The First Writeup

Mike had the first article written about him and the GreenAkeys Farm today.  I busted out laughing when I saw it!  First off, I took the picture and you'll have seen it in the blog.  So technically I've been published for my photography!  Whoo-hooo!  

It's mostly based on facts but a few of the statements are a little off.  The one that is really not correct is the statement that Mike believes that local means he would want to buy food within a 5 mile radius.  I don't know if we can technically get into Westminster in 5 miles so it should really say 25 miles.  Might have been a typo as I was listening to his conversation with Laurie and he said 25 miles.  But it's a nice first article and I'm thinking of calling him Poultryman from now on---- he-he.

Oh, and for the record, we now have 56 chickens.  We got 30 more chickens from a friend that are a little over 2 years old and they lay eggs!!!!  So far we've gotten 8 eggs in 5 days.  It's the slow side of the season in addition to the hens being 2 years old.  Production drops off for both of these reasons.  So we are really going to be paying about the same about of money for these eggs in feed as we would at the grocery store for organic eggs.  But to see the look on the kids faces when they go out and find the eggs is just priceless.  In the spring we'll also use these hens as 'practice' for the MPU and cook up some good chicken stock!  Our friend will then get some of her hens back to make her own chicken stock as well.

Now did you know that when you move chickens you do this at night?  I had no idea and thought it was crazy to be putting 30 chickens into crates and then into our minivan (on a tarp) and then back into the field and into their chicken house on the roosts at 9:30pm.  Well it turns out they have night blindness and they are heavy sleepers.  So it was easy to move them and less stress.  

So now comes the most hilarious part of the story.  We move the chickens, they are all set, it's about 10:30pm when we are all done.  We go to bed and suddenly at 4am the next morning Dougie the dog is barking like crazy.  Mike starts laughing hysterically and says to me "you're the one who wanted a rooster".  I broke out laughing as well.  Roosters really do make noises that sound like Cock-a-doodle-doo.  The rooster crows at exactly 4am every morning and then crows again between 6-7am.  The second time he is really following the rules and crowing when the sun comes up.  I feel like he has a split personality, Mr 4am rooster and Mr Regular rooster.  I'm not sure the deal with Mr 4am Rooster.  At this point, I'm training myself to ignore Mr 4am rooster and I've now got a technique where when I hear the first faint crow, I grab the extra pillow and put it on top of my ears.  It worked well this morning.  We need to move the chicken house anyway so this time we won't put it smack dab 50 yards from our bedroom window.  We have 63 acres, there must be a spot that won't wake us up or the neighbors.  Mike of course thinks I'm crazy and says the rooster crows all the time and that we live on a farm so I had better get used to the noise.  I'm working on it!

One last warning-- we've watched 12 episodes of Green Acres so don't be suprised if I start calling Mike, Oliver (pronounced Ol EEV er) and say Darling! all the time..... might not be able to help it!