How to Sex Sussex Chickens

When you incubate your own eggs not only can you not count your chickens before they're hatched but you can't predict how many will be hens and how many will be roosters.
Last year I just had six and for a long time I optimistically thought I had five hens and a rooster. Wishful thinking and ignorance on my part. I actually had three of each. Now that I know how to tell the difference (without waiting till they lay eggs or crow) I am interested to see how young it is possible to tell.
These chicks are one week old. Four are yellow and three are lighter with a black stripe on their heads. The black and white wing feathers are the first to develop.

 

These chicks are four weeks old. The wing feathers are mostly in place and they are beginning to develop the collar feathers on their necks that are the key indicator of gender.

 

 This four week old chick is the tallest and has the most developed tail feathers. The photo shows the neck and the difference in these collar feathers is that roosters have pointed feathers and hens more rounded. It would seem from this photograph that at four weeks it is possible to deduce that this bird is a rooster. For some of the other chicks it may take a week or so longer.

 

 In the foreground the two hens have the darker necks with rounded collar feathers. The roosters in the background have lighter but more pointed ones.

 

 

 

Another interesting difference with Light Sussex chooks is that pure-bred birds have grey legs - such as the rooster in the background while birds that have been crossed somewhere with a Coronation or other Sussex have orange legs. All this year's chicks were born with orange legs so I will have to wait to see if and when the grey kicks in.

Shading the Hot House

 

We call it the hot house but it is designed to stay draughty. It does get cold at Opportunity Farm and it has even been known to snow at Christmas so frost sensitive plants can have a rough time. One year we had three false starts and had to replace the zucchinis each time. Green tomatoes are the norm around here and only the last couple of years has it been warm enough for long enough to ripen them on the vine.

 

 

 

The idea behind this enclosure is to keep the birds off, prolong the life of the summer plantings and to increase the range of food that we can grow and for how long. In the morning the house shades much of this structure. By stapling shade cloth across the end it will protect the plants within from almost all frosts. With shade cloth at either end the breeze will be able to pass through and avoid temperatures inside that will desiccate the plants and require copious amounts of water. That is the theory, anyway. This project has been a slow one but with beds established and mulched, shade cloth up, a door on and pathways formed it is time for some planting.



See the blog post published 364 days later to see the next stage!

The Beauty of Nature

Sometimes it is easy to get too focused on productive plants and stress about slaters eating the tomato seedlings or which variety of zucchini should be planted where. Other days it is just head down and mow or whipper-snip or dig.

 

But when I can look up and see the glory of cascading purple wisteria flowers and the deep reds of a waratah then I am reminded of how plants can also make my heart sing and my smile wide.

 

Our area is famous for the waratahs that flower in October and November. This plant is a Tasmanian Waratah which was planted to celebrate the birth of my second child and was fertilized by her placenta. From a small shrub it has blossomed into a large bush festooned with masses of beautiful flowers. Every spring it makes me happy to see it bloom.

Chick's first moments

First there was a splinter on the side of the egg. A couple of hours later a small hole appeared as the chick used its egg tooth to batter away at its ovoid prison. An hour ago the hole was a little bigger and movement could be seen through the hole.
Then about five minutes ago the cheeping became much louder as the eggshell split in half and the chick emerged. The following video is a short documentation of a chick within a minute of its hatching.

 

Hopefully you can see Opportunity Farm's youngest chicken in action. Already the chick has headed off to the brooder to join its two older siblings. With any luck there will be more hatched by morning.

Weaning the Poddy Lambs

 

Lily our Wiltshire Horn Poddy Lamb

 

Lily is now nearly seven weeks old while Alice is five and a half. Both have been living full-time in the paddock with the other lambs and their mothers and father. When Lily first went she was forced to mingle with the family lambs but would come barreling towards me whenever I came into sight. Since she has been joined by Alice they can hang out together and at feeding time they just sit by the gate and wait.

