August Calendar Printable

July flew by so much faster than I anticipated – and here we are in August! In this post, I want to give you an update on what’s happening at Free to Flower Farms this month. From building projects, gardening to new farm animal additions – it’s going to be a fun one! My hope is that some of the things we are doing will inspire you on your Homesteading journey too. Bonus Free August calendar printable templates at the bottom of this post!

August in the Czech Republic

Unlike a lot of other areas in the northern hemisphere like the US or Southern Europe, the eighth month of the year starts to feel a little bit like fall in the Czech Republic. Daytime is still very pleasant and warm, with temperatures between 60-85F. The nights start to feel significantly colder, and cool gusts of wind sweep across the land. The end of August very often feels like a full-out fall already.

woman sitting on a bench in front of a historical building

Main focus: chickens

If you know our family personally, you will know that we are huge egg eaters (ehm..Micah..cough, cough). We love having eggs for breakfast every day, and if I could I would add an egg into pretty much everything else I cook too.

As chickens only lay eggs for 2-3 years, our current flock of 10 is aging and their egg production is decreasing. We only get between 5-6 eggs per day during the summer months. This number is much lower during the winter. Definitely not enough for our clan!

Our main focus for the month of August is building a new chicken coop & getting more chickens. We are going all out with both of those!

New Chicken Coop

Micah designed and began to build a brand-new chicken coop. You might see a coop like this all over the US, but believe me when I say that Czech coops are not built like this! We’re excited to have a rarity in the area but mostly to create a comfortable & warm home for our chickens.

We dug out the foundations & Micah began constriction. We are scheduled to finish in just a few weeks! The timing will be perfect for…

New Egg Layers

In an effort to increase egg production ASAP, we ordered 10 new egg layers that will be arriving the first week in August. Those ladies have been laying eggs for about a year already, so as soon as they get settled in – we should get more eggs!

On top of that, we also ordered 5 young green egg-laying chickens that we’re so excited about! Speaking of green-shelled eggs…

New Incubator

When I say we went full out, we truly went full out! I purchased a 64-egg incubator and hustled my way around the area to find enough fertilized eggs of different chicken breeds to fill it with. This is my very first time hatching eggs in an incubator, and I can already tell there’s a learning curve to it. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed! Our incubator has been going for a little over a week. The full incubation time for chicks is 21 days. This particular incubator model keeps track of the days it’s been running, but I like to keep a backup log in my August Calendar Printable just in case. Couple more weeks to go and we’ll see what our success % is going to be!

Meat Birds

We don’t just love eating eggs, roast chicken is one of our family’s favorite meals. I am so done with the grocery store – and that includes store-bought chicken. So we decided to take another big leap – and ordered a bunch of broiler chicks! I won’t tell you the exact number (it might make you gasp), you’ll have to watch my IG for when they arrive. We are busy setting up their first home, to keep them nice and warm while they’re little. As soon as they get bigger and grow feathers…

A-Frame Chicken Tractor

When Micah completes the big coop construction, his next project is an A-Frame Chicken Tractor. If you don’t know what that is – you’re not alone. I never heard of it previously either! In short, it is a portable chicken coop/house, that you move along the field each day with a tractor so that your chickens can get fresh grass. In addition to that, all that chicken poop acts as a natural fertilizer! If this still doesn’t make sense..check my IG a little later on in the month. I’ll have a visual for you!

Other Farm Animals

In addition to all the new chicks & chickens, we are adding a few other exciting new animals to the farm. I won’t spill the beans on all of those here – keep up with us on IG to see!

I will also be bringing our horse LT back home. You may remember her from the post on how to trailer a horse stress-free. She spent the last 6 weeks with a stallion about an hour away from here. If all went well, we should have a new foal next spring! This would be her first foal, we are very excited to see if she is in fact pregnant, as we already tried last year with no success.

Garden

Here is a list of things I’m working on in the garden in August. Just for reference, we are in zone 7a. Gardening is the main reason why I felt the need to create an August Calendar Printable. There are so many thins to keep track of!

Harvesting all our tomatoes. We usually have a lot of them, so I will be making tomato sauce and canning
Trimming my herbs so that they can sprout one more time
Harvesting radishes
I might try to plant some Spinach & Napa cabbage to see if we can still fit one more harvest in
Working on our compost – aerating, adding to it & watering if necessary. No more buying soil next year!
Micah doesn’t know this yet – but I think we’ll need a few more raised beds. August is a good month to get those prepped for next year!
I will plan for Basil closer to the house. We have some in the greenhouse, but I find I use herbs the most when they’re easy to access right from the kitchen.
The same goes for Parsley – I will be planting some by the house
Harvesting, canning & preserving Pickles

in the kitchen

I’m always cooking up something new. In July it was a lot of canning & preserving. We will see what fruit, wild fruit & vegetables we have available in August but I’m definitely planning on:

processing our tomato harvest
experimenting with new kombucha flavors
giving Hard Apple Cider a try (if we have enough apples)
milling my own flour
making homemade raw sour cream
making my first raw milk cheese!
adding a few new sourdough recipes to my repertoire

Social Gatherings

Last year, we completed the renovation of our guest house. Up until that point, it was very difficult to have overnight visitors at the farm, since we didn’t have enough bedrooms in the main house. This year is a completely different story!

We’ve had visitors almost every weekend all of July, and this will continue in August too. We have come to love the change of pace this facilitates for our weekends. I cook more, which I love. We rest more & chat with friends. We give all the other horses & tasks a break. The August Calendar Printable comes in so handy to keep track of when guests are arriving & departing.

Having farm visitors is a relatively new experience for us, and we’re loving it!

I made three free printable August calendars that you can download for your personal use! There are three options: Garden, Chickens & Kitchen-themed monthly calendar templates. Just enter your email blow, hit the download button, and the calendar pdf will land in your inbox. You can use these August calendar templates to keep track of important dates, special events, your daily activities, or daily tasks. It includes major holidays in the United States, as well as fun ones like national watermelon day!

I hope you will love this cute August calendar printable as much as I do! I use pdf files in a note-taking app on my iPad as an online calendar. As soon as we get a printer, I plan on hanging the print-friendly versions as a wall calendar in my home office to help me stay on track during the last month of summer.

I hope it helps you with the start of the school year organization, planning your last summer vacation, and all the other important events you have going on during this summer month.

Although slightly unusual in Europe, I like my calendars to have a Sunday start. I plan on making these for y’all every month going forward, so I’d love some feedback! If you have a moment, head over to IG and tell me if you’d prefer a Monday start calendar, if there’s enough space on each day, what paper size you’d prefer, or if portrait orientation would be better and what you think of the overall calendar design.