Last Friday of September

This past week has been a bit of a whirlwind, but then at the same time very slow. Work has been a little quiet, kind of. Home life is always go-go-go. Let's get these five things going...

Pokemon Go - Last Sunday was Pokemon Go Community Day and the featured Pokemon was Porygon. Yay! Since last months Community Day we decided that we would do all future Community Day events at the WSU campus around the corner and down the road from us. Last month was pretty quiet and there weren't many people. This month was different because of the fires and it was the first Sunny day with no smoke in over a week! There were all sorts of people enjoying the campus and the trails and everything. It was fun to get out and move a bit. We ended up walking the trail that leads to the entrance off of Salmon Creek Avenue and put our pokemon in the gym that is new at the WSU sign. Our pokemon are still stuck there and it might be a while until we get kicked out. Oh well. During our walk we passed this cool sculpture - 

New Book - A couple of weeks ago I placed an order for a new book with canning recipes. It came highly recommended by Living Traditions Homesteader Sarah. I've been enjoying her and her husband's YouTube videos and she had mentioned this book a couple of times. So I took a look on Amazon and read through the reviews to get a feel of what other people's thoughts were and went for it. I was excited to see that it would be delivered earlier that I thought and now I'm keen on starting to plan next year's garden while going through the recipes in this book!

Cabbage - few things worked in the garden this year. So to find a cabbage that was worthy of harvesting was a nice surprise! This variety is called Filderkraut and I had grown it once before with excellent results. So I was hoping for more than just the one head this year. There might be another one out there, but if there isn't I'll just have to try again next year. Next year's garden is going to be so much better, I can just feel it!

Baby Magpies - This week we have been enjoying watching the little Magpies developing. Unfortunately, the runty one of the trio got into a bit of a pickle yesterday and it didn't look like he/she would survive. Evidently it was all drenched and not able to walk very well. Tom set up the heat lamp and tried to dry it off as best he could and put her under the lamp. When he went to check on her again this time she was in the middle of the garage, all wet again and laying lifeless on the floor. Again little duckling was put under the lamp and Tom didn't have high hopes that she would make it. After hearing from Tom a couple of times I said a quick prayer for the baby to be strengthened. Miraculously, he/she perked up and appeared to be doing well. Today after I left for work the baby took a turn for the worst and even after a little help from Tom ended up passing away during my lunch break. The little one is the one at the bottom of the photo. We still have the other two and we are sure that Betty will continue to raise them up. She was made for this! I am sad, but since it's hard to bond with these little ducklings the loss isn't that huge. We still have two and they are a blessing. 

Silly Turkeys - We spend time with the Meaties and the Turkeys after dinner most days - weather permitting. Last night was a nice evening so we started making our way out there when I heard the familiar sound of the turkeys chirping. Then I saw them...

Seriously, never a dull moment with these two. I was able to surmise that these two were Cindy & Mindy. Just exploring the future pig palace. They are a couple of goofballs and we never know what they will be up to at any given moment.

Throw Back Thursday

 As we look forward to our next Meatie Harvest in a few weeks I was looking back at the post of our first REAL meat chicken harvest. The actual first harvest was a terrible event. Trying to reduce the number of cockerels from our first flock of chickens. Yet, we still decided to move forward and do a real batch of meaties. Go HERE to see that post.

In a few weeks we'll be getting ready to set up our equipment and process 26 meaties. I'm hoping that we'll have decent weather, but it will be late October and anything can happen. Heck it's 2020 and a hurricane might decide to blow through...hehe...

I'm excited for this next batch of chickens though because we are trying something new. The Fry Pan Special from Jenks Hatchery in Tangent, OR. My favorite place to get brand fresh newly hatched chicks! So easy to place an order and choose the hatch date and have them shipped. Unless you live within driving distance and make the trek to pick them up in person. Which is what we have done with each batch.

There are two reasons why I suggested to my hubs that we try them. The first is that they are different, not Freedom Rangers (which I love) and NOT Cornish Cross. Second, they are all cockerels and very inexpensive. I think they are even less than CC at Wilco - they ended up being $1.40 each and the minimum order is 25, but we got lucky and got 26 :)

The breeds escape me right now, but I think one of the breeds is Blue Sapphire Plymouth Rock. I think the one pictured above would be that breed. Maybe. Our batch is a mix of three breeds and we have probably a dozen of the Blue Sapphire's and a dozen of the lighter colored chickens and ONE all dark roo. 

Anyway, kinda cool to see where we are two years later. That first batch was only 15 and our current batch is 26. Who knew that we would be all in with this food growing attitude?! I really do love it! 

Farm Life Best Life

5 Things Friday

Let's try this out. I've decided to recap the last week as a way to actually get at least one post out a week. This doesn't mean that I won't be posting on the regular ('cause I haven't), but this way I'll be sure to visit this space more than once a week.

