Winter Homesteading

So, January already!
January is one of my favorite 12 months. Because it's easy. And pretty outside, and COLD!!
So what do you do on the homestead when it's COLD??
You cut wood. Yesterday was a blistering 12 degrees, but there was no wind and the sun was divine. (In the winter, up here, the sun is a precious commodity, so when it makes it's appearance, you want to go out and worship it, such that is possible in parka, flannel lined jeans, mittens, hats and heavy boots...)
And you might have asked before I got diverted with my sun worshipping, why wasn't the wood already cut?
Well, I'll tell you!
Winter is an easy time on the homestead. Spring planting, Summer maintenance, and Autumn Harvest, but Winter is easy. Pretty much all you have to do is survive the COLD! (And we've come up with some pretty creative ways to do that).
Back to the wood pile. Winter is easy because there's not as much to be done, so that's when we cut wood. Plus the fact that you get really warm cutting and stacking wood, so it's best done when the temps are cold. Some might argue, that's ok, that's just the way we do it.
So yesterday we took the opportunity to cut and stack 4 loads of wood. And restack the current woodpile. See, depending on time of day, whether you'll be home or not and how cold it is determines what type of wood you feed the stove. And seeing as how it the woodpile had become a total mess on the deck I took an hour or so to restack it. Slabs in one place and roundwood in another.
Today will be more of the same, get the deck stacked all back up and that chore will be done for another couple of weeks.

Chickens continue to lay between 8 and 9 eggs a day. This is likely because I took the time to run an extension cord out to the chicken house and hook up The Light (to simulate longer days). The Light doesn't work, but I guess just the threat of The Light is enough to keep them going. Currently I have close to 26 dozen eggs in my fridge. I just know that once they (the chickens) start to molt, the egg production will cease.

Still working on a shrug pattern from some orange/gold yarn that was given to me. I'm liking it more and more. It's quite coarse but the lace pattern is really easy to memorize and very pretty. I'm past the lace pattern now, now I'm doing 9 miles of stockinette stitch. No matter, when hubby wants to go somewhere, we jump in the truck and I get another couple of yards done!

Also, just started a shop sample also for kayewood.com called Wolf Song . The designer is an engineer and the pattern reflects her ability to over explain every step (in this case that's a good thing!)
In my version it's an elk, done in shades of winter blues and flannel. The pattern only sizes up to a Twin size, so I'll have to get creative and add some more borders for my queen size bed.

Today, after stacking more wood, maybe I'll work on my quilt, maybe I'll clean the house (probably not gonna happen) and maybe I'll upload some more items to ebay.

Life is Good!

Outside My Window

I see snowflakes gently spitting around. There's snow on the ground and it's cold! Making ice cold. Well, ok, it's not like it's really all that cold, but you don't wanna be caught out there without a coat, some gloves and nice boots.
Also there's a plume of smoke. This morning bright and early I went out and gathered up all of the sticks left over from the last windstorm, the ones I could pick up anyway, a lot of them are already frozen in, but everything I can get cleaned up now, will be less to do in the spring. Also, there are some garden leftovers in there. Still left to do outside today is get the grill moved up by the house and get another skidder of wood.

Hubby went in to work, he'll have help there today, so maybe he can get things back on track. He sure is frustrated not being able to do much.

Outside my window there is also a plethora of roosters, too many for the hens I have, so soon I will put one of them in the oven. Can't butcher all of them as the freezers are still full from butchering the steers and also from deer season. And ice fishing season looms.
Mmmmm, nothing like blue gills through the ice, which now that I think about it, will make a nice dinner tonight.

Throughout the winter I'll butcher the roosters one at a time as I need them, until I have only 2 left, that will make a nice ratio and ensure babies in the spring.
I also have one hen who thinks shes a cat. Go figure, I'd have a strange critter. She sleeps in the window wells and up in the hay loft with the cats. She doesn't hang with the other chickens at all, but it's ok I guess, the others are content to be locked up in the hen house at night, but she sleeps out with the cats. Whatever.

Still working on my shawl, got a lot more done yesterday and will knit a bunch today too. Next will be a cowl, big enough to pull over my head for a hood. Would be awesome if I could make one out of Quiviet, but probably no go. I do, however, have some angora sport weight that will work nicely.

