Aaannnd...

Just like that the year is almost over! I'm not sure where the past couple of months went! As I look back on the year I am amazed at all that we accomplished and the things that didn't seem to work out at all.

Adding poultry went very well!  We didn't lose any as chicks from the original 10 chicks to illness. One cockerel was cannibalized later after they were relocated to the great outdoors. We added six more pullets since our original 10 ended up being half pullets and half cockerels. Early last month one of them decided to run away from home. Not  long after getting the first chickies we we brought home the duck and the goose. They are quite the characters and we love that we decided to add them to the flock!

They didn't seem to mind the snow. Although before I took this photo they were
huddled in their little shelter next to the coop.

We successfully processed three cockerels on Labor Day. They were about 19 weeks old and about 10 weeks past their prime as far as being considered broilers. They were excellent stewing chickens though. Labor Day morning was interesting go HERE to read that experience.

So we know that we can raise chickens and waterfowl!

What didn't go as well would be the garden. Hardly anything worked. I decided to try growing the tomatoes in the big garden this year and they did okay, but not great. We hardly had anything to harvest that wasn't affected by the blossom end rot which. We did have a few that we brought in ate with a few meals which were good, but not enough to actually make sauces to save for later. The two hoodlums (duck & goose) enjoyed most of the tomatoes since I pretty much gave up on them.

The tomatoes will go back into the hoop house in 2018.

I did get greens, carrots, peas and loads of potatoes. However, no beans - thanks to hungry bunnies - one of the easiest things to grow and we didn't get enough to make a meal. I had direct sowed over my seeds and had over 20 little seedlings pop up only to have almost each one nipped off a few weeks later. I'm blaming the deer for that. And the bunnies for keeping the plants trimmed to almost nothing. No flowers except for some really late germinating Cosmos and even later blooming. Tom's pumpkins worked out pretty well, but with them being planted in the front yard - they were shaded by the tree that is smack-dab in the middle. There were a few decent pie pumpkins and a few carving pumpkins. They more than likely cross pollinated so they turned out slightly off from what they should have been. To say the least the garden was very disappointing.

The plan for 2018:

1. Add a few more pullets - at the neighborhood holiday party we connected with several people who are interested in buying eggs.
2. Add a half dozen or so of little girl ducks for Mr. Shelly. It would be nice for Sheldon to have some of his own kind to boss around and not the chickens. Plus, duck eggs are fantastic!
3. Meat Chickens - processing our extra cockerels was not a terrible experience. It was nice to have a little extra food that we grew in the freezer! 
4.  Pigs - Maybe a breeding pair...maybe a couple of piglets for meat. We could raise the offspring for meat or sell the piglets...this will be a totally new learning experience!

A little ambitious? Maybe, but we know that we can raise poultry from chicks so that won't be too much of an issue. We got our feet wet by processing three of our own chickens already and I know where we can rent the equipment - so I'm not freaked out about that. The other thing that we'll need to do is build that Chicken Tractor for the broilers. Also, I have the idea to modify a small room on one end of the parking shed that would be perfect for the little chickies. They will be spending a few weeks in the brooder in the garden garage. They will grow out of that box fast though, so we gotta start  thinking about what needs to be done to make the modification. More on that later...

The one thing that I am concerned about is the pigs. The only other mammals I have been responsible for keeping alive have been cats and dogs. So, this will be quite the learning experience. After some research (not much, but enough to make a decision) we have decided that the American Guinea Hog would be ideal for our mini-farm. The basics of these little guys is that they top out at around 200 lbs for males and 150 for females. Other breeds would be slaughtered AT 250 - 300 pounds...that's a lot of pig!! So, in my quick research I have figured out that these guys would be a great addition to our mini-farm. They don't root around, but are more of a forager. They are pretty friendly and on the smaller side. Also, there is a YouTube channel we have been following, Art & Bri, they recently added pigs to their homestead and they are American Guinea Hogs. Coincidence? Perhaps...but it will be another place to observe the habits of these swine. Another help will be the farm that specializes in these guinea hogs and they are located not terribly far from us. I hope to schedule a time to visit and take a look at their operation and get more information on raising these pigs.

So as this year quickly comes to an end I look back and see more success than failure. We have to fail in order to learn...so really, this year has been one learning experience after another.

Here's looking forward to 2018!!

Day Before Thanksgiving

I've been away from this space for a little while and bam! It's the day before Thanksgiving! I'm tired, but thankful for a variety of things. So here we go...

Let's start with having Tom home from the hospital! Way back on October 25 he was feeling not so great and visited Urgent Care who in turn said - You've got appedicitis, you need to go the hospital. Oh okay - simple appendectomy. Not so much. After two and half weeks and a second surgery he was discharged and came home on the 12th. Yay!

Having Tom was in the hospital meant it was up to me to keep the outdoor feathered creatures and the indoor furry creature alive...okay that worked out. Yay!

A week after Tom was admitted I came home from work to this sight:

The coop lost it's lid during a wind storm. 

After I took this photo I pretty much lost it. It felt overwhelmed and didn't need to see this upon my arrival at home. The good thing was that we didn't lose any chickens due to this minor catastrophe. My dinner plan for that evening was to spend it with friends at their house, but after seeing this - that wasn't going to happen. So I sent a short text and the photo to my friend Dani and said that I needed help getting this put back together. It wasn't that the top was heavy, it's just too big for me to handle. Good Friend Dani came right over and then her husband Dan shortly after and we were able to get the roof back on the coop and then I weighted it down (as it should have been) and called it good. Tom will need to do the repair - again.  Yay!

We had planned to get the chickens moved to a new spot the weekend after Tom happened to be admitted to the hospital. So I had to go to plan B which was to wait and see when he would be coming home. Once I realized that he would not be anytime soon, I then asked for our small group peeps to help with some chores that needed to get done and were put on hold. A couple of hours during the morning of November 10 and the chicken fence was relocated and the front yard garden was cleaned up. Yay!

This was taken after I rolled the coop to the new space.

Later the same day after visiting Tom and then running some errands I arrived home to find that the chickens were not in their temporary area. Dopey me didn't secure the fence before heading out for the afternoon. Perfect. Actually it WAS perfect - the coop is pretty heavy when all of the birds are in it! Jersey Giants are BIG and a little hefty! So wheeling around an empty coop is AMAZING! Yay!

