Start making your plans to visit the farm, and bring your ice-cream pails, because the berries are ripening. I picked a handful of black raspberries and mulberries yesterday, by next weekend we will be swimming in them.
We are going to be selling some berries this year, but there is no charge to come and pick them yourself, please feel free to do so.
Speaking of selling, we are now affiliated with LocalHarvest.org as a means of contacting even more potential purchasers. You can see our listing here:
http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M14200
You can also do a search and find other sources of fresh local food in your own area.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Lots of work ahead
We are just starting to see signs of ripening raspberries, mulberries, and blackberries. When they all get ripe it is going to be a LOT of berry picking, the raspberry bushes are absolutely astonishing in their bounty. I guess that's what happens when you clear out the old growth and prune them correctly. We are going to need friends and family to come over and pick berries too, there is no way we could eat all of the berries we are seeing grow right now.
In the garden my experiment in growing pole beans and corn next to each other is not working. The corn is growing too slowly to provide support for the bean vines. Next year I will try again but plant the beans 2 weeks after the corn, should be enough of a head start. I picked all of the radishes out of the garden yesterday, most of them were bigger than my thumb and wow, were they hot! Nikki and I are each giving them away to co-workers, there are just too many. That's what happens when the seed packet falls halfway out of your pocket and you unknowingly plant radishes throughout 1/4 of your garden.
All of the animals are doing well. The ducks are already big enough that I'm thinking of whacking a couple of them next week. They really are such a nuisance and so much work that I can't wait to be rid of them. Who would have thought that 7 ducks would be harder to care for and messier than 2 pigs?
In the garden my experiment in growing pole beans and corn next to each other is not working. The corn is growing too slowly to provide support for the bean vines. Next year I will try again but plant the beans 2 weeks after the corn, should be enough of a head start. I picked all of the radishes out of the garden yesterday, most of them were bigger than my thumb and wow, were they hot! Nikki and I are each giving them away to co-workers, there are just too many. That's what happens when the seed packet falls halfway out of your pocket and you unknowingly plant radishes throughout 1/4 of your garden.
All of the animals are doing well. The ducks are already big enough that I'm thinking of whacking a couple of them next week. They really are such a nuisance and so much work that I can't wait to be rid of them. Who would have thought that 7 ducks would be harder to care for and messier than 2 pigs?
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Success
A while back I noted Nikki's comment that she would believe in growing vegetables from seed when she had her first salad completely from the garden. Well ,last night we had one. Butter lettuce, mesclun greens, radishes, peas, green onions and baby beets. It was great!
I took a few more pictures of the critters yesterday, they are growing so fast! The ducks are losing their down and feathers are just starting to show up, I bought them a kiddie pool to splash around in and they really enjoy it, there are pictures in the 'Poultry' album. The turkeys have been driving me batty, they are constantly escaping. They don't go far, they just sit outside the coop and yelp to their friends inside. But trying to keep track of them is a job. This morning I was cleaning out the duck's area and turned around to find 5 turkeys calmly walking around in the grass outside. So I caught them one by one and put them back in their enclosure and got back to the ducks.Two minutes later I look down and there are 2 turkeys standing in front of my shoes. So I put them back on their side of the coop and sat Cash right outside the gap between the fence and the building while I went down to the barn to get some fencing to close it up. I walk back up to the coop and Cash is still sitting there, but there are 3 turkeys outside the fence walking around him! I got the gap closed up and they were all still inside after going down to take care of the pigs, so I guess it worked.
A few new pictures of the pigs are in the 'Pigs' album at the link, they are growing fast too. I have the one picture of me with Lunch tucked under my arm that was taken just a few weeks ago, I don't think I could hold her up with one arm anymore, and I'm not sure I could pick Breakfast up at all.
The pic at the top is "Smarty", the bronze turkey. It looks like we have 4 different heritage breeds of turkey, I have my suspicions about which breeds they are but I'm waiting for more feathers before I commit to anything.
Monday, June 19, 2006
A sick pig
I went down to the barn Saturday morning to feed and water the pigs and noticed right away that Lunch wasn't interested in eating. Normally both of the pigs are crowding me as soon as I walk in the corral, looking for their food and a scratch behind the ears, but Lunch was still laying down in the barn. I tried offering her a pail of milk and when she wasn't even interested in that I started to worry. Saturday was a really hot day, so I hoped it was just the sudden heat wave that was making her listless. I made a big mud wallow in the back corner of the barn where it is always cooler and sprayed both pigs down with the hose every couple of hours. I also bought a vitamin and electrolyte mix to add to their water, basically Gatorade for pigs, and by 2 in the afternoon she was eating and walking around, by nightfall she appeared to have made a full recovery and has been fine since. That was a huge relief.
