Posted on by Crystal Sands · 1 Comment

On Crows: Are They Friend or Foe to Our Chickens

I have a bias when it comes to crows because I love them. They are quite loud, but they are so intelligent and interesting. I recently read a book to my youngest son about the crows in New Caledonia. Researchers have been studying those crows for quite a few years and discovered that these crows will not only make tools but will also teach their young about how to make tools. These crows are even adapting tool use over time. This is no small thing.

Some scientists now think that crows may be as intelligent as the great apes. They can problem solve and remember a lot, including our faces. When researchers in Washington state were studying ravens (also a member of the corvid family), the ravens remembered the researchers and would attack them when they came onto campus. The researchers ended up having to wear disguises when they came on campus in order to hide from the ravens–for years.

But what does this have to do with backyard chickens? It turns out that the intelligence—and feistiness—of crows can come in handy when keeping chickens.

I saw this for myself last summer.

If you keep chickens, you know how scary a hawk or eagle presence can be. We had a few close calls with our girls, especially before we got a rooster. In a couple of instances, I thought surely we had lost at least one of our girls, but we found them hiding later. We were lucky. I know many people who have lost chickens to birds of prey in our area. One morning, however, I saw something different.

Two crows had moved into the trees near our home a few weeks prior, and after hearing a loud commotion, we looked out our window into the chicken yard area to find two crows “mobbing” or attacking mid-air a hawk that was flying over our yard. The crows were loud and aggressive—and very handy, I thought.

Since I love crows anyway, I decided to take the crows some treats to thank them later. I saw the crows watching me, so I raised my hand to show them the bread and then sat it down at a tree near the woods. I went back in the house and watched. Sure enough, a few minutes later, they came for the bread.

Crow
photo credit: Pixabay public domain photo

And, in that one instance, they were trained. It became a habit for us until a couple more crows moved in, and all four crows spent the day arguing right outside our kitchen window. My husband told me the crow treats were going to have to stop. So I stopped. It was kind of loud out there.

I was worried the crows would leave. I needed them around to protect our chickens. Thankfully, they stayed, but they keep more of a distance now. I haven’t seen any more mobbing, but I do hear a commotion every now, which makes me think they are still patrolling the area.

I didn’t realize how common this behavior was until I read recently in a chicken discussion forum about chicken people who had their flocks protected by crows. Of course, the crows aren’t setting out to protect our chickens, but they are territorial and will do what they can to keep birds of prey out of their territories. So, if a crow lives near you, it’s like having an extra line of defense against birds of prey attacks.

Of course, it seems important to note that crows do pose some problems as well, and not all chicken owners appreciate crows. Apparently, crows will steal eggs if they have the chance and will even eat baby chickens. They don’t seem to bother full-grown chickens. But, as I learn more about bird diseases, I’m also thankful the crows aren’t quite so close to our chicken yard as they used to be. Like all wild birds, crows can carry diseases that could be harmful to your flock, though I haven’t heard of anything going around right now to cause alarm.

So, for now, I’m glad our crows are still around, and apparently, a lot of chicken people love their crows as well. For my research for this post, I read forum after forum of chicken people talking about the benefits of crows. They are excellent at patrolling an area, and people will use the crows as a warning system. If you hear the crows making a scene, it’s a good idea to go investigate. Many people who keep chickens consider crows beneficial guardians.

It also seems like a good idea to just take in the beauty of such an amazing animal. People used to think that birds couldn’t possibly be that intelligent because they had small brains. Now, we know for sure it’s not the size of a brain that matters. Crows are proof of that.

Posted on by Crystal Sands · 1 Comment

On Salmonella and Kissing Chickens (Fine. I’ll Stop.)

It’s spring and baby chicks are everywhere. You just have to visit your local farm or hardware store, and you’ll see those little cuties in the bins, peeping and pecking and jumping and being adorably tempting.

But there’s something important to keep in mind about those cute baby chickens.  A report was released last year from the CDC stating that salmonella cases from chicken kissing and snuggling, as well as from chickens living in our homes, is on the rise.

It’s a reality that people love chickens, and I know why. I love our girls. They’re funny, ornery, sweet, full of personality, and they give us delicious eggs. I mean, what’s not to love? I guess, however, it turns out that I may love our girls a little too much.

