No more Census

I know it's rare to see a couple of posts so close together, but I have thought I would like to post more often, maybe twice per week.

I turned in my stuff from the part-time job I had since April, counting people in the census.  If that sounds like a simple job, let me assure you that there is no such thing as a "simple task" when the government gets involved.  I had to draw maps, navigate roads with my GPS, and try to get people to do something that has no direct benefit to them.  In the end, it was a job, I worked as hard and efficiently as I could, and it's over.  The money certainly was well spent, and should pay off quite nicely when I harvest my garden and chickens!

Speaking of chickens, I haven't had any "casualties" for about 1 week now, and this is day #2 outside.  Verdict is = they love being outside!  They have been wandering quite a bit further than yesterday, and then back inside to eat, back outside and so forth.  I've been watching, and they are eating some plants, but not much grass.  They seem to like broadleaf plants like dandelion, and they were clustered around a depression in the ground quite a bit.  Maybe there were bugs down there, couldn't tell.  They seem quite a bit tougher, even ranging outside on a chilly day like today.  I may stop running heat at night, after tonite.  It seems useless if they don't need it.

GOOD BOOKS

I've been reading a lot lately, and listening to books on tape/CD/MP3.  I started listening to Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, and I highly recommend it.  If you can read that book, and feel like throwing yourself at the feet of the cross for mercy, you probably aren't a believer.  If you're not a believer in Christ, you should be.  I know that's blunt and not very tolerant, but it's the truth.  The Messiah came to call all men to Himself, and that means you.  Without him, Plan B is you face complete destruction...

Have a great week, enjoy the summer heat!

Summer rains

It's almost the end of July...and already my thoughts turn to winter.  I can't help it, it's in my nature to think about things to come, almost to the point that I can't really enjoy what I'm doing!  I have a LOT to do before winter, but I've gotten a lot done so far.

CHICKEN UPDATE

My little drumsticks turned three weeks old yesterday!  We had a party, with balloons and a clown.  Well, actually, I just let them outside for the first time, into the pen I put up with electric netting.  I then cut a hole into the side of the shed, almost big enough to crawl out of.  It took about an hour, but eventually about half of them went outside, and started eating!  I don't think there were too many bugs to eat, but they were eating grass and dandelions and picking and scratching away.  Once in a while, one of them would poke through the fence, and get a painful shock, which was somewhat entertaining.  Irritatingly, many of the birds are small enough to actually slip through the fence at the bottom!  They usually come back through right away though, and by nightfall, all of the birds were curled up inside the shed.

My next project will be to create a movable shelter that will be situated inside the penned area.  The chickens will sleep inside that, but it will only have three closed in sides, to deflect the wind and most of the rain.  I'm counting on the fence to keep any predators out!  I saw a pretty neat little design using cattle panels arched over a frame, and covered in a tarp.  It would take about an hour or two to whip up, and cost very little.  It will also be lightweight, which is great, since I have to drag it about on my own!

Here are some pics of the three week old birds.  Note that they are almost completely feathered out.

This one has got color on his comb, which really make him look "chickeny".

This is the penned in area.  I have a couple of solar panels (yes, that one in the photo is actually cracked) and the birds were sheltering under it during the hot part of the day yesterday.  Then, when it cooled down, they resumed their hunting for stuff to eat.

This is the somewhat messy setup for the fence.  Obviously that's a car battery on the bottom, connected to a trickle charger, and also hooked to the energizer on the bottom rung of the ladder.  Since it's raining right now, I stacked everything on the battery, and put a rubbermaid tub upside-down over it to keep the rain off.  My eventual plan is to take a small solar panel that I just happen to have lying around, and connect that to the battery instead of a charger.  The fence does not require much power, and most people use much smaller batteries with no trouble.  This one was free, and free is always good!

