EGGS!!

On Wednesday of this week Chris discovered the first 2 eggs in the cabinet coop! How eggciting!!! :) It was 5 months and 1 day since they were born.

So far we have gotten 1 or two every morning after that.

Here are some pictures.

Also to compared the storebought ones - they are smaller with darker yolks. The farm grown is the one on the left, the storebought is the one on the right.

SnowStorm at the farm - Jan 30th 2010!

Blizzard 2010...

Woke up this morning to white powdery snow. Here are a few of the shots I took this

morning when i went out to feed the animals.

My favorite shot is of the chicken coop in the snow!

The swamp

They werent quite sure what to do with this snow, they cant scratch in the snow!

Kitty loves to follow anyone walking around the farm. After a few yards he started meowing! I think his paws weren't used to it.

The garden, greenhouse and pin oak tree

Snow covered garden










The front entrance.

In the chicken stall. Window stays open for the girls to let some sunlight in.

Goat up to her knees in snow for once she was quiet, guess she wasnt sure what was going on!

The girls were given the option to go outside for awhile today, They decided they would rather stay in the stall

Found some cute bird tracks, looks like a "hopper"

The hens red combs look pretty against the wintery background.

It was so quiet standing here taking a picture of this birdhouse, all i could hear was the snow falling and woodpeckers in the woods, tapping on the trees. Glad I got to take some photos, supposed to keep snowing here until tonight, expecting a total of 8".

Beekeeping Class 101

Dumpling and I spent the weekend with the Tidewaters Beekeepers Association. They are a friendly bunch of local experts that host an annual short course class every Jan just for bee-ginners.

At $20 per ticket it was really a great value, we even got a $10 book, beginners workbook, and lunch with the experts! There were about 75-100 people there, and the experienced members set up booths to discuss certain topics like, bee-hive supplies, honey extraction, pests and diseases of the hive, and introducing your bees into the hive.

There are alot of things to know about beekeeping!! We ordered 2 batches of bees which we will get in March/April.

At first glance you would think that you just get a hive, throw in some bees and come out a few months later to a hive full of honey....ohh noo. It is quite a hobby to have and you really must know what you are doing. Really everyone starting out should have a mentor. This is someone who has been keeping bees for along time and is willing to let you come out to their bee-yard and help them when they are out checking on the hive.

Why is it so important to know what you are doing?

There is only 1 queen bee in each hive and If you dont keep the hive a hospitable place for her, then she will seek a better place to live...and the entire colony will follow her . The bees will swarm right out of the hive and search out a new home - never to be seen again. And with a 3-lb colony of bees costing about $80-$100, that would suck!

I would like to do some bee-ginners videos that we can post on here/you tube to give people an idea of what it takes to manage a hive as we learn about the hobby ourselves!

According to the guys at TBA - we should expect about 8 gallons of honey from our 2 hives, if we give them everything they need to set up a colony and supplement a good nectar flow. Chris and I surprized each other and purchased the same hives for each other this christmas (creepy!). They are english hives with a copper top, very decorative for the B&B. Chris wants to eventually build a top bar hive which alot of people in the group prefer. Apparently the top bars (as opposed to the classic langstrom-style hive) is easier to manage. One thing is for sure - there are alot of opinions in the group about the right way to do things, or preferred methods.

Check us here soon for more details! If you are interested about beekeeping you would be wise to take a trip to the local library and gather a few books on the subject. Also check out your local beekeeping assocation that hosts monthly meetings - there is alot to know and a whole new language / terminology you will have to learn and it is better to have a grasp on so you can understand the concepts and know what tools are required for the hobby. These books have been our favorite so far....

Chicken Update & Future Flower Farm Site - The Front Acre

The weather has been crummy here, windy, rainy and cold. Since we lost one of our chickens earlier this month (we figure it was a free dinner for a red-tailed hawk) we have been a little reluctant to let the rest of the girls go out free ranging without us watching over them.

With that being said, we know the girls were probably getting tired of being in their small coop, so Chris and I spent a saturday afternoon moving items out from one of the stalls so we could make a "chicken barn" out of one of the former horse stall.

They seem very content there, with room to stretch their legs and wings. To make it even more like home, Chris used his handyman skills to convert some of the old cabinets that were hanging low on the wall, into a new chicken coop and roost! Check out the pictures, I think he did a very creative thing with that recycling idea.

