10/20/2025
Good Monday to all from the Farm. It’s a sunny but cool day here in Southwestern Virginia today after we had a few thunderstorms pass through last night.
Today we are starting to clean up the front area to get ready for fall / winter. We are removing most of the old trellises that collapsed under the weight of the Morning Glories that we grew this year. Our Morning Glories are still flowering with the “Giant Blue” variety being most prominent right now. The native Petunias are still holding on as well.
We are keeping a few for another few weeks to feed the bees, butterflies and other incests before they move on or hibernate for the year.
We removed all the tomato plants and potting soil which we are placing along the driveway to build up low areas.
We let the Koi-Pond embankments over-grow to help roots stabilize the soil before we continue to reenforce them and add the liner. Once done we will continue to clear out and install the new pumps and aeration systems, hopefully getting everything ready for next spring.
Our Nut trees, especially the Pecan’s had a really good crop this year. The Squirrel’s, Crows, Ravens and other critters have been busy collecting, shelling and storing the nuts. We also collected 2 small buckets of Pecans this year.
The Chinese Chestnut tree had produced some very large looking husks, but most only contained a very small chestnut along with tiny developing ones. A bit dissapointing, but it happens. The Black Walnut trees also had quite a bumper crop as well.
Our two new chick hatchlings are doing well. Mama Hen has been taking the first hatchling with her during the day, and our Muscovy Mama has been looking after the other.
Our hens have begun to pick up their egg laying, and in the past week we have gone from 2-3 a day to an average of 8 a day right now.
Our Ducks have stopped laying for the year and will probability pick back up next Spring.
We have a lot of cleanup to accomplish as well as moving the old Muscovy coop to its new home inside our coverer chicken / duck / turkey area, so we can level down the old Muscovy Pen and prep it for our new greenhouse.
We are also beging prep work for placing the heated water containers and relaying voltage lines to accommodate the additional water containers needed this year for our increased flock and goats.
We also will be expanding the Goat area so we can create a new section to house the boys from the girls. This entails a new Goat Shelter for the boys, new dividing fence between them, and wiring for lighting and heated water buckets. We also are upgrading our camera system to include new Dual-Lens Ai cameras, motion detection systems, automatic lighting and a new exterior WiFi -7 / 5G system.
Well, here’s a few photos of our latest activity.
