On the move!

They're here!

What a hatch! Twenty gorgeous little ducklings, being watched over carefully by mama Beaner. I'm the only one who can get close enough to put food and water in the window well...but I know they won't be in there for long!

I Can Hardly Keep Up!

You know you're busy when you realize that we are getting well into June, marking about three weeks since I last posted! There's a lot going on around here these days, so let me catch you up....Beaner the duck is proving to be a stellar sitter, much better than any chicken I've ever seen. That is one dedicated girl, and if nothing hatches out in a week or two it won't be from lack of effort on her part! She has daintily arranged a down covering over the eggs and around herself, so when she does leave the nest to briefly eat and drink they are well disguised.
I also added slightly to the chicken flock. I found two Americaunas, two Partridge Chanteclers and two Dominiques to add some variety...as well as green/blue eggs from the Americaunas! I bought them as day olds, and had to drive six hours round trip to get them, so I've brooded them very carefully and they are thriving!
And, considering that we haven't yet had our typically hot weather, the garden is doing well. I'm eating at least one, sometimes two, salads a day, and all the seeds have come up - I'm growing lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, zucchini, cucumbers, carrots, potatoes and tomatoes of course. Most of these I have not grown before, so this summer is quite the experiment for me, since I'm not an expert gardener by any means.
I'm also a nursemaid right now to one of my furbabies - my precious black cat Chloe disappeared on Sunday and turned up Wednesday morning at the back door with a huge, gaping wound on the back of her rear leg. Ugly and nasty are understatements! I was away working so hubby took her straight to the vet, who gave her some shots and seems to think she will be fine eventually. But in the meantime, I wash out the wound three times a day with salty water and/or hydrogen peroxide. It isn't fun for her or me, but I will do everything I can because I couldn't bear to lose her.

And there's more.....

Three little orange ones, three little gray ones....Henrietta will be a busy girl!

What's on your plate?

So I just finished a book called The 100-Mile Diet - A Year of Local Eating. Two journalists from British Columbia challenged themselves to eat only food that originated within 100 miles of Vancouver. Other than not being able to find flour they could make into bread, pancakes, etc., and having to eat a lot of potatoes until they lined up their local sources, they did amazingly well. I'm not sure if I could be that disciplined, however.....I just finished dinner, and looking at my plate, I did okay. I mean, I could have been eating McDonald's, after all.
My asparagus came from a grower down the road, and the salsa I used for my potato I made myself last summer, using my own garden fresh tomatoes and peppers. But, the potato was from PEI and the pork chop? Who knows?
I've been getting more and more interested over the last couple of years in food politics, and I credit Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation with giving me a whole new perspective. I was always into eating real food when at all possible, but the 100-Mile Diet makes you realize how disconnected we are from our food, and how you don't think about what it really means when you choose the $1.29/lb tomatoes in January from thousands of miles away versus the $1.69/lb local tomatoes (even though they are greenhouse grown and not in season anyway).
It makes me wonder if I can forego the imported red leaf lettuce all winter long. Something to think about!

All Is Well With the World

This is one of those evenings where things are so lovely, I couldn't picture living anywhere else. The sun is low in the sky, the temperature is mild, and I just finished planting more perennials here there and everywhere. It's the kind of late spring evening that completely eradicates the harsh memories of winter.
It looks as if, after laying a grand total of 18 eggs, my duck hen Beaner might have finally decided to try hatching. She just settled herself in about an hour ago, and is completely covering the eggs with her body and her wings. I'm a little worried about her safety at night, however. Of course, she didn't lay where I wanted her to where it was more sheltered from the elements and potential critters, but I guess I'll let nature take its course and hope mother duck knows best. Besides, I guess the flapping of those large, strong wings can be quite fearsome.
Finally, the chicken enclosure is complete with the installation of the gate today. The hostas, which they have eaten as if they are lettuce, are safe! I love the look of my flock wandering around the place - it's so pastoral - but man, can they be murder on the gardens! I can't even count how many times I've had to rake the wood chip mulch back into the beds after some vigorous scratching by the girls. I still plan on letting them out just before sunset so they can still get in a good wander under my watchful eye, but their enclosure is very large and has all the things chickens need to be happy - dirt for dust bathing, sunshine and lots of greens to peck at. Speaking of that, I'd better go close the gate for the night.

The Duckling Watch Is On!