Of course, now I have to get the girls and Thor into the new space. After trying to herd them in - which is like herding cats...I had to think about it for a minute. I then realized that if I wheeled out their food bin they would probably follow. So I did and they followed! Yay!

The new space where the chickies promptly started working on Mary's garden boxes.

The only other thing that REALLY needed to be done I need to transplant some plants into the Fall Garden space. I could have had someone stay and help with that task, but I felt that they did enough and I didn't want to ask for more. I suppose all is not lost...I'll have a chance to do that this coming weekend. It will be late, but it can't be  helped. It will be an experiment - like most things are in our gardens.

After all of the fun things that happened at our house, Tom finally got to come home!! Yeah, it was an appendectomy, but it wasn't so routine. I am thankful that it wasn't even MORE serious than it was, and as it turns out, it was pretty serious. In this I got a taste of what life would be like if he were not around. I'm not so sure that I could do this working full time and trying to maintain a mini-farm.

I'm incredibly thankful for our friends who said they would help and they did - providing meals for me, helping on our property and visiting Tom in the hospital as well as being awesome prayer warriors! Once again I am reminded that we are not meant to live life alone. We were created for relationships whether the times are good or otherwise, we need other people in our lives.

Here's to the 2017 Holiday season which seemed to come so fast this year!

Making Connections

At one time during one of our small group meetings we had talked about goals or something ~ I don't remember what the focus was, but I do remember that I shared my big ol' dream to make something of the property that the Lord so graciously led us to nearly 20 years ago.

Overall, the goal of the church that we belong to is to be mission minded. Sharing who Jesus is in our everyday existence?

Oh sure...okay...hmmmm - Got It!

I keep wanting to say that I'm not very good at this whole sharing Jesus thing, but I forget that just being a friend to someone or encouraging someone who needs it is sharing Jesus in a very personal way. I was reminded of how we are connected with all sorts of people that we encounter in everyday places. So yeah, I guess I got this sharing thing down. 

What I'm learning about myself is that when I am home, I want to be home. Doing my own thing and not having to interact with more people than I really need to, because deep down inside I'm an introvert. I can socialize and be engaging for so long, but I need and LOVE my down time. However, if we are going to make something of this property I need to step out of my comfort zone and share what we have with those around us (our neighbors) and those who are a part of our church family, but mainly with the people who are not a part of our church family.

What am I getting at here? Ever since the houses were built across the street from us I had thought of ways to get to know our neighbors. More than the smiling and waving as we drive by. Anyone can do that! The more that I thought that we would create a little hobby farm for ourselves, the more I realized that whatever abundance we are blessed with the "extra" could be our way of connecting to our neighbors (aka "the world" per Felida Bible's purpose statement). I'll tell you what...this has been a project in the making, but this connecting thing is finally starting to happen!

Until this year we had been sharing what we have been growing in the garden and it's been fun bringing fresh tomatoes or whatever else we might have an abundance of to our neighbors and chatting with them for a minute or two. Seriously, nobody can turn down fresh veggies right? 

When we added the chickens to the mix in the form of baby chicks, that was the game changer. We started out with one week old chicks (straight run) and when we figured out how many of them might be little dudes, we added six more Australorps which were about a week behind the Jersey Giants and a good deal smaller. Eventually the sixteen chicks turned into five cockerels and eleven pullets. Then the cockerel count went to four (one died, let's chalk that up to Natural Selection) and then on Labor day down to one. 

Before we harvested the cockerels, one or two of the Aussies started laying. So, I was curious and really wanted to start understanding what kind of timeline we were working with I started reading about when the girls would start laying. Many of the forums had varied answers to my questions. Jersey's, being a larger breed, would start later than normal. The Aussies were pretty much right on track though and started laying at around 20 or 21 weeks which was at the end of August. 

Miss Chickie says "Excuse Me!"

At the beginning when the little girls (Australorps) started laying it was slow going, a couple eggs here and a couple eggs there. It stayed that way for a little while and I started having eggs for lunch! A couple of weeks ago things changed and all of the littles were laying then about a week ago we started getting more than 6 a day. Which meant that the Jersey Giant girls started to laying. The laying habits of the little girls is pretty much what I have read. The Jersey's were a different story. 

All of the things that I read about the JG's is that the grow fast and take their time maturing. Also, some people had posted that it took more than 6 months before they would see their JG's first egg. Well, the number started going up around October 4th - so either the Aussies are laying more than once a day or those BIG girls are getting into the nesting boxes and getting to work as well.

Good Girls!!

Now we are experiencing an abundance of eggs more than we can use in a week. It's time to get a little creative. One of the things that I was doing was making ice cream once a week with yolks in the base. The difference - my previous batches were made with store bought eggs - this last batch home grown eggs! We also an egg here and there for breakfast or for a special meal like Huevos Rancheros. So simple, but oh so good! Seriously, I need to get some more egg dishes going! 

Even so we still have quite a few eggs on hand with more eggs added to that daily so what do we do?!

Share them of course!

In doing this we have made some "deals" with a couple of people. The family directly across the street from our driveway asked if we wanted the eggshells back for the chickens - something I hadn't thought of...YES!! Somehow that turned into us also saying that kitchen scraps would be good too! Yesterday afternoon their two oldest boys (poor little brother had to watch from afar) came over with a little bucket with a few food scraps and tossed those into the chicken pen. Yay! Way to get the kiddos involved! One of them even asked if they could pet one of the chickens...oh goodness, that is cute!

Tom decided that we should take some to our Master Gardener neighbors who are in the older neighborhood just a little further down the road. I love their yard! They pretty much took all of the grass out of the yard and planted flowers and veggies (annuals and perennials) - amazing! So a few days ago we be-bopped over and presented a basket of eggs to Julie. She was surprised and so thankful that we would offer up the eggs for FREE. It was fun connecting with her and chatting for a few minutes. Before we went back home she mentioned how she had a friend who raised chickens and she used to get eggs from her and helped her process some chickens for meat. 

What the WHAT?!

That perked me up and little more about when we get raise the birds she could come and help with the harvest. That would also mean she take home a chicken or two. Man...we need to get out more!

This is just a step in the connection direction and things are going well right now. It amazes me how things work out when you say it out loud to a group of good friends who believe in encouraging each other and their dreams. So thankful for them!

Farm Fresh Eggs!!!

