Oh, we may be busy getting ready for the autumn vegetables, repairing our irrigation system, and harvesting … but not these boys!  A few days ago we moved the broiler chicks to fresh pasture, where they currently spend most of their time relaxing in the shade and tangled branches of a gnarly old apple tree.  Not a bad way to pass the hours!

Now that we’ve got some good fencing up, Luanne the Goat doesn’t have to be on her tether anymore.  She is celebrating her freedom … by holing up in the chicken coop with the broody hen.

First they were tiny.  Then they grew some.  Then they grew some more.  Looks like they’re still at it!

“Nah, really, I’m good here.  Carry on with what you were doing.”

Seriously!  I mean, mainly because of the delicious eggs, but also because of the serious goofiness factor they’ll bring to your days.

(even young chicks about to enter their awkward weeks)

Remember those new chicks?  They’re two and a half weeks old now, and hoo boy, have they grown!  They’ve still got downy foreheads and backs, but their wingtips have real feathers on them, and they’ve lost much of the down on their bellies.  Anyone who wants to is welcome to come say hello to these boys and learn more about how they grow.  Just give us a call and set up a time!

We’ve been absent a couple days here with the Daily Farm Photo — so sorry!  We’ll post a couple today to catch up.

The photo above is one of the chicks a few days ago … it’s amazing how fast they grow!  You can see the beginnings of real feathers there on his wing tips.

And here below you can see Ali at the potato harvest … showing you how powerful and invasive yellow nutsedge is!  It grows right through straw mulch, right through plastic mulch — and right through potatoes!  It’s been called “one of the world’s worst weeds” and it’s our biggest weed challenge here at the farm by far.  It has seeds but mainly reproduces through tubers and rhizomes, and it’s incredibly well-adapted to irrigated agricultural land like our farm.  We don’t use any herbicides here, of course, so the best we can do so far is to aggressively till the parts of the farm where we have the worst problems.  That doesn’t kill this weed, but it does weaken it.  Aggressive tillage is not good for our soil in the long-term, but we hope after a few years we’ll be able to get our nutsedge under control.

Pretty sour news, huh?  Okay then …  one more photo of the chicks.  They and we were so grateful for the cooler weather yesterday!

Wishing y’all a lovely lovely Thursday!  Check back here soon for some big farm news.

Ali is not drowning our new chicks, promise!  But he is teaching them how to drink.  They never did that before this morning!

Our batch of 60 Cornish Rock broiler chicks (meat hens) arrived this morning.  You really do get a phone call, bright and early: “Hi there!  This is the post office.  Were you expecting some chicks?”  And you drive down and — if you live in a town as tiny as Pamplin — you knock on the back door, and there they are, peeping away inside a cardboard box, making more noise than you’d think day-old chicks possibly could.

They’re now in their brooder — a nice safe box in a corner of the greenhouse, with all the food and water their little bellies could desire (and these boys can eat), and a heat lamp to keep them warm until they’re big enough to regulate their own body temperature.  After a few weeks we’ll move them outside onto pasture, where they’ll spend the rest of their days eating lots of grass and clover and bugs.

These chicks are for home use — for our bellies — and not for market or the CSA.  But for those of you who eat meat … there really is nothing that compares to the taste of meat raised gently on grass and nearby.  Please seek out a local livestock farmer!  You can find delicious meats at both of the farmers markets we sell at.  Or try searching online — Local Harvest and Buy Fresh, Buy Local Virginia are both great resources.

And we’d love to hear from current and prospective CSA members: we’ve chatted with a good neighbor of ours, a farmer who raises meat on pasture, about the possibility of offering his meats (pork, lamb, chicken, and possibly beef) as an optional add-on to the CSA shares next year.  We have no idea yet about the logistics, but what do you think?