The farm has been a whirlwind of activity these past few days, a flurry of preparations as we brace ourselves for the inevitable arrival of winter. With so much going on, I figured it was high time to bring you all along for a little update on the current state of affairs, because honestly, even I'm finding it a bit of a challenge to keep track of everything!
"Good morning, large white farm dogs! How are you doing, guys? Good to see you, good to see you! Hi, Abby dog! Hi, Toby dog! Hi, buddy! How's it going? How's my pal?" As per his usual morning ritual, Toby has to make a pit stop somewhere – it's just his thing. We have a whole laundry list of tasks to tackle today. You can see the ducks and geese are out and about in full force right now. One of the more noticeable changes you might spot is that I've separated all of my roosters into a temporary holding area. The big news there? Tomorrow is butchering day. That means we'll be processing all the roosters that hatched earlier this summer, and we'll also be culling some of the ducks and geese. So, getting everyone organized and sorted is a major priority for today.
Today also marks Barry White's last day on the PGF (that's Gold Shaw Farm, for those in the know). But fear not, he's not heading to freezer camp! He's actually off to a new homestead. A friend of mine from New Hampshire is driving up today, bringing with her a Barred Rock rooster who will be my main man for next year. In return, she's taking Barry White, our handsome American Bresse rooster, down to her flock, as she believes he'll be a fantastic addition to her breeding program. So, a rooster exchange is on the cards for today! I'm also aiming to relocate all the ducks and geese into the hoop coop today. Tomorrow, we're expecting our first snowfall, and the temperatures for the next few days are predicted to plummet into the low twenties Fahrenheit. We need to be ready for all that, which means all the birds need to be snug in their winter quarters.
As for the goats residing in Weathering Heights (their charmingly named enclosure), they're creating a bit of chaos that I need to address with you all and probably undertake some repairs today. Like I said, there is a lot going on at the farm right now.
"Okay, okay, okay! It's time to feed the goats! Come on, guys! Where you boys going? You're going in the wrong direction!" They might not realize I have their food pellets, but they certainly perk up at the prospect of the special treat I have in store for them. "Come with me, boys!"
You see, lately I've been venturing out into the woods, trimming tree branches, particularly evergreens, along the edges of our fence lines. On one hand, this is actually quite beneficial for maintaining clear fence lines and preventing excessive brush growth. But on the other hand, these trimmings are a delectable snack for the goats, and they absolutely love to chow down on the branches. Isn't that right, Lauren? Here's a branch I placed in here yesterday, from the same exact tree, and you can see the extent of their handiwork – they've stripped a lot of the bark and devoured most of the needles. They truly enjoy making these bare sticks. So, I've been making an effort to provide them with plenty of greenery, and this is something I plan to continue throughout the entire winter to supplement their diet. They'll get alfalfa, they'll get hay, and then they'll get these tree branches – a varied mix to keep them happy and healthy goats. I should also mention that I provide them with a special mineral supplement to ensure they're getting a balanced nutritional intake, but augmenting their diet with things like tree branches is super easy, it's free, and yeah, I don't know, I'm just genuinely happy and excited that I get to do this throughout the winter. It truly brings me joy to see just how much these guys enjoy these branches. And I think observing their intense grazing activity is actually one of the reasons why I appreciate goats so much. It's also one of the reasons why I like cattle too – I just find it wildly satisfying and soothing to watch the intensity with which animals graze on their food. And then when you start to see the output turn into things like… well, it's just kind of a beautiful cycle, isn't it, Telemachus?
Yesterday, I came out here to discover that the goats had engaged in a bit of structural redecorating. They somehow managed to smash open the door of their shelter, which I honestly don't even understand how they accomplished. The faceplates are on the other side, so they must have been ramming it from the inside, which just doesn't make sense to me. So, I'm going to have to fix that. I'm still leaving this door open for now, but I think I might close it tonight because it's going to get so cold, and probably in the next week or two, I'll just have to replace it with a more traditional door. For whatever reason, despite the presence of this perfectly functional door flap, they keep opting for unconventional exit strategies, like trying to push their way out the poop door, which is not exactly my preferred method of egress. "What you doing in there, Abby? You're getting more comfortable with stairs! That's kind of nice to see." Abby is becoming quite the stair master. Toby dog, on the other hand, has always been terrified of stairs, and I don't try to force them to do anything they're uncomfortable with. The goats, however, don't seem to mind the stairs at all; in fact, they seem to quite enjoy them lately. I've been perusing Facebook Marketplace, looking for some playground equipment or maybe a small trampoline – just some things to offer a bit of enrichment to the goats, as they seem to have fun with such things. "Barney, can you go through that door? Are you going to back in through the door? Nope!" For some reason, the goats vehemently dislike this particular doorway. I suppose it's probably a good thing that I removed it too, because at some point they would have undoubtedly gotten bored and started chewing on it, which probably wouldn't be good for their digestive systems either. But I don't know, I'll have to tackle that project on another day, as my to-do list today is already exceedingly long.