Now, I know that the egg production will go down during the winter months, but I'm not sure how much. That is the big question right now. I'm hopeful that the Aussies will continue to lay here and there when the days are shorter and cooler...there will be a report here when we are in the middle of our Pacific Northwest winter.

The other way I'm going to try connecting will be by growing veggies in low tunnels and the hoop house. I've already got the plants started, just need to get them into the beds and covered up before the month is over!

Oh man, connecting on the food level is AWESOME!

Three Less...on a Labor Day

Why we chose to process three of the cockerels on Labor Day is beyond me, besides the fact that we did not have all of the items to do the processing, I don't know why I chose Labor day. Being a holiday probably was the biggest reason and we didn't have any other plans.

As far as needed equipment, we knew that we needed something to dunk the birds into before plucking. We thought we still had our turkey fryer from soooo many years ago. After Tom looked for it he vaguely remembered that we donated it for a church sale thinking that we wouldn't ever used it again. So early last week I was pokin' around on craigslist for a turkey fryer and there was a barely used one for $40 - SCORE!

With the turkey fryer purchased, the only other things we needed were knives - sharp ones. So Tom decided on a couple that we have at home and used the honing tool to get a good sharp edge on them. They worked fine, but after having done the processing, we're going to have to revisit the knife situation for future processing days.

We would need a table - so we covered up an old homemade table (formerly used for seed trays) with plastic. Then we took a couple of storage bins to fill with ice and water for rinsing and keeping the birds fresh post plucking/eviscerating.

The first task after getting stuff set up was to gather up the young roosters we wanted to cull from the flock. As I have mentioned in earlier posts we do not need 4 roosters! As the young roosters started maturing more there was more chaos in the chicken run/arena. The boys really were bullies! Also, there was one in particular that I have been wanting to be rid of as he had been coming after me and challenging me during evening chores. It was getting bad enough that I didn't want to really go out there and have to deal with him. We had to get a little tricksey to catch these guys and the first one actually escaped the old brooder (he is our keeper). We were able to grab the others once they let their guard down and started heading out of the chick mobile. We used their old brooder as a waiting room - if you will. By the time we got around to doing the deed they were not as crazy. Here the the "lucky ones..."

The one in the middle was the more aggressive dude.

My hope was to keep the "good" one. Having observed the young boy birds the past couple of months we had him picked out, but we never got the leg bands to tag him. Over the past month or so, his tail feathers started to look like the others and we lost track of which of the dudes was our keeper. In the end I am not sure who we have, but he seems happy and his crow is the least strong of the four, so I'm okay with that. He might be our original Thor - if he wasn't before he is now. As there is no more competition from the others, he will mature into a nice roo.

How the processing went - it wasn't smooth. However, I can say that it was a learning opportunity. We wanted to make sure that these 3 didn't suffer too badly, but in all honesty, the first two were the learning kills. The last one (which was also the undesirable young rooster) actually went well.

This is how the morning went down...

#1 - With this dude we figured out that the cone was a little on the smallish side. Man, Jersey Giants are BIG! Everytime Tom would try to get him in there he would crane his neck in such a way that we couldn't get a hold of his head through the bottom. Once I was able to get to his head and we could stretch his neck out through the bottom it was time to make the cut. Well, things didn't go that well and he ended up not bleeding out very quickly and he was still breathing. So we took him out and had to lay him down on the ground and do another cut. Once we felt confident that he was unconcious we felt pretty bad because the process was drawn out a bit. Then we got him plucked (by hand) and eviscerated him - it wasn't pretty.

#2 - Okay, I decided that I needed to try to do this one. After we got him into the cone I contemplated for a moment where I needed to make the cut and thought it was good...he was bleeding out all right, but at one point he totally popped out of the cone. The only fortunate thing is that he had almost no strength so actually being able to get him was easy. Tom returned and we did the deed and felt a bad for this kill as well.

#3 - Well, with two failed kills we had the motivation to not fail again on our side. Also, this was Mr. I'm-Gonna-Kick-The-Person-Who-Feeds-Me dude, so that helped us ensure this one would be the "clean" kill. Thankfully it was and we both felt relief. I tried my had at the evisceration, but it wasn't going well, so Tom essentially did all three of the birds.

Since the weekend I searched for chicken processing on the YouTubes and found a really good one by Weed 'em and Reap go HERE if you want to check it out.

How are we feeling about doing this? Personally, I was determined. After following many homesteaders on YouTube and other farmers I have decided that in order to make sure that what we are eating is good for us, we need to grow it ourselves. This makes sense to me and I wish that we had started doing this a long time ago. Also, I come from a home where there were chickens on the property (not just a few) and culling the flock was done on occasion. So it wasn't anything that was terribly freaky. It has taken Tom a few days more to work through what has happened, the mistakes that we made and the things we need to do differently.

Since I really didn't feel terrible I am starting to wonder if I'm more heartless than I ever imagined...

In the end, there were two things that made this first processing difficult. The Jersey's are: 1. A large breed and 2. They were almost 20 weeks old. Cornish Cross are processed at 8 weeks and are a more standard size bird, as they are the bird that you'll find in the meat case at most markets. A mature Jersey Rooster can get up to 15 pounds and I don't think that they were far off of that weight. Even at 8 weeks we still weren't quite sure which of the roos we wanted to make sure to keep. It took some time to really figure out the personalities of the 4 that were left (#5 was eaten by something).

So, we will explore other breeds specifically for meat birds - that will be a future post.

What will we do different next time?

The number one thing would be get better knives that we can just dedicate to chicken processing. We used knives that were a mish-mash of items from the kitchen and a couple that we had used in the garden. Earlier this week I did a little research and found that others had gotten a set of poultry processing knives from a place called Cornerstone Farm Ventures:

Go HERE to check out the set

Our goal for a future chicken harvest is to raise more meat birds which will probably require more of a set up as pictured below. We can equipment from the local Conservation District. Let me tell you this is a sweet deal for $70 (which includes a $50 refundable cleaning deposit). This set up has everything that we will need to process more than three birds! Check it out...

What an AWESOME set up!
(Fake chickens not included)

The last thing that I can think of would be extra people. More hands would make for a quick processing. The three that we did took most of the morning and we did alright. I know that this will be the challenging part. Even if we were to offer a chicken to those who come and help, I'm not sure that would be alluring enough. Not many of our friends that I can think of would be remotely interested. We might have to call on friends who hunt to help with the next round of chickens.

