Birthday 3-0 was brought in with farm style and I was surprised with 15 Baby Australorps by my fabulous farmer-fiance. It was a fitting gift as the last flocks of chicks we adopted were bought on Chris's Birthday, so at least now we can remember when their b-days are! The To give some history, the breed originated from Australia and became popular here in the US during the 1930's. Known as some of the best layers - They hold the world record for egg laying. One hen topped the chart with 364 eggs in 365 days! They are a beautiful compact, black feathered bird, getting about 5-6 pounds. For now the babies look like little penguins and we have named the runt of the litter "happy feet". 
Too young to go outside, and for now their home consist of - Fresh water, warm heat lamp, chick feed, and layer of wood shavings in a cardboard box and they are happy peepers!
These are my other babies, all started from seeds first week of May, using soil blocking method. They are ready to graduate and have developed some great roots that make the blocks easy to handle.
The wheel in front of me is punching holes in the plastic, while I drop in the plants. Genius
Finally the last step - Watering with an organic fertilizer - basically a fish emulsion - stinky! We have been told that this will also prevent deer from eating the plants so hopefully they aren't joking about that. As the night ended, we watched as a family of deer were happily chomping in the corn field right across the road. This acre of land has alot of good road exposure, tons of bikers riding past and I could tell the neighboring farmers were really curious and probably dying to know what we were planting as they passed by in their trucks!
Ahhh....Dreams do come true!
Put in about 1280 plants in about 3 hours! I would say that is a huge success and major step. Now we are focusing on keep them happy with the drip irrigation and fish emulsion fertilizers.
One of the other breakthroughs of the weekend (there were alot!) was dumpling creating the chicken tractor. He's been a real maniac at home depot here lately. I am very thankful for his mad construction skills, the chicken tractor is such a relief not to constantly have to worry about the girls. Can't describe the feeling of panic when I am in the yard and cant find one of the girls. Well on friday, dumpling got a taste of what i experience when he let the girls out after he got home form work and realized one of them was missing. He found a big mess o feathers on the ground and we were both running round freaking out, but turns out she must have made it through being hit (by another red-tail hawk we figure) and hid in the woods. She turned up later that night much to our relief. The next day we went to home depot and got all light weight materials needed for the project.
It cost $44 and took him less than 2 hours to put together.
Hopefully it will keep the birds off our birds! Great design to constantly move around and keep the flock on fresh pasture everyday! Plus this contraption keeps them out of the freshly mulched beds and from tasting my tomatoes :) They dont seem to mind it at all and still scratch in the dirt looking for worms, bugs, as normal - and after the day was done - they had mowed down most of the clover in the area.
We used pvc pipe and netting was the same type used to keep birds off of fruit trees.
Too young to go outside, and for now their home consist of - Fresh water, warm heat lamp, chick feed, and layer of wood shavings in a cardboard box and they are happy peepers!
Many big events going down at the farm over the last two weeks! Dumpling finished his homemade invention - the tractor row planter. Saved us $1600, not to mention my back! Even found this cushy seat at the northern tool store and built a foot rest for maximum comfort gotta love him :). Note the tray on top for the plant trays to set upon.
These are my other babies, all started from seeds first week of May, using soil blocking method. They are ready to graduate and have developed some great roots that make the blocks easy to handle. 
The wheel in front of me is punching holes in the plastic, while I drop in the plants. Genius
Finally the last step - Watering with an organic fertilizer - basically a fish emulsion - stinky! We have been told that this will also prevent deer from eating the plants so hopefully they aren't joking about that. As the night ended, we watched as a family of deer were happily chomping in the corn field right across the road. This acre of land has alot of good road exposure, tons of bikers riding past and I could tell the neighboring farmers were really curious and probably dying to know what we were planting as they passed by in their trucks!
Ahhh....Dreams do come true! We have another batch started in the greenhouse and we will have another succession to plant in July, that the field will have fresh flowers for our wedding in October.
Put in about 1280 plants in about 3 hours! I would say that is a huge success and major step. Now we are focusing on keep them happy with the drip irrigation and fish emulsion fertilizers. 
One of the other breakthroughs of the weekend (there were alot!) was dumpling creating the chicken tractor. He's been a real maniac at home depot here lately. I am very thankful for his mad construction skills, the chicken tractor is such a relief not to constantly have to worry about the girls. Can't describe the feeling of panic when I am in the yard and cant find one of the girls. Well on friday, dumpling got a taste of what i experience when he let the girls out after he got home form work and realized one of them was missing. He found a big mess o feathers on the ground and we were both running round freaking out, but turns out she must have made it through being hit (by another red-tail hawk we figure) and hid in the woods. She turned up later that night much to our relief. The next day we went to home depot and got all light weight materials needed for the project. 
It cost $44 and took him less than 2 hours to put together.
Hopefully it will keep the birds off our birds! Great design to constantly move around and keep the flock on fresh pasture everyday! Plus this contraption keeps them out of the freshly mulched beds and from tasting my tomatoes :) They dont seem to mind it at all and still scratch in the dirt looking for worms, bugs, as normal - and after the day was done - they had mowed down most of the clover in the area.We used pvc pipe and netting was the same type used to keep birds off of fruit trees.
In other exciting news, here are a few pics from our visit to the Old Beach Farmers Market - the event happens every Sat morning, Near the oceanfront. We hope to be a vendor there next year and spoke with one of the reps that told us it is $22 to have a booth there! Nice! Definetly a niche for our eggs, honey, and farm flowers. Who knows, maybe we will have time to experiment with a few unique vegetables as well.
Yumm....
Fresh summer foods are finally here!
Fantastic job on the tractor row planter! Very, very cool! You definitely will NOT be lookin' like a fool without those plants in the ground, lol! Great idea also on the PVC chicken run, looks to be a nice inexpensive and lightweight way to move them around and protect them, I worry about hawks too when we get chicks, it seems we have a lot of them around here. I will definitely check you out when you get a booth at Old Beach Market for some fresh eggs, do you sell them now anywhere? I have just been getting them randomly from a Strawberry stand, and have even been known to get the Polyface eggs from the whole foods place at the Farmers Market, but would love to buy locally from someone I know! You have definitely been busy, great job!
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