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What I did on my summer vacation...
Posted 11/19/2009 6:22am by Heather Redden.
Happy Pre-Thanksgiving!
Summer is over although it's a little hard to believe considering the weather this November. I'm still hanging clothes out to dry and am all excited because I put up a longer clothesline so I finally have room to hang sheets outside to dry. Ah, the simple pleasures in life. We are working on battening down the hatches on animal shelters for the winter. The horses are finally going to get a roof on the skeleton of a shelter that has been standing there taunting us for far too long. The sheep have their little shed and the main hen house is in good shape. The auxiliary chicken house needs to have ridge vents added. It is getting too stuffy in there at night. It's a common misconception that chickens need to be kept warm in winter. Chickens are perfectly adapted to cold weather with all those lovely feathers for insulation. They suffer far more from lack of ventilation causing respiratory illness than from exposure to cold, fresh air.
This has been a summer of reexamination of our farm and ourselves. Brandon and I had to come to the realization that we were spread too thin and everything was suffering for it. We have had to learn to curb our enthusiasm a little bit. We tried to do so many things that we weren't doing any of them well enough. Some projects have had to be set aside for the time being while we take a step back and focus on some core aspects of the farm. This will be a bonus for you because we plan on producing more of what we already do well and leaving most of the experiments for later. One main focus is going to be on our delicious grass fed eggs. We will be ordering a new batch of chicks to raise this winter that will double the laying flock for the coming summer. We will continue with pasture raised chicken where I believe I've finally found the economic key to the castle. Our goal there is to offer you healthy, humanely raised chicken that we can make a living off of and you can afford. We will never meet Tyson's prices but that's a matter of you get what you pay for. My honeybees are tucked in for the winter and I plan to focus more on comb honey production for next year as I was very pleasantly surprised at how well it was received this year. I will still do extracted honey too. I prefer that for my tea and biscuits. Garlic, wheatgrass, and lemon squash will continue as will the romaine lettuce. More on that in a moment.
I feel like this has been the summer for eulogies to our animal companions and I hope that this is the last for a long while. My, how my life has changed. As a child, I didn't experience the death of a pet until I was a freshman in high school. I guess once you live on a farm with a lot of animals, the odds that one is going to die increase but I'd rather get a break sometimes. My favorite sheep and resident troublemaker, Fergus, died this week. His most recent jail break proved to be his undoing. He busted through the fence a couple of weeks ago and gorged on chicken feed. My immediate concern when he did this was that he could bloat which can be fatal but occurs within the first 24-48 hours of excess grain. He did not bloat so I thought we had dodged a bullet and he would be fine. Well, I learned the hard way that the other result of overeating for sheep, goats, and cattle can be liver ulcers. The animals are amazing teachers and I have learned so many lessons I will never forget. Each lesson makes us better at animal husbandry but I always regret when the lesson comes at the expense of one of them. And once again, I saw how much emotion an animal can show over the illness and death of a companion. Our Great Pyrenese, Rolo, was quite attached to Fergus. Rolo protects our sheep from coyotes and Fergus was the sheep that would play with him. Rolo stayed with Fergus all the while I doctored on him and was obviously upset when he died and Brandon removed him from the pasture.
Enough of depressing matters! We are alreay looking forward to new life here. I'm eagerly awaiting my new chicks and one of our ewes is already obviously pregnant. It's hard to imagine anything cuter than chicks or lambs. There is no doubt that the only constant on a farm is change.
Now about the lettuce. I will be coming up to Independence for my first drop off of the winter. I am planning on being at the site of the farmers' market next to the courthouse on Saturday November 21 from 10-11 AM. Below is the list of products we have available right now. Please email me back by 7:00 AM Saturday morning with your order and I will have it ready and waiting for you at the courthouse.
1. Romaine lettuce $3.00
2. Whole chicken $4.25 per pound-Chickens range between 2.5 and 6 pounds. Please let me know about how big a chicken you want.
3. Cut up chicken $5.00 per pound-between 2.5 and 3 lbs
4. Gizzards $3.75 per pound
5. Hearts $6.50 per pound
6. Feet $3.25 per pound
7. Necks $1.50 per pound
8. Free Range eggs $3.00 per dozen
I know some of you were interested in stew chickens but unfortunately I'm already out of those. I was amazed at how popular they were and they sold out quickly. There are a lot of you that want to make chicken soup like Grandma used to make! You can still make great tasting soup with one of the whole roasting or broiler chickens we have though. They still have so much more flavor than grocery store chicken. I will have some more stew chickens next summer.
I look forward to seeing many of you on Saturday. My plan is to come up every two weeks while the lettuce continues to grow.