I get it, the idea of taking the life of a happy, healthy bird is not a popular one. It has been said on Abundant Permaculture "Every day something must die so that you can live."  

Seriously, I could go on and on...I feel so strongly about being responsible about our food and how we grow the veggies (no chemicals) and how we would raise the chickens (on pasture). Why oh why wouldn't other people consider that too?

Grow.

Your.

Food.

Success!

As far the garden goes...not so much. The garden this year has been very disappointing and when even the flower seeds won't germinate you know that something is not right. I have always had good luck with flowers in the garden - cosmos, zinnias, bachelor buttons, SUNFLOWERS....yeah, almost nothing came up!

This is a snapshot of what I planted

2 rows of  Cosmos...I got 4 or 5 sickly looking plants and even they never turned into anything.
1 row of sunflowers - NOTHING
1 row of Bachelor Buttons - NOTHING
1 row of Asters - okay, this was not surprising...got NOTHING.
1/2 a row of Borage - one plant.

I had all sorts of flower seedlings in the trays that I had hoped would be for a plant sale - it never happened mostly because the timing and the weather did not match up...so once I could get around to peddling them they were wilted and beyond saving. Although, I did get some of the marigold plants into the garden and they are happy.

Other items in the garden fare much better with the beans being eaten by something and a couple of my tomato varieties not doing much. Of the two that the plants are doing well, my San Marzano tomatoes are suffering from Blossom End Rot and so I have been picking a lot of those and tossing them aside.

So my enthusiasm for the garden has been very minimal.

Things changed last week and all of a sudden I'm excited about our little hobby farm...

The white egg is the store bought egg - needed to show some scale.

Thought there was only one, but there was another - and a third one that was broken.

This really lifted my spirits about what we are doing. I thought for sure that it would be at least another month before we saw anything egg-like from the little ladies.

Last weekend I was out taking care of the evening chicken chores and one of the little girls was making "that" noise...I KNEW when I heard it that she had something brewing. Since I didn't know for sure I didn't think much of it. THEN I think it was a couple of mornings ago and I was looking in on the chickens/duck/goose before heading to work and I witnessed one of the cockerels "violating" one of the girls...and there was NO PROTEST!

Okaaaay...

This is leading to something! Then the eggs happened. So we are doing something kinda right - hahahaha. So, layer feed is going out and we are now on the lookout for eggies hiding here, there and everywhere.

We know that the eggs are coming from the little girls...they are afterall not a big breed to chicken so it was about time. They are 19 weeks this week so yeah - they are on  schedule. The Jersey's will have to take notes until it's their time to lay, which I suspect will be a little while longer.

This is making me want to get more chickies next spring - DUDE fresh eggs!

Good Girls!

What To Do

While we are pretty content with the current plan growing a garden and raising chickens (for eggs right now) I am wanting to make a change and get other people interested in growing food for themselves. A couple of years ago my friend Mary started to garden on our property and it has been pretty cool having more plants growing in the yard along side our own plants.

THEN our neighbors directly across the street from us walked over with their puppies (so cute!) to visit and they were saying how they would like to create a small garden bed to grow tomatoes and other veggies.

Because I don't think very quickly on my feet - a couple of days later I was thinking about what they were hoping to do and it dawned on me that we could offer to let them grow on our property - it would be easy and close for them. Especially since they could just walk over with their kids to tend to their garden.

THEN I started thinking that we could do a small-ish community garden space and rent out space to the other neighbors. How great would that be?! The people that would like to grow food could do that and those who would like to buy our surplus could do that. I have yet to have surplus - and the way things went this year this year won't be very abundant either.

Good ideas right?

THEN I thought, besides having a community garden space we could have a space to use for ministry and see if the church youth group would want a project. If that were to happen, then we would need to figure out a purpose for them to grow veggies (a charity or for youth group fundraising).

Oh...a farm stand at the church!

I'm the Queen of ideas!! Too many to keep track of and actually to make into reality.

So, while I continue to figure out what the heck I am dreaming of - the dream changes often - I will be doing a lot of reading. Especially this book:

My ideas seem to come to me when I feel dissatisfaction when I am at work and being a surly not-very-old woman. Yep, I'm feeling that this week.

How about this face though...

How can it be...

that we are in the middle of  AUGUST?! I swear we JUST went to the Mother Earth News Fair...JUST. And now it is the 17th of August! Just wow...

Besides having gone to the Fair at the beginning of the month things have been pretty much the same at home. Not a lot going on except - planning the fall garden! Last year was the first time that I EVER grew stuff outside of what is considered the "normal" gardening season and it worked out pretty well. Even with all of the snow and then all of the rain for several months after.

Everything grew last fall/winter which was a huge thing for me! Being very intentional about getting the seeds started and nurturing the plants until it was time to get them planted.THEN making sure that the critters weren't taking advantage of a free buffet.

This is from earlier this year when it was raining like crazy! We harvested some of this, but I think I was  more enthralled with the fact that I had grown these from seed. Also, it's not much fun walking out to this spot when it is literally pouring down rain. You just gotta love the Pacific Northwest! Anyway, I was in so much awe that these plants just grew and grew that I wondered why I never tried to plant stuff in the fall before.

So, this year I am being a little more intentional and planning what will go into the garden this year. The only problem I have is WHERE should I put this garden. Meh...we'll figure that out when we get there!

I have some  seeds in tray right now and as of this morning there were some sprouts. Of course, I can't remember what I have in the tray...Filderkraut, Gai Lan, some bunching onions for sure. I'll have to look later.

Another fun thing - I used the egg cartons that we have been stock piling for when we finally have eggs from the chickies. I found out recently that egg cartons are meant to be used for eggs once. Huh...who knew. Then I decided that instead of recycling the cartons that we had stored (which wasn't THAT many) I could repurpose them. After a little more research I decided to try them out as seedling trays.

It's really not the best photo, but hey - Got to use 5 of the cartons that were trimmed down to fit in the tray. I'm optimistic that this will work and that I'll be able to transplant little plants in a month or so!

So yeah, the summer is just moving along a little too fast and pretty soon we'll be planning NEXT year's garden and other projects.

Seriously, I can't take it anymore...

TBT to when Lenny was a wittle bittle goose...hehehe...

Book Collection

Not gonna lie, I'm a bit of a hoarder when it comes to books. I LOVE books! All sorts too, but my favorite right now would be ANYTHING that has to do with gardening, homesteading growing things to eat etc. Here is just a sampling of what I have added recently...

