A 3 Rooster Spring....

 We have been super lucky the past many years with only having one rooster show up in our very many broods...  I think the last time we accidentally got a Roo was in 2016? Considering we are now doing two broods per year for the past couple of years, I'm seriously surprised that we have not had at least one male per year.  This year, we ended up with three Cockerels; one each of Australorp, Black Copper Maran, and Easter Egger.  Thankfully, we were able to find homes for all three, eventually.  I was thinking I would never get rid of the Easter Egger and was starting to grow very fond of him.  Then, one of the families that purchased the Marans called this week to let me know that one of them was a Roo. We picked him up and refunded her money, letting her know that I will be starting another batch of Marans in July. She said she may want two of them, then... So we shall see. 

I changed up the Rooster Ad and within 24 hours, a person picked up both Roosters together.  Probably seems more worthwhile to pick up two rather than one, considering the gas prices at the moment? And there we have it.  We are down to three laying hens, six pullets, and four ducks. 

We did pick up a kiddie pool for the ducks that just barely fits inside their pen.  They had a blast for the few nice days of weather.  June has been very soggy.  While I would LOVE to have some heat, I certainly don't miss the 120F temps we had in June last year.  

We will be getting 20 more day-old pullets in a month for our second annual batch. 

All the meat chicks are processed, resting in the refrigerator, and starting to be frozen, a few at a time, to keep from overwhelming the freezers. Smallest carcass so far has been 4#8oz and the largest has been 6#5oz.  We had to cull a few Cornish Cross before they actually made it to processing day.  We processed 21 this year, which is pretty good.  We had 22 last year that made it to the end. We may get a small batch this fall to tide us over into next year.  We have been needing to purchase too many "fryers" from the store and with the prices going up on meat, it is better for us to just raise them ourselves. 

And, as such, we are settling into less work for a few weeks as everything unwinds into a dull routine of daily bird maintenance.  Another month, and most of the pullets should be starting to lay eggs. 

June Berries, Grapes and Pears 2022

This year, we planted grapes, blueberries, raspberries, huckleberries, salmonberries and two pear trees.  Yah, not creating a Christmas song, just that we are trying to get more fruit than just apples and blackberries off our property.  Of course, we planted them a couple weeks after the usual "last frost" and before the late snow storm that we had. UGH!  The grapes and the raspberries seemed to suffer the most because they were the most exposed for the full sun effect. 

I thought the grapes were totally wiped out, and well the raspberries were trying to make a come back.  I would check them every other week in hopes.  One raspberry came back and one is limping along. This past few weeks, the grapes just started to sprout new growth from the top, as well as a sucker came up from the roots.  So, hopefully, in a few years, we will have more berries, grapes, pears, and if that cherry tree ever figures itself out, we might get some bing cherries, too. 

You know me by now... I'm not a good gardener, but I give it my all, hope for the best, and every once in a while, something actually grows.  So we shall see if these all survive.