I Now Know What I Would Write on Their Birth Certificates...

We've had chickens for a little over three months now, and it has taken this long for us to settle on names.  We thought about giving them old names (some of them family names, some of them just for fun).  None of those names stuck.  Now that I've spent a ton of time socializing with the ladies, I feel like I know their personalities well enough to assign them names that will hold true.

So, here they are:

The Ameraucanas

Stevie Martin (strikingly silver)

Paulie Newman (dull silver)
Roberta Redford (red)

Alex Baldwin (lighter red)

The Golden Laced Wyandottes

Rahmona Emanuel

Nancy Pelosi

Denise Kucinich

The Black Australorps

Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire Chapters One-Eleven

Please excuse the blurriness.  The girls are always in motion and difficult to photograph.


Roberta Redford [check out that mohawk!]

Nancy Pelosi

Denise Kucinich

Rahmona Emanuel

Paulie Newman

Stevie Martin


Precious...


Alex Baldwin

I can easily distinguish between all of the Golden Laced Wyandottes and Ameraucanas.  They all have different personalities and they are physically unique.  However, I must admit that I have found it impossible to keep track of which Australorp is which.  So, I simply call each one of them "Precious." Together, they are Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" Chapters One - Eleven.  It works.

Foreground: Rahmona Emanuel, midground: Stevie Martin, background: Preciouses

Stevie Martin with Rahmona Emanuel

Please don't tell the girls, but I do have my favorites.  Actually, I have one favorite in particular, and I think the feeling is mutual.  Stevie Martin LOVES me, and I have fallen in love with her.   While all the others are completely focused on the treat of the day during happy hour, Stevie sticks right by my side.  She's always the first to run up to me, and she eats out of my hand very gently.  Nancy and some of the Preciouses have warmed up to me enough to eat out of my hand, but all of them pinch my skin with their beaks.

Rahmona Emanuel, Alex Baldwin, and Roberta Redford

Stevie Martin, Rahmona Emanuel, and Alex Baldwin

Preciouses, Roberta Redford, and Alex Baldwin

As far as the Ameraucanas go, Paulie is the least gregarious.  She pretty much keeps to herself, but she's gentle and somewhat curious.  All of the Wyandottes are sweet and outgoing.  The Australorps are more interested in one another than they are in me.  They have a tight-knit family group.  The Australorps roost together, and the Wyandottes and Ameraucanas roost on the opposite side of the coop.  It seems that they've found a system that works for them, and they all know to play by the rules.  They have their cliques, but they also know how to share space and resources.

I always knew that I wanted several chickens, but I had no idea that I could become so attached to each and every one of them.  They're not even giving us eggs yet, and they've already paid us back for all of our efforts.  The entertainment, affection, and relaxation they bring to the farm is priceless.

Flowers at Fat Bear: What's Blooming

Besides all of the fruit and vegetable plants that are adorned with blooms, here's what's up:

Bees love Borage. 

They just can't get enough of it.

Grandpa Ott Morning Glory 

 Heavenly Blue Morning Glory

 Giant Double Flowered Zinnia

Jewel Nasturtium 

Cardinal Vine

 Dill, a great beneficial.

I'm obsessed with butterflyweed.   It's not quite there yet, but so close.  I planted this from seed, like all the other bloomers. 

Butterfly Delphinium 

Mikado Poppy

Snap Dragon 

Violet Blue Salvia 

Coreopsis, also a bee-favorite.

Rose Queen Cleome 

Bells of Ireland.  It's a shame they're not perennials.  The smell is intoxicating, and they last over a week as a cut flower.

So much is in bloom right now that I'm sure I left out some stuff.  I'm really looking forward to seeing the Red Milkweed flowers.  I hope they'll be covered with Monarchs!

It's Officially Summer: A Kitchen Garden Update

Summer is finally here, but we've had summertime weather for at least a month already.  Thanks to the early start that my greenhouse provides and the unusually warm weather, the kitchen garden is way ahead of the schedule I had set in my mind.

A row of beneficials, top to bottom: Sunflowers, Zinnia, Dill, Fernleaf Fiddleneck, Borage, Nasturtium.

These are my tomatoes and strawberries.  Behind the tomatoes are later tomatoes and then the melons.

I've already told you about the tomatoes in my last post, so now for the rest...
The beets and peas have been enjoyed by the humans, hens, and the handsome furry ones.  I froze the rest.  We like to eat root vegetables roasted with herbs all fall and winter, so the sweet potatoes and carrots will soon join the beets in storage.  I've also planted another set of beets where the garlic was.

I froze over 20 pounds of Detroit Dark Reds.

Our pepper plants have taken off.  The Hot Portugals and Orange Bells, in particular, have a lot of fruits developing.  Hot sauce, here we come!

These Hot Portugals will turn bright red-orange when ripe.

The Wisconsin Lakes sweet peppers will soon be red.

I'm letting the day-neutral strawberries fruit now.  We've had them for over two months, so the plants have had enough time to establish themselves.