My sister in law asked me recently if my duck had started laying eggs. I'd been casually looking around, but hadn't seen any at all. Beaner, my duck hen, is only eight months old so I knew nature would take its course at some point.
Just a few days ago, I was on my porch when something caught my eye. There they were! Eight large, waxy white duck eggs in the basement window well! So, I ran to my trusty copy of Barnyard in your Backyard to see if I needed to do anything next. Aside from perhaps covering the window well up a little more, Beaner seems to have everything under control, and today's count is 11 eggs....she will lay from 12 to 18 before setting, says the book.
I will be ridiculously excited if she hatches out ducklings!!

Salad of the Future

Because I didn't grow up with gardening parents or really any exposure to farming, I was truly amazed last spring when I planted lettuce and spinach seeds and they turned into - gasp!- lettuce and spinach! There is something about seeds that has me convinced I will put them in the ground and nothing will happen.
I had never eaten garden fresh lettuce. It was incredible, so delicious and delicate that I even ate salad for breakfast. All winter long I've been dutifully choking down salads, made with store bought lettuce, dreaming about the day when I look at my little tiny seedlings and see salad in my future. Lots and lots of salad....
Since last year I had no faith in my ability to grow things, I didn't plant much lettuce or spinach as I suppose I didn't want to be disappointed. But this year....expansion! And a good plan to sow a new row every couple of weeks.

Rainy, rainy day

I am so glad I worked outside the last few days. The temperature has dropped, and it is wet, soggy and miserable out there. The only creatures that enjoy this weather are the ducks, who wander about, soaking wet and splashing happily wherever there's a puddle. Well, at least Mother Nature is taking care of watering the seeds, the onions and the potatoes, saving me a little work.
So today I will turn my attention to inside stuff. You know, the usual....laundry, floor washing, etc. But at the end of the day I will have my long simmering spaghetti sauce to look forward to. Might even be the perfect day to bake some bread.

Lazy Sunday

I'm not going to lie: after all the physical type of work I've been doing around here for the past two days, I'm not very ambitious today. I've done the feeding and the watering, and wandered around making sure the fence around the garden is working and there's no chickens able to get in, but other than that, I've been enjoying another warm day largely on the porch. My crock pot is cooking Lazy Day Lasagna for dinner - a perfect dish for today. I feel like I should be doing something more useful, but hey, we're not called human doings. So today I am a human being. Just being is enough sometimes.

One of my Rhode Island Reds in the nesting box. I don't artificially light my hens throughout the winter, so with shorter days come fewer eggs. But since it is spring, the girls are laying prolifically! Pickled eggs, anyone?

It's finally warm enough for the kiddie pool! Here is Fred mid-splash. That is one happy Muscovy duck.

The newest crop of kittens...just almost four weeks old and just out of the basket for the first time today!

Warm days, busy times!

It's been a busy few days here at Rustic Farm. Suddenly, the temperatures have soared to around 80 degrees, making me think that summer is here. Of course, it's not, and I know it will get chilly again, but it sure motivated me to get things done around here, like cleaning out the chicken coop, planting some perennials, and getting those spinach and lettuce seeds planted and the seed potatoes and onions in the ground! I got some hostas yesterday from my sister in law, and really had no good place to put them. So, voila! I used some old bricks for edging, filled it up with topsoil and had a new hosta bed within an hour or two.
And now, I'm enjoying a cold one out on the porch with my computer. The cats are having their afternoon naps, the dog is at my feet, and the chickens are dust bathing out back. Life is good.

Welcome To Rustic Farm!

Welcome to the farm! This is the blog of Rustic Farm, where my husband had been living solo for 14 or so years. Then, along came city girl me! And things have never been the same....
It all started when I arrived with my Border Collie, named B. Nowadays, our critters include six cats, another dog (poor B is gone now), twenty or so hens, one rooster named Ernie and two Muscovy ducks named Fred and Beaner.
Why Rustic Farm? Well, everything around here is old, or unwanted, or second hand somehow. For some strange reason, it appeals to both of us in different ways. For instance, the dog was rescued from a shelter, one of the cats came out of the bean field one day and decided to adopt us, a few Leghorn chickens fell off the truck on its way to the "soup factory," and hey, my husband is 13 years older than me, ha ha! Hubby has a salvage business. He is living proof that one man's trash is another man's treasure. I think the only brand new thing in our farmhouse is the couch we bought after we got married.