Much Love and Cluck in the New Year!

It’s hard to believe that a whole year has gone by already at the farm. I think back to where I was at this time last year and where I am now and there really have been some big changes that happened over the past few months. Several rooms in the house received a fresh coat of paint, the flock increased by 17 birds, new wiring was added to the small barn, I added 2 cats and a dog to the pack and I began a tiny little business making doggy treats.



Baby Lavenders and the mutt, Shamrock

I was incredibly thankful that my losses were minimal this year. Two chickens died. This being said, I never want to get over confident with that. My experiences have taught me that the more confident I am that NOTHING will happen to the flock, the more likely something will happen to the flock. I’ve dealt with the occasional bumble foot issue and lately have been working to rid the birds of some sort of respiratory bug that they developed, but otherwise have been exceedingly blessed this year. They’ve been good layers, have behaved (mostly) and haven’t destroyed anything or themselves. Yes, very blessed indeed this year.  



A handful of babies were born (well, hatched) on the farm this year, two lavender orpingtons and the first “mutt” chicken broke forth in March and then little Half Note, the wayward rooster, hatched in mid-summer. I’ve learned quickly that incubating eggs in the early spring is so much better both from a temperature/humidity control issue to the ‘getting the bird ready for the big coop’. When the birds are hatched in the early spring, they’re adults by late summer and a lot of the concerns with keeping the little ones warm are long gone by then.  

This past year, I was taught more humility and the true meaning of the phrase “don’t count your chickens before they hatch” because this was exactly what happened when I tried my hand at hatching this spring. Out of an estimated 25-30 eggs, only 4 chicks hatched and became adults. Granted, it could very well be my incubator but I think a lot of it came from lack of experience and learning that things need to just be left to their devices. I couldn’t help myself in candling the eggs—it was really neat to see that little tiny dot moving around on the inside of the egg shell. Hopefully if I try hatching again this next spring I’ll be a little less ‘hands on’ and more ‘hands off’.  I have learned that it’s not easy making a chicken.

Half Note as a teenager this fall

I've met so many new people this year and made so many new connections both for the farm and my day-to-day life. I would have never dreamed at this time last year that I would have a connection to a brewery that provided supplemental feed to my birds and offered me the chance to create something that would help pay for the farm in the form of making doggy treats. I truly had tunnel vision last year that the only thing that I was going to do was raise chickens and, while the chickens are still the focus of the farm, I was shown a different path entirely.

It may be the end of December, but it will be a matter of weeks before the planting trays are filled again and grow lights turned on, urging seedlings to grow so that they’re ready to go outside right after the last frost. Eggs will most likely fill the incubator again, hoping for more hen than rooster and looking forward to hatching day as the cold winds blow outside and the new little chicks cuddle beneath their heat source.

I have to wonder at the end of this year, what the end of next year will look like. 

Journal Entries: The Right Write

I’m asked so often, “How in the world do you find the energy to get all the things finished that you do?” To be really honest, I don’t know how I find the time, energy or gumption to do the tasks around the farm. I’m well into my 40’s, display the stereotypical American physique of a few too many extra pounds, work a 40 hour a week job, have a small dog biscuit business on the side, play flute in a community band and have 27 animals that depend on me for their survival. 
I have to admit, it is a lot and I’m not always the happiest in doing my daily chores, although there always seems to be something that makes me pause for a moment and appreciate the blessing that is this life.

Sometimes the pause is a gorgeous sunrise or sunset as I’m walking at breakneck speed to the barn to check on the chickens and collect eggs and sometimes it’s just the way that the wind is blowing the pines in the backyard. More often than not, it’s three adult roosters crowing in the morning that makes me smile and I wish I had more time to devote to caring for everything the way that I’d like to.

I’m a Type B personality crammed into a Type A lifestyle.

My ideal life would be to rise at the break of morning and feed the animals, then settle in for an hour or so to enjoy a cup of coffee and perhaps do a crossword puzzle or perhaps write another entry in a journal that I started when I first moved to the farm.

I’ve always been a journal keeper, having received my first blank journal at around 6 years old. I’ve discovered that the need for journaling is hereditary, discovering that my Great Grandpa Jordan kept detailed journals throughout his life—chronicling life on his farm in Southern Illinois, the birth of my father, day to day events that may have seemed insignificant but were important enough to him to write it down.

