Ruffled Feathers and Spilled Milk

Farming with ducks and dairy goats, chickens and children.

Place Your Bets.

A full house is almost impossible around here.  One of the kids is always missing—sports, sleepovers, birthday parties, camp, play dates, any excuse to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  Sometimes we’ve got one pair.  Occasionally we’ve got three of a kind.  Sometimes we’re busted. In the beginning it was disorienting to count heads and […]

This Is Why.

The other day we came home to find the sheep and the goats wandering down the driveway. Sigh. We put them up without a lot of hassle.  As a matter of fact I didn’t realize the real problem until the next day. Because there’s a ton of lush grass in the front yard to graze.

They’re heeeeere.

No.  Not them. Them. That’s right.  Summer squash is here.  Zucchini, cocozelle, patty pan, white bush, straight neck, and crookneck.

Good Job.

I suspect we have a predator in the hen house.  Last week one of my chickens limped her way to the feed room for breakfast.  Upon examination she did not have any visible injuries, no bleeding, no lacerations, but her leg appeared pulled out of the joint.  She recovered.  A few days later I found […]

Size Matters.

I realize there are instructions on seed packets and information on the plastic plant stakes in veggie transplant trays.  But, really, who pays attention to that stuff?  The seeds are getting sown in whatever manner that they fall from my hand.  I’m not mixing them with sand (from where??) or putting them in a salt […]

Lull.

So The Other Half got up, put the dogs out to go to the bathroom, made lunches, signed permission slips for all the movies that the kids will be watching instead of doing school work during the last week of school, put some kids on the bus, drove some kids to school, let the dogs […]

Loose Chickens.

There’s a lot of debate regarding free range chicken.  Technically, the government considers “free range” to mean that the birds have access to the outdoors.  But it doesn’t actually mean they spend any time out there or that it’s more than a gravel yard.  Most people (as opposed to the government) consider “free range” to […]

Open Season.

You might realize summer is approaching when the hummingbirds arrive at the feeders. Or when the broccoli and greens have to be harvested every day to keep them from bolting.

The Wisdom of the Wheelbarrow.

Large jobs require large amounts of procrastination.  But this spring, when the deep litter in the barn reached the same level as the top of the water trough, I couldn’t put off cleaning it out any longer.  By the same token, if I wanted to make a fourth raised bed in the garden I needed […]

Flashback.

When we moved out to this piece of property it was almost all wooded.  Walking to the pond with infants or toddlers was like choosing between a quick death by cedar tree spike to the chest or slow expiration by entrapment in inescapable underbrush.  Not to mention heart-stopping encounters with spider webs (if the web […]

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