Hello!
I do have several things to report on. Nothing terribly exciting, but something.
I hooked up the tiller last weekend and we prepped the spring garden as a family. The boys helped spread out some lime. I passed the tiller through a few times and then we planted spinach, beets, carrots and peas. The spinach did so well last year that we planted twice as much. I've got about 80lf of spinach planted..mmmm, mmmm, good.
A few things we did better this year than last is to lay the soaker hose out first and plant the seed next to it. Last year we put the seed in first and then realized we may have hose on top of it or not close enough, etc. Also, for many of the seeds I just drug a broom stick down the isle to make a trench to drop seed into. Last year I measured a gauge stick to exactly the right depth and poked holes at the precise spacing.
I now realize that gardening is not that precise of a hobby. And this was much faster!
I think I reported on the 3 new hens? So we're back to 4 hens now and they are all laying. We're getting 3 eggs a day average, and that's about perfect for us to give a few eggs away each week. I'm happy to report that the girl that was torn apart from the dog has made a full recovery and living a healthy life.
I got an itch to broaden my farming experience, so we started looking for a rooster. We ended up with a 2 year old RIR rooster named "Lover Boy". His previous owner named him that because he kept over 20 of his girls plenty fertilized.
He's a big boy at over 10 pounds. I should have put the box on a scale. He's easily twice the weight of the hens.
I watched enough rooster videos on youtube to put a bit of respectful fear into me. We let him live in a dog kennel next to the main kennel for 24 hours and all seemed well. The girls were going nuts trying to get to him. The next day, I let the girls out to free range and let him out as well. I was scared for the boys, so I had them sit up in the truck until all was well. Well he came out and joined the girls in grazing as if he had always been with them!
About 5 minutes into the introduction, one of my girls bucked up to him and he immediately showed her that he wasn't having any of it. He's proven to be very gentle, but not afraid to be aggresive when he needs to. He lets them all eat first and takes the scraps, even when its a treat like table food.
Yesterday I was starting to feel more comfortable around him, so I bent down to pet the hens. He was on me like white on rice! Spured me in the legs. Luckily, I had loose pj's on and he didn't do any damage.
All in all, you can quickly see the added entertainment of having a rooster. As well, I'm confident that the girls are safer when free ranging. He crows at me each time I walk around a corner on them, etc. So he's a great alarm. In the morning it's been bearable. He starts at about 5:30am, but we keep the coop closed until 7:30am so he's muffled. I can't hear him in our bedroom and hope that the neighbors can't either. Time will tell.
Lastely, he gives us the chance to hatch off chicks! We plan to get an incubator and hatch some off this spring. It'll be great for the boys to witness.
Anyway, I'm so happy spring is around the corner, and happy to have reason to post here again. I've been lurking and reading a bunch, but not posting too much.
As for the bigger plans of pigs, goats, fruit orchard, etc. I realize now that all these projects are going to take years to implement. Last year I thought I'd get it all done so easily. I now realize that won't happen. Not that I'm not doing projects, but I need to please my wife with projects of her choice too.
