The Judgement is In

So today was rooster sentencing day, and no they didn't get a fair trial and I'm afraid the sentence is death.

We butchered 6 roosters today four of which are destined for the soup pot, while two will either be roasted or fried.. maybe grilled. I did learn a couple things from this batch of birds. First, I had read a number of times about how it is easier to skin your birds instead of plucking them. Yeah... personally? For me skinning them took twice maybe three times as long to do. The biggest problem is the feathers got in the way of me seeing where to run my knife to remove the skin.

The second thing I learned is that turkens are easy to pluck. It took almost no time for me to get the feathers off the body of it. Even better the skin doesn't look like it had the feathers in it over half the body. It was also the largest of the birds after butchering and it was one of the youngest ones we butchered.

Silver is going to make some home made stock from four of them and the feet from the birds (well the feet that were healthy, two of the Leghorns had sores on them). The feet have a lot of cartilage on them and some fat(s), it is simple to clean the feet too once you learn how. You boil some water, take the water off the fire/burner and drop the feet in the pot. Now you take them out one at a time and starting at the nails pop the sheathe off the nail and start peeling the top layer of scales off. As you go to the leg joint it gets more difficult but it is easier to start at the claws.

My biggest problem with these birds (I got them for free so it's only a half assed complaint), is most of them have had feet problems. Two of the white leghorns we got had feet that couldn't grip the pearches, couldn't grip at all and they had sores in the “palms” of the claws. The guinea fowl we had had one badly broken leg that healed wrong. There is a brown leghorn hen who has no toes. These were all in the birds we got for free last fall. Bothers me a bit they were like that. I'm just glad that they are living here now, so they have good lives till they wind up in my stock pot!

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Piggie!

Hello I'm Rivenfae, and I'm pig paranoid. We just got Strawberry our new cute 3 month old piggie, and she has shown us numerous times how stupid us humans really are.

 By not once but twice getting out of her brand new temporary pen (until we build the permanent one). All on the first day in it. So that night she spent in a kennel in the house till I could prevent her escapes from under the fence. Mind you , we have rebar stakes all along the bottom of the fence to keep her from rooting out of the pen. She still managed to find a way to squeeze under the fence and avoid the rebar totally.

So the next morning I added some heavy rocks around the pen and put her back into it. Once she figured out she could not get out the way she had she squealed bloody murder. I thought I won! The next morning (Monday), I went out to feed her, the rabbits, and the birds and she's standing in the rabbitry right next to her bed on the wrong side of the fencing. Well, she proved me wrong didn't she? I put her back in give her, her food then look around. Seems Silver forgot to staple the fencing to the back of the rabbitry where she sleeps and she squeezed out that way during the night.

She did have a full night too rooting all around the chicken coop trying to find a way into it. Good thing we had dog and fox proofed the chicken coop or the chickens might have had a long night. She spent all Monday sleeping in her bed the contented piggie.

I now have one FULL day of no escaped piggie! So now I am paranoid. I just know she'll find another way out.

My tomato seeds have sprouted and I am still waiting on my peppers and I have all my seeds that I need now for my Spring planting. We also got 26 new chicks today for my flock and we're thinking of this summer (after a few roosters get invited to dinner) hatching some of our own and seeing how it goes.

 Hope everyone is staying warm and those in all that snow, I hope your weather improves soon.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

I got pictures!

My older daughter brought a camera from the school's photo club home for the weekend so I borrowed it to get some pics of the animals for everyone to see first up is the goats.

Now The white goat is as far as we can tell younger than our black one, who is also the head goat in our tiny herd.  She's always chasing the white one (Milkshake) off the feed while she (Momma) is eating.  The little one is our buckling Oreo, he's still too small to do his job, but I doubt the girls care right now.

I don't know how many people saw back when we got our first flock here how we called the chicks "food tv" for our cats.  But.. we got new programming on the "food tv".

It's the Cornish Cross show, I was in the farm store with Silver picking up a couple things when they brought them into the store.  Silver thought it was funny, my head when up as soon as I heard the peeping from them and I started scanning the store to see where they were.  These guys are going to be an experiment to see if it is worth the cost to raise a bunch next year for the freezer.  That's why there is only 6 now, we had considered getting 12.

Speaking of chickens...

This  Is a picture of about 1/3 of our current laying flock.  I unfortunately have about 5-6 roosters in there and they are getting reduced to 2 roosters next week.  That white bucket in the foreground is a feeder Silver made for them out of a 5 gallon pail and a feed bowl.  He bolted the two together and cut some holes in the bottom of the sides of the bucket and it is now a 5 gallon chicken feeder.  The two leghorns in the picture are roosters as is the bird in the doorway, we're keeping the one in the doorway he's a mix) because he is just so huge.

Here is the other one we are keeping:

It's a turken, we got two of these roosters and two hens of this breed and after watching all of the boys I noticed the turkens are built massively.  Also this turken and that mixed rooster (I call him pretty boy and once I can get a pic you'll know why) are the most vigorous breeders in the batch of roosters.  So it was size of the bird and behavior that determined which roosters are going to be put in the freezer verses left with the ladies.

I have the chicken coop in the same location it was though the yard got an upgrade,

The tarp is  up over the coop and part of the yard partly to keep the tarp from getting torn and to help the roof which needs repair.  We bent rebar for the "hoops", we also used pieces of wood at the bottom to hold the chicken wire down with rebar stakes hammered into the ground which will also prevent anybody from digging into the yard.  We also now have a full sized door on the yard instead of having to bend in half to go into the yard.  All of the chicken wire is the same fencing we had on the old yard reused on this one.

