Spring?

We all enjoyed a week of warm weather and spring like conditions (although we wouldn't mind a little rain with our sun). Everyday at Bluebird Farm we are doing spring activities from preparing for our first meat chicks of the season, to preparing soil for potatoes, to starting onion transplants in the greenhouse.

Seeds arrive!

Preparing for chicks.

They're here!

Preparing the potato beds.

The pigs would like to help drive.

Potato beds.

Spring means more eggs. And new eggs! The chicks we got in October laid their first egg today!

A watchful rooster.

We're looking forward to a great year with everyone. Check the blog and our website BluebirdFarmNC.com to stay up to date on farmers market openings and other spring happenings at Bluebird Farm.

May Newsletter

I started writing this newsletter under a leafy umbrella waiting out a few raindrops from a fickle little raincloud. I had just settled into the hammock in the shade for the first time this year. But those raindrops kept coming, and I am grateful for warm, gentle showers. I am especially thankful for the gentle showers that bring back the grass in the pastures without shredding the garden with wind and hail!

Our sheep love their grass!

The animals appreciate the showers too- no flies, nice cool grazing weather. After the hot April weather many of our laying hens decided to go “broody.” A broody hen’s wings droop and they cackle as they walk about with fluffed feathers, all while thinking about a private nest. We have about a dozen American and European heritage breeds of laying hens for the beautiful array of eggs you see at the markets- Barred Rocks, Marans, Silver Laced Wyandottes, Buff Orpingtons, White Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, New Hampshire Reds, Americanas, Lakenvelders, and Golden Campines- all beautiful breeds that thrive outdoors. Two Maran hens showed so much dedication to the nesting idea that we took them up to a private little chicken house where they could sit on a nest of a dozen eggs each without being disturbed. Just 21 days later and the hens have hatched out their little chicks. The fuzzy little ones follow their moms around as the hens cluck and scratch for food. After a break from laying, the laying hens have begun laying again (hooray) and I hope that future spells of hot weather won’t shut down everyone’s laying capabilities.

A mama hen and her day old chicks

As the nights continue to warm, it becomes Swiss chard season. With its beautiful stems of yellow, red, and green the Swiss chard lights up the garden as well as the kitchen. Swiss chard is a great substitute for spinach- it has a great flavor and is packed with nutrients. Chop and sauté the stems with onions and then add the chopped greens and cook like you would spinach. Another great addition to the vegetable fare is Bok Choy. This vegetable is also a beauty in the garden and it’s the ultimate stir-fry vegetable! Large, white stems add a sweet, juicy crunch to any meal. Cook with garlic, grated ginger, mushrooms, carrots, snap peas. Stir-fry the stems for 5 minutes, add the chopped leaves and wilt the leaves for 2 minutes.

Late spring greens-poc choi and cabbages

Warm weather also brings out the insect world. There is no better way to meet the six legged denizens of the world than by weeding a large vegetable field. After several hours on your hands and knees you begin to see the insect world around you. I have noticed, for example, that the lady bugs prefer hanging out on one particular weed over others. It makes me feel a little guilty ripping out their favorite habitat. Finding and destroying other bugs; however, brings no sense of guilt. Our worst so far this year is the Colorado potato beetle. The strikingly striped adults began appearing about a month ago. Since then we have surveyed the potatoes at least every three days to find all the adults, eggs, and larva and squish them. Save the potatoes! Using organic methods sometimes requires the laborious work of hand squishing something like potato beetles, but in the meantime we are able to enjoy all the benefits of friendly insects like predatory wasps and lady bugs that eat the aphids.

See you at the markets!

Up close and personal with a future stir-fry

Coming soon-summer crops like zucchini!

Spring!?

The Chickens are laying. Come on out to get eggs and pork.


First warm weather and now its cool, a regular foothills spring. The grass and the birds certainly thinks its spring though. We practically watched the grass turn greener overnight. Morning chores are now accompanied by the songs of carolina wrens, rufus sided towhees, carolina chickadees, and many others.

Yesterday we moved our meat chickens outside. They were leaping out of their brooder box and running around on the vegetable transplants. That cost them their greenhouse privileges. The great outdoors is a little colder, but they are happy with more space and wonderful grass to peck at.





Another big project has been to prepare the layer housing for spring. We had to figure out a lightweight system so they can be totally mobile. This will allow us to constantly move them around the farm for their benefit and our own. They always get fresh food while we use them to fertilize pasture, convert forest margins to grass, and clean up after the horse and the incoming sheep.




Today we were cleaning up last falls garden to prepare for spring vegetables. We will be planting spinach, kale, peas, lettuce, arugula, beets, and carrots any day now. Digging last fall's carrots was like finding buried treasure.

Apples, garlic, and chicks!

Our pigs got a special treat a few days ago! We were given a load of deer apples which the pigs have enjoyed immensely. Besides the taste, which they clearly enjoy, they roll the apples around with their noses.




Our garlic is growing well. The heavy morning dew has created some jewel bedecked leaves. We are all used to very uniform garlic in the store, but there are three different types and dozens of varieties of garlic all with unique growing properties
and flavors. Soft-neck garlic is the type most often sold in grocery stores. Soft-neck garlic can be braided into wonderful displays. The two other types are stiff-neck and elephant garlic. Stiff-neck varieties are more resilient to grow. Elephant garlic is not true garlic but a very strange leek. Consequently it has mild flavored large cloves. We are growing soft-neck and hard-neck varieties this fall. They have wonderful names like Chesnook red, Nootka Rose, and Music. We look forward to taste tests next year!


Our chicks have finally grown large enough to move to pasture. They were excited about the grass this morning. Our only problem with the move appeared tonight when I went to close them into the coop. The silly chicks don’t recognize the new coop as home yet, so they did not return as it grew dark. I had to collect little piles of chicks from around the pen to put them inside. They had just plopped down anywhere. Some adventurous birds were roosting on top of the coop-those were hard to reach.

October update

We have been busy here at the farm. Plants and animals have been growing over the last few weeks.



In the garden the cover crop is coming up. The mixture of grains, clovers, and peas will hold the soil, provide nitrogen, keep weeds from germinating, and add organic matter in the spring. The recent rain has helped the plants sprout to new heights!



The baby chicks continue to grow. We are letting them out of the coop now. Unfortunately, they are still small enough to squeeze through the holes in our electric fence. Many are so small that they don’t even notice they are walking through a barrier. So they exercise under our supervision and the watchful eye of Petunia the Great Pyrenees.



Petunia thoroughly enjoys watching animals of all kinds. She readily distinguishes between domestic and wild animals and has never attempted to chase a domestic animal. The chicks are wary of her, but don’t mind her presence-until she barks.