 

Over the past week I have reduced the amount of milk that I feed Lily. She was getting a full 700ml bottle twice a day - the same as Alice. This evening she received just 300ml. She still seems plumper than her udder-fed peers and is ready to be reduced to one feed of 500ml a day.

 

The challenge will be to get her used to not hanging by the gate and hassling Alice for the one morning bottle. In another ten days if she looks healthy enough then Alice's feed will be reduced and eventually they will both be independent. 

 

Feeding the lambs is certainly a popular chore for our kids. They have even been known to sulk if they don't get to feed their favourite lamb. I think I will be quite glad when they are weaned, but it is satisfying to be greeted so enthusiastically by sheep in the paddock and to know that you have helped them to survive and thrive. 

 



The Shearing Shed/ Workshop shapes up

 

We dismantled a collapsing shearing shed on a nearby farm. There was plenty of tin, round posts and assorted lengths of timber to be recycled. The aim is to build a shed that we can use to shear our small flock of sheep, hold a workshop in and have some space where visitors can roll out a swag.

 

Working with tree trunks for posts is always challenging as they are rarely straight. We have termites so I did not want to put the posts into the ground. So each post is set on a concrete stump set lower than the stumps that hold up the bearers for the floor joists. By chiseling out each post where it meets the sub-floor each of the nine large posts can be locked in and the frame is stronger.

 

 

The south facing wall has a doorway framed with straight timber which will be where the sheep enter the shed to go into a holding pen. The pulleys and rods seen through the doorway are an authentic working shearing plant from the original shed. This will be mounted on the west wall but will be for aesthetic reasons only - Michelle will shear with an electric handpiece powered by a generator. By recycling the tin and timber and framing the shed with round poles we hope it feels as if it has been there for a while.

 

There is a big window to go in the north facing wall which is not a feature of an original shed but should let plenty of light in and allow visitors a good view down the valley. Plenty of work to go but the project is at an exciting stage where the shape and feel of the shed is emerging.

Clipping the wings of chickens

If you have chickens and don't want them to fly the coop, then you will need to clip their wings.
All you need is a clean, sharp pair of scissors and a chicken.
One of our flocks at Opportunity Farm usually lives out in the paddock in our chook tractor with an electric netting fence around it. As the fence is only three feet tall clipping the wings is important. So this morning I caught each chook and checked the status of their wing feathers.

The only feathers that need to be cut are the primary feathers on one wing. These are the longest ones that are closest to the front of the wing when it is spread out. There are generally about nine or ten of these.

 

After fanning out the feathers I cut them close to where the secondary feathers start - about two-thirds of the way down. If you cut them longer you may cause bleeding but at that length the chook will not be bothered - except by the fact that it can't fly!

 

 

This is our rooster with his feathers clipped ready to return to his coop. The feathers will regrow and need trimming again but it varies from breed to breed and at what time of year you are clipping as to how long you can safely leave it between clips.

 

How to raise a Poddy Lamb or two

We have only a small flock of sheep - mostly self-shedding Wiltshire Horn sheep, but we also have a growing collection of coloured Merino and Crossbred sheep. The Wiltshire Horn ewes are a hardy bunch and normally birth with few complications and are good mothers.
Sometimes however the weaker of twins is rejected and if we find it in time we end up with a poddy. Or a local farmer with a soft heart wants to keep an orphaned lamb alive but hasn't the time to raise it.

Larger scale sheep farms often have a set-up with a designated pen and buckets with multiple teats to raise a commercially worthwhile number of lambs. We start off with a large cardboard box in front of the fire. As long as you put some bedding in it and don't keep the lamb in there so long the urine soaks the bottom out, it works well.

The most important thing for a newborn lamb is drinking some colostrum - the initial milk which is filled with antibodies, fat and protein to protect the newborn. If your poddy lamb did not get any of this from its mother then its chance of survival is lower.
We try to keep some calf colostrum in the freezer for such emergencies (cross species colostrum is way better than no colostrum). If you haven't any, try a local dairy.

In spring our local supermarket stocks plastic teats suitable for lambs. If desperate a baby's teat will do but lambs need a much longer teat to be able to suck it comfortably without assistance.

