Spring!!

I think this is a first:  I am ahead with my garden!!  

I know!!!  It's exciting!!  Usually, spring comes along and I am positively frantic, rushing from one project to another, working, dealing with family obligations, etc, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah.  It's a miracle if the potatoes go into the ground before May, even though our ideal planting time is when the daffodils are blooming.  It's a celestial event, the planets are aligned, and Jupiter is in the 7th house (whatever the heck that means), if I manage to get the garden planted before mid-June. 

After last year's fiasco of a garden-  lack of rain, late planting, and just plain rushing for other things - we had almost nothing to put up.  Oh, and losing three chest freezers full of produce during a power outage/heat wave didn't help matters much.  I had to buy canned tomatoes for the first time in years.  Never again, I say!!  I mean, really, those things from the store are not only expensive, but tasteless.  What the heck is that red mush in the can?   It doesn't even smell like tomatoes!

Our pantry is in desperate need of re-stocking.  The freezers, well, after that mess with the power outage, the freezers will be for things that are to be eaten in short order, and not for longer storage.  Everything will either be canned or dehydrated.

So...life happens...and things change....and here we are.  Little Sis is nearly grown, so I have decided to devote the next few years to just having fun, traveling, enjoying time with her before she heads off to college, and getting our homestead back on track.  I've cut back on other obligations, prioritized, and damned if I am not ahead on my garden!!

The potatoes are in the ground, all 75 lbs of seed!  I planted 25 lbs each of Red Pontiac, Red Chieftain,  and Yukon Gold.  I have onion seeds planted, and am hoping to run out today for some onion sets.  And did I mention the daffodils have not even bloomed yet?? Yes, I am that far ahead! Can I get a WOOT WOOT!!!

We had discussed purchasing a tiller for the section of garden that is no longer black plastic.  But, being a skinflint cheapskate, I just couldn't part with that kind of money.  And, really, I didn't think it would make things any easier.  We've never used a tiller on the garden here at our homestead.  All that vibration, gas fumes, and hard pan didn't sound very appealing. Instead, we used a tractor....a chicken tractor.  

This is a chicken tractor.  The bottom is open to allow the chickens to scratch and peck the soil.

We moved the chicken tractor, and the guinea tractor, around the garden area all winter long.  This is what we were left with...

My handy, dandy garden fork.  

 I used the garden fork to turn over the soil.  It really didn't take much effort, and was certainly quieter than a tiller.

This is what the freshly turned soil looked like.  You can see one of my free range gals helping out.  BTW, she's in a tractor now so that she doesn't help herself to freshly sprouted seedlings in the garden.

I moved the chicken tractor back over the freshly turned soil.  The chickens picked out the weeds and bugs, and fluffed up the soil nicely.

See how fine the soil looks as I slide the chicken tractor over?

Fluffy!

The guineas didn't care much for the freshly turned soil.
Mostly, they pranced around and gave me dirty looks, as if to say, "Do I look like a chicken to you??"
They do love the fluffed soil for dust baths, though.  And they did a great job over the winter of tearing up the weeds.

You may look at this and think "wow, that's a lot of work!"  but really, it wasn't.  The soil turned easily with the fork.  Besides, I need a little exercise to get back in shape for that beach trip Little Sis and I are taking later this month!

Disenchanted

I have become disenchanted ...with chickens.  The free range idea of chickens, anyway.  Every single thing on my porch is covered...literally covered....with bird squirt.  Why, with all these acres to poop on, do the KFC wannabes have to do their business on the porch??

Granted, we got busy and let the butchering get away from us, so we were overrun with the potentially tasty feathered fiends.  No more, I say!!

Eöl has been building new chicken tractors.  In the meantime, the chickens are getting penned up.  I have a garden to plant.  Not possible with the cluck-heads following me around to dig up every seed.

In a month or so, I may once again love chickens (in some form other than fried or roasted).   That is, after the 500 pounds of chicken manure is removed from the mower, the shed porch, the back stairs, the driveway, the firewood stack, the walkways....you get the idea....

Today was gorgeous!!  The sun was out, the snow was melting, and the air had that smell that always reminds me of a defrosting freezer:  damp, chilly, and warm at the same time.  It just smelled like spring....in January?

We've had one snow so far, other than a couple of dustings.  The ground has only been frozen for a few days all winter.  I'm not complaining, I'm just hoping that the trees don't bud too soon and lose their blossoms, as well as this year's fruit harvest, to a freeze later on.  An average winter here has snow on the ground from November to April.  This is a nice change.

The worst part about today was that I was completely exhausted.  For reasons both boring and mundane, I was up till 3:30 a.m., and then had to be up this morning at 7 a.m., once again for boring and mundane reasons.  I desperately needed a nap, but didn't want to waste such a beautiful day.  I compromised with a 30 minute coma power nap, and spent the rest of the day outside.

