Taryn braided them in ropes of a dozen and we hung them around our kitchen to cure. Next year we’ll have to plant more!

Mama bring her babies to the grain tray

What's left in the nest

Two little ones

Little one getting grain

Mame back on the nest with little ones milling about

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Mother hen and two baby chicks

Another shot of the mother and her two baby chicks.

Newly hatched yellow chick under its mom

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We covered the ground between the beds with a heavy layer of cardboard and hay to keep the weeds down and mulched most of the beds with lots of hay to prevent weeds from growing between the plants and to retain moisture.

This is where we’re at now with everything:

Coming out of the bedroom and into the garden

Our no-dig beds, this years addition to the garden

Our tomato jungle, planted wide row style in our no-dig bed

Our cucumber mound. We started these plants from seed inside and transplanted them last month.

Cucumbers ready for harvest

Our kale and chard

Taryn N' Onions

Our onions are starting to die and put their energy into increasing the size of their bulb (the part we eat!). A few have shot up flowers like this one. Generally, if you allow the flowers to grow the bulb will be much smaller so it's advised that you pull your onions out of the ground when a flower develops. We're letting a couple send up flowers so we can try to harvest seeds. They should all be dead and harvested in a month or so I think.

At around the same time she started sitting on her nest we received a fresh batch of babies from McMurray Hatchery.  We used chicken wire to section off a third of the coop for these baby chicks.  When we built the coop last summer, we made multiple human and animal access doors so that we would be able to divide up the inside and still be able to get in and do what we needed to do.

Today when we went out to check on those new birds- which are just getting into that awkward half feather half fluff technicolor dream coat stage; we noticed a small puff ball curled up next to the grain feeder.  Clearly this was a new baby, no more than 24 hours old.  We scooped up the little one and dipped its beak in water (since chickens are not born knowing how to drink) and it started peeping up a storm.  The baby was able to squeeze through the small holes in the wire wall and into the area where to new birds had food and water, but it was unlikely that it would be able to find its way back to its mother.  So we brought it back to her and she nudged it under her wing.

As most of you know, I’m a sucker for free stuff, and if it’s on craigslist I’m all over it.  So a couple of months back when I saw a free rabbit hutch 30 minutes from my work I went and got it.  I wasn’t sure exactly what we’d use it for, but if it’s free it’s me and I don’t turn down nothing but my collar.  It was one of those, “I’m not home but it’s in the backyard, just go back and take it” type of pick-ups, which always make me feel like there’s a chance I’m stealing from someone as part of some vindictive neighbor’s plot.  It’s a normal home-made rabbit hutch that someone, probably a small child, scribbled “Hoptimus’s House” across the front of… the plot thickens…

In any event, we moved the mother, her baby, and her eggs into it this afternoon so she could have some space with her babies.  A lot of books and articles advise doing this right when she starts sitting on the eggs, but we were curious what would happen if we just let her do her thing.  In general she would leave the nest most mornings for a little while to eat and drink, spend most of the day on the nest, and pop out again at night for some more water and grain.  Sometimes while she was out, another hen, usually the same one, would go in and spend some time sitting.  I never noticed any aggression when the main hen returned, the surrogate would just get up and leave the coop.

Since we’ve moved her into the rabbit hutch at least one more baby has hatched and she’s in increasingly good spirits.  A few of the eggs were wiggling and cracking as Taryn was putting them in the cardboard box nest we put in the hutch.

A mama hen pulling an egg underneath her.

Recently hatched baby poking its head out

We have two roosters that are brothers and keep the girls in line. The hen is missing those feathers from her back as a result of an overactive libido

The rear door of our nest boxes. Before being relocated to the hutch, she occupied the center box. Each nest box is 12"x12"x12"

After we relocated her to the hutch, we moved grain crumbles and water close to the nest, so her and her babies could acess it without having to move too far.

Our free rabbit hutch from craigslist

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In this new garden space we’re going to try to set-up a “no dig garden”.  The idea is one that lots of people have gone over and over in their own gardening and farm blogs, so rather than rehash the whole thing I think it suffices to say we’re going to give it a go.

