Week 11--2016 (Mar 11-17)

Chick Days are Here!

​The transition from winter to spring on the farm is marked by oodles of time spent outdoors. The robins have returned, as have the sandhill cranes. We venture outside en masse, decked out in fewer layers; we pick up where we left off late last fall. We adjust fences, remove brush piles, reorganize the barn and outbuildings, clean pens, and prepare the garden for planting. The work is truly endless, yet enjoyable. The farmkids delight in mud-play and stick stacking. 

​Just as tiny sprouts of green erupt through the thawing soil outside, our little indoor seedlings are thriving and growing into a medusa-like tangle of green. Farmboy checks on their progress multiple times a day, lest he miss any growing action. 

On Wednesday, the Post Office called at 5:30 am to inform us that our chicks had arrived! It was Farmboy’s first experience with receiving new chicks and he welcomed them with squeals of ‘Ooh! And Ahhh!!’ 

Farmboy got his first experience with receiving baby chicks in the mail. He was pretty excited!

Farming is fraught with unexpected little emergencies in need of immediate attention; a goat’s head stuck in a feed trough, a chicken caught between straw bales, a fence knocked down and escaped goats, an eruption of potato bugs, a leak in a roof. Most situations are not unmanageable, and often a bit of ingenuity and rapid response fixes most problems. 

It's times like this we realize sometimes two heads are not actually better than one. These two girls somehow managed to squeeze their heads into the same feed hole. Thankfully it wasn't a severe problem and we helped them get free very quickly. Goats are goats, always seeking new ways to keep life interesting!

The day our little chirping fluffballs arrived, the very future of our laying hen flock, Mother Nature sent us ‘The Perfect Storm.’ Freezing cold winds blasted out of the southwest, penetrating every crack and seam on the south side of the barn and drafted the chick brooder. The situation was dire and we could have lost the whole batch of baby chicks if we didn’t act IMMEDIATELY.
​
We rapidly MacGyvered make-shift walls around the brooder to block the drafts and added another heat lamp. We retrieved some blue tarps from a pile nearby and stapled them to the interior barn walls. As the chicks huddled together and absorbed warmth from the extra heat lamps, now protected from drafts, they began to settle.  It was with great sadness that we lost a few chicks; however, we were immensely relieved that we saved all the rest and they are doing well and growing like chicks do. 

​With the recent crisis managed and averted, farm life continues. Goats are truly browsers, not grazers like sheep. They prefer to eat broad leaves from trees and herbaceous woody plants. They graze on grass secondarily. While the broad leaves of spring are still a few weeks away, the goats enjoy crunching on fresh cuttings trimmed from the orchard.

​Our family often enjoys late afternoon chores together. Farmgirl excels in tracking down all the eggs and carefully placing them in the egg racks, this is a new system for egg collecting that will reduce cracking and facilitate packaging. Farmboy enjoys just being outside and marvels at watching all the different animals. Our Rosie De is always present wherever there is action in the farmyard too. 

​Last week, we cooked up an old favorite to warm us from within: hearty vegetable lentil soup. We dug through and found some frozen peppers, tomatoes, carrots and parsley from the garden as well as some storage garlic and potatoes. We added a side of home baked drop biscuits made from our goat milk kifer; our version of buttermilk biscuits.  

Homemade vegetable lentil soup made with storage garlic and potatoes, frozen peppers, tomatoes, carrots and celery accompanied by drop biscuits made with kefir.