Coop Decal OpTION!1

HUH HUH?

Possible Interns

Should Nic feel like his chicken dance is threatened by this? 

Perhaps.

Thanks 2Pz

Egg Salad

I just had an egg salad sandwich and I started to think about the scene from Napoleon Dynamite where he works on the egg farm and the lunch they are served is egg salad, hard boiled eggs, and egg-drink. I really lost my appetite but also realized that I could see the direction that Fancy Acre should go in. We should get interns.
Stupid STUPID youtube wont let me embed the video GOD DAMN YOU TUBE but here is the mother effing link: Napoleon Dynamite Chicken Farm Scene

Chicken Fail

I gave the chickens a large slug today as a treat. The slug was a threat to our garden and a prize for the chickens. Or, it should have been. Instead, the chickens watched it slither away while they pecked at the dirt. I was like, girls, pull it together! And they were like, its not gonna happen. So I rolled the slug in their food. Now we had a cornmeal crusted delicacy. They couldn't afford to pass this up. But again, they did. The slug got away, and hopefully went home, kissed its wife and quit smoking! God!
If these chickens refuse to lay eggs until late summer then I expect them to help out around the house a little bit. Eating slugs would be helpful. They best be working on their appetites ASAP or I'm making a stew.

Learning to love women.

Since this blog is a forum to express feelings of friendship, I want to thank Jenny Cook for curing my once-crippling misogyny. ummmm. I don't know how to add on to that. Love you dude. ette!

Oh yes, I want to point out that tho we sacrificed building a shed for the sake of having fresh eggs all summer, we did build an attic. Olde timey ladder included. Voila! EVERYONE WINS.

somebody call cribs! these chickens are living it up at fancy acre.

As of last night, 75% of the gang were able to tuck themselves into bed like grown ass chickens. Thats good news cause having to scramble around in darkness to catch these squirrelly birds is hard, hard work. Miss Loretta, if tonight you once again sneak downstairs to 'oh just grab a snack' well, you best be prepared to find your way back up cause I'll be at the bar.

dreaming about chickens

Beyond Fancy

These photos are from last week so things are even fancier now- if you can believe it (I am certain that you cannot). Doesn't it look like Patsy and Loretta are shit talking? They are.

Hot Carpenter Series

Kevin measuring twice and cutting once for the coop!

Fancy Acre From Above

ok fine the image is from here.

Radishes

The radishes look as though they are pushing themselves out of the soil. They are still a couple of weeks away from our first harvest. We should probably plant a successive crop this week.

Peas

The peas look healthy and are now about five inches tall. We planted these one inch apart in rows spaced 16 inches apart.

Shallots and Gai Lan

Today, I planted two rows each of shallots and gai lan.

Chicken Coop Photos

Thank you to everyone who helped build this awesome coop. You did an amazing job! I think the girls will be really happy there, and hopefully, they will thank us with a abundance of eggs.

I especially like the trap door entrance to their nesting area. Now if they can just figure out how to use the ladder.

Reason for Concern?

The chickens still haven't figured out how to get into their coop! Last night when I went to check on them to see if they had put themselves to bed they were cuddled up in a pile next to their food bowl! One one hand I see it as "Like mother like daughter" but on the other I'm like, get a clue ladies. You can't always sleep next to your food bowl- it's not smart or ladylike. Hopefully tonight they will climb the ladder to success, but I must say I'm not counting on it.

It is kind of cute to tuck them in at night.

Raising the Coop

The first step to building any backyard farm project (after waking up) is to put yourself in line at a reliably good restaurant for some tasty brunch viddles. As in the case of this Sunday, that restaurant would be the Country Cat and the viddles would be eggs, of course, with baked beans, collard greens and corn bread. This meal served as a reminder as to why anyone would go through the trouble of building a coop and raising chickens — good eggs.

With our freshly filled bellies and some surprisingly good weather, we were all set to begin building the much anticipated Fancy Acre Poultry Pavilion. OK, let's see. We need some pieces of wood of various sizes and some metal thingamajiggies to hold it together — oh, and some of that wire stuff with the hexagonal holes, and some — whoa! This sounds complicated.

Fortunately, just inside Nic's brain were the designs and materials list, and Topher is really good at using tools and building stuff — so it looked like this was going to come together really easily. Jenny really cracked the whip and together they got a lot of it done before it started to rain again. Check it out.

I'll admit. I wasn't as hand-on as I thought I would be. The three of them were working so well together — each one anticipating the needs of the other. It was really astonishing. Besides, I have really weak wrists and I would have just been in the way. There was some planting and a lot of thinning to do in the garden, so mainly stuck to that.

Like I said, HUGE

Calling all Farmers

Ha! Tricked you guys. This isn't a blog post! This is a demand! It's time to build the coop. How's Saturday AM work for y'all? These birds are getting HUGE. I am about to post some photos to illustrate my point.

