Vaughnshire Farm

We had a surprise when we arrived home after being gone last weekend.  The hen that has been sitting on a nest of eggs hatched out two more chicks.  We were all shocked because of the time between the chicks hatching has been spread out well over a week (about 10 days actually).  We were giving up on the eggs hatching.  There are still a few more eggs, so we will just wait and see what happens this week. 

one of the new baby chicks

Thanks to some friends of ours who led us to a little book store in Alabama, we came home with some very inspiring, great books. 

One of the things we as a family feel is very important is building a library of great books including old books.  We found a lot of old books that Solid Ground had republished as well as some other older books from other publishers. 

We will be posting some book reviews very soon…. 

If you are in the area, you should check them out…or visit them at their website. 

We just returned from a wonderful weekend in Alabama to attend a wedding.  It was a beautiful time rejoicing with our friends. 

I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed at the awesomeness, depth and enormity of covenant marriage and what it means not only to the body of Christ, but what it means to bringing about cultural reformation in a land that has so far strayed from the Word of God. 

This wedding was a beautiful reminder of the picture of Godly manhood and Godly womanhood being united together as one, to bring Glory to God and be that representative picture here on earth of Christ and His church. 

It was a beautiful weekend remembering our own wedding vows and being overwhelmed at God’s grace and leading in our family. 

May we see more and more of these covenant, dominion minded, God honoring weddings in the future!  It was so wonderful and refreshing! 

To God be all glory and honor for what He has done. 

This week we have posted a lot of farm related material…that would be because it’s early spring (as of today) and there are a ton of things to do around a farm during “planting season”.  As one of my younger children recently lamented, “If only we had more children…we could have more help…” 

Today was a beyond gorgeous day.  I sat in a lawn chair out by the garden and gave directions on what I wanted done. We had cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, potatoes and onions to get in the ground.  By the days end, they had the garden planted with plants and had posted the poultry netting around the garden.   The garden would have been gone by morning if we didn’t do something quick because the chickens spotted the fresh young plants and started eating them. 

The boys also repaired the disconnected spring pipe.  Water was gushing out of the pipe into the creek (it is supposed to be connected to another pipe running into our spring tank).  The pipe was disconnected because of the amount of water and debris that rushed through the creek yesterday with all of our rain.  The boys cleared the debris and reconnected the pipe.  All is well. 

The cows and goats were also moved over into a different section of the pasture.  They enjoyed having fresh green grass as they had been grazing in another section for several weeks. 

So far the mother hen hatched out 3 chicks:  one died, two are doing great.  We aren’t sure why the other eggs have not hatched. 

This week, my husband and the boys also started taking out one of the driveways so we can run a fence across the front of the house.  They worked on clearing brush, filling in other parts of the land with fill dirt, leveling out other parts.  This is a huge project in the works. 

That’s all the farm updates.

What a year we have had here on the farm…a year of extremes for sure; perfect for breaking in first time country folk.  We have been having a wonderful season of rain.  It feels like Tennessee again.  After the unusual drought this summer, our thoughts of thankfulness for the rain are still fresh and new. 

The kids enjoyed some of that water today as they “accidentally” got wet while playing near the creek.  It wasn’t a warm day by any means either, so after I worried enough about them catching pneumonia, I called them inside to get dry.  With all of this rain, we hope our garden will grow abundantly—that is when we get around to planting it.   

My husband regularly discusses entrepreneurship, business, income and work with our sons.  They are being encouraged to dream up business ideas, work out figures and numbers and jump at opportunities that come along–now while they are young.  One of our sons has been churning over getting an egg business up and going.  With owners of restaurants already talking to him about his eggs, that has been pure motivation for him to really kick his business plan into high gear. 

Last week he spent a lot of time building…building a chicken tractor for his Rhode Island Red chicks that he bought last month.  We have gone from a having a few chickens, to having almost 70 chickens and he is wanting to buy more. 

He is currently thinking up egg-mobile ideas for when these chicks are laying.  He keeps his eyes out for potential egg-mobiles….things like old wagons or old trailer beds….you know—junk—that he can turn into a mobile chicken laying house to “beautify” our field with. 

With spring comes an increase in the amount of things to do around here on the farm as well.  The boys have all kinds of baby, toddler and laying chickens to manage and are scurrying around trying to put together plans for an egg-mobile.  We also just acquired a new pig.  I am not sure how old she is.  And then there is the garden…awaiting…  We have plants ready to be transplanted and seeds to sow.  We are waiting on a nice day without wind gusts and rain.  The guys have been doing their own spring projects like clearing brush, limbs and gathering compost piles. 

Cutting tree limbs

Part of our spring cleaning included me putting an ad on Craig’s list for our massive rooster population.  They were all gone the next day!  Wow…what a difference that makes.  We would have prepared them for the freezer, but circumstances with work and activities did not permit a chicken processing day. 

I still have a huge list of spring cleaning “to do’s” pertaining to the house that I will hopefully get around to doing. 

After the baby brooder, the boys moved the chicks into the “chick nursery”.  It is a small, wooden pen that the chicks go to after they outgrow the brooder. 

We quickly have to figure out several other larger egg-mobile ideas to be put in the pasture before they are laying. 

For 3 weeks, our oldest son has been vigilantly watching his broody hen and awaiting the arrival of her chicks.  ( I posted exactly 3 weeks ago today commenting on the broody hen after our son informed us of his suspicions. )

I have to admit that I was very skeptical about the whole “hens-hatching-their-own-chicks” life cycle.  After all, it had been very cold and she had several days where she was kicked off her nest by another bossy hen trying to take over.  How could chicks hatch out of circumstances not “controlled” and ideal? 

God has a unique design and role even for barn yard chickens and we were very excited today as we were able to see His design in our broody hen hatching out her own chicks.  The whole family heard the exciting news this afternoon as our son came in to announce, “Fluffy Feet has chicks under her!”

And to think…all that excitement over chickens! 

Several weeks ago, we ordered our garden seeds from Seed Savers Exchange.  You can check out their website and order a free catalog which contains beautiful pictures of all kinds of beautiful fruits and vegetables and herbs. 

Our seeds arrived, and several children prepared the seed trays.  Once everything was ready, we started planting some seeds to hopefully get a bit of a head start this year.  Next year, we will start earlier!  We were thrilled to wake up one morning, a few days later, and see our little seeds sprouting already!

With the ever increasing amount of food we go through and the cost of feeding a large family with health in mind–having a large productive garden is really going to be a huge blessing if we can pull it off!    We will see how it works out, being that mom will not be able to be head gardener this year due to her being very great with child.