According to the Washington Post, the CDC says there was a rise in the number of poultry-associated salmonella outbreaks between 2005 and 2014, and this rise corresponds with the rise in the number of people who are keeping chickens. Yes, chickens are really popular, and it’s easy to see why. However, it seems we love our chickens a little too much.

According to the report, about 6 in 10 salmonella patients said they had been exposed to baby poultry, and of that number, 49 percent reported having been snuggling the baby birds, and 13 percent reported kissing the baby birds.

When I first read this study, I thought to myself, well, I’ve done a lot of snuggling with those baby birds, I guess. I’m sure giving hugs and holding babies kind of counts as snuggling. But, I don’t kiss our girls.

But then I remembered maybe giving a baby chick or two a kiss on the back of the head, but that doesn’t seem too bad, right?

Well, when I fessed up to my husband that I had given a few of the baby chicks a little kiss on the back of the head, he wisely pointed out that the babies step all over each other when they are running around, so there’s a chance there’s chicken poop germs even on the back of a baby chick’s head.

So there you go. I guess I’m going to have to quit kissing the baby chickens.

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Look at these cuties! They are so hard to resist!

But, I still love our girls, and I’ll never stop that. I’ll definitely cut out the kissing on the back of the head, but I might still have to give one of our girls a hug every now and then.

I’ll just wash up really, really well.

And the good news I gather from this CDC report is that Americans are not only keeping backyard chickens more and more, we really love our chickens.

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Here, my husband and youngest play with one of our ISA browns when she was a baby. We love our girls so much, and they have brought so much joy into our lives.

Every effort we make against factory farming is a good thing in my book. Happy eggs from happy chickens is a goal we should be aiming for. If you can’t keep chickens, there’s a good chance you know someone who does. Buy your eggs there. I’m glad we’re moving in this direction.

I guess we just need to stop kissing those baby birds.

Posted on by Crystal Sands · 2 Comments

On That Giant Chicken Video: Or Why I Need a Brahma Chicken

Because I’m the chicken lady among all of my Facebook friends, any time there’s a chicken story in the news or going viral, it’s shared on my Facebook wall, usually many times. The first time I saw the video of that giant chicken (see below), my first thought was “Oh, I want one.”

Apparently, this is not how many people feel about that giant chicken.

My friends were asking “What IS it?” And others on social media have been terrified that such a big chicken exists in the world. Then, I saw this headline stating that this big chicken was terrifying. I had no idea people could be so scared of a chicken, even a giant chicken like that.

But it turns out people sometimes have a lot of trauma related to chickens. I have to admit, when I was little, my great grandmother had chickens, and the first time she had me help her get eggs, her girls pecked me pretty good. A few weeks later, I came down with chicken pox, so, in my mind, my grandma’s chickens definitely gave me chicken pox. This made me a little scared of chickens.

And chickens are, after all, the closest living relatives to the Tyrannosaurs Rex, and, sometimes, I’m reminded of that. When my girls are going after some corn on the cob I’m sharing, I’m reminded that I never want to pass out in the chicken coop.

Still, people shouldn’t worry about this giant chicken. I can tell by the way this rooster in the video walks that he’s a pretty laid back boy. And that’s the thing. The chicken in the video is a Brahma, and Brahma’s are really cool chickens.

Here’s a little background on the Brahma to help those who are worried about that bird sleep a little better at night:

  • People think the breed originated in the United States from chickens in China in the middle of the 1800s. It was originally a meat bird, so the breed was continually bred for size. That’s how you get such a big bird.
  • Brahmas are great layers, and they lay very large brown eggs.
  • And here’s the most important information: Brahmas are known for having a calm temperament. They are known for being gentle giants.
    I’m sure chicken people can tell by the way that big boy in the video walks that he’s a pretty calm bird. He’s large, beautiful, and not out to hurt anyone.

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There are some other really large breeds of chickens. The Jersey Giant can be even larger than the Brahma, so let’s just let that set in. But Jersey Giants are also known for being really sweet chickens.

It seems important to remember that breeders of chickens over the last few hundred years were, of course, being practical when they bred chickens. The big ones needed to be sweet. You don’t want a giant angry bird attacking you every time you have to collect eggs. It’s just not practical.

