniles, who are less than eight weeks old, so she would be the dominant hen.  We'll let her heal thoroughly before we make any decisions, I think.

I'm also canning and preparing for baby, but these are my chicken thoughts these days!

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Potatoes

Onions

Longhorn cattle on our land

Strawberries!  They even escaped last night's frost.

Horseradish

Raspberries

 Everything needs to be weeded desperately, but this pregnant momma can only handle so much on her own.  At least I am keeping up with watering and keeping the birds fed, watered, and relatively clean (I can only move one coop alone, so the others have to wait for James to be home).

I have oodles of flats of tomatoes, etc., being tempered outside, but I've had a rough year with my starts.  So many tomatoes did poorly that I'm disappointed in myself.

Even more, we need rain.  Pray for rain for us!

Broody Soup

Let us begin with reality: I am no chicken expert.  Far from it, as we have had chickens for less than a year.

I do know that something is up with Soup.

Soup is Stew's "big" sister.  (Remember Stew?  She of the traumatized life?)  Whether they are actually sisters, I don't know, but they are our two grey rescue hens.  As the larger and less abused of the two, Soup has remained in the white whale.

See the pile of food next to her?  Probably ridiculous, but I know she didn't eat yesterday

 Yesterday, when I came out to open the coops, feed, water, and check for eggs, I discovered Soup cowering in one of our nesting boxes.  And not quite growling, but making noise and simultaneously trying to avoid my notice.  I thought she was in the middle of laying an egg, so I went on my merry way.

Ooh, the stink eye!

 When I returned for midday egg check and afternoon feeding, she was still huddled in the nesting box. I don't think she's sick; I'm fairly confident this little biddy is broody.  I should have James check if she has any eggs under her (On a side note:  I do lots of care for my animals, but when it comes to touching them, dead or alive, that is my job only in emergency.  I just don't "do" touching animals.).  I may sneak a few under her today, with gloves on, so she has a few chances at hatching chicks.

Daddy Rooster, Mild

Mid-March chicks would be a lovely spring treat for us.  Then again, she might be dying.  (Probably not, but let's keep it real about life and my ignorance!)

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Snow Days

I apologize for abandoning descriptions of our journeys to growing and raising more of our own food.  Life has been busy, and crazy, and at the same time, routine.

Early in the day, as snow accumulates.

Neighbors.  Guineas.  Problems.  Enough said.

We lost a rooster.  I still don't know why.

Our dog, Hope, still steals the food of our cat, Andromeda, at every chance she can.  Hope now howls when a particular train rolls past with its whistle tooting.  I could do without this quirk, thankyouverymuch.

During our unusually long and bitterly cold cold snaps, I struggled to keep water thawed and clean for the chickens.  We switched to hanging waterers with nipples, which has helped in all but the longest and coldest stretches.  Sometimes I still carry out hot water to pour in basins several times a day.  Tomorrow will likely be one of those days.

Kids and snow!

James is building a mini greenhouse and a meat chicken coop.  Pictures will eventually appear here on the blog!

There has too much illness and death in our extended families and acquaintances.  Perhaps it is our age or our awareness, but I feel a little as though are a collective Job!

God has been good to us.  We have avoided major illness in our immediate family.  We've ordered seeds for the summer garden, and plenty of new fruit bushes and plants to fill the insatiable hunger in our children for fruit.  We are at that time of year in which I will only buy a few fruits from the store as everything else is too expensive or disgusting.

Avalanche off the white whale.

It had been snowing all day.  We have over 6", and the snow is still falling.  Since we need moisture, we are praying for several more inches.  (At least I am.). Today is a snow day.  Tomorrow will be as well.

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

The Fourth Day

"And God said, 'Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.'” Gen. 1:20

DG here. Remember when we were thwarted by Bureaucrats? Our Purgatory Ranch (PR) future was torn in two. One family would build at PR, and the other must cast out into the deep! So I slunk back to suburbia, back to my rock that I can crawl under and brood. (C.f.: Suess's Onceler and His Lurkem) But then, a wonderful opportunity came along, an opportunity to make Purgatory Ranch better by expanding and deepening its community. And behold, a new ranch was born.

My family has purchased 10 acres approximately 4 miles from PR proper. Nearly everything we own is a castoff, scavenged, adopted (kids and animals as you'll see) or bought used. Thus, our humble 10 acres is dubbed "Second Hand Ranch" (SHR). Think of it as the staging point for PR, and its little sister to the northwest.

While this blog is still about Purgatory ("Remember..."), every once and a while we will give you a glimpse of life at SHR. It's like Tanto's side-plot to the Lone Ranger. Which brings us to the Birds.

