Our house and life has been overtaken in the most wonderful way by six fabulous little puppies. “And baby makes eight” is the phrase of the moment. All puppies have been placed, but we are taking a wait list for future litters. Please contact us if you’d like to complete a puppy application to be…
Category: Blog
Maple Water 2018
Next week is our 2018 maple season. We are pleased to offer… Maple Water! Maple season happens once per year and only for a week or two max. In early spring, when it’s below freezing at night and above freezing during the day, the maple trees that have been dormant all winter start sending a unique watery sap up…
What’s Not to Love? Our Chicken Valentines
You have 81 chickens, and every one of them has a name?” Correct. Happy Valentine’s Day to the flock. We appreciate you, one and all. To Splash, the friendliest of all the chickens, who follows me around like a puppy. Somehow, with 80 others in the flock, you always manage to be right by my…
The best eggs ever?
We are not saying our eggs are better than anyone else’s, but we believe it’s not possible to have better eggs than we produce. It’s very likely that you have never had an egg this good! Here’s why:
Being in Love, or, Dogs & Cats Living Together
It’s happening at last. Rahu the cat and the two puppies, Bhairo and Guinness, are starting to love each other. I’m proudest of Rahu. Some of you may remember from an earlier blog post that he’s a cat with a bit of a past. Seems he’s been fending for himself, hunting and living in the…
Dyberry Creek Farm makes the WSJ!
Dyberry Creek Farm is in the Wall Street Journal on Halloween 2017 (print edition on Nov 1, 2017). Below is the article in full or read an online version (subscription required) of the article here: Dyberry Creek Farm WSJ Article A-HED Now Coming to a Backyard Near You: Weird Chickens In some backyard flocks, ‘boutique’ breeds…
Fear and Freedom, or, Learning to Free-Range
Before I say chickens are timid creatures, let me first hand it to them: they are resilient and brave little creatures too. Just hours old, tiny (the size of an egg), shipped cross-country in a box, handled by giants of another species – they manage it amazingly well. The spark of life, the impulse to…
Meet the Chickens: Seven
Name: Seven, aka Lucky Seven Breed: TBD. Possibly a Snowy Egger Gender: Surprise Rooster Egg Color: N/A Role in Flock: Porn Star, Overzealous Hormonal Teenager Seven was originally a hen named Snow White, until the day of the gender-bending reveal. Since then, he’s been aggressively making up ground in the stud category. The youngest of…
Growing Up Funky
Look at that face! Look at those crazy feathers! Whoa, polka dots! The funky ones are the ones we love the most, and isn’t that great? [Funky Polish chickens. Magda, Eva, and Zsa Zsa. The Gabor sisters were actually Hungarian, but that’s OK.] It’s not that long ago that the world of chickens was a…
Snow White is a Rooster
Remember those cute, fluffy little yellow chicks we got at Easter? The ones adorably peeping on a pile of eggs and hopping around the daffodils? They’ve grown and now are about 3 1/2 months old. They were all supposed to be blue-egg-laying hens: Frost Legbars, Super Blues, and one Snowy Egger. We got seven, and…
Of Crossbows and Man-Cages, or Having the Right Equipment
Of Crossbows and Man-Cages, or Having the Right Equipment. There are some neighbors, Jim and Pat, whom we’ve kind of liked from afar for a while, and finally got to spend some time with today. Jim is a pretty cool guy. He heads up a group of bow hunters who have special permission from the…
Calm Down, Marcus!
