Week 19-Slaughter at the chicken corral

Hi Everyone,

I try not to get to attached to the animals that we have here at the farm, with the exception of Molly the dog and Jinx and Rose the cats, sort of, but I did get a bit attached to our rooster "the falcon". He came as a miscue in sexing at the hatchery. We were supposed to get all females in our order, but sexing day old chicks can be a tricky business and occasionally one of the opposite sex can slip through. As that bunch of chicks grew, I noticed he looked different than the rest. Ever so often I would call Vicky out to the back barn and point him out asking her,"what the heck is that?" I decided one day that he looked like a falcon, thus the name. Well, the falcon grew up to be a beautiful Araucana rooster. He graced the pages of Baltimore Magazine and our web site and while many roosters in the past have been pretty ornery, he was a nice guy. He also treated the ladies with respect. Most of the roosters we've had in the past would chase a hen down, grab her by the neck,slam her to the ground and in a cloud of dust have his way with her, the falcon did not. As I have explained to many visitors, he seemed like the "tentative" rooster. He was fairly large and slightly slow and would usually approach a hen as if to say,"excuse me, would you mind if I climbed on your back for a moment? I promise it will only take a couple of seconds." Much of the time it would look like she would say,"all right, but don't do that grab the neck thing" and that would be it. Some of the time as he would try to mount, she would run off as if to say,"not now you big oaf, leave me alone." He was an interesting fellow and always took care of his flock, no matter how disrespectful they were to him. We lost the falcon a few days ago as part of a fox attack. A total of 22 chickens lost their lives including him as, I suspect, he was trying to save the ladies. A fox will attack a chicken house and just go on a killing spree. He won't just kill one and drag it back to the den for dinner, he goes into a killing frenzy and leaves bodies scattered all over. It was bad enough to go about picking up the hens, but when I came upon the rooster, my heart sank a bit. It sure seems quiet around the farm without the falcon's crow.

As I convey my sad chicken story, good things are happening to the produce on the farm. It's getting cooler, we're getting some rain and the Cole crops are liking it very much. We took a walk last night and noticed the broccoli was starting to get small heads and the lettuces,radishes, carrots etc. were coming along well. So, this week we start that transition.

In your crates this week:

Mild Lettuce
Spicy Lettuce
Sweet Potatoes
Tomatoes
Basil
Beans
Summer Squash
Pepper/onion/garlic basket

Vicky and Steve