Day 246
One thing we enjoy more than giving treats to chickens is fall. There are many things about this season that makes it a personal favorite.
Baseball playoffs and football kickoffs.
The beginning of a new year in the classroom.
Oktoberfest beer.
Hooded sweatshirt and shorts weather.
Leaves changing colors.
Oktoberfest beer.
Halloween and horror movies.
Pumpkin-shaped peanut butter cups.
Did I mention Oktoberfest beer?
We love fall!
Fall on the farm is also a busy time.
In our restoration process, we are at a crucial decision-making stage when deciding next steps. Do we do another treatment to attack the invasive reed canary grass before it seeds or will winter's chill put them to sleep before the seeds fly? Do we spend time and energy mowing down other unwanted plants or is the timing of the first frost able to help us knock down their life cycle? Treating is bound to be helpful but is also expensive and might be unnecessary. Mowing can be beneficial but also potentially damaging to the growing and developing plants we want to stick around.
The chickens also undergo changes. While fall tends to be a time for their egg production to slow down, it is also a time where we transform from chicken caretakers to tricksters. Using solar lights and a string of holiday lights, we start extending the day artificially to convince the girls to keep laying their eggs as regularly as they can. We also have to be more careful with their watering and poop cleanup as freezing temperatures can make life a little more interesting.
By this point, the garden’s bountiful harvest is coming to a completion. We learned many lessons from our garden expansion. We may change plant locations and adjust the number of plants and type of plants next year now that we know just how successful our garden can be. While we love sharing the bounty with friends and family, we also want to make sure we can manage the garden more efficiently and effectively.
All this fall talk has got me hungry. Anyone have a pumpkin-shaped peanut butter cup? That will definitely make me thirsty. I’ll probably also need an Oktoberfest beer too.
