Fall is upon us! Today is overcast and windy and in the 60's, nice fall weather. This past weekend was gorgeous! We took a mini-working vacation up to Lawrence (upper NE corner of the state about half an hour west of Kansas City) to attend the Mother Earth News Fair. Originally we were just going to go up for the day but in the last week the guest speaker line up was finally posted (or that's when I finally saw it!) and both of us wanted to see what was being offered on opposite days so I hurriedly called the neighbors to see if they could feed and we left out early Saturday morning before the break of dawn.
It was a whirlwind weekend, that's for sure! It takes so much just to get ready to go anywhere for an overnight trip and it's difficult to remember that no one knows the inner workings of this place like I do. It's never more apparent than when I have to leave and while I know that there are others perfectly capable, even having to explain which spigot to use for which animal becomes a chore to remember for me. I go out every morning to do chores and it's second nature and writing it all out so that someone else knows to "feed the chickens in the roving coop in the pen closest to the pigs" because there are 2 roving coops with different aged chickens for different purposes along with the free ranging layers!
Anyway, I have complete faith in the few who I leave the farm to while I'm gone and I am so glad we got the opportunity to go! I hadn't started out wanting to go to the bee keeping presentations but oh so glad I did! We met some friends up there who were also staying for the whole weekend and she and I listed to 2 hour-long sessions on bees. Jeremiah and I have talked about bees for a long time, wanted to get them but like everything else, in due time. However, after this weekend, that's our next animal project for next year and I am so super excited! There is a lot to plan for and this winter will be the perfect time to read up here and there so that by spring, the perfect bee-gettin' time, we'll be ready...or as ready as we'll ever be, anyway.
It was pretty amazing, this "fair". It was like Disneyland for me, so much to learn and do and it was nice to get away with the kids and not have to do anything, if we didn't want to!
In other news, the new stove isn't hooked up yet. I have been asked quite a few times if it is. We had to order a couple parts and so for now its just sitting in out living room waiting. We haven't needed it quite yet anyway. We do need to get started on getting wood split here pretty soon.
Three weeks ago I thought I lost my favorite hen to a fox because I didn't see her come out of the coop when I opened it one morning. She hadn't been around all day either. I don't name the chickens but I do have a certain amount of each breed so I keep track of them by how many of each I can count. The next day she showed up and the day after I didn't see her and didn't again for about 4 days. I thought for a while I was crazy in how many of her kind I had counted the day before when I thought I saw her but it sealed the deal when she disappeared and showed back up again and I knew at that point she had a nest she was sitting on, "gone broody" they call it. Last Friday I was picking up some tools that had been left out and finally found her in a stack of tire walls we had piled up (our neighbor takes big tractor tires, cuts off the "walls" and uses the cylinders as raised bed planters). We ended up with the walls for a project. Whether or not we ever get to that project is anyone's guess but she had made herself a nice hidden nest nonetheless.
I didn't expect her to hatch anything out, she's a younger hen, only February born and her first brood. However, this morning at chore time I went out to give her some food so she wouldn't have to get off her nest and she had cheeping coming from underneath her. She hatched out 4-5 of quite a few eggs so I am happy with that! One was dead and one didn't hatch from the egg and there are still a few unhatched eggs so I will leave her be for the time being until she gets up and leaves that nest. I may take the chicks from her too to raise. It's kinda sad but hens don't grieve too much and there are just too many things that can get baby chicks around here, mainly aerial predators and these chicks are all females from what I can tell.
I learned to feather sex chickens earlier this year. Not all breeds can be feather sexed but most can and I am pretty accurate! Rachel wanted some of her own chickens to raise up for 4-H this year and the local farm store gets 2 batches of chicks in the fall to sell so I went down and got her 2 Barred Rocks (black and white sort of speckled chicken) and 3 Buff Orphingtons (big fluffy super docile buff colored chicken). A week later the general manager -who is on a farm site I am on- announced all in stock poultry was half off and so I went back down to pick up some Australorps too (they are an all black bird with a iridescent green sheen to them).
It just so happened they had a whole tub full of "fry pans" -which are generally roosters of the laying breed variety that people raise up for meet. They take a lot longer to raise to butchering age than actual meat bird breeds and there isn't a whole lot of meat but they are cheap so people buy them-. However, these "fry pans" were straight run (meaning not sexed at the hatchery so they could be male or female) and just by looking at wing feathers I cold tell there were an awful lot of pullets in there! So, for 90 cents a piece I picked up another 3 buffs and another 3 barred rocks and which made 9 pullet chicks! Then, I hatched out 13 from the incubator a few days after I picked up the chicks at the farm store and only 3 of them were cockerels (based on feather sexing) and so we've got a lot of pullets and that's never a bad thing!
It's strange that the ratio of males to females that I've gotten out of the 3 good hatches from the incubator have been pullet heavy. I am not complaining, believe me! With as many as we loose to foxes, I'd just assume be pullet heavy though we do keep several roosters too. Anyway, that's the chick update.
All the piglets have been sold and are off to their new homes. We hadn't planned to breed Snow (the dog) until next spring but I made a slight mistake and let her out of the containment pen too early and there's no such thing as family planning in the dog world so we had new pups a week ago last Friday...just 2 and (fortunately) but unfortunately I have more people wanting them than I have pups! This place never seems to be long without baby animals of some kind!
It rained last night and was fairly windy. Today is clear and cool and it looks like our days of high 70s and 80s are a thing of the past. Time to start remembering morning jackets and no longer are we enjoying warm evenings where it's light until after 9 PM....I'll end this for now. Today is grocery shopping day and there are lots of errands to run. It's not my favorite day by any means but necessary.
Have a great day...
