Sunday, June 19, 2011

The Chicks are growing so fast........

Today I let the chicks go from the little 4x12 incubator room to the big 12x12 coop room. They were sooo ready. In two weeks they have tripled in size and become so independent. No more red heat lamps at night.... they are growing feathers instead of the cute chick fluff. They look sort of ugly as the feathers grow in. I guess Pullet is about like Teen. No more cup size feeders and quart size waterers.....They have the adult grain feeders and a 5 gal waterer. There are 100 in this flock and tonight when I checked and shut things down, most were resting together and a few were still eating and getting drinks.
The new Non-GMO feed mix is going well. The birds are really growing and healthy. I found the feed mill company on the internet. Their site explained things well and their rep is down near Marshfield. So I bought 9 weeks of feed. It is more expensive but I think it is better for me to stand up for myself and the people that buy from me. So this is working ok!
I didn't write for quite a while. I've got some excuses: the weather was cold, working outside was hard, the tractor had a flat tire every morning and it would backfire. I think I was grumpy. But one day I was out in the woods in the snow looking at the tops of trees so I could cut the dead ones for firewood. ......... And way, way up in the sky I could see these little white dots. They were white birds moving in circles, way up there. They were just gliding and floating------- Some kind of white swans. Then one flew through the gliders and they all joined up in a white V heading NW. Their rest break was over. I am in Awe of Nature and the workings of the Universe. So much is happening all around. I don't even understand what I am seeing.
May was a tough month physically. I just had to keep working all day and every day. The season was changing from winter/spring to summer. Every day there was another thing that needed to be done in order to keep up with the awakening earth. Then the tree planting took two weeks....I didn't think it would be so hard, but planting a thousand trees, means bending over at least 2000 times. Luckily my partner helped me when I was wearing out. It is done now and in a few years it will really be something!!!! The garden is starting. We had rhubarb sauce and rhubarb cake. It was so good. Then the asparagus started to come up. Such good food. Funny, every day I am doing something I really like to do. How lucky am I!!!!