The Bradley Farm

05/26/2021

Wanted to share what our oldest son is going through with our farm friends. Keep him in your prayers. He appreciates all the love and support.

On Sunday May 23rd, our precious 11 year old boy was viciously attacked… Anthony Bradley needs your support for Help my son with recovery from pit bull attack

05/14/2021

Booth's favorite farm animal is the duck, and he has made it his personal project to care for them. Over the last year he has raised the ducklings into adult ducks quite successfully. He feeds them, walks them to the pond for their daily swim, leads them out to the pastures to forage and locks them up at night to keep them safe. He spent the winter reading all about breeding domestic ducks, and has spent the spring collecting eggs for hatching. All of his hard work has paid off and now he is being rewarded with his second generation of runner ducklings. He is a very happy boy!

05/07/2021

We have been busy hatching baby chicks, turkeys and ducklings over the last few weeks. The fertility has been great, and the hatch rates have been fantastic. It has also been a fun learning learning experience for the boys! We have three rounds left in the incubator, and then we will be done for the season. Currently hatching are: Blue, Black and Splash Orpingtons, Lavender Orpingtons, Black and Blue Copper Marans, Splash Marans, Salmon Faverolles, Coronation Sussex, Blue Laced Red Wyandotte, Black Javas, Cream Legbars, Midget White Turkeys, and assorted Runner Ducks. (In this photo Elijah helped me carry the first batch put to the brooder)

04/11/2021

On Friday we finished the framework for our new covered area. It will have multiple purposes for our farm! We will use it to pot up seedlings and harden them off, seedling sales, poultry processing and a bouquet making station for the U-pick flowers later this summerfrom Special! We will also use it to teach homesteading classes from! Special thanks to Maurice and Noah for all of their help!

03/30/2021

My Forsythia and Pussywillow arrived today! I am excited to add these to our farm! They will be used to make two new hedgerows, providing habitat for the pollinators, and more foliage for our bouquets and wreaths.

03/17/2021

We have some new additions on the farm! Three sweet Jersey heifers have found a new home here. We are having a blast with the calves, and the kids love bottle feeding them!

03/11/2021

The Midget White turkeys have started laying this week, and we are so excited! These eggs are the beginning of a big idea that we have for this year. We have a fun project that we would like to do with you, our friends, and our community! We would like to do a Thanksgiving grow-a-long, with weekly picture updates, where we as a group, grow out our turkeys and side dishes. It will be followed with a turkey butchering weekend right before Thanksgiving. If you don't want to grow your own, or participate in the butchering, we can grow it and butcher it for you. Interested?

03/09/2021

Crazy fast! I started several varieties of lettuce on Saturday at 9 in the morning. 2.5 days later and I have half inch tall seedlings!

03/07/2021

I picked up my native plant order from the Pierce County Conservation native plant sale today! The bag may not look like much, but there were 15 Mock Orange Trees, 10 Ninebarks, 20 Red Twig Dogwoods, 5 Paper White Birches, and 5 Rocky Mountain Maples! I will be using the Mock Oranges, Ninebarks, and Dogwoods in hedgerows to provide habitat and food for native bees, pollinators, and birds. They will also be used as foliage in my flower bouquets! I potted up the Mock Oranges and Ninebark and planted the rest in the ground today with the help of Benjamin. He is turning out to be quite the garden helper this spring! The native plant sale is a wonderful way to get local plants, that thrive in our climate, for extremely affordable prices!

03/05/2021

We took advantage of the sunny weather this week to transplant flowering sweet peas, snapdragons, stock and foxgloves. Benjamin helped sow 400 sweet pea seeds, and he was so excited to be able to help plant them out. He has the perfect sized fingers for getting them into the ground!

12/03/2020

Meet Minnie! Our Jersey cow, Molly Moo, had her calf yesterday morning. They are both doing great, and we are excited to be getting fresh milk again soon!

11/28/2020

It has been all hands on deck the last couple of days, and we are making good progress! Hopefully by the end of the day today we will have our cow shed and Brooke's horse stalls roofed!