Ok, back at it! Gotta get the fish out of the freezer to start thawing, and go see if I can start the skid steer.

Under 2.00 a Pound!

The steers, Salt (shown right) and Pepper(left) are both nestled snugly in my freezer, and hubby's taxidermy freezer, and my mom's freezer, and the neighbors freezer. Holy S%^&*(!!
2 Steers is a lot of little packages to try to fit even in a big chest freezer that's mostly cleaned out.

Next time hubby decides he wants to go play with his friends and it's "pick up the steers from the butcher" day, JUST SAY NO!!

Here's how I got to my "under 2 bucks a pound" figure.

500 bucks for processing, roughly 600 for grain, 200 for the calves themselves, 100 for the milk replacer, and 300 for miscellaneous expenses (fencing, salt blocks, baling twine for the hay, feeders, castration, gas for the tractors, beer, electricity for the fencers...) that figure is probably low.

I have in my possession 1280 lbs of meat. So I did a bit of simple division (yeah, ok, I used the calculator) and came up with somewhere around 1.32 a pound. Since the 300 for miscellaneous is likely quite low I rounded up.

Before you get all "but I pay 6 and 7.00 a pound in the store" on me, let me tell you, we grow our own grain and hay. All of our feed and hay is organic, and we do all the work ourselves. These little boys take 2 years to grow to butchering weight. If you had to pay for grain, hay and veterinary care as well as routine maintenance (they do like to have food and water on a daily basis) it adds up.

So that's done for the year.

Seems we got only about 5 roosters in this latest batch of chicks, cool! So we'll cook them up one at a time as we need them, through the winter. I'll keep one to hopefully have babies in the spring. That was my rationale when buying one breed, to keep the flock going so I wouldn't have to buy them every year. Hopefully that little investment will pay off. I got Buff Orphingtons, a nice size bird, definitely large enough to provide a nice dinner, good layers and hardy through the winter.

More tomatoes to do. A neighbor says he's got all he wants from his garden and the rest are mine. YAY!! Soup, sauce, salsa, or just stewed tomatoes, don't know what they will end up as yet. I was going to freeze these ones to save myself a bit of time, but the freezers appear to be a bit... um... full of steers.

Plan B - can tomatoes instead of freezing them.

My baby sweaters are coming along - got a new granddaughter due mid November and another nephew about the same time. A few months ago I started to notice that my arms were hurting quite a lot. I'm a farmer. This isn't acceptable. Went to the doctor. Went to the specialist. Did all the tests. Tendinitis, likely brought on by too much knitting. Wait! What???? Too much knitting? A knitting injury? Really???

So now I either have to live with the pain, not knit or try to remember to knit "the new way" that doesn't move my arms a lot and cause too many problems. Seems to be the only solution. The only problem with that is that it's a bit cumbersome. Kind of like trying to type with my toes (I'm guessing, really, I haven't tried it). I begged the doctor to give me some mysterious diagnosis just for the respect thing. I mean if I told people I couldn't knit because I had a knitting injury, well, lets just say I've been the recipient of the "sideways look" before. But the best she could come up with was tendinitis due to too much knitting.

Also trying to get myself back into my groove. My Dad was sick for a long time. My mom, daughter and I took care of him until he died at home, just 2 short weeks ago. While that didn't throw me quite as much as I expected, it did throw me that it didn't throw me. Go figure, that's me, give me something to over analyze and I'll go to town!

Well, now I find myself with more time on my hands. Trying to get moved back into my house (the last couple of weeks of his life, I pretty much lived over at his and my mom's house), trying to clean between the edges... stuff like that. Hubby was awesome in keeping up with laundry and dishes.. even swept the floor, it kind of scared me.

And now I have time to decorate for holidays again!

Along that line I had youngest son bring up 2 or 3 bales of hay from the barn to put on the front porch for my "autumn display". They're still in the yard. Seems like when you're blessed with a batch of extra time, there's a whole lotta stuff just waiting in the wings to fill that void. Oh well, I will get them on the porch, get my scarecrows and pumpkins (to be displayed for awhile, then canned for pies in the winter) out, and Halloween and thanksgiving decorations put up. Likely just in time to take them down for Christmas.