GARDEN UPDATE

With all the talk about chickens, it's easy to forget that I also have a massive garden growing as well.  Some of the plants could use a nitrogen feeding, maybe some compost tea or manure tea, but the peas are doing fantastic!  I've picked about two buckets worth of peas since the 19th of July, and I know that they will keep producing till the middle of August.  What I'm not sure about, is if there will enough available at one time to sell...the beans are not doing much (they need some feeding) and the carrots aren't ready yet.  I will be planting a second crop of peas, which will hopefully produce during September, which is about the time that I plan to start harvesting chickens.  With chickens, carrots, peas, and maybe beans, I will have something to actually sell at market!

MILESTONES

I will be thirty years old in 9 days, and my tenth wedding anniversary is six days after that!  Yes, that means I had just turned twenty when I got married.  I was ready, and I have never, ever regretted that decision.  Now, with two kids I finally realize that despite all of the hard work on the farm, the good job, and the relative success, I will have utterly failed if I cannot pass my knowledge down to the next generation.  To train them, and love them, is enough to fill a lifetime if I never did anything else.  I constantly tell them how important it is for them to learn from me, and never a day goes by where I don't spend some time playing or reading, or doing something that they enjoy.  Even my son gets grumpy if he doesn't get some Daddy time!

I hope all of you will recognize the same God-given task.  Nothing you do will matter, if you do not properly train your children!  

First peas!

It's been an interesting week!
Stampede is over (THANK GOD), it's HOT outside, and things are going very, very well here on the homestead!

CHICKENS
I'm happy to report that no more chickens have died!  They are getting pretty big too, and starting to really feather out.  They're also eating more than ever too, I'm going through about 30 pounds a day, easy!  I'm planning to cut a door in the side of the shed, so I can let them out during the day into a fenced area.  I've already got the fence energizer, so I'm ready to roll!

I also picked the first few pea pods today, although they were a bit underripe yet.  Still tasty though!
I should have some pics of the chickens on my next update.

Chicken update

It has been about 5 days since we got 400 chicks delivered to us, and I figured enough has happened for an update.

First, the expected points:  Three more birds died last night, probably smothered by the others in a quest to keep warm.  I do have a fairly powerful heater running, but for some reason, a good bunch of the birds like to pile up in one corner, quite far away from the heater.  That's where I found the bodies.  They are piled again like that tonite, even though I chased them away, they just went back so we might have some more bodies again tomo.  Not much I can do, I will be picking up a second heater in the next few days, to run overnight.
Now, the unexpected:  During the day, the birds don't seem to be as sensitive to cold as I had thought.  The tempurature is nowhere near the "37 C" that pretty much everyone agrees it should be, but the chicks aren't piling up against each other, except at night, and they run around and seem quite active.  I suppose the sunlight helps, but most of them are not in the direct sun, and it was also quite windy yesterday, so I guess maybe they're a bit hardier than most people think?
I thought a lot about the upcoming website, the webstore, and how I'd like to conduct business.  I will of course be selling at the farmer's market, along with whatever veggies I have left at that time, but I think having a preorder option on the webstore would be great as well.  I'll just come into town on a predesignated day, and you the customer will simply come and pick your product up!  I might even deliver for larger orders, maybe 5 birds or more.
I can hardly wait to taste the difference in these birds, for all my life I've been eating garbage chicken raised on garbage feed.  No more!

OTHER

Have you ever had a day that you just couldn't find motivation to do ANYTHING, even though you have a zillion things you could do?  Well I have, but today was not one of those.  I replaced the outlet for the garden hose, cleaned up the yard, took the garbage to the dump, got a tank of house-water, and replenished the water in my batteries (waaaay overdue).  And now I'm blogging.
I will almost certainly have another post within the week, I do have a LOT of weeding to do in the garden, but the chicks have become almost an invisible routine.  I'm thinking now that I will probably next year buy some bucket calves, and put them up too.  I need some cattle, but they are quite costly.  Not like chicks that cost $1.50, even weaned calves are around $500 each, and it takes a year to get them to market weight.  It is worth it though, grass fed beef is worth it's weight in silver!