We’ve got lots of old dry hay and leaves in the barn leftover from lambing season and we shouldn’t have too much trouble tracking down grass clippings either.  Maybe we could have a head to head battle and build a no-dig bed alongside a double dig bed and see which does better (read: less poorly).  Wish us luck!

Here’s a cool video that outlines what we’re talking about here:

In actuality, we’re finding the costs to be pretty reasonable even without the reimbursement program.  I think this is mostly due to the process by which we’ve chosen to cultivate mushrooms.  We’ve opted for traditional log cultivation.  As such, the process itself has a very small amount of what the USDA classifies as “inputs”.  We’re cutting down small hardwood trees in coordination with good forestry management practices, inoculating the log with certified spawn, and sealing it with approved wax.  This simple and natural process minimizes the number of regulations that affect us and cuts down on costs associated with lab testing.

We do need to have our artesian well tested for potability, but this is mostly routine as it is our main source of drinking water and not just an additional irrigation only well.  Being an artesian well and almost 500ft down it is also not as susceptible to ground water contamination, meaning we only need to be tested once rather than every year as would be necessary with a shallow well.  Regardless, the costs of this test is minimal, on the order of $40 or so.

Investigating suppliers of spawn and tools has been our biggest challenge, as we need to make sure the supplier is certified organic and that all their paperwork is present and current.  This is really just administrative work, but because of the nature of shiitake farming, one wrong move means the entire crop could fail certification.  Since each inoculated log will produce for several years this would be a great set-back.  The challenge (read: nightmare) of just starting again and having an organic and non-organic crop isn’t worth the cross contamination risk and also drastically increases our chance for running into trouble during the certification process for the new crop.

Fortunately for us we’ve been working with a local organic certifier that has really been a dream.  Bay State Organic Certifiers handles certification in the Northeast and I can’t say enough nice things about them.  Don has literally been an organic encyclopedia, explaining to us the process and answering all our questions in an incredibly timely and patient manner.  For two new farmers that are even newer to understanding the ins and outs of organic regulation this resource is invaluable.

Couple that with our landlord giving us his blessing to get the operation up and running and we really feel unstoppable.  Our friends have offered to come and film inoculation day with their HD cameras so we’ll make sure to keep you all updated.

Looks like we’ll have to try this one out next year and stay on top of the moisture. This article suggests that giving the bed a slight grade can help with drainage in the event of heavy rain: http://www.gardenguides.com/plants/info/Vegetables/potatoes.asp

The Aracauna, or actually Americana chickens are doing well. Apparently a true Aracauna is too fragile and dainty for poultry farming and since the 1800’s they’ve been bread to be hardier and more prolific. One thing is for sure, they come in all kinds of colors. Right now we’ve got at least two or three differently patterned Americana chickens. One that looks sort of “owl like” and another that is solid yellow gold, like a coloring book easter chick.

Here’s some pictures.

Our Antique Brooder (thanks to Uncle Chris!)

Bunch of Chicks

Puff Ball Weirdo

Easter Chick

Holding the Easter Chick

Being that all the carnage is located out there I’m thinking that the fishers arrived before the chickens had made it into the fenced in yard for the night and drove them into the woods where they could be picked off one by one. Looking at the trampled fern bunches and haphazard arrangement of mayhem, it seems to be a logical explanation.

So it seems we’re back to square one; though I guess it’s really more like square two because at least we have the chicken coop built. We’re going to try and not waste much time getting “back into the game”. The question we’re grappling with now is how to keep them safe until they are a bit older.

They slowly expanded their range into the woods over the last few days, and unfortunately, were still not really “street smart”. They were at that awkward stage between peeping and making real chicken sounds that has them mostly mute. The roosters had no spurs to enforce the law or voice to call their girls to order. But how do you tell a chicken not to wander too far?

We’re in the market for some more chickens and may toss in a few other heritage breeds for some variety. We’re having a party this weekend that we hoped would be a “welcome to the farm” party, and allow us to introduce our flock to our family and friends. Between the total loss of livestock, and the constant rain drowning our garden we don’t have a huge bounty to show.

I sort of feel like Forrest Gump when he tries to be a shrimp boat captain.