That next building is the new rabbitry with those 2 barrels there to store food for birds and rabbits.

Except for the 2 cages on the upper right everything was gotten from one person.  The cage 'condo' on the left side is a  multi lab cage that can be broken down into 6 cages  when you put dividers in.    We temporarily have just tarps on this structure, we're going to put some wood up on the sides to keep the wind down, we're trying to figure out if we'll need a heater int here or not for the winter as they are all New Zeland and New Zeland crosses.

This is Harriet,

I love her coloring, I am hoping when I breed her, that her color will be in her babies as I personally love that silver grey fur.  I am hoping at least down the line to keep the furs off of the ones we butcher for projects.  She's under a year old so I have a few years of breeding her to try for more with her color.

We do have one top notch animal in this bunch.

This is Ziggy, he came with a pedigree and an ear tattoo that is on his opposite ear.  I am going to be putting does in front of him this week as we have cooler weather this week so we should have fully functioning boys this week.  Seems the bucks' equipment doesn't work well when it hits over 90 degrees.  The only colored rabbit I have is Harriet everyone else is a white New Zeland, and we're trying to figure out what she might be.

I am working on trying to switch the rabbits to forage feeding over pellet food, as I'd rather cut them some food myself than have to buy it.  We had gotten some geese from the person we got the rabbits from too but they wandered off.  Which I did expect, and was figuring I'd have to get some goose eggs to hatch next spring so we have friendly ones to guard our yard.

Well I need to get moving, as it's taken me an hour to set this post up due to pictures and I am still cutting firewood for this winter as our chain saw was out of commission this spring so we're half our wood behind.  Though pretty soon we'll have it all and will be chopping/cutting wood for next year.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

New Birds!

So last evening me Silver one of our interns and two of the kids went over to my rabbit person to catch as many of her chickens as we could get our hands on. We did this around sunset in the hopes of catching them roosting. From the looks it seems most are crosses of some kind. We now have a good number of roosters (I am going to be culling there and I am trying to decide which roosters to keep), there is a few young birds; who keep close together thankfully. One of the youngsters is a guinea fowl, she (I think) has a lame leg; seems to be twisted backwards. I am hoping as she grows she'll be able to walk ok so I can let her loose come next spring to eat bugs for us. We did get some turken's otherwise known as the “naked-necked chicken”. The two adults are roosters and seems we have two young ones of indeterminate sex. I am hoping for at least one hen in there as I want the size of those birds added to my flock. So if we don't have a hen I might be keeping one of those roosters as they seem very vigorous in mating with hens from watching them for a few minutes this morning.

I was also offered to take the one homing pigeon she has. Seems at one point she had more and the rest flew off and left this one female by herself. We are thinking of taking her, we just need to make her a house. I was thinking of buying a couple more to raise as squab maybe, though the birds seem very pricey to buy. Lowest I saw was $50 a bird and that did not count shipping. I'll have to see what I can about getting a few more somewhere down the line.

The guinea isn't the only one with a foot issue it seems either. There is a hen who is missing at least her claws, and a white rooster who walks decidedly oddly like one of his feet don't work right. The woman said the guinea is due to her incubator, that is possible I imagine; I will have to see when we use it. Granted Silver is thinking of rebuilding it so it might not be an issue at all for us. I plan on checking on everybody a few times today to see how they interact to help me decide which roosters to keep around for my ladies. I also have a few that I am still trying to see if they are hens or roosters, as I learned when I had just the Rhode Island Reds and Jersey Giants that the hens sometimes get big combs. So that's it for now, I wish I had a -working- camera so I could snap some pics but that is one expense I can't afford right now.

BE Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Long Over Due Update!

I know I have not written anything in some time on here, partly due to money issues and partly due to just being busy. At this time we have 2 interns staying with us, both are here either because they want to learn about how we live or because they want to live like this and wanted an easy way to get a start. One of them is our current mode of transportation as our van is officially dead. We are planning on turning it into storage and using the oh so comfy seats in the house (honestly they are -very- comfortable). The same one who has the vehicle is also working at a town job 4 days a week to help out a bit and to assist in getting them out of the debt issues they have.

As for what is directly going on here, well first our money situation is starting to turn itself around (btw my dear friend whom we got the water tanks from payback is coming to you in a couple weeks fingers crossed). We acquired some more goats, an adult and 4 babies.. 3 of them however did not make it. It's a learning experience as one died due tot he fact that it seemed to have been sick when we picked it up. The other 2 shrugs I am not sure what got them though I suspect bloat got one of them. However we have our started herd of milk/meat goats.

We also got a new -small- flock of just hens, they aren't producing the amount of eggs I wish they were but again, it's building and the point is to make it till spring when we buy a new flock. I have 2 rabbits at the moment for our meat production. (Oh for those of you who whine about “don't hurt the cute bunny!” Let me tell you that -cute- bunny has teeth and claws and can hurt you and have you ever seen a cow that is raised on a farm and has good feed, plenty of land to graze one? They are adorable, so if you think the cute bunny shouldn't be hurt .. don't eat the cute cow). I have contact with someone local who is going to sell me a good breeding stock on bunnies so that for us is a big plus.

