Barn Chicks Who Blog

Farm friends, I have been honored today by my friend Patrice at Everyday Ruralty. She interviewed me for her wonderful feature post called “Barn Chicks Who Blog.” Awesome, right? Wish I had thought of it. She has a wonderful blog with great posts about family, farming, country living and life in general. If you haven’t visited her blog you are really missing out.

Click on the button below and it will take you to the interview if you are interested. Getting a feature for being a barn chick is so exciting to me, being celebrated as someone who wears muck boots, loves Sunday dates to Tractor Supply with my husband,  flower gardening and love of animals makes my heart smile. Thank you Patrice for your interest, kindness and support of all us barn chicks everywhere.

    Happy Wednesday all,

Snow Babies

Hello farm friends, it has been very cold in our area the last few days. At night our temps have been in the low single digits and below. Water is staying frozen and Farmer Richie has to de-thaw and replenish often. Not a time of year we would purposefully hatch baby ducklings but sometimes things happen around here without our permission.

Elvis and Brownie have been in love for many moons. Brownie, our mama muscovy, had her first balding of ducklings in May 2010--twenty-one ducklings to be exact. She attempted to hatch another group but to no avail. Unfortunately, our peafowl like to find the duck eggs and eat them and we really didn’t want to have any until spring due to the temperatures.  It just so happened, Elvis and Brownie had a different plan. They stowed away under the barn steps out of farmer and peafowl sight and the next thing you know...

Elvis by the pond

Brownie trying to hatch eggs earlier this year with help from the hens

Farmer was walking to the barn this morning and found this...

We shall call them Huey, Dewey and Louie. Remember how mischievous the Disney trio were? I think the names seem to fit.

It is way too cold for day old ducklings to be out in the snow, and mama wasn’t being very attentive. She kept running off and leaving them to follow. It was not an easy task for the babies. They were barely able to stand--or not--from the looks of the one above. He wasn’t dead, he just lost his footing, thank the Lord.

Farmer got worried and put some hay in a bucket and brought them inside. They were shaking from the chill in their body. I had read on Tales from the Coop Keeper many times how she takes her baby chickens and puts them in her sweatshirts to warm them against her body-- so I told him to get me a towel and the electric blanket.

In they went and snuggled into a small pile. It didn’t take long until the shaking stopped and the three drifted into a deep, restful sleep. I have to say they were so precious with their downy feathers and sweet little chirping sounds resting there. As I peaked at them, one looked up at me as if to say “thank you mommy.” Oh my heart melted.

About an hour and a half later they started chirping away and seemed to be telling me it was time to eat and drink. The difference in that short time of warmth resulted in their eyes being alert, standing on their own and energy galore. Jayme knew what she was talking about.

We will nurse Huey, Dewey and Louie until they are strong enough to go to the coop and ultimately out to live with their big brothers and sisters. As for our lovebirds, Elvis and Brownie, we will be moving her to the girl’s dormitory until spring. Elvis better not be caught shimmying up the tree to sneak in to see her either. Bad boy Elvis!

Quack, quack,

Verde Cottage

Hello farm friends, hoping your 2011 is in full swing and your goals and resolutions are on track.We've been somewhat hesitant about putting our goals to paper this year. It's a lot to think about, "where do you want to be by 12-31-11?" We have so many plans in the works and its easy to set yourself up for failure by taking on too many things at once. One of our goals has been to rent our cottage to vacationers and those needing a special getaway. This is a goal we are fully prepared to reach and the first one we're moving on. 

Verde Cottage was built in the 1930s about 15 years after the main house was built. By the time we purchased the property in 2007, it was home to a wonderful family of raccoons.Yes, raccoons and they were smart enough to make their nest in one of the bedrooms.Three men, including my husband said bulldoze it. You know how men are about things like this, no vision. My mother-in-law and I saw something else, we saw a fully restored little cottage amongst all the rubble, rusted tub and mess. So, who do you think won that battle? Yes, the women.

We started restoring the cottage in 2008. We took it all the way to the studs but kept the layout intact. As we tore out walls we found interesting things, like newspapers from the 30s with pre-WWII articles , which  were used as insulation, old silverware and letters. There was an old claw foot tub that needed repair, and an old mantle with layers and layers of paint. Again, the men said, "get rid of them." I even had a tub restorer come look at the tub and he said it was irreparable. Well, they were all wrong. The tub is gorgeous and a friend refinished it with a product we found at a home improvement store. It's as good as new. The mantle is down to the original wood and and it is beautiful.

