Coming into the new year I had aspirations of a timely blog post about the year in review. Then the holidays arrived, and our family all got covid and were sick for a week. The purist in me felt as though the moment for a year in review had passed, and yet I found myself perusing pictures and remembering all that we have to celebrate. In that moment of “finding myself” I have begun to recognize what motivates me, what pushes me and what is important to me. There are moments when my timing is not quite right and I bring myself back to what I had set out to do, yet I have found that there is always wisdom in the awareness.
In reviewing the year I am reminded of all that we learned, all the ways that we grew as a farm, as a business, as individuals and as a team of people, animals, plants and minerals. This is especially poignant for me as we dig into the details of “Planuary” and the analysis of 2023, and the brainstorming and projections for 2024. My tendency is to get lost in the numbers, the what-went-wells and the what-we-can-learns. This pragmatic approach detaches me from the pride and joy of the year. Sharing our story with you reminds me of all that we have to celebrate.
2023 in review.
Building a new brooder for more chicks!
We started the year with ambitious goals for producing more chicken. This was a multifaceted infrastructure undertaking, and the first deadline was to accommodate the arrival of weekly batches of baby chicks! Baby chicks, shipped from our hatchery on the day they hatch from the egg, are both hardy and tender creatures. They can survive two days of transit in our postal service, carried by the incredible resources of mama hen, which last a few days after hatching. Upon arrival they need a warm and dry environment, which is hardly how I would describe March on our Adirondack Farm!
We converted one end of our barn into the new brooder area. Here are a few pictures of the project.
Here is the barn before we started the project. You can actually see a few generations of brooders here. The shed behind the stack of barrels with the white tarp cover is our brooder from 2020, and the enclosed area with the open door on the right right hand side was our brooder from 2021-2022. Now we would convert this whole space to accommodate three times the number of chicks.
Brooder framing in progress. Note the eclectic back wall built of pallets and recycled materials around the farm!
Spring mud and framing up the wall to the new brooder area.
The first area of the brooder is ready for the first batch of chicks! Lewis and Lovett help us prepare for their arrival.
Lewis and Lovett on the big rocks and you can see the brooder is enclosed and ready to go in the background.
Here is the new brooder with lights, ventilation fans, dry bedding, water, feed and lots of baby chicks! They stay in the brooder until they are 3 weeks old and are ready for the weather and life on pasture.
MRC Project
With more chicks in the brooder we needed more space on pasture for the growing chicks. Unlike cattle and pigs who can utilize our pasture and woods without much more than a water trough and some electric fence, chickens are tempting prey for most wildlife on the farm and they are more susceptible to weather. So we keep them in what we call a Mobile Range Coop or MRC. This looks like a vegetable growers hoop house on a skid frame, which we pull forward every day to give the chickens fresh pasture. The MRC provides shade and shelter from wind and rain, while offering fresh pasture and fresh air to our chickens.
First we start with the metal frame. This allows us to mount the hoops on a stable base, which provides weight to keep things from blowing away, and rigidity so we can easily pull the coop.
Next we bend the hoops and assemble the hoops and supports. Thank you John, Tully, Steven, Chad, Lewis and Lovett for all your help.
Many hands make light work.
With a new batch of chicks coming every week we had a tight deadline to get each coop built and ready for the next batch of chicks. By July we had all four coops in the field and 2700 chickens on pasture!
Lovett’s Chicks
There is a silence to a six-year-old’s play that begs the parental question: what is happening up there? One answer to that question became a defining feature of our living room this summer when Lovett shyly admitted that those were chicks in her bed and could she please keep them in the house!
Chicks had many adventures.
We even tried to instill the importance of “pasture” for our home bound friends.
And of course they made for some fun moments at home.
Hosting a Wedding
Our farm was host to the wedding and wonderful gathering in celebration of our friends Aidan and Dave. With love and care they crafted a space that was truly their own on our land and in the midst of our farm. Racey and I loved working together on a project that was different from the farm work. The weather threatened rain all day and held off until dessert was served and dancing was in full swing in the tent.
Thank you Aidan and Dave for a wonderful weekend.
Ceremony in our northern pasture we call Sayward Field.
Freezer Project
To accommodate more chicks, which leads to more chickens to process, we needed more freezer space to store them. So we had an excavator out to prepare a site next to our barn where a new shipping container freezer would sit.
The plan was to cut a hole in the barn wall where that window is and the door from the freezer would open into the barn so we can easily go in and out of the freezer.
Cutting the hole in the barn!
Tully celebrates the hole in the barn, tamps the stone on the freezer gravel pad version two after I realized the first pad did not accommodate for the elevation of the freezer door correctly.
Freezer gets delivered!
To set the freezer in place we hired a crane. This massive, 90,000 lb machine promptly buried its front wheels in the mud after a heavy rain the night before. We spent 2 hours getting the crane unstuck. And 30 minutes getting the freezer in place.
Cranes are amazing!
Freezer is in place, and the door opens into the barn!
As the cold of fall and winter set in we built a short “hallway” with a sturdy steel ramp. This way we can roll heavy pallets in and out of the freezer and keep the heat in as the weather gets colder! The freezer is working well and our only complaint is it is COLD! (which is a good thing)
New Piglets
After years of piglets from different farms, we are delighted to have a group of piglets from one farm, raised on pasture, and fed organic grain from birth. Pigs are incredibly social creatures, and having a group that was born together means the social dynamics of the group are much healthier and friendly than a group that is thrown together at weaning.
Piglets on their first day.
Lovett and her friends building nests and roofs for the piglets. And the piglets begin to know that humans are playful creatures too.
New feeder for the pigs in their winter home.
I started and have not finished a roof extension over the freezer to keep the rain from dripping in through the not-so-waterproof hole in the barn where the freezer door is. I am reminded of how much I love building, and this project was very satisfying. I only needed some leftover supplies and some lumber from Reber Rock Draftwood, sustainably harvested and skidded with a team of suffolk punch draft horses by Chad Vogel.
Graduation
I do not have a picture for this one, but in March of 2023 I graduated from a year long training program where I learned to work with people on healing chronic pain, anxiety, stress and trauma. Already in 2024 I taught a workshop at Pinnacle Yoga Studio (thanks to everyone who came out on Saturday) with more workshops to come and I will be accepting one-on-one clients soon.
Thank you
Thank you to all of you who have supported our farm this year. Here’s to 2024!
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