![]() Cleetus the chicken is a Kentucky Fried Chicken that hitched a ride with us from, you guessed it, Kentucky. He decided to stick around. He was the first free ranging chicken at Ozark Akerz and he's always getting into trouble. He was also our first logo. As part of the Cleetus logo design, we included a circle in his pan that contains 3 Elder Futhark runes: fehu meaning cattle or wealth, jera meaning harvest and raido meaning journey. The runes honor Sue's Celtic and Mike's Viking heritage. Cleetus is mad as cheese and is always messing around on the farm, He's had his share of okra accidents. He promoted our Ozark Outlaw beer, brewed at Raleigh Brewing, using our organically grown jalapenos and joined us at the brewery for a few cheeky pints at the release. He also took a photo of Mike kissing a camel. Scroll through the slideshow below to view Cleetus' story in pictures and view the incriminating evidence. We're sure Cleetus will still be causing trouble on the farm, but he's probably going to be spending more time drinking cold beer on the porch now that his promotional days are over. Our new logo is based on the image our friend Rachel at Slow Farm designed for the Feeding Families Team T-shirts. It's based on our Pineywoods bull Rocky. We'll be releasing an edgy new t-shirt soon to celebrate our new logo and a new era of Graze Against The Machine® regenerative farming at Ozark Akerz! We've had a few people ask about what runes equate to letters in the alphabet over the years, so if you want to see your name in Elder Futhark, Cleetus has included a table below. The letters of OZARK mean: Heritage Elk Odin Journey Torch. Some of the runes have multiple meanings, choose the one that you like best, Have Fun!
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Seeds and weeds aplenty! Spring is a busy time on the farm, here's a quick summary about what we've been up to:
And finally, here is a video of 4 of the baby chicks that have hatched. The first of the chicks hatched on Cinco de Mayo. We have 5 hens sitting on eggs right now so we should have many more soon! Thanks all y'all!
Sue & Mike
Soft Shell Eggs Soft shell eggs can occur in younger chickens or if the chickens don't get enough calcium. The egg shell doesn't form as it is developed and the hen lays the egg with a soft, leather like outer casing. We found 3 of them when egg production started increasing this spring. We increased the amount of oyster shells we put out for them and since then we haven't had any more soft shells.
Oyster Pastures, Cannibalism and Captain Tom's Sustainable farming is all about using what you have on the farm. Currently there are no oysters grazing our pastures. We could consider starting an oyster farm but that seems a bit excessive. We have heard of folks feeding egg shells back to their chickens. That seems a bit like cannibalism, not sure we're ready to take that step! Finally, we could talk to the Captain Tom's Seafood Restaurant down the road to see if they would donate their oyster shells. Of course we would need to consider the time and effort it would take to crush the shells. We only went through 5 pounds in the first 6 months and despite the increase in consumption right now, we might be buying shells for a while, especially at $10 for a 50 pound bag! Gumboze This week we're introducing a new section to the the Ekoze blog. Like the best Gumbo, the Gumboze section will have a little bit of everything, a farm-fact, a story about Sue or Mike or just something random. We promise it will always be entertaining, so check back often!
Have a great week y'all! Sue & Mike " Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia - fear of long words. Who ever came up with this word has no fear of irony! |
Graze Against
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