The book that I had when I thought I would be a flower farmer. A dream I had after a couple of years living on our property:

My original copy was a soft-back book that I probably purchased soon after it was published. There was a time that I thought that maybe I wouldn't do a flower farm so I think the book was given away or donated or something. I now have the Kindle version which is handy. 

Now that we are doing chickens for eggs I am thinking of raising chickens for meat. So, the next book that I have on my table and on my Kindle:

This is a nice little book which is a pretty quick read and includes all the instructions on how to get one of those chicken tractors built. The author, John Suscovich, also includes all sorts of tidbits about chickens and raising them.The other great thing is that there is a lot of good stuff about farming. Really, just reading the book makes something than can be so daunting into something that is totally doable. Even if you were to just grow veggies and some fruit/nut trees and raise a few chickens for eggs alone. John Suscovich can be found on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and his website of course.

My latest book is by Rebecca Thistlethwaite titled The New Livestock Farmer. This is one of the speakers that we stumbled upon at the Mother Earth News Fair last weekend. We were looking for a place to land for an hour before the presentation we planned to sit in on.

Her talk was called: From Hoof to Plate: Business Essentials for the pastured meat farmer. So much information packed into an hour. So much that her talk peaked my interest and I decided that I MUST get one of her books...a signed copy of her book no less!

One of my all time favorite gardening shows that I would try to catch on the weekends was Gardening Naturally with Eliot Coleman. I didn't realize at the time how much of a gardening icon he really was until recently. I think that I may have had his Organic Gardening book, but I don't remember. A couple of years ago I was looking around for new books to add to my gardening "library" and came across this on Amazon.

Four-Season Harvest?! Whaaaat??? Even though I added this to my collection of books, I didn't refer to it as much when I decided to plant veggies early last fall. For me it was all about trial and error. Learn as you go and if it doesn't work then go to the books. Seems to work for me :)

The last book I want to share is by a French Canadian dude - Jean Martin Fortier. His gardening style is very much non-mechanized. No loud machinery, no gas powered anything - except for his BCS tractor - which he uses for specific purposes other than tilling check that out HERE. To see a video that was featured by Justin Rhodes on his Great American Farm tour go HERE.

There are so many books out there, but I need to figure out how to store what books I do have - which reaches to other things unrelated to gardening/farming. Seriously need to figure out how to incorporate a library-ish area in my house!

He's a Keeper

You will find me, a lot of days, looking at the scene above. The chickies are still fun to watch and the difference between the Jersey Giants and the Australorps is mainly size. They are all foraging and scratching up a storm in different areas in their paddock. Right now we have them behind the garage again, but this time have incorporated part of garden space from last year as well as one of my garden boxes that has some old clover in it. Looking forward to planting there this fall!

As I have mentioned in a previous post or two, we have four young roosters. That's three too many. We have already decided that we will keep one, but which one? Over the past couple of weeks I have really started to pay attention to the little roos. There are two that are a little bully-ish and I have no interest in having them stay - they may be the two that were always at each other when they were in the  brooder around 5 weeks old. I would have thought that maybe by now they would have realized that this is it. The reality is that they are not making a very compelling case for themselves. They may outgrow this phase, but I'm not sure. 

The other two appear to be the larger of the boys - and very lean. Not that the two bullies aren't big, they are just not as big. It's hard to believe that these dudes are not done growing yet! 

Anyway, from those two, there is one that is mostly calm and the ladies seem to like nestling in with him after they have eaten in the evening. He likes to lounge near the chick mobile and sometimes one of the other roos will settle down with him until they decide it's time to go to bed. He has been "challenged" a time or two by the others, but not that often. I've noticed that he tends to sit off by himself sometimes. Perhaps he feels pretty comfortable and doesn't need to make a scene...hard to say. 

Most evenings are spent trying to figure out which is which. Last night I was able to figure out who is who and the one we keep. He will be called Thor and this is he... 

Very handsome cockerel!

Right now the only identifying thing is that he has one little tail feather that sticks up at a different angle. Hopefully his feathers won't change too much before we can tag him. I want to make sure that he is the one that we keep and not one of the bullies who might catch up in size and pretend to be the good one.

We don't need tricksey roosters...just a good leader for the little ladies!

Dual Purpose?

So, these dudes & gals are part of a big plan. If you just wandering into this space these chicks are Jersey Giants. Yes, I called them chicks because they are only 13 and 14 weeks old. What we have are pullets and cockerels. Four cockerels to be exact - we are observing the boys in the the group and making mental notes for now. Once they are old enough, and filled out enough more, 3 of the cockerels are going to be "processed." There is no good reason to have more than one rooster. If there is I probably will still keep the "best" one. Besides I only thought of one rooster name - Thor. One of these dudes may be Thor, it's hard to tell at this point.

Anyway, back to the original thought...

Chickens can have more than one purpose with the most obvious purpose being egg layers. However, who knew that chickens could be for different purposes? I certainly didn't...chickens can be:

• egg layers
• grown for meat
• good at being broody 
• ornamental (?)
• for show (?)

Our little ladies and little roos are first going to be egg producers. Well, not the cockerels and especially the 3 that are destined for the freezer. And there is the second purpose...when the ladies are no longer laying as often we'll have to rotate a new bunch of layers to replace the ones that will turn into stewing chickens. So yeah...FOOD.

While those are the two main reasons why we have chickens there is another reason to add to the list of things that they can do - prepare a garden!

Oh yeah baby! Living rototillers!! If you have ever seen Justin Rhodes - Abundant Permaculture. He is the "Apron Wearing Permaculture Chicken Ninja Master" and swears by having the chickens do the work. We are just now starting to let the chickens into the areas that we mean to use for growing veggies. They have been happily scratching up a storm in the area that they are now occupying. The weeds have been picked at and they are kicking around all sorts of stuff! Just this past Sunday the little ladies and the dudes figured out that the garden box filled with old clover from last fall is a fun spot to root around. We'll keep them in here for a time, let them do the initial clean up and then we'll get the bed ready for the fall garden. I know that the ground will still be hard, but with all the poo that they are leaving behind the prospect of the soil being more fertile is what I'm looking for.

