Our (running) List of this Growing Seasons Goals for Almost There Acres

• Layer chickens that will eventually give us egg color interest.
  • It’s crazy when you look into all the colors that chickens naturally make depending on their breed.
  • We went to a local pet store during “Chick Days” and got:
    • 5 Easter Eggers (various pastel colors of green/ blue)
    • 9 Marans (dark chocolate brown)
    • 1 Cream Leg Bar (light blue/ turquoise)
    • 5 Speckled Sussex (pinkish purple).
      • We have 20 itty bitty chicks churping. Before we got the chicks we re-did our brooder in attemps to make feeding and watering (as well as keeping it dry) easier. With their sweet little sounds in the background of our days, it feels a lot like Spring around here.
        • Laying chickens will provide eggs for us to eat, eggs to share with friends/ family (front yard mission goals), opportunity to sell the eggs as farm fresh, free range as well as choice picking a breed and letting them hang out together long enough to fertilize in hopes of selling as hatching eggs someday.
• Meat Chickens:
  • Just enough for us right now… may plan for extra next time to share with friends and family (again part of our front yard mission plans)
• Mini Highland Cows, a Mom and a Dad.
  • I’m hoping to be able to eventually milk her and provide enough milk for just our family… mini’s are said to be able to provide 1-1.5 gallons/ day!!!!
  • This will stay on our farm to help feed the hungry teenagers (and let’s be real supply them with enough milk/ day to make the shakes and protein shakes they consume… so we may not be making $$ here, but we’ll definitely be saving $$ here on farm fresh milk.)
• Last but not least, the ‘guard dogs’ of the group:
  • A male and female donkey
  • 2 – 4 goslings
• God may have plans for us to expand beyond these little ones. We have had our male and female goats in the same cage all winter (#newbies) and there were definitely times when we could sense love was in the air. So we are watching our females to look for signs of pregnancy and we will care for them appropriately.

As for the warm weather projects around Almost There Acres:

• Move the chicken coop.
  • 24’x16’ garden shed remade into a coop, haphazardly placed in an area that catches alot of storm water thus creating the non stop problem of moisture in the coop (YUCK!) and not good for the birds. It just feels like we are literally swimming upstream so we need to make a big change and take a big risk in moving a shed that was left on the property, remodeled to be a coop and placed in an area that was not 100% prepped well enough. We’re learning and this is a re-do that is much needed.
  • Must create more ventilation in the coop, without causing too much air movement when the cold winters hit. Drafts and moisture are enemies #1 of happy and healthy chickens.
    • Two options:
      • Prep the land behind the shed, raising it up by leveling it and using shale/ medium that aids in proper drainage
        • land prep includes creating a French drain that will lead to our waterfowl pasture
        • Raising up landing pad to encourage proper dry conditions, also giving us the opportunity to put more ground cover/ shavings in the chicken yard to help give them a deeper, less wet spot to poke around and play in.
        • Pros: can use machines, able to make level and use appropriate substrate
        • Cons: large space in front of the coop where shed once stood that will be in need of tending – another project to lay down shale, level, and build a roof to cover tractors, implements, etc.
      • Jack up the shed, level the land underneath using hand tools, shovel the appropriate medium underneath hoping to get as level as we can without compromising the stability of the shed.
        • Laremovond prep includes shoveling, raking, shoveling, raking, and lots of blisters.
          • Pros: less work, less risk
          • Cons: blisters and a burning belly from Motrin
    • These options are not as clear cut as they look on the list because the risk is real and we need a coop that is intact so we can rest assured all of them are safe from the various predators (coyotes, dogs, etc.). Sigh. We will know more when we get out there and get boots on the ground (chicken mud… gag).
• Move goats & sheep and get a more permanent structure built outside of the one that holds way too much storm water.
• Dig a large pond that will serve as a retaining pond for all the drainage we will be fixing this year via swails (in the orchard) and French drains (around the house and under the coop(s).
• Clear land to make pasture.
  • We need one or two more pastures to help with our rotational grazing.
  • As we add animals, the time in each pasture gradually decreases in order to give them enough nutrition and give the land the proper light, grazing, & rest it needs to regenerate healthier and healthier. You guys… happy soil is everything!
• Pick out garden veggies and companion planting
• Create a new, larger area to grow potatoes and onions
• Create a pollinator garden close enough but far enough away. (serious stinging insect allergies are real, yo)
• Lastly prep the garage to allow for our colder weather projects of:
  • Removing sliders and putting in two windows and a wood burner in place of the doors. This will be in the game room that is over the garage (giant fuel sucker in the winter despite being zoned appropriately, that garage is always cold so the rooms above are colder too)
  • Aligning the windows from top to bottom on the front of the house & removing the man door.