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Subject: Sweet Pea Farm Update - November 10, 2008

SWEET PEA FARM

November 10, 2008

It’s October 29^th, and it’s spitting icy snow on my head as I am cleaning out the chicken coop.  We have had a cold snap here in New England, strange fall weather that New Englanders are so familiar with. A few days of 20 degrees and a hard frost on the grass, then 2 days later it will be 65 degrees, crystal blue skies with no clouds, blinding bright sunshine, highlighting the fall leaves and colors on the trees. Warm enough to still hear the crickets buzzing their final hurrah in the grasses alongside the road. The smell and haze of fireplace smoke lazily curls down across the yard, as I fill the water bucket for the sheep. I have already started the wood burning stove heating the house as the temperature started to drop.

I have been preparing the farm for the colder winter months. Splitting firewood, stacking, and carrying 5 logs at a time up 2 flights of stairs every day for the wood burning stove. It heats the main portion of the house – the kitchen, living room, and dining room. Cushioning up the chicken house with hay, piling it in big drifts 3 feet deep for warmth.  Then there is cleaning out the sheep hut – luckily they only go in there when it rains. Lugging buckets of water down 2 flights of stairs to fill their water. Spreading hay on the ground to deter mud. The girls love clucking and scratching in the hay, they seem to think it is quite exciting, and all come running over 10 at a time to see what all the commotion is! They no longer lay eggs due to the cold weather setting in.

I have finally found a hay farm in upstate New York. I hook up my trailer and go pick up 800 lbs flats of meadow grass hay which the sheep and chickens LOVE! It has taken over a year of trial and error to get a hay that produces little waste that they would eat, was affordable, and since it is flat flakes, I am able to stack and sort it with ease! I don’t have a barn to store it in this year, but have it all stacked under a 40x60 tarp, which seems to work just fine for now.

Then there is the sheep. All 4 of them have started to fill in with their long winter coats. Icelandic sheep get long strands of light, fluffy hair – it is beautiful when a breeze is blowing – it looks like long locks of hair blowing in the wind. At this point their coats are over 6 inches thick and they look like cotton balls with stilts for legs. This is when this Icelandic breed is at their best. The colder it gets, the happier they are! It is 20 degrees outside – and Willie, Rosie, Nicholas, and Chile are racing around the yard, full blast, kicking their heels up in glee, unfazed by the cold. I did buy them a heated OUTDOOR water bucket this year, just enough to take the chill off the water so it doesn’t freeze. The chickens appreciate this feature as well, and routinely jump on the brim to take a drink. This water bucket was what I WANTED to purchase last year, but I ended up getting the one that burned down my garage instead. Mmm – lucky eh?

Lucy, the chicken with the broken leg, continues to get better and better. She migrated from her cage to the chicken hut after 10 days. Each morning, I would take her out of the chicken house, place her on the ground, then each night, place her back in the chicken house with the rest of the birds.  A peach colored Orphington sister chicken has adopted Lucy, and snuggles with her for warmth each evening. You can see her in the picture surveying the world from the door of the chicken house. Then, one morning, I found Miss Lucy outside the chicken coop on her own, eating the pellet grain I feed them. She seemed content with this, and even though she still loves to be pet and held, had become a little more self sufficient. That evening, she had gone back up the ramp on her own, to her bed inside the chicken house with the rest of the girls! It was a happy day in chicken world – as Lucy would most certainly had been killed on the farm where she came from being deemed an “injured bird”.

Harold the canary and Henrietta, continue to display their affection and adoration for each other – she has little nests built all over the aviary – Harold SINGS up a storm – you can hear him outside the house – yesterday I saw him feeding her – the true display of LOVE – she would flutter her little wings on the floor of the cage – he would respond and feed her little seeds into her beak – the more she fluttered – the more he lovingly fed her. They truly are a pair for life.

I took a walk through the countryside, along a reservoir in Ridgefield when the fall foliage was in full color 2 weeks ago – snapped some pics for all to see. This is a vast expanse of wilderness and acreage, silent and still, the only sounds you hear are your feet along the path and the plopping of frogs in the water. Occasionally a loon calls in the distance. The green canopy of woods envelops you with its lush greenness, some trees hundreds of years old. Perfect silence and just nature. For all of you who are not in New England, I know you will appreciate seeing the fall colors!  This is the countryside around my little farm – my neighbor has longhorn steer, my other neighbor has cows, sheep, chickens, horses and goats. You can also see a top view of Sweet Pea Farm from out of my bathroom window – for all of you who think it is a large farm – well – it’s not as big as you think!

Nicholas on the other hand, NEVER gave back my earring – several people have asked, and I have yet to find it!

Please let me know if you have friends who would like their email address added to the Sweet Pea Farm mailing list – we have over 100 subscribers and I always like adding more people to the list!

More updates soon – the holidays, good food and fun times are weeks away!!!!!!

All the best from all of us at Sweet Pea Farm:

Willie, Rosie, Nicholas, Chile Pepper, “The Girls” the finches, Jasmine, Moki, Wilson, Mariah, and Ginger