Farm Friday Kickoff!

Spring is here in full bloom! The trees are glowing in fresh green, the air is warm, and the birds are singing, so it's time to begin my Farm Friday posts for 2009. Spring is the busiest time of year for farmers, and the next two months will certainly be busy for us!

The poultry have already arrived at Windy Creek Farm. The pullets that I raised last year have finally begun laying, so they occupy one hoop coop moving over the pasture.

I started my first broilers about five weeks ago, so they are also on the pasture in a new, smaller hoop coop.

My modified Salatin-style pen holds 80 chickens, half of which should be pullets. These should start laying in July.

My very first flock of turkeys arrived yesterday. I ordered just 20 poults to start with, while I learn how to raise them. Turkeys are considered to be a very difficult animal to raise.

Smokestack wants to start a small hatchery, and he's building his flock of breeding hens. He is starting with Rhode Island Reds and Black Australorps, although the famous Buff Orpingtons Nelson and John Winthrop have joined his breeding program. I never thought that I'd meet chickens who could strike a pose for a photo.

Smokestack's rabbits are multiplying every day. Last time I counted he had 5 new bunnies, and thanks to some serious barricades and Cocoa, we haven't had any more trouble with dogs.

The bees are growing as quickly as the rabbits this spring. Smokestack and our Grandpa split our two hives, and then both hives swarmed, so now we're up to 6 hives- and there are four more hives coming in the mail! (It took a lot of courage to get this picture.)

A few weeks ago we acquired Benjamin, a Dorset ram. I am going to sell my goats and replace them with sheep this year, so he will be my breeding ram. He's cute now, but I'm told that in 6 months he should weigh 200 pounds.

The goats are doing well, as goats are supposed to do. That's a novel idea at our farm. They're happy as long as they can sneak a bite of chicken feed when I'm not looking.

I built a small impromptu greenhouse to hold our transplants. We've got four varieties of tomatoes, bell peppers, banana peppers, jalapeno peppers, pimento peppers, several varieties of lettuce, some very late cabbage, and several types of flowers.

We've planted sugar snap peas in the garden, and tomorrow we'll be turning in our cover crop of cereal rye and crimson clover. After that we'll be putting in most of our vegetables in short order.

We have many plans for expanding our gardens as my farming goals have shifted to include more horticulture. We cleared some small trees to extend our current garden and we will be fencing part of the pasture in order to grow vegetables instead of grass. We also have a hoophouse in the process of construction.

Our mascots Cocoa and Abigail are doing their best to promote our farm, while Tiger just takes catnaps. Abigail will be kidding very soon, and judging by her girth we'll have two new mascots. ;)

Well, it's usually the cat who's napping. :D

On Wednesday we took a trip to BC Hunt Farms in Prattville to pick strawberries. I met the Hunts in November at the ASAN conference and visited their farm afterwards. They have a U-pick strawberry operation, and as far as I have seen they are the only commercial strawberry farm in the state that doesn't use any herbicides or pesticides. We brought home 10 gallons and probably ate two gallons in the field! I hadn't eaten any fresh strawberries since last spring, so eating my first strawberry of this season, with a palate unjaded by Californian strawberry-like-objects, was a wonderful experience.

Have a great weekend,

Sherlock