Chickens Archives

A Fair First Timer and Avian Flu Facts

August 26, 2015 by theblogbloom.com 17 Comments

Thanks to Indiana Family of Farmer’s, I attended the Indiana State Fair this August. It was my first State Fair experience ever and it was great. The day I visited it was Blogger Day, so it was a fun morning catching up with other Indiana Bloggers and getting a tour of some of the fair’s highlights.

One of the biggest surprises was just how educational the fair really is.

Prior to my visit, I had visions of Ferris wheels and funnel cakes. And while those were there, so were great exhibits designed to “lift the veil off” farming.

In this day and age when transparency is desired, particularly with the food we eat, the fair is a great place to come to find answers. I loved the message of The Glass Barn, put on by Indiana Soybean Alliance, and I really enjoyed their featured stories of Indiana farming families. Another exhibit, called Amazing Maize, shared the story corn, how it is farmed and it’s impact on the economy in Indiana.

My next surprise was that the fair is huge!

If you really wanted to see everything at the fair you would have to visit a couple times during it’s run.

Fortunately for me, Indiana Soybean Alliance’s Intern and a native of my new, little town, Lauren offered to take me around via golf cart. (… Not the best choice considering the large vanilla milkshake I ~~downed~~ enjoyed at the Dairy Bar. But, hey… It’s only your first time at the fair once!)

I told her that I was interested in seeing the 4-H projects. Lauren so kindly took me through the buildings holding the impressive, award winning projects for sewing, cake decorating, photography and more. Lauren, a 4-H vet, explained how things were judged and what each ribbon meant. She also told me that later that evening there would be the Grand Drive showcasing the champion livestock of the fair. Lauren mentioned that being a part of the Grand Drive is a huge honor to any 4-H kid who shows animals.

We swung by the livestock barns to see the prep for the evening’s event. The cattle barn was bustling with young kids in their best boots and jeans tending to their animals.

In the poultry barn came my next surprise.

… There wasn’t any poultry.

Rows and rows of cages sat empty in the large barn.

Instead, members of the Indiana Board of Animal Health were in the barn explaining that because of the threat of Avian Influenza chickens and turkeys were not present at this year’s fair.

Since the start of 2015, there have been cases of Avian Flu across California and into middle America states that has lead to the need to euthanize millions of birds.

While there has not been a concern with birds in the state of Indiana, the Board of Animal Health felt it was best to not have poultry at the fair due to fact that this strain of flu can spread quickly.

The board members were honest and said that of course many of the young competitors were sad, but they felt that this was very important and the best precaution.

Fortunately for us mammals, humans are not effected by this strain of flu because of the number of proteins in the virus, so eating eggs prepared with good cooking practices not dangerous. The birds can only spread the virus to other birds, including wild birds such as geese, making things much harder to control. This is why taking the precautions this summer at the fair was so important.

The Indiana Board of Animal Health shared that they are working with a couple other organizations in the state, such as Purdue University to keep backyard and commercial birds safe. Conservation groups have been working with wild flocks of birds all summer to check them for the virus as well. So far, nothing has been found in wild birds in Indiana.

Nor has the virus been found in any commercial or backyard birds; but, there has been one case that caused a need for investigation. The Board of Animal Health members shared a story of a small community where a chicken owner had concerns about two birds brought into their flock from a recent auction purchase. Anyone with turkeys or chickens within a radius of this flock had to be checked out and be clear of any signs of the virus.

For farmer’s who sell chicken eggs, the flu can have a significant financial impact. But, it’s not just with commercial farmer’s that the board felt that they needed to show sympathy. When working with the families who have backyard hens they found that these birds were more like pets and the potential need to euthanize, even if it’s just a chance, is incredibly difficult for these families.

I thought of my own flock of birds and how crushing this could be. In that moment, I was very appreciative of the actions of the Board of Animal Health in keeping Indiana’s birds safe.

As mentioned, this virus does not effect humans so it is not a food safety issue. So, don’t feel like you have to avoid your favorite omelette or quiche. As always, just follow good cooking practices with eggs:

– When purchasing, make sure eggs are clean and not cracked.
– Cook food containing eggs thoroughly. Dishes like egg casseroles should cook to at least 160 degrees.
– Keep hands and utensils clean when cooking with raw eggs and after they come in contact with raw eggs.
– Keep hot egg dishes hot, cold egg dishes cold. Dishes containing eggs should not sit outside of a refrigerator for more than two hours.

One other note to be aware of is that because of the loss of birds, the price of eggs has increased significantly. The chefs I work with are feeling it everyday as they try to make the most of their budgets.

Now is not a bad time to potentially price shop a bit with local growers and grocery stores to find the best solution for your family.

… Our 25 spring hens should be laying any day now.

This girl could hook you up. Just saying…!

“Where Are We Going” by Both of Us

November 24, 2014 by theblogbloom.com Leave a Comment

After a little discussion about what we were going to say for our “Where are we going” posts Adam and I have decided to write it together, because where ever we are going, we are going together. And, while we both have different ideas for details, the goal is the same for the both of us.

