Local Grown Food

I came across this article today on locally grown foods.

http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~news/story.php?id=4724

To sum it up, it says that buying local food isn't saving as much energy as one would hope. Most food is shipped across the country on trucks. A single trailer can haul a lot and when you divide the energy used on a per item basis it's quite small. Now take a local farmer driving to a market with a single bushel of apples. When you work it out the energy used per food item is pretty high, but still lower than shipping it coast to coast.

The article recommends locally grown food which makes me happy. Ladybug and I have been trying to embrace this as much as possible. That being said, at the very least everyone should buy local eggs :)

Chicken Coop Upgrades

Sunday the chickens got an upgrade on their coop.

The problem was that the hole from the coop into the chicken run was facing west, allowing almost all the wind to directly blow into the coop. This is ok in the summer but in the winter there will be some chilly chickens.





As you can see I put a wall in front of the doorway so the wind cannot blow in and shifted over the ramp. For now the North and South ends are open letting winds from those directions blow through, but they may get closed off also.

Last week I moved the food inside the coop and yesterday I moved the water inside (it kept freezing). Moving the water inside didn't help because it was still frozen this morning. We will keep working on that one.

Welcome to Winter

Winter visited Minnesota last week and our house was not immune.



This weekend we tried to finish the outdoor projects that were left, like digging up the rest of the glads and moving pond plants into the garage so they wouldn't freeze. It's mostly done now besides all the leaves still blowing around.

On the good side the birds have been coming fast and furious to the feeders. Eat up little birds, you'll need it!