Calm Down, Marcus! Marcus Aurelius the rooster has been feeling a little edgy lately. He’s been the undisputed King of the Flock ever since we got him and Sven to protect our hens. He’s spent his days strutting and crowing and mating, happy rooster stuff. But recently, Sven has started challenging him. He’s been mating…
44 Chicks
Our two flocks of baby birds became one flock today. 26 chicks from Greenfire Farms and the surviving 18 chicks from MyPetChicken.com. They’re two weeks old now, and all healthy, so it’s safe to combine them. This way, they’ll all get to know each other and work out their pecking order most seamlessly, growing up…
The World is My Nesting Box
Somebody has been skipping the nesting box. We have a pretty awesome one, with a little red privacy curtain, and soft material to lay on, and a gentle little ramp that safely rolls the just-laid eggs away (from being crushed, or pooped on, or sat on by a broody hen) to an easy-open door where…
Mistaken Identities, or The White Egg Mystery, Part 2
It wasn’t Sal. Not the white egg – that was Sal, all along, as it turns out. The olive egg. The Most Beautiful Egg Ever Laid. Sal never laid a green egg. She’s not an Olive Egger. She’s an Andalusian Blue, who lays…white eggs. Chalk it up to chicken-lady amateurism. When you get your day-old…
Henceforth, Thy Name Shall Be Lucrezia (or, Shelly Names the Chickens)
For our dear friend Shelly’s birthday, we gave her the priceless gift of naming one of our chickens. (Yes, I realize we will now have to be careful to ensure that people are becoming our friends out of true love, not just in a calculated effort to win such a rare and coveted honor.) Shelly,…
Meet the Chickens: Nighter Love
Name: Nighter Love Breed: Liege Fighter Gender: Hen Egg Color: Cream/Tinted Role in Flock: Friendly, Curious, Calm, Iridescent Beauty A 4-year-old girl named Henrietta Glasscock wanted us to name a chicken Nighter Love. First of all, Nighter Love is the most excellent Goth Rock chicken name ever. Secondly, the girl’s name is Henrietta Glasscock. If…
Meet the Chickens: Winnie
Name: Winnie Breed: Black Wyandotte Gender: Hen Egg Color: Very Light Brown / Pink Tinted Role in Flock: Pushy Broad Winnie was one of the four adult birds we introduced to the flock [see Hens Meet Roosters] along with Bari, Sven, and Marcus Aurelius. She’s a pretty bird in that laced-Wyandotte way and looks good…
Meet the Chickens: Bari
Name: Bari Breed: Barred Rock Gender: Hen Egg Color: Jumbo Light Brown with White Frosting Role in Flock: Flocks Together, Low Rung Bari, like Winnie, was introduced as an adult [see Hens Meet Roosters] and has taken a while to establish her flock persona. She hangs with the rest, is nice, lays well – and…
Meet the Chickens: Marcus Aurelius
Name: Marcus Aurelius Breed: Swedish Flower Hen Gender: Rooster Egg Color: N/A (hens of this breed lay white eggs) Role in Flock: Dominant Rooster (for now) We got Marcus and Sven [see Hens Meet Roosters] due to our hawk problem, after Goldie’s close encounter. He is named after the Stoic Philosopher-General, a favorite of Brian’s….
Meet the Chickens: Lyeta
Name: Lyeta Breed: Welsummer Gender: Hen Egg Color: Chocolate / Speckled Dark Brown Role in Flock: Hussy ‘Lyeta’ means ‘summer’ in Russian, hence the name of this Welsummer hen. We’re not sure if giving her a Russian name has anything to do with it, but she is our sexiest hen. She’s also super sweet and…
Rahu the Magnificent, or The Cat Who Came With the Barn
I like to say: we bought a house, and the house came with a barn, and the barn came with a cat. Originally there were two cats. People had seen them around, sometimes together. One long-haired grey cat. One white cat with tiger markings. The property hadn’t been inhabited for 8 months by the time we…
The White Egg Mystery
Who is laying a white egg? That is the question we have been trying to answer for weeks now. We have tons of younger birds growing up, some of whom will one day lay white eggs. But we currently have only 6 adult hens. Until a few weeks ago, we had 7, including an Andalusian…
Watching Baby Chicks Die
This was a hard week. It wasn’t supposed to be. We got two shipments of baby chicks, 26 each from MyPetChicken.com and Greenfire Farms. (Yes, 52 baby chicks.) All were hatched on Monday, and shipped to us via Express Mail, like usual. It’s a particular joy to go the Post Office to pick up your…
How Many Chickens??