Life is Good, and on the farm, it's never boring!!

And Still, It's The Chickens

Last night I went home from work bound and determined to reclaim my house. After an awesome week at Bike Week the house had been lived in but not cleaned.
But that didn't happen.
Was very tired. Too many nights of bedtime in the single digits of the AM takes it's toll.

So what did I do instead? Well, chores are a given, critters do appreciate being fed and watered. As does hubby.

As I was dreaming up reasons to not clean up the kitchen I hear the unmistakeable rumble of the skidsteer motor coming to life. Here's the sequence (the part I understand anyway). Skidsteer rumbles to life and tears it's way across the yard. Skidsteer is engaged in moving "stuff". "Stuff" has to be moved for reasons unknown at that particular point in time. Skidsteer, after moving "stuff" rumbles back across the yard, tearing up things as it goes and rolls to a stop in it's place of residence.

Next I hear the "invention of words". This is indicated because hubby, who's big, strong, and all that, isn't as big and strong as he needs to be at the moment and a particular piece of machinery is trying it's best to defeat him.

This piece of machinery is the power auger. And lifting it up to put it on the PTO of the tractor is a 2 person job at best. But since no one came in to ask for help, and since I was in the process of making dinner and didn't go out to volunteer my services, it became a 1 person job. A 1 person job that required the "invention of words".

Mission accomplished on both fronts. Dinner? Done! Power Auger? Done!

Next thing I know, tractor, complete with power auger properly attached to PTO, rumbles across the yard and starts drilling holes for the often talked about but not yet planned, larger chicken pen. Guess what this means? I'll tell you what this means. This means that although my "current project" of finishing my back deck has now been put on hold, my chicken pen is FINALLY getting enlarged. YAY!!! Pictures to follow.

So, holes are dug. Poles are set. Plans are made for finishing, which likely will fall to me since the use of big toys is no longer needed. So tonight if it rains, I'll try to reclaim the house. If not, I'll work on the pen. Then try to get the deck finished. That will probably round out the summer, and my fall project is my greenhouse.

This is my world. Welcome to it!

It's all about the Chickens!

So I deep-6'd 50 chickens. See, this is how it went.....

I ordered my supply of chicks from one of my favorite hatcheries (Mt. Healthy Hatchery). Originally wanting 25 we noticed that they had a special of 25 free chicks with the purchase of 50. Well, math not being my forte, I figured, ok, 25 more chicks. But then when that little concept sunk in got it was realized that 25 + 25 + 25 does not equal 50. Not even in my world, but more like 75 (most days). This was still ok (sort of), I'll let them grow and then put them in the freezer, keep a rooster and maybe 8-10 hens over the winter to re-populate next spring. But then a niggling feeling kept at the back of my brain. 75 chickens is A LOT of chickens. Way more than we need, really, and started thinking that maybe I should just call and re-do the order (even if that means giving up 25 free chickens!). So I did it. Just today. They're due to ship May 2, so likely they haven't even been laid yet (the eggs, not the chickens, let's not get into that).
My life is a bit complicated right now, and I neither have the time or space (or time to make more space) for 75 chickens. 25 additional will be a stretch, but MUCH more manageable. And they can still re-populate. And that, is how you deep-6 50 chickens!

Finished a pair of slippers last night, now have to throw them in the washer and dryer to shrink and felt them. Doesn't seem like the season to be knitting slippers, but my toes still get cold. I knit them out of bits and pieces and scraps of Lopi (which is really more of a roving than a yarn, but it knits up nicely, and will shrink felt just fine. Nice. Warm. Slippers = No. More. Cold. Toes! YAY!!

Lots of miles on the bike. Another YAY! The bike is my Zen, I start off down the road and "whoosh" everything just goes away. Very relaxing. Hubby and I are planning a 5 day bike trip around Lake Superior in July. I cannot wait. Have to talk The Mouth into taking care of my farm (and the Bu-Dawgh). She's more than capable, having grown up there, but she has time constraints too. My ultimate dream... one of these days I will ride my bike out to Colorado (brother), then on to San Diego (another brother), then up to LA (another brother), then up the coast to Alaska (another brother, that's all, I swear, there are only 4 of them, sometimes that's more than enough!) Then I will ride through the Canadian Rockies back down home. One of these days. And if hubby wants to go with, that will be even better!

