Four red headed woodpeckers eating elderberries

 

I moved the tent into the next acre

 

Charlie and Rex

Because I was focusing on a smaller location, I spent a little time looking at chicken breeds. I don’t know when I first wanted a jubilee Orpington, but it was by the time I was married and living in the patchwork house for the first time. Probably around the time I started the blog. By the time we moved here, I had found true English jubilee Orpington eggs. I ordered them with some other breeds I’d decided on. Bielefelders being my key aim. I hatched a lot of roosters. One bielefelder hen, Delta, and four or five roosters. We are the others and kept my favorite two, Blue and Charlie. We had three jubilee Orpington roosters as well. We kept one, Rex. So named because the first time I heard him crow in the early morning mist, he sounded like a dinosaur. His crow was deep and hoarse and not loud. I loved him. As he got older his breast was so broad and his feathers got more spotted and intricate. We found him dead about six months ago. His coop is in the front and while sturdy is less protected from raccoon and fox. A month later an owl killed Charlie but couldn’t get to him after. The run has wire on top but the chickens had started roosting out of the coop with only wire overhead. Odin can only reach one side of the run at night. I just bought 660’ of fence to start giving him more access to more edges. It’s all entangled. The point is, I am still sad about the two boys, and the genetics in my flocks is suffering for it. I am focusing on meat production throughout the entire farm for a short time (we are finally set up to make any money and need to, and selling live animals as babies is not where we are looking to go) so I’ll wait to find quality roosters for now. I have what I need. Being back here with them. Outside in everything with them all and seeing so much of their lives makes some parts more sad than I have to let them be. 

Nothing here makes sense out of context

 

For instance

 This is a good example that can be applied to so much of what had been created so far here. Excuse me, right then there was a choking coughing sound. I always run to those. Usually it’s nothing. This time it was nothing. That’s another excellent example of what it’s like here. So, the example. We just added creep feeders to each pen for the goats. We thought the openings were small enough but some of the little adult goats got in. We adjusted, the tiny ones with sticks on their collars had a hard time getting in. We added feeders for them in a separate area. The tiniest boy in Reba’s litter, we call him Sundance, continues to escape the big boys run. They have to have solid panels because the big useless wether, Joe of many names, constantly climbs and destroys anything else. He was jumping the fence that works for every other goat since, the day we got him home. He was weathered that day, Burdizzo, and 10 weeks old. His mom died having him so he was super spoiled. He’s a boer. Anyway, the pen has bigger holes and the Nigerian boys can still escape at six weeks old. They’re bottle babies though so luckily, easy to catch. The point is, we build something and adjust or scrap it and rebuild several times sometimes to find what works and what is sustainable. Also, we try to find something someone can recreate with no or little money. If I’d waited until I could afford fence posts, I’d never have started. We are working smart to preserve the canopy for many reasons, eventually replacing it with edibles where it works well. But that’s a different post I think.