I brought in the wood and did some other every day chores, then decided it would be a great time to put fresh hay in the critter houses.  When I want back around to lock up the critters at dusk, I found that my mud-slogging-itchy-hay-hauling was not as appreciated as you would've thought.

The ducks were horrified.

"Drake, dahling!  Come here, quickly!" chirped Mrs. Muscovy, "This simply will not do! We've been redecorated!  Oh, it's horrid!!"

The young chickens in the tractor were also upset:

"Dude!"

"Gag me with a pitchfork! Why is our house all full of green, itchy stuff?"

"Oh. My. Gosh.  This. Is. Gross!"

"I am totally sleeping outside.  You cannot make me go in there.  I just had my feathers done."

Just kidding. I love Cyndi Lauper.
We should all age so well. 

"Chicks just wanna have fun."



At least the geese were happy:

"Yo, Vinny! How you doin'?"

"Yo, T! How you doin'?"

"Yo. Dat lady put new hay in da house.  No more mud for youse guys, she says."

"Fuggedaboutit!"

Ok...I guess it's weird I hear critter voices in my head, and they all have their own nuance and character.  But after a total of four hours of sleep, well, I'm lucky that's my only problem.

A very confused Roo

Remember that Lonely Chick Little Sis hand raised?  He's turned out to be the sweetest Roo you ever met, albeit a bit species confused.  He likes to sleep with the cats at night, but during the day, he follows Little Sis around.  If she's inside, he hangs out by the window and makes goo-goo eyes at her.  If she's outside, he finds tasty morsels of worms and bugs, clucks and dances until she comes over, pokes at the goodies, and tells him to go ahead and eat it, she's not hungry.

The cats think he's one of their own and always make room for him in the sleeping basket.

His only bad habit is trying to sneak into the house when I carry wood inside.  Little Sis is begging to buy diapers for him and let him sleep in her room.   *sigh*  I'm putting my foot down about that one.

Too early for chick days?

There's just two, but the second pic was the only close up that was in focus.  These guys are camera hogs.

They hatched out over the past couple of days from one of our broody bantams.  You know how they are... Neither rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night...oh, wait, that's the post office.

I never expected any of the hens to go broody in the middle of winter. In fact, I'd just about given up on having broody hens, period.  Then last year our bantams hatched a couple of broods. One bantam gal even hatched some heavy breed eggs that Little Sis snuck underneath her.  It was too funny to see her leading around chicks as big as she was.

What kind of bantams do we have?  I have no idea!!  They are free range, which means that the new chicks are all mixed breed.  It also means that, right now, with snow on the ground, they are all hanging out and pooping right outside the back door. 

Anyway, the new little guys are happily peeping in the kitchen and think Little Sis is their mama.  Their real mama hen is still sitting on the nest and can't be bothered with chasing them around.  Besides, it's mega cold and icy outside, and the cats (which have never bothered chicks before) are thinking maybe it's time for a McNugget Happy Meal.

Lonely chick seeks companionship

This little guy/gal was hatched by our Silkie Bantam. She was broody for quite some time, then we heard peeping and found this little one wandering around in the pen on his own. Little Sis attempted to put him back in with mom, and mom immediately tried to peck his eyes out.

None of the other eggs hatched. There wasn't much sense in setting up the brooder for one lonely chick, so he's happily peeping away in a smaller version in the kitchen.

It's a bit odd: he doesn't sound at all like the peeps we've had before. There's none of that insane peeping at earsplitting decibels. He just chirps contentedly and actually sounds a bit more like a canary or finch than a chicken.

We can't be sure of the gender until the little peep gets a bit older. Little Sis named her Saphira, after the dragon in Brisingr. I call him Linus, after the Peanuts character. The reason I call him that is that he has a little blue blanket that we used to warm him when we first found him, and it's been in his mini-brooder ever since. When Little Sis changed his bedding last time, she forgot to put it back in, and he peeped the loudest ever until she brought it back. Too cute.

Now we just have to figure out where to house a pet chicken (we have meat and egg chickens, but this is the only pet chicken) once he's fully grown. I don't think he'll be able to sleep in the kitchen forever, especially once the crowing starts. On the other hand, if he is a she, it would be convenient to have the egg dispenser right there by the stove. lol Tiny eggs, though.

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Tonight, we are supposed to have our first frost. Seems a bit early to me. I'm notating it here so that I'll be able to look it up next year.

I spent part of the afternoon picking the last of the peppers and other tender things. Ok, not the last of the peppers. The plants are still blooming and covered with teensy baby peppers. If the frost misses the plants, we may have another gallon or two to put away.

