March

Wow! March is almost over - so crazy to think that it will be April soon. Is it just me or is time going really fast? Maybe it's because there is always something to be done when I'm not at work...that must be it.

Well, let's take a look at the happenings for the month. Weekday stuff is hit and miss depending on what after work activities I have on the calendar. Let's get started!

As usual the chickens were moved the second Saturday of the month. I remember that day being pretty cold, but it was clear and then was sunny later in the day. So that was a plus.

Thor and his girls quickly got to work on the chip pile

I have also noticed that since then our feathered creatures have been "admired" from the road - whether people are walking by or driving. Sometimes people will slow down to take a look or even stop their car in the road and gawk - Oh, I see you people out there...keep it moving...chickens we have chickens people! However, I do like it when there are walkers and they stop to take a look. If we are lucky and see them we will go out and meet some of them - like...A mom and her two young daughters who live across the street and down the road a little. Lenny was making a fuss of some sort, so I had to look and there they were in the driveway just looking at the chickens. So we walked out and talked to them for a few minutes. She is another kindred spirit as far as eating "clean" food goes. She is very passionate about feeding her family food that is grown without the yuck-o stuff and opting for pasture raised meats. Tom even took the girls to gather the eggs for the day. That was a fun connection that day - they kids have since been by to visit the chickens with their nanny.

Vacation time! I took a week off from work and we worked on a couple of things, but mainly the Chicken Tractor. It's still under construction, but I am hopeful that we can get a lot of the metal work done and hopefully installed soon. Then we'll be able to attach the hardware cloth and the chicken wire. It has been a long project for sure, but it the Justin Rhodes took longer than my vacation week for sure.

The weekend before vacation week we visited Tsugawa's Nursery in Woodland and got some bare root apple trees (3) to start out mini orchard. We are going with the Mother Earth News small tree method. Check that out HERE. That was a couple of weeks ago and this is what they looked like when we put them in:

I took a look at them this week and they are starting to bud out a little bit. At least we didn't kill them by cutting off more than half of their "body." These trees should stay at around knee height. We'll see.

On the first day that I didn't have to wake up and go to work I worked on getting some of the spring veggie seeds into one of the garden boxes. Right now that consists of Spinach, Arugula and Bunching Onions - Red and White. Over the next few days more seeds were sown into soil blocks, veggies and flowers. Some of those are actually sprouting now. I need to get some peas and carrots planted and maybe some lettuce too.

Hoping for all of these to sprout so they can all go into the garden

One of the garden boxes that was cleaned out during vacation week

We had to run some errands to pick up supplies for the chicken tractor build so that took us to Harbor Freight, Parkrose and Shurway. Those places were more of a necessary evil rather than a fun trip for me, but not terrible when you factor in that Parkrose has free popcorn!

The Java girls are growing like crazy and they REALLY need to get outside soon. I'm thinking of how we can get some sort of small kennel-like/cage thing put together for them so they can at least spend some time on the lawn. 

This was last Saturday - they are a little bigger than this now!

I've been looking on Craigslist for an outdoor kennel or some sort of cage thing that we could set up. I'm starting to feel really bad for these little ones they could totally use some fresh air and finally get out of that box. Even the Jerseys had some time outside before they went outside full time. Maybe this weekend I'll figure out an outdoor pen for them.

Overall, this month has been good and I really need a break from the craziness at work. I'm looking forward to attending the Good Friday service at our church tonight and then worship time on Sunday. 

Happy weekend!!

It's Time to Go Back a Year!

Yeah, so I didn't have a post on this blog a year ago, but there is a great GAFT video from this day one year ago! This was from Full Circle Farm in Florida. This is titled "When Organic ISN'T good enough..." as well as "The BEST way to cook pork chops"

We have been trying to eat better, that is make choices when we grocery shop. Having a steady supply of eggs really does open up all sorts of opportunities for creativity. This is something that I blogged about a few posts ago. Since our eggs are fresh as fresh can be the option to hard boil them is really a no go option. We would have to use older eggs if we want to peel them without taking half the white part away, we don't usually keep eggs around that long. I had forgotten that from my time at home and all the eggs that we had coming out of our ears then. I suppose we would have to buy eggs, but why would I spend money on eggs that are not as good as our own?