So, this final post in our Thanksgiving Series is a collaboration told from my voice.

In October, we hosted a handful of my sorority sisters for “a weekend in the country.” During dinner one evening, a friend posed the question to the group “What do you love?” Everyone took turns going around the table revealing their love for friends, family, food and more.

When it was Adam’s turn his response was “Growing food that people can enjoy.”

Adam’s mom always talks about how his favorite book as a kid was Farmer Grover. I can hear her now mimicking the book: “Be a farmer, Grover!”

Funny story… I read Farmer Grover as a kid as well. And, that’s about the last I heard about farmers until I was eighteen.

Because of Grover, and his background, he has been fascinated by farmers his whole life. It’s not surprising that growing food is something he is still passionate about.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love growing our own food as much as he does. But, we look at it from two different perspectives.

I look at the beauty of growing food. Taking something covered in dirt and transforming into a fabulous dish that people love. My passion for food starts with my desire for putting the best ingredients into the dishes I serve. And, I now know that we are capable of growing the best ingredients possible in our own yard . I want to teach people that they can do the same.

Adam looks at his passion for growing food from a different perspective. He wants our production of food to be the most successful and efficient as possible.

He’s the mind behind production. I’m the mind behind how it can be shared.

As much as we are different in our roles of producing our food, we are the same in the most important aspect: We love seeing people enjoy the food we grow and becoming inspired to build a stronger connection to their food.

There is something completely romantic about seeing someone pull your carrots out of the ground in complete amazement. Or sit down to a dinner and enjoy the flavor of your homegrown lettuce and beets as much as your guests enjoy the flavor of your pasture raised chicken. And, I can not even begin explain the remarkable feeling that comes over me when someone reaches out asking for help and advice because they are interested in starting their own garden.

We love providing food, real food, to people who will enjoy it. We have been producing food for ourselves and a small group of family and friends. We want to grow this to the point that we can provide food to many others as well. Our goals for the future include more pastured chickens and the addition of pasture raised beef and pork. We plan to continue to increase the size of the garden each year.

We aren’t sure if this will lead us to Farmer’s Markets, CSA’s, Farm to School programs, partnerships with local butchers or chefs. Where ever or however we choose to share our food, we want to be transparent. We want people to come to our farm and see the passion we put into the food that will be going onto their table that night. We want people to understand that their food doesn’t have to come from a grocery store but rather directly from the farm it was grown. We want people to be inspired to take starter plants back to their homes and teach their children how to grow their own food.

Most people are generally disconnected from where their food comes from. I know, I was!

Where we are going is a place where we will work to close that gap.

Where we are going is a place where people will be connected to their food.

And that’s where we all should be going.

Hillary Ferguson Photography.

Thank you all for reading our series. We really enjoyed working on this together and we hope that you enjoyed it as well!

Wishing you and your loved ones the all best this Thanksgiving!

… And, if you do choose to shop, Shop Small!

“Where We Are” by Adam

November 16, 2014 by theblogbloom.com 2 Comments

This is Part Two of our series where we are giving thanks for starting a garden two years ago. Throughout the month of November with the help of my husband, Adam, we will be telling the story of “How we got here,” “Where we are,” and “Where we are going” from each of our perspectives.

Today Adam explains where we are:

Well, it’s a crazy weekend in the Trost house.

Saturday we hosted a co-ed baby shower for four of my fraternity pledge brothers and their wives. We have reached that point in our lives that the wedding season is shorter and the kids are showing up in droves.

We had nearly 30 people in our house on Saturday which made for a very loud and fun baby shower. We ate, drank, laughed, told stories and genuinely had a fantastic time catching up with great friends.
Now it’s off to the Sunday night Colts game in Indianapolis. I think I will need a weekend to recover from my weekend.

Purdue Alpha Gamma Rho all grown up.

I started thinking about all the great celebrations we take part in and what is so common with each. Almost every event Claire and I host I feel like it all revolves around the food. Now any great host knows that the meal doesn’t mean anything unless the guests you are sharing it with are 5 star.

I had one great friend turn to me and say “You always know you’re going to have a great meal when you come to the Trost’s.”

That made me feel great.

I enjoy cooking great food as much as others enjoy eating it. One thing I enjoy even more is growing great food.

I love to serve people spectacular meals made with the food I have grown and taken care of. There is a feeling completely different than anything I have ever felt when I can transform a garden treasure into a meal that someone genuinely enjoys. It is my passion.

This brings us to “Where We Are.”

We are just on the edge of discovery and refinement.

Claire and I have progressed through growing our food rather quickly. Our first year was trial. (And we tried a lot of things.) Gardening, having egg layers, raising 50 meat chickens, trying to figure out composting, and many others.

Our second year has become more of a discovery and refinement season. We still have the egg layers (a big topic of conversation at the baby shower), we raised meat birds again this year to fill our freezer, our garden went from 8 garden beds to 24, and our compost actually looks like compost.

