A friend of mine shared this screen-capture with the caption “The look on that face!”
He is happy about those plants. Looks like a forest.
Not to be outdone, I posted back:
Yeah, mon. Here’s some soundtrack, mon.
ATTENTION DEA: Those are cassava in the background of my picture. I do not have marijuana, opium poppies, coca, Salvia divornum, magic mushroom, ergot of rye or any other controlled substance growing in my gardens, woods, van or attic. Especially not the attic.
Speaking of stress relief, I have been eating ultra-low carb for the last week. Mostly eggs, meat, kefir, bone broth, fermented vegetables and okra. Feeling great. Extra fat is melting off. I may quit caffeine too and see what happens. The Weston A. Price Foundation has some great health articles I have been enjoying lately. Just added cod liver oil to the diet as well. We’re also soaking and fermenting the chicken’s grain rations, like this gal:
I use chlorine-free water and throw in a cup of kefir plus a cup of kelp meal for extra nutrition.
And speaking of chickens, this is our farming project this week:
A new chicken tractor! We should finish it today. I have ordered 65 more chicks which are due to arrive in the mail on Tuesday or Wednesday. This design is from the University of Kentucky. You can download the pdf instructions here. It’s nice and solid, though a bit heavy. We’ll see how it drags. I want to get some birds on pasture and see how they do. We have severe predator issues here, so I am adding on a few additional layers of defense to make this safer, like a no-dig wire skirt. This man’s design is impressive.
25 of the incoming chicks are Red Broilers, 25 of them are Cornish Cross Mutant Freaks, and 15 of them are Brown Production Egg Layers.
I believe bad times are incoming and we would like to have a regular meat and egg supply before that happens. The 25 Red Broilers can live and reproduce as an ongoing meat breed, unlike the Cornish Cross birds.
Yesterday our other chickens (33 of them, 3 of which are roosters) produced 18 eggs for us. I want so many eggs we have some to give away. Right now we are eating them all without breaking a sweat. Extra eggs for pickling would be really good.
Along with the chickens, we are expanding the gardens:
Lots of beds going in for fall, though the rain has been a challenge.
Enough for now, though – I need to get some writing done!
You can have greener thumbs by this weekend!
6 comments
Incredible timing. I just picked up my first 6 chicks yesterday. 2 silkies, 2 blue laced gold Wyandottes, and 2 barred rocks. I’ve been mulling over downloading plans for a coop or cruising to Tractor Supply. I’ve got a few weeks before they’re ready to go outside. And Yeah, I’ve got “chia” growing too. Ghanchia. Kidding. Great stuff man. God bless.
That is hilarious.
We finished the tractor today. It is WAY TOO HEAVY! Gonna have to figure that out.
More beds going in for us as well. I’m planting and planting some more. I think we’re about to embark on the adventure of chickens for the first time. My wife is finally seeing the writing on the wall, we need to be ready. She has been on a canning spree lately as well.
The writing is on the wall, lit with neon, with massive alarm sirens ringing. Chickens are an easy way to get protein.
Looks great! I have seen them put on a skid, it would still be heavy, but perhaps doable with 2 people to pull instead of one. I think Joel Salatin made a 2 wheeled device, to go under one side, that lifts up the tractor to move, (oh, there must be wheels on the other side) he has only one for all his tractors, we have a family member who made one for his, it works pretty well, granted those tractors are smaller. Justin Rhodes has a taller pen for his sheep, there are wheels on one end, and they lift and pull from the other end…lol…just a few ideas.
Wish my family were seeing that writing…I can only suggest, and am met with resistance
In the past, we used the large diameter PVC pipe (4″, maybe 5″?) for the base of the movable chicken house. The arches/ribs for the chicken tractor were made of 1″ PVC pipe inserted into the holes drilled with a hole saw at even intervals. The wire that we used over the PVC was 1 x 2 welded wire over the entire pen. Coyotes just rip the chicken wire to shreds. We use the hog nose rings to hold it together; the zip ties don’t last too long in the NE Florida sun (or the SW Alabama sun, either, I expect). After about 5 years, the PVC starts getting too brittle.
For the chicks, I have them in a 2′ high pen, 1 x 4 framing, a 4 x 4 square, with hardware cloth sides to keep the water moccasins out. I’ve used the poultry wire in the past BUT then I have had to untangle a water moccasin that has gotten in, swallowed many of my chicks and killed others that they hadn’t gotten around to eating, then got stuck in the wire on the way out.
Then I told husband that I wanted a stronger pen to do some pasture renovation, but I did NOT want to sacrifice portability. I asked him whether he thought we could do something with hog panels and maybe some metal pipe to hold the cattle panels in place at the bottom. I knew it would be heavier than the older models, but it may still be portable if I could have some wheels on it.
Somehow, I now have a “portable” chicken pen that has the bottom frame made out of LANDSCAPE TIMBERS, hog panels covered with 1×2 welded wire fencing, and a big ol’ tarp over the top. Now, granted, my specs said that I wanted the pen to be wild hog proof, bear proof, coyote proof, fox proof, racoon proof…yeah, all those things that like a nice chicken dinner at night. Portable it is NOT. It takes a full-size Kubota tractor to move it which is not exactly conducive to pasture fertilization and renovation via chicken fertilization and weed removal.
Back to PVC, I suppose. And maybe keep the excess roosters out in the pasture in their PVC-framed portable pens until after hurricane season when we can put ’em in the freezer.
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