Restarting after many years fallow

After many years of neglect, Foxtail Farm is back up and running. I bought out Mel's share of the surface ownership in February. We have been working on re-establishing. I pulled several gallons of maple syrup last spring, started building a barn, and currently have chickens, cows, ducks, guinea fowl, and pigs. There is still a lot of work to do, but we look forward to documenting our successes (and occasional failures) here and on Facebook!

Happy New Year

I'll try to write up more posts this year. To start things off, I have my handwritten notes from last year, which will show up on the dates they were written.

Journal 30 April

Took chicken eggs from hen and replaced with five waterfowl eggs. They all look about the same, so no telling if they are goose or duck. I plan to candle them for viability in eight days, and also add some chicken eggs to the clutch at that time.

Journal 29 April

Planted seven Rosa Rugosa Alba along south perimeter of yard. Also discovered an extra rose seedling of some sort amongst the roots of one of the r. rugosas, so planted that, too.

Set an Australorp on a dozen chicken eggs to hatch for replacement chicks.

Journal 16 April

Started 8 pots Maximillian sunflowers. Planted 2'X 10' (half of bed) in backyard with garbanzo beans, approximately 4" spacing.

(Note 1/11/11: Garbanzos grew well and flowered, but produced few seeds. Lack of pollinators? Sunflowers never germinated.)

Journal 15 April

Planted five Arapaho thornless blackberries and five thornless red raspberries along fence in pond pasture.

Journal 14 April

Planted eight Rosa Rugoasa Alba bushes along alley in back yard.