A Snowy Morning For Chores

     The seasons seem to change quickly around here.  Looking back at my farm notebook, it was a sunny 56 degrees just two days ago, and today we awoke to snow falling from the gray clouds above.  December has been a hectic month being in the midst of another holiday season, and had some fairly abnormal weather, but today all was calm when I stepped outside to do the morning chores in my new insulated bibs that I got for Christmas, with farm cats tangled at my feet.  

     Dashing through the falling flurries, the farm cats, as always, were quick to help this morning, and grab a snack in the warm dry shed of some of the turkey feed.

     Since I've checked in with everyone last, a bit has happened around here with our turkeys.  A week ago, we moved the turkey trailer to its new location by the chicken coop inadvertently creating a sort of barnyard for our animals past the old Pennsylvania Barn up on the hill.  

     It's a rather haphazard barnyard created with bits and pieces of whatever we could scavenge up: an old shed door propped up with tomato stakes to act as a windbreak for the chickens, chicken wire and garden fencing zip-tied to the runs to give the chickens some extra space and new areas to scratch, and an overabundance of white string used to tie newspapers together, now tightly strung in a 6-8" grid to create an aerial barrier between the turkeys and freedom.

     Unfortunately, this aerial barrier has failed us.  Again.  You may recall the turkey hen on the greenhouse roof from the last post.  Well, after just hours outside the second day (at their new location), she was promptly seen checking in with the chickens from our window.  I gathered her up, and stuck her back in the enclosure, and then spent the next thirty minutes securing the place she escaped through around the tree (witnessed by the turkey down stuck in the string nearby).  

    An hour after the repairs, she had escaped yet again.  Again, I stuck her inside their enclosure.  As dusk was now approaching, I decided to grab the hunting seat, and sit outside in the barnyard to watch vigil over the turkey hen to make sure she did not escape again.  If, somehow, she did, at least I would know how she did it, and in theory, be able to get her back inside quickly.  

     Without missing a beat, at dusk, she glanced upward through the strings, and tried to catapult herself through to freedom.  She hit the strings and flapped back down, defeated.  Yes!  It worked!  She had been using the tree for leverage after all!  After a few more failed attempts, I was satisfied that she would have to sleep in the trailer tonight.  Just as I thought she had given up, she mustered up enough wing power for one last ditch effort, and through she went!  

     I spent the next ten minutes chasing her around, while the gobbler now tried to desperately hurl himself through the aerial barrier.  I finally managed to wrestle her back in, but before I could turn around to secure her escape route, out she went again.  This time she found herself on the trailer's roof (where I could not reach), and was eagerly eyeing up the mulberry tree above her head.  

     The Mr. had fortunately pulled in at the landlord's (past the white barn behind her in the above picture) around that time, and I was able to frantically call him and get him home.  He climbed up to the trailer roof and grabbed her off, then promptly put both her and the gobbler to bed for the night.  Presently, they are stuck inside for a few days until repairs are made to the enclosure that will hopefully keep them inside!  

     With the turkeys out of the garden, the Delaware cockerels are now down there alone in their chicken tractor, working up the ground and eating up the tall and small weeds.  Our aim is for them to make it to the end of the garden before it gets too cold, and then they'll head off to the freezer so we can have some more chicken throughout the year.  

     As they work up the garden, we are finally starting to plan for next year's garden, but a little differently than before.  In years past this was a quiet winter break where all the planning could take place for two months before seed starting began.  This year, the greenhouse and cold frame are both still producing so there's only a limited break from the gardening.  Who would have thought that I would have to weed in winter?!  In December, we've harvested and eaten radishes, carrots, parsley, celery, and even tomatoes, though the plants of the latter are now pulled up.  Although the plants inside were bit by the cold, both the greenhouse and cold frame are certainly extending our season!  

