Spiked M Ranch

Last weekend was HOT! Ryan worked, so I was in charge of making sure the animals had water to get them through the sweltering heat. They all did really well, and we made it through unscathed.

Here’s what we’ve been up to!

• We moved the 3rd batch of broilers out to the pasture. Actually, Ryan and Atlas moved them while I stayed home to plant beets with Anne. Atlas even got into the back of the truck and picked some of the birds up to hand to Ryan!
• The 1st batch is processed and sold. You can read all about that in Thoughts on the First Chicken Processing of the Summer.
• The 2nd batch will be processed next week. We’re going to try to get our processing time down to about 5.5 hours instead of 6.5. I really like systems and processes, so I like figuring out ways to be more efficient.
• We got the rest of the garden planted last week. To be fair, Ryan did most of it, but I planted the beets! Seeds fascinate me. I’ll do a post soon on my fascination with seeds and all they contain. Atlas was moving the chickens with Ryan, so Anne got to hang out with me and take a nap in the stroller.
• Along with the hot weather, we got a lot of rain, so lots of our vegetables are starting to come in really well…but so are the weeds. Our goal this week is to get out to the garden and get rid of the weeds.
• It doesn’t look like a lot of my cut flower seeds germinated, so I’m deciding whether or not to replant or just go with what comes up. Some of the seeds were supposed to be started and then transplanted, but I ended up direct seeding, so I may have learned a lesson there. A lot of the zinnias and sunflowers and cosmos have popped up, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the others will as well.
• The pigs are finally out to pasture. The last two years, the pigs were eager to get out into the pasture and root around, but these needed a little coaxing to leave the pig shed. So now they’re out enjoying the grass and sunshine.
• Ryan moved the layers down to the same pasture as the chickens. We had them in a different pasture last year, so we had the whole broiler pasture available as we figured out how to move them efficiently. Now, the layers, broilers, and lambs are all in the same place which makes chores go a little faster.
• The lambs are doing well and enjoy moving to fresh grass everyday. They’ve been coming up to me to let me pet them and take their picture.