Snow Came Early

We usually don't get any snow until after the new year, but we got a good 4-6 inches on December 18th and Collinsville Road right in front of our house was particularly treacherous. The ice pellets and freezing rain did make for some good sledding though! We'll see if there's any more in store for us this winter.



The chickens (including some new pullets) didn't care for cold feet and stuck mainly to a few paths that we shoveled clear for them so they could travel from coop to shelter and back. Needless to say, the days following the snowfall were a muddy mess. The good news is that egg production is picking up again after a long moult, and we are now getting around a dozen a day.

Google Maps Updated

Looks like Google finally updated their satellite photography and our house is now "on the map." Interestingly, this is not a recent photo as indicated by the lack of circle driveway, various piles of construction material and dumpster. Anyway, now you can see the placement of the house and garage in relation to the property. Enjoy!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Had to jump on the bandwagon and set up a Twitter account for Blue Harvest Farm. Twitter is a microblog limited to 140 characters or less per "tweet" (post), so it's not replacing this blog, just supplementing it. The nice thing about Twitter is that it allows us to post more often. You can follow us at www.twitter.com/blueharvestfarm and we'll also show the most recent posts on this page in the lefthand column under "Twitter Feed."

In Like a Lion...

It's interesting that some of the heaviest snow in this area seems to come late in the winter. We finally got some decent snow---about 4-5 inches of very fluffy white stuff---and had an official snow day complete with downhill sledding, snowball fights and tauntaun building.

The Missing Dozen

Yesterday, All Bright Sanitation (828.894.5009) came to swap out the big yellow construction dumpsters. Despite the treacherous nature of giant machines lifting and pushing a 22-foot-long steel container filled with a ton of debris, 12 delicate eggs were found unscathed in a small nest beneath the dumpster. A little backstory: Checkers, the only hen of our three hatchlings from last July, seems to be following in the footsteps of Gloria, our Araucana "Houdini". Checkers has been consistently jumping the 4-foot-tall chicken wire fencing of the new chicken run. We found it futile to put her back in, so we let her explore the new grounds on her own despite the dangers of being a lone wandering hen. Since she is the youngest Araucana, we can distinguish her eggs because they are smaller than normal and blue-green. We found one of her eggs near the edge of the forementioned dumpster a while back, but didn't realize she had continued to lay them further under, where we couldn't see them. This morning, Checkers let herself out, as usual, and was wandering around the exact spot where the dumpster (and her dozen eggs) were located just 24 hours earlier. Poor girl didn't know what to do so she ended up just laying today's egg in the grass. While the eggs may still be good, they may have been damaged due to recent freezing temperatures so we're giving them to the dogs---not our customers. :-)