Our garden this year has been doing 100X's better than we have had before due to my new garden beds. I even pickled some cucumbers the other day. I am still trying to get enough tomatoes to can so I can do sauces and have chili fixings for all winter. I managed to pull 1 melon so far out of my garden, I think I still need to tinker a bit to get good big melons from my beds.

Our second intern is a young man, who has spent most of his life living in the city playing video games and living the life of the average city kid these days. He's been chopping and hauling wood for about 3 weeks now interspersed with some dirt hauling. He is -just- starting to gain some muscle on his arms. Yes, we are still working on our winter wood. We got a chain saw this spring that after 2 days of work died, and when we took it back we needed the refund for bills so the new chainsaw got put on the back burner till we could afford it. We just got a new one and we are trying to get enough wood put up for this winter. We have 2 buildings to heat this year, so we have 2 wood burners to feed all winter.

The kids head back to school tomorrow morning, so they are excited; as are we as we get quiet then. We'll even get more work done as we won't be chasing them around to get the jobs they need done completed. Oh for those of you who know me on FB, I really don't go in there anymore unless there is something I feel is important enough to get out to -everybody-, I am not even sending links to this blog there anymore. For me FB has become a bit of a joke and I just don't see the point in it anymore.

I cannot guarantee I will keep things major-ly up to date as we have tons of things going on around here and I had a free moment and someone locally asked I update the blog as they feel what we are doing would interest a good deal of people out there. I am honestly not sure how true that is as from the bit of lurking I do have time for online I don't see much activity of this kind out there anymore. It is like homesteading in the woods -was- a fad that is now over with. I might be wrong, but I don't see much in the way of people being interested in it at this point.

Example, we had another person here for about 3 months. Boy, was it a failure; this young man thought that life here would be a breeze. As whenever he was online we tended to be as well to chat with him. What you don't wind up seeing is this young man stays up till 3 am and doesn't wake up till about noon. By noon we have our morning chores done and in the spring we don't work 100% of the day any more than the rest of the year. However there are times we come very close to it. He moved down here supposedly to assist us and as he needed a place to live. He after a couple of times flatly refused to do any work as quote”my back hurts too much for that”. Now anyone who reads this blog knows that my partner Silver is disabled, he has a bad knee and suffers from RA horribly. Some days he can't even get out of bed it can be so bad. So we have a 19 yr old young man who can barely lift a shovel to move some dirt because his back hurts. However when we suggested he see a doctor he refused to do that. So after a while of that and him wasting our food we sent him away.

I had at one time a person who looked at my blog and told me that what we do there had to be a lie because no one could live like that or do that much “stuff” in one day. It bothers me that (this person was under 30 btw) people younger than me think life is just about sitting in their chairs infront of a screen all day and walking to the car to go to work is hard exercise. Where has the work ethic of people gone?

Well that is about ti from here right now, hope everyone is well and healthy.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Storm A-Coming

Well it looks like this will be another day without working outside as a ice storm is headed this way.  Last time there was an ice storm in this area a few years before we moved here there was wide spread power outages, some lasting a couple of weeks.  So in a few hours we are going to be setting up some emergency water as with having a well means if there is no power you have no water.

The first thing we did this morning (well after feeding everybody of course) was to go out and cover our wood pile, just to ensure that we will have usable dry wood that isn't frozen solid.  I'm going to have my son dig out the hatchet for just in case when he gets home from school.  We got the wood pile covered with one of the tarps we bought to keep cement dry, as when we start buying it we will be buying in small amounts till we have enough to work on the house with.

We're making up a "vat" of chili which will be good if the power goes out as we could set it on the wood burner to keep hot  for us to eat as needed.  The only concern I will have if the power goes out will be the water issue as we don't have enough things to store water in for emergencies right now.  I'm going to be using my sugar bucket as there is no sugar in it right now.

With the possibilities this brings, it has one more.  That one is that the kids may not have school tomorrow, which would be annoying as they had Monday off of school for President's day.  From what it appears as I sit here watching the radar for the last couple of hours the storm seems to be moving a tad faster than the weather men said it would and I believe it will be here in the next couple of hours.  Which doesn't bother me aside from wondering how easily the kids will be coming home.  As the school calls off days when there is a tiny bit of snow, as they do not think the buses can handle the dirt roads in the bad weather.  So it makes me wonder.

I know when we lived in New York there was not as much trouble getting the kids to or from school in bad weather.  Those buses had chains that are always on the bus, they just descend when needed and attach tot he tires then.  When not needed they detach and go back into their "holding" area.  These buses here don't have them, so I wonder if it starts to get bad will they call home requesting parents pick up their kids up or will they close early after watching the radar and send them via bus?

Well I have to go out and check on the chickens before this gets here, have a good day all and stay warm!

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Happy Friday!

