• The Joy of Producing Food

    It’s Thursday, the day to deliver fresh salad greens and eggs to Tweets Café. The time to pick greens like Ruby Streaks is early in the morning when it’s cool. It’s a great time to be out in the field, scissors in hand, carefully cutting tender greens. The only sounds are the roosters crowing and the birds singing in the trees.

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    And this is one of the eggs destined for Tweets Café today. Maybe noting which hens are laying which eggs and writing the date on them is unnecessary, but each egg is that special.

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    Six months or so from now, these little chicks will be producing fantastic eggs. Until then, they get to spend several months bathed in the care and love of their mother, followed by a carefree months becoming adults with their siblings. They will never know what it’s like to be caged or confined to a laying barn with thousands of other chickens.

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    Every day, they’ll wake up from their roost, hop down, stretch, take a drink, maybe peck a bit before stepping outdoors to spend the whole day looking for good things to eat over acres of pasture, brush, and woodland.

  • 3 Days of 24 Hour Love

    These happy chicks are three days old today. Ever since they hatched, they have been showered with love and attention 24 hours a day. They are now well bonded with their mother and stay close to her, watching her every move, and mimicking what she does.

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  • Swift Forktails

    One of the hoop houses has a healthy population of Swift Forktails, a type of damselfly. Swift Forktails are black with dabs of turquoise on the tips of their tails and their sides. They float through the air looking like flying gems.

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    Related to dragonflies, damselflies eat many harmful insects and keep their numbers under control. And unlike pesticides, they don’t leave behind any chemicals that can harm you. You don’t have to worry about inhaling any harmful dust. You don’t have to worry about reapplying poisons. The damselflies will keep working all summer long and into the fall.

  • Summer Blooms

    I enjoy these hydrangea. Instead of blooming all at once, they open slowly, a few flowers at a time, which means they stay in bloom a long time.

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  • A Mother’s Love

    These chicks, hatched yesterday, are getting a lesson about drinking from their attentive mother. Little chicks are very curious. They look at everything with wide eyes, but they stay close to their mother.

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