     So on this cold and snowy day, it looks like I'll be finishing up some of the year-end totals, and perhaps get to work on a new garden layout plan for the coming season as I've already managed to inventory all of our seeds earlier this month.  After all, we can't harvest a seed that was never sown.  

Talkin' Turkey: Our First Month

     Grab a couple of pallets and some old shipping crates.  Gather pieces of a once painted red dock, parts of a once painted brown pool deck, and scraps of a once painted white garden shed.  Add on shingles left over from a relative's roofing project, a couple of second hand windows, and some new latches.  Screw and nail everything to the top of a former boat trailer that was shortened by its previous owner to haul firewood, and what do you have?

     A "Turkey Trailer" to house our newest additions around here: two Bourbon Red Turkeys!  Although originally our second choice on variety (behind the Narragansett Turkey), these birds - who are believed to be a future breeding pair - should make for some interesting days ahead.  (In fact they already are with the constant tapping on their coop windows, tipping of their feeder, and a pain in the neck waterer that we purchased because it had better reviews than the other choice, that we've now finally gotten used of and love.)

     Like our other poultry, the Bourbon Red Turkey is a heritage breed.  Dating from the late-nineteenth century in Bourbon County, Kentucky, this breed was utilized as a commercial variety during the 1930s and 1940s; however, broad breasted turkey varieties would eventually replace it.  The Livestock Conservancy has more information on the history of the Bourbon Red Turkey.

Testing out their new roosts.

     Their 6' x 6' Turkey Trailer, which is my husband's take on an easily-movable coop on wheels so when we relocate their pasture we could easily haul them as well, is plenty large for two turkeys, and should be large enough for about a dozen who are given regular access to a larger area outside.  Magically, the Turkey Trailer didn't end up costing an arm and a leg, and managed to be completed in under a week.  Inside is an L of 2x4 roosting bars screwed into the wall, and also supported by a 4x4 post, a 5-gallon waterer on paver blocks, a large nesting area, and a wooden feeder (now screwed to the wall to solve the constant "tipping" problem).  The entire trailer is also insulated under its plywood ceiling and pallet board walls.  The base of the trailer - pressure treated boards - is covered with plastic paneling, like the chicken coop and brooder has, for easy clean-up.

     After being constructed in our driveway, the whole trailer, with the turkeys securely inside on their roosts, was towed down in the setting sun by the Ford Ranger to its first temporary home in the garden.

After some complaints from the Ranger, there is no way the mower can pull this.

     Once they made it to the garden, they hung out inside the Turkey Trailer for a few days to get settled in their new home before we released them to their enclosure.  The enclosure consists of an approximately 20' by 20' area of the garden that has not seen chickens or chicken manure for at least three years, which we staked with chicken wire and metal t-posts.  Due to the lumps and bumps in the garden, some of the chicken wire is also secured to the ground with U-pins that are used to hold down hoses.  Human access is through a wooden gate covered in hardware cloth.  After all that, the fun began of stringing the entirety of the top, so that it created a "visual barrier" for the turkeys below and other birds that may fly over above.  Since the wings of the turkeys were not clipped, it was important to keep them in, and I can assure you this crazy spiderweb of strings caused many a car to slow down.

Don't worry folks, she's just dust bathing!  Freaked me out a few times too.

     All-in-all, their first month with us has been pretty successful, aside for one minor design flaw with the enclosure.  The hen figured out that if she hops on top of their door, she can poke her head through the spiderweb of strings, and launch herself to the roof of the coop and freedom.  We figured out how she did it, and added a green plastic mesh above the strings near the coop.  It was working fine until earlier this week...

     The Mr. frantically called from the driveway on Wednesday night, yelling to "grab two flashlights and get outside!"  First I thought opossum as one has been regularly raiding the cat food dishes, followed by perhaps the foxes we heard yelping had found their way to the cockerels in the garden that had no secure underground barrier in their chicken tractor.  I had dinner in the oven and dessert set to go in as soon as dinner came out... I had just five minutes on the timer, so I hurried outside.  I met my husband in the yard, still in my slippers, with two headlamps (because darn'd if I couldn't find any flashlights).  He had a ladder.  (That's never a good sign.)

