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I got back from the butcher last night with 9 frozen birds for the deep freeze. I’ll be cooking one up Thursday in the slow cooker. Given the time of year, the rest may be destined for the grill. Mmmm…tasty meat. Our motto.

Cath and I were joking about a possible summer camp for kids at BLF, wherein we teach kids about the Cycle of Life and then hand them a shovel, “Here ya go, kid.” If you don’t think the idea of having city kids shovel manure out of a stall while listening to “Cycle of Life” from the Lion King is hilarious, have another glass of wine. Personally, I just want to produce the complimentary DVD of the kids’ week at camp for all the Yuppie parents, but I digress…

In essence though, this is how sustainable farming works. Plants grow, animals poop, humans manage. We move the poop from one place to another. We keep out the bad plants. We make sure that there aren’t 13 roosters to only 26 hens. (For which, the hens are eternally grateful).  With good management, you get sustainable agriculture. With bad management, you can screw things up pretty good. This (also, in essence) is what we are learning to do as part of our big Urban to Rural transition.

Last year, I put the bale feeder right below the barn hay door. This arrangement worked nicely when I was tossing 2-3 squares a day to the cattle. At the end of the winter, I had about 6-18 inches of manure laden hay piled up around the feeder. I used the tractor to move it over to the garden plot. This year, I kept the bale feeder out in the north pasture all year. I was using round bales, so it made sense since it’s hard to get the tractor in behind the barn.  I even moved the bale feeder a couple of times so I didn’t get a giant pile of crud in one spot. I didn’t count on the extra wear and tear (and manure) from the 3 horses. I now have a gigantic spot of my north pasture that will probably not produce anything green this year without a big reseeding effort on my part. I might have been better off leaving it in one spot and sacrificing just one spot. Lesson learned.

Remember to send your kids to BLF Summer Camp this summer, too! Cycle of Life manure shoveling! Betting on whether or not today is the day Charlie the Draft Horse is actually dead and not napping! Lots of Rooster Pot Pie (with complimentary sugary drink box)! We’ll have a special class for older kids in “Electric Fence Repair”. Lots of fun for your little ones!

Blossom gave birth to “Van Buren” last Wednesday. VB is a healthy, if leggy, little bull calf. He’s brilliant red like his mother. Being the sentimentalist that I am, I immediately told Cath and the kids not to get too attached to him. We are full up on bulls. Spring is coming soon and with the additional horses and many more cattle, we are going to have a grass shortage. I’ll have to put out hay year round and deal with overgrazing on the grass. That’s a couple of months away, luckily. Until then, I’m happy that the little guy is doing well.

In other news, we just got business cards printed. For free, too, so I won’t complain that I have enough of them to last for 20 years. I could line the coop with them and still have enough. I better get to work and sell some animals. Or at least, try to sell animals in a way that involves handing out business cards.

Daylight savings time starts tomorrow morning. Don’t tell the hens though. They’ve already started laying again. We’re already swamped with eggs. And roosters. I’m taking 6 of them to the butcher ASAP. 9 is too many. Some of them are downright beautiful birds, but I only need 3 or 4 tops. The pecking order is getting goofy already. I may even take a few hens, just to cull the White Chantecleurs and the Hamburg. I’m out of room in the coop and I’ve got turkeys coming in a month or so.

Finally, let me thank everyone who’s reading this blog right now. Our page views have grown every month since I started. It looks like lots of people are interested in chicken coops, so we’ll develop that area of the site a bit more in the next month or two. After that, I’ll sculpt a miniature Arc d’Triumph out of mashed potatoes and learn to juggle. I’m swamped at work (note the large gap between this post and the last) and with Spring coming up, it’s time to get back to work on all those farm projects that require decent weather and dry ground.

In the meantime, we’re (that’d be the royal we as in me, Cath rolls her eyes every time I mention “farm” and “money”) ironing out a business plan and working on more static content for the site.  Remember, we’re doing this Urban to Rural transition so you don’t have to. Wait. No. So that you can do it smoother…right.