You might notice that the ducks and geese are trailing behind me, looking rather perturbed. There's a reason for their apparent distress, which will become clear by the end of this video. But first, I actually need to update you on the chicken situation. As you may recall, we hatched out a whole cohort of birds this past summer – the males destined to become our winter meat supply, and the females intended to be the future egg layers of the farm. Well, the other day I went through and sorted and sexed all the birds, trying to definitively identify the hens and the roosters. For the most part, I believe I got it right. There were also a couple of hens of breeds that I probably didn't want to have as many of in the flock, so they are also going into the coq au vin pot. But as you can see here, given some of the losses we experienced this summer with our laying flock, I've now reintroduced all the young pullets back with their mothers, and they're in the process of becoming one big, cohesive flock. "Ow! Don't worry, girls, I'm coming with your food!"
What I've found to be the most effective method for introducing a flock of chickens is to actually confine them together in a relatively tight space, fenced in so they can't escape and can't get away from each other. This electric fence is the same one that's currently keeping the cattle and goats contained, so it is indeed "hot." Even as I stepped over the fence, I received a rather jolting zap on the posterior. And yeah, you definitely feel it! So far, after what I believe is day three of them being together, they have essentially gelled and formed one happy flock. Part of what facilitates this integration is that I've eliminated most of my roosters. By having fewer roosters, it actually destabilizes the existing hierarchy, and I find that if I introduce the hens at the same time as removing roosters, it makes flock cohesion much easier. Of course, it seems like one rooster, who is definitely destined for freezer camp, has somehow managed to sneak back in here. I honestly don't know how he did it, but I need to catch him and put him with the other boys. Yeah, this is our Gray Cochin rooster, Dorian Gray. He actually did a good job as a third rooster. I didn't even initially intend to keep him, but he was one of the bonus chickens we acquired a couple of years ago. He's a really nice bird, but one of the things I'm finding is that the Cochin breed of chicken goes so broody that they create real problems for how I manage my chickens. It's not that I want to eliminate all Cochin from my flock, but I don't want to risk having his genetics become one of the predominant strains in the birds I hatch next year. So yes, we're going to have to actually say goodbye to my friend Dorian here as well tomorrow.
I'm just over here getting the feed ready and watching just how much of a goofball Abby dog is. She was fully on her back, getting herself a good scratch. Both dogs actually love doing that. Yeah, I'm talking about you two goons!
So, with the ducks and geese momentarily distracted by the fact that I just fed the chickens, I suppose it's time to come in here and do some last-minute prep and cleanup to finally get this hoop coop ready for the birds to move in. I left some hoses in here that I was using to water the plants I was growing this summer. I just need to pull these out, and I think we'll be ready to go. You know, when you grow plants in a greenhouse, water is one of the essential ingredients for success. Just my luck, the sky has just started to open up, and it's beginning to pour rain. But I think the good news is that the ducks and geese kind of know what time it is, and I'm hoping that moving them in here shouldn't be too difficult. Let's give it a shot!