Well even though we are 18+" over our normal rainfall for the year, we are using the foul weather as a time to go to the drawing board with new ideas for the bed and breakfast. After doing tons of internet research and visiting a few local farms, we are toying with the idea of turning the front field into a small cut flower farm. We already have a great head start with alot of the equiptment needed....Dad left us the tractor and commercial grade tiller for us and a previous employer left us 2 huge greenhouses, 1 of which we have already installed.

We are looking forward to documenting the progress on this venture as it seems to be a great match for our backgrounds - Chris's background with having a landscaping business and my masters in plant biology, we are hoping it will compliment our interest and be a great draw to our B&B guests.

I have included some pictures of different angles of the property that can serve as some great "before" pictures, (taken Dec. 27th, 2009). As you can tell the front acre has some awesome road frontage, so having flower farm in bloom will make a spectacular entrance for our B&B guests' arrival. Also, the front acre is the highest elevation on the property, with the best potential for hosting plants.

Rainy Week Comes To An End

Sept. 13th 2009

Its been raining here....a lot. So much that we couldnt even let the girls out to check out their new surroundings. Where Chris tilled up the garden looks like the only thing we can plant is minnows! Finally on Sunday the sun peaked out from behind the clouds long enough for me to let the chicks out of the coop. I think i now know where they got the saying "I'm feeling cooped up"

Its amazing how much they have grown in only 3 weeks. They have already gotten real feathers and the fluff of chickhood is fading away.

Even their feet have gotten big and yellow.

The goats are starting to get used to the hens being around and I am not worried about them trampling them anymore.

Although they are about 4 times the size as they were as day old chicks, still They cant take being out of the coop for more than an hour, as a breeze gets them chilled and they start to huddle together to try and stay warm.

Since Chris is recovering from surgery this weekend (poor baby!!!!) . I am looking at things to do to keep our spirits up and us motivated to keep the eye on the prize - moving out to the farm with the chicks.

We've been thumbing through seed catalogs and coming home with piles of books on gardening and composting from the library. Last weekend Chris had the garden all tilled up and ready to go. Then he made a trip up to West Virginia last week and picked up all the fencing we needed to get our garden up and going. He also made a pit stop at a few Farm Supply Stores too and brought home 2 new magazines that are way cool that we have to subscribe to: urban farmer and hobby farm magazine. http://www.urbanfarmer.com/

For today, besides taking the chicks out for a walk, I picked out a little project I can do that takes minimal Skill that was highlighted in both magazines - Creating a composting worm farm.

It only needs a few ingredients and the worm castings are superior garden fertilizer.

If you want to try one at home (or in your garage) here is how you too can have your own worm farm!

Rubbermaid container

Newspaper (to set on the bottom of the container)

Dirt

Compost (table scraps/egg shells/old leaves etc)

Drill - to make air holes in the container

and of course

WORMS!

We had some leftover bait worms from a prior fishing trip that were still in the garage fridge and

I am sure they were more than happy to be transplanted out of their small little container.

I mixed in some chicken manure and wood shavings from the coop so they will have plenty to munch on in their new home.

Special Delivery For Back Bay!

August 25th, 2009

We got our delivery of 9 Baby Chicks on Chris's Birthday! August 25th!


The girls were overnighted and came in a tiny little box with some hay and some food gel to keep them nurished during their cross country trip.



Right after we got the call from the postoffice saying we had a peeping box waiting for us, Chris and I made a b-line to pick up our awaited delivery. We quickly got them home so we could get them fed, watered and tucked into their new nesting box.

We have been planning this for weeks of course and had already visited our local farm supply store to pick up all the necessary items. Baby chicks are pretty easy to please and not very expensive to care for, all they needed was about $20 worth of goodies. A trip to Southern States and we were set with a Water bottle, food trough, baby chick feed, heatlamp to keep them warm, and thermometer to make sure the temp stays at around 95 degrees for the first week. Since chicks get cold quickly and cant have drafts at all, we have the box nice and toasty and lower lower the temperature by 5 degrees every week for the first 4-5 weeks.




Havent named them yet since we cant tell them apart at the moment, but they will be named after different plants. (Yes, We are sticking with the botanical theme!)

(P.S. The names Lilly and Tulip are already taken by the goats!)

But we have thought of a few more for the hens:



Rose
Violet
Fern
Buttercup
Daisy
Holly
Mari (as in marigold)
Camelia
Petunia
Maggy (as in magnolia)






So here are the girls!