So today was our grocery shopping day, and we got a good deal on canned milk. Both evaporated and condensed, at $.50 a piece for as may out of one shopping cart we wanted. We now have about 45 cans of evaporated milk, which one can is the correct amount for my sourdough bread. So I'm happy.   I have a few picks of my plants in their trays that I took yesterday while the weather was nice and warm, and also a close up of the sugar cane that will be “sprinkled” through this posting. I have enough sprouted that I'm very happy aside from the sugar cane which we only have 1 so far, I am hoping and crossing my fingers for more.  
 Yesterday Silver finished setting up the hitch for the trailer for the track hoe as we are picking it up tomorrow. He also made a bender for the rebar that will circle the dome. After we are done with the digging we will start putting out the rebar.   He is thinking about running down the road with the grader that is on it when he's done as our road does not get worked on by anyone. There is a spot not far from us that while it has one of those “metal” culverts it still floods and almost always has standing water in it. I want to take a moment and comment on something I have been thinking of. Yes, I am trying to be as “green” as possible, however I know that you cannot be 100% green and exist in this day and age. Something has to give somewhere. One thing that me and Silver were discussing today has to do with chickens.  
 Now I know the “green” method of raising the chickens is free range. We do not do this... Why? A few reasons, the first being I do not plan on hunting for my eggs. Second is I bought the starting birds and they are an investment. I do not want something eating them if I can help it. Third... well they will eat your veggies given half a chance.
So we keep them penned. It is a very large one compared to the ones I see in the farm stores now.   In fact today I was looking at the ones in the farm stores, and they have a small yard built on and space for three nests. Now based on my experience and what I have read a single nest can be used by 5 hens. So based on the size of the “coop” we saw at the store it should hold 15 birds. However to my eye unless you have tiny birds you cannot fit that many in the available yard. So I do not understand them very much.

 Well I'm off to finish cleaning before the children return from school and make a disaster area.

 Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

BBBRRRRR... It's cold outside!

Lovely early Monday morning for those of you in the US!  

I got the kids up this morning and found out some of the local schools are closed due to the temps it is 15 F outside right now which is about -15 C   I imagine those schools are having either heating issues or had pipes burst, as my kids still have school, they aren't happy about it; but that is life.  I remember the one time I figured I'd get off of school when I was in middle school, we had; had thunder snow the night before.  When we discovered we still had school the next day I found out that the snow was up to my hips.

I'm just kinda amazed that the schools are open today as 2 winters ago they closed school when we had about 4 inches of snow on our car bumper.  I just hope they stay warm enough, they all have nice coats for cold.  My son is just the type that thinks 40's is good shorts and no coat weather.

I had to take the chickens some boiling water this morning to thaw their water and I will probably have to do it again in a couple of hours.  I'm trying them out on wild bird seed at this moment as we ran out of chicken feed on a day that the feed store was closed.  I'll let you know if I notice any changes in their egg production.  I am planning on eventually to do my own animal feed.  It might start this year as I'm going to try growing Amaranth this year and if we get a good crop of it I'm going to try it on the chickens first.

For all of you in the North... Stay warm!  ..and those in the south stay cool!

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Not a pond Day

Well I had a nice quiet morning, I woke up at about 7am here. I went and fed all the animals and watered the garden then sat and enjoyed about 2 cups of tea before anyone else started waking up. The plan today was to go out and do some digging in the pond before midday.

Well I went out after breakfast this morning and discovered something. I had sent my son out yesterday with the weed whacker to cut from the front back through all of the clearing. Well he went out, he cut some of the grasses down. Only by where the dog house we aren't using is. So we spent this morning clearing the rest of it, between the weed whacker and clippers we got most of it clear before noon. Funny thing where we are digging the pond we have JUST grass growing, after cutting about half of that I raked tit up for the chickens to go wild on.

It seems all my Dark Star zucchini are sprouting, so we will have about 6 plants; which hopefully will produce lots of fruits. The Lemon ones are just starting to sprout now, and one of the pumpkins has sprouted.

We used the Weed Whacker so much that we are now out of string for it. Pity it's one of the few types that cannot use the plastic permanent blades. So we have to wait till after the first to get more string for it.

The man who had my girls fostering the puppies and training them, is going to lend us a kennel for Paris and her puppies. Which will be wonderful as I’m going to have to bleach my floor as they puppies now almost a month old are wandering a peeing everywhere. Anybody living fairly nearby want a puppy? We will have 4 of the chocolate females available in about 2 more months. Mom is of hunter line (no we have no proof) she chases birds, as does the father of them. Just contact me if you want one.

That's it for now,

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

USDA to let Chicken producers self inspect

I read this and almost choked on my cup of tea this morning:

http://news.yahoo.com/usda-let-industry-self-inspect-chicken-191142649--abc-news-topstories.html

Seems the USDA is planning to let the chicken industry selfinspect their own chickens, some how I don't think the money they are "saving" ($85 million over 3 years) is going to be a good thing.  I imagine that all of the bad that currently comes from the factory chicken production will continue to get worse, and it will be due to lax inspection statuses.

I hope at least some of the chicken producers wind up "being big" and do things properly.  However I suggest people start only buying free range eggs and meat unless you grow them yourself.   As if you grow them yourself you are responsible if you hurt yourself, so you tend to make sure you know what is and isn't going on with your meat.

Keep your eyes open folks, and watch what you eat...

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Volunteers Line Up!

So here I am after removing a 5 gallon bucket of greens from the garden to the chicken salad bar, I noticed while out there "weeding" that I had a couple more volunteers than I thought I had.  So here they all are:

Our first volunteer is a squash of unknown variety, I know it's a squash as I planted squash here last year... but, considering I have moved the earth around here and I don't quite recall what got planted where in that bed last year.  It shall remain "nameless" till I see the fruit on it.  I am hoping for a pumpkin, maybe Lady Godiva.

Next:

Here is another unknown squash, seems some of the seeds I planted last year that did not germinate decided they liked the ground better this year.

Yes, that's another squash... I hope at least one of these is a summer squash and at least one is a pumpkin.  I don't really care what they are though if they grow well and produce copious amounts of veggies for me.

