The call comes promptly at 7am.
A sleepy sort of shaky-excited voice says, “I’m calling because your chicks are here!” Twenty-nine new chicks arrived at our post office this morning. P went to get them while I set up the bin and heat lamp on the porch that will be their home for a week or so until they can transition to an outdoor coop.
These will be next years’ layers. We tried to restock earlier this summer, and raised 40-some lovely egglayers and meat birds to strong fully-fledged teenagers, only to lose all of them to a huge raccoon attack. That was two months ago, and it’s still hard to talk about it. Few can really understand how farmers feel about marauding predators until they see for themselves what animals will do to each other. Most of us carry a fantasy ideal that predators will only kill what they need to survive. In my experience, raccoons will usually eat portions of one or two birds, and simply bite the rest of them in the head and neck and leave them lying there, going from one to the next until they kill all they can, or are interrupted.
So that unhappy history is the background to these new chicks. Our flocks are also aging now, we have fewer eggs coming in, and we’ve lost some adults this summer to either a hawk, a coyote, or a fox, as far as we can tell. No sightings, just a random chicken vanishing into the thicket here and there. We also have 9 2-week old chicks hatched out under 2 setty hens, and another hen setting eggs due to hatch in a week and a half or so. But we can expect half of those to be roosters. Next week, meat chicks arrive. Today’s new little ones are pullets - a mix of Aracaunas, Buff Orpingtons, and Black Australorps. They should be very nice, and we’re excited to start over…again.
Saturday, 18. September 2010
Mandy - loved your kitten/cat pic! I was horrified to read of the raccoon massacre but trust the young peepers are thriving. Again, thanks so much for the special tomato delivery: we savored their deliciousness with the Reas in Glen Arbor.
That’s some amazing hard squash (tromboni?) Ted bought from you guys on Thursday. Do you think it will store well? Bring more squash next week, OK? See you then - don’t work too hard!
Monday, 11. October 2010
Hi Amanda!
I am so sorry to read about the loss of your chickens. It must have been terrible. I am glad to see that you were able to start again with new chicks and am sure they will thrive! Enjoy your farm!
Love, Julie
Monday, 11. October 2010
I can’t believe the market is over already! We only made it out a few times, but we loved every moment we were there! Thank you so much for the yellow cherry tomato plant. I loved growing it. It is still producing and we love the tomatoes! Jakob picks them himself and eats them right away. He’s already 15 months old! Time flies when you’re having fun… Have you thought of a name for the yellow tomatoes? How about “Amanda’s Amazing Yellow Cherry”? Sounds good to me!
Monday, 11. October 2010
Do you freeze your tomatoes? Here’s two links I found:
http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-freeze-tomatoes
http://food.unl.edu/web/preservation/freezing-tomatoes
Thursday, 14. October 2010
Roxanne and Julie-
Thanks for your responses, and sympathy notes! :)
I’m so glad you like to tomato! Yes, we do freeze tomatoes, though I like the appliance-free storage of homecanned tomatoes. Frozen cherry tomatoes are great - funny little marbles that you can just drop right into whatever you’re cooking!