Today was my deadline for the new website for the Newport Farmer’s Market. I finished yesterday sometime and everything is now up and online. Have a look at the graphics, the logo & the pages I created at http://www.NewportTNFarmersMarket.com

Today we have a grower’s meeting and I didn’t make it to the last one so I’m excited to see what happens tonight, what kind of crowd there is and if there is any organization involved or hierarchy to who brings what to sell. I am just hoping to be able to bring my extra garden goodies, and not really have a plan.

The Freedom Rangers are growing like gangbusters.  If your going to raise them you will want to think about a constant supply of food.  I decided that after  2.5 weeks that they should start operating on daylight hours alone, except in extreme cold.  Since they are still in my back porch brooder, it’s easy enough to do.  But let me tell you, when I get up in the a.m. to go fill up their feeders, because no matter how much I put in there, it’s always gone…  they act like PIRANHAS!  I would NOT want to accidentally fall down near these guys.. they will eat me in 30 minutes flat!  Otherwise they are growing like gangbusters.  The little discards from my first hatch of the GLO project are still holding their own, surviving with these Freedom Rangers.  They have to be fast & creative to get any food or water, but I’m amazed at how smart & crafty they actually are.  My little heritage types look like day olds compared to the Rangers, but they are all doing fine together.  The Rangers have no extra aggressive behaviors except hunger, and they seem to enjoy the little guys, snuggling them, and everyone piles up together each evening.  Little ones hide under the big ones… and eat in the same space, just from underneath!

GLO chicks are still in progress.  I just hached 22 or 23 this week, they are still in the incubators.  It only looks like 1 or 2 are keepers from this batch.  I have less than an hour to decide because the discarded ones are going home with my friend 17Roses (byc name) today.   Because I knew that so many of these hatched chicks wouldn’t help my project, I lined up a couple of people to take the extras right away for FREE.  Saves me from feeding them and caring for them, and allows me to hatch like crazy.

WE HAVE A BROODY COCHIN!!!  We thought that one of Lexi’s banty Cochins was missing, but as it turns out she was just only coming out during the day occasionally.  One day she was there the next she was gone.  We were certain she was lost until yesterday when we saw here again during the day!  Now.. there are only 4 Cochin hens.. it’s not hard to count.  Well, apparently she’s been off laying a clutch of eggs, and NOW she’s incubating them!  We found her hiding spot last night and thank goodness she’s at least inside our fence line, so will hopefully be safer.  I figure it’s still another 3 weeks before we see if there are any chicks as she’s only been “missing” a couple of nights.  But we’re excited and we’re going to let her continue on.  The banty chickens are just the cutest ever and often I fantasize about re-homing all my 10lb chickens and filling all these huge coops with teeny tiny little Cochins & Orpingtons in every color!

We had our first farm visit yesterday for the season.  DH’s cousin & family came over for a quick visit on their way through the National Park to NC.  They have 3 lovely children, very close in age, which must be EXHAUSTING for mom  but they are delightful.  They threw questions at me faster than I could answer them, and for a moment I was transported back to the days of having my own small child around.   They were great, and hopefully, even though the farm is a total mess right now for another couple of weeks, hopefully they enjoyed themselves and maybe learned a little something too to help them on their new adventure of raising some Sex Link pullets & possibly some showing in 4H.  I hope to show folks that it really CAN be simple and enjoyable and NOT too expensive to live a sustainable and balanced life.  But first… most importantly… I have to show ME that too.  This is our make it or break it year.  I’ve been building up to this.  Will the gardens feed us for 75% of the year… Will the GLO project actually GO anywhere this year…  Will the weather cooperate so I can have a good year at the Market too?

Stay tuned for the next update…  same bat place, same bat channel.

Gosh.. I LOVED Batman growing up… the TV show one too btw.  ;)

I was not prepared.. I should’ve checked the weather forecast before bed… but instead I relied on memory and gossip for a solid weather forecast.  Guess what, gossip was wrong.  The rain did NOT come later on in the day Monday (today) but instead early and first.

What does that matter?  Well..  my darling husband, bless his heart, got up with me at 4:30 a.m. to trudge outside in the rain storm to collect two cockerels who had hunkered down in the open last night for bed time.  They are young still AND new to the whole perching and living free range and so they haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yet.  Since it wasn’t going to rain and it’s relatively warm, I figured why not let them figure things out on their own!  But in a downpour is NOT the right time.  Besides the two Orpington cockerels there were also a couple of cardboard boxes I was going to use yesterday to plant the onions & radishes AND my seed packs!!!  Stupid me.. I’m terrible about cleaning up after a long day of work and if the weather is going to be good, I just leave stuff where it is and go on inside.   This has worked out to my/our disadvantage I can’t TELL you how many times, but still… still I slack & get lazy and figure, it’s no big deal.  Well.. as I get older I care more and more about ruining things that I’ll have to replace, but instead of putting things away right away.. I’ll just get up at 4 a.m. if I have to

So I didn’t get to plant the radishes or onions because turning over the garden beds took MUCH longer than I anticipated.  We did get a good portion done of the back garden bed, with the new fence, so I went ahead and put in a few cucumber seeds in the back corner.  I used a broken water cooler bottle w/the bottom off and really buried that into the ground over the seeds.  I should hope it will create the perfect environment to sprout a seed within 7-10 days, and to grow a seedling for another 3 weeks post.  On good & sunny/warm days I can take it off and on cooler days I shall just leave it in place… or perhaps open it for short bursts or tilt it a bit if need be.    Wednesday & Thursday we are expecting SNOW so I shall wait before putting in the onions & radishes I think until after this snow & frost passes and we’re into the next warm spell.  I still need to work the soil a bit in that garden area so it’s better to wait.  I’ll stay busy with my indoor gardening, and seed starting.

I also have eggs to care for as the first incubator started whirring yesterday morning with I think 40 total eggs inside.  Not NEARLY enough egg from my GLO families but they are young and the season is just starting.   One of the coops that one of my pairs was in kept blowing open in our crazy wind storm allowing her out with the free ranging rooster(s) and so I have to segregate them for 3 more weeks before I can collect her eggs.  WHAT A SETBACK!!!  So instead i collected all the BlueXBlue Orpington eggs I could get.  I would really like some splash chickens so badly, and they are awful hard to come by.   Everyone wants Blue Orpingtons, but you can’t just hatch Blue Orpingtons without a Splash & Black Parent.  So that would really save me from hatching extras of the wrong color.   During the next 3 weeks.. well 2.5 weeks, I have to perfect a “hatcher”.  A hatcher is a box meant for the purpose of hatching eggs, NOT incubating.  That means that the requirements are a little more flexible, a little less strict and in my case I need 2 so that I can always reliably hatch different families in different places to keep them straight!  I have two clear tubs, some preliminary experimentation has taken place and now I’ve got to get them going and ready for the eggs in 17 days from now.

That’s all for now, I must start getting things done!