Spring Update

Has a lot ever happened so far this spring! It's been so busy I haven't had time to write about it. It's kind of funny, in the winter I have lots of time but nothing to write about while in the spring I have everything to write about but no time to do it!

The seeds are still selling and I'm sold out of about 3/4 of the catalog. It seems like every week this time of year there's another Seedy Saturday somewhere in the province. Most recently was Halifax and before that was the very successful one in Wolfville. This could be the busiest time of year around here just because I'm still doing my seed rounds while at the same time the garden is coming back to life and the rest of the farm needs work as well. In the garden the garlic has sprouted and Colin has planted the first peas.

An exciting recent discovery is that the old chicken run is built on top of what's best descibed as an ancient manure deposit. I think what happened is that the previous several owners simply swept the manure out the back door of the barn until over the decades it built up into this incredible four foot deep pile of fertile black earth. I've spread over 100 wheel-barrow loads over the garden so far with lots still remaining. When the pile is gone we'll build a much larger and sturdier run to contain both the chickens and goats for the summer. The chickens currently have the run of the farm, scratching in the forest, raised beds and compost piles and dust bathing en masse along the warm foundation of the house. They can't complain too much about their new summer enclosure, at several thousand square feet it would be paradise for the average battery-hen.

We're having the newly cleared upper field plowed for the first time in a few weeks. After the roots are raked out and we get some manure spread to enrich the poor sandy soil we hope to grow some seed and food crops up there this year. What's good about having two seperate fields like this is that we can isolate crops like squash and corn for producing seed. My plan with squash is to plant them on hills of manure which should make that limited resource go further. We'll just have the root-zone heavily enriched while the vines can sprawl over the poorer soil. I'll plant about an acre of alfalfa in the upper field this spring as a long-term green manure crop. The deep roots bring up nutrients from the sub-soil while at the same time fixing nitrogen. What the field really needs though is more organic matter. The hope is that the alfalfa will produce enough biomass that we can mow it several times a year to add to the soil. I suppose we'll see how it goes.

Bessie is really enjoying being out on the pasture again. Although not much is growing yet you can tell she loves being out of the barn. We think she'll be giving birth any day now. Stay tuned...

Is Spring Finally Here?

Winter seems to be dragging on for forever this year. We've had three warm days in a row now though, enough that the chickens have begun venturing farther afield in search of food to scratch and the sap is flowing in the maple trees. Here are some photos to celebrate the returning spring!

Welcome New Hens!

Here are the most recent additions to our crazy menagerie of barnyard animals, eight Buff Orpington hens! Our flock had dwindled over the last two years from eight hens to only four and they were struggling to keep us stocked with eggs. Although we keep our chickens until they die of old age, the winters always claim a few hens every year. We had to break down and actually buy eggs a few weeks back, and it was at that point we knew we needed some additions to the flock. Luckily a friend of ours had a big flock that was her daughter's 4-H project, so she was happy to find a (vegetarian) home for the surplus hens!

Introducing them wasn't nearly the ordeal I was fearing. For about an hour the new hens sat hudled in the corner, the old hens sat watchfully in the other corner and Rocky the rooster was pacing back and forth between the two. One at a time a new hen would come out of the corner, Rocky would do a little dance around her and then, accepted into the flock, she would walk over to the old hens to get pecked at. This procedure was repeted for all the newcomers until all twelve hens were mingling and getting along in relative order. And that was it! No real fighting at all!

The two groups still prefer to keep to themselves while they're out, but the flock seems to have totally accepted the new hens. We're now up to between six and eight eggs a day on average, which is great for this time of year!