Time to make a move

Well this month is almost gone and we'll be into February.Geof put a window in the little barn yesterday to give the hens some extra daylight.A chicken needs at least 14 hours of daylight to form an egg,so this should help a bit.....though ours hasn't decreased much at all.

This is going to be the courting coop.

Nice and bright in there now.

I'm going to move a dozen rhode island hens and one roo (unrelated) that has a fair bit of rhode island in him over today.I think they will make some nice chicks.

I'll wait at least two weeks before I start saving the best eggs......around 40.The past two hatches have been about 50/50......so hopefully I'll get 20 pullets from that hatch.They should be laying by the end of August,perfect for the market.I will be getting some fertile eggs off the farm as well,should be interesting.

 

 This Australorp is from my last hatch in August,she should soon start laying by the looks of her comb.

 Rosemary has been running back and forth from the coop to this one all winter....some nights are spent here and some nights are spent in the other....I hope she doesn't get to cranky when she finds out the others have moved in!

A blustery day on the hill!

Fruit Tree Planting

We placed another order for trees from C&O Nursery,101 of which 80 are peach,that will bring it up to 224 trees in total!Two new varieties of peaches,Redstar and Coralstar,the other 21 trees are plums and cherries.
Here is a video of last years planting.

A New Year

Not much going on here these days.This is our down time so to speak and I can honestly say I love every minute of it! This old body can't do what it did ten years ago! Don't get me wrong,I love farming but it's hard work and it consumes every minute of every day,seven days a week!

April will be here before we know it and the seeds will be rolling in. Geof wants to plant a few more peach trees and some cherry trees as well. The deer have left them alone for a bit now but they sure did do a number on the cherry trees over the summer,lets hope they'll continue to grow.

Some of the ladies that bought their pickling cucumbers here are still talking about them as well as the dill.We certainly had a beautiful crop of it this year. Geof didn't get to plough this fall due to all the rain....maybe that was a good thing,as I see my pasture area depleting! LOL We didn't get the straw on the strawberries either.....I see Morse's didn't get theirs covered as well at the Windermere corner.....it will be a spring job,I sure do hope the plants fair well over the winter,I can't go without strawberries another year.Looking forward to the new variety Valley Sunset:)

As for meat birds and turkeys.......a few months' ago it was a definite NO!! I will never eat another housed chicken,so having said that,we'll either cut back and just raise enough for ourselves ......say 40 or 50...............the 200 hundred in past were a challenge but doable. We shall see.
I do enjoy the hens,especially the ones I incubated.They seem to have their own personalities.....more personable,if that's possible.I really hate to part with them.We had 10 roosters here! LOL We are down to four now and I'm happy with that  number. I will have some banty eggs this spring to hatch,I'm looking forward to them as they are so darn cute!

We really need to get at that building this year.......that dream of a horse is still  there......I believe it will happen 2011.....stay tuned!

We babysat Geofrey on Monday and he loves collecting the eggs.

 Got one Grampy