We hope you’re having a warmer Spring than we are. At this very moment it’s alternating between hail and snow outside and all the animals are upset about it.
Even the cats and Archie are mad…at us, as if this weather is our fault. But Spring in the Midwest can be like this so there’s no point in complaining about it. Cold weather is a great excuse to take some time to read a book, cleanup your house, watching a movie or just relax. It’s actually a pleasant excuse to just take a break! And that’s awesome… unless you have crops to plant. We currently have 100+ potted seedlings hanging out in front of every South, East & West facing window in our home. Plus usually by this time we would have planted potatoes, onions, leafy greens, and peas in the garden but the ground is too frozen to get the potatoes in and too wet for the others.
Plants congregating in front of our kitchen window
Getting a little stressful at this point…
It’s a major bummer. Time seems like it’s flying by and farmer’s market season is getting closer and closer. It’s stressful to feel so far behind so early in the season! We’re hoping to get these little plants in the ground at the end of next week. All that stress aside, the plants are happy in their current situation, but would be happier if they were outside getting pollinated by honey bees instead of an electric toothbrush. Oh which reminds me…we’re very worried about what this weather is doing to our bee hives. The cold Spring/extended winter could be disastrous and it’s too cold open up the hives to check on them. We don’t want to release any remaining heat in their hives and endanger them further. We’re staying hopeful though.
Ha, the title would make a good band name. A lot of you have asked how the non-chicken residents on the farm were doing during the crazy cold weather we had here on the farm.
For starters, Archie and the cats (another good band name)) rarely go outside anymore. And when they do, it’s strictly “business” and they’re back at the door begging to come back in within a few minutes. Which was cute at first, but now, with all the furry bodies around, we have had to clean the house every couple of days. Otherwise there are furball tumbleweeds blowing across the floor, which is not cute.
The Goats, Tilly and Moose, the Livestock Dog
The pasture crew is doing pretty well, all things considered. Basically, they all just need a place to get out of the wind and snow. We have a half shelter that faces southeast (since most of the nasty weather comes from North and West) and it has several inches of pine shavings as bedding. On the nastiest days, we barely see the goats and Tilly at all.
Pancho and Lefty inside the shelter on a snowing day.
On our coldest days, they spend most of the day in the shelter keeping each other warm. Our goats are Nigerian Dwarfs and (despite what the name made us think) are very cold tolerant. This goat breed has evolved to be cold tolerant up to -40. Crazy, right?! It was cute to watch their bodies turn into little puff balls as their winter coats came in.
The tiny herd.
Tilly, our Katahdin sheep, is a hair sheep, so she doesn’t have the typical wooly body most people envision when they think of a sheep. Her breed basically exists for meat production and the need to sheer a sheep is an extra step that some farmers don’t want to take in order to process the meat. So they cut out the wool part all together, which is why we put a coat on her. Plus, she got sunburned this summer so her hair isn’t as thick as it should be. She seems to really enjoy wearing coats too. Which is adorable.
Tilly in her pink coat.
Moose, our Karakachan livestock dog, is the least concerned of anyone on the farm (humans included). He spends most of his day out of the shelter lying in the snow and keeping any eye on our frozen farm. Karakachans are originally from Bulgaria and were bred to be mountain livestock guard dogs so it’s in his genetics to be happy in cold weather. As with the chickens, plenty of fresh water and a bit of extra food has been given to everyone out in the pasture. We have a large stock tank that has a heater to make sure they always have water available. The goats and Tilly have hay in the feeder at all times and they get a mixture of livestock feed and beet pulp in the mornings and evenings.
They are always following in hope of treats.
The humans
What about us??? It takes us quite a while to get bundled up and steel ourselves against the biting cold, but depending on what we’re doing and how windy it is, it hasn’t always been too terrible. Yesterday, with the temp at about -1°F I was actually too bundled up and was sweating by the time I got back inside. Hauling 50lb bags of chicken feed and corn, 5 gallon buckets of water and hay flakes really gets the blood flowing!
Hello from Archie’s Acres. We know it’s been a while since we’ve posted but we’ve been busy preparing the garden and our critters for winter!
The first order of business was to remove all remaining produce from all plants before the first frost, which was about 3 weeks ago. We still had a surprising amount of peppers, tomatoes, tomatillos, zucchini and cucumbers which was a pleasant surprise!
A portion of our last harvest for the season
The produce that didn’t make the cut for humans were given to the chickens and the goats, so everybody on the farm won. Especially the chickens.
Then we had to remove all remnants of the tomato and pepper plants. Leaving them around would invite disease to the soil that would effect our productivity next year. It’s a tedious job, but the reward is being able to have a big bonfire with all the dried plants. So that’s fun!
In the next week or so, we will then spread compost and chicken manure onto the garden before the first snow to help rejuvenate the soil. Our current chicken coop setup is basically that of a giant litter box. We filled the entire interior of our coop with sand and ag-lime (aka crushed limestone). This allowed us to scoop out chicken droppings with a manure form (think giant cat litter scoop) to collect for fertilizer. It’s working wonderfully.
As for the critters, we moved and re-positioned the goats’ and Tilly’s
The goats were not very helpful while we were trying to move their shelter
shelter to face the south east in order to protect them from the harsh winter winds from the west and the north. And we covered their favorite hangout area with pine chips to create a barrier between the cold ground and their feet and we put a fancy new coat on Tilly!
