We have birds and beans!

Things have really been picking up here at the farm.  We can now officially call ourselves The Birds and the Beans, as both of our commodities (that is, birds and beans) arrived this week.  

Our lovely chicks arrived two days ago--120 peeping fluff balls in a cardboard box.  They arrive when they are only a day old and have not yet had any food or water, so we rushed them home to our newly built brooding space.  We stuck close by for the first 24 hours, making sure they figure out the whole eating and drinking business, since that’s what we need them to do for the next eight odd weeks.  Which reminds me-- we have to book them an appointment at the abattoir… Yikes!  But before then, they’ll be happily running about their moveable, open-air pens, eating freely and enjoying the lush pasture.  

Bean seeds also arrived this week.  We have been working on a plan of how much and where to plant the plethora of beans, lentils, peas, grains, quinoa, and seeds we’ve collected from our various homes and bought from different producers.  It’s exciting to know all these bags and jars and boxes of seeds on the kitchen table will be in the ground within the week.

And as for the vegetables, they are virtually exploding out of their transplant trays and are ready to get in the ground.  But we have to finish putting up the deer fence before planting; otherwise, the deer will munch the top off everything we’ve grown over the last two months. 

If you’d like to buy some happy chickens in six weeks, please call or email us (information on Products page)! 

The brooding pen

Little chicken

Little chickens eating

Beans and peas and lentils, oh my!

Just a fraction of what needs to go outside

Starting from the beginning

This is the beginning of The Birds and the Beans.  Although the four of us have experience in working for many types of farms and growing plenty of plants and animals, starting our own farm has been nothing but new experiences--from creating a business to ploughing up new ground to starting transplants.  It seems that every task is loaded with uncertainty, and there is little more to do than put our best guess forward.  Thankfully (or hopefully), the cumulative knowledge of four intelligent agriculturalists is a very good guess. 

Up until now, it has been a lot of planning—planning how much money we can spend, how many squash to plant, how many chickens to raise, and the like.  But thankfully the weather is warming up, and we are glad to have fewer meetings and get outside to do some work.  We’ve ploughed a portion of the field, started some transplants, and are eagerly waiting for the arrival of our first batch of chicks. 

This is John, ploughing the field.

 

This is the field after ploughing.  It doesn't look like much right now, but can you see the potential?  It should be about a month or so until we can make beds and get our transplants in the ground.