 

The teats can be carefully stretched over any sort of glass bottle. We started off with a 330ml juice bottle and have moved on to a 750ml ginger beer bottle. Only for the first 24 hours do lambs need four feeds, then for two weeks it is three feeds so we found it worked with 7am, 2pm and 9pm and wasn't too disruptive.

If you have a milking cow you could feed them your excess otherwise you will need some formula. Our local farm store sells a premium milk replacer designed for lambs. One 16kg bag will feed two lambs to weaning. The instructions about how much to use is given on the packet. I boil the kettle, put the approximate number of scoops in the measuring jug and pour in water to about a third of the total volume required. This is topped up with cow's milk but it could be tap water. This works out at a warm temperature suitable for a young lamb.



 
 
 

Lily the Wiltshire Horn poddy in the enclosure on the verandah.

 

Once the cardboard box in front of the fire is heading beyond its use by date I build an enclosure. This year it was on the front verandah and used a corner as two walls and two large wooden sheets as the other two. A toybox and a desk were used to hold it together. Here I have to confess that the my teenage daughter, in her role of designated bottle feeder, managed to overbalance and collapse my enclosure on herself without hurting the lamb but breaking her arm in the process. While this was a distinct pain for her the consequence of my hasty construction was not having assistance with the feeding!

This enclosure needs some plastic on the base to trap the urine and plenty of fresh bedding, which will need regular changing.

I also made an outdoor enclosure. We have two dogs that like to pester lambs so it needed to be dog proof and mobile. This was made from a 6m length of pig fencing surrounded by some chook netting.



 

 

Lily and Alice (a crossbred) in the outdoor enclosure.

 

After three weeks the lambs are introduced to the paddock and the rest of the sheep by day and returned to their enclosure at night. They tend to hang by the gate when it is close to feeding times or if I am close but they gradually learn to explore and copy the other lambs in eating grass. By four weeks they stay in the paddock full-time. The quantity of milk is gradually reduced until they are about six weeks old and can feed themselves.

 

It is quite a responsibility to take on a poddy but children love the soft cuteness of lambs and are often keen to do the feeding. We make sure that new lambs survive three days before we give them a name as that is the danger time. Once you are set up for a poddy it is just part of a routine and an enjoyable way to raise an animal. Having a poddy or two in your flock can also help when you want to move or call the sheep.

 

 

Growing Mushrooms in the Pantry

 

I love mushrooms and most of my little cherubs do to. The offerings in the local supermarket tend to be at the end of their cycle and turn dried out and withered before you can top a pizza. So I was delighted when Michelle came back from a hardware store with a mushroom kit.

It seemed simple enough to mix the two packets together and put in a cool dark place for a while. The instructions stated that the compost needed to be kept moist. It is hard to know exactly how much water to apply but I give it a squirt with the same bottle I moisten the seedlings. Fitting it into a routine helps make sure I don't forget the box in the darkest corner of the pantry. Clean dishes... wipe surfaces...water seedlings... squirt the mushrooms.

For about five weeks nothing much happened. Then a little ball appeared which grew into a tasty mushroom. Since then sporadic burst of fungus have appeared and been devoured. Long may it last. 

 

Fermenting in the Kitchen

 

Today there was lots of activity in the kitchen. Michelle was preparing 12kg of different sauces for a scout camp on the weekend but there was also a lot of fermentation going on.

 

The kombucha tea needed bottling and a fresh batch prepared to feed the scobies. The shredded cabbage needed to be put into jars for sauerkraut. The kefir needed making with more raw milk and the sourdough culture provided the basis for a loaf of bread. The currant wine just felt like being in the photograph on the ground that it was fermented before being bottled back in January.

 

More about how to actually make these products in later blogs.

 

 

 

from l-r: Kombucha tea with  floating scoby, 2015 vintage currant wine, sauerkraut jar, kefir bottle - sourdough in covered bowl. 

