Are You Ready For Some Farming?


Sophie napping on the reclamation scene

You may or may not know that Sunday was the first day of the NFL's regular season. Prior to moving to the farm I can't remember a fall Sunday where I didn't watch NFL football. Literally. Every Sunday for as long as I can remember I'd at least watch a game or two, if not more. But out here we don't have a TV signal and there's too much to do to sit down and watch TV for 3+ hours anyway. 

Did I miss football this Sunday? Yes. Definitely. There was a nostalgia for sure. Would I rather have sat on the couch or at a bar and watched the game and drank beers with friends? I don't think so.

So what was on tap instead of football?

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Adapting to Change

It’s officially been a full six months on the farm. In a lot of ways it seems longer. In more ways the time completely flew by. When I think about the transition, the best part for me is that we’re happy out here and enjoying our time together. We’ve had friends describe our situation as the ultimate test for a newlywed couple. Giving up every aspect of day-to-day life for a completely new set of challenges. Jumping from millions of people to just the two of us. Working separate day-jobs to working together constantly. It was no small feat and we’re more excited about the future than we ever were before.

Another area where we’ve grown is in our ability to adapt to change. In the city life was very structured, relatively easy to predict and if something went off-track it could easily be set back on track. Out here it’s a lot different. When something changes, we, as a farm, have to adapt. I see it with the animals and the plants every day. It’s a key factor in their survival. Everything out here wants to survive no matter what changes are happening around them. There is no giving up, and I love that aspect of nature.

That has to be true for us as well. Life doesn’t always go as planned. In fact, a lot about our future on the farm has changed in the past month. In the coming weeks we’ll share more, but for now I get a lot of inspiration from the farm and our wonderful companions that make each day that much more inspiring.

The Case of The Terrified Chooks - Part II


Got your man on camera chooks, now what?

Lady Guinea, bald rump and all, was at least accounted for. All day the chooks had been going about their business, foraging and taking dust baths as usual. Elvis crowed all day, Winona followed us around squawking, just the usual day for a chook on the farm. Or at least we thought.

After wrapping up chores and watching the sunset I went back into the barn only to see ALL of the birds up in the rafters roosting for the night. Crap! After months of them happily living in the coop this one incident terrified them to the point of abandonement. I wasn't about to let them get in that habit, so I took a plastic rake and shooed them out of the barn and rounded 'em up into the coop. They weren't happy about it, but it's better not to get them started on thinking the barn is their new coop.

The next day I went to check the nest boxes for eggs, and to no surprise, no eggs. The hens were either too frightened to lay eggs (which can last for weeks or months), or they were laying elsewhere. This would be harder to crack than the roosting problem. How do you get a hen to start laying in its coop again? No, seriously, how? 

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