What's happening around the farm.
Posted in General on Mar 29th, 2010
Those who have been reading this blog a while may find this post familiar. It is an annual event. The water is turned on in the garage!!! Hot and cold!!! This means the scale, egg cartons, labels, eggs to be sorted, etc move off the kitchen counter to the long stainless steel sink/counter in the [...]
Posted in Chickens, ducks, geese, Vegetables on Mar 29th, 2010
Here is a link to a recording of the sounds trees make as water moves inside. The sounds attract insects, which in turn attract birds. Fun and interesting, and read the information before listening. The Sounds of Trees Popping – Boing Boing
Posted in Vegetables on Mar 28th, 2010
I haven’t built the little heated mini-greenhouse inside the big unheated hoophouse yet, that we do in the spring for starting plants. I did get the old lettuce that was in that space cleared out so it is ready. The weather is so tantalizing – might we be able to get away without the heated [...]
Posted in General on Mar 26th, 2010
Brrrr. By the time I had collected eggs, opened packages of out-of-date frozen (thawed) food a friend brought by the for chickens, and taken jugs of water out to the birds, my hands said they wanted the winter gloves before I fed everyone. It was sunny so the hoophouse was very cozy this afternoon. I [...]
Posted in Chickens, ducks, geese on Mar 19th, 2010
Well, the weather is about to turn around, but it has been enjoyable. Since we were waiting on a tractor part, I did not get to take advantage of this weather to do any field work, but did stay busy. I visited/worked on two vegetable farms yesterday. These are very well run farms, whose owners [...]
Posted in Bees on Mar 6th, 2010
Well, not really. There have been little chickweed flowers, but those don’t count. The greens that were salad mix have started budding out, and the first ones have flowered (and have become “napini”). Bees love broccoli flowers, and these are related, so I pulled the plants, stuck them in a bucket of water, and took [...]
Posted in Vegetables on Mar 4th, 2010
I started planting seeds in the hoophouse February 4th. The soil is so cold that they have been VERY slow germinating – it has taken a month. But, at last: This is spinach – that on the left was seeded into the hoophouse soil on February 5th. The plant on the right was seeded into [...]
Posted in Vegetables on Mar 3rd, 2010
A very small seeder that was great for salad greens used to be available. By the time I was ready to buy it, it was no longer available. Johnny’s Seeds made it available this spring and I immediately bought one ($239). There is just one problem with it – getting excess seeds back into a [...]
Posted in Chickens, ducks, geese on Mar 1st, 2010
I was just referred to an excellent blog post by a poultry grower in Washington state explaining his costs. He is pricing out live birds, not broilers. Bottom line: his cost to raise an egg layer from chick to laying hen is $15. He explains it very well.