Looking after freshly hatched chicks

Once the chicks hatched they flopped about in the incubator all sticky from the inside of the egg. I left them there for a couple of hours until they began to dry out. Then they were transferred to a brooder box. Mine is made from an old deep drawer with the back panel missing. I put a tray inside the drawer which I filled with sawdust from the workshop. This makes it easier to clean out and change the sawdust.
The side of the drawer that is missing is placed against the shed window so my little kids can watch the chicks grow without having to open a stiff shed door.

 





The chicks need a heat source. I purchased a 75W heat lamp on eBay for about $20 which comes with a stand that allows the bulb to be raised as the chicks grow (otherwise they get singed heads!).
They have a feeder that allows them to get their heads in to feed but not to stand in. They still like to perch on the wires and poo into their feed, though. I use commercial chick starter feed from the local farm store - in our case, Landmark. Each day I add feed and sometimes clean the feeder so that the poo is removed.
The water feeder is an inverted plastic lemonade bottle screwed into a trough that allows chicks to drink but not to drown. Apparently they can find all sorts of ways of committing suicide if you are not careful. I place the trough up above the sawdust so that the water is at beak height and the sawdust does not clog the water.
As long as the power does not go off and they have plenty of food and water they have all they need. I check them once a day mainly to marvel at how much they are growing - the ones in the picture are eleven days old. One is developing a tail and they are all getting the black and white wing feathers of the Light Sussex breed.
These chicks will spend about three weeks in this brooder box as hopefully the batch will be hatching and need the space. After about ten days they are active enough to need a net over the top to prevent the chicks hopping out as they test their little wings.

Summer brassicas

For some years I tried planting broccoli and cauliflowers in summer. Each year they were a magnet for the moths and ended up an inedible scrawny collection of veins and sticks. It just wasn't worth the space in the garden.
Last year I decided to have another try and this time put a cage over the bed covered in bird netting. Some varieties of moths were still able to enter and one managed to lay a lot of eggs which became caterpillars but the cabbage whites stayed out and the caterpillars didn't seem to eat much. They were easy to wash out!
The plants were put in a little late in the season so the pak choi grew fast and went to seed. The broccoli and cauliflowers were great - particularly the broccoli as the more that was picked the more that grew to replace it. The caulis were fine but were a one-hit wonder.
This year I decided to get the plants in the ground early. The net needed a bit of darning and the cage design was improved with some more wood around the base. After weeding plenty of horse manure was mixed in and lime added and it was ready for planting. Once planted with seedlings it was mulched with partly rotted Lucerne suffused with droppings from the guinea pig cage.

A small green sprouting broccoli seedling

The self seeded pak choi (thinned from several hundred) inside the new improved brassica cage.

Hopefully the rabbits stay and moths stay out and the harvest is great.

Snow

Just when it seemed that Spring had arrived and the firewood pile no longer needed replenishing we woke up to silence. When there is a snowfall the birds and frogs are quiet and the snow deadens any sound and reduces any likelihood of distant traffic sounds. It was a still morning so the snow settled on thin surfaces without being blown off.

 

The not so hot house

Even thin branches kept snow cover

The old boiler looking iced

The shed I would have been working on.

The potatoes that were planted the day before

 

It melted pretty quickly and was all gone by afternoon but lo and behold the next morning there was another dump!

 

Planting out Potatoes

After four glorious days of warm springshine today it snowed. Then it sleeted. Then the sun shone for a few seconds. Then it rained and then the cycle started again. Occasional hailstones were the only variation to the damp and cold.
With the prospect of several days of this weather there was nothing else for it but to head out in the breaks and the rain and dash back into the shed when the snow, sleet or hail started.
In this way the potato planting was accomplished.
First a trench was dug along one side of the bed. It was about a spade's depth and the soil removed was carefully placed on the side closest to the centre of the bed.

 

The next trench was dug parallel to the first trench and about 40cm away. A third trench went alongside in the same way.
Some well rotted goat manure was scattered in the bottom of each trench. Any larger lumps were broken up.
Then the seed potatoes were placed into the manure at about 40cm spacings. The varieties used are King Edward, Dutch Cream and Bintje - all larger all rounders. A thin layer of soil was knocked off the top of the heaps to cover the seed potatoes and the manure.

