Things are beginning to slow down here at Pleasant Places. The vegetable garden is finished and has been mowed down. Most of this year's crop of goat kids have moved on to their new places of residence. Still, there are always the daily chores to do: feeding, watering, gathering eggs.
As the grass dies out, we will begin to supplement all our grazing animals with hay. It looks like our grass is going to hold out into November this year. We are happy about this as it means that our pastures are much improved. The first couple of years we lived on the place, the grass was all gone by late August and we had to begin supplementing with hay. That can get expensive.
As the cold weather approaches, the animals will also choose to spend more time in shelters, and that means more cleaning out of stalls and sheds. Work on the barn continues and we really need to get busy splitting the wood that has been cut, but in general, fall is a very pleasant time on the farm when there aren't so many pressing needs.

Now that the kids are old enough, we expect them to help out around the farm.
Well, they do help keep the grass mowed, but they don't use a lawnmower!

A few of the chickens purchased last spring have started laying. They always start out laying small eggs that we call "practice eggs". The eggs get larger as they mature until they reach normal size. Now that we are back in school, the chickens are enjoying their leftover milk again. The calcium makes their egg shells hard and the extra protein helps them grow and lay eggs. Did you know that you can drop the egg of a well-fed farm hen on the ground and it usually won't break (unless it hits a rock or something). Egg shells are also covered with a thin, clear coating that makes it air and water tight for awhile. They really are quite an amazing food.
The photo shows a "practice egg" and one from a mature hen.

The goat moms starting having their kids the evening after school was out for the summer. ( I had told them that if they expected any help from me, they would need to wait until I was finished with school). We just had our last goat kid less than a week ago. We have 13 cute baby goat kids bouncing all over the place down there in the goat paddock.
The garden is doing Ok now that we are getting some rain, but there will be no green beans and no corn...rabbits ate the beans and Doa helps herself to the corn every time we get some up a few inches tall. So we have decided, since we really like corn and beans, that before next year we will have to put a serious fence around the garden. The potatoes have done great and the tomatoes, squash, cukes, pumpkins and cantaloupe all look good. We are having a few of the first squash tonight for supper.
Work on the barn is coming along steadily but slowly. The next step is to put on the trusses.
Lance, the livestock guardian, is doing his job well and doing much better about staying on the property, so he has now been promoted and is allowed out of the paddock and into the pasture. He still get grouchy with goats, chickens and even the horse if they get too close to his food, but I guess I understand that.
Hope everyone is having a great summer!

The chickens are now about 2 months old. They can go in and out of the coop through the "chicken door", and they have access to a large fenced yard area, plenty of green grass, dirt, bugs and sunshine...chicken heaven! They are still being fed a special feed for young, growing chickens. They also get the milk leftovers from school--I guess they are going to miss that this summer! And, of course, plenty of clean water.
Learning Center Students, I will continue to update our blog during the summer, so check in from time to time. Summer is a busy and exciting time on the farm. For starters, our goat mamas are ready to have their kids any day now. I'll be sure and post pictures of the babies.
Have a happy, healthy summer!

Farm Friends

We were delighted to have students from The Learning Center! join us at the farm yesterday. They checked in on the chickens, visited the other animals and asked really good questions about our organic growing methods. We hope they will come again soon!

Our chicks have made their move out to the new coop. Goats and older chickens have been evicted, and now the new batch of chickens have the coop and chicken yard to themselves...Well, except for their guardian dog, Lance. Right now, for their warmth and protection, they are confined to the coop itself where they have everything they need to keep them happy and growing. The chickens are about a month old now and don't look much like the fluffy little peeps we brought home. Now they look like small versions of the plump Rhode Island Red hens they will grow to be. Young female chickens are correctly called pullets before they begin laying eggs.

Meet our asparagus thief. This is a young, female deer that I call Doa (as in "doe, a deer, a female deer.)  Doa was orphaned as a fawn, hand-raised by our neighbors and then released, but she is still very, very tame, and she hangs out a lot at our farm. She seems to think she is either a goat or a dog. One thing she does know though is that she loves fresh asparagus. So do I, so I had to cover up my asparagus bed with wire row covers to protect the plants. Our garden has a low, electric netting fence around it to keep out the resident groundhogs and raccoons, but Doa bounces right over it. We will probably find it necessary to protect other crops from her, but she is so pretty and sweet that it is hard to be too upset with her.

The new chicken coop is ready and waiting for the new chicks. If the weather stays this warm, we should be moving them in in another couple of weeks. The coop is made mostly of recycled materials. It contains nesting boxes and roosts with a special hatch under the roosts so we can clean out underneath there when needed. Right now it also contains a goat now and then because the goats are currently sharing space with the few grown chickens we have. Eventually we will move the goats out, but that may be awhile yet.
We have just begun on the barn this weekend. We set the four corner poles. It doesn't sound like much, but getting the four corners right will have everything to do with how the whole structure turns out. We will continue to work on it throughout summer and possibly fall, hopefully finishing in time for winter.
In the garden, the lettuce is up and growing. Sometime soon after spring break, I will be bringing in some for the salad bar. The asparagus is also coming up, but some critter has been helping itself to each little sprout that pushed itself up out of the ground...we finally discovered a way to keep the culprit out so we could have some ourselves. More next time on who the thief turned out to be!

The Chicks Have Moved Out!
Our fine feathered friends have already grown up enough to move out of their brooder box in the laundry room and into a much larger cage outside near the back porch. They are still quite small and they must have their heat lamp on at night especially, but their fluffy down has been replaced by small feathers and they can actually fly about some. It's a bit chilly tonight, so I am going out to check on them as soon as I am finished here. We worked on their new coop today and it should be finished in plenty of time.