The birds are still doing fine, the ducks just keep getting bigger and bigger, I expect some of them to be at the 3 pound mark this week, and the mess they make has grown right along with them. It doesn't help that they appear to have no interest in being outdoors at all, even though they are free to move out into an enclosed pen at any time. The turkeys, in contrast, spend most of their time outside. I have the turkeys trained to come inside or outside at my whistle, another point against their supposed brainlessness. Yesterday was flight training day for the turkeys as they took turns making test flights, some of them about 12' long, up and down one of the enclosures.
The garden is still thriving, we had some friends over for dinner on Saturday evening and I forced them to take radishes home with them, I think we pulled just over 2 dozen giant radishes out of the ground that day.
The birds are still doing fine, the ducks just keep getting bigger and bigger, I expect some of them to be at the 3 pound mark this week, and the mess they make has grown right along with them. It doesn't help that they appear to have no interest in being outdoors at all, even though they are free to move out into an enclosed pen at any time. The turkeys, in contrast, spend most of their time outside. I have the turkeys trained to come inside or outside at my whistle, another point against their supposed brainlessness. Yesterday was flight training day for the turkeys as they took turns making test flights, some of them about 12' long, up and down one of the enclosures.
The garden is still thriving, we had some friends over for dinner on Saturday evening and I forced them to take radishes home with them, I think we pulled just over 2 dozen giant radishes out of the ground that day.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Garden explosion
I don't know what changed, but the garden has just gone crazy this week. Things that didn't seem to be growing well or getting any bigger have just gone berserk. Picked a few pea pods earlier in the week, the second radishes are already huge, kohlrabi is starting to swell and the tomatoes are really putting out some serious vegetative growth. I'm having fun, but still waiting for the first big setback, I just know the insects, raccoons,rabbits and deer are lurking.
The ducks are driving me crazy. I want to put them outside due to the horrible mess they make inside but they still have no feathers and I don't know how they would do. But they are huge, some of them must be close to 2 pounds already. The turkeys have plenty of feathers and I think could go outside, but some of them are still small enough that they could step through the chain link fence.
Speaking of the turkeys, their reputation for stupidity is undeserved from what I have seen so far. They are friendly and don't seem to be any dumber than the ducks are. I opened the door to the outside pen for a little while yesterday and they figured out how to go in and out right away. At this point I am a big fan of the turkeys and am not sure I would bother with ducks again. Pretty much the exact opposite of how I thought I would feel about the birds. I am also encouraged by the prices that people get for fresh turkeys around Thanksgiving, which are much higher than I thought .
The pigs are still pigs, spoiled ones. I was reading about how other people's pigs devour grass clippings, mine won't touch them. Corn is disdained unless it has a beer or milk mixed in with it. They will dump everything out of their feed bowls to get the dinner scraps out and then ignore everything else until they get hungry later. I have cut back on their feed a little to encourage them to get out in the pasture more often instead of laying around the barn all the time, seems to be working.
The ducks are driving me crazy. I want to put them outside due to the horrible mess they make inside but they still have no feathers and I don't know how they would do. But they are huge, some of them must be close to 2 pounds already. The turkeys have plenty of feathers and I think could go outside, but some of them are still small enough that they could step through the chain link fence.
Speaking of the turkeys, their reputation for stupidity is undeserved from what I have seen so far. They are friendly and don't seem to be any dumber than the ducks are. I opened the door to the outside pen for a little while yesterday and they figured out how to go in and out right away. At this point I am a big fan of the turkeys and am not sure I would bother with ducks again. Pretty much the exact opposite of how I thought I would feel about the birds. I am also encouraged by the prices that people get for fresh turkeys around Thanksgiving, which are much higher than I thought .
The pigs are still pigs, spoiled ones. I was reading about how other people's pigs devour grass clippings, mine won't touch them. Corn is disdained unless it has a beer or milk mixed in with it. They will dump everything out of their feed bowls to get the dinner scraps out and then ignore everything else until they get hungry later. I have cut back on their feed a little to encourage them to get out in the pasture more often instead of laying around the barn all the time, seems to be working.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Power outage
We lost power at the farm for a while last night, the funny thing was that neither Nikki nor I realized it until I went to make sure the birds had enough feed and noticed that their heat lamps were off. So at nightfall we built a fire in the firepit and roasted some marshmallows and got a surprise fireworks show from a summer festival in Port Washington. It was 15 miles away but we still had a decent view. Then the fireflies put on a smaller display above the pasture, it was a fun evening.
