Chickens, Children, Compost, and Chaos!: 2014 Happenings

It has been a long busy summer, thus the extreme lull in activity here. We are still at it though. Unfortunately full time jobs, kids, and farming don't allow much time for taking pictures and blogging. None the less this annual fall posting will give you a glimpse of some of the things going on down here in NC. Picture groups are somewhat random because I have yet to figure out how to move them around on this sight in a timely manner.

Our biggest new project this year was the start of our hair sheep flock. We have really been enjoying them. They are not that much work and something about watching them out grazing in the field or frolicking about promotes a sense of peace and brings a smile to your face. We had a couple tragic experiences initially with an escaped lamb likely running into an electric fence and dying and later a set of still born triplets. But things have gone well since those initial events. We now have eight adult ewes and one ram. We should have some lambs come February or March. We did harvest two lambs this fall and have about 60 lbs. of beautiful meat to experiment with over the winter. We have tried a couple different dishes so far and it was very tasty!

Part of the sheep learning curve is not to ever do this again... transporting new lambs home in the back of your Ford Explorer can be very messy and smelly! Although they otherwise were sursurprisingly quiet and calm... like it was normal procedure to them.

Next a few pictures of our renovated barn. I am very proud of the transformation over the past few years.

This is where the sheep hang out when it is raining, sunny and hot, or extremely cold. The open area is available all the time. The back corner is for hay storage. Next two lambing pens, and one storage area for feed and stairs up to loft.

This is the "farmer cave". One of my favorite places on the whole property. It is wired with electricity so we have music, lights. There is a nice view overlooking the back pasture and garden. A great place to hang out and relax, visit with guests, read, and have a beer. I think I got to spend about 2.25 hours up here this year! But I enjoyed every minute !!

View of garden from loft.

Back pasture.

So moving right along... this is a shot of our little hoop house that will allow us to grow greens probably into mid December. When freezing weather is anticipated the plastic is pulled over the top and secured with clamps turning it into a little green house. Right now we have about three-four types of kale, some chard, spinach, different leaf lettuces, cilantro growing in it.

This guy is likely going to be the center piece of our Thanksgiving meal this year. Below are his three girlfriends. He is very protective of them... i.e. he attacks me every morning when I feed them and let them out to range. We had planned on keeping them all to procreate, but after doing the math it did not make economical farm sense considering the cost to raise to maturity and the work involved. On the positive side we learned that we could keep them healthy when separated from the chickens and had NO losses this time. Last go round we lost half of them due to a chicken vector parasite. These will keep for a year plus in the freezer. So next year we get a year off from turkey farming. We also scored a great deal on a chicken-plucker on Craig's List this week so I can't way to give it a try.

This is my pioneer woman and our new cat, found in our work parking lot earlier this year as a very small kitten. He has adapted well and is enjoyed by all of us.

We lost both of our hives last winter, which I hope was due to the hard winter that it was. We re-started with packages and they seemed to have thrived well over the summer. I managed to make it through the whole summer with no stings... thanks to my astronaut suit and extreme caution. That takes a little bit of the fun out of it all, but I think they made a big difference in the garden production. Also it forced me not to mess with them unless necessary, which probably made me a better beekeeper in the long run. We did harvest about 50 lbs. of honey and I think they still have plenty to make it through the winter.

Some of our honey harvest.

If the kids do a good job on their chores for the week we let them pick their favorite chicken out to sleep with on Friday night!

We did have the opportunity to make it to the beach a couple times this summer. Once with the pioneer woman's family from OK. The other just the four of us to our favorite little motor lodge that allows pets. Below are some random pictures from our trips to the Emerald Coast!

Kids and cousins

So the next few pictures are a little morbid,... but a few weeks ago we saw a deer (yes that is a deer, I know it was on the small side) run into our neighbors fence and break it's neck, our dog was in hot pursuit and we let him think he was finishing him off as he rattled it's neck. A few minutes later we had it strung up in a tree and gutted it out. As homesteaders you never let a free meal go to waste! : )

It was cool out so we let it hang over night so I could watch some You Tube videos to figure out what to do next.

Toby enjoying some vension leg. After all he "got" the deer!

The "primal cuts" to be aged in the fridge for a week.

Ah!... the end product- venison pot roast which was AWESOME! We ended up with enough meat for easily eight future meals.

Random picture of some of our sweet potatoes and butternut squash

Early this October we managed to get away for a weekend to a co-worker/friend/farmer mentor's property in Virginia just off the Blue Ridge Parkway. We camped out in tents around his pond.