Now, the first part of my plan is that I have their food, and I've been deliberately waiting to feed them, so they're quite hungry and very much anticipating my arrival with their meal. And so, Abby dog, that is step one in this plan: we're going to start feeding them right by the door. I'll just set this down right here, build up a critical mass, let everyone get excited, and now we're going to take their food and move it into the house. Hopefully, they'll all follow and realize that, "Yay! This is the place where you can get the food!" Woo! It's really coming down now. "Alright, you guys, go in there! Come on! All ducks go to bed! All ducks go to bed! Come on! All ducks go to bed! Chop chop! Generic duck, please don't get any ideas! Come on, Bruce the goose, that means you too!" Would you look at that? This is the power of food when you're trying to move waterfowl! "Hey! Hey! Do not take that food! That's bird food! You're getting into a bad habit of trying to eat the bird food! Please stop!" Wow, would you listen to it come down out there? I'm glad we're inside here now. Now it looks like all the ducks are accounted for, and I'm pretty positive that all the geese are accounted for. And now what you're seeing is the birds are starting to get to know their new habitat. Over the next couple of weeks, they're going to trample down all these weeds. And while I harvested pretty much all the good pumpkins, I did leave a couple of the softer ones in here. I'm pretty sure a couple of the chickens have already snuck in here to start stealing some of these pumpkins. These dead, weed-looking things behind me are mostly a combination of lamb's quarter and amaranth, or pigweed. We've also had some interesting, weird plants grow, like for example, this is a Jimson weed, I believe, which doesn't actually grow a lot around these parts. But because it's so warm, it's almost like, I don't know, this is like almost two growing zones warmer, and somehow I got seeds mixed in here, and yeah, that's what these little spiky guys are. I wonder how the birds are going to react to them. I might have to just sweep them up. When I looked online, it said that they were toxic in extremely large doses, so I'm not really worried about them with the birds, but we'll see what happens. What will happen though is the birds will be in here, they'll trample these plants down, I'll start to put straw and hay and like mulch down as they poop and make all their mess, and over the course of the winter, I pile it all up, and then eventually I create compost. And that compost gets used on our trees, it gets used in our garden. Just the other day, I set up a new berry patch for Allison that we're going to try to plant in a week or two, and so as we're doing that, the compost from the cattle or from the birds gets to be the base of the soil that we're using to grow even more food for ourselves. It's still going to be a couple of weeks before I fully close down the greenhouse and put up the winter barrier. I'm not rushing to do it just yet because there's plenty of time before I really want to close it down and make it basically, I don't know, it usually ends up being about 20 degrees warmer inside there. I've just let this entire area go wild over the course of the summer with the idea of seeing whatever grows up here is probably a response to whatever mineral deficiencies that we have over here. This was leftover from when I had the goats doing some work out in these parts, and then as this stuff dies back, it just creates more organic matter and it's helped fertilize the soil better. And basically what I'm trying to do is figure out a way to deal with all the damage that the birds do over the winter to this area because it gets very like compacted and kind of gross. And so my attempt in letting all the weeds go crazy this year was partially attributed to wanting to see if I could inspire just other things that wouldn't typically grow in this space to grow better to become ground cover. And yes, one of the projects I did in the past week is I actually moved this fence line out that way. I have the hydrant on the same side of the fence. Last year when we dug it, the birds were still out on this side of the farm, and I didn't want to try to have to dig a trench with like a whole bunch of birds running around going crazy. But yeah, the birds being back in here means that is a return of both "all ducks go to bed" as well as the fact that I'm going to… so stay tuned for that one, you guys.
Now, I know one thing you guys might be wondering is if the goats have now moved into the old dog house. And when the dogs were moved out of this house, they were starting to stay in the greenhouse. Where are the dogs going to go on rainy days like this? Well, the answer is, they're actually going to reclaim this shed that the goats were using. So many times over the years, this has been the primary doghouse for both Toby and Abby. When Toby dog was a puppy, he spent a lot of time here. "Good morning, Toby dog! Hi! Hey! How's it going, buddy? How's it going, buddy? Did you have a good night?" When Abby dog was just a puppy and she couldn't be trusted to be unsupervised (and maybe she still can't be trusted to be unsupervised), this is the area where she stayed. "Hi! It's good to see you too!" So, Abby has been here on the farm for about a week now. "Good girl! Yes, you are!" And so, this is just going to become the new home for the dogs again. When the rain stops, I'll actually put down fresh straw, and it will return to being the livestock guardian dog retreat back outside after a rain delay. "Next time, fellas, please don't break this, huh?"
"Goys! I know, Macho Man! We've come to the end of another grazing lane." So today, the cattle have just been moved to the far back corner of our big pasture. I guess technically speaking, that is the northwest corner back there. There's still plenty of good forage, and so the summer grazing will continue at least for a couple more weeks. But there's actually something related to that I want to talk to you about in a minute. But yeah, it was nice actually having my friend Danny from Wicked Awesome Gardening stop by. "Come on, Barry!" So, this is Barry White. Good-looking boy, nice and big, relatively friendly. "Hi!" He's like, "What the heck?" "Don't worry, man, you're going to a better place! It's going to be cool!" Yeah, he tried to sneak in with the weird chickens. He's been going in there the last couple of days, like he's known what's up. "Yeah, here, do the swap for a second. I'll put him in here. Here, pal! Good luck! Best of luck to you!" She actually brought two roosters; she has an Americana and a Barred Rock. I think I'm going to keep the Barred Rock, and I think the Americana is going to go into the freezer tomorrow. "If you would be so kind as to wait in here for now, sir, I'll open this up." Alright, Fred… seeing him there makes me very sad. He's like, "Oh, now I'm just stuck with all these strangers, and I'm by myself." And uh, I feel bad for Dead Fred. I hope I don't cave and try to save him. But it was fun having Danny stop by. She is such a, such a nice person. She has actually an incredible story about how she ended up on her homestead and what she's doing. She's uh, I don't know, she's about an hour away from here in New Hampshire. I might even end up taking a field trip at some point down