Keeping our land healthy

Well, the baby chicks arrived safely at OUR post office yesterday. They are all very happy and healthy. These are all roosters and will be raised as meat chickens. Because we are not certified to process animals, we will raise them to their prime size and sell them live. The buyers will then take them home. Our chickens will be raised free range without the addition of any chemicals, hormones or antibiotics. It is our belief that animals raised in this way are healthier and better for the consumer. Besides, we have so much fun raising them!

The picture of the cows above shows the way we are improving our land. These cows will be confined to this 1-1/2 acres for approximately 4-7 days and allowed to graze. They will then be moved to the next 1-1/2 acre area. The chickens move in after the cattle and fertilize the ground until the cattle are moved again. In this manner, we are improving the land rather than depleting it.

Our two kitties are named Tuffy and Red. We took these in as kittens, along with their brother and sister 18 years ago. They are still pretty good mousers, but are slowing down. I have been asking around, trying to find a couple of good replacement cats. We won't be able to take in kittens because we have 3 big beautiful owls living in our yard. They are great for catching gophers and field mice and other small varmints. Unfortunately they can't tell the difference between varmints and kittens.

The two little dogs in the Kabota are Burner and Tuck. They pretty much run the house but they let us believe that we do.

Burner is 9 years old and a Yorkie and shitzu mix. Our daughter found her on the way to a barrel race in the middle of the freeway along with 3 other pups. They had obviously been dumped as they were way out in the middle of nowhere.

Tuck was born on 10/10/10. He was my Christmas present from Marvin and is Yorkie and poodle.

The pretty flowers are planted in front of our house. This cute little farmhouse was built in the early 1900's. It has been added to and updated over the years. The main room includes the kitchen and living room and is still on redwood piers so it "moves a little" nad slopes ever so slightly.

It's been busy on the farm (as usual). My sister Colleen and I made a road trip yesterday and picked up another 175 olive trees. This will complete our olive orchard. The trees will eventually be trained on a trellis system.

We are also in the process of planting our summer vegetable crop - tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, peppers and many more.

Make sure you keep checking back to see the latest fun at the farm. Click on the button at the bottom of the page to view the past postings and the photos previously included.

Stay safe!

Egg questions answered

What is the white spot attached to the yolk of an egg? I always assumed it had something to do with fertilization.

It is called Chalazae and is made up of the same substance as the egg-white (Albumen) and has nothing to do with fertilization. It's purpose is to keep the yolk correctly oriented in the egg. (According to wikipedia: "In animal eggs, the chalaza is composed of one or two spiral bands of tissue that suspend the yolk in the center of the white. It acts similar to an umbilical cord in mammals; the growing embryo receives its nutrients from the yolk. The purpose of the chalaza is to hold the yolk in place. For culinary use of eggs, particularly in baking, the chalaza is sometimes removed in order to ensure a uniform texture.")

How long can newly hatched chicks live without food?

Chicks, just before they hatch, draw into their abdomen the the nutrients in the egg. Rich in food value and liquid, the yolk provides the newly-hatched chick with all it needs to eat and drink for over 3 days. My advice: Don't NOT feed them for 3 days just because this is true, make sure they have food and water around them all the time quickly after they hatch. This fact though does allow newly hatched chicks to be mailed in a quick fashion without food or water.

I thought these were interesting questions.

The pictures above were just so darned good that I had to share them.
1. Marvin took classes and is now our own beekeeper. He is tending to the hives - we just received them this week so he feeds them a mixture of sugar, water and peppermint.
2. This is a picture of our son James and his son Landon.
3. On the way home the other evening, we were blessed with this sight of a bald eagle in the tree down the road.

Have a blessed day!

Why are barns red?

Did you ever wonder why most barns are red? I did, so I went to my favorite source - Google. I found this in the Farmers Almanac:

Many years ago, choices for paints, sealers and other building materials did not exist. Farmers had to be resourceful in finding or making a paint that would protect and seal the wood on their barns. Hundreds of years ago, many farmers would seal their barns with linseed oil, which is an orange-colored oil derived from the seeds of the flax plant. To this oil, they would add a variety of things, most often milk and lime, but also ferrous oxide, or rust. Rust was plentiful on farms and because it killed fungi and mosses that might grow on barns, was very effective as a sealant. It turned the mixture red in color.