Lots of Stuff Done - check! Lots of Stuff Left To Do - check!

Took yesterday off of work so I could get bunches of stuff done. The problem is that for some reason, when I take a day off of work, my brain follows suit and figures that we don't really have to do anything because, well, because we took the day off!

So did I get the gourds out of the garden? No, I do need to do this because when hubby tears around in there with the rototiller, the seeds will get spread willy nilly and I'll have gourds and squash everywhere.

Squash is a good thing, but I prefer to put it where I want it. The zucchini, will grow where it wants, there's no getting around that, I'll just cut away all of the vines that are not in their appropriated space and in a day or so it will send out new ones.

I located some of my hollyhock plants, always good to find them, so I can mark them, thereby ensuring their safety from the lawn mower. Or bulldozer. Or whichever hits them first.

Got all of the laundry done and hung out, which with only 2 of us, is about 3 loads. But it still takes time, and when the brain is on vacation it's tough to stay on task.

That's about it. Oh, yeah, I did get out for a bike ride, that's a necessity when the temps are in the 70's.

And the temps hit 80 today. Not sure what this is all about but I'm not complaining. Tonight though I have to actually be productive.

I have to locate a bottle jack and jack out of the ground the fence posts that are surrounding the chicken pen. Then I have to repound them back into the ground along with a bunch of others. With 75 chickens coming, I have to make some room. Hopefully won't need more fencing, we'll see how much I can scrounge from my fencing pile. Thsi is a more than one day project, but since it's nice tomorrow too, and I have the afternoon off, maybe a good portion of it will get done. Also plan to plant a few more pea seeds, so far the chickens have left them alone.

Survivor is on tonight, plus I have a good book to read, plus hubby is gone fishing for most of the night so a full night is planned!

Is It Too Cold To Ride?

Is it too cold to ride when there is a skiff of ice on the chicken water? Or in the cow tank? Is it too cold to ride when walking from the house to the bike shed results in frozen fingers, and your every breath hangs in the air?
Yeah, probably, but that didn't stop me. After the first 2 miles my face was frozen anyway, so it was all good.
So we have less than 32 in the morning (see above mentioned ice in chicken water) and up to 70 (tomorrow possibly 80) in the afternoon. What the heck? I will ride later this afternoon and tonight, I get on my motorcycle and whoosh. Everything goes away. It's a Zen thing.

Hubby and I built a couple of wood duck nests to take out into the swamp. Ok, I should clarify. Hubby built them and I stood there offering various opinions regarding sizes... with my hands in my pockets. Then on our trek out to the swamp I carried the hammer. He couldn't have done it without me. You might ask why we did such a thing? The recent acreage that we've aquired has a few swamps on it. Those swamps are ringed by trees. Some of which fell down over the winter. Trees do that sometimes. Especially while holding 583 tons of wet snow. Trees also contain nests, and when said trees fall, so do the nests. We felt it was our responsibility to help out the little wood ducks with new nests. That and it was a nice day and we didn't feel like doing anything else.

I planted peas yesterday. The seed package clearly stated and I quote, "As soon as soil can be worked in the spring".... we'll see. I only planted a few, then every couple of days I'll plant more, that way I'll have a steady supply of seeds for the chickens to dig up, I mean I'll have a steady supply of peas come end of June. The strawberry plants weathered the winter beautifully. No, they're not blossoming yet, it IS only March, but they're green, and growing. Peppers, tomatoes and cabbage have been started in flats. They go outside on the back deck once in awhile when it's warm enough, which would have been today if I had been home.

The cows have persisted in testing the fences and a few times I've had to chase them back into the pasture. They're so affectionate, but this is not good. They're big. And they have horns. And when they come at you at a good speed with their heads waving (presumably to get scratched behind the ears) it can be a bit daunting. Always want to make sure there's a tree to hide behind, they really don't know how big they are.

Some of my onions that I missed from last year are poking their heads out of the ground, I pulled up a few and they're mushy - duh, so they'll just get tilled under. The asparagus has been under attack by the chickens but the rhubarb is really doing well. My mints are coming up as are the wild violets back behind the cabin.

