Here are some things that are new this year!
This year we are allowed to let our blueberries set fruit. We won’t get much, but I’m excited!
Our Wyandottes are fifteen weeks old, and all grown up! They are starting to venture out of the coop when we open it up to let them out. They have discovered they love the grass and the sun.
I sprouted these beans in a dish of water, which worked beautifully, and then I waited too long to plant them and I didn’t think any of them came up. I was sad. But then I noticed these lovely flowers! I know the replacement beans we got didn’t have beautiful red flowers, so I was very happy to know that I hadn’t killed the first batch.
The chives overwintered, though I thought they hadn’t, and now they have beautiful purple blooms that the bees love.
This week we got the first batches of chicks and turkey poults (babies) that we will raise for meat and ultimately slaughter. They are awful cute but I am fairly confident that we will be able to dispatch them when it comes time.
Faceplant turkey faceplants, and narcissist turkey examines self in mirror, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.
The turkeys, pictured here on their first day home, are so funny. The yellowish one in the front has learned about reflections!
Our first batch of meat chickens arrived on Friday, and Garth took this lovely video of the box before opening it. Starring: Ruby dog; box of peepers.
SQUEAMISH VEGETARIANS may not want to proceed — there are some non-graphic, at-a-distance pictures of chicken slaughter day below.
Laura at (not so) Urban Hennery raises a flock of chicks a couple times a year, and before ordering chicks she puts out a call to interested folks who can claim a few chicks. The deal is, you pay some deposit money for feed, and then you come help out on slaughter day too, and at the end pay a total for average weight minus the deposit you paid. It works pretty well. Slaughter day was this weekend, and pictures are below.
Kimberly, Jessi, and Megera at the eviscerating table, with Laura instructing and Garth lurking in the background, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.
This weekend, we went up to Arlington to help slaughter some chickens that were raised by Laura. I did a lot of gutting, but I took a break to take a photo.
While we were gutting and finishing up, the guys were plucking and queuing up birds for us.
Phew! We’ve been busy.
Your blueberry plant looks really healthy, I can’t wait to hear how the fruit comes out! Is it a one or two year waiting time?
See here for large, small scale butchering:
http://matronofhusbandry.wordpress.com/
I love the not so urban henry blog!
And my wife said I don’t think so to my reading your comment about being able to dispatch the little gals when the time comes. Me, I’m not sure, though seeing the slaughter pics I thought, no problem. Of course I didn’t raise them…
Oh, by the way, clicking on your pics doesn’t help to zoom in, the pic in the link is the same size… hehe.
Thanks for sharing and glad you’re keeping busy!
I took only a few photos, but one was at the eviscerating table. Is this your hand, or Jessi’s?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kimberlymck/3606366396/
I enjoyed sharing the table with you.
That’s me! Nice shot, too.
Laura joked about telling coworkers “oh yeah it was fun,” but really, it was fun. Great to meet you all!
What cool fava bean flowers. What’s the varietal name?
Oops, I forgot to answer everyone else’s questions/comments!
Mangochild: I think it’s 2-year wait; we got these two as year-old plants and I didn’t let it form berries last year. I think we’ll eat these this year though there will be only a handful.
EJ: I love the Trapper Creek blog! The recent series of chicken-related posts have been super useful. The non-squeamish should check out her recent post(s) about field-butchering a cow. It was fantastic.
Sinfonian: I don’t think the meat chickens will be a problem, but the turkeys might be. We’ll have to see. The picture links go to where the pictures actually live, on Flickr. There’s a way to make them bigger over there. I do it that way because it’s super easy for me to upload them to Flickr and then to blog them from there, but am taking your point under advisement!
Audrey: The favas are just called “crimson-flowered fava bean,” from a small seed company (possibly just one person in her yard?) in Port Townsend. This is the best article I could find on them.