Sunset Meadows buys it's first livestock!

It's officially summer, and it's been about 21 days since my last post...to say that things have changed and I've been a bit busy would be like saying "it's been a little warm".  It's 30 C today, and not a cloud in sight!  I have been talking for months about all the things I want to do this year, and now I can tell you, we ARE doing them!

CHICKENS

My most exiting project to date, we just came into possession of 400 baby chicks!  As you can see in the remaining two pictures, they are living in a large-ish sized shed that I just finished building the day before they arrived.  I have two breeds, Red Sussex Cox, and I can't remember the full name of the other.  They're crosses, but they're dual purpose breeds, good for eggs and meat, and they are they type that will forage some of their own food.  That was VERY important for me.

The chicks arrived yesterday just as I got home from working the night shift.  I zipped back into town, expected several enormous boxes which I would need my wife's SUV to carry.  Imagine my surprise when I was given 4 boxes, each about the size of a very large tray of summer fruit, about 1.5 feet x 2.5 feet.  I could have carried them in my car easily.

I brought them home, and frantically tried to finish setting up the brooder heater.  The heater did not come with the proper fittings to connect to a propane tank, and I've been trying to figure out the best way to do it. Of course, the heater did not work properly, there was a leak in one of the fittings.  I abandoned it, and got the chickens out of the box.  They were packed in pretty tight, but they were so very tiny and light, I was able to scoop out 5 or 6 at a time.  I realized that they might be able to slip under the door, so I had to create a barrier that they couldn't jump over.

After a few hours, I noticed that the chicks were trying to cram together in the few little beams of sunlight streaming into the shed, and I realized that they were cold.  I ran to town, and bought the heater you see on the top of the propane tank in the picture below.  I had it tilted as you see, facing down to the dirt of the shed, a mistake which cost me 3 crushed chicks overnight...

Of course, I have secured it now.  The three dead birds joined one more that was crushed by accident earlier to make 4 casualties, which out of 400 birds isn't too terrible!  I am expecting more deaths, but it would be super amazing if all the birds survived!

My daughter, who initially did not seem to interested in the idea of chickens, has de facto been made the guardian of these tiny birds.  She spent about 4 hours in the shed yesterday, and has given them water, food, and entertainment.  She got up at six to check on them, since I was at work overnight.

The chicks will spend about a month in the shed, give or take, and then will graduate to the great outdoors, where they will have all of nature to eat, chase and peck at!  My hope is that 50% or better of their diet will come from natural sources, giving them a tremendous nutrient and taste advantage over the "normal" grocery store chicken.

The shed with the non-functioning heater.

Black and yellow!  So many chicks....

My baby boy's first exposure to farm animals.  He got a bit panicky, but calmed down quickly.  The birds hopped on his legs, and he laughed!

GARDEN

Since it is so very, very hot outside, the garden has stalled a bit, but all of my plants have germinated and look pretty healthy!  I haven't had a lot of time to weed, and I have neglected watering terribly, but they have held up quite nicely even so.  I am working nights right now, which means sleeping all morning, and very little time to do much else except eat.  I have an hour until I have to leave, which means I will be watering as soon as I finish this blog post!

OTHER STUFF

My brother and his wife are moving to another town (boooooooo), so unfortunately we won't see as much of them as I'd like.  They've been some of the most supportive people in our lives, and I wish them the best in whatever they end up doing!

My employment with the Census has been extended, surprisingly, and I will now be looking for a different survey from people in my area.  Since I have 7 days off coming up, that will fill part of my time, and earn a bit of extra cash to pay for these chicks, and a root canal I unfortunately had to get the other day...

If you like this blog, let me know by commenting. I will try and respond to all comments, good or bad.  My general idea is to have you journey with me, experiencing the good, and the bad of what we are trying to do out here!  

Oh, and belated happy 4th of July...