Check out the video and you can tell, all they do is eat and sleep! (and poop!)

They are big into napping. They literally will be in the middle of eating and just doze off. It is pretty cute you can see they are having little bird dreams but after a quick cat nap of about 5 minutes or so they are back up and running around.

They seem pretty happy in their 2x2 ft box for now, but they have already starting pecking at the ground, so i am excited for the day when they can start demolishing all the bugs on the property. I can tell they will be the best bug zappers! A fly flew in the box and their heads all turned in sync to watch it and I could tell what they were thinking! Chris even saw them doing the scratching motion at the paper, on day 2 so watch out bugs!!

The hens will make use of any of our table and garden scraps along with the goats of course and both chicken and goat poop will make for great compost in our garden.




We ordered the hens from mypetchicken.com

Basically we chose this website as it was one of the few hatcheries that will sell less than 25 chicks at a time. Also the chicks came already sexed (no roosters!! we only wanted hens!! ) and immunizied so they would have a high survival rate and a healthy chickhood. And just so we can dismiss any questions for you city folk - yes hens can lay eggs without any rooster around. lol. If you dont believe it - google it :)

We picked the "New Hampshire" breed of chickens, which are known to be good layers of brown eggs and are closely related and more commonly known Rhode Island Red.


Here is the designer coop Chris built that is waiting for them once they are big enough to go outside. It was made it a few months ago and it is already situated at the farm.

























It will be about 5-6 months before any of the girls will be laying eggs, but we already have a string of customers on the waiting list for Back Bay Botanicals Brown, Free-Range, organic eggs!

We will keep you posted on their progress!!

Chris & Gina

Take A Tour of Back Bay Botanicals

- July 20th, 2009 -

BackBayBotanicals is a 20-Acre Farm In the heart of Pungo, one of the last remaining spots in the Virginia Beach area still dotted with horse stables and pick your own fruit farms. The Main Home at Back Bay was a farmhouse built in 1870. Mom and Dad bought the home in the late 1990's and poured many years of sweat equity into remodling the home. Although new and improved, The farm house still retains all its country charm, with original wood floors, and a tiny set of stairs leading to the second floor with picture perfect views overlooking the farm.

We'd like to think Back Bay Botanicals will make a great working farm and possibly a bed and breakfast sometime soon!

When you approach the property, The first thing you notice is the traditional porch that wraps around the front of the house. It is the prime spot to grab some lemonade in the shade or sit with a book in the porch swing. Ferns adorn the front door and quite often you will find our yellow kitty cat (sunny D) lying around to meet and greet visitors. Hummingbirds are one of our favorite visitors at the farm, and the front porch makes a great place to sit and watch the little flying jewels. Dont blink you might miss them!

The front drive is lined with hundred-year old cedar trees and to get to the main house you drive across a small creek that leads to a tributary of the back bay nature preserve (hince the name of our street, Muddy Creek Rd)

Across from the main house is a fenced acre for our farm mascots, 2 Nanny goats named Lilly and Tulip! They are very friendly and are compost machine on legs. One thing is for sure, they make sure we dont waste or throw any table scraps away. Our house rule is, Please feed the animals! - Always up for a treat, the girls love everything from bannana peels to salad greens! There bellys are always full as they spend their days mowing the grass in "their property"

Further back on the land is our soon to be new home. The "bunkhouse" faces the view of the neighboring soybean fields and the newest project our greenhouse.

Chris is busy building designer coops for our arriving chicks(we are expecting! Aug. 24th). Chris has already starting out with the grass cutting and it is hard to keep him off his tractor during the weekends. Lets just say the grass keeps the goats - and the residents up to their ears in mowing!

The greenhouse has been a vision on the farm for at least the last 10 years. Its been here waiting patiently, plastic cover and all- just waiting for Chris to arrive with his ideas and carpentry skills to make the magic happen!


We have big plans for the garden too! Herbs, flowers, and vegetables. As you can tell we are planning big and hope to have enough extra eggs and herbs to share with some of the local community - and maybe even the surrounding restaurants and farmers markets in Pungo. Its possible an orchard is in the works as well. (we have heard chickens love orchards). Of course we will need some bees to pollinate all our fruits and flowers so - we have already picked out the spot where we will have a few bee colonies that will provide us with fresh honey as well.

Alot of fun is in store! Keep coming back to see what we are up to on the farm!