OH, one more to add to the list - garbage disposal. Until the chickies arrived we used to dump all of the kitchen scraps into the compost bin. However, when the chickies started staying outside full time I started to dump buckets of compost from the pile into their paddock to get them used to what to expect. So why not feed most of the kitchen scraps (including meat scraps) to the chickens? They eat most things and the things they don't like will continue to be scratched while they are out foraging which help the composting speed along. We have been able to give the chickens more of the old veggies (i.e. forgotten items). Which will help cut down on the amount of

The chickens are more than food providers (eggs & meat)...I never knew how valuable they really are! Here's to many more years of chickens on our farmstead!

What Are We Watching?

We don't watch a lot of TV. There are shows that we enjoy watching so if we happen to have downtime and it's a time when the show is on TV we'll watch it. Like right now I am liking the Masterpiece and ITV shows (Grantchester, Downton Abbey etc). On network TV we try to catch the Big Bang Theory. Yeah, that's how we came up with the names for the goose (Leonard) and the duck (Sheldon).

However, when we are done with dinner or our chores we like to sit down and watch our favorite YouTube videos.

Here are our faves:

1. Justin Rhodes (abundant permaculture). He's and his family homestead in the mountains of North Carolina. He and the Beautiful One have 4 kiddos and they are currently on what they are calling "The Great American Farm Tour." Check them out HERE.

2. Art & Bri - Another Homesteading family in North Carolina and friends of the Rhodes family. We started watching their videos back when they were really just getting started with their journey. So much has happened in the last year! Go HERE to check them out.

3. Sew the Land - a family of three who left Southern California to move to North Carolina to start a homestead. Their story is so inspiring as they left the life they lived for so long to do something entirely different. This just proves that you can do anything you set your mind to. Especially if you have left behind all of your friends and family. Go HERE for more.

Are you sensing a trend here? North Carolina is a hot spot!

4. John Suscovich - Okay, this is where we diversify! This guy and his wife manage Camps Road Farm in Connecticut. Now this farm is interesting to me because it is diverse. In addition to growing vegetables, he is big into growing chickens for meat as well as pigs. There is also a brewery on site as well as a brand new tasting room/farm store. Yeah, if we lived closer I would be visiting this farm for sure! Check out his video channel HERE.

5. Diego Footer - The host of Permaculture Voices. He has a YouTube channel that we try to watch, but to be honest it is hard to get in all of the videos I like to watch before it's time to call it a night. He is very much a food grower in a neighborhood setting. Also, he is in Southern California. Check him out HERE.

There are other channels, but I just wanted to list my favorites and channels that are farm related. Check them out and let me know what you think - OR - share what you are watching.

A Day In A Life

So, our days get pretty full and by the end of the week I am ready for the weekend for sure!

This is a run down of the day - keep in mind we are now training for a half marathon, so the training runs are happening in the morning which just makes the time at home jam packed until I leave for work!

What our day looks like:

0415 - usual waking time. It makes sense when we run, but otherwise it's just plain silly. Waking up is a process for me, so I need a little time to make friends with the day - which includes a cup of coffee and playing on my phone and kindle checking email and checking what's "trending" on facebook and Instagram.

0457 - the Dude alarm goes off - Time to feed the cat! By this time we should be ready to head out the door.

0500 to 0510 - we leave separately for the current run training. We run separate as it motivates me more to keep going. It really is a little creepy to be out so early on my own. At least Tom and I cross paths at some point.

0530 to 0600 - depending on the distance we return back to the house.

0545ish - this is the usual time to go and start the chicken chores. Give the little ladies and little roo's their breakfast and let the two hooligans (the duck and the goose) out for pool time and their own food time.

0615 - Tom gets into the shower.

0630 - I get into the shower and get ready for work.

0715-0725 - head out to a well known coffee spot for ANOTHER coffee, sometimes breakfast and a visit with whoever might be lurking about.

0745 - time to go to Hazel Dell.

0800-1130 - work, Work, WORK!

1130 - 1230- Lunch time!

1230 - 1700 - More work, Work, WORK!!

1700 - done at work! Time to go home!!

1715ish - arrive home.

The rest of the day consists of eating dinner, conversation on my day and Tom's day, watching our favorite YouTube videos.

THEN

Anywhere from 1800 to 1900 - we start the evening routine of getting the chickens fed and the hooligans watered and fed. This includes pool time for the duck and the goose. They like to wander around the property to forage on weeds and grass.

By 2000 - the boys need to be led back to the chicken corrale and I have to get my garden stuff done.

Yes, I have a garden too. If you look at my last post you'll see that it's mediocre at best.

So, yeah - this is a typical day. However this doesn't even include the extra stuff that comes up like appointments and friend time and stuff like that.

Now that we are running regularly again (this week) I'm pretty tired by the end of the day. I try to maintain, but sometimes a girl's gotta have a little downtime, but WHERE would that fit in?!

We are following a 10-week training plan for the ONE event that we will be doing this year. We are only finishing up week one. The mileage ramps up quite a bit, so I'm not sure how we will accomplish all that needs to be done (training runs that are more than 4 miles) in the already jam packed first few hours of the day...BEFORE work!! Oooh...a challenge. Just what I need!

Well, at least we are living life to the fullest...I think I need to nap :)

Wait...WHAT?!

Wowie! June is gone and it's now July 12th?! My last post was on June 8th?!

To be honest, the garden has been somewhat disappointing. I've been busy being a chicken, goose & duck mom - which means the garden falls behinds just a little while we get the chickens raised up.

A sampling of what is growing in the boxes.

The Garden Boxes - These have been doing really well! I rotated where I plant certain things and all is happy. At the beginning of the season I had two boxes readily available (after some weeding) to plant. One box has my greens and the other peas and carrots. One box is still full of the cover crop that went in last fall - crimson clover and the other box contains leeks. The leeks, once they were rescued from all of the weeds, are doing well. They are on the small side, but will be easy to use in whatever recipe calls for leeks.

The rest of the garden and all it's glory has been hit and miss. I know what needs to happen...compost and/or cover crop to amend the soil. If I did a soil test that would be helpful...hmmm...maybe I need to get on that.

Potatoes (Yukon, Red Norland, Fingerling and purple) - This year's experiment includes growing the potatoes in laundry baskets. It took a few weeks, but they all sprouted! We'll see how that experiment turns out. Right now, I'm not terribly impressed so this might just be the only time we use the laundry baskets for this purpose. As I only put one layer of seed potato pieces in each basken we had TONS of potatoes pieces to plant in other parts of the garden. So yeah, let's just say that we might have a pretty good harvest of potatoes this year and we won't be running out as quickly as we did last year. There probably will be enough to share with friends, family, neighbors...passer's by on the road...anyone who dares to make eye contact!

