What's New at Bumgardner Farm?

I've been incredibly slack about blogging over the past year. I decided it's time for another update about what is going on around the farm. Wow, so what's happened since April 8, 2012? Here's a quick summary: 

May 4: I officially became a Bumgardner...we tied the knot!

During the spring I planted like a mad woman - we grew corn, beans, squash, zucchini, potatoes, tomatoes, and gorgeous sunflowers. I believe I canned over 70 quarts of green beans! Our freezer is still full of corn, squash, and zucchini. Our tater box is still plentiful and we have seeds saved for next year from the good stuff! In a not so great attempt we tried peppers, watermelons, cantaloupes, pumpkins, hanovers, and okra. Definitely an attempt and not a very good one. We did get quite a few Hungarian Hot Wax peppers from the only plant that made it. We also ended up with about 4 Sugar Baby watermelons, 1 gorgeous pumpkin, and 2 okra. Maybe next year! 

During the spring we also purchased 8 chicks. I absolutely love raising them! We are now up to 11 great laying hens. Our eggs range from a beautiful light brown, to dark brown, even teal!

Here lately we've been discussing where we want to see the farm go this year and beyond. It looks like we're going to be raising more chicks this spring with hopes to start selling eggs in the fall. Plus, we're working on a more productive garden plan so we'll have produce to sell. We will only be using organic methods plus we're doing our best to avoid any seeds produced by the corporate giant. Most of our seeds are being ordered from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Their website is www.rareseeds.com and they have a HUGE selection of open-pollinated, heirloom seeds. 

Be sure to check back to keep up with what's going on here at the farm. I promise I won't go so long between updates in the future!

Meet Our New Hens!

Our new ladies:) Five Black Sex-Link hens who lay beautiful brown eggs!

Breuster didn't know what to think of all these new girls!

Our new girls have settled in very well. We're getting 3-4 eggs per day from the 6 hens we have but expect that to increase once they've been here for a while. I love having fresh eggs anytime we need them! They lay such wonderful eggs too. Huge brown eggs with rich yellow/orange yolks. If you haven't had a farm fresh egg, go find your local farmer asap! You are missing out!

A Productive Year

You may be wondering how our little farm turned out this year and if your not, I'm going to tell you anyway.

Animals:

We started out with the opportunity to get one free chicken from my kid's school. When we went to buy feed for it, we got 6 free chicks with our purchase. Turns out only one out the seven was a hen. We wanted multi-purpose chickens (meat and laying hens) anyway but we were hoping for at least half of them to be hens. Looks like we won't have to buy chicken for a few months now. In case you haven't been around chickens, having 6 roosters is a BAD thing. They will brutally kill your hen...not on purpose of course but they all want in on the action and it is a constant battle. All of them were getting along fine until a few weeks ago when the roosters must have sensed it was about time for little miss hen to start laying eggs. She is now comfortably in the garage until we can thin out our roosters. Not pleasant but a must unless you like to watch your flock hurt one another.

A few weeks ago, we acquired a goat. Sweet Ms. Daisy joined our farm. We are looking forward to the future when we can add in a few more goats. My parent's used to have some as pets which always seemed kind of strange to me. Now I understand.

Gardening:

This was my first year raising a garden and I think we did pretty good! We definitely learned a lot but had a considerably productive year. There was a fierce battle with tater bugs, then some major destruction from the crows, and finally whatever bug it was that likes beans. Even with these issues, we still managed to freeze almost 20 quarts of corn and 5-6 quarts of green beans. We should have enough potatoes to get us and our family through the winter. I'm already missing the fresh squash and cucumbers but we'll have more of that next year. The tomatoes did the best of any I've ever grown, not enough to can but we had just the right amount for sandwiches and salads throughout the summer. We still have a few green ones that are slowly ripening as we speak! I'm going to miss the fresh tomatoes this winter. 

Future:

Next year, we're doubling the size of both of our gardens which will make it a total of  around 9000 square feet of garden! Whew, that's going to be a lot of work but it's the best work I've ever done. Nothing feels better than to come in and be tired from working your land. We're also hoping to start fencing in our property so we can add animals to the herd at any time. This is a daunting task that may or may not happen next year. Maybe 3 years from now we will have it complete. Also, in the spring, we are ordering hens instead of playing Russian Roulette at the feed store.

Thanks for keeping up with our little farm this year! I'll leave you with a few of my favorite pictures from the year...

Chickens: Our Little Buddy

It seems like one animal always stands out in your mind because of it's personality. Spot will be the one chicks that stands out to us.

