Last night the temperature dropped below freezing, lots of frost on the ground. Even with the frost we did not loose any chickens. We have two heat lamps going inside the coop.
We have nine chicks in room 13 that were hatched on December 5, 2021. I also have one chick from the October 24th hatch in the room. It had a bacterial infection on one eye. It is being cared for.
The chicken we lost yesterday was also from the October 24th hatch.
During period 8 we found one chicken dead in the coop. It was one of the October babies, so it was fairly young. It appears it may have been trampled or hurt by the pigs. Could not find any wounds.
The Coop held up well in the heavy rains. One problem we had was that over the past couple of years the raking of the chicken coop we do each day has taken a couple of inches of soil from the coop, this allowed the water to pool in the middle of the coop. During period one the students placed soil that period eight had left from the day before around the coop. We will need to redress this issue after break.
The problem we have is that the water from the entire grass area flows through the coop during heavy rains. This issue will not be resolved until new grass is installed. There was talks in the district to have this done. The current lawn has been in place since 1993.
The Farm received two pigs from a former students family! Lacey Lahn.
Today 11-20-21
A total of four hens were given to families today. A Plymouth Barred Rock, an EE, a BCM, and a Blue BCM.
Last week a student's family took seven roosters to a family farm in Fontana. In this group was God Father 2 and the O.C. The GF2 was a Brahma Rooster and the O.C. was an Orpington Rooster.
Egg Laying Update. We are down to 9 -10 eggs being laid each day, down from a summer high of 24 on average per day.
The demolition of the raised garden beds has been completed along with the installation of new raised garden beds. In addition, the students completed the backfilling of the newly built raised planters. The students have begun installing the above-ground irrigation lines to the new planters. Each new raised planter had installed a 3./4 inch ball valve so when the planters are not in use the irrigation line can be turned off.
Today periods 3 & 4 assisted periods 1& 8 in the demolition of the existing garden center-raised planter.
The two periods of Farm Construction are working on removing and relocating some existing raised garden beds and also installing poles for a new tarp cover.
The baby chicks were moved out into the main coop this week. They appear to be comfortable in their surroundings..
Today Trevor Derwin shared his family's French Toast Recipe...(all but the cinnamon) What was really cool is that Trevor used baguettes (not shown) for our first round of FT.
As I was placing plywood under the pumpkin I noticed some zucchini's that I had not noticed before. I believe they were hidden from view by the pumpkin. Some HHS staff members were glad to take them off my hand.
We are now in week 2 with students! The students assigned to the farm have begun helping out in the chicken coop. On Aug 30th 11 chickens hatched. The students are helping prepare the coop for the new chicks.
The garden is exploding with pumpkin plants! I planted 5 pumpkin seeds that took to rooting. When I left on Aug 12 to travel to Wyoming I could walk down the garden walkway and there were no pumpkins. When I returned on Aug 22, I could barely open the door to the garden and had one giant pumpkin, at least 20 lbs. There are now at least six pumpkins that are growing.
School begins on Monday, August 23, 2021. I have been away from the farm since Aug 12th, Mrs. Boswell has kept the charge of the farm for the past two weeks.
This summer we grew zucchini, pumpkins, tomatoes, grapes, cucumbers, blackberries, and pumpkins. We tried green beans but the chickens would eat the leaves before they could grow. We have harvested over 20 zucchini and cucumbers up to this point. The blackberries ripened near the end of school in early June. Many of the office staff collected blackberries after all of the students were off into summer.
When I left for vacation on Aug 12 we had no pumpkins growing. Upon arrival home, on Aug 22 we had four pumpkins, one of which weighs at least 20 pounds. It is getting very hard to walk in the garden.
We had two hatches of chickens this summer. One in early June, the last week of the last school year. A total of eight. We then had eight chicks hatch in late July. We lost five of the eight due to something, not large able to get into the coop and dig under the interior wall to a cage that the chicks were in.
Over the summer I gave 2 young hens from the Valencia Chicks to a school employee in June. In early August I gave four hens to our custodian to give to a friend. These four hens constantly would go out in front of the school. Mrs. Boswell took Henrietta and a chick to her home in early August.
We lost one hen to an injury in August.
This past week I placed a cap on top of each of the six poles and drilled a hole into the cap. I then placed a metal wire through the hole and stretched it across to another. I then attached the shade cloth to the wire. The shade cloth now stays at least seven feet above the ground.
Installed irrigation lines in the raised planters that students built during the 4th quarter. Finished the irrigation lines on July 1. Note moved classroom from room 1 to room 13 on June 21. Moved the wall unit on June 24. July 7 made repairs to cove base in room 1 and room 14. Move basically complete July 8.
Got a very late start with the garden this year. I had students plant some vegetables plants in April but the chickens got to them. I stopped by my new favorite store 99 cents + in Glendora and picked up some 6 packs of plants in June. We planted corn, zucchini, cucumbers, strawberries, and the blackberry plant was going wild with berries.
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| Zucchini picked the first 3 zucchinis today! |
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| corn planted late June |
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| Cuccumbers, a tomato plant, and two pumpkin plants |
