And happy first day of spring!
Happy third anniversary, Tucker
March 20th, 2014 § 0
Four year blogiversary
September 29th, 2013 § 3
Let’s celebrate with a bunch of bluebirds! There were about nine bluebirds hanging out around the birdbath the other night. I believe they are some of the babies that were born and raised right here. A total of 12 babies in three separate clutches made it to fledging this year, and I have definitely noticed an increase in the number of bluebirds around the farm in general since moving here. And that is definitely something worth celebrating on this four-year anniversary of starting the blog.
First anniversary, fresh off house construction:
http://bonafidefarm.com/2010/09/29/the-anniversaries-just-keep-coming/
No official second anniversary post because I was in the middle of planting a new forest: http://bonafidefarm.com/2011/09/30/this-weekends-project-the-big-dig/
Third anniversary, just back from the Mother Earth News Fair and starting to experiment with chickens in the garden:
The chicks at four weeks: New trick
August 6th, 2013 § 2
For the past week or so, the chicks’ new trick is to fly out of their broody coop when I open the lid to feed them or fill their water. At first they were shaky and tentative, but now they explode up the second the lid’s lifted, and fly from rim to rim, occasionally overshooting their landings and meeting the concrete garage floor. It’s cute, yes, but it makes a pretty ridiculous scene as I try to grab each chick and toss it back into the coop before another flies out before I can shut the lid. It makes me wish I still had the big garage brooder my dad put together for the guineas.
The only chick that has yet to fly out of the coop is the white Coronation Sussex. This bird is more stout than the others, which may be part of it, but I find it interesting that my homegrown barnyard mixes are more daring and precocious.
All these little flapping feathers definitely catch Tucker’s interest and provide a good training oportunity as I reinforce the concept that “the babies are to be protected, not eaten.” As you can imagine, this is a challenge for any dog, let alone one that I am asking to differentiate between unwelcome varmints and livestock. But I know he’s up to it, with constant reinforcement and vigilance on my part to help him succeed. Just after I took this photo my rooster and Cora started walking in the garage toward the coop. Tuck turned around and herded the older birds out the door. I would think this was a coincidence, except he did it each time the big birds tried to approach the broody coop. Very interesting.
The chicks, now four weeks old, have reached “the awkward stage.” Their baby down is quickly being replaced by prickly pin feathers, and their legs are now thick and scaley. But they are all healthy, and growing quickly thanks to their forays into the garden for free ranging. After having only raised chicks in a brooder, not with the help of the broody hen, I am noticing how much sturdier these chicks are. I attribute that to the more varied, natural diet they receive while free ranging, and to their being able to live a more natural chicken life, scratching in dirt and bug-hunting, much earlier than other chicks I’ve raised indoors.
As an unrelated aside, I just realized this is my 400th blog post at bonafidefarm.com. For some reason that number seems so big to me, and I am glad to have kept up with this journal for so long. I wonder if I will get to post #500 before getting fed up with country life?!
Three year blogiversary
September 29th, 2012 § 1
Three years ago I sat in my parents’ guest room, fresh out of a Northern Virginia apartment and Capitol Hill job, and wrote my first blog post. At that point, Bonafide Farm was a scribble on a napkin made years earlier and a termite-infested shack on a beautiful piece of land. I had no beautiful new home, no guineas nor chickens nor coop, no garden, no landscaping, no compost pile, no dog, no tractor, and no inkling of the work and pain and tears that were coming in the next three years. That’s probably for the best!
Because what I also didn’t know three years ago was how making this farm would challenge every fiber of my intellectual, emotional, spiritual and physical being, forcing me to be someone that, for good or bad—and both sides have manifested, no doubt—that I didn’t know I could be.
When I made my first blog header and wrote my tagline: So I Wanted a Project, I had no clue that the project would be me. And that project is still very much ongoing and about to get a whole lot more interesting.
Thank you for following along with my project, and I hope you will keep reading to find out where we go.
