Incomplete Double Rainbow All the Way Across the Sky!!!

Ohhh my god!!! A double rainbow right in my backyard! It's so amazing. Oh my god!!! It's so lackluster and hazy!!! What does it mean!?!?!?!!?! Too much!!!!

On the slaughter of two roosters.

I snagged the bird and nicked him Powell, Colin.

Go him through a "take my flock FREE" flyer. He wasn't stolen.

He and another dozen chickens flicked into the chicken tractor

pastured and raised in woods as best as we could manage factors

Real quick on diet: bugs and grass but we don't lie about grain

Cause in addition to the peckin' we want some eggs layin'

Now back to this guy, he was not the biggest cock in the coop

but like a man he struted out like he didn't give a poop

Though he wasn't alpha he'd get eggs fertile still

He'd already hatched some chicks before competing with Sweet'ums from Hurdle Mills

Sweet'ums was his biggest enemy. The Orpington Buff.

While that great big rooster was chill with hens, with Colin he was rough.

Napoleon was our bantam cock, was the animal of which I was most keen.

But that little non-tyrant had the most sense so he quickly split the scene.

For it wasn't long before those chicks I mentioned came to be mature birds.

And our male to female ratio indicated it was time to thin the herd.

So we gave away a bunch of young roosters to friends. That cleared the air.

But still with Sweet'ums and Powell we were left with one of Powell's male heirs.

So three spurred, combed, and waddled men were fighting over the roost

and from this competition there'd been claims of hen abuse.

Well to start, I haven't seen a measure of pleasure from hens heavy mounted

I've counted zero solicited illicit encounters with the boys

But I do agree that with extra roosters the hens have even less of a choice.

So now I'll tell you the story of how cock culling continued:

Another layer of characters, my farm mates willing

came with various reasons to stage a killing.

Out of respect for life or a taste for poultry

We'd go full butchery even if the meat was paltry.

For Sweet'ums a oardin was given for his crimes

but the other two were sentenced to their end times.

We wanted death humane we tried the bleeding out method

We held him upside down cut his jugular, carotid, jugular, carotid

But even after minutes he was less than dead

So we ended up scissoring off his head.

Things went quicker for rooster's rooster son.

We used a gun.

TOTALLY XtReMe!!!!!!!

This summer has been part of this year and the year has been one of extremes. I certainly make reference to the weather; some say climate change and others say "Durrrrr. I'm a skeptic."

I know that this past winter was extremely cold and snowy for Orange County, NC. And I know that this summer has been extremely oppresive, between heat, humidity, ground-level ozone...

But this year has seen other extremes. Extreme Farm Sports.

I want to introduce to you Xtreme H2OMelon Smashing.

Here it is demonstrated by its inventors Ben and Vince.

Annual Post

I am an annuals grower. This is the time of year that I like to write my annual blog post. I'll just start some blogus vulgaris seed in my new sprouting box and hopefully something will pop up in the next week.

It was a perfect day; I dread the summer.

Today was beautiful and perfect and I had to come inside because it was too nice and I was afraid of getting high on it.

The fog rolled out by midday today after nearly a week of clouds and precipitation. The plants and animals all seemed eager for a more efficient photosynthesis/vitamin D synthesis.

The cover crop is lush.

In less than two weeks it has tripled in height. These plants have plodded on through the winter growing but barely.

Meanwhile, our slightly less hardy crops are starting to fill the field or emerge.



And in the hoop house...
















This is our new rooster, named after a Muppet Show character which I do not remember, who is being taught to tango?

Drainage?

This looks pretty bad.
The beds are running against the slope to prevent wash out. I didn't think they would catch the water so effectively. This is after 2.5 inches in 48 hours.

The Out-of-Shape Farmer

Spring is here?
No, but it is that time of year when I realize that my body has turned to mush over the past couple of months.
I am now at a new farm, yet to be titled, where the vegetable bed making has just begun.



I moved in with Sam in August and we have been scheming since. More than at any other farm I have worked on the task ahead daunts. The motivation is first-class as well.

Most of this field will be in vegetable production this year. Delicious cucumbers are just around the corner.

The farm is just a couple of miles down the road from the Breeze incubator farm. Sam really helped me dig myself out of the weeds and get the most out of my rows this fall and winter. I went to every market held through this past weekend. However, the time has come for the Breeze field to be plowed and we will have a few weeks of lull with nothing to sell.