A note about raising Quail...(from Wikipedia)

I actually first posted a big long paragraph about quail from Wikipedia. I decided maybe I should edit it for those with ADD. so here goes. I cut the riff-raff and selected some key words and edited the article...everything else has been deleted for your convenience...

here are some key words:

three ways
adult chicks
If you are only interested in...
*young cocks*. (i didnt say it, wikipedia did)
day-old chicks

and the meat:

it is impossible to sex them before they are at least two weeks of age. (good to know) At this age, most males will start to show their distinctive color differences. The males have reddish breast feathers and the females are speckled and grayish. Separate the cocks and hens as soon as you can determine their sex.

Because of their small size, Coturnix can be kept in small pens. Plan on a square foot of space per bird. When startled, quail tend to fly straight up and can gain enough upward momentum to break their necks when they hit the top of the cage. If your cages are high enough to allow flight, make the tops of burlap, nylon netting, or canvas, otherwise you will be removing dead birds as they smash themselves on the solid cage tops.

Cages can be raised or rest on the ground. Many quail breeders favor raised cages because they are easier to keep clean. The droppings fall through to the ground and can be raked up and removed to the compost heap without disturbing the birds. In raised cages, the birds will never be standing in manure and the eggs will remain clean.

A nesting or brooding box is necessary if you want to get eggs. This should be a solid box with a small opening for the hens to enter and leave by and a large door for you to collect eggs and change bedding. You should be able to get into the nesting box from outside the cage. You can keep 40 birds in a cage three feet by three feet by seven feet. The nest box should be 16 inches by three feet by three feet.

Always provide the birds with fresh, clean water. Very young chicks can easily fall into water and drown, (NIC!!!) so take this into consideration when selecting water dishes. Special waterers made for small birds can be purchased. These containers have small openings for the birds to get at the water but too small for them to fall in and drown. Study the ready-made water containers and you should be able to duplicate them with a little ingenuity and some empty milk jugs.

You can supplement your hen’s diet with chopped greens from the kitchen. Food scraps that you would normally put in the compost pile can be processed through the Coturnix hens first. Chop leaves and other vegetable scraps fine enough for the birds to eat easily and there will be almost no waste.

The added bonus of raising quail is their pleasing voices. They are not raucous and shrill like chickens and listening to them coo and whistle to one another can be very soothing after a stressful day. Your quail cock birds will never wake you from a sound sleep by crowing loudly under your bedroom window.

An Addition to the Acre

It's a baby musk ox and it's mine!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok maybe this photo is from here but that little guy is GOING to be mine.

Gender Neutral Bathrooms

Sexing rabbits is daunting. Bucks have holes and does have slits -- see drawing above. But keep in mind that they're pulsing flesh tubes that dilate and can be both slit-like and holeish, making this job tougher than need be. I wish the boys were blue and the girls were pink, just like the rest of the world. I feel like I'm going to get tranny hate-mail/comments. ta ta

Although I think this is cuter...can we get one?

Even Hauter in Here...

another photo of the dude who helps us - ehem - plow the fields...he has the coolest tractor...

Sunset rips us off again

First it was our official Fancy Acre vacation spot (got the cover the month after we got home) and now its our ideas! Sunset SUDDENLY has a "one block diet" blog in which they discuss growing your own food, raising chickens, etc, on your own land. Fancy Acre would like to make a statement about this. "We were the first people to ever do this. Sunset was still in diapers when we thought up the idea of raising chickens in our yard. Also we don't like it that you call it a diet. Everyone knows the only acceptable diet is the Karl Lagerfeld Diet."

Get out of our heads Sunset. Focus on the top ten best hot tubs for infants or whatever it is you were doing before.

Portland Guide

Do you want to have a fancy acre? Good luck. But you can at least get some chicks or grow a couple of carrots. Here are some good places to go if you are looking for trouble:

The Urban Farm Store this is where Patsy, Loretta and Wynonna arre from. They also have edible plants and fruit trees.

Pistils this is where you get fancy chicks and expensive plants and wish you lived there.

Costal Farm Supply this is like farm walmart and is where Tammy is from (doesn't that just explain everything.)

Naomi's Organic Farm Supply My uncle gave me this reference! But I have still never been. He says it's the best. But he also is totally nuts. You be the judge.

Garden Fever This is the garden store near my house and I LOVE it there. They have great veggie starts and like six different blueberry varietals. I always spend too much money there so I am on probation for the week.

Growing Gardens This is another great edible plant store with all the fixin's, also in NE Portland.

We. Need. This.

This is a genius product that we fully endorse- as farmers.

She's Always Has the Best Advice

R.I.P. snowball

Um..so...this is real you guys...