Weekend Adventures

We tried something new this weekend.  We stayed home - ALL WEEKEND LONG!

  

 

So we spent Saturday blueberry picking at our favorite blueberry farm - Cook's Berry Farm in Charlotte (3534 W. Kalamo Hwy).  I discovered this farm, 5 years ago, totally by accident when I was trying to find another place that I had been told about.  Last year, I wanted to find this one again, but I couldn't remember the name of it, or where it was.  So we looked up another blueberry farm, just in case we couldn't find it.  After about an hour of searching, we gave up and started looking for the one we had directions to.  We got to the address - and it was the same one I had been looking for!  I took a picture of the sign last year so I would remember what the name was for future blueberry picking excursions.  Like this past weekend.  Got there this time with only one wrong turn!

 

EG loves picking (eating) blueberries.  We had a rule this year that she had to put 2 in her bucket before she could eat one.  MOST of the time, that happened.

 

The Country Mill leases Cook's from the owner and runs the blueberry picking operation.  They also sell donuts there.  Mmmm donuts.  We wanted some, and the ones that were there were not the kind we wanted, so we drove to the Country Mill afterward.  Our wedding reception was at the Country Mill, so we try to make a trek there once a year for apples and donuts and cider slushies.  Mmmm cider slushies.  We never got this picture on our wedding day, so we had EG take the pic this year - 3.5 years later.  Not a bad shot for a toddler. 

On Sunday, we decided to see if we could let the gals out of the coop to graze in the yard, under supervision.  I also wanted to check them over to make sure there were no obvious issues with them (chicken lice or the like).

 

So we started with Ronnie, since she's down a wing and can't fly away on us.  We opened the coop door and coaxed her out on the top of the run.  She was too scared to jump down so we had to set her down on the ground.  She immediately dropped down to the ground and tried to get as close to the ground as possible.  She looks good though, no bugs and her wing is healing well (the feathers are growing back too).

 

Then we tried to get Ginnie, coaxing her out with grapes.  She came out for about 2 seconds and then ran back in (Ronnie was already back in there by that point).

 

EOP grabbed her out again so we could check her over.  She calms right down when you cradle her on her back.  We didn't see any issues with her, so I think we are good to go for now.

 

As a reward for being tortured, we gave them a little bit of plain yogurt.  They LOVE yogurt and it's good for their digestive system.  It's fun to watch them eat it and then wipe their beaks on the grass to clean them off.

What's in a Name?

When we got our chicks, naturally, we wanted to name them.  We had 5, so we wanted to come up with a clever group of 5 to name them after.  We thought about using Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood characters, a household favorite, but it didn't seem quite right.  We also thought about Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo and ... Splinter, but those were all boy names and that seemed like a bad omen for our need for hens.

We decided on naming them after the Pentateuch; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Because it was hard to tell them all apart at first, we just assigned names by coloring (lightest to darkest) and size (largest to smallest).  So that meant our Silver Sebrights were Genesis and Exodus, Leviticus was our furry footed mystery breed and our Welsummers were Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Well we soon discovered the flaw in our plan to have a witty grouping of names for our 5 chickens:

• Exodus and Leviticus, both unfortunately named hens, met an unfortunate demise in the raccoon attack.
• Numbers was our rooster, whose number was called... to live in the country with 4 fine hens.

So now we are left with Genesis (Gennie), our larger, dominant Silver Sebright hen, who crows and rules the roost; and Deuteronomy (Ronnie), our runt-of-the-brood, 1 winged Welsummer hen, who just roosts.

At least we didn't have to tell EG that Prince Wednesday and Miss Elaina were eaten by a raccoon, and Daniel had to go live at Grandpere's house.

Ugga Mugga!

The Chicken Story

We decided this year to try raising chickens.  The county ordinance allows for 5 hens within the city limits, with a bunch of regulations about the placement and cleanliness of the chicken coop. 

We went to our local "big box" farm store the Saturday before Easter, which was the end of the season for said store.  They were out of all of the kinds of chickens that can be identified as pullets at birth (bred to have different markings), so we had to take a gamble on the purchase of 5 unsexed Bantams* at a blowout price ($.75 each).  We were assured that the local 4H would take any roosters off our hands if we ended up with them, so we just went for it.  We brought them home and set them up in a Rubbermaid container in the basement.  They were so cute and fluffy and noisy.  They lived down in our basement for several weeks while we figured out what they were going to live in outside. 