So, after all the restoring, painting, decorating and loving we did to this upscale raccoon shack, Verde Cottage was born. I decorated it in my idea of cottage style and continue to do so today. You're never really finished decorating, right? The colors are soft and pastel with vintage pops of hand-me-downs throughout. I love it and love the coziness it exudes. We've had many farm guests spend the night in our cottage and we want to open it up to others. It has two bedrooms (one full and one queen size bed), a living room, full kitchen, bathroom and sun room.

Verde Cottage is available for rental at $100 a night during the week, and $185 for a weekend.

We also offer special seasonal packages, such as The Romance Renewed Package-including champagne or wine, fresh fruits and cheese, romantic candles, bubble bath and delivered to your door, my husband's special chocolate gravy and flat bread for breakfast.

Others include:The Spa Weekend Package-with a trip to Picasso's Salon and Spa for massages, facials and mani-pedis.

Back To The Farm Package-including fresh egg delivery with all the fixings for you to cook your own farm breakfast, time working with the animals and in the barn as well as your own Easter egg hunt collecting eggs for the day and a couple dozen to take home.

We love our small farm and want to share it with others so if you are ever traveling our way and want to set a spell, take your shoes off, just give us a call at 888-630-3828 or e-mail us at verdefarms@gmail.com .We'd be honored. 

A Tale of Bonnie the Bear

I recently had the privilege of a visit from a lady who was born in our home. In fact, America Estelle Meadows Pennington’s father, Azel Meadows, built our home in the early 1900s. She had many stories to tell, but one of them resonated more than the others.


About 1916,  a gentleman named Meadows brought his new wife to Meadows Heights, now Verde Farm, to raise a family consisting of  two boys and a girl. Meadows was in real estate and owned a lot of property in the area and around the state. One day, he was visiting the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. and was told a small female black bear had been trapped on the resort property. Several men were discussing what to do with the bear when Meadows said he would like to have it.  Happy to oblige,  the men loaded Bonnie (as Meadows named her) into a metal cage and transported her to Huntington--our current home.


Meadows had a good size metal cage built in his side yard to house Bonnie. He thought it would be a great conversation starter and unique experience for his children growing up with an unusual animal like a bear.


As time passed, Bonnie settled in and was doing well. Meadows decided it would be a great thing to introduce her to a fella so she could have a baby. But, how would he find a male bear for his Bonnie?Well, it just so happened a circus was coming to town. Meadows worked it out with the circus owners to bring Bonnie to visit with one of the males.

All went well at the circus. However, Meadows had no way of knowing if his idea to mate Bonnie with the male circus bear actually worked in the short window of opportunity he had. Weeks passed and spring came into full bloom. But, the tranquility would soon be shattered. One day, Meadows was sitting by a window watching his four-year-old son playing in the yard when the little boy walked over to Bonnie’s cage and stuck his hand inside to pet her.


Mr. Meadows didn’t think. He bolted from his chair, grabbed his gun, walked to the cage and shot Bonnie. He told his wife he had never worried about the bear harming the children until the moment his son stuck his hand inside the bear cage. He couldn’t take a chance on losing the child. Disheartened, and without the will to simply bury Bonnie, he had her stuffed.

The taxidermist took the bear’s body to his workshop. As he was preparing Bonnie he found that her trip to the circus had been a successful one: she was pregnant with a bear cub. Meadows felt pretty bad after receving the news and spent the evening in contemplation, his daughter said.

The bear cage in fall 2010
The muscovies love to roost on Bonnie’s old cage

The old bear cage is still standing today, although a bit rickety and rusted. Many visitors ask why we have that old rusty cage in our yard and Richie and I both reply, we could never take it down. Bonnie’s history will live on as long as we are here. As stories are orally passed down through the years they begin to take on a life of their own and the truth sometimes gets lost in the years. Before Pennington set the record straight we heard Bonnie was a bear on the lam from the circus and had lived on our property as recent as the ‘60s. However, we got the story firsthand.