I've thrown everything I read about raising birds right out the window. They were supposed to stay in their bins for about 5 weeks and I was supposed to carefully regulate the temperature, decreasing it by 5 degrees per week. Well, I decided that was nonsense. The ducks were getting so big they were walking all over each other in there and the turkeys were pecking at the sides of the bin in frustration. So I separated the coop into 2 areas, threw some straw on the floor and hung their heat lamps from the ceiling and they are much happier. The turkeys alternate between resting under the lamp and making mad wing-flapping dashes all about. The ducks are still making a big mess, but they have a larger area to do it in. One of the ducklings has lost it's 'peep', it now makes a sort of croaking, strangled attempt at a quack. Still no feathers on the ducks but the poults are feathered over half of their bodies.
We had the last of the radishes from the first planting last night, more will be ready in about a week. I had to start pinching off blossoms from the tomato plants, which breaks my heart because I really want tomatoes but I keep telling myself it's for the greater good. Also took off a few blossoms from the peppers, the Hungarian Wax peppers had already gotten a good start on me so I let them go. The asparagus came up and skipped the edible stage and went directly to 3' tall fully seeded stalks, so we missed out on that.
I've thrown everything I read about raising birds right out the window. They were supposed to stay in their bins for about 5 weeks and I was supposed to carefully regulate the temperature, decreasing it by 5 degrees per week. Well, I decided that was nonsense. The ducks were getting so big they were walking all over each other in there and the turkeys were pecking at the sides of the bin in frustration. So I separated the coop into 2 areas, threw some straw on the floor and hung their heat lamps from the ceiling and they are much happier. The turkeys alternate between resting under the lamp and making mad wing-flapping dashes all about. The ducks are still making a big mess, but they have a larger area to do it in. One of the ducklings has lost it's 'peep', it now makes a sort of croaking, strangled attempt at a quack. Still no feathers on the ducks but the poults are feathered over half of their bodies.
We had the last of the radishes from the first planting last night, more will be ready in about a week. I had to start pinching off blossoms from the tomato plants, which breaks my heart because I really want tomatoes but I keep telling myself it's for the greater good. Also took off a few blossoms from the peppers, the Hungarian Wax peppers had already gotten a good start on me so I let them go. The asparagus came up and skipped the edible stage and went directly to 3' tall fully seeded stalks, so we missed out on that.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Pictures
I finally got a few more pictures uploaded from this slow old computer on dial-up. You can see how the garden is growing and how big all of the animals are getting. I think the ducks are doubling in size every day. Above is a close-up of Lunch.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Everything is growing
Everything is growing and getting bigger on the farm, except for me. I've lost about 15 lbs already this spring and I'm going to have to buy some new clothes.
The ducks and turkeys are thriving, I've been pulling them out into the sunlight when it's warm. It is supposed to take 5-6 weeks of gradually reducing the heat in the brooders from 90° before you can let them run free, but they seem to get used to cooler temperatures faster than that. I'd say it won't be more than 3 weeks before I'll put them in their pens and give them the option of coming inside under a heat lamp if they need to. I've gotten faster at cleaning their houses so it isn't quite the chore it was before. When I'm cleaning out the brooders I put them into cardboard boxes, this morning an adventurous duckling leapt up and sat on the edge of the duck box and then flapped it's little wings and jumped into the box of turkeys. I guess it wanted to see what they were eating.. The ducklings have also had their first swim. I used a paint roller tray so that they could walk up the inclined surface easily if they wanted to get out of the water. It was fun to watch them take turns jumping in and out of the water. The turkeys' wings have lost their down and are now fully feathered. Every now and then one will start running and flapping it's little wings, no successful take-offs yet.
The pigs are growing, as well. I'm guessing that they are both in the 60-70 lb range right now. Breakfast is still ornery but seems to be calming down a little, maybe it is just adolescence.
The garden is still doing well. All of the soybeans, pole beans and corn have sprouted, we are almost out of the first planting of radishes, the second planting should be ready in about 2 weeks. We had guests for dinner on Sunday and had a salad made exclusively from the garden, and I tossed some potato wedges with olive oil, sea salt, and fresh garden herbs and roasted them to accompany a beer-can chicken from the grill.
In wildlife news, we now have a rooster pheasant strolling around the yard and squawking. He walked within 30 feet of us sitting outside on Sunday. Haven't seen the fox again, but there was another wild turkey sighting Saturday morning .