Seascape strawberry

This was our first try at growing garlic.  We planted elephant garlic (really a type of leek) and Georgian Fire.  I'm happy with the results.

Garlic harvest

This garlic will cure for a few weeks in the sun.

I've done four different plantings of corn.  The True Gold corn is the most mature, and growing fast.

I've planted some Queen's Island Blue squash amongst the corn.  I hope they make fast friends.

There's nothing like the aroma of butternut squash roasting in the oven.  I'm so glad that I planted my winter squash early this year.  Maybe we'll actually get to have that butternut squash soup!

Left to right: Pie pumpkin, Butternut squash, Amish Butter squash.

Waltham butternut squash

Pie pumpkin

Pie pumpkin vine

Pumpkin blossom

I planted cucumbers where the peas used to be.  I'm going to make sweet pickles this year.

Northern Pickling cucumber blossom

The eggplants have been struggling to overcome the flea beetle feasts, but I think they'll make it.  Overall, we've been extremely lucky so far when it comes to pests.  Besides the flea beetles and a few slugs, things have been relatively uneventful in that department.

 Pintung Long eggplant, riddled with holes.  The new growth looks good, though!

We've even got some eggplant blossoms!

All of the apple trees are doing well.  Ben planted them last year, so they're still babies.

The Yellow Transparent is the first to fruit.

The artichokes are truly an experiment this year.  I'm going to attempt to overwinter the strongest ones.  I doubt we'll get any 'chokes this season.

This artichoke plant will be a keeper, for sure.

Blueberry season is nearing, so I'm trying to get all my ducks in a row as far as the kitchen garden and asparagus are concerned.  Lots of weeding and mulching to do!  My hands are dirt-stained and blistered, just the way I like them.

Back Online: Where I've Been

It seems that every time there's a thunderstorm around here, the power goes out and something gets fried.  Well, we've been without internet connectivity for a few weeks now, and it has felt like an eternity.  I'll bring you up to speed on what's been happening on the farm, and I'll go into detail in the next several posts.  So now, an update:

The High Tunnel is Up!

The crew from Puckett's Greenhouses came out and erected the 30' x 72' structure in about four days.  I was so excited that I started planting beneficial flowers around it to attract pollinators as soon as the trucks pulled away.  I dug up some Cleome, Black Eyed Susan, Iris, Sedum, Purple Coneflower, and Bee Balm from my favorite neighbor's yard and transplanted it.  I also put in some Oriental Poppies, Lavender,  and Meadow Sage.  I've got some Agrostemma and Blue Flax in the greenhouse that's not quite ready to transplant yet.  I hope to have three sides of the high tunnel surrounded with beneficials (the fourth side is right next to a blueberry row).

We'll be putting strawberries in the high tunnel next spring.  We really wanted to plant them this fall, but we've had a hell of a time finding a supplier of bare root plants that will have enough of the right varieties in stock this September, and we also want to have plenty of time to get the soil exactly right.  I sent some soil samples to Virginia Tech a few weeks ago, and the soil is pretty acidic (great for the blueberries, not so great for strawberries.)  And in plain terms, the soil is nothing but bright red Virginia clay.  I rototilled in there, and Ben was kind enough to lay down chicken manure.  We're going to truck in some "good dirt" from the mountain and build up the beds with that.  We'll let the dirt and manure sit in there under some straw all fall and winter.  Come spring, I think the worms will have found their way into the high tunnel, and the strawberries will have a nice home awaiting them.

The strawberries under the high tunnel will come in earlier than other strawberries, and we'll be selling them at about the same time our asparagus comes up.  We'll also grow some strawberries outside of the tunnel.  This way, we'll have a longer season.

We've Eaten Our First Tomato of the Year

Red Brandywine

This is ever so important.  I had been fantasizing about juicy, aromatic, vivacious tomatoes for months now.  It has happened!  The first one to ripen was a Black Sea Man.  It's similar to a Cherokee Purple in appearance and flavor, and it's extremely tasty.


Black Sea Man


Speckled Roman

Next, there was a Red Brandywine followed by a Speckled Roman.  The yellow tomatoes (Moonglow and Persimmon) are still green.  It's a good thing we have all of our canning supplies ready to go - we'll need it sooner than later.

The Ladies Are Lovely

All chickens are doing well.  They all officially have names now (details to come soon), but I've grown particularly close to one of them.  We enjoy happy hour almost every day.

Ben's parents gave us an enormous watermelon last week that must have weighed about 25 pounds.  The fur kids ate some (it's Thurgood's favorite next to sweet potatoes), the humans had a bit, and the rest of it was shared with the girls during happy hour over the next few days.  I eat the fleshiest parts and throw them the seediest pieces.  They don't seem to mind pecking around the seeds (some of them even like the seeds).

It's Almost Blueberry Time

We'll begin picking blueberries in July, and I can't wait.  The dogs have already started trying to eat them off the bush.  My picky boys are so desperate for the fruit that they even tolerate the sour ones.