Spot

He loves to be petted. I've never seen a chicken like that. The others are terrified. However, Spot will walk right up to us. He lifts his head and pokes his chest out expecting you to pet him. He's a sucker for being rubbed on his chest. Yesterday, he kept looking at my ring as if I'd brought him something exciting, even tried to eat it. I never remembered so much entertainment from our chickens growing up. Except for the time they chased my cousin around trying to attack her. Or maybe that was their way of playing. I'm really enjoying being a chicken farmer. Yes, we only have seven but I could seriously see us having 100. The only downside I see, is the smell. Although, imagine how nice our garden and yard would be if we had that many!

Here are just a few new photos of the chicks. They are finally starting to explore their new home and they seem to like it pretty well!

Enjoying a shady spot to roost

Love the color of this one. By far the prettiest chicken I've ever seen.

Trying to hog the food by standing IN the bowl.

How to Scare a Chicken

So you're curious about how to scare a chicken? First, you take the chicks one by one to a dog crate on the back of a pickup. Then you shut the tailgate. This alone causes them to jump. After already scaring them, you then start the truck and drive 100 feet through a bumpy field. So now you're asking "why didn't you just carry them to their house?" Several reasons, the main one being Max, the german shepherd. He looks at the chicks like they're his next meal. The chicks don't realize the danger of getting free yet so I'm sure over 100 feet they would have wiggle their way out of my hands. Some of them came close just going from inside the garage to the back of the truck! Once you have driven the 100 or so feet, take the dog crate (chicks still in it) and place it inside of their house. I've never seen a chicken's heart beating in it's throat before...until now. Another way to scare a chicken...look at them, talk to them, move in any way. There's a reason they're called chickens.

Each time I checked on them Wednesday, this is what they were doing, hiding in the cage:

In their comfort zone

By the end of Thursday they finally got brave! Here they are on the outside of the cage:


Enjoying scratching around

We took an old shed located on our property and turned it into their home. It's been sitting for a while unused so there was quite a bit of patching and fixing up to do. You can see where all the boards don't match. I really doubt the chickens will mind.

Outside of their new home

These are the same nests our chickens used when I was a kid. Glad mom hung onto these!

Their nesting box which still needs a ramp

Here is the backside of their pen. Chicken wire is not as easy to work with as I thought it'd be! Hopefully no critters will find their way in. 

The back side of their pen



Horse...er, Polaris Drawn Hillside Plow and Chicken House Renovations

Today has been very productive with some interesting moments! I spent the morning helping my brother and running erands which of course takes much longer than you anticipate. When I got home, I assumed the productive part of my day was gone. Thankfully, I was wrong. The fence to our chicken house is completely done! All that's left is to build the gate, install their nests, and patch up any holes in the old shed. I have everything except the tears into this house. Blood, check (Learned a valuable lesson about using a drill. DON'T look away when starting a screw! If it slips, it hurts). Sweat, check. There will be more of that tomorrow. This thing has to be finished tomorrow! Those chicks can't stay in the garage much longer since they're half grown now.

This afternoon we worked on rowing the garden. While my wonderful man (WM) mowed around the garden I managed to hoe ONE row. One. I worked for an hour hoeing a 100 foot stretch, hoe a foot, remove big rocks, hoe another foot, remove rocks. It was a viscious cycle. When WM was finished mowing, he remembered a horse drawn hillside plow he has. Since we don't have a horse anymore, we turned it into a Polaris 500 drawn hillside plow! Worked great! Almost. I had the easy part, driving. WM got to steer and keep the plow on track. It was tricky finding the right speed and for him to find the right angle but we finally got it! And our last two rows are perfect! The first four aren't bad, a little crooked perhaps. We managed to plow six rows in the time it took me to hoe one so I'll deal with the rows being a little crooked. Save me a blister tomorrow.

Tomorrow, we've got to finish the chicken house and plant some taters! Loving this life!

Spring has Sprung

Welcome to the first ever Bumgardner Farm blog! I'm so excited about everything that is going on this year! We have 7 baby chicks that we are raising. I believe they are called Dominiques or around here they are Dominickers. The chicks are absolutely adorable! This week they are getting a little more brave as they will eat out of our hands! Every now and then we get bitten a little but it's not too bad...yet. We spent the morning working on their home. They have about another 1-2 weeks in the garage before moving outside.

Here are 6 of the widdys

In addition to our chicks, we have 2 gardens. In our small garden, it's 16'x70', we are going to plant corn. I purchased the Silver Queen variety. In our large garden which is 35'x100' we are going to have spinach, squash, cucumbers, green beans, and lots of potatos. This is the first year I've tended a garden since I helped my mother as a child. Looking forward to all the adventures small farming has to offer!