Published: May 11, 2016 by Tracy

So yeah … we’ve been gone for a bit. But not really gone. Just … took a hiatus. There has been a lot going on at our little homestead since we last talked, so let’s catch up shall we?

We hatched a few more ducklings!

Aylesbury’s to be exact. It was our best hatch to date, as we got 9 of 13 eggs to term. All of the feels goes out to Wilson’s Waterfowl and Poultry. Jake Wilson was the ultimate in professionalism, the eggs were packaged and shipped beautifully, and best of all — totally fertile.

We have started to reap our early summer rewards in the garden.

Dragon tongue beans, zucchini, leeks, red onions and the everlasting blackberries have or will be on the menu right now. I’m totally eying the tomatoes though and can’t even stand the wait for the corn. We even tried rhubarb for the first time, though I’m not really sure how/when to harvest, and even less sure of how to prepare it. As a beginning farmer/homesteader, Google is my best friend.

We dispatched a few roosters - and discovered a few too.

We thought we had way too many roosters for our flock size and we were right. So we cut back and put a few in the freezer - then discovered that three more of the young ones weren’t really hens at all when they started to crow. Including the only two Svarthönas we had. (Cue sad trombone.) Now we’ve got two of these beautiful birds, plus an Australorp cockerel. About 2 too many. Who will be the next Coq Au Vin? Tune in next time to find out.

We considered dispatching a few ducks after they ate all of the beans we planted on the trellis near the patio and the blueberries off of EVERY SINGLE BUSH.

It turns out, ducks LOVE bean leaves. Who knew? Obviously not the person who owns ducks and let them free range all over the property. This same silly person, who shall remain nameless, also didn’t think they would bother the nice crop of blueberries that were slowly maturing in the front and back of the house. This person is wrong and now must suffer a blueberry-free summer. But blueberry duck meat sounds delicious so, you know … tradeoffs.

Minor crisis that we thought was a major crisis with family members.

It really made us think more about the future of our little farmette and what we want out of it. And what we want to leave our children.​

There was a lot more that has happened in the last 4 weeks, including a duck egg explosion, a firefly event and the start of a long-lasting relationship with a couple of farming apps. But that, my friends, is for another time.

Let’s just say that hopefully things are back to normal and blogging is back on track. Until next time, my friends!