When paint became more available, many people chose red paint for their barns in honor of tradition.

You learn something new every day.

There's never a dull moment at the Farm. We had ordered 100 chicks that were shipped from Missouri on Monday. I called the post office Wednesday morning because they should have been here. I called the post office Wednesday at noon. I called the post office Wednesday at 4:00. No chickies. Thursday, Marvin got a phone call from the Malibu post office. They had somehow mixed up the shipping and billing addresses and sent them 200 miles away! I called the hatchery and explained the problem. They contacted the post office and told them to give them away to whomever wanted them. Forty minutes later, they all had new homes. The hatchery will resend them to us next Monday. I'm sure that all those new families are thrilled to get free chickens. I hope they are still thrilled when they find out that they are all roosters!

Marvin has been taking bee keeping classes. With all of the trees and vegetables, we need plenty of bees to pollinate. He picked up our first 150,000 bees on Thursday. He looks so darn cute in his bee keepers suit (but don't tell him I said so). He makes up a feed of 2 parts sugar to 1 part water - boil it, cool it, and add a tiny bit of peppermint extract. This goes into feeders that hold canning jars. He also sprinkles powdered sugar for them.

We went to San Miguel last night for the Lions Club fish fry. They hold them every Friday during lent. We kept trying to go, but only were able to make the last one. Wonderful, wonderful fish, fries, cole slaw and ice cream cups and an opportunity to see many of the "old timers" in the area. The bad thing is realizing that I'm becoming one of the old timers!

We had gone by the feed store on our way to dinner to pick up bags of chicken and pig feed. Ben and Angel must have been bored during the night. We had unloaded my Tahoe when we got home. Since it was late, we just left the bags in a pile by the door to the barn. When I got up this morning, they had pulled a 50# bag of feed clear across the barnyard. Fortunately, they left in intact.

My sister and I are going to go to Santa Cruz this next week and pick up the rest of our olive trees. The freight is very expensive and I love any excuse to go on a road trip.

The cute couple on horses are our daughter Meghan and our soon-to-be-son-in-law, Travis.

Have a great Easter!

The large and the small of it

When a chicken first starts laying eggs, they are small. The one I found yesterday is REALLY small though. The picture above shows a nice large egg, next to this little bitty Amaracauna egg (the blue one). Hopefully, her egg today will be much larger!

The cute sign is from a restaurant in Morro Bay. They have an outside dining area where dogs are invited and I loved this.

Things are really happening around here (usually are). We have decided to ramp up our egg production and have ordered several hundred more baby chicks. The last batch are all out of the brooders now and running around in the sunshine. We have the next group of 100 in the mail. We will go to Paso Robles and pick them up at the post office as soon as we hear from them. They are hatched and shipped within 24 hours. They can live up to 3 days without food or water, so they pack them in cardboard boxes and send them from Missouri to California. We cleaned out the brooders this morning to get ready for them.

The third picture is yesterday's visitor to the farm holding one of our "Elvis" chicks. They are actually called Mottled Houdan, but my sister Colleen nicknamed them for us.

Marvin is busy building fences and gates and working on the entry.

Angel (our female Great Pyrenees) has been getting out of the barnyard the past couple of nights. She doesn't go far, but we have been concerned about her safety. The really perplexing thing is that she comes back sopping wet, including the top of her head. We checked the pond and the water troughs and those didn't show any tracks. We finally found a spot in the creek bottom that had a bit of standing water. The fence had a spot where she could dive under water and come up on the other side. What a smart girl!

Marvin is known for his great BBQing skills. He made a wonderful marinade last night and cooked some salmon for us. Yum.

With the high cost of gasoline, I have been spending more time at the Farm. Actually, this is a good thing, because it's exactly where I want to be. Once the vegetables start ripening, I may not have to go anywhere for days at a time. Life on the farm is so great. Lots of work, but lots of fun too.

