Tag Archives: chicken eggs

New Bounty

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I’ve been in Ontario for the last week and was excited to get back to the farm to see how things were doing and to dive into some more projects on our to-do list. One of the really magical things about living here is how quickly things grow and change. Every day that I’m here, I discover or experience something new which brings a sense of wonderment that is, without trying to sound too cheesy, truly delightful. Whether it’s quirky chicken behavior, new lavender-coloured blossoms on our bean plants, or hummingbirds pausing long enough on fence posts for us to get a good look at them, life here on the farm is constantly buzzing and it makes me really happy.

It wasn’t too much of a surprise, then, that I arrived home to new things. Yesterday I pulled up some of the biggest turnips I’ve ever seen (I’ll have to get Chantalle to post the turnip recipe she tried last night – delicious!), filled a bowl full of fresh raspberries (went into my fruit smoothie this morning), checked on the status of our first Jonagold apples, collected three eggs from the chicken coop (also part of my breakfast this morning) and managed to get a peek at three new little chicks before they hid underneath their brooding mom’s feathers.

I can’t wait to see what these chicks look like as they get bigger. Our rooster is a Chinese silkie of punk rocker proportions and our hens are a mix of Chinese silkies, Russian orloffs, and crazy-feathered Poles. These little Eurasian chicks are gonna be fun. I’ll post photos as soon as they stay out in the open long enough to let me. 

It’s good to be home!

another layer!

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It’s been a quiet month on the blog because it’s been a quiet month on the farm.  Well, quiet when it comes to actual farming activites that is.  Not so quiet when it comes to family potlucks and Christmas parties!

It’s a hard time of year to do a lot outside.  The weather is yucky (rain, rain, bitter cold, rain, rain, rain), the daylight hours are short, and free time is taken up with Christmas festivities.  I’m looking forward to the new year when the days will start getting longer, the weather will slowly start inching towards spring-time temperatures, and some scheduling changes to my day job will give me more time to devote to this farming project – yay!

In the meantime, a regular part of my day still includes checking on the chickens, feeding them, getting them fresh water, and letting them in and out of their coop.  Yesterday morning when I went to let them out into their run, I discovered an egg in the coop – we have another layer folks!  After our one layer Sally got picked off by our neighbourhood hawk, we’ve had no eggs coming from our own chickens.  Looks like our young chickens are finally growing up now and we will get to start enjoying some farm-grown food.

Photos above:  the egg, the front of the chicken coop, the chickens outside in their run.

PS – I can only handle photo documenting with an iPhone camera for so long.  Time to invest in a good camera – better photos coming soon!

our first eggs!

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I visited the chicken coop this morning to open the door so the chickens could go outside and found Sally, our red hed, sitting inside one of the little nesting boxes.  And beneath her?  Our first two eggs! 

I realize that two eggs aren’t that exciting to the seasoned chicken farmer, but for a city girl who’s doing all of this for the first time, this was VERY exciting.  A little farm miracle that totally made my morning :)