Wednesday's Storm

Why does all of our bad weather come on Wednesdays lately?  The kids and I spent the evening battening down the hatches in preparation for severe wind, possible hail, and hopefully rain.

This time, I woke at 10:40.  My first thought was that James should be home soon.

My second thought was the wind sounded fiercely terrible.

My third was that the plastic on the Meatmobile was flapping.

I got up to peer out the window, only to see the Meatmobile 2/3 uncovered with shivering chicks inside the metal tub.  Then the power went out.  I grabbed a jacket, panicked that I couldn't move 60-odd chicks alone, and found a flashlight.

As I ran outside, I realized James had come home, proceeded to scare him by demanding his immediate help, and we speedily moved the frightened chicks into the barn, where we had to cover them to keep them from predation by Andromeda, our chick-stalking cat.

Back inside, we moved the kids to the basement as the trees all around us were bowing mightily in the wind.

In the morning, we discovered plenty of damage, including 1/2 of another Bradford pear as well as a large limb from the tree we feared would punch through our roof.

And no rain.

Better yet is the knowledge that worse weather is due to arrive Saturday and Sunday.

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

Birds

As James put it, "how did we become chicken farmers?"

These days, with six different sets of birds to care for throughout the day, I eat, sleep, and drink birds.

Our poor guineas have to be kept in their yard through the day due to a neighbor feeding them but not wanting them on his property now.  We will give away these ten guineas and start with a new flock, but it takes effort to move guineas.  I'm attempting to hatch guinea eggs in a borrowed incubator, but as I am a newbie to this as to all things in our life, I may fail.

Thirteen turkens happily root through fresh grass daily and faithfully lay eggs.  They are, by far, the easiest chickens to which to provide care.

The white whale contains four hens and one rooster.  The rooster needs more hens, but two of these ladies are mean, mean, mean, and can't be moved to another coop.  I hope to visit with them in a roasting pan or stew pot in the next while.  Eventually, the remaining chickens will have to be incorporated into another coop.

Soup, mama hen to one Chicken Little, free ranges during the day.  She can't be in with the pullets, as she tries to kill them, but Chicken Little can't be in the white whale as the mean chickens will kill her.  Soup will eventually rejoin the white whale, while Chicken Little will join the Green Team.

What, more chickens?  Yes.  We ordered 15 chicks this spring, 7 Plymouth Rock Barred, as they are cold hardy, and 8 "Easter Eggers."  The Easter Eggers aren't actually a specific breed, but simply hens that carry the blue or green egg gene.  I'm excited.

So much bigger already, but this is a picture of their first day on grass.

Then, since we like adventures and the unknown, we ordered meat chickens.  Some people,will look down on us for buying Cornish Rock X, but since it's our meat and not theirs, they can hold their tongues.  Maybe we will hate the experience and decide never to butcher again, but I would love to have our own chicken stocking the freezer.  It would be one more food item we don't depend on others for production.  If we hate the experience, we won't raise them again.

Yesterday, in a moment of weakness, I okayed the purchase of turkeys.  James came out with five white and one brown.  They live with the meat chicks in a metal hoop house-type thing.

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

Busy Spring

Horseradish

 Chives

 Rhubarb

 We thought all the rhubarb died last summer in the heat, but I have four little bushes!

 Strawberries, new

 Strawberries, old

 Six-week old (ish) chicks on grass.  Mmm, grass!  We're building new coops as fast as a busy daddy can!

 In fact, here he is, finishing the broiler coop for the 58 broilers that arrived today!

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

Planting

 March 14, we began the process of planting out at Purgatory Ranch.  First, this required mowing.

 Since we're adding a new bed this year, James mowed the entire triangle.  Dust was flying, but we tried to keep top soil loss to a minimum.

 That was it for the evening, especially after the brakes locked up on our trailer and caught fire just as we reached home.

 March 15, James organized a delivery of 8 tons (maybe more) of composted cow manure.  He then proceeded to till our  beds.  Meanwhile, I made a trip or two home and cut potatoes.  And cut potatoes. Did I mention we purchased 140 pounds of potatoes this year?

 We brought fishing wire and yarn to mark our rows, keeping me from my inability to plant anything in a straight line.

 50 pounds of potatoes later (Yukon gold in the south bed and Viking plus leftover Yukon in the north bed) meant we were out of space with only 1/3 of our crop planted.  Aiyiyi.

