Our chickens were visiting the neighbours so we fenced that side of our property.  This was one of several loads of fence posts.  We used sheep fencing which is basically page wire that is smaller near the bottom than the top.  We can add a strand of electric to the top and it will be suitable for the horses.  Next year we’ll tackle the other half of the property.

We followed that with a new chicken coop, two batches of chickens and many eggs.  Below is a Frizzle Cochin Bantam.  He is quite friendly and tries to woo us  every time we pass him.  He’ll cluck and try and find a bug or leaf to share.

We supplied about 10 CSA shares for about 5 weeks.  It was quite a bit of work and we are undecided if we’ll continue or expand it next year.  It requires a fair bit of dedication to maintain variety throughout the entire season.  Below are a few of the raised beds we used.  Next year we’ll need to improve of chicken containment.  There was a great article in Harrowsmith that suggested a 16inch high wooden picket fence in 8ft sections that could be put together to keep the chickens out.  This will be a winter project for us

Somewhere mid summer we began fixing up the apartment above the garage to rent out.  It is still under construction but it is livable and has a tenant! Here I am soldering supply lines onto the shower valve.  Behind the insulation in the background is a concrete wall, the addition of the foam insulation significantly increased the temp in the room.  It is a large room beneath the apartment and would make a great room to have a projector in… if only it was part of the main house.  Kelly and I are a bit jealous that the apartment has been completely remodeled and we have hardly done any renovations in the main house.  This winter we’ll start plugging away and redo the bathrooms in the main house and replace the carpet in the living room and master bedroom.

Just recently we purchased an iron filter to help keep the fixtures looking new.  It seems to be working well!  In the process we learned the pump wasn’t providing enough flow to regenerate the iron filter.  This eventually resulted in a new pump in the well and a larger pressure tank.  The old pump was 24 years old and was encased in mineral deposits a piece of which is shown in the pic below.

That sums up our spring, summer and fall.  Lets hope the cold weather sets in quickly so we can start skating!

What an emotional day!  We have 2 hens that have gone broody.  A black hen in our chicken coop and a brown hen in the hay shed.  We were getting worried about the black hen as she had been sitting on her eggs for over a month and nothing was happening.  She was starting to lose weight and looks quite unkempt, so we decided to remove all the eggs from under her so she could take care of herself.  We were sure there was nothing happening in the eggs, but when we cracked them open, 3 out of the 7 had little embryos forming.  Although they were little more than large blood spots with veins coming out, it still brought a tear to my eye and made me feel extremely guilty.  I’m not sure why they were not further along since the normal hatching time is 21 days.  I think that some of the eggs were rolling out from under her or the other chickens were pushing their way into her nest and laying eggs as well.  I think it was really for the best as now the hen can put some weight on and get back into good health.  We have decided that if any hens go broody in the future, they will be moved to a separate area.

The good news (as you can probably tell from the photo) is that the brown hen in the hayshed hatched her first chick today!  A few hours after removing the eggs from the black hen, I went to check on the brown one.  I lifted her up so I could count how many eggs she was sitting on and out popped a little white chick!  I was very excited as this is the first baby to be born on Wannabe Farms - at least the first domestic baby :).  Thankfully we have finished the chicken coop (except for a few finishing touches) so we moved baby, mom and eggs down to a little room in the coop that we had built to hold the feed.  The hen seems to have settled in quite nicely and the photo above was taken from inside the room.  The timing was just right as we will be getting our new shipment of hay in a few days and would have had to move her anyway.  She is sitting on 15 or 16 eggs - one of which had a hole pecked through, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there is another chick peeking from under her wing at this very moment!

You can see the lonely tuilip that was tilled into the soil.  I’ll beable to adjust the cultivators so I can cultivate between rows if I wanted to.  The other advantage to cultivators is it isn’t quite as destructive to the soil structure as plowing.  The garden is currently 100ft by 100ft (almost 1/4 of an acre) and I’d like to till up another 5o ft by 100ft for just corn (won’t be a problem selling surplus corn).  Tonight we picked our first harvest of baby lettuce, spinach and radishes for dinner.  It was quite refreshing! We can’t wait to get the remainder of the garden planted.  Next year with the cultivators we’ll beable to take the garden to the next level and rent a few acres of land to plant for a full time market garden/CSA.  This year will be a small run with a few friends as trial CSA members.  If you are interested in a share of the harvest you’ll have to let me know very soon *hint*hint* :)  The first share (although a small one) will likely be going out next week.

We are in the process of building a new chicken coop.  You can see a bit of the old coop on the left.  It was one of our first building projects and I call it the “slanty shanty.”  We built it from logs we cut on our property.  We spent many hours building it.  It is about 5 x8 ft which is large enough for our current flock but when we combine the new chicks it won’t be.  It is also impossible to get into and clean and the nesting boxes are not ideal and they only use them on occasion (we find most of the eggs in our hay shed).  We’ll repurpose the old coop as a garden shed or maybe we can modify it for the pigs.  The new coop will be 100 sq feet (the max we can get away with with out getting a permit).  We opt’d to use pole framing which is much easier, faster, and cheaper.  We’re covering the sides with board and batten which will match our horse shelter.  We have two triangular windows the previous owners left in the attic which we’ll put above the door and match the roof pitch (Yay for planning!).  Most of the boards are salvaged from a portion of our deck that we replaced last year.  Pole bulidings are really easy to put up, mark out where your posts will go (make sure it is square!) set your posts in the ground, nail on your girts, add your roof, nail your siding to the girts and shingles to the roof and done.  You’ll probably have to add some bracing here and there while you are buliding.  We didn’t bother adding much in the way of bracing, if you can get enough siding and roofing on to make the structure ridgid it’ll work.  On a larger building you would need to use bracing as you wouldn’t beable to get enough roof/siding completed before a gust of wind reduced it to a heap of lumber.  We’ll eventually insulate the coop and provide some roof vents and air intake (so we don’t create drafts over the chickens).  We have power already in the old coop, we’ll move it over to the new one and add an outdoor light with a motion sensor (be nice for closing up the coop at night).  We probably won’t have water at the coop this year but it isn’t too bad taking down a fresh jug every morning.  There will also be a second room at the back of the coop for feed/bedding storage and will give us a place to segregate chickens or raise chicks if we want to.  We should have it closed in in about a week or so with the insulation and finishing touches to complete over the remainder of the summer.

Look at that pile of wood chips!  Kelly and I have been busy fencing the perimeter of the property to help contain those persnickety chickens.  In the process we’ve accumulated piles upon piles of brush.  We’ve tried burning the brush.  Burning green brush is not fun and the number of times you need to handle the brush before it is burned is at least 4 by my count (1 to cut, 2 onto a wagon, 3 off a wagon, 4 into the fire).  You simply cannot build a big enough fire (legally) to burn it in a reasonable amount of time.  Chipping the wood is definitely the way to go, before the trees hit the ground you can have them chipped.  We have enough wood to chip to run the chipper for a month straight!  We picked up a Wallenstein BX42s and it works really well.  The chips certainly won’t go to waste, we’ll use the chips for bedding in the coop, a riding trail around the property and in the gardens.