Tis the Season!

The 2014 farming season sort of rushed in at me after a long, cold, snowy winter. Spring took its time arriving, so I felt a little unprepared for the sudden flurry of outdoor work.

Aunt Britty is pig-crazy!

Our piggies very successfully prepared our entire planting area for us, and we now have peas and onions in the ground. Going in this week are kale, chard, and scallions. I’m very exciting about this growing season – our soil is “black muck” (our land used to be marshland that was drained years ago for farming, and as a result we have this amazing soft, black soil) and the plants just go crazy in it.

Onion shoots less than a week after planting

We’re using raised beds to keep weeds to a minimum, and the onions we put in are already growing like mad.

Sweet little ewe lamb with her mama, Violet.

Our lambs are doing well. We have fewer than we hoped for this year, but they are strong and healthy and gaining really well. The sheep and lambs have been doing rotational grazing over areas that are mostly covered in scrubby weeds. After they eat down the weeds, we move them to a fresh spot and go over the eaten-down area with pasture seed.

My biggest farm kid loves spreading pasture seed!

Within another month, all that scrubby weed land will be thick, lush pasture, without having to spray weeds or till or otherwise disturb Nature’s balance.

Chickens in their new chicken yard

There’s been lots of building happening, too. A new chicken coop with a large fenced yard has been constructed, and our laying hens are very happily free ranging around their safe space (the chicken area is larger than the average backyard!). Our livestock guard dog hangs out nearby to keep predators at bay, which means we haven’t lost any birds this season – hooray!

Turkey poults, meat chicks, and our “farmyard special” layers

We’ve also been busy with chicks! We’ve hatched out two batches of eggs in our incubator (the first batch was Blue/Splash Orpingtons, the second was “farmyard special” – aka, mutts) and also had an order of day-old meat chicks and turkeys arrive this week. Our chick pen is alive with the sound of cheeping!

So many babies!

There is still so much work to be done. The “to-do” list grows by the day, rather than shrinking. However, things are coming together beautifully, and I’m sure by the end of the season we will have much to be proud of.