 

Finally the whole bed was covered with mulch - a bale of Lucerne hay.
As the potatoes grow the heaps will be pushed into the trench and then dug down so the trenches are beside the heaped up potatoes. As long as there are not too severe a late frost there should be plenty of potatoes to harvest next year.  

 

How to hatch out a small number of chicks in your kitchen.

This is how I incubate chickens. It may not be the best way but so far it has worked for me.
A couple of years ago we bought a cheap incubator on ebay. It has a thermostat and automatic egg turning - which are pretty vital if you don't want to be a complete slave to your eggs. The one we have will hold up to nine eggs.

When collecting the eggs to be incubated make sure they are clean - only use a damp cloth to wipe them if they are dirty.  Washed eggs will require more humidity so the ideal is to pick only clean ones. Keep them pointy end down in a cool place - like a pantry not a refrigerator! Rotate them daily. They will be fine to keep for up to 10 days before incubating, but the success rate will start to diminish after a week. Don't write on the eggs.

The incubator needs to be scrupulously cleaned before use and turned on a day before setting the eggs. The eggs should be placed either on their sides or pointy end down so that the oxygen in the air cell in the non-pointy end is accessible to the growing chick.

Our incubator needs about 100ml of water in the base to give the appropriate humidity and the thermostat is set at 37.5 degrees Celsius. It should be placed in a spot where there is little likelihood of temperature extremes or draughts. Ours is set up in a corner of the kitchen where it won't be forgotten and the kids can watch the eggs hatch while eating their dinner.

As long as the water level is maintained there is little to do for the first seventeen days. Beware of power cuts but the eggs will hatch if the temperature drops for a few hours. A shorting vaporiser left our latest batch in the cold for four hours - but eggs still hatched.

On the seventeenth day the humidity needs to rise so I add up to 200ml of water to the base of the incubator. I also take out the egg roller and the top shelf so that when the chicks hatch they find walking easier.

A chick breaking the shell with its special claw tooth.

Once the eggs start to hatch I leave the chicks in for a few hours to dry and fluff out before transferring them to our homemade brooder box. Some chicks find it hard to walk at first but most will come good after a day or so.

Getting the Garden Ready

 

Some projects take a while. This gives plenty of opportunity to make sure that the idea is a good one and that it is needed. Two years ago the water pipe was dug in for a central tap. Last year the poles and rails for a hothouse went in. The garden grew tomatoes and basil, rocket, silverbeet, parsley, onions and plenty of weeds. Over winter the weeds have taken over and it is time to clear it out and set up some pathways. This needs to be done before any covering can be attached.

 

 

Once the weeds are gone and the beds established then the manure and compost can be mixed in and mulch applied. If all goes well it should be a more productive garden and one that is much easier to maintain and keep the weeds at bay.

The days are getting warmer and the grass (and weeds) are beginning to take off. It's time for action and for planting. The tomato seedlings have germinated and the first pumpkin is raising its head. Spring is well and truly here.



Spring is here

The official end to the wet and cold winter has finally arrived. The grass has started to show a green tinge and the lawn will soon need mowing. It seems to have been a particularly grey winter with too great a prevalence of mud, sleet and cold wind. We had two significant snowfalls and plenty of flurries and flutters. Too many days when being outside was a challenge rather than a joy.
Five kids arrived with one doe yet to kid.
In autumn we chose ten Wiltshire Horn ewes to join our two young rams and from these we had thirteen lambs. Four ewes had twins but only one has persisted in raising both. Two died and one we rescued from a cold night calling out for its mother with weakening cries.

