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...

Silly Things in Life.

There are some really silly words/phrases in the English language and sometimes other ideas are strange as well. Example... “They shot him dead.” So can someone shoot someone alive? Really, come on folks think about it. The phrase is just downright silly.

We even have silly things in gardening, Everytime I look up how to grow something different, everything says “sandy loam” is the perfect soil to grow “X” item. So what doesn't like sandy loam if you are going to grow it? Think on it how many things tell you that what you want to grow wants hard pan, or heavy clay soil?

On the concept of silly things in existence, P.E. class at my kids' school. Now, this school always has the money at the end of the school year to buy all the seniors a gift because they are graduating. However, they don't wish to keep up the gym floor constantly so all of the children are required to have brand new gym shoes that have never been worn outside for the kids to wear for gym class. Otherwise they are required to do P.E. in just socks, which personally I have an issue with.

Now anyone who regularly reads my blog knows that I am a Pagan, and I let the kids go to a local baptist church as it's what they want. I discovered something that is done there that I have an issue with. They bribe the kids with candy to learn their bible verses, and to get them to keep coming back. That isn't right because it shows kids that you only want what someone is willing to pay you to do something. Also I find it wrong that kids are gaining belief in something because someone is paying them to believe in it. What happened to following with your heart?

As for a homestead update, tomorrow barring rain we pick up rabbits and we just got the rabbittry built yesterday. It has temporary sides on it at the moment (tarps) but it is weather proof, as Harriet and Snowball have shown us as they did not get wet with all the rain we had last night and this morning. We have constructed a new sawdust toilet for the building my and Silver are in for this winter, it still needs a seat on it, but shrugs we'll get there. Granted it would have been great to have had it done this morning with the downpour and all the lightning we had. The garden is still producing tomatoes, cucumbers,peppers, and squashes. Seems we did have one pumpkin on the vine, however once it started turning orange it started rotting away. The chickens loved it.

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

Rambling Thoughts

Well we have 2 weeks about before we get our extra rabbits, we have some work to do to prepare for them. Mainly as where we have the 2 we do have won't work for this large amount. We figured putting them next to our chicken coop will mean that we can keep the chicken feed stored in there with the rabbits and their food.

My biggest hope in this endeavor is to have the extra meat for us. To me having our grocery bill going down is going to be a major help to us. I am planning on making an attempt to can a bunch of the rabbit meat in different formats. One of which being breakfast sausage, I hope it does well.

I am hoping that due to the amount of rabbits we are getting that I'll be able to just cover the garden beds all winter with rabbit manure and in the spring maybe mix it into the soil there or I might just continue with the no till/layer method.

While looking about on Craig's list I have noticed some trends. A lot of people are getting rid of animals due to just their coloring. To me I find this silly because personally I am not showing animals, and though I do prefer certain breeds. I know that right now I will take what I am offered animal wise. Someone is selling their Holstein cows because they now only want to do reds. I saw one person selling off sheep because quote “their sheep project is done”. Personally if they we no longer wanted and they are an animal traditionally used as meat I'd butcher it. That's part of the reason our food type animals are all getting food names, so it's a reminder that we are eating it at some point. I guess not everyone can do that.

I have seen people out here with huge goat herds that have more than they can handle because while they are not using them for any kind of food they just can't get rid of them and they are not willing to butcher them either. Got too many buck goats? I hear Chevron is a wonderful meat similar to sheep. I guess it's a good thing blogs are opinions because some people would say I am being cruel, but hey. To me having a “meat type” animal means that I have more meat in the house.

Well I have to get out to my garden and capture some tomatoes before they take over.

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...

Lots of Random Work

Good Mid-morning everyone!

I finally got our blankets out the clothes line... I had been putting them off, but decided to get them out today.. of course we are out of bleach so I tried peroxide on the white ones. We'll see if they get as bright as bleach, I don't like bleach and would love a few recommendations on an alternative for a -GOOD- whitener to use instead.

One of the girls informed me this morning one of their friends is selling rabbits, YEAH! Maybe I'll get my start on my rabbit breeding group even though I had given up on them for this year. I like rabbit meat, and they grow quick and convert feed to meat the best. I am planning on trying what Joseph Stalin over at Polyface Farms has done (I don't know if he still is though) and get them back to eating grasses instead of “bought” feed. It will probably take a few generations though, and I am willing to try it out till they are able to move to a close to 100% grass feeding. I know from experience that rabbits that are “pets” do still eat grass when given the chance. I personally think they just don't know how too eat it full time. I am also looking forward to the wonderful manure we'll get from it!

I picked up some humming bird food this morning, and I am hoping by next year my few shrubs that should attract them will be big enough to sustain them instead of me buying “feed” for them. I my opinion any kind of pollinator is a good thing, as long as it's a pollinator.

This morning I have also set up one quart jar of orange rosemary vinegar to “blend” over the next two weeks. I am hoping for some interesting salads from this, as it will be used in making salad dressings. I will test it in two weeks to see if it's what I want, if it's not strong enough yet it'll go back to the dark spot in my pantry. I cut the rosemary just before putting it into the vinegar, my little plant has so much new growth on it I do hope it grows big. A five foot tall rosemary bush would not bother me one bit. I think I know a few people who would agree with me too.

I am going to try tomorrow to get pictures of the potatoes that are coming up in the potato bed. I have also started clearing the area for my “sanctuary”, it's not going to be very big. It's also going to be a lot closer to the road than I'd like, however; it “feels” like the right spot. I am planning on setting out a circle with a brick outline and place a correct tree at the compass points (anyone got the list of the trees that would go there?), I need to look up the correspondence for it. I use to have it written down, but it got lost somewhere. I am hoping to find enough stone on property to make a small alter in the center for offerings. Then on the one end we will be making the “memory garden” for my dad and Silver's first wife. I can picture it in my head , I just hope it translates well.

Well that's it for now.

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