Our John said if I wrote Hot Chicks in the title I would attract the wrong kind of reader. But I don’t know. I don’t think so. And If you like Hot Chicks you might like the farmy too.. everyone eats.
But it was so hot yesterday, hovering just under 100 degrees, as the Coke Bottle temperature gauge will prove.
Oh you cannot see it clearly?.. let me do some photo shop magic!
This was at 3pm and as it got hotter I seriously began to fade. Our first really hot day and I felt poleaxed. So I took shelter in the coolest part of the farm, the barn, with the hot chicks. When it gets really hot the chickens find a draught, go very still, hold their wings out from their bodies….
letting their beaks drop open to pant and they just wait it out. Hot.
You will remember that there are two flocks, the hen house girls, (the little chicks are moving in there quite nicely now) and the barn flock. The hen house girls are let out every evening into the fields to scatter the cow dung about (they are the manure spreaders) and get some greens. I let them out about 3o minutes before dark so they do not roam over to the vegetable gardens and create havoc. The barn flock help the cats keep the barn free of rodents, attend to the insects and keep the straw turned over and fresh. In the time honoured tradition of farmers I have to search for their eggs. They tend to work the North side of the property. 
There are roosters who keep them safe. Plenty of roosters actually. I call the chickens the unsung heroes of a sustainable farm as they are the ones who can and do, feed just about everybody. I collect between 12 and 18 eggs a day. The cats and dogs get milk and eggs every morning. The pigs get about half a dozen eggs a day. Minty gets an egg in her milk every morning.
The cows get eggs with their feed on medicine day. I eat two fried eggs every morning, and of course cook with them and all the rest are sold or bartered to pay for their feed. Though there is not a lot left over, I need more chickens. So although Daisy is the designated Mother Ship with her milk and seniority…
.. these hot chicks keep us all fed.
Good morning. It is going to be another hot day today. So I need to start early with the watering. In this kind of heat an animal can die if he runs out of water. Plus the secret ingredient in a vegetable garden is water!! But it all needs to be done while it is still cool.
The top lids of the beehives have been propped open a few inches to let the air flow through the hive. I do this when the temperatures rises above 90. But if it looks like rain (which it doesn’t), or if a big wind comes up, make sure I zoom down the back and lower them again. Propped up lids can blow off. Bees need a lot of water too so their water is always topped up as well. Did you know that the bees carrying water into a hive are given top priority by the doormen. They go to the front of the queue, like pretty girls in silver heels at a night club door. Pollen carrying bees have to wait.
The Dairy Mistress Paddock only has one more side left to fence, with any luck, I will have stock in there this evening. The internal fences may have to wait until next year. There is only so much fencing a man can do evidently.
And the pool needs cleaning so he says!! There is a lot of pool cleaning on hot days!
I hope that you all have a lovely day.
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
66 responses to “Hot Chicks.. the unsung heroes of Sustainable Farming!”
I think there may be some disappointed Google searchers celi! and talking of hot chicks its hitting the 80s and us Brits are seeking the shade, this one is on the backdoor step.
lovely bee facts !
It can get hot over there, and your days are so long, i miss those summer twilight hours until ten at night.. c
Thank god, it’s Fahrenheit. I hope.
Oh yes.. morning Klaus! c
Love the silhouette shot!
98 f equates to 36.666666 c. Pretty warm 🙂
We hit about 29 c yesterday 🙂
thank you for doing the maths for me sarah, I am sometimes tempted to put a temperature conversion table on the side of the blog page .. our sites are so international.. but i am not sure there is one! c
well there’s a website that’ll do it for you!!
http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm
We prop out hive tops year round, especially in the winter. I know, sounds odd, but condensation is harder than heat we think. To keep everything together (a tornado hit a hive and flipped it once and in case Stella’s cows get loose and come calling…) we ratchet strap each hive together.
Stay cool!