Sincerely,
Heather and Brandon Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com
Summer is over although it's a little hard to believe considering the weather this November. I'm still hanging clothes out to dry and am all excited because I put up a longer clothesline so I finally have room to hang sheets outside to dry. Ah, the simple pleasures in life. We are working on battening down the hatches on animal shelters for the winter. The horses are finally going to get a roof on the skeleton of a shelter that has been standing there taunting us for far too long. The sheep have their little shed and the main hen house is in good shape. The auxiliary chicken house needs to have ridge vents added. It is getting too stuffy in there at night. It's a common misconception that chickens need to be kept warm in winter. Chickens are perfectly adapted to cold weather with all those lovely feathers for insulation. They suffer far more from lack of ventilation causing respiratory illness than from exposure to cold, fresh air.
This has been a summer of reexamination of our farm and ourselves. Brandon and I had to come to the realization that we were spread too thin and everything was suffering for it. We have had to learn to curb our enthusiasm a little bit. We tried to do so many things that we weren't doing any of them well enough. Some projects have had to be set aside for the time being while we take a step back and focus on some core aspects of the farm. This will be a bonus for you because we plan on producing more of what we already do well and leaving most of the experiments for later. One main focus is going to be on our delicious grass fed eggs. We will be ordering a new batch of chicks to raise this winter that will double the laying flock for the coming summer. We will continue with pasture raised chicken where I believe I've finally found the economic key to the castle. Our goal there is to offer you healthy, humanely raised chicken that we can make a living off of and you can afford. We will never meet Tyson's prices but that's a matter of you get what you pay for. My honeybees are tucked in for the winter and I plan to focus more on comb honey production for next year as I was very pleasantly surprised at how well it was received this year. I will still do extracted honey too. I prefer that for my tea and biscuits. Garlic, wheatgrass, and lemon squash will continue as will the romaine lettuce. More on that in a moment.
I feel like this has been the summer for eulogies to our animal companions and I hope that this is the last for a long while. My, how my life has changed. As a child, I didn't experience the death of a pet until I was a freshman in high school. I guess once you live on a farm with a lot of animals, the odds that one is going to die increase but I'd rather get a break sometimes. My favorite sheep and resident troublemaker, Fergus, died this week. His most recent jail break proved to be his undoing. He busted through the fence a couple of weeks ago and gorged on chicken feed. My immediate concern when he did this was that he could bloat which can be fatal but occurs within the first 24-48 hours of excess grain. He did not bloat so I thought we had dodged a bullet and he would be fine. Well, I learned the hard way that the other result of overeating for sheep, goats, and cattle can be liver ulcers. The animals are amazing teachers and I have learned so many lessons I will never forget. Each lesson makes us better at animal husbandry but I always regret when the lesson comes at the expense of one of them. And once again, I saw how much emotion an animal can show over the illness and death of a companion. Our Great Pyrenese, Rolo, was quite attached to Fergus. Rolo protects our sheep from coyotes and Fergus was the sheep that would play with him. Rolo stayed with Fergus all the while I doctored on him and was obviously upset when he died and Brandon removed him from the pasture.
Enough of depressing matters! We are alreay looking forward to new life here. I'm eagerly awaiting my new chicks and one of our ewes is already obviously pregnant. It's hard to imagine anything cuter than chicks or lambs. There is no doubt that the only constant on a farm is change.
Now about the lettuce. I will be coming up to Independence for my first drop off of the winter. I am planning on being at the site of the farmers' market next to the courthouse on Saturday November 21 from 10-11 AM. Below is the list of products we have available right now. Please email me back by 7:00 AM Saturday morning with your order and I will have it ready and waiting for you at the courthouse.
1. Romaine lettuce $3.00
2. Whole chicken $4.25 per pound-Chickens range between 2.5 and 6 pounds. Please let me know about how big a chicken you want.
3. Cut up chicken $5.00 per pound-between 2.5 and 3 lbs
4. Gizzards $3.75 per pound
5. Hearts $6.50 per pound
6. Feet $3.25 per pound
7. Necks $1.50 per pound
8. Free Range eggs $3.00 per dozen
I know some of you were interested in stew chickens but unfortunately I'm already out of those. I was amazed at how popular they were and they sold out quickly. There are a lot of you that want to make chicken soup like Grandma used to make! You can still make great tasting soup with one of the whole roasting or broiler chickens we have though. They still have so much more flavor than grocery store chicken. I will have some more stew chickens next summer.
I look forward to seeing many of you on Saturday. My plan is to come up every two weeks while the lettuce continues to grow.
Sincerely,
Heather and Brandon Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com
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