IT"S Feb-CHICKEN-ary at Tractor Supply Company

Just got the word chickens are currently being ship to my local Tractor Supply Company. I can't wait to start raising them again this year. BUT here are the changes from years past. Due to the fact that I'm more or less 9-5ing it now. I need to plan out my days to make sure I have time allocated to chicken care, AKA waking up earlier until summer gets here. Next and I can't believe I'm doing this... I'm buying a commercial chicken coop :-( Not happy its come to this but that whole time thing is getting in the way here AND we are already walking the razor edge with the chickens, so I'm hoping a commercial coop will relax the tension.

This is the Coop I'm looking at. It's has everything the chickens should need. It's strong but light and has multiple doors for easy access and cleaning. Its compact which we need for the limited land we have but it should accommodate 4ish chickens nicely.  Plus it will take only minimal effort to insulate the coop for next winter.

Yes, we are looking again at keeping the chicken for more than one summer... HEY STOP LAUGHING I MEAN IT!!!! We are going to keep the chickens year round this time.

Than life has this funny way of changing your plans!

So on my last post I was admit about keeping up the post and not letting this Blog fall by the waste-side like like count less others, than life struck. It's funny to like of last summer has I'm now neck deep in snow. But such is life, either looking forward or back. Well I had great plans and great ambitions to finish them. I had 10 chickens with every intention to keep at least 5 of them through the winter. I had a beautiful breeding California Doe and a strong litter to match. I had at the time plenty of time off and lots of projects to fill that time with.

Well first strike was an Instructor-Coordinator (IC) Class was offered. These are rare! You would have a better chance of seeing Bigfoot. So I signed up and whoosh half my weekends were chewed up by the class. But it has been my hope to attend an IC class long before I wanted to turn my urban home in to a rural getaway. So it was worth it.

Next I got a phone call from the Island EMS Corp Capt asking me if I would still be willing to work on the Island this summer. I didn't plan on and every part of my body told me I should say NO. But they are good people that live on the island and they really needed the help. So off to the island I went. CHOMP more of my free time gone.

But still fine. After years spent stretching myself thin I still had just enough time to spare for my farming goals. WELL until the final one two punch of the summer came. I got a very exciting and different opportunity  I was offered a job working as Security and Industrial Ambulance Tech. The pay was right the position was right the bosses were awesome. Only one thing the job was over 175 (ish) miles from where I currently lived. SO it was week long commutes fallowed by week off packing up a house

In short order the chickens and rabbits were all slaughtered and frozen. The house was mothballed and off we went to a new home, new jobs, and the prospects of new opportunistic.

The new house is awesome. Over 110 years old with many of the features that make old homes awesome still in place while many of the ones that make these homes nightmares already upgraded (goodbye nob and tube). I is on a corner lot, it has a garage and a nice spear room in the basement for a future sauna. BUT the land it sits one is less than a tenth an acre :-(

But I have made it my goal not to let this deter me. I will see this as a challenge to be over come. I still plan on transforming this chunk of dirt in to my next urban farm.

Kidnapped Chickes and Rabbits

So Grandma did kidnap my chickens this year... and my rabbits... (and my children when we visit.) BUT the good news is the chickens and rabbits are getting well fed (my kids too but that is mostly just icecream when I'm not looking). The chicken eat 5 times a day by Grandma. Every time they hear the screen door the come running to the feeding area because they know it's time to eat. The rabbit are also being constently had fed by my little girl. She heard some where that rabbits love clovers so one day she asked me what clover looked like I showed her and now every spare moment she gets she is picking clover and running it over to the bunnies (so much for her not getting attached to them this year) Oh the chickens are laying eggs too. The coolest part is that they have been an abnormal amount of double yokes. I haven't figured that one out yet.

Too much Silence...SORRY

Yep it's summer so much I wanted to post about and nothing I have :-( BUT hope is in the near future I maybe coming to a slow down here before things get frantic again. So my goal is to make up for the months of silence from this blog before next month this time. Wish me luck.

Oh compost where art thou

I know this was going to happen. I'm almost out of both of my compost. I have two different compost going right now. One really isn't compost it is more aged rabbit poop. Rabbit poop is like Miracle Grow Pellets, they slowly release food to the plants over time BUT unless they are aged the contain toxic levels (for plants) of ammonia and nitrogen. I have maybe a foot left of the aged rabbit poop (maybe). Next I have the filler compost pile, this is your dryer type compost. It is all the yard waste, leaves, sticks, grass and paper I find in my yard with a mix of the pine litter from the rabbits and chickens(used before I put them outside). Neither is very good as compost on its own but mixed with the natural soil and they are plant steroids.

Sadly I only have enough mix for the last raised plot :-(  Than means either I will have to buy dirt (defeating some of my purpose for doing this) or just grow in the natural soil (which will be depressing when not really grows in those areas.)

This is the hard part of trying to be in tune with nature she doesn't have ADD like me!
  

Raised plot almost done!

I have two and a third of the raised garden beds are now done and ready for planting. Now if only the weather would agree with me its time to plant we could get this show on the road. On other news my wife found an awesome place to get Walnut trees (Cold Stream Farm) that is right here in Mi! I see a lot of work ahead of me!

I should know better

I need to remember that April and May are the months were I need to just play farming sims and work on improving my farm structures. They are not months for planting and getting my hopes up for a jump start growing season. I'm pretty sure the blueberry bush that I just planted this year aren't going to make it. But I have been surprised by plant survivability before. But after having 2 weeks of 60 degree days to now having a week of snow every other day I'm not going to get my hopes up.

I have lived in the U.P. for almost 30 years and I do this every year. I have a plan though I'm going to map out a calender for next year. Starting in Jan going through Dec, I'm going to make a schedule that I"m going to make myself stick to regardless of what the weather is outside.