200 Chickens? Sold!

Today was fairly uneventful... until I got a phone call around 1pm this afternoon.

I had placed an ad in the local "Free Ad Paper" for the ISA Brown and Bovan commercial laying hens that we were rehabilitating. We get the chickens, several hundred at a time, from battery cage laying operations and pay anywhere from nothing to $2.00 each for them. This last batch, since they are brown egg layers, were $2.00 each.

When we first bought the birds, we thought they were $1.00 each. It was a huge miscommunication - although deep in my dark little heart I think that the mix-up was a tad on the intentional side, as far as the seller goes. Anyway, $400 worth of 70 week old laying hens turned into $900 worth of hens awfully darn quick. The breakdown in communication wasn't clarified until hubby and I were already over an hour from home and the seller had loaded all of the birds onto our truck and trailer. Deep sigh. I wrote a check for the balance of the birds... I already had some of them sold in advance and figured I could make the money up fairly quickly.

A side note on this story: the birds that we have gotten from "egg farms" previously didn't look that great, with feathers missing and a bit on the skinny side, etc. These latest birds... no joke... were naked. Some of them didn't have a feather on them. Literally. No way could we sell these naked chickens. We ended up calling them the "Zombie Chickens" because they looked like dead chickens, already plucked, just up and walking around. Crap.

Well, I managed to get 100 of them to a sale barn the morning after we brought them home and sold them for $3.00 each. Not too bad, seeing as how we never even took them out of the travel crates.

Over the next couple of days I sold a couple hundred to the Burmese families for $2.50 each. Not a good price for me, but I had negotiated the price with the Burmese back when I thought the birds were costing me $1.00 each. Including feed, I probably lost a few pennies on those particular birds. But, in terms of a "loss leader" in order to keep the Burmese and their friends and families as happy repeat customers, it was worth it in the long run.

We've sold a few more of the girls here and there... some as brown egg layers, a few as meat birds to an African lady that has picked up a couple chickens and a few dozen eggs from us.

And then, today, the phone call. We got the price settled at $3.50 per bird and I made sure that the buyer knew how hideous they look... although they do look considerably better than when we brought them home over the Labor Day weekend. We talked it over and the buyer figured he could take between 100 and 150 of the birds.

Turns out, he took 200.

Wow. I am so unbelievably happy. Not even just to have made a little money, but to have finally gotten my money back on these birds. I already know that I'll never again get birds from the guy I bought these from - I just have a bad taste in my mouth after our last dealing - so I'm just glad to be shut of these hens and to put the whole business behind me.

We probably have between 15 to 20 of the birds left, and that will be fine to keep the flow of brown eggs going. No more purchasing $2.00 hens for me, though. Uh-uh, no way.

...And 3 Months Later

Where does the time go?

There is hardly a day that goes by without something "blog-able" happening on the farm, and yet, here it is, months later, and I'm just sitting down to write. Sigh.

So what sorts of things would I have been blogging about, had I been writing? Let's see:

• Selling chickens and ducks to ethnic groups; especially the Burmese community that comes out to the farm.
• Buying 525 "retired" commercial egg farm hens... and paying twice as much for them as I thought I was going to.
• Making friends with Carmen and her over-the-top Mexican family, and becoming a part of that family by way of food, Spanish lessons and a small local auction.
• Selling off all of our goats.
• Getting a total of 6 new geese for the farm.
• Getting our first goose egg - wow!
• The new chicks that various of our hens have managed to hatch so late in the season (we have chicks that are only a week or so old right now).
• Having all three of our vehicles break down in the same week. Of course.
• About how being broke doesn't mean being poor.
• How one of our teen-aged daughters (16) has moved out.
• All about depression, how it sucks, and how it sucks the life out of you.
• Going to Chinatown in Chicago with two teen-aged girls (my 15-year-old and one of her best girlfriends) and having the most awesomest time ever. Not to mention trying Vietnamese food for the first time - amazing.
• Almost moving to Seattle (okay, not really almost, but it kind of felt like it for a couple of days).

I'm sure there's more, but when you don't keep up day-to-day, the days do manage to meld together and become a bit formless and less memorable.

I'll do my best to fill in some of the blanks that are suggested by the bullet-points above. Until then, I'm alive and mostly well and really getting ready to enjoy fall, my most favorite of seasons.

Weather from Hail

Well, I just spent 20 scary minutes in my basement.