Green Beans (Bush) - Even with the poor soil the beans were doing good until a critter got to them. Every single one of the bean plants was topped off. I'm guessing it was a deer, each plant was missing its true leaves. Fortunately, there are still buds that will sprout and there will BE plants, they will just happen later. DANG! My plan is to plant another row of beans and try this succession planting idea that I have read about in different books and magazines and on the interwebs. It's experiment time!

Green Beans (Pole) - Tom decided to plant some beans in the front yard that has been transformed into a garden. I want to say that the pole bean seeds were old seeds and that they were past their prime. There were only 4 or 5 seeds that germinated. He has his own critter problem in the front - bunnies. They nibble on everything! Again

Tomato Plants - Fifteen plants were transplanted and one was topped by a critter. Not bad for the tomatoes. It has been awhile since I had non Cherry Tomato plants in the "free range" garden so this is almost like an experiment. So far half of the plants are doing pretty good, but the others are still sad looking. In an effort to help them along I added some mushroom compost to the anemic looking plants and half of those are not looking nearly as sad. We'll see how it goes. Tomatoes may go into a low tunnel or hoop house next year.

Flowers - I am extremely disappointed with the flower seed situation. I decided to do Cosmos, Bachelor Buttons and Sunflowers. Some of the cosmos germinated a couple of the bachelor buttons and NO sunflowers. How is it possible that the flowers are doing so poorly - I better do a soil test.

I know that I need to amend the soil and I am hoping that we might be able to get some compost to apply to the beds that are sucky and use those for my fall garden. Maybe we are just trying too many different things. If that is the case our little hobby farm might just be the Bean, Tomato, Potato, Egg farm. It wouldn't be the end of the world, but I do like to try new things and hope that this problem will be corrected before the next planting.

Back to the books!

Once the poultry routine is not as extensive we have settled into a reasonable routine life will be more than just working on the hobby farm. Although, there will ALWAYS be something to work on.

This life is a good life and we'll keep at it for as long as possible!

Now, back to that garden, but first...look at this guy!

Updates

Okay so this working full time and trying to do the chicken...garden thing...and life thing is making this girl tired. I love all these things, but my almost 52 year old body and mind are a little tired.

The Chickens

First experience with compost

In April we started with 10 little ones, Jersey Giants,  that were one week old. As they grew and we started figuring out which were roosters (5 total) we ended up adding 6 more little ones...

These little girls were 4 weeks on May 15

Last week there was a casualty. We aren't sure what happened, but one of the Jersey Giant's carcass was found in the chick mobile. While I am sad that we lost a chick - my first question after Tom found the body was "How many roosters do you see?" As it turns out, it was one of the little roos. Not 100% sad about this. However, we invested 7 weeks worth of feed into that little dude and the hope was initially that we would determine which rooster we would keep and then process the others at the appropriate time.

Oh well.

Other than that all of the others have been very healthy and spry. Still trying to figure out which of the 4 roos we'll keep.

Last night one of the little girls was  being  quite elusive and didn't want to be caught and go in with her sisters for the night. We finally got tired of trying to catch her so she was left out for the night.

Here she is hiding out underneath the chick mobile. I thought if she survived the night fine, but if she didn't whatever - we don't want defiant chickens...hahaha...This morning she was still okay and was reunited with the rest of her brood.

The Goose and the Duck

Lenny is a very proud goose

The boys are 6 weeks old!! It's hard to believe that we have had them since the end of April! They have grown so much and seem to change every single day. As I mentioned before I wanted them to be a protector of the flock, but they have definitely bonded with the humans - both of us, but mainly me. I'm so glad that we have them, but they are destructive little dudes and stinky too! Despite their stinkiness and their desire to eat all new growth (in the garden) they are a lot of fun and Mr. Lenny (goose) is very sweet. He likes to talk to me a lot and tug on my clothing and "chew" on my garden shoes. He'll also follow me all over the place. So I have to be careful when planning my garden work. On the weekend they don't mind hanging with the chickens most of the day, because that is what they are used to, so that makes doing my garden chores less of a chore. In the evenings I like to have them out and roaming around before they get put to bed, so I either have to be stealthy with my watering and other stuff or wait until they are in for the night. 

The Garden

The weather only improved a couple of weeks ago, so pretty much EVERYTHING has been planted/direct sowed since then. I am hoping that this growing season will go longer since we had rain for most of the first 5 months of this year. The other thing that I am hoping for is that there the heat will not be unbearable which makes for an unhappy gardener in me.

All thirteen of the raised beds have been planted and we are in waiting mode. The peas and carrot seeds that were sown a month ago(?) have been doing great and we'll have a nice crop in a few weeks. Everything else is just plugging along right now. This year I direct sowed most of the seeds and I have a couple more items that need to go in. I spied a potato sprout in one of the laundry baskets and some green onions in one of the tomato beds. Hoping for a lot of squash, beans and tomatoes this year. I'll be experimenting with the Three Sisters method just to experiment...corn has been planted, need to wait for something to happen with that before the two other items go in. It's possible that this will only be two sisters...haha.

Antoher thing that we are adding are rollerhooks those on order through Johnny's Seeds. This item will make the vining/climbing veggies happy and maybe even a little more productive. Can't wait for those to be delivered!

Changing Focus?

For the past couple of weeks I have been thinking that maybe I should go back to my original dream of being a flower farmer and doing vegetable garden as the secondary biz.

The gardens from pre-brain cancer were planted with a lot of flowers for cutting and dahlias and favorite veggies. In fact, there was a year that a random person driving by stopped and asked if they could clip some of the cosmos for an upcoming wedding. Of course - YES...Help yourself! That was a pretty cool thing that happened!

Another thought - grow a neighborhood pumpkin patch. With so many kiddos in the subdivision across the street I think it would be fun to have something available for these families without having to travel so far away. Far away would be the Brush Prairie area or Sauvie Island or even Woodland. I think that the farm in Woodland will no longer have a pumpkin patch. We know that pumpkins grow well on our property based on past parties we hosted the first few years we lived in this house. The last party was in 2003. We always had so many pumpkins to offer to our guests and everyone had a great time carving!!

