The Homecoming

The Homecoming

You all have seen the pictures of our new chicken coop and the time and effort we put into making it safe and livable (we thought Thom would never be finished making modifications to it as he continued to work to make it better day after day).  Once complete it has sat empty until last evening-when we finally brought our girls home.  We purchased the chickens from the Alexander family.  Their boys drove up to Pennsylvania to purchase some 300 laying hens for their chicken business.  It was a long ride, but the chickens survived and have been doing well at their farm.  They graciously allowed us to purchase 5 of them to bring home for our personal flock.  We waited until last evening to bring them home-after our weekend trip to the Creation Museum with our friends the Fields family. 

They are young chickens who have yet to lay an egg, but should be ready to start laying in a couple of weeks.  Bringing them home was a big step for us.  We have been wanting chickens for years now-but our home in Winchester was governed by covenants which did not allow chickens (ironic since we lived on farm land and were surrounded by farms full with cows, chickens, lambs, goats and an array of other animals).  This step is the culmination of years of planning, reading, praying, and wondering what it would be like to own livestock of some kind.  Here are the girls coming home:

TJ retrieving the chickens from the carrier

One of our girls in her nesting box-probably leaving something other then an egg behind.

Being novices we spent a good deal of the night looking out the window down upon our coop to see how they girls were getting along.  TJ did a great job getting the chickens transferred into the pen and making sure they had food and water.  We all walked around the pen to make sure all doors were locked and the place was as safe as it could be.  Living in the “woods” (or cottage is in a large expanse of trees) we know we have a great deal of predators who would love a fresh chicken dinner.  We have been working to make the coop as safe as we can, but realize it will be up to God as to how well our girls do in their new home.  We will keep you posted.

Speaking of predators, Thom has launched a new campaign to keep the deer out of our garden.  He has been on a mission ever since we came home one night last week and spotted a beautiful deer in the middle of the garden feasting on our green bean plants.  He drove quickly down our lane (our driveway is several hundred yards long and runs past the open field in which the garden rests) to scare the deer.  It was an impressive site to see this deer leap high in the air over the fence we constructed to protect our garden.  He cleared the fence by at least a foot.  Thom new at that point he was dealing with experts.  Since that time Thom has researched every type of deer repellant recipes he could find.  We have an array of hot sauce, hot seeds, Millie hair and feces (watch your step!), TJ hair (Thom cut TJ’s hair at the edge of the garden) and even some deer repellent “guaranteed” to work he bought online through Amazon.  We even grilled some deer steaks outside one night in our fire pit-hoping the deer would get the message.  Our garden is still growing at this point-but we once again saw a deer at the edge of the woods last night as we came home from the farm.  We will keep you posted.

Alison is now in training to learn how to milk the cows.  Thom is her teacher.  It is a matter of getting comfortable around the cows and learning the coordination needed to hook up the milking machine.  She is doing a great job-especially priming the cows for milking (Thom can attest to this for his shoes and leg often get sprayed with milk when Alison is priming the teats-her aim is perfect).  We have graduated to milking on our own (The Alexander boys are not too far away for advice) and will continue our milking this week while also making cheese and other dairy treats to share with the cow share owners Saturday at the next open farm day.

We appreciate your continued thoughts and prayers and we work to settle in here in Amelia.