101 Chicks!

It is a good thing we bought that kiddie swimming pool Friday. We were expecting Cadence's chicks to arrive at 5 a.m. Monday morning, but Saturday the post office called to say they were here -come and get them! Cadence was relieved to get the call; she was very worried about the chicks spending the whole weekend in a box in transit. And it is a remarkably small box that holds 100 chicks.

Sara and Cadence gave each chick a sip of water spiked with electrolytes and vitamins before releasing them in the 5-foot diameter plastic pool that will be their home until they are big enough for the chicken tractors (large movable pens for pastured poultry). There are two white lights for daytime and two infrared lights for night to keep them warm and a layer of pine shavings on the floor of the pool. The pine bedding is covered by newspaper for a few days so the babies learn to eat the chick feed, not the bedding. When they run across the newspaper it makes a pattering sound - almost sounding like rain when 100 chicks scamper around!

The chicks are assorted large broilers, meaning they are all roosters intended for meat. The chicks are yellow, buff, reddish brown, gray fuzzy, black with white spots, and brown and black striped. Sara and Cadence have identified all the breeds of chicks we got except for the "bonus exotic chick," which is reddish with two light stripes down his back.

It is fun to see Cadence fretting over her chicks like a mother hen. She asked, "Is this what being a parent is like?" So far, everyone seems healthy and active and hungry. They eat constantly. I guess that is what they have to do if they are going to actually reach 8 pounds in 8 weeks. Hard to believe these baby chicks will be that big so soon! We will probably be able to see them grow from day to day. Better get a second kiddie pool tomorrow!

Bee Boxes

What service! Wednesday afternoon I ordered a starter beekeeping kit (even includes the helmut, veil, and smoker) from B and B Honey Farms and Thursday noon the bee boxes arrived.

I was a bit worried when I opened the carton and saw all the wooden parts to be assembled. But there were good diagrams and all the wood was already cut and measured. All I had to do was glue and hammer things together - precisely my level of carpentry skills. While I was constructing them, a honey bee appeared and sat on one of the boxes. I didn't even realize honey bees were out yet - that has to be a good omen!
A couple hours later I had finished bee boxes. I painted them Squash Blosssom yellow instead of the usual, boring white. I still have to get a bee suit, but I am almost ready for the bees --they will arrive in 2 weeks! A beekeeper friend agreed to let me shadow her while she tends her bees, so I hope to have some inkling of what I am doing by then.

Cattle Futures?

Cadence has been trying to talk us into getting a couple of cows. Her first idea was to get a couple of dairy bull calves to raise as steers for meat. Sara, on the other hand, dreams of a milking animal. I, on yet the other hand, am a bit leery of huge cattle because we have a tiny farm and have no experience handling big livestock; I say if we get any cows they should be small, hardy heritage breeds. Rog is a bit leery of the idea altogether. We have all been doing lots of reading.

In our research, Cadence was smitten with White Galloways, a very beautiful heritage breed. I was drawn to the Scottish Highland breed because they are smaller, hardy, good for meat or dairy and rather exotic looking.

While searching farm listings for either breed, I came across someone with Dexters, a breed I had never heard of, so I looked it up. Dexters are the smallest true cattle breed, about half the size of most other cattle. The breed was developed in Ireland for small farms and is a rare heritage variety. They seem like the perfect multi-purpose small farm cow--having the most meat per pound, most milk production per pound, and are also great work animals. They are also known for being very calm and very hardy.

Friday morning, Cadence and I drove to Dream River Farm about 30 miles away to see some Dexters for sale. The farm is on a beautiful valley near Cannon Falls and the farmers, Debbie and Lawrence, were so much fun and so excited about their Dexters. We walked out into the pasture and met their sweet cows, which stand about chest high and their funny horses. Their youngest calf is the size and color of our red Aussie, Cocoa.

Since then we have been seriously contemplating purchasing their very young bull, which has excellent bloodlines and one of their heifers due to calve any day. We would wait until the calf is born, but we could be cattle barons very soon!!

Plucky and Lucky

Cadence found a chicken plucker for sale on Craigslist. She is determined to process her broiler chickens herself, so this was a piece of equipment she really wanted and it sounded like a great deal.

Thursday morning we drove up to Shakopee to pick it up. It is a Schweiss Chicken Plucker, lightly used. The man selling it was slightly regretful--after he listed it for $75 he discovered they sell new for $500 not including the motor. He was very nice, though, and demonstrated how it worked. It is simple and surprisingly quiet. It has a drum with flexible rubberfingers poking out all over it. You rotate the dead chicken over the drum and the rubber fingers pull out the feathers. Here is a video demonstration --if you aren't put off by dead naked chickens.

Two Signs of Spring

Today crocuses were blooming next to the house! This evening, Rog and I went for a little walk in the woods. Shortly after, Rog found a woodtick crawling on him.

Something to Sprout About!

I delivered our first edible sprout order to the Back Room Deli at the Good Food Store (food co-op) this morning. Alex, the deli manager seemed quite pleased with them.

They ordered the Italian Blend, but I didn't have quite enough of those seeds and my seed order hasn't arrived yet (aargh!) so I gave them a complimentary bag of French Garden Mix to try.

The Back Room Deli is a great vegan cafe--an undiscovered gem in Rochester--that serves delicious, nourishing soups and sandwiches. I heartily recommend my favorite item on the menu, the Cajun tofu wrap--and I don't even usually care for tofu. If you dine at the Back Room Deli now, you will be eating locally grown Squash Blossom Farm sprouts!

April Snowstorm

Southeast Minnesota is in the midsts of a winter storm warning today, but so far, at least, it must be skimming along south of us. We woke up to a half an inch of snow and it is snowing and blowing now, but too warm to really stick and set back spring for long.

The storm is blowing from the northwest and has plastered that side of all the trees with sticky white snow.

It's too blustery to accomplish our outside To-Do list (making rainbarrels, building compost bins, pulling buckthorn, installing windows in the granary) so I guess I will tackle the much- dreaded but much-needed task of organizing my office today. I intend to move our ever-growing library of gardening and farming books to my office so they aren't in stacks all over the house.

While there is a distinct tinge of green to the landscape now (well, covered by white today) but it's still pretty much monochromatic brown outside. Needing a blast of spring color, I succumbed to purchasing a potted lily last week.

Just five weeks until our average frost-free date!

On another note, we now have TWO chickens laying eggs! The yolks are often very deep orange--here is a comparison--a store-bought organic egg on the left and an egg from one of our hens on the right. Our chickens really love to eat the skins of baked squash and sweet potatoes--could that be why the yolks are so orange?