Well, time to go collect eggs and check on the baby chicks.

More fun from HZ Harvest Farm

The frost we had last week did major damage to the local wine crop. We had some loss, but fortunately most of our crops in the ground survived. The nice warm weather that we have now is helping them.

Marvin spent Saturday cleaning up the roads. On a farm, this is a never ending job. When we get rains, it only takes a slight lack of traction to make ruts. When he finished that, he went to work preparing the ground to plant the various vegetable seeds we just received. We are trying lots of different varieties to see what grows best in our area and in which types of soil.

My mom and step dad came out for the day on Saturday. Cliff is 84 and has a cottage industry. He takes my egg cartons home and separates them. They are clear plastic and packed so tightly that you have to work to get them apart. Then he puts HZ Harvest labels on them and packs them in big garbage bags for me. He charges me a very fair price - I just have to appreciate him which I do! He loves to come out and collect eggs and he helped me catch some baby chicks and move them to other pens. I made lunch for them and then got to beat them at a game of Hand and Foot (card game). It was really a nice day.

Marvin's mom and step dad came out on their way to the lake. Howard is a great mechanic and stopped to fix our 4-wheeler which needed some part replaced. During the week, the Kabota is working in the fields and I don't always have something to run around on, so this will be really nice to have it operational again.

Marvin has a love/hate relationship with my horses. I have 2 horses - a mustang named Buck and a paint named Sophie. Buck is very smart and very mischievous. On Friday, Marvin noticed a big spray of water coming from the new water line that was put in crossing the bottom acreage. He was afraid that the cattle had stepped on the valve and broken it. When he went to investigate, he found that Buck had taken his teeth and turned the large handle on top. Needless to say, the valves are all getting covers!

Sunday has been a "lazy day" for us. This means that we spend the day taking care of the animals and produce but at a much slower pace and doing "personal chores".

We have one section of fence that will be getting a gate soon. Right now, we just have some electric fence tape running across the opening to keep the cows on their side of the property. The didn't listen and we had half our herd in the barley field this morning. They were very content. After rounding them up with the Kabota, we sent them back to their field and redid the tape.

We have been developing the gate at the south end of the property. It is up on flat with plenty of straight road in either direction. Marvin is making the entry very wide to accommodate all the expected summer boat traffic. The egg stand will be moved to this entrance and we will expand it when vegetables become ready.

I received a phone call this afternoon from a very nice lady who was down at our egg stand. She wanted some eggs, but we were all out, so I took more down and had a nice chat with her. She lives about 10 miles down the road and comes by to buy our yummy fresh eggs. A little later, I found a note from some family friends from Half Moon Bay that were traveling through and stopped for eggs.

We are looking forward to having the Bradley School come visit in early June for a field trip. I will touch bases with them this week to find out how much information we will be providing and how much they already have planned. We will BBQ lunch for the group and have a fun time I'm sure.

Baby chicks should be shipping from Missouri tomorrow in the US mail, so I will make another trip to the post office in Paso to pick them up. There will be 100 cockerels (all males) to be raised for meat chickens. The chicks we received a few weeks ago are getting soooo big. They have graduated to "big boy pens". Marvin built some new outdoor cages to house them until they are large enough to go free range.

Another week begins, so we will be talking soon!!

Phew!

I heard Ben and Angel barking night before last around 2 am. I went and opened the door (fortunately the screen was still closed). My two beautiful white Pyrenees came bounding up the steps. The smell hit me first. I thought I would pass out! BOTH of my babies had done a very good job of taking care of a wandering skunk. Now, skunks are very detrimental to chickens. We really don't like them in close proximity. They were very good dogs for taking care of the skunk, but aren't getting a lot of hugs this week.

At the end of April, the 29th Annual AVIA San Antonio Wild Flower Festival is held in our area. Last year there were about 8000 entries. There is a 40 k mountain bike race that goes right past our driveway. I'm hoping to take some pictures as they go by the farm.

I have been doing a lot of research (with much help) of different types of heirloom vegetables that we can plant. There are 52 different types of seeds that are in transit. I just got a new list of some other types to research. How fun is this?