Oh, while we are kind of (not really) on the subject of chickens I came across a fun little Safety Tip Sheet on the NFPA website - I'm not sure that I have mentioned that I work for a local fire district. Anyway, as I was looking at Safety Tip Sheet to display on the counter on the National Fire Protection Association website they had a NEW tip sheet for...get this...Chicken Coop safety! Go HERE to check it out. 

So, of course I have to take a look. To be honest it seems like the stuff listed on the sheet would be no brainers, but I guess there is always someone who just doesn't get it. 

You'll have to go to the website to get all of the tips!

I just don't understand. Chickens are pretty hardy creatures and they do alright when the temperatures go down at night. In fact, now that we have our first winter with chickens on our farm behind us, they did pretty good. Granted we didn't have any crazy winter snowstorms - which are rare anyway, but there were a few days here and there where we woke up to snow on the ground. Which was fun watching them contemplate leaving the coop. In the end the chickens did just fine. So did the Dudes. Why risk a fire by putting an electric heater in the coop? We wouldn't even think to do that since the coop we built is the Justin Rhodes chick-shaw. It really wasn't designed to hold a heater or heat lamp anywhere.

In other happenings - we are getting closer to getting those piggies on our farm. I was in contact with Cascade Meadows Farm yesterday (via text) just to get the bug in Jason's ear. In another couple of weeks I'll probably send an email to get the ball rolling. We have the tote to use as a waterer, pallets to make a shelter and Premier 1 hog electric fence to help keep them contained. After watching Art & Bri's video this morning I'm pretty excited to see how the piggies will help with our garden spots around the property. Check out their video:

It's almost weekend time! The next couple of days should be decent as far as the weather is concerned. Easter Sunday might be a little rainy. The forecast is ever-changing so I guess we'll see when we wake up that morning.

It's Only Wednesday?!

The days have gone quickly, but the week seems slow. That's probably because I'm doing regular work and not the kind of work that I enjoy - working on our farm.

Progress on the Chicken Tractor has slowed down to almost a halt, but not really. Tom has been working on cutting the pipe that we have already bent and using them to make proper angles and not curved angles. Somehow that makes sense to me - and definitely to Tom's engineering brain.

The solution:

Tom was able to use some old copper pipe that he had stored away from a past project and did some magic to make the copper pipe fit into the other pipe. Then some soldering and BOOM we are good to go! One down three to go! Actually, I think there are is one more thing that needs to happen to attach this to the frame. I am hoping that we can get this done before the girl Magpie ducklings arrive so we can get the Javas out of the brooder!

Another thing that I have been on the hunt for is a shelter of some sort for when the Javas go out into the chicken tractor - in a couple of weeks they may be big enough to not need a shelter. We'll see. Anyway, there was a dog house for FREE on Craigslist and I thought that it would be perfect for our needs. I tried several times to send a text as the person wanted and I never got a response. So I decided to forget about it. I didn't think about it much more until yesterday and I decided to look again and see if there was anything else available.

THERE WAS!

I saw that it was located much closer to our home and contacted the person that listed it. After some emails back and forth I got the address and found out that they only live not even a 1/4 mile from our house! The other thing that made this a much better deal is that this one has a roof!

$25 later and we have ourselves a nice (and light) shelter for our feathered creatures.

The best part of the evening would be our duck! What a little clown! He definitely has bonded with Tom and whenever he "appears" outside Sheldon immediately jumps into action. He ALWAYS wants to be let out of the hen pen and play with Tom - if you can imagine that. He likes me and all, but he is ga-ga over Tom for sure. Always under foot and always "talking" while trying to steer Tom in the right direction - which would be to race in the driveway.

We are heading to the weekend and looking forward making the most of the time we have to work on projects and play with the duck and the Goose!

Back To The Grind

Yep, I'm back at it and it's been quite a day of getting back into the work routine. While I continue to figure that out for the rest of today - here is a GAFT from one year ago for your viewing pleasure :)

Depending on what we accomplish tonight on the chicken tractor I may or may not post again tomorrow.

Enjoy!