This female lamb was lucky that it received some of the colostrum from its mother that is so vital in the first few hours after birth. Lily, as she was named once she had survived three days, is a poddy lamb. Three times a day she guzzles down her milk so fast and hard that it can make her noise bleed banging on the lid of the bottle. She has an enclosure on the front verandah, one on the grass of the front lawn and a large cardboard box placed in front of the fire or for when she travels in the car - if she needs a feed while we are away somewhere she has to come too. A farmer gave us another abandoned lamb but it didn't make it through its first night which was sad but not unexpected.

 

The cycle of the farming year seems to start with seeds. We try to get our summer garden seeds into seed trays in the last week of winter. The seed raising mix  is the only other ingredient.
Here Michelle is using the seed dispenser to place seeds in a tray.

 

 

Once all the seeds are sown, covered and labelled the trays are put up on specially constructed shelves which go across the kitchen windows. They receive plenty of warmth and light and being so central are remembered enough to be given water.                           

You've got to be kidding!

Pearl was pacing the fence line calling a little more stridently than usual. When I appear the goats often call out in the hope of encouraging me to deliver them some Lucerne or sheep nuts, but this was a little more persistent. She was looking pretty broad in the backside and her tail was up. If I had been observant enough I could have checked whether there was a hollow either side of her tailbone which can indicate that the kid or kids are beginning to move.
It crossed my mind that she was showing signs of labour but it still seemed too early. We have had false alarms before, locked up does to keep an eye on them and still waited weeks for the birth. I checked my calendar of matches and I had predicted that she would give birth in the first week of August. I was wrong. Goats are pretty consistent and have a gestation period of five months give or take only a couple of days so she must have had her tryst with Cedric in mid February.
So the next time I looked over to the goat paddock our number had risen by one. A small white doe with a brown head and one brown splodge on her front was wobbling next to Pearl. The afterbirth was out and already eaten. Pearl was fine and doing her mothering duties. This is at least her fourth cycle of kids as we gained her with kid three years ago.

The next day we returned from a night at our other property and Pearl was sitting up with the other goats. No kid in sight. A scan of the paddock revealed no splodge of white. It seemed that there was good visibility everywhere in the six acres or so. What had happened while we were away? Had the kid been taken by a wild dog? Drowned in the dam? Been trampled by the bull?
I set out to try to solve the mystery. As I walked the southern boundary to check the farthest camp where a few trees could shelter a kid or hide a carcass, Tonto the bull decided to charge at me. Apparently he wanted me to know that he was the boss of this paddock. While I stood my ground the sight of a albeit small Dexter bull charging at me was still very unnerving. He came within a metre or so and then shook his head at me. Once he had stopped I climbed over a fence and continued my search from the outside.
After distracting the bull with some hay to chew on I resumed my search. By now I expected the worst. I figured that if it was alive it would be calling out and Pearl would respond. She seemed unfazed as I checked carefully around the edges of the dams and along any place in the fence where a dog could have dragged a small kid.
Then I saw a white shape curled in the grass in the very middle of the paddock. On approach I still thought that we had lost the kid. I should have remembered how carefully goat mothers hide their babies and how hard it is to see them when there are curled up. It was simply asleep after having a good feed. With no need to nibble grass it had nothing better to do than have a kip and digest the colostrum.
When I brought the kid to Pearl she did not want to know it. I couldn't tell whether she was rejecting it or that she knew that it already had a gutful, so I put them both in the shed to ensure bonding.
The first kid off the block - Spring is getting nearer with four more does and nine ewes still to come.

Pearl and little Sausage

Mastitis in Hailey the house cow

 

On Sunday morning I noticed that something was amiss with Hailey, the Jersey house cow. The most productive teat felt heavy with milk but once it was emptied of the usual amount that section of udder was still swollen and felt as if there was still plenty of milk in it. Could it be mastitis?

A talk to a friend who used to run a dairy confirmed that it needed to be dealt with. Our local vet recommended we stop drinking the milk and administer an anti-inflammatory and antibiotic.

 

 

That evening I massaged the teat and found the swelling smaller but much harder. The next morning

four doses of Ampiclox were dropped off for us, to be given every 12 hours. Then we were to refrain from drinking the milk for three more days in case any of us was allergic to the antibiotic.