Here is a surprise I got that I believe I have mentioned:

This is the "pot" that I get my lemon cucumbers in last year.. so what sprouted when I tried to grow chives...?  Cucumbers, they seem to be doing alright even with early morning temps being down to the high forties sometimes.  ...and no they are not being moved.

Now I showed this picture I believe yesterday:

My potato that is in the spot we grew them last year that later became our compost pile.  Now here is the one I haven't shown yet:

Here is the other potato volunteer, it's growing out of my current compost pile.  Also yes, you see a lot of paper in there, I recently read about the entirety of the types of paper you can use if you are willing to let your compost "mature" a little longer.  So, I am giving it a try.  The potato likes it.

Now I have a few pictures of that I had to free from crowding due to the "weeds" (I hate that term as most of mine were Lambs Quarters).  First the lettuce:

I don't know how they wound up only sprouting in clumps, but they did.  I harvested some leaves this morning and this is how they looked after it.  We will be having a nice little salad for lunch today.

Here are a few cabbages I planted as just seed, and some of the "spillover" onions from the sets I bought and didn't realize there was more than would fit in the initial spot.

..and last but not least Silver's Sprouts sitting in my pea bed.  This is where I am going to have the squashes I plant this year.  Also we have 4 sprouts, though I had planted 6.  The 4 legged lawn mowers ate 2 of them along with all my broccoli.

Well that's all the update I have right now, I am going to try to double this post on wordpress in a bit.  We had a lovely LambsQuarter wilted salad with a berry/lilac dressing.  I'm thinking of making bread dough when I get my dishes done and the remained of my laundry

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be....

Anniversary Day!

Well today is the anniversary of the day we have moved to our home This starts our 3^rd year living here and there has been so many changes. In more ways than one. One big change is with the life I am living and the people I am with I finally have a stable home for my kids. This is the biggest deal for us.

We are growing at least part of our food in our own garden. We are on a first name basis with the local MFA employees. We have been to Baker Creek Heirloom seeds a couple of times. We have our own producing flock of chickens.

The soil in our garden is getting better than it was when we moved here. I couldn't believe it when the soil was easy to dig down into. Silver has been in the best health in years, as he's getting plenty of exercise.

We have gone from having no water and living out of a tent, to having a small building and a claw-foot bathtub in a real bathroom. We now have a “real” kitchen … and a acquisition over the last weekend was new (to us) side-by-side refrigerator that we bought for $75; that is maybe a year old.

These are just a few of the things that have been changing in our lives since coming here, and living the life we have wanted to live. My only regret? That we had not done it sooner. Live the life you truly want to live, not the one you think you need. Remember we are living off a very small income, and we take care of all important things. All of our bills get paid, we have a home to live in, we have food on the table. ...and We live where we want to be living, could life be any better?

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Record Keeping

I was filling out my record keeping info this morning when I thought that I should make some kind of statement on it. First I will say I am the worlds WORST record keeper. I have a tendency to forget to write things down, however I know with how I am living I can't be forgetting to do it.

I have a couple odd notebooks hear there and everywhere, I also have an accounting journal. I have one notebook just for my “daily” info, i.e. weather, eggs (when produces/size/how many), seedlings sprouted, food harvested (non-egg). I read in a book once that it's important to write down the weather or anything “out of the ordinary” so if anything seems “odd” in your accounting you can figure out why.

I have also made sure that our bills and receipts are stored in one location that we cannot lose. We have a lovely binder that stores each bill in it's own place (aside from the non- “regular bills) I keep the feed receipt and receipts from my seed purchases in one. The idea behind this is at the end of each month (we have money once a month) I add up our “harvested food (eggs included) and then keeping current store prices in mind I subtract my cost in. Then I let myself know how much we “made” by not buying the finished product.

Last month we made around $30 in our egg production, by not having to buy any eggs. All I did was add up the eggs I gathers over the month, broke them down into dozens and then multiplied by “going” store price for basic eggs (I wasn't even going with “organic”, or “free range”) and then subtract any feed I have bought for them. I am hoping this year we might be able to start making our own feed if things go well, then our “made” money will be higher.

just in case you didn't understand the way I stated it... no I don't sell my eggs. I am basing this on money I didn't spend buying eggs

… just wanted to clarify on that one. I hope that if you are homesteading (no matter how) you remember to keep the “books” in order, you might be surprised.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

1st Big Planting Day!

Well we have had a nice day today getting a nice bit of plantings done, also we are dealing with a minor animal issue. Now we had a couple of Polish crested roosters that we left to free range once we discovered they were roosters as, one... they are scrawny. Also they are very cute looking, now just recently we received two more roosters from a woman who needed to get rid of them. So we set them lose with the other two.

Well that worked for a bit, but this morning we discovered a small problem. They are eating our seed potatoes, well the ones we had already planted anyway. We have decided they need to be dinner guests. We have managed at this point to catch the two newer ones, the Polishes seem to be a tad harder to locate. Yes I said locate, we had an issue catching them in day light hours so we waited for “roosting time”. WE have not been able to find yet where the Polishes are sleeping tonight.

OK, not onto my plantings for today; we planted the 2^nd half of our potato plot (11lbs worth). I have planted 6 yard stick long rows of yellow onions and 1 of red. Planted some Swiss chard Fordhook Giant. Hot Peppers; two types... Lemon Drop, Craig's Giant (Jalapeno) in two peat pots each. 12 peat pots each of Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge, & Amish Paste; tomatoes. I also planted 3 peat pots with Purple Beauty sweet pepper. Then plant wise I put in four Pacman broccoli, and 6 of my cabbage plants that I started myself.