How Many Chickens?? I didn’t mean to. We have 52 baby chicks coming this week. I didn’t exactly mean not to, either, truth be told. We have 27 chickens already, and I told Brian I thought we’d be up to maybe 65 with this new bunch. Which was sort of the case. I ordered them…
Is an Egg a Chicken’s Period? And Other City-people Questions
Is an Egg a Chicken’s Period? And Other City-people Questions Hey, I get it. I’m a city girl too. It’s just that some of us paid attention to animals and plants and nature and stuff. Some of us had other hobbies. It’s all good…. Once upon a time, years before the farm, my husband traveled…
Meet The Chickens: Mary Magdalene
Meet the Chickens: Mary Magdalene Name: Mary Magdalene Breed: Easter Egger Gender: Hen Egg Color: Blue Role in Flock: Nice Girl Mary was a bossy pullet, but she grew up to be a sweetheart. She was one of our original hens, and the first one to start laying. She is a pretty girl, and friendly enough…
Meet the Chickens: Goldie
Name: Goldie Breed: Gold-Laced Wyandotte Gender: Hen Egg Color: Light Brown Role in Flock: Nice Girl, Explorer Goldie was one of our original chicks and remains one of the beauties of the flock (at least to humans – not sure what makes a chicken sexy.) She looks like she’s been gilded. She’s sweet and she lays…
Favorite Chicken Free Range Spots
Favorite Chicken Free Range Spots The woodshed. This is an excellent place to hang out during a rainstorm. We feel (sort of) bad about that time Bhairo chased us onto the woodpile and a log rolled down and broke his toe. Incidentally, we are terribly photogenic here. Classic farm scene. The base of the Norway…
Meet the Chickens: Sal
Sal is our original favorite chicken. She was one of our first flock of chicks, the smallest in size but ginormous in persona
Collective (Chicken) Consciousness, or What I Learned from Sal and Dominique
Chickens do what other chickens do. They go where other chickens go. I believe they think what other chickens think.
Crack for Chickens
Cackleberries are a treat we started using to make sure the chickens are not afraid of us. It turns out they are crazy for this stuff
Reflections on Thoreau: Our thoughts are like rain
“A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener.
So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts.”
Walden, “Spring”
What Makes a Chicken Sexy?
What makes a chicken sexy? A hen, specifically. I don’t actually know, but the roosters know, and whatever it is, Lyeta’s got it.
About Us
Why do all this? Because we feel compelled to share the incredible farm we are so fortunate to have with others.
The Liege
I am obsessed. Ever since we decided to get roosters to protect our hens after Goldie was nearly killed, I’ve been looking for the perfect rooster. I found it. The Liege Fighter. It’s a Belgian gamecock, 30 inches tall and 12 pounds. Huge feet the size of a turkey’s, with giant spurs. The face and…
The Most Beautiful Egg Ever Laid
Today, an egg was laid that was truly a work of art. An impossible egg. Nearly a perfect sphere, huge, the size of my palm, and exquisitely olive green. A fashion designer, or a painter, would commission this egg. That it came from our tiniest chicken only adds to the awe. Sal, you did this!…
Hens Meet Roosters
Roosters! That’s what we need. We did our research after Goldie’s Close Encounter, the last in a string of hawk attacks this winter. There just aren’t that many options to keep your hens safe from hawks, apart from keeping them in an enclosed space, which defeats the entire purpose of free-ranging. We want happy birds….
Goldie’s Close Encounter, or Our Hawk Problem
Goldie’s Close Encounter, or Our Hawk Problem We’ve been having an issue with hawks. It’s winter, and there must not be much for them to feed on. We came out several weeks ago and found Penny’s dead, headless body frozen on the driveway. Fairly gruesome. We weren’t sure what did it. When Dominique disappeared some…
The Firewood Workout
How to get in great shape and save money at the same time!