Cold, Rain, Crops, Poultry

The birds are finally able to run around! The geese especially needed to have more room.
After one week wing feathers are appearing, at 2 weeks tail feathers.
This is a heritage turkey, not sure which breed. You can see the snood starting above the beak.
One of the stranger looking chicks, the Naked Neck or Turken.
They come in a box with holes. It was terribly cold and rainy that morning, so we blasted the heater in the van. These are an assortment of brown egg layers.
This is the local post office, it is quite rural and homey.

Whew! We have the new ground planted. The other plot is partially planted, due to a late rye cover crop and our BCS has been in the shop. It has been unseasonably cold, as in frost at night cold. Our furnace has kicked on despite our having turned it "off". Our fields have been a soggy mud hole. Mix in the sporadic 88 degree day and you can imagine the plants are confused.

Rural living has its quirks. Since March I have not had internet, and this has proved a blessing and a frustration. I need to be able to send out notices to CSA members, look up information and update web pages. Trying to accomplish this on a bargain cell phone does not cut it. Anyway, the online glow is emanating once again from the screen.

Raising poultry is a new enterprise for us. As Joel Salatin sagely advises in his Pastured Poultry Profits; get the pen made before you order the birds as research and development will invariably cause delays, resulting in the birds outgrowing their brooder facilities. Umm, tell me about it. Today we moved our chicks outside. They have been so fascinating to watch. I think they grow so fast you can see new feathers every morning!

How hard could it possibly be to build the simplest pen??? Arrgh..........don't ask. I had no clue and no blueprint. Suffice it to say after trial and error the pen is finished. It needs a few extra features for convenience but that would have added 2 more days to the project.