Urban Farming and Crazy May Weather
May 21, 2013For the past ten years, Sophia and I have been living on a farm just a mile away from where I grew up. Last month, we finally decided to make a change and move into town. It was a tough decision, we’ll no doubt miss living on a farm, but we are close enough to still help my father. This realization made the transition a little bit easier.
Remember that six-pack of chickens we bought back in March? Well, they grew pretty fast and I have to confess their home our basement where we were keeping them became a bit of a nuisance. It was a real chore to clean it every day and the chickens were going through the feed like you wouldn’t believe. We brought those chickens with us when we moved into town and move them to a fancy little chicken run and hen house we found at our local farm supply store.
We’re going to try our hand at Urban Farming. We were so excited once the weather warmed up and we were able to move our chickens outside and test the new chicken house.
Towards the end of April the weather became increasingly more beautiful with sunny spring days and budding trees. Here in Iowa, as I have said before, it’s all about the weather! The chickens couldn’t have been happierrunning around our back yard scratching for bugs. I was surprised at how entertaining they can be, it has been so much fun to sit outside and watch them explore.
Then, in a crazy twist, a winter blizzard struck us on May 2 and over two days we received more than a foot of snow. We went from spring sunshine and the beginnings of swimsuit weather to an all-out snow storm typical of January. I wasn’t sure how our chickens would weather the storm in the new chicken run. I asked my mother and she assured me that because they had feathers they would be fine. And they were.
The temperatures on the rise and e have Spring Fever once again!