That ratchet strap is an excellent idea.. and you are right about the condensation, do you get as cold as we do in the winter? What about rain and snow blowing in? Though I can imagine a tornado doing the damage! eek.. c
There’s some weird statistic about people starting riots when the temperature reaches 92º.
I love the old Coke thermometer and your roosters look amazing 😉
Yikes a riot in the barnyard!! imagine.. c
Poor hot chicks…they’ll need lots of water and encouragement! As for your title, it will be interesting to see how your viewing figures rocket – I once attracted a lot of attention for a title that I had thought was entirely innocent!
My biggest draw is still “Sorry about the bare bottoms!” which i quite innocently put in thinking all you could see were the bare bottoms of the pigs! (laughter)/c
I hope Im not the wrong type of reader. I love the shot of the rooster in silhouette.
there you are then, you are just the right type of reader!! c
My goodness, you went from snow to hot very quickly! Or does it just seem that way. I would love to be able to buy some farmy eggs from you C – just not sure they would travel well all the way here to South Africa.
Have a happy day.
🙂 Mandy
You might get a few cracked ones!! (laughter) and yes the seasons do change with a snap here.. some years is very fast! c
i am a hot chick too! this weather is just awful. i love the old coke thermometer! do you have a swimming pool?
John has a pool. i have nothing to do with it.. nasty things! He is a water baby though and needs it desperately in the heat.. c
That profile picture of the rooster is just gorgeous! It’s been very hot here too, bordering on uncomfortable.
As long as the heat stays on the border!! morning ksenia! c
You have the best fed animals on the planet!!
They all love their eggs!! a perfect protein! c
I had three young bucks wander through the yard once, and called the post ‘Stag Party’…I got some weird traffic on that one!
We’ve got 80, fog, and unbearable humidity…I know what you mean by poleaxed. With outside time severely limited – and punctuated with cries of “Hey! Come back here!” or “Stay where Grandmom can see you…” – I tend to overdo in the time I do have…
Love the photos – and the hot-weather info – today. Hope you get some rain soon!
A toddler in the garden is a constant vigil!! We have no rain in the forecast, so the pump will be running most of the day (annoyed face!). hope that humidity gives you a break,, it is so cloying.. c
Morning Celi! I just love our chickens too! I have stopped going into the hen house 3 times a day looking for eggs, as I did when they first began laying and only go in the early evening now. It’s still a thrill to collect the eggs. When you prop the hive tops open on your bees, do you mean just the top cover, so air can flow into the opening on the inner cover? So far our two hives are doing well. So well that we added a super to the hive body after only 5 weeks. We are very excited about them! We are feeding them, and I believe we’ll need to do that through the summer their first year. Are you feeding your bees? Stay cool my friend. Di
yes I only open the top cover and leave the inner cover in place. I feed the bees until I see a run on flowers and they are all bringing in pollen, then i stop, in a month or so there will be a pause in blooms before the late summer flowers so sometimes i need to feed then too.. I will be taking honey so I want the honey to be made from flowers and not sugar also there is a risk of them getting too much sugar honey. I think that is called honey bound or something, when they get too much too fast. So, soon you will quit feeding them sugar water for the high summer. I am playing with the idea of putting water in their jars for when it is hot and windy, just so they have a water source in close. c
You’re so right about chicken heros and it’s so sad that most live in horrendous conditions to provide us with eggs and meat. 99 degrees? Yo’re just going to laugh at my blog later today!!!
Christine
I will be over to check!! morning Christine.. c
I could never survive your schedule! I have done two twenty-minute stints working in the garden today, and my back is now done for. I like the iway your hot chicks keep themselves a bit cooler! We water in the evening – it doesn’t evaporate so quickly – and top up next day only if absolutely necessary. I ate two strawberries this morning. Don’t tell Jock!
YUM, well how could you resist,it is your reward.. yesterday evening i was just so tired i could not bear it so now I am playing catch up with the watering!! c