Tilly looks fabulous in her new coat
Winter Coop Preparations
We’ve been collecting all fallen leaves and shuttling them into the coop. We’ll also add grass clippings, pine savings and shredded paper. We’re aiming to get about 3-4 inches of material covering the entire coop floor. It’s called the “deep litter method” and worked well for us last year. Basically, the deep layer of organic material absorbs the chicken dropping and slowly composts throughout the winter. The material on the floor provides some insulation from the cold ground, and as it breaks down (composts) it releases some heat into the coop. Added bonus – in the spring, we have great fertilizer waiting for us when we clean out the coop. So far we only have about an inch deep layer throughout; a few of our large maple trees are stubbornly holding onto their leaves. We’re really hoping they drop them before the first snow or we may have some damaged trees!
So as you can see, we’ve been busy! As this season winds down, I promise to post more. I mean, what else am I going to do with all the free time we have? 😉
How is it August already?!! This summer has flown by and farm life has been hectic for us lately! Not surprisingly, so much has happened since the last time we blogged that I need to do a top 10 list to catch up.
1. Chickens
Two of our hens successfully hatched 8 chicks of their own. They were both 1st time moms so for the first week they actually hung out together and co-parented the babies together. We weren’t sure how the new moms were going to keep the other chickens from pecking the babies to death, but after seeing what they did to Archie when he accidentally walked to close to the babies, it became very clear that these are hardcore, protective mammas. It. Was. Awesome!! The babies are over a month old now, they are traveling in their little pack of 8 and are free ranging and roosting together. It’s very cute and we’re proud of their moms.
5 of the babies venturing to the garden for treats (aka split/damaged tomatoes)
2. Quail
Our quail have finally started laying! These little birds are laying machines! We have 14 girls and although it took longer than the usual 2 months for them to get going, they are now finally getting around to providing us some sell-able farmers market eggs.
Quail egg size vs our chicken eggs
3. Swimming pool
The giant black walnut tree fell on our pool. We spent hours and hours digging up a spot for the pool, had our neighbor bring his skid loader over to help move earth and sand around, and set up the pool (it was NOT an hour long process as advertised). We used it every hot day for about 3 weeks, and then the first of many nasty storms came through and blew the tree onto our pool and our upper garden. Fun times.
Well it was fun while it lasted – at least the tiki torches survived
4. Stormy weather
Storm rolling toward the farm
On that note… the storms throughout the month of July really hurt our town, our garden and our driveway. Our town declared a state of emergency after half of it was under 3+ feet of water; many homes were damaged and destroyed. Many farmers around us had to claim total losses of their corn and soybean crops because of it. It wouldn’t stop raining. We got 11 inches of rain in one weekend! Our gravel driveway was badly damaged; we would cart rocks and gravel to fill in the deep ditches channeled out by the constant running water from the top of the hill, but then it would rain again and the rocks and gravel would wash away and we would have to start over. Our tomato and pepper plants are strained from the all the rain as well.
Pearl City, IL – yes, that’s the main street
5. New goats
We have 3 new goats to the herd! Their names are Lefty, Willie and Bobby. They are siblings of Pancho. We invited Pancho’s parents to our pig roast back in June and they saw Pancho’s new home and asked if we’d take the other 3. How great is that?! The 4 goats and Tilly are now one solid, happy herd.
Our cute, happy herd
6. Another new addition
And since we now have a little herd, we had to get a little herd protector! Meet Moose, our new livestock guard pup!
Moose is so cute
He’s a Karakachan; we got him at 11 weeks and he’s the biggest sweetheart. Neither of us had ever heard of this breed before, but after doing a little research, it turns out this breed is amazing. They are massive, Bulgarian shepherds. Bred to stay up all night, they are loyal and protective. Moose will be well over 100lbs.
Moose and his new pals
7. Kittens are the cutest
The kittens are now 5 months old. They are the sweetest, nicest, cuddliest little fur balls and they run this place. They hang out and mouse in the chicken coop, a couple of them sleep on the front porch at night, sometimes they sleep in the garage. I’ve never felt better about the mouse population around here than I do right now. We’re so happy to have such a productive little crew!
8. Scourge of the garden and orchard
Ugh, the Japanese beetles are here! We lucked out last summer, clearly. This summer they are here in swarms. They’ve eaten all of our sweet corn and have devastated our cherry and plum trees in the orchard. I hate them!! We were not anticipating they would be this bad, so next year we’ll be better prepared and ready to pounce. Just another farm life lesson for us.
9. Rooster separation
We had to build a bachelor pad for the surplus of roosters we had running around the farm. At one point we had 10 roosters and 40 hens, and it was horrible. As soon as the young ones hit chicken puberty it was a stressful free for all. The hens were looking beat up and they weren’t laying as much; we were down to getting 6 eggs a day! It was a mess. So we built the boys their own little coop and run, because without females around, boys will actually happily coexist with each other. Otherwise a few of them would fight to the death and we love them too much to have that happen. Eventually we’ll set up a separate breeding coop so we can pair one rooster with a few hens to get all sorts of fun egg colors.
10. Farmer’s markets
And finally, to wrap up this last month+, our farmer’s market game is pretty solid. We are figuring things out slowly but surely and are able to fill a booth with veggies, herbs, eggs and other things from our garden! How cool is that?! Hanna and I have been able to keep our giant garden alive and thriving, even though we seem to make every mistake possible and kinda have the worst luck. But we’re doing it and it’s awesome! And I’m already looking forward to being even better next year!
Farmer’s Market bound!
11. Bonus update
And yeah, and Archie is still an awesome little bear.