     Apparently, she had found a way out of the enclosure we thought we secured, and lo' and behold, the Mr. had pulled in to see the Bourbon Red Turkey hen on the roof of the greenhouse!  We still have no clue how she did it this time, which causes me to religiously check the enclosure multiple times a day (and in many cases a hour) to make sure she is still securely inside.

     There's truly never a dull moment around here! 

Feeding Time At The Farm

     I know, I know, it's supposed to be "feeding time at the zoo," and some mornings it certainly does feel like a zoo around here as you trip on farm cats running at your feet to help with the morning chores.  This morning I wanted to give everyone a sneak peek at our new additions that I've been dropping hints about on Facebook, and if you take a walk with me through some morning chores, I'm sure you'll quickly discover just who they are!

     So, let's start out down at the garden with our Chicken Tractor, which we just finished construction on last month (not even a whole month ago!), that's complete with laying box and roosts and the eight Delaware cockerels who are acting as our self-powered manure welding lawnmowers.  They sure do get feisty when they see their morning feed coming, clamoring at the door to get to it.  Currently the Chicken Tractor has a temporary blue tarp for the roof until we get a white or tan one to replace it, and has two pieces of plywood that are acting as windbreaks in the chillier temperatures we are reaching at night.  Before too much longer these cockerels will be heading to the freezer as our temperatures really begin to dip.  

If you look to the left of the Chicken Tractor you'll notice Purrball is being a big helper this morning and cleaning up the chicken's feed bucket!

     Next, I head up the hill to the main coop, or the Pastured Poultry Palace as I like to call it.  Go ahead, roll your eyes at the name.  Plenty do.  This coop was completed in the summer of 2015, and presently holds our laying flock of five (Plymouth Barred Rocks) and breeding flock of eight (Delawares) for meat birds.  At the moment we are collecting eggs from both flocks until the spring when hopefully someone will go broody and we can get some chicks around here!  The Barred Rocks are now over a year old, and are presently going through their first molt, although their egg production is doing okay at the moment, and believe it or not, up from this time last year.  We'll see how long that lasts though.  The Delawares just started laying last month, and have finally made it over a dozen eggs between the seven ladies.  Their extra small eggs make cooking rather interesting.  

Mr. Roo always knows when feed is on the way, and keeps track of the camera for the ladies.

This morning's breakfast for everyone is chicken porridge!

     Next, we're heading back down the driveway and towards the house, whistling away.  It's time for the farm cats' breakfast with a brief stop to check on the new additions that got fed late last night, and still have plenty left.  

     Construction areas are certainly a mess, and today it's my mess to clean up (at least a little).  With construction started midday Sunday, there are only a few more boards that need tacked on to call it done for now.  Later we plan to add some more amendments to the structure, and in a few days move it out of our driveway.  Nestled inside are our new additions...

     ... two Bourbon Red turkeys who are about four months old.  They came from my in-laws who didn't have a place to house them over the winter, and therefore asked if perhaps we might want some turkeys?  After some debate between the Mr. and I as turkeys were not in our plans at the moment, and less than a week of construction on the new Turkey Trailer (I'll talk about that in another post), we're quite excited to see how these two settle in around here!  The guess is that these two are actually a pair, and it's our hopes that next spring they will become a breeding pair.  For now, they are pecking at the glass windows in front of them (they've never had windows before as they've lived outside in a mobile run) and taking in their new surroundings, including the farm cats that needed to peek through the windows.  

     Speaking of farm cats, it's on to breakfast for them!  

     Followed by what quite a few of us wish to be doing right now... snoozing in the sun.

Wishing you a beautiful, albeit brisk, autumn day from Pennsylvania Dutch Country!