So don’t worry about that giant chicken. He’s probably a real sweetheart, and writing this post reminds me: I so want one!

Posted on by Crystal Sands · 5 Comments

On Chickens: Are They the Gateway Farm Animal?

I’m just going to go ahead and answer the question of my title right away: The answer is yes. It’s my belief that chickens are, indeed, the gateway farm animal. Right now, all we have on our little backyard farm is chickens, but I’ve got goat fever in a big way. Goats are next.

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But it’s my chickens’ fault that I have a need to add to our farm animals, to add to my reasons that I will never, ever sleep late again as long as I live or have to shovel snow out of the chicken run and put down leaves saved from the fall so that the girls who are afraid of touching the snow will have a place to put their cute little feet. I know it’s going to snow again tomorrow, but those babies can’t stay cooped up all day!

But I enjoy every minute of it deep down. Our chickens have been amazing little animals that we let into our lives, and I’m so thankful for them.

Our chickens have been great layers and great friends. They give us breakfast, as well as loads of entertainment and joy. I even enjoy cleaning out their coop. I know it’s going to make their little days to have all that fresh straw to play in, and I lost my sense of smell, so I can’t even smell their poop. I was meant to be a farmer of some kind, right?

I’m not alone in my love for chickens. Backyard chickens are wildly popular in the United States as more Americans work to be more self sufficient and raise their own food. A recent study for the U.S. Department of Agriculture documented the popularity and attitudes toward keeping chickens and estimated a 400% growth in backyard coops in the next five years.

So, since it’s quite evident that chickens are awesome, it’s easy to see how one thing can lead to another, and the next thing you know, you’re thinking, “I wonder how tough it would be to raise goats, milk them, make goat cheese.” It’s well known among the chicken community that keeping backyard chickens leads to more and more and more chickens for many, but it also leads to ideas about different animals.

Before we got our backyard flock, I watched this video and thought surely this was an exaggeration. Nearly two years into raising chickens, I realize this video is exactly right. This woman knows the danger of keeping backyard chickens—you’re going to love them WAY too much.

Now, I want to go to goat school. I love goat milk. And we really need some bees one day. And maybe a pig. I think my husband is a little worried about me, but I’m thinking this is all a good thing. Well, maybe. I definitely have way more pictures of my chickens than my kids on my phone.

So what do you think? Are backyard chickens the gateway farm animal?

Posted on by Crystal Sands

On Preparing to Get Your First Backyard Chickens

Chickens are awesome. They just are.

And, as more people begin to figure this out, the word is spreading. I know many people who are considering backyard homesteading and want to start with chickens, and with good reason. Chickens are great producers of food, highly efficient, relatively easy to care for, sweet, interesting, smart, funny, and quirky. They’re a good homesteading animal to start with.

I dreamed of having our own chickens for years before we finally had a place where we could give them a nice coop, plenty of space, and would have the time to care for them. And, when we did get our chickens, it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with them.

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This is Guiniveve, and she has more personality than I thought a chicken could have. She’s also a great layer and just a sweet hen.

We started with 17 Rhode Island Reds, and I loved those girls from the start. They were my babies, and they changed my life. But I won’t go on and on here about how much I love my chickens or how much they have taught me; I want to focus this post on helping you answer this question:

What happens when you finally decide you can get those backyard chickens you’ve been thinking about?

I learned fairly quickly that, while chickens really are relatively easy to take care of, there’s a lot than can go wrong. So you have to be prepared going in. Preparedness is going to be especially helpful if you find that you love the little girls like I do and can’t bear the thought of losing one.

And, I’m just going to assume right now, if you get chickens, you will love them and want to learn as much as you can about them because, well, you’re probably just going to love them.

With that in mind, here’s a list of 5 tips I have for being prepared to get chickens for your backyard homestead.

Do some research about keeping chickens with good books and sites.

I’m a slow mover, so I read books and sites for about two years before we finally got our girls, but I think that’s probably a little overboard. Still, I recommend going to this site, Fresh Eggs Daily, and reading every single link on caring for chickens. The site is awesome, and Lisa Steele really knows her stuff. Her advice has saved more than one of my girls, and I am forever thankful! You can also order some helpful books here.