The stove restoration project still sits, I really have to get back to that. The only oven I have right now is a little toaster oven, which is a marvelous excuse for not having dinner ready, but when I want to cook, it's a pain. The chicken pen needs to be enlarged. I ordered 25 baby chicks this year from one of the hatcheries that I use and while checking out I noticed that they offered free 25 chicks if you bought 50. So instead of the 25 I really wanted, I will end up 75, all because no one ever showed me how to say no to a good deal. And, since the pen really isn't big enough for the 8 hens I have, it probably won't be big enough for 75 to grow until we butcher in the fall. They've been running around the yard scratching to find bugs and pecking at new green coming through the soil, funny to watch them. And they've started laying again. 8 hens = between 7 and 8 eggs a day. There's only 2 of us, but there is a steady stream of people who can and do use them up for us.

Been experimenting with making gas.... yeah, that's gonna wait for another post....

What's on the schedule for tonight? Well I've GOT to get out on my bike, that's a must, no excuse for it, but also have to scrounge out some t-posts so I can start on the chicken pen. And hang out laundry, and make dinner, and, and, and.... and then when the light goes away I'll sit and knit for awhile. Currently making some slippers cause my toes in their old and arthritic condition still get cold.

Is It Really Here?

Spring on the farm!


The chickens have started to lay again (good thing as I was getting down to my last 3 dozen eggs). I froze eggs this year in batches of 2, 3, and 4 for baking, but never needed them. Now I haul them out of the freezer and give them to the barn kittens, they love them!

I've had some coon problems the last week or so, so the chix are locked up again, unless I'm around and can hear the commotion, and the 22 is loaded and by the back door, just waiting.

My new batch of chix is due here the first week in May. I have to wait and get them later in the year because of the temps. We are "officially" zone 4, however, because of this little microclimate that we enjoy, it's probably closer to a 3.5. Anyway, because of this, unless I want to keep my chickens in the house until they're half grown, it's just easier to wait until later in the spring to get them. This year I got all Buff Orphingtons. Last year in my "mix-o-chix" I got one and she's such a nice size, lays nice big eggs, is docile and tame, so this year, we're going with all of them. I ordered them from Mt Healthy Hatchery and they had a special. I wanted 25, but if I ordered 50 or more I got 25 free, so I jumped at it. Only later did I realize that while I only really wanted 25 chix, I'm now getting 75. Good thing I like me my baby buk buks. And, it's still a crap shoot as to whether I walk into Tractor Supply and find turkeys that call to me. I like raising turkeys, but they sure are messy, and dumb. Turkeys are really dumb, but oh, so personable!

It's time to start seeds too. Tonight after work, I'll start some hollyhocks, tomatoes, peppers, and parsley as my parsley that I brought in died over the winter. It's a good thing I brought dirt from the garden up to the barn so I'd have some to start seeds. The garden itself is still under about a foot of snow and the dirt beneath that is frozen.
Part of my front yard will become garden this year, I'm thinking maybe the potatoes, and I'm going to start them early, outside in tires (which we have about a million of them around). Then, as they grow, you put in more dirt, and add another tire, then more dirt and another tire.... To harvest, just knock down the tires and you don't have to dig for the taters. Plus the tires help keep the soil warm during the cold nights.
And, if I have tires in my front yard, that's less yard to mow, right? The front yard is also going to see more berries. Raspberry and blackberries to be specific. I'm just flat out tired of mowing everything and I might as well use it. Want to extend my grapevine wall too, it will border one side of the chix pen, which I also have to enlarge, because in some strange universe, ordering 75 chickens when you only wanted 25 makes sense.

Have some fences to fix tonight too, while I was out chasing coons I noticed that the cow fence is down in at least one spot, so that needs to be fixed. Bu-Dawgh also pulled one end of his run line loose, gotta grab the ladder and secure that before he pulls it all the way out.

Tried a yarn dying experiment this weekend. I dyed some angora yarn in the crockpot using koolaid. Result... didn't use enough koolaid but it did smell good. The colors are more pastel than I wanted. Pink socks? Not so much, oh well. I'm in a sock knitting frenzie lately, they're a good take it and go project, can't ever have too many of those. My shrug is almost done, actually, probably tonight I will finish up the knitting and sew it up. Big Bang Theory is on and that will command my attention in front of the screen.