I’m sure, like myself, my great grandpa referred back to these journals from time to time to remember what happened on a certain date at the farm or what the weather was or how my great grandma was, any little event. As I read his handwriting I feel a connection to him and realize that many of the same worries I have today in more modern times, he felt also so many years ago.

The journaling will continue, I’m sure, throughout the rest of my life and worries I have today will seem insignificant years down the road.  It’s all in perspective. I know that one day I will look back at journal entries and wonder, as folks I know ask, how I got it all done and the response will be – “I don’t know, but I have it written down.”

The Birth of a Biscuit

I’ve been on Blog hiatus the last year or so and it wasn’t on purpose. As most of you know, I’ve created a little tiny company called Purple Shamrock Farm. I moved to my tiny farm in August of 2016 and at first I was pigeonholed with the idea that all I was going to do was raise chickens. Chickens, chickens, chickens.

I had these grandiose plans that I was going to raise the perfect lavender orpingtons and make a boat load of money. I still laugh at that thought today and how much I have learned over the past year and even past few months.  

What I quickly discovered was that unless you’re a large production-type chicken farm, you’re not going to make ANY money off of chickens.  

Oh, you might sell a few dozen eggs here and there, but you can’t charge what it truly costs to produce that carton of rainbow colored eggs. No one in their right mind would pay $6 a dozen, at least, not around these parts.  

So, reduce the cost to $3 a dozen and take a loss – comforting yourself that you’re spreading goodwill to others and giving others a taste (a very good taste by the way) of what farm life is like. You watch with joy as people open their egg carton and marvel at the brown, peach, blue and even green eggs and feel a sense of pride that you helped make those happen.  

If one could live on joy alone, I would be absolutely swimming in profit. Unfortunately though, there is feed, medicine, bedding, and fencing to purchase so that is how the I.P.A. Bites (Incredible. Pupper.Appetizers.) got their start.  

I attended a concert this summer featuring the band Blue Oyster Cult. While I’m not exactly a huge fan, it was a fun break from regular and farm work and a chance to hang out with some friends, maybe drink a beer or two and just kick back.  

As I was sitting in my folding chair at the concert that summer evening with a group of friends, waiting for the band to start, another friend walked over and introduced me to a friend of hers that was just starting to brew for a new beer brewing company in Seymour, Seymour Brewing Company.

After some conversation, this friend’s friend and I discovered we’d been in the same high school class and that his wife was the pediatrician of my friends’ kids. He had a lot of spent grain from the brewing process that he didn’t want to just toss out and wanted to know if I’d be interested in feeding it to my chickens.

Free feed? Absolutely! I was all about it. I picked up my first “supply” a week or so later and watched as my flock gobbled down the damp grains. The next four days I picked up three 5 gallon buckets each night and suddenly was starting to worry that I wouldn’t be able to use all of what I was being given.

I was in the shower one morning (all the best ideas seem to come from the shower) when I thought DOG TREATS! Somewhere in my experiences and maybe just a little dreaming too, I remembered hearing that people had made dog treats out of spent brewing grains.

Immediately I went to the web and looked up recipes.  I found one that worked so well with my farm that I actually got tears in my eyes. The recipe only had four ingredients in it; the spent grain, eggs (uh, hello?), all- purpose flour and peanut butter. Oh yes!

I created the first batch of biscuits that evening and took samples to work the next day to coworkers to feed to their pooches. I think the coworkers were confused because I had always been only about the chickens and the biscuits looked a little strange with the grains poking out all over. I also was baking the biscuits on a dark pan which I found out later turns the baked goods dark (stop laughing baker people).

I wish I had photos of those first biscuits – I’m sure they looked less than appetizing, but the dogs LOVED them so I had a feeling I was on to something. I could make a little money on the side to help pay for the farm and its operations since the egg thing wasn’t exactly panning out.

A few days later I approached the owner of the Seymour Brewing Company and proposed what I was hoping to do with the dog treats. As I shook with the uncertainty of what he would say (I hope he couldn’t see my nervousness), to my amazement, he agreed to sell the biscuits in his brewery and the start of I.P.A. Bites was born.  I couldn’t believe it.

Fast forward to two months later and I’ve created hundreds of the treats to satisfied puppers in the area.

I haven’t been able to fully fund the farm operations just yet on the sale of the biscuits, but hopefully that’s on the horizon. It’s difficult working a 40 hour a week job on top of trying to start a small business on the side and take care of the farm as well. With a little planning and a lot of luck, the I.P.A. Bites will carry Purple Shamrock Farm to its next endeavor.