You should also check out these helpful resources from your local university extension office. The University of Maine Cooperative Extension office here in Maine provides a number of helpful publications on chickens as well as a number of web resources on everything from selling eggs to chicken nutrition.

Give them a home safe from predators.

Thanks to our neighbors who already had chickens, I learned about the high number of predators in our area. While it helped that my husband had grown up with chickens, I think having an awareness of the types of predators in our area also helped us make good decisions about the chicken coop.

We decided to keep it as close to the house as possible. This makes daily chicken chores easier, but it also adds protection. I have seen coops out near the woods, and those people tend to lose a lot of chickens.

Keep your coop close if you can, and having dogs around seems to help a lot. Make sure your coop is sturdy and can be closed up at night. There are just too many predators that can get at your chickens at night.

We also have two roosters, and they really do seem to help guard the flock. There are pros and cons to roosters, though, and one of them is the crowing. I like the crowing, but you should check to see if roosters are allowed in your area. Some towns will allow hens but not roosters.

Consider breed and number.

You want to consider climate, temperament, your space, and your goals as a chicken farmer when you’re choosing your choosing breed and making decisions on how many chickens you’ll get. We wanted a smart breed that was winter hardy and great layers, so we chose Rhode Island Reds for our first hens. They have been wonderful! But there are other breeds that work very well in Maine.

Here’s a link from The Livestock Conservancy that will let you download a chicken breed comparison chart. But you should also ask around; ask friends and neighbors for their experiences and recommendations.

Be aware you will have chores.

So, yeah, chickens are easy farm animals to care for, but they’re still work. As you do your research, you’ll find this out, which is why that research is so important. Chickens need fresh water every day and clean food and clean facilities. This means you will have some daily chores, which can feel a little tougher in the winter. We also shovel a run for our chickens in the winter, so it adds to my husband’s snow shoveling duties.

You’ll also need to do health inspections on your chickens to make sure all is well. But I’ve found that, if you spoil your chickens, the health inspections are easier. They don’t run too much when you try to catch them and don’t make too much of a fuss as you are investigating vents, legs, eyes, feathers, etc.

Get connected to chicken communities.

I’ve found that being connected to some excellent chicken communities has been so helpful. If I’m having a health issue with a chicken that I just can’t figure out or I’m just worried about, I can post a picture and description to the Maine Poultry Connection, a Facebook group, and get tons of help and advice. I’ve also learned so much by just following the threads and reading. There are MANY chicken communities online, and you’re likely to be able to find a community particular to your state on Facebook.

There’s a lot to consider, but I found that, once you’ve done your research and done your best to be prepared, don’t be afraid to just dive right in. There’s a lot that we’ve learned along the way and things I couldn’t have been prepared for, like the time I was running around the yard trying to shoo away a hawk or the way my girls stole my heart.

Once you’ve made your decision and are ready to purchase, I recommend purchasing local if you can, but you can purchase from national hatcheries. Just be aware that some post offices seem to be more prepared for handling boxes of live chickens than others. Ours is great, but I’ve heard stories about boxes of chickens arriving without many survivors. So local purchases are really a good way to go if you can.

I wish you the best with your backyard flock, and I hope they bring you as much joy and breakfasts as our girls have brought our family!

Posted on by Crystal Sands · 2 Comments

On the Year of the Rooster

Chinese New Year is coming, and it’s the year of the rooster! This is going to mean a lot to my fellow chicken friends.

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Photo credit: Paulo Morales, Unsplash

I would love to sit here and pretend I’m this cultured person who has traveled the world and fully appreciates all the beautiful cultures our big world has to offer, but the truth is that this is just what I aspire to be. So I, shameful as it is to admit, originally grew excited about the Chinese New Year because it’s the year of the rooster—and, well, if you’ve read my blog before, you know I love all things chicken.

Now, I really was always pretty interested in the Chinese New Year anyway. As I said, I aspire to be more cultured and learn more about the world, but I never took the time to dig into the history behind this lovely holiday. Then, when I saw it was the year of the rooster, I was super excited about the holiday. Shallow, I know.

But somewhere along the lines, in my daily self analysis, I realized I should research the holiday and use this opportunity to teach my son and myself a little about Chinese culture.

