Sunflowers

Of all the things we've grown this year, the sunflowers have to be our favorite.  They are a minimal investment (we found them for 4 packs for $1) and definitely a maximum benefit.

The butterflies and the bees love them and the chickens will love any leftover seeds.

All of our seedlings may not have made it but the ones that did were definitely impressive!

Farm Harmony

Sometimes everyone just gets along and it's awesome.

The rabbits and chickens decided to hang out together in the high grass while Champ watched the littles in the pen next door.

My little Snaggles still kept watch just in case.

But Jellybean seems perfectly comfortable letting the older hens hang out in her pen and help with landscaping duties.  

Straw

Straw bale gardening wasn't for us.  Here's what I learned and where my internet research fell short...

With my hard red clay, breaking ground without a tractor is a lot of work.  Not being 100% sure where I wanted to put a large garden, putting straw bales around the chicken runs would in theory serve two purposes.  It would make the ground underneath softer and at the end of the season make a nice "bed" around the chicken coop without a lot of digging.  And, it would give some much needed shade to the chickens, especially once the plants were nice and tall.

Because the chickens are a fair way away from the house, we have no running water near the coop. We transport fresh water via five gallon buckets for the animals.  I figured that putting the straw bales around the coop and run would also give me the opportunity to recycle the not-so-fresh water and have a watering source for the plants close by.  So as usual, I started researching the internet and came up with a plan.  

My folks helped me locate a local source for straw and 24 bales later, I had nice tight straw lined up on both sides of my 30' run.  I soaked the bales and added fertilizer as recommended by Modern Farmer. Then after a few weeks, the twins and I planted squash, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. We also made some potato towers with the composted straw from the chicken runs and planted a whole bunch of seeds in cups to hopefully transplant. 

Unfortunately, our seedlings didn't make.  Our May was very dry and even though I tried to stay on top of watering, the seeds nor plants stayed damp enough.  Then we noticed the seedling cups were turned over and larger plants that were nipped off.  What no website mentioned was that I had basically setup the perfect habitat for mice.  

I gave the little rodents dry homes of straw right next to a food source of chicken feed.  They tunneled under the fence and straight to the feed.  They ate all the cucumber and squash plants and nipped off leaves of nearly all the others we had planted.  They also ate all the seeds in the seedling cups, germinated or not.  Luckily we haven't seen any snakes and we haven't tried to poison the mice because we don't want to affect a chicken that may catch one.  

Now the chicken's get a bale of straw to play with every week which my little Snaggles (above) approves of.  The bales are breaking down and full of grass seedlings which they love not to mention, the chickens get to play with any mice that don't escape.  Also, thanks to a rainy June and July, a few of the tomatoes and pepper plants have bounced back.  

So before you invest the time and money into straw bale gardening, be aware of the pest problem that may come along with them.  We will not be attempting this type of gardening again.  Not only do the bales bring in the mice, but they do not, as advertised, require less watering than traditional gardening.  In fact, in our experience they may require more water.  For us, the expense of the straw, plants and soil were by no means worth the few tomatoes and peppers we may harvest.  

On a positive note, the potato towers weren't affected as much by the mice and produced a basket full of pretty new potatoes that were delicious.  Had we focused more on watering the towers, I think we would have doubled our harvest.  The potatoes are super easy to harvest and the kids also loved hunting through the straw and soil.  This method of planting potatoes is definitely something we will try again.  

Dinner

The ax finally dropped.  Our roosters became a problem and all our efforts to get rid of them were unsuccessful minus the obvious solution.  We made sure they had a great morning and then that afternoon we explained to the kids we were having the roosters for dinner.

Thanks to some helpful posts online we used a small bucket with a hole in the bottom for the first part of the butchering process and opted to skin both roosters instead of plucking.

Here are a few things we learned the hard way:

• Roosters are heavy so if you are hanging your bucket, make sure you have it attached securely. The first (lighter) rooster was fine.  The second, larger rooster broke the bucket handle.  
• Obviously roosters are physically different from chickens.  Hopefully I will not have to butcher any more roosters, but if I do, I will try to find more specific information about butchering a rooster versus of a hen.
• Also something I didn't expect was the temperature.  I've cleaned many fish over the years, but they are cold blooded.  That whole chicken from your meat market is cold too.  I wasn't prepared for skinning a freshly killed warm-blooded animal. So if you are doing this for the first time, know that the animal is still going to be warm.  
• Lastly, our roosters were a year old which made them way too old to be decent broilers. We skinned the roosters knowing we would have to boil the meat.  The meat was even tougher and darker than I expected so we opted for a recipe that involved shredded chicken.

As for the three younger people, they seemed to take everything in stride.  We explained the roosters had enjoyed their life and lived in much better conditions than the chickens that supplied our local grocery store. We explained that their aggressive behavior was getting worse and that in order to keep our kids and other animals safe, we felt like it was time to say goodbye.  The kids were very curious about skinning the roosters and processing the meat so in addition to not being wasteful, there was a short anatomy lesson.  Then for dinner we had Buffalo Rooster Bombs that were a hit.

In the end, I think I took it harder than anyone.  I had raised both birds since they were little more than a day old.  That being said, I understand it was a necessary part of not only raising chickens but eating meat. The whole process makes you so much more aware of where your meat comes from and more importantly, the cost of that meat.  I think that is a lesson everyone should learn.  

