Six Months Later

We've been farming for 6 months now! I can't even put into words how much we've both learned. I think that going into this with no experience has been one of the best things about it. We've made some mistakes, but without experience we had no expectations and we were able to jump into it without the pressure of knowing how things should be.

We went from never having even touched a chicken to owning over 20 of them, building coops and runs, eating and selling eggs, slaughtering chickens ourselves and hatching a chick from our own stock (Squishy did most of that).

The chicks in April - too scared to walk around on grass for the first time.

The chickens now - too spoiled to want to walk around on grass in the rain.

We went from never having grown anything to growing a greenhouse full of organic vegetables and eating, storing and selling them.

Little basil seedling in April.

The herb garden now...

We went from never having owned livestock to owning sheep, goats and a llama - and building fencing, gates, shelters, stalls and a barn.

April - just the horses and cows on the leased paddock here.

Now: Goats and sheep enjoying the grass - Thomas and Zeb were just off to the left behind that gate.

We went from knowing nothing but the definition of "aquaponics" to setting up a fully functioning system complete with Tilapia and a bunch of vegetables (Nathan gets full credit for this one). 

Aquaponics system at the beginning:

Grow bed #3 last month - I'll have to take an updated photo. Nathan also just finished building a compost pile next to it (with polypipe running through it) to hopefully heat the water over winter.

We went from never having bees to....having a hive ready and still never having bees. Oh well. It may have been a little bit much to handle in the first 6 months, anyway. We got a ton of wasps, instead. 

I leave you with...Flying Goat!

Mish Mash

I was really hoping to do a blog post today where I could just put up some of the nice pictures that Nathan and I took over the weekend, instead of talking about ailing animals or plants. The animals, unfortunately, didn't cooperate with that plan. 

Abby had to be rushed to the vet on Saturday for staples after a visiting friend's dog chomped her head. He wasn't happy about being locked in the yard and Abby happened to be standing closest to him. Poor Abby - what a belated 9th birthday present. We're keeping her off the farm right now so that the wound stays clean. She has been pretty sleepy and swollen but I don't think there is an infection (keeping my fingers crossed). 

Ryan has had to take over duties as farm patroller. 

While Abby takes a more "hands-off" approach with her farm staff, always maintaining distance and professionalism, Ryan prefers to become one of the gang and form real relationships with the staff. He even takes lunch with them.

Sometimes this can lead to a bit of a power struggle when the workers forget who's boss. Unfortunately, Ryan ran away from the conflict and left his cucumber behind.

Meanwhile, Abby was inside having a power struggle of her own. She isn't sure why the other house patient seems to be getting much better treatment than her.

As if Speckles' bumblefoot issue last week wasn't enough, today I found Dorothy all puffed up with her eyes closed in the coop when I went to collect eggs. This is very unusual when all of the chickens are usually running around the farm foraging in the morning.

I'm not sure what's wrong with her so I tried a few treatments. First I gave her a warm bath in epsom salts in case she's egg-bound (can't pass her egg). 

Then I gave her some epsom salts in water orally in case she's constipated, and some apple cider vinegar in water for dehydration (and because apple cider vinegar is one of those 'cure-all' kind of things). Oh, and a bit of olive oil in case she her crop is blocked up. I basically covered most of the home cures in the book (or in the google, in this case). So far so good - she made a giant normal poop on the towel, is eating her scrambled egg and grain mix, and then perked up enough just now to jump on the table next to my computer to stare at me. 

It might seem funny to blog readers to see a post one day about slaughtering chickens and then a post a few days later about treating a sick chicken and serving her scrambled eggs on a plate (chickens love their own eggs). We want all of our animals to live happy, pain-free lives. Even if some of them are for eating, they still deserve to be healthy and well treated. That should be a given when keeping any kind of animal. 

We'll stop short, though, of orthodontics for our animals...even though I'm pretty sure Zeb could use a set of braces. Maybe a headgear, too.

The ever-so-photogenic Thomas.