Currently I am trying to figure out how to grow the most possible food in the smallest possible area. We are discovering how different crops planted in very specific areas and timing can produce massive amount of food.

For example, when tomato plants are young, plant radishes in between the plants. By the time the tomato plants get large enough to shade out the ground the radishes are harvested and you just produced 20 more pounds of food in the same bed. We also use plants that grow tall, like peas and cucumbers on trellis to shade our lettuce. This allows us to grow lettuce all through the summer without bolting. We are also planting cover crops like buckwheat in the bed when another crop will not be planted there for at least two weeks. This keeps the soil active, shaded to reduce weed pressure, and adds organic material to the soil.

Spinach shaded by growing beans.

One of the best tools I have discovered is not a special shovel or some magic garden tiller. It has been Mother Earth News Garden Planner. It is an online garden planner that keeps track of what you plant in each bed every year. This is key to having healthy soil, reduce insects and disease problems and grow plants more efficiently. Every time you plant a bed the garden planner will keep track of it and let you know that in 2013 tomatoes were in bed 4. It will then light up in red, letting you know not to plant them there again. Aside from YouTube, it is the tool I rely on most.

Now that winter seems to have shown up early, and our garden is all but dead (carrots, beets and kale are holding strong), I am in the reflection phase of our season. We had an incredibly successful year growing food, produced much more than we could eat and were able to share that with others.

I just took my pastured grown chickens to the butcher and my first thought was “I have a really big yard, I wonder how many pastured chickens I could grow on my lawn.” Now that I have used that grass to grow food, it seems worthless to fertilize, water and mow it constantly.

You should see how green my grass is where the chickens had been for only a day. Each day I moved the chickens to a new spot and now have 50 days of area fertilized. What if everyone did this? We are worried about growing enough food to feed the world when we don’t fully utilize what is right under our nose.

I am currently reading two books on starting a successful farming enterprise and the other on raising salad bar beef and am incredibly inspired.

The field around our house has been farmed for so long that nearly all of the quality top soil has washed into the creek. It is a gently rolling field that channels all of the water to one corner. Every year we have a big rain and it floods, washing through a culvert under the road through another field and into the creek. Each time, the water carries more soil with it. So much so that every few years the farmers have to fix the culvert, repair the washouts and watch the ditches get deeper and deeper.

Are we really fixing the problem?

What if we turned the field into, pasture, wood lines, natural habitat and ponds? Pastures could raise beef, pork, poultry, and sheep. The grass would hold the soil in place and help retain the water. Most of the corn grown in the field is being used to feed those animals anyway. Wood lines and natural habitat will attract birds who will spread the manure while searching for bugs. Ponds will retain the water and be used for livestock, especially in drought years.

So that’s where we are.

We don’t have it all figured out but, we have been very successful on our small scale. So much so that we want to continue to grow and produce food for others. You’ll have to stop in next Sunday to discover “Where we are going.”

Talking about raising chickens with a future farmer.

“How Did We Get Here” by Adam

November 9, 2014 by theblogbloom.com 5 Comments

It seems like people do a lot of reflecting in November.

Thanks to the upcoming Holidays, like Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas, many people begin to take time to think about what they are thankful for and count their blessings just a little bit more.

With our Facebook Newsfeed full of daily “I am thankful for >enter whatever first world benefit here<,” Adam and I couldn’t help but get in the spirit.

Okay. So, maybe after we judged the people who said they were thankful for their iPhones within the first three days of the month…

But, it did make us ask “What are we Thankful for this year?”

The iPhone didn’t hit the list… weird. But there was one common denominator between us: The Garden.

We smiled at each other thinking of our love of the garden and our future plans for the garden. Then, I asked, “We are going to be those people, aren’t we?”

“What do you mean?” Adam questioned.

“The people who other people will think are insane for ditching their steady, corporate careers for sustainable farming. The people who have root cellars. Cows. Pigs. And, don’t know how to work an iPad. The people whose kids will be praying to the God of Sun and Rain while their cousins are singing, ‘Jesus Loves Me.'”

Okay… Just a little dramatic.

But, Adam, laughing, said, “Pretty much.”

“Oh my gosh,” I sighed, “How did we get here?”

Inspired by this question, our mutual gratitude for the garden and our excitement for the future, Adam and I, together, will be giving thanks and telling our versions of the story of “How we got here, where we are, and where we are going” throughout the month of November on Bloom.

Because you hear from me all the time… and because even I have enjoyed this story from Adam’s perspective, I thought Adam should start:

First off, I guess I should introduce myself. You all know Claire, as I am sure you have read her blog posts. Well, I am her crazy husband. You know that guy who drug that girl away from the city and “cut her off from”… you name it.

To understand some of Claire’s blog, I think you should understand who I am. I am the country boy who isn’t all that country. Don’t get me wrong, I wear jeans a t-shirt and a ball cap just about every day(if it’s cold I put on a hoodie). I hunt, fish, trap, drive a diesel truck, drive tractors and wear boots.

Hive and Honey Photography

However, I am not the rebel flag flying redneck some people imagine when they hear someone is from the country.

