luna acres

  We are still learning. I feel certain we will never stop learning. Yet it still surprises me to see how many people haven't learned things that seem so obvious to me. We peaked at a neighbors chickens this morning while picking up some of last years hay to warm our hippity hops, and I feel so bad for those chickens. Don't get me wrong, they are well fed and watered; their confined area not overly piled with poo. But nonetheless they are confined, in a dirt pen, with glimpses of sunlight, and that is all. Just outside the door lies open field, lots of it, with grass and bugs just waiting to be eaten.  Our chickens are so much happier, and healthier.  I wish everyone knew that. Until next time, Angela Kelly

our first ever shiitake mushroom, on a log we inoculated in the spring the new bird day pen There you have it, our first shiitake mushroom ever. See more about the happy poultry here . Until next time, Angela Kelly

It has been a stressful few weeks, our car blew up and is still waiting at the bottom of our driveway to be towed to the house. We drove to West Virginia and bought my dream car, a 2004 Subaru Forester. It is already the perfect farm car, with so much storage space for markets. Unfortunately, because of the payments (added on top of our broken down car's payments) and higher insurance, Jonathan has to give up his extra day off from our day job, which means less time to do farm work. It could be worse though, hopefully we will find a way to sell the old car soon enough. We spent today working on more mushroom baskets and weeding the garden which was completely over run. I wrote about the mushrooms and shared more photos on the farm blog, here . The rabbits are growing fast and I love these spotty babies.  Well, it is late and my comfy bed is calling me. Goodnight. rabbit tractors Rose's spotty babies Amy's spotty babies Amy with her kits This...

It has been a stressful two weeks in the working world, tensions and frustrations on high after I got into an argument with a lazy co-worker last Thursday. It's nice to come home to the animals, wake up to the animals, be constantly coaxed into action by needy mouths and dirty brooders. It's crazy how fast everything happened, it seems like just a week ago I was complaining about the lack of progress. Now each evening after work we are graced with several hours of daylight for projects (at least some days, our out of shape winter bodies are not as enthusiastic as we are.) The chicks and ducks are growing so very fast, today it seemed the ducks heads were almost  touching the top of the brooder. Fortunately the coop is nearly completed, hopefully I can make enough money to get the poultry wire this week. The chicks have been interesting to watch grow, noticing the differences in the three different breeds we have. The meat birds obviously bigger, clumsier, and ugl...

Oh, our love for farming. Our love for farming surpasses any logical voice in our head, and as such our bedroom is being overrun. Last week I re-arranged the furniture to make room for the brooders. That's right, brooders. In our bedroom. The dumbest idea ever? Perhaps, but yet to be determined.  We now have a small poultry flock of ten birds, four ducks and six chickens.  We purchased them in groups of two for each breed (no mono-cultures here please) so they aren't lonely. I was worried about the Pekin ducks beating up on the smaller Rovens, but so far they are cuddling like long lost siblings. I'm a happy chick. Happy spring everyone! Until next time, Angela Kelly