Harvesting chickens

Remember our first hatch? We finally got around to harvesting the two big hens, leaving the two bantams to fill out our bantam flock.

If you have never raised your own meat, you don't know what you are missing. Sure, it's messy and a little gross. But you know how it was raised and processed. You know the animal was healthy. And you know it wasn't rolled around in sewage before it was popped onto the store shelf. (Ew!)

We did all of the processing ourselves. I'm kind of glad the first hatch was small, since we really didn't know what we were doing. But, after the first chicken, the second was easy. Well, other than me dodging the headless chicken. That was hysterical.

Anyway, after the processing, we put the chicken in the freezer. Then last weekend I made time to cook a decent meal. We had fried chicken (our own!), green beans, mashed potatoes, made from scratch biscuits, and blackberry cobbler. The beans, potatoes, blackberries and chicken were all raised here. It was all amazing. There's nothing like raising your own food.

Our next harvest will be 14 chickens, then another 25 after that. These aren't broilers, so they look kind of small when we butcher them, but there's a surprising amount of meat on these scrawny looking birds.

I am considering ordering 25 broilers, just to compare. But that, most likely, will have to wait till next spring.

Our first hatch

Last Friday, April 3rd:

Aren't they cute?

We only ended up with four chicks out of 42 eggs. We were 100% on the bantams, though, so after a little research (cracking open the unhatched eggs) we discovered that they weren't fertile. Turns out Big Red just isn't up to keeping all those hens happy. Well, one roo and 19 hens, that's a lot of work for the poor guy. We actually weren't expecting a big hatch since we knew our rooster:hen ratio was a bit off. We ended up with two frizzled cochin bantams, one golden chick of unknown origin, and a barred rock baby (crossed with RIR).

So...thanks to the wonder of the internet and some generous folks that had an extra roo, we now have Charming, our Blue Laced Red Wyandotte.

We were worried he'd fight with Big Red (our very mean Rhode Island Red roo) and not perform, but things worked out well. We put Big Red up in the coop, then let Charming roam with the ladies. He was challenged by one hen, and stood up for himself nicely, then strutted around like he owned the place. After an hour or so, we let Big Red out. They walked around ignoring each other for a while, then went after each other once or twice. Charming is bigger than Red, and not a chicken (pun intended), so he taught Red a few manners. Now they just ignore each other, mostly with Red staying out of Charming's way. They are both busy doing roo business, so we should see a better hatch this time around.

___________

I came home from work the other day to be greeted by Little Sis:

"Mom!! Dad made cartoon eggs! Look! I took a picture!!"

They do look as nice as the ones in cartoons, don't they? lol Any man that can make cartoon eggs is the man for me. ;)

Another step toward the goal of self-sufficiency

We just got an incubator!! **does happy chick hatching dance** Complete with automatic egg turner. Can I get a 'woot woot'? ;)

The plan is to hatch our own chicks to raise for meat, as well as restock our layers as needed. We'll be loading the incubator this weekend, and, with any luck, in 21 days we'll have some peeps.

The incubator purchase is one thing now checked off our homesteading list. Next is about a zillion more canning jars.


Enough blogging. Back to work! ;)

Beware the zombie chickens!

Remember, right about this time last year, when we had to break down and buy store eggs? Hah! No such thing this year!! Thanks to our Zombie Chickens!!!

No, seriously, our chickens are some weird, freaky, zombie type fowl.

Why do I think so? Well, most chickens go to roost when it gets dark, right? In fact, I think all chickens do; at least all the ones I've ever known. Not ours. Not anymore.

We put a light in the hen house to keep the layers laying. When the days are short, just a few hours of electric light will make a huge difference in egg production. We turn the light off a few hours after dark, because the hens (and Captain Roo) need their rest.

But since the installation of the light, our chicks wander around in the dark hen house yard, pecking and clucking as if it were broad daylight. It doesn't matter if their light is on or not, they just hang around waiting for us to tempt them inside the hen house for the night with a bucket of feed.

Not that I mind, it's just kind of funny to own zombies. For the record, zombie eggs taste just like regular free range eggs.

If you own hens and want to increase your winter egg production, definitely use a light for a few hours after dark. They also need extra feed to produce eggs in cold weather, because their normal rations are going toward keeping warm. However, even all of this won't bring your hens up to their near summer egg production. But there is a way...

The secret is one that DH discovered by accident: He gave the chickens some hay (not straw), and suddenly, we get a dozen eggs in one day! Unheard of for this time of year!

We've had one or two days with no production, mostly due to extremely cold weather. But for the most part, the hens are laying like they think it's July.

On the down side, now that they have electricity in their little bungalow, they are clucking about cable tv and internet!