Our Plan: Slowly build up a homestead. God's Plan: Let there be chickens. And other flying crap.

We heard tell of some animals that were for sale at a bargain basement price. A friend of a friend was moving back into the city, and needed to cast off some flying stock. Chickens? Cheap? We were interested. We drove by the seller's farm and entered... an avian sideshow.

I will attempt to capture this in the pristine typeset of blogger.com. The "chickens" of our naive imagination had now transfigured before our eyes into a pole barn full of feathered friends. For half a Benjamin, we were to receive 7 Bantam chickens, 2 Guineas, 2 Turkeys, 2 Ducks, and 1 Goose. Daunted but not repulsed, we meekly said we'd take them, and I retreated to rally logistics. At no time did I ask myself, "Self, what in the #$%^@& are we going to do with Turkeys, Ducks, and a Goose?" To quote John Candy's character from Canadian Bacon, "There's a time to think, and a time to act. And this is no time to think!"

We returned the next week, armed with 7 dog carriers and reinforcements. The dog carriers were for the birds and the reinforcements, as it turned out, were to heckle. I was wearing work gloves, sturdy boots, and the cloak of naivete'. The birds, docile when being viewed previously, turned malignant upon my approaching their enclosure. The goose was mostly bark, but the turkeys? The turkeys were vile. Also, there was (magically) a third gobbler. Bigger than the others. Where did he come from? The coop was the inside of the northern quarter of a tall Wick-style lean-to, with chicken wire running to the rafters. It looked a lot like Thunderdome.

There was some discussion of whom to take first. My dad offered some sage advice, in the hypothetical sense. HE wasn't going in there! Biggest first, we decided. I entered the Arena. I reached for the nearest duck and it was ON. Like Donkey Kong.

What ensued was a grand spectacle. Feathers, expletives, birds, rocks, and poop flew. The general tactic devolved to:
1. Pick a bird
2. Chase it until it gets cornered
3. Smash it down and pin its wings
4. Run to the nearest available dog carrier
5. Jam it in

At first I was trying to be gentle. After gently chasing burds and only succeeding in scaring them, I went for shock and awe. After a few chickens, guineas, and a duck, I learned to hold me hands and arms over my head, walking like Frankenstein. This apparently scares them and prevents them from flying because you look so freakishly tall. They mostly cower and you can smash and pin.

Oh, but there's one thing. Turkeys. Yeah, none of that works on them. The first turkey I approached opened its generous (Read: terrifying) wingspan, flapped as if fanning the very furnaces of Hell, and attacked my face in its flight to freedom. Bounced off South wall, East wall, and then promptly flew the coop. It settled into a roost in a tall tree, looking very indignant. We were at a loss.

What works for turkeys, I can say now, is a modification of the general tactic. I like to call it "Turkey Rodeo". You lunge and grab, essential roll into the fetal position to protect your eyes and face, then hold on for dear life. After about 10 seconds, the turkey stops flapping to see if you are still there. Then pin and runnnnnn!

By perseverance, a lot of scrambling on hands and knees in chicken/duck/guinea/goose/turkey poo, throwing stuff for distraction, and yelling at small semi-flightless fowl, I managed to load the back of my truck with about 120 lbs. of pissed of birds stacked like a Jenga game in the bed. Thus began a very interesting 6 mile voyage back to Second Hand Ranch. Driving 20 mph is advisable. Any faster, and the two turkeys simultaneously went vertical, lifting their dog carrier about half a foot and scaring the bejeebers out of their fellow avian passengers. And me. Fortunately, my fellow motorists were understanding. At least once they figured out what the heck was in my bed.

James and I had prepped a coop and run the day before. Before de-birding my pickup, my Dad and I threw a tarp over the run and wired it down. The chickens were eerily quiet. Even the turkeys seemed beat. Had they survived? I was worried. We had somehow bonded in the harrowing cage fight. My little feathered friends were good, pleasing to the eye, and desirous for making eggs.

I moved the carriers inside the covered run and some birds came out. Others had to be coaxed. The turkeys... well I admit I just shoved the unlatched carrier into the darkened coop. We left them with water and some food. They went straight to roost. They seemed so peaceful. Then I realized- what if we had moved them AFTER they roosted? Duh.

The next morning, the roosters (2) went to it. A marvelous sound. All the birds were up and alert. I let them free range and they happily began working on the surplus SHR bugs. Each has their own personality, and the turkeys are my favorite... of course!

This should be a nice preliminary to when James and Co. get their own flock. Perhaps they will learn from our mistakes!