I love a glass of merlot with my steak. I save my money to buy nice things. I enjoy dressing up in a suit for a wedding or a coat and tie for a nice dinner out with my wife. And a night out for Wicked on Broadway doesn’t sound awful any more. I’m that guy that Claire’s hometown never thought she would marry. I’m that guy who taught her about farming. I’m also that guy who has learned with her, dreamed with her, grew with her, and become passionate about our life together. (Sorry for the sap.) We’re on an adventure together no one would have guessed, not even us, and this is how it all started.

I’ve always thought gardening was fun. My parents had a garden when I was kid, but I’m not sure how many years it actually lasted. I certainly don’t remember canning. As I got into high school I would start a garden in the spring, typically consisting of tomatoes, zucchini, peppers and cucumbers. Not the most diverse selection by any means. Spring always came around and I was excited to get plants in the ground. Typically, I always planted 10 too many pepper plants, wait too long to pick zucchini, and tomatoes rotted on the vines from lack of attention.

Somehow, my mom was always on board. She would take me to the local nursery, help me pick out the plants, help me plant them, and watch me ignore them all summer as friends and girls kept my attention.

Fast forward to January 2013 and Claire and I are moving into our new house. I had already decided a garden is going to be in our future. My friends had one. The neighbors had one. Must be a small town thing, but everyone around me had one. So, I had to have one too.

I know what you’re thinking.

“So what! It’s a garden. Big deal.”

Well, that’s what I thought too. Until I started doing some research.

Claire was working for a public school as head of their food service and became involved in the Indiana “Farm to School” program. She quickly became passionate about these farmers, how they grew their food, where our food comes from and the environmental impacts of producing our food.

So, I jumped on board and began doing some of my own research. YouTube is my best friend by the way. Video after video, hour after hour of listening to people talk about their gardens had me excited to get started. Square foot gardening, raised beds, typical row crop gardening and many more.

I thought we would want to do raised beds, with the help of Claire and all her pins on Pinterest of raised bed gardens. Soon we found that they would cost more than her car to build. So, I simply started by tilling up eight large garden beds.

My mom thought we were crazy for having such a big garden. The twenty tomato plants probably had something to do with it…

We also settled on trying to grow our food as organically as possible.

I don’t want to get into all the political crap about anti-organic this or pro-gmo that. Everyone has a reason why they choose what they eat. My opinion was I didn’t want to waste the money on fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides if I didn’t need them. Also, I really didn’t feel that entirely comfortable putting things on the food I was going to eat that suggested chemical gloves, a dust mask and safety glasses as appropriate PPE.

I believe there is a place for both, and my backyard didn’t need the alternative.

With good management of crop rotation, proper maintenance and a little extra labor I felt like I could achieve the same results.

So, how was I going to fertilize this large garden? Back to YouTube I went. After many videos it seemed backyard chickens were the perfect companion to a backyard garden. They solved my pest problems, I could compost their manure for fertilizer and they produced eggs as a byproduct.

On Mother’s Day weekend, Claire and I brought home twelve baby chickens which launched us into an ever evolving production of growing our own food.

So, that’s how it all started. One idea of wanting a backyard garden launched me into a job as conductor of plants and animals, trying to make everything work in the most symbiotic way possible.

Chickens Should Come With Warning Labels

October 21, 2014 by theblogbloom.com 20 Comments

Two years ago, Adam and I began to discuss having backyard chickens.

We read a lot, watched a lot of YouTube videos, and learned so much.

A couple of the reasons that we finally decided to give it a go were that their composted droppings are great for gardens and that they are pretty easy to take care of.

We have found both of those reasons to be very true.

However, we also have learned a lot since owning our little flock of hens that we never found in our research.

Based on what I have learned as the owner of backyard chickens, I have decided that backyard chickens need to come with Warning Labels.

If you are thinking of getting chickens or already have baby chicks… prepare yourself.

Photo by Hive and Honey Photography

Warning #1: People will think you have gone insane.

We have had people have no problem telling us everything from “Eww, what about the poop?” To “Why work so hard?” To, plain and simple, “You are making a huge mistake.”

(I mean… What if people said these things about babies??)

And that’s from the people in the country… People who have actually seen a chicken outside of a petting zoo or a kitchen decoration.

Where I grew up, the HOA allowed only two dogs and two cats per household. Max. Chickens were not a topic of discussion.

Just imagine what the people I grew up with must think if they have heard that over fifty chickens have called my backyard home at one time.

In-sane.

Warning #2: You may be the sweetest person on the planet, but you will become incredibly stuck up.

No one really talks about it, but I think it’s very common for owners of backyard chickens to suffer from a phenomenon called “egg snobbery.”

On your business trip you will cringe at the site of the scrambled eggs made from egg beaters at the hotel’s very generic continental breakfast.

You will turn up your nose as you walk down the egg aisle at the grocery store knowing that your eggs at home are far superior.