 There was a little mishap with a shovel as well!  (You know us... there's always a mishap.)

Weather brought excitement in the form of hail, high winds, and 1.5" of rain, which we definitely needed.  It also enforced no more planting for most of spring break, as it was too wet.

More potatoes (most of the remaining) were planting at Secondhand Ranch on the 20th.  From the south, we planted 12 rows: (1-2) Kennebec, (3-4) eastern half Kennebec, western half Red Lasota, a new variety for us, (5-6) Red Norland, (7-8) western tip R. Norland, mainly Russet Burbank, east tip Dakota, and finally 9-12 was all Dakota Crisp.  All told, we planted 25 pounds each of Kennebec, Yukon Gold, Red Norland, Dakota Crisp, and Purple Viking.  We also planted 10 pounds of Russet Burbank and 5 of Red Lasota.

Finally, we were able to plant out 14 bundles of onions on the 22nd.  With 6 bundles of Candy, 2 of Red Candy, 2 Texas SuperSweet, 2 Southern Belle, and 2 Vidalia, it was a busy time.  For record keeping purposes, we planted east to west in this order: (1) Vidalia, (2) Red Candy, (3) Texas Supersweet, (4-5) Southern Belle, (6-11) Candy, and (12-13) Red Candy.

To wrap up our planting, James eked out a few rows of All Blue at Yahweh Jireh Acres as well as a few rows of remaining Dakota Crisp.

Whew!

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

Chicken Soup

No, we're not eating anyone.  There's just enough chicken news of varying sorts that it's a soup!

Soup is still hovering over six eggs, the first of which should hatch next Wednesday.  Ooh!  The kids are excited, as James and I are.  It would be nice to know we can hatch our own chicks from year to year instead of purchasing from Atwoods or online in minimum orders of 15.

She's a scary being, let me tell you.  When she first went broody, we decided to slip a few extra eggs under her, so she's have good chances of hatching out at least one or two.  The first time or two I added an egg, she tried to peck me and the egg.  The egg didn't break, and she realized I wasn't trying to touch her.  I definitely wore gloves, however.

When she hops down from her box to drink or dig food, every feather on her body is fluffed out.  She looks big!

To add to our chicken news, the turkens have finally started to lay regularly again.  I will confess to being disappointed in this chickens and their lack of laying.

As they arrived this morning!

Finally, in a fit of madness, we ordered 15 chicks to add to our egg laying flock.  I have a craving for blue eggs (they're so pretty), so we ordered 8 "easter eggers."  We also ordered 7 Plymouth Rock Barred chicks, as they are cold hardy and supposed to be regular layers, even in winter.

Our lone yellow chick is already named Peep.

They were supposed to arrive mid April, but somewhere in the ordering process my request for a mid April delivery date was lost.  So they arrived today.  It's awfully cold, but they aren't too huddled together, so they must be okay.

We'll use paper towels for bedding for a few days, until I know they are all eating.  They all took to drinking readily, which makes me happy.  It's amazing how much more I know this year than I did with our first chicks (and how much I KNOW I don't know.  Aak!).

Chicks make me happy.  I don't know why, entirely, as they take a lot of work with bedding management, manure balls on their toes, and the occasional pasty butt, but they are darling.

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

Winter Observations

There is nothing quite like waking to the smoke alarm.  James and I searched the house for the source of the horrible burning plastic smell but never found it, so resorted to dialing 911 at 2 am.  After response from three nearby towns, an hour of searching the house from top to bottom, and some wildly exhausted kids, nothing.

Having firefighters troll through your house makes you want to clean everything and then get rid of everything.  At least that's how James and I feel.  It's not even that our house is so dirty... I don't clean every room every day, we have four kids, and... Well... The storage and art rooms are last on my list to clean.  Of course that's the smoke alarm that was having the hiccups.

We have too much stuff.  Too much.

It's officially bitterly cold when the heat has been running since about 10 pm last night.  With windchill, it's -17 F.  My fingers were numb upon returning from chicken chores this morning.

We ordered meat and egg laying chicks.  Although I requested delivery around April 18, it would appear that Purely Poultry had chicks they needed to ship earlier than that, as our egg layers will be arriving around March 8.

We are currently nestled under an ice and snow layer approximately 3" thick.

Off to take warm water to the chickens!

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

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.