 

My DH raised chickens one year when he was younger to show at the 4H fair, but after the "chicken showing coach" broke the wing of one of their show chickens, they became dinner instead of going to the show.  So all that to say, his parents had a chicken run available for us to use (score!).  They brought it down to our house and we spent the evening making a temporary shelter on one end of the run with wood and tarp covers, held on with bungee cords (super classy looking), with a heat lamp for extra warmth.  And our chickens moved right in.

 

By this point we were pretty sure we had at least 1 rooster, he had already started to grow his comb and was already practicing the head bob for his future crow.  So we knew we had to eventually find him a home.  The other 4 were still potential hens, so we were pretty happy with our 80% success rate.  We had also figured out that we had 2 Silver Sebrights, 2 Ameraucannas (later we discovered they were Welsummers) and 1 mystery breed, with feathery feet (we never figured out what she was).

At night, all of the hens slept piled together under the heat lamp for safety, protection and warmth.  I would often see the rooster sitting on a crossbar of the floor, on guard duty while the hens slept.  One night though, before we got home to turn on the heat lamp, something attacked our hens.  I came out to check on them in the morning and there were 2 missing.  I thought maybe they were underneath a board on the floor, which was a favorite hiding place, but they weren't there.  I finally noticed 2 small piles of feathers in the yard near the run (mystery breed and Silver Sebright).  Whatever it was that got them, was crafty and dexterous (probably a raccoon), because it had moved a barrier, lifted a corner of chicken wire that was not secured well, and snatched them out.

So that left us with 3 chickens, 2 hens and the rooster.  Of course, we still had the rooster.  We figured out pretty quickly that we needed to leave the heat lamp on at night to protect the girls (and boy) from predators until we had more secure housing for them.  We had another attack on a night when we didn't get home before dark and one of our remaining hens lost a wing.  So now we have 1.75 hens and the rooster.  We have the lamp on a Christmas light timer now, it goes on automatically at dusk.



Our temporary shelter had it's flaws, but it worked for a couple of months.  Then, while EG (our daughter) and I were visiting friends in Arizona, my DH started building the more permanent chicken coop structure and roofing it with left over shingles from our house roof.  We spent our Independence Day weekend completing the coop project by installing doors on either end, a roosting bar, nesting boxes and the chicken ladder/ramp.  We covered the floor in self stick tiles left over from our bathroom floor (left by the previous owners) for easier cleanout.  The girls love it, they feel so much safer in there and love to run up and down the ramp.

 

 



We did end up finding a new home for the rooster right around the time we finished the coop.  It was at that same time, that he found his voice and started to crow. We didn't get a response from anyone with 4H interested in him, so we sent him to the in-laws house for a temporary refuge.  Just this weekend, he found a new home in Northern Michigan with 4 standard sized hens.  However, once we got rid of the rooster, our larger, more dominant hen started to crow.  After researching this, I have found that that can actually happen, she's not as loud as a rooster, but she crows just the same.

  

  

*Bantams are a breed of chicken that is smaller than the normal breed.  The eggs are also smaller, about half the size of a standard chicken egg.

Why a Blog? And Why Plain Clothes Hipsters?

I have been encouraged to start a new blog to document our life as urban farmers, parents and other fun parts of our life.  I was hesitant, as I have failed at blogging multiple times, but this blog is more of a fun blog.  Other times I tried to blog about serious topics and I got distracted or bored, or moved on to a new phase of life.  So here, I will keep it simple, fun and low key.  To start I have lots of backlogged potentials, so I will be able to pull from history sometimes to keep things going. 

So why plain clothes hipsters?

Well I had a chat with EOP (my DH) not too long ago about how we (mostly) fit the basic description of a hipster:

• we live in an urban area
• we recycle (and compost) and try to use environmentally products around the house
• we drink coffee, preferably fair trade
• we are trying to become more involved in our city, through church and community activities
• we are raising chickens and vegetables in our little urban back yard
• we shop at the local farmers market and try to buy local goods when we can
• I like to be creative, through sewing, home improvement projects and other crafty type things

But, we just don't look like hipsters.  We don't wear skinny jeans, Toms, thick rimmed glasses, bow ties and thrift store throwbacks, not because we don't like them (except for the skinny jeans - I did that once in 8th grade), just because we don't. We just wear what we have and like, t-shirts and jeans mostly, and orange pants (another story for another day).  So that's where the plain-clothes reference came from.

Want to know how wikihow says to be a hipster? 

Curious how urban dictionary defines a hipster?


So that's all for today.  Keep it real.

More on these gals later.