After what seemed like several months, we now have turkeys. We drove up to Nature's Harmony farm in Elberton and picked up 21 Bourbon Red Heritage turkeys. We decided, after hearing that Tim from Nature's Harmony farm would have some poults for us, to cancel our order from the hatchery and purchase the poults he had.
Tim and his wife Liz have been growing the heritage breed turkeys for a few years now and built up a healthy breed stock that is disease resistant. That is important to us, being a relatively new farm, to have a healthy breed stock to move forward with. These little guys are so much more personable than chickens and just seemed so vigorous once we let them out into their brooder box.
At one point yesterday afternoon, Nicole and I sat down (yes, actually with a chair in a resting position) and watched these little guys playing around in the brooder box. I pulled a few clover flowers out of the backyard and dangled them, one at a time, in front of the poults. (Video is on our 180 Degree Farm Facebook page) They went nuts over the flowers and were fighting me for clover flower supremacy. That, to me is a great time. I know, really! But that is fun for us. It is peaceful and all of the drama plays out below with a happy ending.
Busy, Busy, Busy....
This weekend seemed like a whirlwind of intense labor and long hours. Saturday, we got up early and headed to the farm to move the sheep and chickens, till, weed and plant in the scorching heat. I kept looking for rain or at least cloud cover and it seemed to be everywhere but where we were working. My mother and father in-law came to help with the morning chores and it ended up being an all day affair. We were pretty much all dead tired by the time we left. We are very fortunate to have such great support from them.
Over the next few weeks we will be building a free range turkey tractor to get our new residents ready for the pasture. Again, this seems like a repeat of last week, and the week before that and so on... On top of all of that, our first CSA pick up is tomorrow, we still need to finish the tomato trellis and we have to figure out a solution for separating the rams from the herd.
As far as the CSA goes, we can't wait to meet our new customers. This has been a long time coming and we are very excited about making strong relationships moving forward. Our hearts are really into making this a great experience all the way around, for our customers and for us. Here's to tomorrow!
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