Normally Shade Stone Farm's chicken flock free ranges over the grounds with no restrictions.  However, the last few days we have been doing some Spring cleaning.  With the large animals out on pasture we took the opportunity to clean out the barn, Pig Palace, and Chicken Castle. 

​It seems this Spring clean-up confused out birds as they started laying eggs in various places other than the nest boxes.  While we enjoy a good Easter Egg hunt, looking for their new hiding spots each day is not optimum.   

​So, for the next few days our hens are confined to the Chicken Castle until the afternoon (after they have all laid their eggs).  Hopefully this will "reset" them and get them to lay in the nest boxes which are safely contained in the Chicken Castle.

The Chicken Castle is on the left side of this outbuilding.  The Pig Palace is on the right side.  If you look closely you can see Piggy Smalls looking out of his covered door.

This is the inside of the Chicken Castle.  Normally the automatic door at the back opens and closes based on the amount of light outside, but today the sensor is covered and the girls are staying indoors. 

Two of the ladies (they are all Red Sex Link hens) are deciding which next box they would like to use.  You can see their evening roost and watering device in this photo as well.

We can access the nest boxes from the "people side" of the outbuilding.  This allows us to gather the eggs while we are feeding the rabbits, cats and pigs and without entering the Chicken Castle.

Our ladies have multiple body guards.  Our Redbone Coonhound, Maggie, patrols outside the fenced area and does a good job of keeping raccoons at bay.  Inside the fence Piggy Smalls and Clyde, our potbellied pigs, may intimidate some predators, but as you can tell by the smile, they are really friendly guys.

After spending the winter months dining on chemical free hay, our Katahdin sheep and Jersey cattle were thrilled to graze fresh spring pasture.

Shade Stone Farm's hops are off to a good start. You can see the bines beginning their journey up the ropes. 

Early morning mist blankets Shade Mountain in the background.  You can see the light green blooms of our maple trees coming down from the mountain toward the house.  On the left side of the photo you can see the white and pink blooms of our newest trees--the orchard! 

Here's a closer view of the newly planted orchard.  It consists of two types of apple trees, two types of cherry trees, two types of pear trees and one type of peach trees.  The narrow straw lined bed is our asparagus.

Shade Stone Farm's herb garden received its first plants yesterday.  Let's hope Spring's promise of new life will encourage our herbs to flourish.

Rosebud is doing great fitting in on the farm.  She is making friends with the other animals and has captured the hearts of our children completely. 

She's very huggable!

Our daughter didn't want to be away from Rosebud, so she elected to sleep in the barn with her!  She didn't spend the whole night there as the cows made too much noise, but she did learn how sheep and cows sleep.

Meet Rosebud, our Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dog-in-training. She arrived on the farm last night and went right to bed in the barn.

This morning, she met the other animals, did some exploring, and walked the fenceline.

Construction has begun on Shade Stone Farm's new herb garden.  If all goes well we will have various herbs available soon!

Herbs waiting for their new home which is visible just below the deck railing.

The herb garden will have different micro-climates to simulate the conditions that different herbs prefer.  The mountain stone will help retain heat and provide some shade.  There will also be a small trellis system for cold-hard Kiwi vines.

The Herb Shnecke was something we saw while visiting an old castle in Germany.  Shnecke means snail in German and the spiral design allows the grower to have moist, shady soil on the north side, moist sunny soil on the lower south side and hot dry soil at the top.  We thought it was a great idea and decided to try it here at Shade Stone Farm.