August 2017 homestead update

Bees busy finishing of the comb in the second box

Well, I have kind of fallen behind on this month’s blog, already the 10^th! While the homestead/farm is progressing along nicely it is a little harder for me to write about it as I have not been back there this month, not scheduled to be back there until the first week in Sept. The one good thing is I do get a lot of pictures so in many ways it is like I am there.

Our keets (baby guinea fowl) are growing quickly and have already proven to be escape artists. Terri and Lexi finished getting their new home put together and some poultry netting put up above their run. One big difference between Guinea fowl and Chickens is Guinea fly! At 5 weeks old they can already take flight. We could have clipped their wings but I would prefer not doing that if possible. Guinea have this strong flock instinct also that chickens do not seem to have. 12 of them survived out of the 15 we ordered, (not bad for mail order birds) and the things is, they do everything as a group. This week they were out in their run and they decided it was time to go inside, well they are started to head inside but the two in the back decided something else looked interesting so they decided to turn off right before going inside, the next thing you know all of the other keets came right back outside to see what was going on. They seem to follow each other everywhere. Now back to the original idea of the post, the escape artist.

Well the story starts the first day they were put in their new home, the door was open as Terri took a picture to show me the inside and how the keets were settling in, between the time it took to take two pictures, one of them disappeared. Terri and Lexi looked all over the place and could not find him, we thought we may have lost that one. The next day, guess who showed back up? Our missing keet! Told you they like to stick together! We think he had snuck through a crack and was under the house the whole time. Now the day after that Terri goes to check on them right before it got dark, she opens up the coop and… No keets. All 12 of them were gone, they did a quick check but as it was getting dark there was not to much hope to find them. As I was a little upset when we had the one missing, they kind of avoided telling me they misplaced all 12 of them! Terri went out early the next morning before Church and walked through the wood line and could hear them chirping so she called Lexi down and between the two of them they herded them back to their coop, of course sometimes in that process, two of them strayed off and Terri and Lexi had to get to church so they secured the coop (along with the area of the fence the keets snuck out under. Lo and behold when they got back from church, our two AWOL keets were next to the coop chirping as if to say “hey guys! It’s us, let us in!!! All total we had three successful break outs before we got the coop properly secure. On the flip side, we are pretty sure nothing else can get back in now! So far Terri and Lexi seem to really enjoy the keets. We will keep them secured in their coop for the next 6 weeks while they imprint on it being their new home, at that point we will let them out half a flock at a time, knowing they will not go far without the rest of the flock for the following two weeks before they get to free reign like the chickens do.

The bees have been busy this month as well, we have two full boxes of honey comb so far, not sure exactly how much is filled with honey yet, will check that in more detail when I get back in Sept, we are still not planning on doing a honey harvest this year, not a full box anyway but I may pull at least one comb out to try it, will depend on what I find in Sept.

Some of the sunflowers are starting to bloom finally, and the pumpkins are starting to form as well. The beets are struggling however, think the week pressure got to them pretty good at the start of the year but they are starting to gain a little momentum. The question will be if it is too late or not, when you have a short growing season any hesitation at the start can be devastating to your yield. Lucky for us this year is in most part our practice run since the chickens and keets are the only animals who will be over wintered this year. Speaking of chickens, about 20 of the cockerels will be sent to “freezer camp” on my trip back in Sept. They have all been growing nicely, and the roosters have started to give their morning wake-up call which I usually get to hear each morning as I am talking to Terri on the phone. As she is a morning person already they have not woken her up yet (well until she gets out side to let them out they may not even know it is morning!).

Terri has even let the pigs out a couple times for a walk and they actually listen to here when it is time to go back into their area without much fuss! They have finally cleared the brush out of the area we put them in, so when I get back I will probably throw some winter seen or maybe some quick growing buck wheat into their area and will move them to a different area to root up. Well that is it for this month, enjoy the pictures before and let me know any questions!