I watched the storm form on the radar map, had out my weather radio, and, with just a tiny bit of prompting (rather sudden, golf-ball sized hail was all it took), I think I moved faster than I have moved in a long time! My route from the back bedroom, to the bathroom to grab blankets from the linen cupboard, through the living room, into the kitchen and down the stairs to the basement might have taken me 2.2 seconds. It's all a blur, I'm not sure.

I did actually make a detour to look out the kitchen door on my way down the cellarway stairs and saw the ground literally blanketed with hailstones. The large maples behind the house had branches that were blowing straight out. I couldn't see the barn. It was very dark outside (1:15 in the afternoon).

It occurred to me in my panic to wonder where Hubby and his brother were. Turns out they were in the big barn running electricity. Uh-oh. They, did, however, weather the storm just fine - along with the goats, chickens, geese and other barn dwellers.

As for me, it was me and my Great Dane under the basement stairs sitting on the lip of the old cistern, cowering under an old wool Army blanket and a flannel sheet (they were what I managed to grab).

As is evidenced by this post, we made it through okay. The hail and straight-line winds were the worst of it (bad enough if you ask me, I'm a weather wimp of the highest order). After the deluge of rain that is now falling stops, I'll go out and survey any damage.

We have actually had two small funnel clouds hop the property in the last two years. One was just a couple of weeks ago that ate up a bit of the corn field and the other went on the other side of the house last year. It tore out a field of Queen's Anne Lace (wild carrots) and split a tree. This quickie storm that just passed was just as terrifying as either of those occasions. I was certain this was going to be "the big one."

I hate this year's weather. I know that lots of folks do. And that isn't even taking in account the folks that have lost homes, towns, loved ones, etc. God watch over us and protect us all from that kind of weather / natural disaster.

My family is from Louisiana on my mother's side (Alabama on Daddy's) and I drove down from Indiana to New Orleans when Katrina came through. My mother was there and I couldn't get in touch with her... so I loaded up the station wagon, the Great Dane, supplies, cans of gas, a chain saw and a logging chain and away I went (God bless Hubby for understanding my need to perform these sorts of acts now again... but hopefully never again). My family, by the way, was okay - windblown and wet, but okay.

Like so many others, I can look back to that time and see that it was the beginning of a larger pattern of severe weather and dangerous storms. I'm not a proponent of global warming - preferring instead to use the term "Climate Change". This few years of wacky weather is, I'm certain, just the beginning folks.

Now, if you like me and wish to continue reading my blog, that is awesome - I'm sure that if I met you, I'd probably like you, too - but you have to know that I am a bit of a kook and continuing to read this particular post past this point may negatively impact your perception(s) of me.

You were warned, here goes:

The trends for Climate Change are vast. The earth has constantly, since the beginning of whatever time you believe in, changed in cycles: heat, ice ages, flooding, aridity, etc. Deserts, oceans, islands, they all come and go. Some slowly, some more quickly (on a geologic scale, "quickly" is a relative term).

Our magnetic poles are actively in the process of shifting - geologic evidence shows that this is also a cyclical occurrence and we are, quite frankly, overdue. The science is explained at the NASA website.

Natural disasters are becoming fairly commonplace around the globe. The question of a natural disaster hitting close to home is quickly becoming less of an "if" and more of a "when".

Our local weather is a drop in the bucket. 90s one day, 70s the next. Out-of-nowhere storms. Unpredictable patterns (not that Mr. Weatherman was ever great at predictions, but isn't the technology supposed to pretty good right about now?).

I didn't get my first plant in the ground until the first of June this year. Quite late for this area. The main reason was fluctuations in the weather that were messing with the moisture content and "workability" of the soil. At one point, my garden ground was so hard, we joked that we had produced a bumper crop of naturally occurring adobe. But it was no joke that the tiller, literally, could only just barely scratch the surface - and what it did scratch almost instantly blew away - modern-day dust bowl anyone?

Here is my advice, for the devalued two cents that it may or may not be worth:

• Stock up on non-perishables. Rotate the stock. Can / preserve your own when you can.
  
• Invest in keeping heritage / heirloom seeds on hand. Learn how to save your own seeds and how to keep them for extended periods.
  
• Be prepared for your first, or even second, garden planting to be destroyed and have a contingency plan. If your life depends on making a good garden, you need to have a fall back if your first attempt or two don't make it.
  
• Have a storm cellar or other area of safety in your home. Different regions require different types of safe places, so do what is appropriate for your area.
  