Before I developed this plan to learn more, my knowledge of the Chinese New Year was limited to having some fascination with Chinese astrology and finding out that I was born in the year of the rabbit. According to what I’ve read, this means I am cautious, patient, quiet, kind of a worrier, and also stubborn and melancholy. I’m like, yeah, that about sums it up. I like this stuff!

But I never really investigated the history of the holiday—until the rooster.

And what I learned with my son has us both excited to learn so much more about this holiday.

  • The Chinese New Year celebration is thousands of years old. It’s so old, there is some debate, apparently, about when it started. It’s the most important festival in Chinese culture.
  • The myth behind the holiday is that, long ago, a monster named Nian (which also means year) would come on the first day of the year and eat the crops and the livestock. But the people learned that Nian was afraid of red and loud noises, so people started decorating their homes in red and using fireworks to keep Nian away. Since the Chinese invented fireworks, this makes sense.
  • The celebration lasts 15 days, and people celebrate with fireworks, costumes, parades, and people give gifts of money in red envelopes. We learned that the money gifts should be in even numbers, and it’s considered rude to open your red envelope in front of the giver.

Of course, this is just a bit about the holiday, and it’s a fascinating event. Thankfully, here in Bangor, we’re going to be able to expand our learning about Chinese New Year this weekend. There’s a Chinese New Year parade at our local mall, and I encourage you to check in your area, as, chances are, there’s something fun and educational going on.

I have a lot more to learn, but I’m going to keep at it. My curiosity has been sparked, and my son’s has been as well. We’re headed to the library to pick up some books, and in addition to attending our local parade, we’ll be having Chinese food on Saturday.

You can read more about the history of this holiday here, and you can learn about your Chinese astrology sign here. It’s fascinating!

Also, I’ll confess, I will be taking advantage of this opportunity to get some rooster gear. I already found some flour sack dish towels with red roosters on them. My frugality goals went out the door, but I’m giving myself a pass. I mean, really…

It’s the year of the rooster!

Posted on by Crystal Sands · 2 Comments

On Making the Most of Your Corn Crop

This year, we purchased some heirloom corn seeds in the hope of seed saving the corn this year. Last year, we planted a hybrid corn. It was delicious and grew well, but when we learned you can never repeat with a hybrid corn because you never know what will crop up, we decided to be done with hybrid seeds.

So with frugality in my heart and heirloom seeds in my pocket, we planted and grew a humble but still absolutely delicious heirloom corn.

We were worried about it for a bit. Well, my husband was worried. The corn ears were slow to grow, and it was getting late in the season. We had beautiful, giant corn stalks and not much in the ways of ears. My husband had watered extensively with “duck water,” so the corn had plenty of nitrogen, but he was really worried about the lack of ears.

I, however, was not so worried. Forever the optimist, I had a talk with the corn and asked the plants to please get busy and make some ears. I don’t know if it was that talk or just time, but those beautiful stalks began to produce many, many beautiful ears of corn!

After two weeks of eating corn almost every night for dinner, we realized we had better do some corn saving. We decided we would freeze our corn, so the following tips will be helpful if you go that direction. But I also have tips for seed saving and, well, just really making the most of your corn crop from top to bottom.

I mean, waste not want not, right?

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Here, the beautiful corn is drying after my husband blanched it.

Freezing

  1. After you pick and husk the corn, you need to blanch it before you can freeze it.
  1. Boil water in a large pot and place the corn cobs in the pot for 5 to 6 minutes.
  1. Remove the corn and place into ice water for 2 to 3 minutes.
  1. Let the corn dry and get your freezer bags ready for storage.
  1. Using a knife or corn scraper (one of these gadgets is totally on my wish list), scrape the corn from the cobs. Place the corn in your freezer baggies and save.

Seed Saving

If you’re using heirloom seeds and want to save the seeds, you’ll need to leave several cobs on your stalks.

  1. Leave the corn cobs there for about a month, though they will need to be picked before the first freeze (so watch the weather).
  1. After picking the cobs, pull back the husks to expose the corn. You can braid the husks together to create a little group of corn.
  1. Hang the cobs to dry fully.
  1. Once the seeds are completely dry, you can remove them and then store them in a cool, dry place.

You are then set for planting next spring. I read that corn seeds can last 5 to 10 years if stored properly. That seems pretty amazing!

