Weekly Farm Update 07.03.22
Chickens:
You may be wondering why I keep talking about the chickens but frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. I love these little ones and can’t stop myself from writing about them each week. We try to sit out every evening with them and let them fly on us and chill. The boys get special treatment so they will hopefully like us and not attack us 😅 This means we pick them up and take them out to find bugs together and pet them. Oftentimes they are not fans but that’s the price they have to pay living here. The crowing continues once a day but nothing long and obnoxious. Any luck the crowing will pester the hell of out the addicts next door. Little victories!
Each year the Japanese beetles come out and start eating the sycamore trees growing all over our land. The chickens love eating the beetles so we get a container, add some water in the bottom so they can’t fly out, and go around collecting tons of them. If you line everything up correctly they fall into the container for you. Then, we take it back and feed the chickens handfuls of beetles. They get so excited snacking, it’s a lot of fun to watch. Plus this is free food high in protein that would be a menace to our trees if left unchecked.
Fruit:
Berry season continues with thornless blackberries ripening now. These are really spectacular advances in plant domestication. You can walk by them and not get cut and when you pick them there are no thorns lodged in your skin. We have several varieties here and they are all doing well. Below is the variety ArkTraveler.
Bears:
While sitting with the chickens the other evening, I looked out in our neighbor's field and saw these two beasts lumbering through. Since we were more concerned about making sure they stayed away from the house and animals, that was the only picture I got of them. It doesn't do them justice because the bear in the back was absolutely gigantic. He dwarfed the other one despite that one being a healthy-sized bear. They kept walking and passed through our property into the woods. I even climbed on top of the container to make sure they kept walking. Our deer fence would be no match for a giant bear like this.
Garden:
I finally planted the soybeans, sweet corn, and burdock this week! Other chores took precedence last week so I was happy to finally get them in the ground. They transplant so well from the seed trays. We look forward to harvesting some in a few weeks. This is a domesticated variety of burdock that is supposedly better eating than the wild types. We shall see. Still, it’s fun to grow them because nothing eats burdock and they grow wild here indicating it’s a good place for them.
We even harvested our first green beans and cooked them up with sea salt and garlic powder sprinkled on top. Absolutely delicious 😋 It’s really nice to have something to eat after all these weeks of waiting. Yellow crookneck squash is ready too. I enjoy slicing them and frying them in a little bit of oil with pepper and sea salt. Squash bugs have not shown up yet so I can enjoy them while they last.
Well House:
Saturday we were able to finish putting the metal roof up on the well house. Now we have complete shade from the sun and protection from the rain/snow. This is a huge benefit for us because we have the picnic table under it so we can enjoy being outside without baking.
