August 27, 2020

Wow, Summer is almost over. My sweetheart has gone back to teacher meetings. Our college child has returned to classes. Our younger children start again next week.

Summer sort of started back in March when schools closed for Covid. There was still online school but by the end of May we had done some of our summer tasks done, like filling the wood shed. 

We have worked the Census this summer. Thankfully my sweethearts job alternated with mine so one of us was able to be home most the time. A few times our teenager was thrilled for the chance to earn money care giving for her younger sister. 

We still have a dead tree we took down that needs chopped up. I still hope to prep a new strawberry bed for next year, and turn over the old bed and prep it for other planting next year.

We were able to buy straw this year. It is great to have plenty for the chickens.

Our chicken buying adventure was just that, but we are happy with the 4 new hens and look forward to eggs from them. We also like our new rooster. Our Friends are going to keep one rooster and eat the others. We hope to get some Black Australorps and ISA Brown chicks next year, because they are really just our favorite hen type,  to add to our flock.  Hopefully we will have a good winter with the ladies and start strong in the Spring.  

I am grateful for the eggs we have been able to store for winter, not as much as we hoped for but glad for all we can do.

Tomatoes are starting to ripen so I am hopefully that we might get to can a few this year before it freezes.

We have been drying sunflowers and hope to do more, then we can feed the seeds to the chickens this winter.

I know many are struggling, I pray for them, but we have been very blessed this year.

August 14, 2020

Honeycomb

The bees were actively building comb where I did not want it so I took it away from them. There are traces of uncured honey in it so my daughters are thrilled for a little taste.

I love the clean light comb. I think it is so pretty.

I am glad the bees are actively building.

 

August 9th 

4, 5, 6

We are pretty sure someone messed up and mislabeled  our chicks, or is terrible at sexing chicks.

We think at least two, possible three, of our CouCou Marans were Roosters, we gave them to a friend. I am pretty sure two more of the same breed as "Rooster" are also Roosters. The Sickle shaped, colorful tail feathers are almost as telling as a Crow. UGH.

The good news is that it means we will get rid of enough to be able to do ISA Brown and Black Australorp chicks in the spring. Two breeds we have come to really like. the ISA's are super friendly and the Australorps are pretty and good Mama hens.

In the mean time we will hope Rooster and Kylo don't hurt each other and are content with their four hens each...

September 5,

7, 8????

Seriously 7 Roosters from a 1 in 10 chance. Sadly the last two were some of our favorite colored ones. 

Someone on Craigslist said they had a similar problem this year.  A Friend took all the extra roosters for us and is going to keep one for them, one for a neighbor, and likely eat the rest.  We found someone with  4 one year old hens on Craigslist, we plan to pick them up Monday so then we would have 10 hens for our 2 roosters. We were worried with only 6 hens out there and 2 roosters they would fight too much and I would get hurt. The new hens are suppose to be golden sexlinks, basically look like our ISA Brown that we really like. Hopefully they will integrate well.

I was thinking today, for people with just pets the number of chickens that have come and gone here in the past 2 years it must be crazy. It is more than we expected, some were beyond our control, but some were just part of our learning process and some are part of the nature of chickens.

We have enjoyed the ride