A quick hello

I grew up with a home builder as a father. That meant that our house was never finished. I had to ask that he finish trimming my bedroom window for my 16th birthday present. The house was built before I was born. It seems that the job that men do all day is the last thing they want to do when they get home. I am finding this to be true with Hubs as well. He works on computers all day.

 So, when my computer stopped letting me upload photos to blogger (and facebook and emails) I asked him to fix it. That was over a week ago. It's still not fixed.

So.... that means you will have to settle for a quick instagram iphone pic of the Bourbon Red turkeys from last week, their first day out on pasture.

 They settled into their new space nicely. They've been snacking on grasses, bugs and other pasture goodies for a week and are looking great. I am always amazed by how quickly animals change in appearance when they go from the confinement of a brooder to the open space of pasture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's lots going on here and I am so excited to fill you in just as soon as I can get those darn photos uploaded. Until then, some lovely turkey love to get you by.  I am reminded everyday how blessed we are to live on this beautiful piece of the Earth. I hope today finds you somewhere just as lovely.

Welcome!

Thanks for stopping by! I thought I'd start our blog off by giving you a tour of the "farm". I struggle a bit to call our little piece of earth a farm. Farmstead is probably more appropriate, but that doesn't look nearly as good on a letter head.
I want this blog space to be a place for us to share the real life moments we have raising animals. Right now we have a growing flock of chickens with a focus on Barred Rocks, Black Copper Marans and Silver Laced Wyandottes. We've also recently added turkeys. Both Bourbon Red and very recently, Narragansett. We have a few sheep that are residing here until fall when 3 of them will go back to the farm from which they came and one lucky boy will feed our family for the winter. This space will likely, not be enjoyed by vegans or folks who don't like to know where their food comes from.
Ok, now let's get back to our tour shall we?

Today we'll talk to the birds.
These are the Bourbon Red Turkeys. They're 6 weeks old and growing super fast. They'll be heading out to pasture this week. Yippee!

These are the newest additions. 15 Narragansett poults. They'll be in the brooder for a few more weeks.

 

 

 

 I had to introduce you to Olive. She's our resident baby mama! She is my very best broody hen and while she usually doesn't have much actually hatch, she will raise whatever I throw in with her. This to me is the absolute neatest thing that happens here. We learned a big lesson this year.... she does best with chicks. We tried giving her both chicks and turkey poults and the turkeys couldn't keep up and were left behind.

I mean look at those cute little butts heading into the tall grass!

These are some of our young Wyandotte pullets. Aren't they pretty?

And now here is some of the big kid flock. Currently I have 27 laying girls. We have quite a few barred rock gals that should start laying in the next couple weeks and we also have our Black Coppers in with everyone at the moment. A little shifting around will be happening this week, I promise I'll keep you updated.

The girls were gifted with a delivery of vegetables this week and are quite pleased to have cucumbers and eggplant to keep them busy.

Well that's it for today. I promise we'll meet the sheep another day and I also want to do a garden tour. HA! By that I mean, I don't really weed and my garden would make real gardeners crazy, but never the less, I thought it would be fun to do a week by week update on how it looks and what's growing.
Thank you so much for stopping in! Feel free to say hello and come check us out of Facebook.