And, when someone Instagrams a shot of their homemade brunch with two very sad sunny side up eggs with shapeless and dull colored yolks you will smirk and say sarcastically to yourself, “That’s cute…”

Warning #3: You will also become a paranoid freak.

I don’t have children, but, thanks to the chickens, I have gotten a sneak peak of what parenthood is all about.

Spoiler Alert: It’s a 24/7/365 anxiety attack.

Any threat of bad weather, be it extreme cold, snow, high winds, tornadoes, extreme heat, whatever, my mind goes to the hens… and that they are going to die.

Any dog, cat, raccoon, and owl within a two mile radius of the coop is the enemy.

I am sorry. I don’t care how cute your dog is. I probably hate it until I know that it doesn’t think my sweet hens are a chew toy.

PS- Just today I heard on the radio that a six foot boa constrictor escaped from it’s cage and is on the loose somewhere in the local listening area.

You guys... HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DEAL WITH THIS!?!?

Warning #4: Anything pop culture will suddenly become very uninteresting.

That check you write to the cable company each month will seem like a huge waste.

You haven’t been Keeping Up with the Kardashian’s… You have been Keeping Up with the Chickens.

The day you bring them home you will begin to see each chicken’s unique personality.

And as they grow, you would rather spend your time watching them roam the yard than watch that movie getting Oscar Buzz. The movie could be a flop. But, watching the chickens you might catch that hilarious moment when one might slurp up a huge worm like a piece of spaghetti and the others come rushing over in a fit of jealousy. Somebody call the Academy!

Oh. And, you will post things like this on Facebook and it will be 100% true:

Warning #5: Once you get that first chick, you will be a chicken owner the rest of your life.

Admittedly, I have never been a huge fan of animals.

In fact, as a kid, animals made me kind of nervous.

My uncle loves to tell the story of when I was a toddler… my foot was dangling by my moms hip as she held me and his weimaraner licked my foot. I apparently screamed like bloody murder and was convinced that the dog bit me.

(To my credit, a weimaraner to a three year old might as well be a fierce looking horse.)

As an adult, and thanks to a fabulous (thirty pound…) family dog in my childhood, I have warmed up to animals.

I am really excited for the day that we get a dog. And I understand that to make Adam happy this dog will be larger than thirty pounds… and I am okay with that.

Because we have enjoyed our dabbles in homesteading, we have been talking about getting a couple cows and even pigs just to give it a try.

Dogs will likely come and go, depending on our future children wants, and we may find other kinds of livestock exhausting.

But, thanks to the wonderful eggs…

The funny way the ladies interact with one another…

The way it feels like they are able to almost communicate with Adam and me when we are in the garden…

The pure joy in any of our friend’s kids faces when they are chasing the hens…

The joy that I cannot wait to see in my own children… and grandchildren’s faces…

I know that for the rest of my life, I will be the proud owner of a flock of backyard chickens.

Photo by Hive and Honey Photography

You have been warned.

Dollars and Sense at the Farmer’s Market

April 26, 2014 by theblogbloom.com Leave a Comment

Farmers Market Season is upon us!

And I love it.

I love the energy at a Farmer’s Market.

I love the people watching.

I love checking out the unique, artisanal products or heirloom produce that I could never find at a normal grocery store.

I love it all.

This morning Adam and I ventured out to our local Farmer’s Market.

It was a quick trip as we had some landscaping work to do back at the homestead. (… Work that made us realize we really are adults as our alma mater is celebrating its biggest spring event with the bars opening at 7AM.)

The Farmer’s Market didn’t have many produce vendors present thanks to the chilly, late spring we are experiencing. But, we did pick up some bratwurst from a local pork producer. They seemed like a great idea for dinner after a day of working in the yard.

As Adam paid the vendor $15.60 for the ten brats, I thought of the most common question and biggest complaint I always tend to hear in regards to local meat: Why is it so expensive?

Last year, after a trip to the Farmer’s Market, I came home with a free range whole chicken. I was excited about this bird. The vendor was full of information and clearly very passionate. And, I wasn’t sure that I had ever had a free range chicken. I kept reading the taste was amazingly different in comparison to a normal chicken breast at the store.

I also had never cooked a whole chicken. So, it seemed like a fun challenge and I couldn’t wait to see if I could taste a difference.

Adam was excited too… and then he asked how much it was.

I had not told him because in the back of my mind I knew how my [insert nice way to say “tight ass”] husband would react.

And, I was right.

The word “ridiculous” was used often and before I knew it he was researching how to raise meat chickens.

God love him and his “Why pay someone when I can do that” attitude…

Proof of this attitude? His landscaping project of the day was creating this beautiful wall for our patio. So happy to give it a little character.

So, in early September, we became the proud owners of fifty free range broilers.

The babies from last September.

Adam created a “chicken mobile” out of a large wagon. The top of the wagon had bedding, water and feed. Then a little ramp gave the chicken’s access to the ground so they could roam and snack on grass and bugs. We could move the wagon around the yard so the chickens wouldn’t eat one piece of land to entirety.

A chick on the top of the chicken mobile.

