Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Chicken Anarchy

In 11 years of doing this farming thing (Gawd, has it been THAT long??) we have bought chickens, mail-ordered chickens, traded chickens, incubated chicken eggs, rescued chickens, and even sold a few...but we have never actually hatched our own.  Like from scratch....with a hen doing the actual work, and no human involvement.  Until now....
Into the Void, which is an apt description of a farm gone wild with practically no rules, structure, consistency or order (due to a medical disruption of my Former Life on a large scale when my husband almost died from Lyme, a stroke and other nasty complications) this hen decided to drop a chick.

I can honestly say I have NO idea where she brooded this little thing, but she managed to stay hidden for 21 days (not too hard given my almost constant state of harried frenzy and general lack of attention to detail) AND managed to stay away from predators (more impressive given our proximity to several fox dens and the new hazard of ranging coyotes that have crossed our property more than once this summer...) AND managed to totally ignore all the rules that said something like, "Do NOT make more work for the Lady" "Do NOT add more chores to Her list" "Do NOT grow the farm in any way since it's too much already for Her sanity" and so on, and so on...

And yet.....here he/she is.  A Buff Cochin chicklet.  Sex TBD.  No rules.....No. Rules. It's Chicken Anarchy.

Monday, June 02, 2014

New Staff

Let me introduce the biggest addition to the farm....Zeva.

(The nut featured two posts ago...)



The decision to add another mouth/chore/critter to the farm was pretty easy after seeing that face....but really, it was about ticks.

You see, DH's NDE (Near Death Experience) was triggered by a tick bite in May '13.  Left inadequately treated, it led to a stroke, encephalitis and the NDE....amongst other things).  Anyhoo......

Ticks...eaten by Guinea Hens.  Guinea Hens...eaten by foxes.  Foxes...deterred (if not eaten) by large canine.  Canine...available by barter from a neighbor farmer, and, well, I love to barter. Viola!

She is a Maremma. So far....she hasn't eaten anybody (including chickens!) but we've had no losses to predators...so we're ahead of the game!

Sunday, June 01, 2014

Seems like a good way to start...

Leave it to Susan (who got it from Carolyn) to come up with the perfect way to cover a lot of ground and keep me busy (er) ....and I pretty much do anything she tells me/suggests/wants ..... so, here goes a month of blog postings...


...and in the spirit of the quotation....we'll see what seeds we can plant!

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Jumping back in ....

There was no easy way to dive back in the conversation....other than to just do it.  So.....we are back.  Everyone is alive.  Life is not pretty....but, like Zeva.....I'm looking for a playmate (or 2..)







OK, maybe not that desperate....I draw the line at sniffing butts.