Chickens!!!!!!

Well, it's official -- the Fixettwell Family is now a FARMily!!!  A friend generously gifted us a dozen hens and one rooster.  We went to her house to pick them up and she caught them one by one to pack them into moving boxes.  Chris had OK'ed this scheme, but was not completely convinced about this whole idea...even after it was already happening!

By the time we got back home, it was already dark and the chickens were already asleep, so we just opened up the lids but left them in the boxes overnight.  In the morning we were pleasantly surprised not to be woken up super early by crowing, so we went out to see how everyone had survived the move and see if they were enjoying their new digs -- but when we opened the door every single chicken was still just sitting in its moving box, looking completely dazed!

Chris emptied them out and they quickly got to work eating all the weeds and grubs they could find in their new coop.

Before long, we got a frantic-sounding message from our friend that she'd found one little hen who had somehow escaped the moving escapade -- NO HEN LEFT BEHIND!  We went back to Scottsville to pick her up, so ultimately we have 13 hens and 1 rooster.

We had no real idea about how to keep chickens, so we started googling what kind of food we could give them in addition to their pellet feed.  Turns out chickens eat pretty much whatever we do, so they got inundated with tomatoes that were too old for people and pear cores -- they loved it all!!!

After doing some research, we discovered our coop was not really big enough to keep this number of hens happy -- our friend also let us take the chickens' old fencing, so once the weather cooperated we were finally able to enlarge their pen with a nice big outdoor run.

The chickens are coming! The chickens are coming!

Happily exploring their enlarged pen

Chris decided to name our rooster Sir Bubba Crowsalot.  He is a very magnificent creature, and still young so hasn't fully developed his spurs (or his personality?) yet.

Bubba has already somehow developed a
habit of getting out of the fence!  Chris found him wandering around near our trash cans, just strutting his stuff like he was supposed to be there.  He likes to attack Chris's feet, which has already led to a couple of battles for the spot of “top rooster".  So far Chris is still winning!



The next hen to get out was the yellow hen (she doesn't have a name yet).  Then the all-black hen (Old Crow) somehow spent the entire night outside!  Turns out hens are a lot more amenable to be chased back into the pen than that rooster!

The grass is always greener...

When we got these chickens, they had already begun their winter molt.  After a week of no egg production combined with Daylight Savings Time (meaning they have already roosted for the night by the time Chris gets home from work), we got out of the habit of checking the nest boxes.  About a week later, Chris unexpectedly discovered that at least one of our hens had been quite busy!  We unfortunately had to discard most of this first egg “harvest" because we had no idea how long they had been sitting around and didn't want to take the risk.  However, now the hens are beginning to produce an egg here & there, and these days they are much cleaner and more appealing -- yum!

So far the chickens have all been a welcome addition to our farmlet, and we're even growing quite fond of Bubba and his antics!

 

Happy New Year from the Fixettwells!

Happy belated holidays and New Year!  Rather than our customary TL;DR update, we've elected to make a calendar (of the past!).  Luckily, whencanireusethiscalendar.com indicates that 2014 calendars will be usable again in 2025.  Also, we didn't fill in the dates.  Basically, we just made the back page of 2014's calendar with our top picture of each month--here it is!

By way of captions: we (re)built a hoophouse, cleared a bunch of invasive brush, planted mutant potatoes (and lots of other delights), installed a 2,500 square foot garden, explored our six ancient outbuildings, built a bottle tree and herb spiral, harvested over 980 lbs. of homegrown food, cut off five years of ponytail, enjoyed some well-earned rest, cleaned 50 years worth of dust out of the general store (and hosted a party in it!), and unofficially launched Green Springs Gifts by attending a holiday artisan fair.  Whew!

So far all we've done in 2015 is adopt this adorable puppy.  Welcome to the Fixettwell family, Starlet!

Things are pretty good here.  Can't wait to see what the rest of 2015 has in store for us!

        -- Bea, Chris, General Burt Nurfur, Earl Grey Cat, and Starlet