Baby Time!!

Well, Erik and I are expecting our first baby!! We actualy found out December 11th, and told our families on Christmas. It was really fun telling our parents. We bought picture frames and instead of a picture put in a piece of paper that said "Picture coming August 2011!". Yup, August 11th is my due date. It all has been a little scary and overwhelming, but also super exciting!

We both decided that a home birth was the best option for us, and were very fortunate to have found a midwife close to us. This past Saturday was my first "official" appointment with her. My first appointment I was not very far along so it was more of a meet and greet. This time however I got the full physical and we actually got to hear the babies heartbeat! I was warned that we might not hear it yet, but as soon as the Doppler homed in on the sound i knew immediately what it was. I was kind of surprised at how excited I felt. Up until that point despite the positive pregnancy test I really didn't feel pregnant. I have very little symptoms and actually feel better then I did not pregnant!! But hearing that heartbeat really made it feel real in a fun and exciting way. I feel like we are starting a new adventure, which I guess we are!!!

That is Just Egg-Tastic

Our little farm venture was started on our egg business. Before we started selling our eggs our first 25 hens were producing more eggs than we could eat. When friends and family came over the rule was they couldn't leave unless they took AT LEAST a dozen eggs with them.

This is a pretty entertaining concept now, since we barely eat our own eggs due to demand. After our first summer selling at local farmer's markets and aquiring more hens to up production, we started looking for an outlet to sell our eggs during the off season. We stopped into a wonderful little farm where we used to live that has a store on site. They agreed to sell out eggs for us. Usually most of our eggs sold, and during early spring when our hens were at the height of production there was a surpluss of eggs that were not moving. Once the farm's CSA program started and people were in the store every weekend, all bets were off. Apparently our eggs have become the favorite and people will actually call ahead to see if they are available. We do our weekly delivery every Saturday morning and usually all of the eggs are sold by Sunday.
We did order a bunch of baby chicks in the spring to up production more, but due to a lot of bad luck we didnt end up with as many hens as we would have liked. Apparently every raccoon and mink in the area puts out a bulletin when we release pullets into the coop. One night a mink wiped out 48 pullets. And for those of you thinking "just trap the mink" I say you are welcome to come out here and try!

Anyway, this wonderful store that sells our eggs has been so helpful to us, but cannot seem to understand what is invloved in free range farming. I could pen up my hens in little battery cages and slaughter them after a year when they no longer produce at top levels. But i refuse. So as a result my girls have a trade off. They get to be outside and act like the chickens they are, but that also makes them prone to becoming pray.

I understand that we as a society have been so far removed from our food sources that the majority of us no longer even understand the basics. But i really feel that if you choose to work with farmers and sell their products perhaps you can make more of an effort to learn what their job entails. Just a thought. Ok, thats my rant for today.

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And Heeeere's Winter!

After a wonderful warm Fall, Winter has finally made his appearence. As a result Erik and I are now in a mad rush to finish up our outdoor winterizing. It would be so nice to have a year without broken pipes in the rabbit's barn.

One of the reasons we bought our farm was to grow our own food that was chemical free. I suffer from Fibromyalgia, Restless Leg Syndrome and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and I am convinced it is a result of all of the poison in our enviroment. Unfortuntly this does mean we have to work harder to eat better. Winter is always especially hard on me. The lack of light makes me even more tired and depressed and the cold really gives me a lot of pain. That is why it is so important for us to make things as easy as possible because i am limited to how much i am capable of doing in a day and a lot falls on Erik's shoulders.

Back to the barn...
So after we got up late (7am) and rushed to get out of the house to deliver eggs an hour away before the store opened, then drive back to our area to buy feed, we finally got home. While Erik restocked the wood burning stove that is our primary source of heat, i put on layers of clothes and jackets and gloves. We mucked out the rabbits barn and then while i bred the rabbits (the weekends are our Bucks favorite time of the week!) Erik continued to wrap the barn in plastic like a giant Christmas present. We finished the day by providing a spa day for the rabbits! This means they got their nails clipped and ears cleaned. It is very important for us to keep our rabbits clean and check then for any health issues. We never use antibiotics, so we have to keep our eyes open for health issues to prevent anything spreading to the rest of the herd.

All of this was immediatly followed by me coming into the house and falling asleep on the couch. I am sure Erik continued to work outside while I was sleeping, but my hound dog Tucker and I were cozy inside snoozing. So much for a long "relaxing" weekend! Such is the life on a farm.

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Thanksgiving Adventures

Its the day before Thanksgiving. Thanks to my brother in law who suggested we host Thanksgiving this year (and will now not be attending), we will have 10 people in our house tomorrow. I know for a lot of you this isn't very many, but due to my grandfather being ill and spending all of last weekend with him NOTHING is ready. We have a 31# turkey attempting to defrost that I will have to get into the oven by 6am tomorrow, a whole house to clean plus all of the farm chores we normally do on Sundays (which did not get done due to me being gone and my husband being sick). I still have some grocery shopping to do as well. All of this and both hubby and I are working a full day today.


The reason we were nominated to host Thanksgiving this year is because we raised 15 Heritage Turkeys this year (Bourbon Reds for those of you who care). Late this summer my brother in law stopped by the house and while we were drinking a beer and watching the turkeys gobble at each other he mentioned we should have Thanksgiving this year since already have the turkeys. Then a week ago his wife decided they are going to spend Thanksgiving with her family. Wonderful. But, the show must go on.


We raised the turkeys because a friend of ours has been pestering us to do so since we moved into the farm. It seemed liked a natural transition since we are already raising chickens (both meat and layers) as well as rabbits and pheasants. In early July I received my phone call from the wonderful Postmaster at our local Post Office that I had a box of birds waiting for me. For those of you that are not aware, when you order birds from the hatchery they are sent via USPS. Its rather funny to come out of the Post Office with a big box that is chirping! Even in a rural community I receive strange looks. We had also ordered some laying hens with the turkeys, so we stuck them all together in our "nursery" (a small room in our barn that we raise the small birds until they have feathers and can be outside). Very quickly we discovered the turkeys could not be with the chickens because they are so gangly and uncoordinated and were being crushed. We separated everyone and things proceeded just fine. Once the turkeys had their feathers and the fear of crushing had passed we moved them out to our coop so they could free range during the day and enjoy the summer sunshine. They fit in well with our chickens and other then a little confusion at night as to how to get back into the coop things went fine.


As soon as we received the turkeys we made an appointment at the local processing plant for Nov. 19th. We figured that would be a good amount of time to raise them to a good size and also allow for fresh turkey on Thanksgiving. In early September while we watched the large Toms having trouble getting in the little access door of the coop due to their large size, we decided to rethink our processing date. Then the logistics of how to get these massive birds to the processing plant dawned on us. At that point it was decided we would just do the deed ourselves. In early October my husband and I along with my great uncle and our friend who was the inspiration behind this adventure, spent a Saturday catching and butchering all the turkeys. Despite experience butchering our rabbits, I thought I would have a hard time with turkeys. I had grown to enjoy their antics and looked forward to their morning "meetings" where they would all gather in front of the barn and gobble at each other for an hour before moving on to roaming the property and eating everything green they could find. Everything went smoothly and we were able to butcher all 15 birds in a record amount of time. And even more amazing was that they all fit into the freezers! Our biggest bird weighed in at 31# (the aforementioned Thanksgiving bird).


Being the type of person that procrastinates everything, I will find out early tomorrow morning whether the bird will even fit into my oven. This will be followed by a mad scramble to clean the house as I am sure it will not be completed tonight as planned. I have all the confidence in the world though that everything will work out one way or the other, as it always does. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!