It's Sunday 🌱Rural Sprout Readers, are you ready to meet Meredith?

Published: Sun, 03/07/21

Our resident chicken expert drops by for a visit.

Good mornin' Rural Sprout Readers and happy Sunday,

I hope you’re in your comfiest chair with your favorite morning beverage in your mug. How are your seedlings coming along? Have you got your garden all planned out yet?

I have to admit to being a little behind on the actual planning of my gardening this year. I’ve got an interesting growing space to work with that requires planning things a little differently this year.

You’ll have to keep an eye on the website this week as I unveil this new project. (I’m pretty excited about it.)

Well, we’ve had beautiful sunny skies for most of the week…accompanied by the most bitingly cold winds.

To be sure, March is showing its lion side. We’ll have to cross our fingers and hope for the lamb in a few more weeks.

On to the interview

I’m happy to be introducing another member of the Rural Sprout team this week – Meredith Skyer. We all know her as our resident chicken expert. But Meredith’s expertise goes beyond poultry here on Rural Sprout.

TB: Meredith, we would love to hear your background story; I believe you’re also a native to upstate NY, right? Tell us a bit about your life there.

I was born and raised in Rochester, NY, and still live there to this day. I live on a wooded homestead with my husband, our house full of pets, a large flock of chickens, and growing rabbitry.

We care for a large garden and fruit trees, forage in the woods for mushrooms, and feast on farm-fresh eggs daily.

Outside of caring for our homestead, I’m also an artist and art teacher to children and adults.

My art is largely focused on animals and nature, in particular on chickens. I have a pottery studio in my basement and love making homestead-inspired pottery, my rainbow chicken mugs are growing in popularity, and I’m developing some new art pieces too!"

TB: It sounds like you have a wonderfully full life in Rochester. What led you and your husband to homesteading?

"My love of animals was a natural drive for the homesteading life. From a young age, I wanted to fill my yard with sheep and alpaca and chickens, so living on a farm has always been a goal of mine.

The desire to be self-sufficient came on later. I started researching the dire state of our industrial food system in my late teens; I wanted to break free from the poisons and bad treatment of animals by factory farms. Homesteading was a natural solution for me.

If I could take more control over the source of my food, I could make a change on a small level. That grew to a bigger level when I decided to start teaching others to do the same."

TB: I think these days we can all empathize with that. It seems we’re seeing more and more people looking to take charge of their food supply.
You mentioned your website, Backyard Chicken Project, tell us a bit more about that.

"I’ve been an animal adorer for my entire life, and as a young kid, I begged my parents yearly to get chickens. It was always a “no” as they had their hands full caring for all the other animals I’d already brought home.

It wasn’t until I met my (now) husband and moved in with him that my chicken dream came true. He was all for adding a flock to our urban backyard, and chickens were our first big joint purchase together.

We’ve been raising them together for over ten years. It was just a year into raising chickens that I decided I had to share this love with the rest of the world and started building the Backyard Chicken Project with the aim to do so.

Backyard Chicken Project began with me sharing my love and experience with raising chickens and has transformed into a hybrid art and chicken project. The blog is chock full of chicken-raising tips, and over the years, I’ve expanded to a shop to sell my chicken-related artwork.

My next step is to start teaching others how to create artwork inspired by their animals."

TB: A chicken romance - I love it. I know our readers always appreciate your expertise when it comes to their own flocks.

We all know homesteading isn’t easy; what’s the toughest part of this lifestyle for you?

"Easily, the most difficult part is handling illness and death of my animals.

I adore the creatures in my care, and it’s so tough when bad things inevitably happen. Feeling helpless when your critters aren’t feeling well is really tough.

Making those hard decisions - it makes you question whether you’re cut out for this lifestyle. What I always come back to, though, is that I’m giving these animals a wonderful life, and they’re bringing me so much happiness in return.

You can’t have sunshine without a little darkness too."

TB: Oh my goodness, that does sound heart-wrenching. And you’re right; you’re giving them a good life. It’s that type of compassion that is missing from these large farms. Thank you for sharing that with us.

With that in mind, do you have any advice for anyone considering jumping into a more self-sufficient lifestyle?

"My biggest advice is to go slow.

Once you decide the homesteading life is for you, it can be tempting to jump in with both feet, but this is the quickest way to overwhelm and burn out.

Focus on one big project per year, maybe start with a garden, then add in chickens on year two, then fruit trees on year three.

Caring for a large homestead can easily turn into a full-time job; it pays to take it slow and get really good at one thing at a time. There’s too much to learn to do all at once."

TB: Oh yeah, that’s great advice. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your homesteading journey with our readers.

As we wrap things up, do you have any upcoming projects you want to share?

On March 13th at 3 pm Eastern, I’ll be re-stocking my Backyard Chicken Project shop with tons of new chicken mugs and chicken planters.

This is the first big shop update of the year, so it’s very exciting!

These shop updates only come once every few months, and pieces tend to sell out quickly, so it’s a big exciting project for me.

I’m also working on developing some new classes on how to illustrate and paint chickens which I’m very excited about. I love passing on my knowledge and sharing my love of art and homesteading with the world.

Readers can get updates on that by following me on Instagram @backyardchickenproject."

TB: Fantastic; I know I’m marking my calendar. I have my eye on one of your beautiful mugs. Thank you again for letting all of us get to know you better.

And of course, we'll kick off this week's suggested posts with Meredith's detailed piece about mixing your own perfect potting soil.

How to Make the Perfect Potting Soil

If you're looking for a better mix than what you can get with bagged potting soil, or if you want a customized blend for a specific project head over to ruralsprout.com today. Meredith has you covered.

Click Here to read

Purple Dead Nettle: 12 Reasons To Pick This Early Spring Edible

If you're getting into foraging, and you're ready to go beyond the humble dandelion, take a look at purple dead nettle.

This easy to find and easy to identify plant is one of the first spring edibles to show up after the snow melts. If you suffer from spring allergies, you're definitely going to want to read this one.

Click Here to read

10 Gardening Jobs To Do In March – Sow Seeds, Fertilize, Weed & More

As we tick February off the calendar, Cheryl is ready with your to-do list for March. She'll have your garden in tip-top shape this growing season if you take care of these jobs now.

Click Here to read

Thanks to everyone who has emailed telling us you're enjoying getting to know our writers. Next week, we'll be hearing from Lydia Noyes.

Hmmm, I'm all out of coffee. I guess that means it's time to sign off and get the day started.

That's all for this week, Rural Sprout Readers. I'll see you next Sunday.

Sincerely,

Tracey

Editor

Rural Sprout