It's the last week in April, and we just made a fairly typical "early in the week" delivery of eggs (21 dozen, to be exact).
This week's donation did represent a bit of a milestone, however. Roughly 13 months ago, the pandemic hit, our local pantry significantly increased the number of days they were open, and we started counting the eggs we dropped off each week and posting the total on this site.
This week we crossed 500 dozen eggs donated. That's well over 6,000 individual eggs, each of which was harvested, washed (as needed), packed and delivered. That's a lot of work, but we're thrilled to be making an impact in our own small way.
The spring weather has been uneven at best so far, but as we hit May I expect we'll see warmer, dryer, and less windy weather starting to be the norm. That will set us up well for a few spring projects. While the bulk of "farm building" happened last year, there's always something that needs doing!
Project #1 is to install a gate and a bit more fence as another entryway into the run. This will allow us to leverage the coop we moved last year to make room for the composter. It will also give us easy access into the run (right now, we have some temporary fence in place), and add a little more run space. We have 16 more chicks showing up in June, so that project has to be complete in short order after they've arrived.
Project #2 is designed to keep the flock a bit more contained. The new breeds we got are good flyers, and have been jumping the fence to free range in the yard. In the interest of having a little grass, we'd like to contain them. This project will involve putting up some taller fence in places and clipping some wings to cut reduce the flocks ability to go airborne.
Project #3 is sourcing a significant amount of wood chips from a local tree service. Like, 10 to 20 yards worth. I'd like to put a nice, thick layer of wood chips over the entirety of the run, including the goat pen. This should help with moisture control, absorb manure, keep things generally cleaner, and help enrich the soil. I'll also use some of the wood chips in the compost, to give us an additional (and long lasting) carbon material. I'm hoping I can find a tree company willing to dump chips for free or at least inexpensively. The way our property is set up, I'll need to cart the wood chips one wheelbarrow at a time, so it'll be a LOT of work, for sure.
There are other things I'm hoping to get done, as well, such as a better roost setup in the big coop, a few more nesting boxes, and whatever else comes up organically...but just these should keep us plenty busy for a while.
It will be exciting to see the farm continue to grow and evolve this year!