Sharing Leftovers

Before you throw away the corn cobs, which will surely have little bits of corn left on them, especially if you used a knife to scrape the corn cobs like we did, think if the chickens. If you have chickens or ducks, they will be in heaven with the leftover corn. If you don’t, ask your neighbors. You will be making some chickens’ days by sharing your leftovers. Trust me.

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The girls were given 70 leftover ears of corn, and I have never seen them so happy. No sharing! Everybody could have their own piece–and then some.

Decorating

But corn is so awesome that there’s more you can do with it. Cut down your empty stalks (the ones not saving any cobs for seed saving) and decorate your front door or yard for Halloween in style and for free.

If you have more tips on making the most of your corn crop, please share below. I don’t know how to can yet, so if you have some tips or links to share, they would be great. Also, I have seen people used dried cobs to make lots of cool fall decorations. Please share your ideas below. Corn is pretty darn awesome!

Posted on by Crystal Sands · 2 Comments

On the One Bad Day: Processing Chickens

I’ve tried three times in my life to be a vegetarian. The longest I ever made it without eating meat was about 9 months. One day, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I went to a local burger joint and scarfed a giant cheeseburger. It was so good, and though I felt quite guilty, I decided that this would be the last time I tried to be a vegetarian. I’m just a darn omnivore, I suppose.

The reason I wanted to become a vegetarian is pretty simple: I love animals and didn’t want to eat them. Even now, ten years after my last attempt at becoming a vegetarian, part of me doesn’t want to eat animals, and that’s making this weekend an extra difficult one for this wannabe chicken farmer.

Earlier this summer, my husband and I purchased some broiler chickens as a part of our efforts to become more self-sufficient and frugal. We didn’t purchase the Cornish Cross chickens because they seem to have a lot of problems related to growing too quickly. We wanted a bird that could get around and have a good life—right up until his or her “one bad day.”

So we purchased some Freedom Ranger chicks and have had good luck. They take longer to develop than the Cornish Crosses, so they are not as much of a cost-saver. However, according to some experts, the meat tastes better because they can live a natural chicken life. We’ve not lost any birds to health issues or predators, and, well, unless something happens today, we’ll have had success in raising them.

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This is the biggest rooster of the Freedom Ranger bunch, and he’s pretty magnificent and only a couple months old. I’m convinced he’s looking at me here like he knows what’s up.

Tomorrow is their “one bad day.”

My husband and I picked up this expression after watching a Michael Pollan documentary. In the film, a pig farmer discussed her struggles killing her pigs that she has cared for so much. She admitted to having a hard time, but she focused on making the pigs’ lives really good ones so that they just had “one bad day,” the day of their deaths.

This seemed profound to me, and my husband and I have made this our focus. We have worked to make sure they have had good lives.

The birds we have are pretty tame and curious and busy, and they also learned quickly how to get what they want from me and my husband, especially my husband.

As an aside, in an effort to protect me, my husband has done most of the raising of the broilers. I mostly handle the layers; they get to be my babies. And my husband mostly handles the birds for meat.

So my husband, who is definitely a believer in the good life until the “one bad day,” has taken those chickens more scones than I can count and has ensured they’re never without fresh food, water, and a clean place to live and play.

But, this weekend, the “one bad day” is upon us, and there’s definitely a tension in the air.

When we first decided we wanted to be hobby farmers, I did a lot of reading about farmers who love animals, eat meat, and struggle emotionally with the killing of their animals. It seems it’s quite common for the dread to creep in the days before “processing.” That’s where we are. Tomorrow is the day.

My husband says I don’t have to help, but I want to. First of all, it’s a lot of work, and this whole “self-sufficient farm thing” was my idea too. I don’t work outside the home as much as I used to, not nearly so much, so I do see the work on our hobby farm as my responsibility as well. But, second, it feels important to me. I feel like I should mourn those birds. I feel like I should have to know where my dinner is coming from and what the costs of it are.

I don’t know how much I’ll be able to write about it. I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to be the blogger who provides the step-by-step support for the process, as some helpful bloggers do—at least not for some time. But I hope to share what it feels like emotionally, and I do hope to be able to share some tips about things people can do to ensure a humane death for their chickens. We have done a lot of research. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.

