It’s been another busy week on the homestead. This morning we’ve been busy preparing for the pekin ducks that will arrive next week! Look forward to some delicious, healthy pastured duck meat to be available around the beginning of May.
Love for Whispering Willow Lip Balm
I recently tested the Whispering Willow Lip Balm we carry, and I was really impressed with its quality!
Whispering Willow Lip Balm
I’m usually disappointed with natural lip balms, finding they don’t moisturize and don’t last long. Whispering Willow’s lip balm was the exact opposite! I used it right before heading outside for hours of farm work in windy, cold conditions. It lasted throughout my work, and I didn’t even need to reapply by the time I came in! I am used to carrying lip balm in my pocket during farm work, since it never seems to last, but this stuff was a welcome improvement from other brands. We carry the lip balm in a variety of flavors: mint, lavender, vanilla, and orange. I’ve been using vanilla, and love it! Pick up some during our farm store hours on Monday, or add it to your next Leesburg dropoff!
Sad Bee News
On a recent warm day, we peeked in our hives. Sadly, our bees haven’t made it through the winter. For those who aren’t beekeepers, in Virginia the standard loss rate over the winter is 50%. Our hives were all pretty young, and it’s a challenge to get them through the winter until they’re a few years old and well established.
Harley opening the hive
We were able to save a lot of comb and honey from the hives. That will be given to new bees that we purchased to arrive at the end of March. Getting comb and honey will be a big boost to those bees in establishing new hives!
Goat Update
No new goat purchases this week! Our new bucks have been introduced into our goat herd, and now all five goats are getting along pretty well. Introducing new goats can be a challenge. We put the two bucks together in a pen near our current goat pen, so all the goats could see and smell each other. After a few days we moved the bucks in with the other goats, and there was minimal head butting and posturing. I’ll post a video of all the goats soon!
Chick Update
Our red sex link chicks are over three weeks old, and feathering out. We hope to move them outside in about a week, but we’ll see. We have sold all our extra chicks from this batch, but we have updated our next chick order, arriving the week of March 23, to include Easter Eggers, a few Australorps, and more Red Sex Links. All of these chicks are sexed to be female, but if you end up with a male, we will take him back and issue you a credit for his purchase price. Read all the details of our chicks for sale, and contact us now to reserve chicks!
Announcement: Ducklings Coming!
We have decided to expand our flock of Khaki Campbell laying ducks. Khaki Campbell is a heritage breed, and they’re laying production is supposed to be quite high.
Ducks!
We have ordered ducklings to arrive the week of April 6th, and we have ordered extra that will be available for sale. These ducklings will be sexed females. We have been very happy with our ducklings so far. They are very hardy, and seem to do very well in cold weather. Details will be on our poultry page soon!
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