1. Adventures in Pressure Canning - over the past couple of months I have been slowly adding canned food to the pantry. These projects are a weekend thing and I've been pleased with how most things have turned out. Last Saturday I prepped about 20 pounds of Salvaterra tomatoes to make into sauce. On Sunday I got everything jarred up and into the canner and added 10 pints of sauce to the pantry. I've really enjoyed picking out new recipes to try and getting some quick and easy, throw together meals on the shelf. So far we have enjoyed Sloppy Joes - on more than one occasion, and Chicken Pot Pie. Tom's favorite thing is the pears from our trees. I am looking forward to trying the baked beans that I did a couple of weeks ago. Since I work full-time and the weekends are full with chores and errands (when needed) and church I figured the least I could do is spend some time getting food ready for future meals. 

2. Wild Fires in the Willamette Valley and in the Gifford Pinchot. The fires actually started Labor Day weekend and have been going strong until today. Very early this morning we had a pretty impressive Thunderstorm and rain too...YAY!  Well, the rain hasn't been as heavy as it could be for September in the Pacific NW, but it was rain none the less. The air quality has improved to "Unhealthy" from "Hazardous." So being outside will definitely be more pleasant and won't be nearly as smoky. We have not really had sunshine since last Tuesday and I was getting a little depressed. The smoke settled in on September 9th and stayed. Every once in a while you could see a sun ball, but not actual sunshine. It has been a long week!

3. We celebrated our 29th Wedding Anniversary last week. We had planned to go to the Willamette Valley Pie Company and have lunch and meander our way back home. Obviously, that was no longer an option. A trip to the coast would be like staying home - air quality was just as good. So we ended up shopping for our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes and then decided to have a nice quiet steak dinner at home. 

4. Turkeys! Even though the air quality has been terrible, it didn't seem nearly as bad at our house as it did at my work. So I grabbed one of my face masks and wetted it down and went to hang with the turkeys. Our White Holland Turkeys have been with us for three months and are just over three months old. They are so fun and friendly which is a welcome change from the chickens who are just looking for a hand out. The turkeys know that food comes from us, but they don't run up and beg for food...well they do in the evening. These goofballs spend most of the day free ranging and then are ushered back in to their area with the Meaties. They might get some scratch then, but if not they know that they will get some at bed time.

5. Broody Betty. Well, since we couldn't break Betty of her broody ways, we gave her duck eggs 4 weeks ago. Early yesterday morning those eggs hatched and we now have three new Magpie Ducklings! Three is the most that she has had so far so probably in about a month or two she will be getting ready to rejoin the flock and leave the babies behind. When there were two (Leona and Walter) I think she stuck with them for about two months, maybe less. When she had the one duckling I think she stuck with that one longer, just because there was just one. Well, the three will be interesting. I predict that we'll be taking over raising them after a couple of months. Until then we are going to enjoy watching Betty with her little trio of waterfowl.

The Magpie Population

Let's start with my first post about Betty and her broody ways - go HERE to check out that post. 

Just last night Tom looked at me and said that he didn't think that those eggs were fertile and asked what we should do. Well, I thought about it for a second and then said that it take about 4 weeks for ducklings to hatch. It hasn't been quite 4 weeks yet so we need to wait. Good thing we did because Betty successfully added to our Magpie Duck population by hatching out three more ducklings.

Shortly after I arrived to work this morning I got a message from Tom saying that Betty was a surrogate mother again...YAY. After a couple of more hours he took this photo and sent it to me:

Duckling No. 1

There was no sign of other ducklings since this photo. So he was thinking that just one of the eggs was good. Again, I told him we had to wait.

He came to Hazel Dell and we went on our lunch time Pokemon hunt as we do most days. After he arrived home I received the following message:

"I think you could put a rock under betty and she could hatch it. We have 3 new duck babies."

It's good to know that Gordon is doing his job and the girls are popping out fertile eggs! These three make eight Magpies now. We'll see how many last to adult age. Out of the four last year we have one. Two were taken by a predator and one was probably squished by momma. I am hoping that hey will all survive. If they do survive we might have two "gangs" and Princess Leona. We'll just deal with the logistics of the ducks later when it becomes a thing. 

This will work out in our favor in the future. If our Turkey hens don't show interest in nesting and sitting on eggs we always have Betty. Actually, we could take a certain amount of the turkey's eggs and then give them to Betty. Then let the turkeys nest with any eggs they lay after, if they choose to. Another idea, we could just maybe sell those eggs to someone who is interested in White Holland Turkeys.

For now, we are going to enjoy the three new babies on our farm. I'm REALLY excited to get home and see them, if Betty will let me.

Twenty Nine

On this day 29 years ago we got married.

Today 29 years later we are still married.

That day was a beautiful sunny day which followed a rainy day.

Today is a smoke filled day and we pray for rain.

We had plans to go for a drive into the Willamette Valley and visit the Willamette Valley Pie Co. for lunch and meander our way back home. However, a week ago fire started up and down the valley and now much of western Oregon & Washington have smoke filled skies and it has been this way since last Wednesday.

With all of the craziness that has been occupying our minds - COVID19, lost lives, crumbling economy, the closure of businesses, BLM and protests - I'm glad that I have my rock by my side and God in the middle of our marriage. In the end, no matter what, we know that God is sovereign and he will make thing work for his good.

Today we will celebrate our marriage by doing service together. We will be heading out to shop for our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. Serving others in the name of Jesus wins every time.