Garden pics and gratuitous peeps

What a difference two weeks can make! The before and after pics are two weeks apart, and I just can't get over the difference!

Before

After

The above pics are really just a small portion of my garden. But you get the idea.

Corn Before

Corn After

Potato patch. It looks small but actually measures 1000 sf. I have Yukon Gold potatoes at the top (closest to the camera), and they seem to be doing well. The white ones at the bottom, not so much.


And those gratuitous peep pics:

Now let's see how many google hits I get for 'gratuitous peeps'. lol

Why did the chicken cross the road?

*shrugs* Probably for the same reason she decided to see if she could squeeze through this cinder block. She didn't make it...she got stuck. Stupid bird.

Peep update

Our peeps are about two weeks old now. We lost three of the bantams shortly after we got them. I think it was due to the delay in shipping and then grabbing them right after they came out of the box to bring them home. When we got them, we had to wait around at TSC for over an hour for the chicks to arrive, then we got the ones we wanted as they came out of the shipping container. If we hadn't, I doubt we'd have any now. The whole shipment was only about 30 of each type of bird, and they were all gone within about two hours.

Here's a peek at the bantams that are left. I think the biggish yellow one is going to be a Frizzle Cochin!! I've always wanted one. The biggish black one also has feathered feet but it's not frizzly, and I've no idea what the teensy chipmunk colored ones are yet.




This gal (below) has an interesting face. I think she may be a Wyandotte of some sort, but I won't be able to tell till her feathers all come in. That's the neat thing about buying from an assortment - you just never know what you'll get, but you can bet it'll be interesting.


All the chicks seem so big! I will be glad when they can go outside, though. Peeww they are stinky! I'm changing them every day now, though, and that's helped a lot. DH built an outside chick nursery for me, but they need to get in a few more of their real feathers first, just to be safe. Of course they'll have the heat lamp for a few more weeks, or at least until the temps even out here, but for now they are safer inside, especially with a low in the 20's expected this weekend. *rolls eyes* I do enjoy the peeping, anyway. It sounds like I live in an aviary. lol

It's a peep show!

My husband is a chick magnet. Chicks love him. He was out today picking up chicks and I went along for the fun of it.




Ok, now that you all have your minds in the gutter...lol...












Oh, like I even had any of you homesteaders going for a second! You say 'chick' to a homesteader, and we automatically picture feathers and beaks. lol

These are our little guys from TSC. I am so glad they are carrying peeps in the store again. The bird flu scare had them available 'by order only' for the past three years. A big thank you to Silent Crow for tipping me off on the return of the chicks!!!

We got eight bantams, straight run (that means they could be male or female, they haven't been sorted), of various breeds. I'm anxious to see what they turn out to be. I think at least one of them will be feather footed. yay!

We also got 10 pullets. Well, they called them pullets, but I'd always heard that term in reference to hens under a year old but already laying. *shrugs* Anyway, they were sorted so these are all female, various breeds.

I was surprised that we got such a good deal on the chicks. TSC had them for at least $1 less (each) than some of the hatcheries, and of course we didn't have to worry about shipping costs.

Unfortunately, that was the only thing we got a good deal on. Dog food has gone up over $2 in the past two weeks. I also stopped for a bottle of wine on the way home. That went up more than $3 since the last time I bought some (just a couple of weeks ago). Sheesh!

I have to go look at my cute little peeps now. The girls have been checking on them off and on. Big Sis said she was 'chillin' with her peeps'. lol

Easter Eggs

We colored our Easter eggs today. It's a tradition to color a few dozen, then make them into deviled eggs for Easter dinner, or eat them as they are (hard boiled). We never hide them inside, though, just in case one would get lost. Ew! lol

These were actually brown eggs before they were colored. Well, I think a couple of the pointier ones were green to start with, though not quite that shade of green. lol


The basket with the bunny was made by my MIL. Isn't it great? I love baskets, and the ones that she has made for me will be family heirlooms.



I thought the eggs came out nice. I had forgotten one important thing, though: the eggs will hold color better if they are room temperature. I boiled these yesterday and had them in the fridge, so the colors aren't as neat as they were last year. Also, the wax for designs kept peeling off because the eggs were too cold. *rolls eyes* I'll remember next year, I hope. lol

Another tip that we had to learn the hard way (when our hens first started laying): fresh eggs are impossible to peel when boiled. The egg white will come off along with the shell. It's best to let the eggs age in the fridge for a minimum of three days before using them in baking, and I like to let them age at least a week or two before I boil them or use them in angel food cake. I never knew that eggs could be too fresh. lol

Hope everyone has a Happy Easter!! We're expecting snow here..again. DH wanted to buy some white eggs and hide them in the snow. lol