The Egg Results

If you guessed the egg on the right side of the picture as the Green Akeys egg, then you were right.  Pastured poultry eggs have a deep yellow almost orange color to them. 

No statistics tonight about the eggs as the main internet is down so we are on backup.  Backup is the cellular connection that is only on the laptop facing south west in our bedroom.  It is also SLOW and when only one computer is available, I don't get much air time.

I love our dog Frank.  Granted, he still needs to be house broken a bit but he's great at his job.  I took him out with the ducks on Saturday afternoon and kept him on the leash while I showed him how I herded the ducks.  The look of realization on his face as I moved the ducks was priceless!  He instantly got down and assumed the "Lie Down" position.  Mike let him herd the ducks into their house last night and Margaret practiced again with him today.

Come By, Away to Me, Walk up, Lie Down, That'll Do----- those are some of the commands.  I'll post a video sometime of one of us working with Frank.  It's really, really, really cool!  I could totally get into trialing dogs.  It's extremely fun!

The sheep come Tuesday and Emily is getting ready to name them.

The Egg Challenge

Kevin making french toast with our eggs!  He's been practicing the last few weekends.  We need more vanilla.

Pop Quiz!

Which egg is the GreenAkeys egg and which one is the grocery store organic egg?

One above is with a flash the one below is no flash.

Answer will be posted on Saturday with some statistics about Pastured Poultry and how eggs from Pastured Poultry are so much better for you.

I also did not break open lots of eggs to do this-- just random eggs from either our farm or the store.

Also-- orders are now being taken for a CSA share and/or egg share for next year.

See Greenakeys.com for more information.

No Sheep Today

I wish this darn flu bug would stop getting everyone sick.  The sheep owners were the latest to catch the bug (hopefully not from us 2 weeks ago) and so the sheep did not come today.  

They will come next weekend.  Which is fine because it will give Mike a little more time to prepare.  

Although Frank the Border Collie needs some work to do, so I hope it really is next week.  We've never had a male dog that was intact.  He has a lot of energy and the whole marking thing is throwing us for a loop.

He is a great dog but he only really likes me when Mike is not around.  As soon as Mike comes home, Frank leaves me immediately.  I found this out the hard way as he almost pulled my arm out of the socket yesterday when Mike came out the front door.  Note to self, next time let go of the leash.

My Other Hobbies

I still really, really love my pressure cooker.  I'm getting faster at the process and used the leftover Turkey and put up a bunch of turkey stock and turkey soup.  We still have no microwave in the new house and canned foods are so much easier to heat up as there is no thawing involved.  Life without a microwave is ok.

By the way, we sold the old house on Friday!!!  So we can't turn back now.  The farm is our house.  So from now on there will be no more mention of old or new house, only The House.

I made a coat for Emily but I ran out of the purple yarn and only got 3/4 of one sleeve done.  So right now the coat is sleeveless until I can find one more skein of that yarn.  It happens to be discontinued but I have a friend trying to help me learn ravelry and help me find one.

This is Margaret's summer dress.  It's a little too big right now but should be perfect next summer.  If you look carefully you'll see my stack of sweaters piled up on my dresser.  Living with one 4 foot closet in the entire house is definitely a challenge.  But it's only temporary.  As one of my new favorite old sayings says "This too Shall Pass."  

Seeds

This is the time of year that I start to plan the garden for next year and start to buy seeds.

One of my favorite seed sources is Seeds of Change.  All the seeds are organic and they all did so well in the garden this year.

This is my favorite tomato of the entire year- The Amish Paste Tomato.

Those of you that received some of these know what I'm talking about.  Best paste tomato I've ever eaten in my life.

So this year we'll be planting lots of this one-- and lots of different kids of basil as well.

Our niche is going to be tomatoes and anything else you need to make sauce and salsa.  

Lots of garlic, basil, onions, peppers and cilantro.

Farm Lessons

I learned a valuable lesson today that I shall try to remember next time.

When you get home after working all day and then taking a 2 hr train ride, another 1 hr drive to the farm and you are lugging your 2nd suitcase in 2 months that broke a wheel AND you happen to hear the ducks quacking loudly in the night......... you must use your Duck Whisperer senses and realize that they should be asleep and that something is wrong.

Something WAS wrong.  One duck was outside the electric fence and the others were hanging out and quacking loudly on the other side of the fence.  She probably accidently flew out and couldn't figure out how to get herself back in.  Amazing that the rest of the ducks hung out and waited for her to be saved.  Mike just picked her up and put her back with her flock of girlfriends.  

There are also some key learnings for everyone out there that come to mind from this experience:

-Don't leave your friend stranded outside the electric fence, band together with your flock and quack loudly - the lone duck needs your support and all the quacks you've got

-When you hear a lot of loud noise or chatter at the wrong time of day-- stop to listen and see what you are missing

-Anyone can be a hero and save the one that is stuck outside the fence

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!