The world may feel angry and ugly, but it is also beautiful and worth fighting for. Don’t give up on this place, we need your strength and love here. — Dolly PartHen
Here’s What’s Happening At Good Spirits Farm
I am so sorry to report that we lost Squeakers. I really thought she was on the mend, but last weekend she took a turn for the worse. Nothing I did seemed to help. I had a good cry about it, it never gets easier to lose our critters, and Squeaks was an especially endearing little hen. Here’s hoping Chickie Heaven is a bullying-free zone.
Our pastures have gone from growing too slowly to growing too quickly practically overnight! A persistently cold spring meant grasses got off to a sluggish start. I was moving the flerd slowly and feeding hay to try and give our pastures time to get growing. But then, a week of warm weather plus a few good rains sent them shooting off. It’s interesting, some grass varieties are already forming seedheads, which significantly lowers their nutritional quality. I don’t remember past years being quite like this, where we went from no grass growth to overly mature grass all at once. Now I’m speeding up how quickly I rotate our flerd to try and stay on top of the growth and use up as much high-quality grass as I can before it all goes to seed.
It’s been a wild spring for our bees, too. We have had swarm after swarm, with Chris chasing each one down and trying to coax it into the beehives we prepped over the winter. We’re up to nine hives now, and while that will mean a bigger honey harvets in the future, that also means we’ll have to spend more time managing our bee operation. We’re always trying to find that balance of growing to meet our customers’ needs and keeping our sanity.
Here’s What I Loved This Week
This adorable hat from Smartwool that my friend Betsy sent me. It’s Juliet approved!
We also just finished watching the Netflix documentary “Kiss The Ground,” which is all about soil health and soil’s role in mitigating climate change. It’s not a perfect film (the celebrity interviews are a little eye-rolly, honestly!), but when it features soil scientists and agronomists, the message is good. If you’re interested at all in regenerative agriculture or climate change (and if you get this newsletter, I bet you are!), it’s worth a watch.
I'm so sorry to hear about Squeakers. I can't imagine how tough it is to have so many little souls to care for. I really needed to hear Dolly Part-Hen's advice this morning. The world *does* seems terribly ugly right now. :( I too would be interested in honey if you plan to sell by mail. Sending love to all of you and the flerd from Florida.
I am so sorry about Squeakers. These losses are always hard.