Falling Behind and Catching Up

A lot has been going on in our little world so here's an update:

We managed moved our little farm over onto a newly graded 1/2 acre of land as mentioned in the Carolina Red Clay post from July.   Thanks to the torrential rains this fall and early winter, the red clay is still winning.

After the craziness of moving a 10' x 20' building, two coops and a dog house, all the runs are set up and really working out well.  Our goal this winter is to upgrade the coops, add some ramps, a more permanent pond and renovate the building into a cute little barn.

Four little ducklings all ended up being drakes. At least they were consistent, right?  We are down to two, Edward Gray (formerly Anna Gray) and Sunki.  The two other huge Pekins went to a happy home down the way to keep a single drake company.

The new chicks from a local hatchery have been a learning experience.  We lost one chicken early on, and then two of the three pullets left ended up being roosters.  The roosters are both beautiful birds and mild mannered, but roosters none-the-less.  We paid a premium  because of the breed, a premium in hindsight which was too much to pay even for a pullet.  Needless to say we will be returning to our local farm store for future chicks.
 

As for the rabbits, they received their own portion of the run partitioned off with fresh grass and an open hutch.  They dug out.  So they were given another portion with a wire bottom.  They figured out how to open the door.  Now we have three free range rabbits who live under the barn and sometimes in their hutch.  They seem quite happy to come and go as they please and I no longer have neighbors enjoying the antics of me capturing rabbits with a fishing net.  We decided we either have the smartest rabbits in the county or the dumbest coyotes.

With the new year upon us, we hope and pray that our family continues to be healthy and happy and our little farm continues to grow.  Happy New Year!

Twice the Fun

The twins' birthday celebration was a big deal this year.  They met so many great friends in Kindergarten and wanted them all to see their chicks and bunnies.  A farm themed birthday for girls?  YES!

The picnic shelter was decked out with pink, yellow and burlap.

The dessert buffet was filled with all sorts of amazing goodies not to mention two beautiful pinks cakes for each of my little beauties.

Each table was decorated with burlap runners and topped with homemade pink lemonade play dough favors.

The party decorations were no match for the beautiful horses, new chicks and baby bunnies.

Everyone had a wonderful time and the twins had a very Happy Birthday!

In Focus: Memorial Day Weekend

I hope your Memorial Day Weekend was as relaxing as ours.  Here are a few photos from our home away from home up in Morganton, North Carolina.

The creek just below our camper.

My Maddie navigating the rocks.

Sweet Kate with her board.

Jackson who is ready to dive back in.

An underwater creature that the girls discovered and brought in for documentation.  

A family of geese that the kids have named "Crackers" that visit us each morning and right before sunset.

In Focus

My favorite blogs give me great information but I go back time and time again because of the beautiful photographs.  Although I can't compete with the amazing images by The Chicken Chick, Fresh Eggs Daily or Farmhouse38, here are a few of my favorite photos from the last week or so.

Robins Egg Blue

Chick Huddle

Curious Buns

Freckled Boy

Toes

The twins love pictures with my phone so while the Freds enjoyed fresh clover, I enjoyed the photos.

They liked the grass but then ...

They saw some tasty looking little toes.

Then some bigger toes arrived on the scene. 

But then back to the green stuff.

There is nothing quite like a child's perspective or their sweet little toes.  

Chicken Trainers

Our Phase I chicks are old enough to explore outside a bit.  My mom blessed us with a super versatile portable exercise pen she picked up at the flea market.  It was big enough for the chicks and the kids, although barely.

The first order of business became names for the chicks.  We decided that since you really couldn't tell them apart yet to go with a group name.  Now they are the  "Freds" which is short for Female Reds. Next up, training.
Obviously.

Now each Fred can happily perch on a child, especially Fred #1.  I can't possibly tell you which chick that is, but the kids seem to be able to pick her out immediately.

Highways and Byways

The garden is planted and our feathered flock is nearly four months old.  While we wait for squash, beans and even that elusive first egg, we've been spending some time creating highways and byways.

Sandy Toes

Our thirty toes got sandy this past week with an amazing trip down to the South Carolina coast.   We woke up to the sounds of waves crashing on the beach and went to sleep watching a full moon rise over the ocean.

Now back to feeding chickens and picking the last of the spring greens.

Mothering

The latest additions to our family are probably a good example of a little too much self confidence on my part.  That being said, I'm incredibly blessed to not only be the wife of an incredible man and mom to three amazing children but also to mother 19 chicks, 3 bunnies, 2 dogs and a gerbil.

Happy Mother's Day to all the other moms out there!

The Oldest

Times have changed for our Traveler, the first and oldest child. We picked up this pitiful little puppy from a rescue agency almost 10 years ago.  Still recovering from massive malnutrition and rickets in his front legs, the little border mix was our first experiment in parenting.  Then the boy arrived.  Then two girls.  Another dog.  A bunny.  Chickens. More bunnies.

I think after the twins, Trav's not surprised at what I bring home anymore.  I watch him sitting up on the hill surveying all the madness and figure that he's probably okay with not being the only child anymore. At least I hope so.