Stay tuned........................

Somewhere, over the rainbow.........

Wow - you never really pay that much attention to the weather until you become a farmer. We are now COLD again. There was frost this morning and hail and snow just east of us a couple of hills.

Yesterday afternoon arrived with hail coming down while the sun was shining. The picture above is beautiful, but it was absolutely breathtaking in person.

We added to our family a couple of nights ago. We now have 2 friendly nanny goats and 9 kids! Some of them were bottle fed, so they are super friendly, but even the others will let you pet them. The smallest is about 14" tall - so, so cute. We are in the process of weaning them. I call the picture of them eating a "kid pinwheel".

We now have 13 cows, 2 horses, 7 sheep, 11 goats, 4 pigs, 200 chickens and 8 turkeys. There are 180 fruit trees, 500 olive trees and about 35,000 vegetable plants. Lots of work, but lots of fun too.

Egg sales are going well. Chickens start out laying small eggs and graduate to larger eggs as they get older. Some of them are whoppers.

The baby chicks are growing like little weeds. I couldn't figure out why the chicks we raised in July grew so much slower. It came to me the other day. In the summer, we have to turn off the heat lamps during the day so they won't overheat. When we do that, they go to sleep. I have been leaving the lights on 24/7 with this flock and they have been eating 24/7 and growing 24/7. We will be moving them from the brooders within the next 10 days.

Our sheep are eating constantly too. Unfortunately, the grass is growing faster than they can eat it. Maybe this cool weather will help them get caught up.

I'm very excited about the Bradley School coming to the farm for a field trip in June. They are all going to bring flat rocks to their classroom between now and then. We will supply acrylic paint and paintbrushes and a list of our fruit trees. They can use their imagination to make a "name rock" and then place it under the corresponding tree. This is such a great little school. The 8th graders will be at their 8th Grade Camp, so we will have Kindergarten through 7th grades.

I have so many irons in the fire right now (so to speak). I am co-chair for the Paso Robles Agribusiness Tour which will be held on May 4th. Our daughter is getting married this May also. June will be our niece's wedding and July is the 3rd Annual Central Coast Lavender Festival held in the Paso Robles Park. I am secretary for the Central Coast Lavender Growers Association which puts on this event in conjunction with the PR Downtown Association.

There are SOOOO many things going on in our area this weekend. The San Antonio Mission has their Mission Days celebration on Saturday. There will be re-enactors in costume portraying soldados, artisans, vaqueros and neophytes. Demonstrations will include adobe brick making, bell ringing, early Californio dancing and more. The New World Baroque Orchestra will play original music composed the Mission San Antonio. This sounds like a great day and I hope to get to enjoy it. If not, there is always paperwork!

I thought I'd add a bit this morning (Saturday) before heading over to the Mission.

The bad news about baby goats is that the Coyotes think we have the "dinner ready" sign out. They love them. Although we want them around to eat the squirrels and rabbits, they have to respect our livestock. Every once in a while, one will start circling like a shark, even with the dogs on patrol. When this happens, they have to be eradicated or we will start missing animals. Marvin has seen one the past couple of days which was becoming a nuisance and was able to take car of him yesterday. It makes us sad to have to do it, but it's part of farm life.

We have one big palm tree out our back door. The photo above shows 2 of our barn owls that are living in it. It seems like an odd place for owls, but they seem to like it. These guys are great rodent patrol. They will fly off at dusk and hunt all night for gophers and mice and small varmints. Just another reason we don't use poison on the farm. They are really very beautiful when they are silhouetted against the dusky sky.

Thanks so much to those of you who have called to let us know how you are enjoying our eggs. They really are outstanding. We have also received calls from a couple of people who would like to come stay with us for a couple of days and see how a real old fashioned farm runs. We are so looking forward to having this available one day, but at this point, we just don't have the facilities. We do however invite daytime visitors so don't hesitate to let us know if you are in the area. You can call Marvin at (805) 801-1899 or leave a message on our machine at (805) 472-2126.

I'm being called to go review our new southern entrance that Marvin is building for our veggie/fruit/egg stand so time to go back to work!