When I came to apply the first dose Hailey seemed almost back to normal but it seemed best to follow through the course of treatment. Once the cap of the applicator was removed the nozzle was designed to fit inside the hole at the end of the teat. It felt strange to poke it into this hole but it fitted perfectly and I could hear the liquid being squirted up into the teat. Then I had to hold the teat closed while I pushed the liquid up into the teat - a sort of reverse milking.

 

 

Four applications later the treatment was completed. Hopefully we will be mastitis free for a while. Our friend recommends we spray the teats with an iodine solution after milking. This will not only reduce the chance of infection but will be healthy for both the calf and us.  

Winter Mornings

 

On winter mornings I put on overalls and a woolly hat and set off for the dairy, armed with a bucket of hot water and the milk pail. Using the water to wash Hailey's teats keeps my hands warm and squeezing warm milk out of a warm udder is quite pleasant. Once the milking is done it is time to feed the other animals.

Tonto the bull follows me to his day paddock. He gets to spend his evenings and nights with Hailey but after breakfast he is on his own for the day. He has been with us about six weeks now and unless he is a very quick mover there has been no sign of real interest from either cow or bull.

 Curly and the dairy kids Penny and Misty get some sheep nuts and a biscuit of Lucerne to supplement the diminishing grass in their paddock.

 

Each of the chook flocks gets a scoop of layer mix - we use Darling Downs - and then they spend the rest of the day scratching around for bugs and whatever else they find, which we hope is all the worms from the goats. 

Comet the calf is let in with her mum but she prefers hay to milk these days but will soon latch on once Hailey wanders up from the dairy.

 Cedric and the five does share hay and sometimes nuts in a wooden trough that lets them all have a space.

Archie and Toby wolf down their meatloaf and biscuits so fast it was hard to catch a photo of them still eating.

The guinea pigs - all 9 of them - need their cages moving and some lettuce leaves donated by the local café.

After this morning routine I can head back inside for my own breakfast.

If I have to go to work or head to our other property for the day these tasks may have to be done between 6.30am and 7.00am which can be a bit dark and cold but on other days I can leave it another hour or so when hopefully the frost has melted and the sun come out!  Despite the cold it is very grounding to greet the dawn with the animals and I find I don't mind it at all. The woolly hat really helps though!
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The Turning Point

The shortest day has arrived along with the growing hope of light and warmth. The frosts of minus seven or eight have been severe and it is hard to see how the guinea pigs manage to survive in their little cages on the lawn. We have turned the corner into another year of light and it seems an opportunity to reflect. This blogging journey started on the arbitrary date of January 1 while today would have been more apt if it was to reflect the cycles of the year.
It is no wonder that this moment has been celebrated by people all over the temperate world since humans first evolved. The importance of the amount of light in producing food is vital. The animals know. Today seven eggs were collected - up from one a day about a week ago. While there is plenty of cold to come it feels positive to look forward to enough warmth to plant seeds and watch them grow through another cycle.
At Opportunity Farm we have also reached a turning point in our major project of building our workshop/ shearing shed. The materials are coming from a friend's shearing shed that had partly collapsed. After several days of working on it the shed now consists of four standing posts and piles of wood to remove or burn and those pieces of tin too twisted to be of any use.

 

The site of our building is no longer just a plan or a pile of stumps. It has started to burst out of the ground. With the help of my littlest (seen here filling up the holes with soil above the concrete) most of the posts are now in. Out with the old and in with the new.....

 

Happy Solstice

First Green Shoots

With a long series of intense frosts and the least light of any time of year Spring seems a long way off. But there are some signs that the tide of dark is about to turn:

• One of the flocks of chickens have stopped moulting and started to lay eggs again.

 

• The early garlic is sprouting

• The first asparagus is up before all last year's shoots have died off.

There are still many weeks until we can really notice the increase in light and months before the heater will slow down its consumption of wood but seeing some growth emerging from the ground is always a good reminder that light follows dark in an endless cycle of life. It's good to be alive.