I picked up yesterday some fish emulsion and gave each transplant a small feeding after planting, I am hoping it will help them; I've never used it before. My soil this year is wonderful compared to last year. The “bed” I have my cabbages, etc... have the remains of last year's soil, overwintered straw blanket, my finished compost, and chicken manure from our coop. Now that chicken manure of course has some straw in it. I was able to gently push the extra onion sets straight down in the soil, that makes me a very happy camper.

Our potato bed is in a new spot this year and is much larger, the plan is; because the straw did a nice job as a “late compost pile after potatoes. We had noticed when we dug out the “finished” compost that the ground under the “pile” was very pretty looking that it might be a nice way to “clear” land for future garden spaces. We will see if this idea works or not.

I am for the first time going to be growing eggplants, and I hope they grow good. I have three very small started plants and I hope they grow bigger before transplant time. I picked a drought resistant variety, I'll list the name later as I have to look it up. The plan for the tomatoes this year is to only grow them in pots in different locations. Three plants per “pot”, and we are going to use straw then a mixed soil over that with some oyster shell mixed into as the soil for them. After the plants are spent I'll remove the plants and move the soil into the garden beds. Then the following year(s) we will just redo the pots.

Well that's it for right about now, the only other thing on the “near” horizion for me is that we have a very good possibility of getting our fruit trees and berry plants this year if every thing goes the way we are planning.

Happy Planting Folks!

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

I'M BAAAAACK!!!!!!

Well folks, it's been a bit but I am kind of back for a bit. We just “bought” today a “smart” phone that has internet capability. I am for now able to plug it into my computer for some internet usage but it's very limited so I'll update when I can. I also hope to hopefully catch up on my favorite blogs to read if I don't eat our data plan in the process!

OK, so to my updates....

We’ve had such a mild winter this year I have started my plantings. I already have ½ my potatoes planted, some cabbages, dwarf pak choy, edible chrysanthemums, peas, and lettuce planted. Tomorrow I will be finishing my potatoes (had to buy more seed taters), onion (sets and seed), kale, broccoli plants, and cabbage plants. I will be starting my 24 tomato plants as well, ½ will be paste as I am hoping to can a ton of spaghetti sauce before winter; next year.

Our chickens are earning their keep finally as for the last few months we have gotten so many eggs they have paid for themselves. The last month (Feb.) we had just over 21 dozen eggs out of 16 hens. … I can tell you we are starting to get tired of eggs.... I (and the rest of the house) can't wait for some fresh veggies.

I am trying to get some meat rabbits this year, I contacted a breeder today and hope they will get back to me on a purchase order for 2 does and a buck. So we can breed our own meat. We aren't quite ready for a pig/goat/cow yet though I am sure if someone offered we'd find some way to have it pastured.

We now have a full kitchen in our shed home as well as a full size water heater in our bathroom with that pretty bathtub from my last post. Again, Thanks to Little Creek Baptist Church out here you have been a great help!

Oh, on another note my kids are earning themselves a little money. One of the people from the church has them training/fostering 2 hunting labs, and paying them for it. So they are learning a little about how to take care of money.. and how to -not- spend it. They are doing a pretty good job as the owner is very pleased with how well the pups are getting along in their basic instruction. Of course one is learning better than the other, but that happens.

Well that's all I'm updating for now, I hope everyone is safe in this odd weather we've had in this last week, and...

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Our First Egg!

Yes I would first like to point out that our internet is momentarily on, but as the phone company said 8th at end of business day; we are guessing it will go at any time.



Now on to today's BIG news:

This is our very first egg! I found it this morning when I decided on a whim to go check out the yard, thinking that the girls aren't looking very closely and found it in the yard not the coop. Under the outdoor roost. It is a medium sized egg so we are figuring it came from the Polish Crested hen or maybe the Barred rock hens we have. So I am setting up a schedule with the kiddo's on a "chicken check" a couple times a day just to ensure that we will get all the eggs that the hens produce. ...also because I don't want them eating them, they didn't seem to notice this one when I went in to get it.



As for the root cellar... it looks like we will be waiting a bit to dig in it as it is 1/4 full of water from the rain we got and we are due more rain today... Yep, we need it... but this morning on the way to the hen house I commented to Silver that with the fog and light it looked like early spring outside. Being that it is still the "dog days" of summer that's an odd occurrance to me.

That's it for now as I want to get this in before our net does go down.

Be Well, Be Safe and Blessed Be...

How long till school starts again?

WOW this has been a long summer to me, the kids seem to get bored very easy here. For them it's not been as interesting as living in the city was, I can understand that; but unlike them I can find things to do with my time.

Yesterday however I was LAZY... Granted I washed 3 loads of laundry, made breakfast, got the animals fed; and watered our container plants. The problem was, it was too BLOODY HOT! I just could not get the motivation to get up and do anything.

This morning so far I have fed the dogs, watered all the gardens and helped Silver finally put in our chicken nests. Right now I am waiting on water to cool off enough to wash some dishes so we can eat breakfast. Then we are taking baths, and after that I get to pull out the meat for tonight's dinner. Which will be chicken in some form or another.

Now what we did for our chicken nests is in 2 parts (no "filling as yet that will have to wait till the 1st). Part one is a platform that we nailed the 4 buckets to. The platform was made with 2 2X3's, and a piece of the white paneling. We nailed them onto it so they won't move. Now the second part has to do with the fact that we used 2 full sized 2X3's. So as we have more 2X3 that platform the second part is a new roost for the birds. This space covers the whole back half of our chicken coop, the next thing we need to do is make a door so I can start putting them inside at night. Maybe it will motivate them to lay, it can't hurt right?