• Track weather trends and long term patterns. What was the weather in your area 100 years ago, 50, 15? Get a weather map and learn how to use it.
  
• Keep an emergency preparedness kit.
  
• Run drills for your family. Just like a fire drill, but for weather, too.
  
• Know what to do if you are caught in weather away from home. I was in a furniture store in Fort Wayne, Indiana years ago when a tornado tore through the parking lot, strip mall and building. There were shoppers (myself included) that were yelling "tornado" and directing folks even before a terrified employee thought to initiate a "Code Black" over the p.a. system. Remember, the people around you are just as scared as you may be and just because they are an employee of a store, they aren't necessarily equiped to deal with an emergency any better than you are.
  
• Be informed. Try and believe that folks that talk about extreme weather are not "Chicken Littles" and know that these new weather patterns are here to stay - at least for a while.
  

I suppose that is enough for now. The rain has stopped and the sun is peeking out. I should go walk around and see how the property faired.

Good luck - and may Mother Nature only turn her warm and smiling face toward you this season.

Carpeting the Garden: A Primer

As I had mentioned in a previous post, we are using scavenged / recycled carpet in our garden this year. It is my first time trying this, and thus far I am very happy with the amount of necessary work and the results.

There are multiple benefits to using old carpet in the garden:

• It is a wonderful method of recycling / reusing
  
• The carpet is a tremendous barrier against weeds
  
• The carpet insulates the ground, maintaining a steadier temperature
  
• Moisture is retained between the rows, encouraging root growth
  
• The trapped moisture means more time between waterings, and less water usage overall
• The covered soil is a great environment for earthworms
• Rows are clearly defined and easy to avoid - nobody accidently stepping on seeds or young plants
  
• Plants that vine or produce "laying fruit" (watermelon, cucumber, etc) are more accessible and cleaner
  

The following is a step-by-step primer on the method that I am using to carpet our garden.


A wide angle view of the garden


A closer view of the rows


Various widths of carpet between the rows - the width is dependant on the types of plants grown - wider strips of carpet between vining plants, narrower strips between onions, etc.


Note that the ends of the strips of carpet must be weighted down. We learned the hard way that dry carpet can blow really far across the garden. This seems obvious in hindsight, but it never occurred to me beforehand.


I have put an old plastic sled into service as a sledge to drag rocks and bricks from around the property down to the garden. So much easier than a bucket or wheel barrow!


This is the garden from a different direction - note the carpet that hasn't yet been used in the background. I keep it spread out and ready to cut. This keeps the carpet from getting waterlogged, saves me effort on rolling and unrolling, and also provides all of the benefits listed above for the portions of the garden that are not yet planted.


An example of soil that has not yet been under carpet.


Soil that has been under carpet for two days.


Earth that has been under carpet for just over a week - notice the shriveled thistle to the left, just at the end of the shadow.


Close-up of the shriveled thistle.


Thistle elsewhere in the garden that hasn't been carpeted.


Step one after getting your carpet is to site your row. No different from doing this for a garden that isn't to be carpeted.


I use a gas powered Roto-Tiller. I will till in one direction and then come back over the same row, back to where I started.


The row after it has been tilled and retilled.


Now I pull the dirt from the first "hill" of the tilled row onto the second hill.


Pulling the dirt over gives you a nice high hill for planting and provides a more even surface on which to lay the carpet. The process also gives you an opportunity to pull out any organic matter that might reroot itself (thistle, for instance) and to remove any inorganic matter or rocks that you have tilled up.


The new row after all the dirt from the outside hill has been hoed onto the center hill. I leave the dirt on the other side alone - this gives me extra soil for adding to the hill if I need it later as I am planting.


I use the handle of my hoe to measure the distance across the row.


Using the handle of the hoe to mark the spot on the carpet where I will cut the needed strip.


We have found that the best thing to use for cutting the carpet is, you guessed it, a carpet knife. When using a carpet knife, keep in mind that the razor blade head is double edged and *very sharp*. Always use proper safety precautions.


I pull back the carpet as I cut.


For ease of movement when relocating the carpet strip to the row, first fold the strip in half lengthwise...


Then fold it in half again. I am generally doing this by myself and the folding makes the carpet manageable when moving and when laying it safely into the new row.


The carpet placed into the new row.


Weigh down the edge of the carpet.


Place happy plants or hopeful seeds into the soil of your new hill and repeat as needed.

Ta-da!