A Little Chicken Talk for the Week

This week, I allowed one of the original flock hens, Gertrude, to speak from her perspective in this article on seeing me around more often and the constant quest of the chickens' search for food.  

BA-GAWK! We've noticed that the lady that gives us food has been coming down to our barn more often and NOT bringing treats every time. She's concerned herself with cleaning our living quarters (why she doesn't like the "art" that we've worked so hard to create on the perches is beyond us) and we've noticed that our food container is almost always filled to the brim these days. We've also noticed that we don't see her carrying the big water container up the hill anymore. That being said, she still manages to fill it and very quickly now - something about water being hooked up now in the barn. 

That must be a good thing because she's not as grouchy when carrying the container back into our living quarters. 

We can't help ourselves and gather around her while she's trying to work, oftentimes being nudged out of the way by her big black boots. The other day one of us got in the way and she stepped on the toes of one of my fellow coop mates. There was a lot of squawking that occurred and I noticed that the lady almost fell trying to maneuver herself out of the way. She thinks that our little cluckings and coos mean that we love her, but really they mean that we're looking for some kind of magical treats to fall from her pockets. After all, she's always carrying big bags of food into the barn so there must be some kind of secret stash on the other side of the coop door. 

When she's collecting eggs each day, occasionally she'll leave the coop door open that leads into the rest of the barn. A couple of times a few of us have tried to step into the big room to see what's there, but we're quickly shooed back into our coop. Something about making a mess and not being protected. What's a gal to do when you want to see what's happening on the other side? 

The lady carries a thing called a cell phone with her when she's in our coop and she's always taking pictures of us with it. Sometimes she does what we've learned is called a Facebook Live and she tracks us with the phone as we move about our home. I'd like to say that we're famous, but we don't see any of the royalties from such fame. How about some extra mealworms? Is that too much to ask?

Apparently all of this extra attention is due to something called a pandemic and it's why the lady is around more often. I don't know what a pandemic is, but if it's not something I or the others can eat we're really not interested. 

Somehow I think if we try to trip her up again the next time she's filling our feeder or our water container, the treats that I know she's hiding will fall from her pockets by the mounds. I just have to plot how to do that and one thing us chickens definitely have is time. Just wait until the next time she comes to fill our feeders. BA-GAWK! 

Mother's Day is the Time to Plant - Right?

Allow me to switch gears just a bit this week from talking about chickens (though my "meat seeds" are enjoying their time outside). On the farm, I not only raise chickens but also attempt to grow some sort of edible produce each year. The garden is set in an open field that, just a few years back, was a corn/soybean field.
That being said, I have tried each year to enrich the soil to make it a more hospitable place for vegetable plants. The extra spent brewer's grain that doesn't go into the dog treats or to the chickens, vegetable peelings, and the ever prevalent offerings of the chickens are put onto the soil each fall and are then worked into the ground in the spring to make the soil as rich as possible.
The first year that I moved to the farm I tried desperately to grow every type of vegetable I could lay my hands on.
Of course, this was absolutely a disaster because the ground had recently been a field of soybeans and, no surprise that first season, volunteer soybeans continued to pop up between the tomatoes, peppers, melons, corn and broccoli.
Not deterred, I planted a smaller amount of vegetables the next summer and saw fewer soybean plants. However, the ground decided to rebel and the weeds took over - choking out the tomatoes, peppers and covering the watermelons and pumpkins.
So much for opening a small roadside stand to sell official Jackson County melons. If my memory serves me I at least had a tiny harvest that season; 4 pumpkins and 2 watermelons.
YouTube has a host of videos from other people that are trying their hand at the "homesteading" thing and I began to glean every bit of information from these videos on how to prevent weeds. What I discovered was a plastic woven cloth that is fastened to the ground with landscaping staples or sandbags and blocks the ground from sunlight, effectively preventing any undesirable plants from growing. Genius!
I purchased the woven cloth last spring and put it on the ground. All I had to do was burn small holes to put the plants that I wanted into the ground. Enter the propane torch which I failed at - how was I to know that the flame was so sensitive to the ever present wind that blows on the hill?
Frustrated about the inability to even burn a small hole, the chickens took over my focus and there was not a garden last year at all.
The only way to "win" at this farming thing is to make sure that there are multiple sources of income coming in and, after attending a small farms conference this February, I decided to try again. This time, I didn't burn holes in the plastic but cut them. The ground below the plastic is wonderfully weed-free and the earthworms love the protection and warmth that it gives. I planted 6 tomato plants and a variety of radishes, lettuces and rainbow carrots. I've already gotten a small harvest of radishes. So far, I'm winning.
There's an old saying that if you plant after Mother's Day any threat of frost should be past, but this year is a little bizarre in so many ways. It appears that any of us who decided to put plants into the ground a bit before this date will need to tuck in the sensitive plants from threat of frost this weekend.
It is Indiana after all and I wouldn't be surprised if we don't get small flurries on top of everything else.
My moniker on the street is Mutha Clucker amongst friends and this weekend gives me a moment to realize how much mothers near and far give to make sure that things grow and flourish. It doesn't matter whether you're a mother to adorable little humans, fur/finned/feathered babies, or plants. Anything that grows, grows because someone cared. A large wish of thanks to all of the mothers out there this weekend and stay warm!