And relaxing in the grass under the chicken mobile.

We thought it was going to be great. Easy, too. We would have little, happy, free range birds and, in a couple months, a freezer full of organic, natural roasters for far less then we could purchase.

Right?

Wrong.

Okay, not totally.

In the end, the chickens came out great. They taste wonderful. We have enjoyed sharing them with family and friends and love how one bird can make us a couple meals.

However, they were a lot of work.

They required our attention twice a day, everyday.

They ate a ton. They drank a ton. (Note: Getting water to chickens on a cold, dark late November morning? Not exactly fun.)

There was quite a bit of cost to get started and the butchering at two bucks a pop added up fast. (… Although, that was worth every penny, in my book.)

When it was all said and done, Adam and I sat down and went over all our expenses. There was the chicken mobile, the feed, the equipment like heating lamps and water dispensers, the bedding, the butchering, and our labor.

We realized, using basic economics, if we were going to sell them at a market, $20.00 per chicken really isn’t that “ridiculous.”

As consumers, we have not just a choice, but also a voice.

And for the last sixty years or so, American consumers have voiced that meat should not only be available for every meal, it should also be cheap.

It started with fast food. We want a cheese burger for a buck. Five chicken nuggets for 99 cents.

And, it’s now what we see in the grocery store and that is why a $20.00 chicken has such a sticker shock.

We are lucky, in a sense, that in America meat is so widely available and isn’t going to break the bank. In fact, out of all the countries in the world, American’s spend the least percentage of their income on food.

However, farmers feel the backlash of the availability of the cheap food, even though our society demanded it, and some farming practices are coming under fire.

Farmers are smart, resilient and able to adapt. That is what they did and they will do it again, if that is what the market demands.

However, thanks to my food service role in K-12 education I know the reality is that the cheap, widely available meat is likely here to stay. And, I could never completely go over to the one side of this agriculture fence and say “Organic or BUST” because there is not just a huge market, but a need.

I know that I am incredibly fortunate that I am able to make a choice when I purchase food for Adam and me. And my choice in purchases is reflected in my belief to support local growers.

I am also fortunate to have a voice.

A voice that wants to ask, if we really are spending so much less of our income on food in comparison to our peers around the world, couldn’t we ditch the amped up cable package and reallocate that cash to receive a product that supports the earth, local farmers, the local community and provides great nutrition?

I swung by the grocery store this afternoon and couldn’t help but check the prices on bratwurst. A package of five was for sale for just under six dollars.

I spent a whopping four more dollars for my ten brats.

Four dollars that might go back and help that farmer raise more pigs. Or pay his rent. Or send his kid to college.

Or perhaps its four dollars that will stay in my community supporting other small business like my husbands. Or the cute lady who owns this fun accessory boutique that sucks me in when I drop off my dry cleaning. Or the new bakery on the square that I haven’t been to yet, but sounds delicious.

Four bucks.

Four bucks is less than a fast food meal.

… less than my drink at Starbs!

Money well spent.

Egg-cellent Egg Series: Day 1

January 19, 2014 by theblogbloom.com Leave a Comment

I started 2014 with a cleanse where I eliminated sugar, alcohol, dairy, grains and starches. I lost six pounds in ten days.

The strong skeptic in me assumes it was because I was saving my daily booze calories… and yes, okay, it was a little drastic. It’s not the best idea to go cold turkey with anything.

But, it wasn’t a huge adjustment for me. I kicked my soda addiction and hopped on the H2O train a few years ago saving myself from sugary beverages. (I was a major Diet Coke lady and this was actually easier than you would think.) Bread has never really been a staple in our house, unless I make my- now famous- Rosemary Focaccia. But, getting out the mixer is a workout in itself so it doesn’t happen often. And Adam and I obviously love, love, love any and every veggie, so incorporating even more into our meals is no problemo at our house.

However, in the spirit of being honest, wine and dark chocolate have been missed.

I actually finally caved and had two glasses of red wine last night. But, in my defense, it’s been nearly three weeks. GO ME! And I have read enough about the heart benefits of drinking red wine that I would basically call it a health food. Basically.

But, what the cleanse really did was make me much more aware of what I am putting in my body when I eat. Yes, I try to eat organic, local and clean. I have for quite sometime now, but I now know so much more about the science behind these and other choices I make.

Sugar has been a big one that I plan to continue to watch. When consuming sugar I want to find it from more natural sources, like fruit and agave. Too much sugar is linked to inflammation and significant signs of aging. Not to mention, many sources of sugar are full of unnecessary calories.

I also plan to put focus on getting a majority of my calories from vegetables and good sources of protein. Fortunately, both of these are found right in my back yard thanks to the garden and chicken’s eggs!

Over the years, eggs have battled a bad reputation due to their link to high cholesterol and heart disease. I remember “experts” talking about avoiding eggs all together throughout my childhood. But, here’s the deal: Your body needs a good balance with fat and cholesterol. Good fat, like the fat in eggs helps maintain that balance. Fat from fried food? Not so much.