You couldn't get a better setup if you tried. This little frog was hanging out on an artichoke flower.

Our artichokes were inedible! They were fibrous and the heart was just a mass of white strands. I'm not sure why... if you let them flower they sure are pretty. I don't think I'd bother growing them again, except maybe as decoration.

We never did get a swarm of bees in our hive but we are definitely getting pollinators in the greenhouse.

Lots of butternut squash were pollinated and are growing well. 

We planted our fall crop - cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, lettuce. 

Seedling sprouting in a grow bed.

The newest grow bed. This would be the perfect height for picking bush beans. Picking them from the ground is back breaking!

And finally, I call these "Three Girls", or alternatively, "A Good, Bad and Fantastic Date".

Midsummer Greenhouse

Melons and winter squash are taking over!

Lots of cantaloupes now

I opted to use some netting instead of one of my bras...

These bell peppers are huge! I want them to ripen already...

We're getting 2 lbs of these gold nugget tomatoes a day

Cucumber plant right up to the roof

Grow bed #1 is full of giant tomatoes and cucumbers

And cayenne peppers!

I think it's time to make some more pesto...

Brussels sprouts - they're the strangest looking plants.

There's finally a watermelon growing!

Poor Ewean...the only one who has enough white on her face to really see the purple eye spray. Their eyes are all cleared up, though!

I'm off to go see if I can salvage any of the recently mowed back field clippings for hay. Right now it's all laying on the field and will be wasted...then we'll have to go buy a bunch of hay to feed the sheep over winter. It would be nice to dry and use some of our own. Possibly easier said than done since it's looking a bit cloudy out...

Tomato Tomahto

Today Nathan (with his Australian accent) asked our landlord's daughter how her 4th birthday party was. She looked very confused and asked him, "what's a birthday potty???". I almost fell over laughing.

Back to Tomahtos - one of the best parts about being new to all of this is how exciting everything is.

For example, OUR FIRST TOMATO!

It's a Sweet Million tomato - they're the seeds that I started at the beginning of March. Apparently the plants can grow over 8' tall. Good thing they're tied to the roof of the greenhouse (they're about 2' right now).

A mesclun mix started from seeds in one of the grow beds is doing well (the 2nd row).

Thai Dragon hot peppers like the greenhouse heat.

 Watermelon growing vertically.

The strawberry tower.

I guess we do have pollinators in the greenhouse (I still want bees).  

I'm pretty confident in my chicken sexing. 

Cockerel:

Pullet:

WTF:

WTF x2. What ARE they??

The First Crow

 Grow bed #1, April to May - big difference! 

The two bathtubs weren't providing enough filtration for the water (the ammonia levels are too high) so Nathan added two more grow beds.

This one has eggplant and tomatoes. The other will have peppers.

Tomatoes this morning:

We dug up the first arugula (the plants that had been started back at the beginning of March) because they were getting way too peppery and replanted some new seeds. The arugula in the greenhouse tastes pretty peppery, too - I think it's just too hot in there for it, even for eating the greens when they're tiny. We'll stick to planting it outside until it gets too hot.

We've been trying to figure out which of the chicks are pullets and which are cockerels. They're almost 7 weeks now and apparently you should be able to tell males vs females by the size and colour of their combs and wattles (bigger and darker at this stage in males) and by their feathers (the males have less developed feathers on their backs). Of the meat birds, there seem to be two pullets and four cockerels. Zebra Head is definitely a boy....and today he tried to crow. It sounded more like burp/chirp sounds, but I'm pretty sure he was trying to crow. Magpie and Magpie's twin are unknowns - their mohawks make it hard to tell. The two brown chicks (the ones that are supposed to be sex-linked) seem to be pullets and of the three Light Sussex, one (Squishy) looks to be a pullet, one looks more like a cockerel, and one is iffy. Fingers crossed for a girl - although our four hens are giving us more than enough eggs. We're up to two dozen in the fridge even with constant baking, quiches and poached eggs!