Well for right now this is it for my post I need to go tend to those dishes.

School countdown less than a month

Be Well, Be Safe and Blessed Be...

Just some randomness

I hope everyone remembers this guy, Mr. Thanksgiving our tom turkey (mental note get a new picture). Well this morning when me and Silver went to look at the garden, which we are giving a one day dry out after the rain we got. Well anywho, we heard this awful sound... it sounded like someone had choked one of the turkeys. then it struck us... Thanksgiving WAS TRYING TO CROW LIKE A ROOSTER!

I have at least one turkey that thinks its a chicken it seems, it was very funny to hear especially since we know that one of the couple of roosters we seem to have has learned to crow. I guess Thanksgiving is trying to copy him. Also Thanksgiving is like twice the size of Christmas now, I do wonder how big he will get to be.

Now I am at this moment baking some bread, yeah it's a tad late in the day for us. However, we have a VERY good reason for it. I found another no-knead bread recipe for my sourdough. It's a white bread recipe, that you make a "batter" in the long rise time; it seems more like a sponge though.

The book is called:

"Adventures in sourdough Cooking & Baking"

By: Charles D Wilford

Copyright 1971 and 1977

ISBN# 0-912936-00-2

The First part of the recipe Page 31:

Primary Batter "B"

Ingredients:

1C sourdough starter

1 & 1/2 C white flour

1 C warm water

Yield:

1 & 1/2 C Primary Batter "B" for baking

1 C batter to return to your starter

2 & 1/2 C total

1. Assemble all ingredients and utensils

2. Remove your sourdough starter from the refrigerator and stir well. Take out one cup and place it in a warm bowl of 2 qt capacity or larger. Return remaining starter to refrigerator. The large size bowl is necessary to prevent spillage as the batter will expand greatly during it's proofing period. The final quantity will be around 2 & 1/2 or 4 cups total.

3. Add the warm water and stir until well mixed. Slowly add the white flour stirring continually to blend the flour in well. Stir 4 to 5 minutes or until the mixture is smooth and lump free, or use an egg beater or electric mixer. (yes it says a MIXER!)

4. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in a warm, draft free area for proofing. (now I use a plate that fits over my bowl and it works fine)

5. The proofing period is 8 to 12 hours depending on how active your starter is when taken from the refrigerator. Your batter is ready when it is foamy and full of large bubbles. It can be used at any time after this point up to 4 hours. If your batter has many tiny bubbles in it, it has already reached the proper state. If no or few bubbles are present during the 8 to 12 hours after proofing your starter is not acting properly and you should determine the reason for this before continuing with the recipe.

6. During the proofing period there is a chance that crust will form at the top of your batter. If this happens just stir it back down into the batter. The same is true of any liquid which might form on top.

7. At the end of the proofing period stir the batter thoroughly. Take out one cup and put back into your starter container. Stir your starter thoroughly and return it to your refrigerator.

White Bread recipe on page 86

No-knead Sourdough Bread (white)

ingredients:

1 & 1/2 C Primary Batter "b"

1/2 C warm milk (I let it get to room temp)

1 &1/2 t salt

2 T sugar

2 T cooking oil or melted Shortening (I use butter)

1 egg

2 & 1/2 C flour

Yield: 1 loaf

1. Prepare the Primary Batter "B" following the directions in Chapter 4. Be sure that you return one cup of batter to your sourdough starter container before adding any other ingredients.

2. Assemble all ingredients and utensils. Let all ingredients come to room temperature.

3. In a warm 4qt bowl (I use my 8 qt pots) mix the milk, salt, sugar and cooking oil together.

4. Beat the egg well and (then) mix it thoroughly into the mixture in step 3

5. Add the 1 & 1/2 cups of Primary Batter "B" and mix well again.

6. Add 2 & 1/2 cups of flour, 1/2 cup at a time; and beat vigorously until all the flour is blended in. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

7. Cover the bowl and set in a warm 85 degree place for about 2 hours for proofing. When dough has doubled in bulk stir it down thoroughly. (now I find this one "odd" no "punching" down)

8. Pour into a well greased loaf pan and spread it out evenly. Pat the top smooth with floured hands (btw.. I have not done this in the 2 times I have tired this)

9. Cover with a cloth and let rise in a warm 85 degree place until it reaches about 1 inch from the top of the pan. About 1 hour and 45 minutes.

10. bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 45 minutes. When bread starts to shrink away from the sides of the pan it is done.

11. When done, remove bread from the oven and brush the top with melted butter. Place on a wire rack to cool immediately.

Now this produces a beautiful loaf of bread, so good that when we made it the first time we ate the whole loaf as soon as it was cool. Well... ok... not quite all the way cooled. It is very good and I suggest trying it out. My family loved it, I am sure yours will too.

Be Well, Be safe and Blessed be

A "Home Cooked" meal

We had home made Chicken soup today, the stock has been simmering for the last 2 days:

This stock has:

approximately the bones of 4 chickens

1 whole chicken

3 large field carrots

1 very large white onion

1/2 a head of garlic

basil

fresh rosemary (about 4 inches)

curry powder

1 whole dried hot pepper

about a dozen pepper corns

Now this was started at about 5pm Sunday night only thing I did with the onion was chop it into quarters. Left the skin on it and just cut the carrots into thirds, did not peel them. I strained it completely at about 2pm today and after running it through 2 strainers and pulling apart the meat from the whole chicken and putting it back the above picture is what we had.