Thanks to the good fats found in eggs it allows for the better absorption of the many other vitamins found in the little spheres, including Vitamin A, B Vitamins, protein and potassium. These nutrients aid in muscle, brain and nerve development. In fact, there are few foods out there that have as many nutrients as a single egg!

The chickens have been major troopers with all the snow and freezing temperatures in Indiana this winter. So, I have decided to showcase them on my little soapbox for the next week to express my “thanks” for their daily gifts: their fresh, nutrient packed, brown eggs.

Everyday this week there will be a post on Bloom featuring an egg-cellent recipe and some egg-citing facts!

It’s going to be egg-straordinary!

… I crack myself up.

Tough Old Birds

January 9, 2014 by theblogbloom.com 5 Comments

Cue Destiny’s Child, ladies and gentlemen, because I’m a survivor.

While Adam was enjoying himself in Tennessee at a bachelor party, I survived the crazy blizzard and bitter cold… Alone. (PS- Trost? Be prepared for our children to hear about this… oh… just about every time it snows.)

And, not only did I survive, but so did our five little hens.

Although, I did have my doubts.

The coop as the snow fell on Sunday.

Thanks to the research we did about a year ago, I knew that chickens don’t mind the cold. In fact, they prefer it over the summer’s heat.

But, wind chill’s of fifty below? Actual temperatures in the negative teens?

I wasn’t so sure.

On Sunday night, before the Polar Vortex hit, I hopped on the internet. I was looking for the actual temperature that chickens could handle… and some peace of mind.

The first thing I learned was that people in this country don’t know what real cold is. A woman in North Carolina was concerned that the temperature was going to be “pretty cold!” and go below freezing.

That’s Indiana half the year. (… Or so it seems.)

I had visions of all the sad pictures of puppies in the snow saying “This is abuse” all over Facebook. I needed the actual temperature they could handle. I was not going to be responsible for chicken abuse.

Then on Mother Earth New’s website, I read that hens do not “really start suffering until the temperature inside their coops falls to minus twenty degrees Fahrenheit.”

Adam built a great coop for the hens. It protects them from the rain, wind and snow. But, still… minus twenty was too close for comfort.

After about an hour on the web, and nothing in black and white saying, “It will be fine;” I was officially stressed.

Then my mom called. I explained my current predicament and with a little laugh she said, “Oh, my. You are a Momma!”

… Great. So, apparently parenthood is going to be just one big, giant anxiety attack…?

I considered bringing the birds into the house but I had no way to contain them. We don’t have a dog so we don’t own any cages. And they would get into too much that could hurt them in the garage or unfinished basement.

So that was it. There wasn’t anything I could do. I felt helpless.

Adam called to say goodnight and I told him I tried to do everything I could, but I was prepared for them to not make it through the freezing, snowy, blustery night.

I didn’t sleep at all that night. The wind was loud and strong, just driving that wind-chill lower and lower. I kept looking out to the coop, imagining the birds turning into little chickcicles. I was so worried.

… Man, I really do have that mothering gene.

The next morning I sprung out of bed before I even knew what I was doing. I threw on a ton of Adam’s hunting gear and ran out to the coop, in the minus thirty-seven degree wind-chill, looking like a fat camo Eskimo.

I opened the door and there they were, roosting together with their feathers fluffed out… alive!

I could tell they didn’t really enjoy the weather, but I had four eggs in the hen boxes so I knew they weren’t suffering. I told them to hang in there and assured them it wouldn’t be much longer.

By Tuesday morning, they were moving around and each laying an egg. I was beyond relieved and texted Adam saying, “I think we are going to make it!”

Here are a few things I did to ensure they did:

Home is Where the Heat Is:

Shelter for the chickens anytime of year is important.

Adam built a fabulous home for our chickens. Before he did this, he really did his homework.

The coop in the summer… It’s hard to even remember the yard looking so green!

He knew to make boxes for the hens to lay eggs in and a roost. The roost is similar to a little ladder and the chickens sleep on it at night. The roost is very important in cold weather because it keeps the hens off the ground and they are able to huddle together to keep each other warm. In really cold temps, hens will puff up their feathers on the roost to maintain their heat.

Puffed up and staying warm.

Adam also made sure the coop has good ventilation. He added windows, which are great to add extra air in the summer. But, he also made ventilation slots where the coop meets the roof.

Ventilation Slots.

Chickens excrete a lot of hot air through breathing and pooping. This can make their coop humid. If it gets cold and the coop does not have proper ventilation, that moist, humid air will freeze causing frostbite on the hen’s combs, waddles, or toes.

To add a little extra heat, knowing that the temperatures would be well below zero, I hung a heating lamp right above the roost so that it could warm the hens as they huddle together at night. Some people view heating lamps as a luxury in chicken coops, but in our case this week, I felt like it was a necessity. (I know chicken’s survived just fine well before electricity… but, cut me a little slack. I am a first-time hen mother.)

As I said “Goodnight” on Sunday night… fearing the worst for the morning!