The ducks and turkeys are thriving, I've been pulling them out into the sunlight when it's warm. It is supposed to take 5-6 weeks of gradually reducing the heat in the brooders from 90° before you can let them run free, but they seem to get used to cooler temperatures faster than that. I'd say it won't be more than 3 weeks before I'll put them in their pens and give them the option of coming inside under a heat lamp if they need to. I've gotten faster at cleaning their houses so it isn't quite the chore it was before. When I'm cleaning out the brooders I put them into cardboard boxes, this morning an adventurous duckling leapt up and sat on the edge of the duck box and then flapped it's little wings and jumped into the box of turkeys. I guess it wanted to see what they were eating.. The ducklings have also had their first swim. I used a paint roller tray so that they could walk up the inclined surface easily if they wanted to get out of the water. It was fun to watch them take turns jumping in and out of the water. The turkeys' wings have lost their down and are now fully feathered. Every now and then one will start running and flapping it's little wings, no successful take-offs yet.
The pigs are growing, as well. I'm guessing that they are both in the 60-70 lb range right now. Breakfast is still ornery but seems to be calming down a little, maybe it is just adolescence.
The garden is still doing well. All of the soybeans, pole beans and corn have sprouted, we are almost out of the first planting of radishes, the second planting should be ready in about 2 weeks. We had guests for dinner on Sunday and had a salad made exclusively from the garden, and I tossed some potato wedges with olive oil, sea salt, and fresh garden herbs and roasted them to accompany a beer-can chicken from the grill.
In wildlife news, we now have a rooster pheasant strolling around the yard and squawking. He walked within 30 feet of us sitting outside on Sunday. Haven't seen the fox again, but there was another wild turkey sighting Saturday morning .
Friday, June 02, 2006
Morning chores!
It just hit me , I have morning chores. I'm going to have to start getting up a little earlier.
This morning I headed down to the barn to feed and water the pigs. Breakfast was even bossier/crabbier than usual. I can't wait to eat that annoying pig!
After that it's up to the coop. First I checked the temperature of the brooders, it was a little chilly, I'll have to lower the IR bulbs a little bit in the evenings to compensate for the cool nights. Then on to cleaning out the brooders.
Let me tell you, ducklings are smelly, messy creatures. They fling water and feed all over the place and their droppings are quite foul smelling. I would rather clean out the pig barn any day. The turkey brooder was a piece of cake compared to the duck's. The ducks also seem to eat a lot more, but it may be that half of their feed is flung against the walls. It is always party time in the duckling brooder, I guess.
Next on the list was checking on the garden and giving it a good drink of water. We had a little rain last night so it didn't take as long as it might have. All in all it's about 30 minutes of work.
This morning I headed down to the barn to feed and water the pigs. Breakfast was even bossier/crabbier than usual. I can't wait to eat that annoying pig!
After that it's up to the coop. First I checked the temperature of the brooders, it was a little chilly, I'll have to lower the IR bulbs a little bit in the evenings to compensate for the cool nights. Then on to cleaning out the brooders.
Let me tell you, ducklings are smelly, messy creatures. They fling water and feed all over the place and their droppings are quite foul smelling. I would rather clean out the pig barn any day. The turkey brooder was a piece of cake compared to the duck's. The ducks also seem to eat a lot more, but it may be that half of their feed is flung against the walls. It is always party time in the duckling brooder, I guess.
Next on the list was checking on the garden and giving it a good drink of water. We had a little rain last night so it didn't take as long as it might have. All in all it's about 30 minutes of work.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
We've got birds!
We received a phone call at 6:15 this morning, "Hi! This is the post office and we've got a box full of peepers for you!" So I hopped in the car and went to pick them up. It was a small cardboard box with lots of holes and various small bills and beaks popped in and out of them on the drive home, accompanied by a lot of peeps and chirps.
I finished the second brooder box last weekend so everyone had their own home right away. We got 7 birds that are definitely baby ducklings and 9 more that are little chicks or turkey poults or some combination thereof. The ducks took to their new home right away and started eating and drinking with a fury. The turkeys were listless at first, but once I got them underneath the heat lamp for a while they perked right up. I dipped their beaks in the water and then in the feed and that seemed to help them figure out where everything was and when I left they were merrily dashing around and running over each other.
I tried to take pictures this morning but I couldn't convince them to hold still long enough. I'll try again this afternoon when I get home.
I finished the second brooder box last weekend so everyone had their own home right away. We got 7 birds that are definitely baby ducklings and 9 more that are little chicks or turkey poults or some combination thereof. The ducks took to their new home right away and started eating and drinking with a fury. The turkeys were listless at first, but once I got them underneath the heat lamp for a while they perked right up. I dipped their beaks in the water and then in the feed and that seemed to help them figure out where everything was and when I left they were merrily dashing around and running over each other.
I tried to take pictures this morning but I couldn't convince them to hold still long enough. I'll try again this afternoon when I get home.
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