Chick taking selfies. Cute chicks can't help themselves in front of a camera

Here is a picture of one my baby silver laced wyandotte chicks taking a selfie.   This picture was taken by my farm hand, Sarrah Lavergne.   She has taken the role of mother hen, as you can see by the picture of her sitting with "her" chicks

The Baby Chicks have arrived!

A Farm isn't a real farm unless you have chickens.   My baby chicks have arrived!   I ordered them from Murray McMurray hatchery in Webster Iowa.     I ordered 25 silver laced wyandotte pullets.  I chose this breed because they are very calm in nature, and good layers of brown eggs.   Here is a picture of some adults.   They are a conservation breed and are recovering.

Here are pictures of the box, and pictures of the baby chicks in the shipping box.   They were shipped priority mail through the USPS.   If your wondering how baby chicks can be mailed, its quite common actually.   When a baby chick hatches it sucks the egg yolk up just before it hatches.   This provides food for 2-3 days.   This is mother natures way of giving the baby chick a head start in case it has difficulty finding food for the first couple days.   This allows them to spend two days in transit.   They will require a minimum order of 25 chicks to help keep each other warm.

Here is the box that they arrived in along with a picture of our corgi who isn't sure what to make of the box.

Here are images of the chicks in their brooder area   They need to be kept very warm - at 95 degrees the first week.  

Health's Kitchen Owner - proving her restaurant is a Farm to Fork restaurant.

Here's proof that Robin, the co-owner of Health's Kitchen buys locally.   She is standing in front of my farm, with a crate of red leaf lettuce that she harvested for her restaurant.    Health's Kitchen is located at 10120 Indiana Ave, Riverside, CA 92503.   Stop by and try locally grown, healthy food.

Wolf Spider??

I was preparing another row in the vegetable area for planting when I came across this interesting spider.   I think it may be a wolf spider, but not sure.    Considering the fact that spider help control the insect population, I left it alone and continued working.    I don't spray any pesticides of herbicides, so I am happy there are spiders on the farm.
Here are some images.  If anyone has any idea what type of spider it may be, please let me know.

Planting Onions

We planted onions today.  I had a student from UCR - University of California - Riverside helping me today.   She is interested in farming and permaculture and asked to help plant and work on the farm.   We were planting Spanish yellow onions and redwing red onion plants.

The Curse of the Were Rabbit!

I have a big rabbit problem in my farm.  I transplant the seedlings in the rows where they are going to grow and return the next morning to find three quarters of a 50 foot row decimated by rabbits.  The seedling are sow small that they basically kill the plant by eating the growing part, and only leaving a short stem.     Over the past week, they have eaten over 500 seedlings.   It takes a lot of work to plant and nurture the seedlings to the point where they can be transplanted.      They have eaten lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, celery, kale and pea seedlings.     The corral where I grow my veggies is fenced in with 2 inch square fencing.  We cannot figure out how they are getting in.

Here are images of the damage.

We thought they were coming up from the river bottom and there is a gate with the same 2 inch fencing on the fence separating the property from the river bottom.   I put some rabbit fence over the 2 inch fencing and put a wildlife camera up.   I expected to see rabbits from the river side trying to get into the property.   Much to our surprise, the rabbits were inside trying to get back to the river bottom.  Here are some images from the wildlife camera.

I decided to set the camera up last night near where they have been eating and I have been finding rabbit pellets.   I also set up a havahart trap, with some lettuce and peanut butter as bait.   I figured I could catch them and relocate them.    This was also inside the corral.
Here is the only picture that I got.   The rabbit was interested with what was inside the trap, but never entered it.  The trap was empty this morning.    If anyone has any tips on keeping rabbits away from my veggies, I would be happy to hear from you.

El Nino Rain - Welcome moisture for my farm

We received our first El Nino storm for the season and received much needed rain.  The rain gauge on the farm shows we received almost 2 inches of rain over the past two days.   The storm was a strong El Nino generated series of storms that rained for two days, sometimes heavy.    It gave all the trees a good drink and filled the pond almost to the top.     Here are some images of the farm after the rain.