If nothing else, a goal I have for my writing is to help raise awareness about our food we eat. It’s way too easy not to think about where our food comes from. I think we should have to think about it, at least some. I think we should give thanks to the animals.

And we’ll see how I do with this. This time next week, I may be on another quest to become a vegetarian. I really hope not.

One day last week, a little girl from our neighborhood was at our house playing with our youngest son when she saw the coop for the broilers and asked why it was smaller. “How will they have room to lay eggs?” she asked. I told her that these birds would never lay eggs, that they were for meat. I worried about how she might take it.

“It’s a little sad, yes?” I asked her.

“It is,” she said, “but at least you’ll have food.”

Wise words.

Posted on by Crystal Sands · 4 Comments

On Introductions

When I turned 40 last year, I made a promise to myself to change my life, but I’m not generally the kind of person who takes risks or makes big changes. I’m generally a “play it very safe” kind of gal. Still, I knew I was unhappy with my life because I was working long hours and missing my family much too much. I had been dreaming of a different life for years—a life with a hobby farm, chickens, goats, knitting, writing, and working much less. I wanted a simpler life, but as so many others have found as well, sometimes, finding simplicity can feel pretty complicated.

I had been a writing professor in an academic setting in one form or another since I turned 22 and began teaching writing to first-year college writers. Academia had been all I had known, and despite low pay and long hours in many positions, I had worked my way up to a mid-level administrative position, which still involved long hours but actually had middle-class pay to go with all that work. Even though I was unhappy with my life, it was difficult to make a change. My husband had also been working long hours to get our dream hobby farm started, so the income thing was up to me. With our two boys to think about, making a change seemed so difficult, and unlike some who find a simple life after losing a job or experiencing a major life event, if I wanted this change, I was going to have to initiate it. It felt risky, maybe foolish. I had a career that was on the upswing. Did I want to give it up voluntarily?

Changing my life would mean really changing my life. As a family, we would have to learn to live much more frugally. My plan, my dream, was to work a few part-time teaching and consulting jobs and just enough to pay our bills and put a little back for savings. My plan was to follow Thoreau’s words of wisdom and work only as much as was needed for the things I really needed to have. His words, “The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run” were of utmost importance to me as I considered my life changes. I have never been afraid of good, hard work, but the stress of academia, the egos, and the politics were tough on me. I wanted my work to feel valuable to me; I wanted to work on our hobby farm helping my husband grow food and raise animals. But there was a part of me that kept telling myself it was just a dream, that people only managed to change their lives in such a way in the books and blogs I read.

And then my husband took the big step and ordered our chickens. I think he may have known that he was giving me my push I needed. He’s very wise, but I didn’t know how big this was going to be at the time he placed the order. Still, after three years of researching chickens, reading about chickens, being jealous of anyone and everyone with chickens, I was finally going to get my own girls. We wanted to start with 12 but were worried we might lose some, so we ordered 15 babies. It took a few weeks for the girls to arrive in the mail, and on a beautiful June morning in Maine, I received a call from the local post office that I could pick up our baby chicks at the back door before 7:00 AM. My husband was busy readying the chicks’ new home, so I made the drive to the post office.

I stood at the back door and knocked. When a woman came to the door, I told her I was there for a box of baby chicks. She asked my name and then disappeared behind the post office door. She reappeared a few minutes later with a box much smaller than I had anticipated, and that box was cheeping loudly. I loved those chicks before I could even see them. I loved how they sounded. As I carried the girls to the car, I spoke through the holes in the box. “Hi, babies, I am your mama, and everything is going to be alright.”

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Our girls in the warming light during their first week. Love!

There are some major milestones in my life, and, as crazy as it sounds, getting our chicks was a milestone for me. In the days after we brought the girls home, I gave notice at my job and set out to change my life. Our “chicky girls,” as I often refer to them, reminded me of what was important in a way that is hard to explain, but they reminded me that the love in my life was more important than money and work and that I needed to make some changes to better enjoy all of the amazing love I have—love for my husband, my boys, my friends, our animals, and all of the beauty in the world.

This blog is meant to serve as a forum for me to tell of my experiences related to changing my life and my life after making the change—working less, loving more, raising animals, growing food, and living frugally, simply, and self-sufficiently. And, perhaps most importantly, taking time to enjoy the small but best things in life.