Dear FarmTek,
Back in 2007 we purchased one of your Chick Inn tents for our pastured poultry. We needed fast and inexpensive shelter. Chick Inn fit the bill. Over the years my husband made a few modifications to the Chick Inn with recycled pallets, plastic sheeting, and straw bales to help our hens withstand Pennsylvania winters. Here it is 2010, and it is still going strong.
During our second Mid-Atlantic blizzard in less than a week, I went up to what we now call the Chicken Igloo four times to brush the snow off the roof with our barn broom. The chickens and Ping the duck were safe and sound. If the foot-plus snowstorm wasn’t enough of a test of the quality of the Chick Inn, listen to this story. Our 80-pound Bouvier de Flandres, Mr. Magoo, loves the snow. He got so excited over the mini-avalanches I was pulling down the slope of the roof that he leapt from a pile of snow onto the “rip-stop polyethylene fabric” roof! My heart stopped. Would the roof stop a bounding Bouvier? Magoo just bounced off and fell back into the drifts. Life is always interesting at Fleur-de-Lys Farm.
Sincerely, Laurie Lynch
Food, Inc.: Agribusiness, Food, and Health in America: Join Kutztown University for a free film and panel discussion this Saturday, Feb. 20th, from 9 a.m. to noon in Academic Forum 201for a public showing of 2009’s groundbreaking documentary Food, Inc., followed by a panel discussion and question/answer session with local experts. In the film, director Robert Kenner examines the state of the modern American industrial food system, including investigation of its impacts on our environment and our health. The film will be followed with a panel of local experts:
· Tim Stark (farmer, Eckerton Hill Farm, Hamburg)
· Barb and Mike Dietrich (farmers, Oley Valley Organics, Pike Township)
· Rep. David Kessler (130th Legislative District Representative, Oley)
· Dr. Martine Scannavino, DHSc, RD, LDN, Associate Director of the Allen Center for Nutrition at Cedar Crest College.
· Mena Hautau, MS, CCA, Senior Extension Educator, Agriculture/Agronomy, PSU Extension Berks County; Board member, PA Association for Sustainable Agriculture
Percolating With PASA Conference Ideas: Oh boy, PASA’s conference took me to new realms of lacto-fermentation, root cellaring, gardening like the forest, and Earthship Biotechture. More on all of this in upcoming newsletters. In the meantime, I’m deep into Sally Fallon’s “Nourishing Traditions”.
Easter Peeps: Once again, we are renting pairs of peeps the week before Easter, March 31 to April 3. For $40 you and your family can have a special farming experience at your home. We provide the box, feed, bedding, water bottle, and two precious chicks. You provide a desk lamp for heat and lots of love. After two weeks, you return the chicks to our farm where they are raised as egg layers. Please email or call to reserve a pair of peeps.