I then added about a cup of wheat berries and put it on simmer and covered it till I was ready for our evening meal. Right at about 5 pm I diced a medium onion not too finely and added it. Then I made some egg noodles.

These are the noodles as I made them, ingredients:

2 cups of flour

2 eggs

salt

garlic powder

about (give or take) 1 cup of water

It's very simple from there, mix all dry ingredients together, then make a "well" in the center and crack your eggs into it. Start mixing the eggs in, then slowly add water and maybe flour till you get the consistency your want. Which is about equal to biscuit dough.

Then form it into a ball and cut off small portions to roll out. I have a rolling pin, but I never use it folks. I generally just use my hands. Then you cut them into strips, how thin should they be? I don't measure it so I really can't say... but not above 1/2 an inch I'd say.

Also you should note that while you are making your noodles if you are planning to cook them separate from your broth start your water when you start your noodles. Once the water is boiling drop them in wait a couple minutes and give them a gentle stir just in case they stuck to the bottom. Then let them float on the surface a while then you can take them out and they are ready.

Here is my finished product:

Doesn't it look good? Oh, the carrots I used to make the stock went to my chickens, and they were very happy about it. I was going to add some cut up carrot at the end and forgot. You can always "finish" this soup differently than I have, as I work with what I've got.

By the way, we save all chicken bones when we cook chicken just for stock making, when I have a ton of bones me or Silver or both of us makes a chicken stock and it gets "finished" based on what we have. A handy bit of info here, we also keep some whole carrots frozen just to make sure we have them for soup stocks. As my kids go through carrots like you would not believe. I also prefer field carrots for stock making as they have a stronger flavor than "cello" bag ones do. Though if I ever get some carrots growing here you know I'll be keeping some just for my soup making!

Be Well and Blessed Be...

Is summer already here?

WOW! it's been hot! So hot that we have only been digging our root cellar in the morning when it's the coolest. Over the weekend we bought one air conditioner for $40 at a yard sale. It has made sleeping at night in all this humidity wonderful. However the down side is it makes it so that we don't want to go outside in this heat. During the middle of the day that suits me fine, we just have to make sure we are doing our outdoor work as necessary. I don't recall it being this hot this early last year either, but then again I don't know the 'norm' for here either.

If you see me on facebook you'll know that I posted that we have lost one of our young hens. It was one of the white ones, something (Silver thinks it was a fox) dug under part of the fence and got into the yard. I think the one that died was probably defending the others as it was on of the more aggressive young hens, also due to the fact we had smaller ones in there that should have been easy targets; but they were not touched. So today's project is to (hopefully) finish the chicken coop today.

I wish I could get some pictures right now but, my batteries are dead in my camera and the ones we recharged did not last long. The root cellar right now is about7X7X2, It needs to be a bit bigger in two directions and a lot deeper.

I did get some pictures of my berry plants before my batteries died so here we go with those:

This is one of the three raspberry plants I got for my birthday, now I have not been watering these. I am thinking of starting too, but they seem to be doing well. Oh the picture of the blueberry you can't see the actual plant so I won't be posting that one. The lavender is in bloom, and the "red hot poker" lilies are coming up; I hope they flower this year. Oh, my bleeding hearts are looking lush, one of the Dahlias is looking well as well.

Here is one of the Black Currents:

Now to be honest I did not think these would do so well, however they seem to be growing fine. Though a couple days ago I did discover that one of them is broken in the middle, so I am down to one plant. I hope we can get a few more.

I am hoping (very much so) that we can dig up a spot for my herbs to go into later today. They are getting pretty nice sized and a few of them have been drooping in the heat so I need to get their spot set up very soon. I do know for sure now that my basil and Sage have both come up, I still have to figure out the rest of them though. My rosemary is doing fine, the Stevia though; I think I might lose one of them. The one that looked stronger seems to be drooping more than the one that looked worse. Go figure.

I do want to mention in this last little bit a minute bit about food storage. I have seen a good many people writing about it of late, and I'd like to comment on it.

#1 it doesn't hurt to keep extra food on hand.

Why? think, if there were some kind of weather problem and you couldn't get to a store you'd need it. Also if one of those is predicted people seen to rush to stores to wipe out what they think is "essential".

#2 Store what your family uses.

It does you no good to store 20 pounds of dried beans if you don't eat them.

#3 Stock up on non-perishables.

Why the distinction? I have seen people who plan for possible power outages by buying TV dinners... come on folks those won't last!

#4 Rice,flour,sugar,dry beans can go a long time in storage.

It is good to have these items "in stock" in your house as they can be used in almost anything.

#5 Don't forget your pets!

If you are stocking up for you it would be good to buy extra for Fido as well, if you can't get to the grocery store for you; you aren't going to make it for you dog/cat.

#6 Remember water!

You'd be surprised at how many people do not remember they might need to store water, but if you do not have power; you might not have water either.

Only you know how much your family uses of anything, or even what you use. So take a moment and figure out what you use the most, and my suggestion would be to buy those in bulk. I but flour, sugar, and rice in 25 pound bags, I am going to start buying them in those every month, not just when we get low. Now please folks this is just my suggestions on this, you don't have to follow it; but it wouldn't hurt you either.