Slowly but surely I decided that I wanted to grow a garden again and then things took off in my brain. I've been thinking that it's time to get some sort of business happening on our property. So many ideas, but no clear vision really. My main reason for doing something more with our property would be because of the people that live across the street from us, an easy market, but also a way to connect to people that we wouldn't normally connect with since we are not a part of any neighborhood.

While I continue to move forward with learning through experimentation I trust that the Lord will reveal the way that I should go in - even if that way is not what I'm dreaming.

Dreaming Big...

One Month Old!

The Little Dudes are one month old today! It's hard to believe that we have had them for almost that long! They have been a lot of fun...and I can't get over how they change almost daily!

Just 3 days old when they came home with us almost a month ago.

They are pretty good buddies - sometimes Lenny can be without Sheldon, but Sheldon certainly doesn't like to be without his big buddy.

Lenny made short work of the pac choi in the hoop house and then told me about it...

Sheldon doesn't get to sit in the "pool" very often, but when he can...

I wanted these dudes to be protectors of the chickens, but they have bonded with us - mostly me - and I have to admit that I do tend to baby them a little bit. They might be a little spoiled too.

They have enjoyed being in the sun this week.

The thing I am noticing more over the past few days that they are becoming a little more independent and don't really mind being in with the big chickies and roosters. Except for this morning, they were very reluctant to go into the paddock at all. Generally being little stubborn waterfowl. They were escorted in...FINALLY. We'll see if they want to come out after I get home from work. If they do that would be fine, but if not...well, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Foraging with the chickies earlier this week.

Looking forward to seeing Mr. Lenny all feathered out. His little buddy has feathers on his chest and belly and is quite smooth. He is starting to look handsome! Once Shelly has all of his feathers he'll look something like this -

Not too bad looking huh...

Here's one last video from this morning. Lenny was being extra cute this morning...

From Cold to HOT...

In no time flat!

Early last week was pretty chilly then by the end of the week and into the weekend we jumped over twenty degrees - which is just wrong. How are we supposed to function when the clouds go away and there is blue sky to be seen? Fortunately for me, I didn't have to be stuck indoors all day everyday last week. My goal was to get gardening stuff done. It took all week, but we got it done - well, started.

A couple of weeks ago, the weather wasn't so bad so Tom rototilled the area that was mostly "free range" last year. The area is approximately 24' x 55' at least that is what I am remembering. My plan is to just have rows that are 30" wide by around 15' long. Well, the length went longer the further down we went. Doesn't matter, I'm not going to be all weird about the garden. Well, not totally.

By the end of last week this is what we had - this is the side that is closest to the house.

By late morning on Saturday we had all of the raised beds dug out! That would be thirteen total. Yep THIRTEEN! It was a lot of work, but we got it done and the planting could begin!

On Sunday after returning home from church I got to work! It was pretty warm by the time I got started - so I took a lot of breaks.

The whole thing is a work in progress with pretty much everything being an experiment. The dimensions will be a new thing for us and I'm hoping that all will work out. If not, we just call it a learning experience and move on the next season.

Anyway, with 13 raised beds I have a lot of space to grow all sorts of stuff! The first day of planting was all about the tomato plants that I started earlier this year. I ended up with 15 tomato plants with 4 different varieties. Each variety occupies space in one of the raised beds. Each bed will also have plants that will play well with the tomatoes (i.e. Borage, Onions, or Greens). Since we had rain for almost all of the spring, I am hoping that the sunshine will be with us for an extended period of time. Some rain will be nice so I don't have to water as much, but more sun wouldn't be a bad thing.

Here is the break down of the varieties/plants that are in the beds so far:

• Mortgage Lifter (4) - a favorite from last year. A nice slicing tomato which kind of took it's time to finally produce fruit, but once it did, we had a lot of them!
• San Marzano (4) - this is a new one for our garden this year. This is in lieu of the Roma Tomato that we had in the hoop house. I wasn't disappointed with the romas, I thought I would try something a little different, but kind of the same.
• Blush (3) - this was a variety that I got last summer from Johnny's Seeds. Go HERE to check it out.
• Garden Peach (4) - this was too interesting to pass up. From Uprising Organics. Check it out HERE

The planting went well ONCE I got the goose to stop trying to nip at the plants.

It's hard to stay upset with these little creatures - they are too stinkin' cute!

Once I was able to deter his little bill from nipping at the plants, he decided to settle in nearby and just watch. He may have been plotting, it's hard to tell.

The other thing that I was able to get done was the potatoes. Those were purchased a few weeks ago and just sitting in the fridge until it was time. I was pokin' around on Pinterest one day and found a very interesting method for growing potatoes - laundry baskets. We have done a couple of different ways - the traditional dig a trench, drop in a piece of potato and cover with soil until new growth and cover. With the potatoes actually being hilled up at least six inches or more. The first time would be way back when we lived in a rental house not far from our current home. We had potatoes galore! A couple of years ago after reading an article in Mother Earth News or the Farmer's Almanac magazine we thought we would try to grow them under straw, but that wasn't nearly as successful and there were only a few potatoes. Last year we used a bulb planter which worked great - we didn't dig a trench, or maybe not much of a trench. The harvest was pretty plentiful, but once we got through all of the plants, we kind of wished we had planted more.

I'm not sure how well the laundry basket method will work, but I have a lot of extras which will be planted in a traditional manner just to be sure we have a decent crop of potatoes.

I just can't bear to get rid of good seed potatoes - I have quite a few pieces that have eyes that have sprouted. We'll put those in the front yard that needs a second rototilling.

The weather has been cooperating, however it is a little warm. Too warm really - I am not a heat loving person. I like the sun, but I would happily do without the heat of anything above the high 80s.
The temps have cooled the past couple of days which has been very pleasant in the evening. Which makes for an enjoyable time of sowing seeds and putting plants into the raised beds.

This week I have been working on getting the other Tomato friendly seeds or plant into the garden and thinking of what to plant next. I'll be trying succession planting this year and even starting seeds for the Fall/Winter garden at a more appropriate time and not at the end of summer like last season. I think that with our garden season just now starting up I'll be starting new things for later this year in a couple of months.

The dudes will be much bigger and possibly no longer free ranging with me in the garden. It will be harder to keep Mr. Lenny away from the plants. I supposed a little taste here and there wouldn't be  a problem though.

as of today these two are 29 days old!