Stay Hydrated

Chickens need water and in freezing temperatures this can be a challenge because it doesn’t take too long before their waterer is a solid chunk of ice. During the day, I took water out to the coop every couple of hours.

I noticed that in my quick ten minute runs out to the coop I became very thirsty in the biting wind-chill. The chickens were no exception. They eagerly hopped off the roost and guzzled up the water every time I came in with a replacement.

Bottoms Up!

Fight Cabin Fever

Our chickens are used to running around and exploring the yard. With fifteen inches of snow, this wasn’t possible. So, in addition to their normal feed, I brought some broccoli stalks into the coop for the hens to pick at. I read online to use a head of cabbage, but I was snowed in and broccoli was all I had.

I feel so much more confident about our chickies for the winters to come. Although, I am going to hope this Polar Vortex is a once in a lifetime kind of thing…

Egg-citing News!

October 2, 2013 by theblogbloom.com 2 Comments

Yesterday was a Big Day!

I retrieved the first egg from the chicken coop!

We had been told that it would take five to six months for our birds to begin laying eggs. We brought the few days old chicks home on Mother’s Day, so I knew it was just a matter of time. Adam had also recently switched the birds from Chick Starter Feed to Layer Feed supplemented with oyster shell.

I came home from work and opened up the coop to let the chickens run free in the yard. Side note: We used to let them roam all day, but one day two didn’t come home. (… Can’t help but wonder if a predator was involved somehow.) They still have a fenced in area off their coop they can run in during the day.

Many of the chickens ran out to explore, but one hen hung back. I peered beyond the doorway of the coop to the three roosts Adam had built and sure enough there was a small brown egg. I was excited and kind of in disbelief.

As I stepped into the coop to investigate, it was almost like the hen knew what I was about to do. They normally scoot out of the way of our feet, but she stood her ground.

I felt bad. Was this her showing maternal instinct? I reasoned with my commiserating, female emotion: She didn’t have this maternal instinct thing all worked out. Otherwise, she would have been sitting on this egg. Plus, it wouldn’t matter how long she sat on that egg. She wouldn’t be getting a baby. There was no chicken hanky panky going on.

Shoeing her away with my hands, I made it to the roost and picked up the small, fragile egg. It was a lot smaller than I was expecting, but I read this would be the case in the beginning.

Tiny Egg… Going to need ten of these to make anything…

I couldn’t help but beam with a little pride as I carried the first of many eggs back up to the house. Once in the kitchen I placed it in a little ceramic egg holder I purchased at Anthropologie right after we got the chicks last spring in anticipation for this moment.

I laughed.

It was like I had been nesting.

In fact, the whole process of raising a chick to lay eggs seemed a little bit like pregnancy.

The excitement when you first get the chicks.

Seeing them grow bigger and bigger every day.

Getting fun accessories like the egg holder or asking everyone you know to save you their egg cartons because their “coming.”

Then it comes and it’s a lot smaller than you thought it was going to be.

But, it’s wonderful. And fun!

And then you start thinking of all that it could become…

An omlet?

A frittata?

Quiche?

… The possibilities are endless.

Below are some fun shots of the grown ladies. We have seven.

“Lettuce” Eat Well.

June 26, 2013 by theblogbloom.com Leave a Comment

Written June 12, 2013

When I returned home from Virginia I found that I had a totally different garden. Thanks to the care of my lovely husband, the plants were so much bigger, fuller, and flowering to show that produce was coming.

Adam tending our growing, green garden.

Peas were climbing.

The cabbage was huge and full of color.

The carrots and green onions finally looked like they were doing well.

The tomatoes were so full and looked strong in their cages.

Zucchini’s were budding and I even had a cute, little squash growing!

Yayyy!

Even the chicks had grown up! No longer little, fluffy adolescents, but now resembling real chickens. Their feet were so different; they were huge!

But the biggest change had been in the lettuce. It was big, beautifully green, and ready to harvest.

Trio of Greens!

That night we opted for some fresh romaine on the side of dinner. I snipped one of the largest heads of lettuce close to the base but not directly on the ground. Cut here, the lettuce will continue to grow so that we can use romaine from this head again. To cut the lettuce, I actually used shears that I received at a flower arranging class at West Elm. (Tons of fun and really informative! I can keep fresh flowers in my house going for nearly two weeks now. Check out your store. They typically do events once a month or so.)

Once I had enough for Adam and me, I headed inside. There I rinsed each head very well in the sink, tore the leaves into bite sized pieces and tossed them into the salad spinner.

I placed a couple handfuls of the romaine in bowls and topped it with a chopped tomato, a little crumbled feta, and a splash of balsamic dressing.

It was the perfect complement to our steaks.

As we took our first bites of the homegrown lettuce, Adam exclaimed, “It taste like lettuce!” I laughed. Umm, yeah? “I just was nervous. We have never done this.”

True.

But, not only did it “taste like lettuce,” it had a fabulous flavor. And knowing that it came straight out of our yard and had never been in contact with any chemicals or processing made it even better.