Usually we have some late hatch cockerels that are too small to butcher in fall. So we watch them and the weather and when everything comes together it is “chicken population reduction day.” We also take out some older hens so there are enough birds to make the preparation and process worth it. Just before I left to visit my parents we butchered 20 chickens. Here is a photo of the final step of the …
After the last harvest on November 16th we saw that cold weather was coming. One of Ken’s late fall tasks is to move the hens into the garden for the winter. This year he has two groups of hens, and they seem happier in their respective coops, so he moved both portable coops to the garden. He also moved a portable structure I call teh hog hilton into the garden for the …
Ken made a large coop on wheels for our laying hens. Since chickens like to scratch, a stationary coop usually means the area all around the coop gets scratched to bare ground and there is too much concentration of manure. A portable coop allows the farmer to provide birds with fresh pasture and the safety of an enclosed predator proof coop at night. Ken’s “egg mobile has worked so well he could use …
Well actually two. Thursday after midday meal Ken was ready to move the pigs, so we did! They had dug up their area and gladly moved to the next. Ken chose a woodsy location so they can stay cool in the summer heat. The geese range through the former pig area – they are gleaning any stray grain along with the wild birds The next morning before letting the …
When I met Ken over two decades ago, friends told me it was obviously serious – I was moving my perennial flowers to Turtle Lake. Ken tilled an area, and I planted. It was not the same as my established beds in the city. I battled poison ivy, weeds creeping from under a rock pile, etc. Ken moved the rocks, and really helped over the years. But first an old knee injury and then sciatica …
