We are so thankful for the rain this past week. It's been a very, very dry spring edging closer and closer into drought territory. Many of the seeds we planted in the weeks prior were just sitting in the dry, dusty soil waiting for enough moisture to finally germinate and pop out of the ground. It was almost uncanny how many seeds popped out of the ground the day after the rain - sweet corn, beets, cucumbers, watermelon, and winter squash all burst from the soil!
We have been busy on the farm in the past couple weeks working on a variety of projects. Dan has been busy getting the new walk behind tractor configured so it cultivates perfectly and has been planting all of our direct seeded crops. We're really excited about our walk behind and we're already noticing and impact on crops we've been able to test it out on. Caitlyn has been busy with chicken chores, setting up our anti-deer electric fencing, transplanting thousands of lettuce and broccoli transplants and weeding where we can't get with the walk behind tractor.
We also got chickens! We bought 37 mature laying hens and they wasted no time to start laying eggs. Our hens are out on pasture with plenty of access to bugs, grass and whatever else they can get their beaks into. They have a brand new chicken coop this year that has an automatic door, grated floor (so their dropping return to the soil, fertilizing the pasture as they go), and is on wheels so we can rotate the chickens to fresh pasture when needed. You'll find that pastured eggs have a darker colored yolk, taste more rich, and that the yolks "stand up" better in your pans. Eggs will be available as an "extra" in your CSA shares where you can choose to buy eggs when you need them.
Bonus! Addie got her hands dirty for the first time and at her age everything goes straight to her mouth (we didn't let her eat that chunk of dirt - Lara fished it out of her mouth!)