Also made yogurt in my crock pot. (Not the same one, I have 2) Don't know if it took or not, I'll have to try it and let you know.


It's a beautiful day today, me and the Bu-Dawgh walked to work and it was about 30! This afternoon, walking home it will likely be 45 or maybe even higher. The daylight is shining longer and longer during the day making outside chores more pleasant, but we're still burning wood at night. That will likely continue until May.

Getting anxious to ride my bike, but there's still ice on the back roads, of which I live on one, and salt on the main roads. So I really need to wait for a good spring washout rain to take the salt off the roads and that will also likely help to melt the ice. (I road my bike on ice once, didn't turn out so well, and while it seems I like to learn the hard way, eventually I do "get it").

Update on the stove project, - yeah, it's gonna be an outside thing when I start sanding, so I will also wait on that for a bit more.

Financial Decisions

Our farm is not a money maker, it will most likely never support itself, let alone us, but it's my hobby, my passion and it's just what I want to do.

However, that doesn't mean that we stop looking for ways to make it pay better. We scrounge and rearrange, we save "stuff" and collect "stuff" for future use and try to have fun doing it.

The latest "rearrangment" involves all of my chickens (there are somewhere close to 60 of them). I want them penned up, this protects them from critters, keeps them out of my gardens and keeps the chicken crap off of my porch and patio. I do not like chicken crap on my patio. I'm a barefoot kind of gal, always have been, always will be. I don't care if I walk around barefoot in the lawn, I know there is "residue" there, but choose to ignore it, besides, it beats shoes any day!

When the chickens are loose, it's obvious, and it's yucky, and yes, even for me, gross. Where in the world is the financial decision involving my chickens hidden in all of this?

When I keep my chickens penned up, I am happy, I know they're safe and I can walk barefoot all summer long. However, it costs at least 20-30 bucks a week to feed them. Hmmmm.

If I pen in the garden rather than the chickens, they will stay out of the garden, and basically feed themselves. They're already trained (as much as you can train a chicken) to go into the coop at night, so I can shut the door and keep the critters out that way. Then in the morning I can let them out, and let them eat bugs, weeds (not tomatoes, thank you very much - those are mine!) and be actually healthier in the long run. And yardbird beats penned up bird in taste any day of the week.

The pros for letting the chickens run loose seems to outweigh the cons, there is however one fairly large project first. To pen up the garden. Yes, I'm sure we have enough fencing (remember the note about scrounging....), so this weekend, set poles, string fence and build a gate and then let the chix out. It will be better for them, and I'll either learn to wear shoes, or learn to not care about what I step in. And I really, really, really don't like shoes.

But free range it shall be!

Banana Bells Are The New Zucchini!

Banana Bells! They're everywhere. I'm not sure who did the Collecting Of The Seeds From All Available Sources and then later planted all of these seeds, and then apon (upon?) all of this germination, found places to plant all of this stuff, but they need to be talked to.

I'm blaming it on Bu-Dawgh!

He doesn't even like banana bells. Actually, I guess I don't know that for sure, but he's definitely not a salad eater, so I'm guessing that anything of the "green" variety would be out.
The chickens would love them, ahhh, there's the link. Bu-Dawgh loves his chickens, so it would stand to reason that he would want them to eat well.
And they do! They're getting all kinds of weeds, weed seeds, garden leftovers, and "stuff". And, they're Staying In Their Pen! YAY!! Well, all except the mama and the 5 babies, who will be put in the pen probably this weekend.

So back to the banana bells..... if I can get past "why in the world would I someone plant so many of these things, I'm forced to find things to do with them. Already people run when they see me coming. They don't want any more of these, yet more is what I have. And tonight when I go out to the garden, even more will be there. Laughing at me. Taunting me. Daring me to come up with new and inventive ways to use these suckers.

Anyone got any ideas? Don't even suggest Google, they saw me coming too, and I got nothing from them.
Actually, I know what I can do with them. There's a small "honor system" vegie stand in my way to work, I can stash them there, however I'm thinking they'll find their way home.

Maybe I can invent some sort of fountain of youth skin cream to use them in. Yeah, that's it! I'll be rich! I'll be famous, and I'll forever be known as "That Crazy Lady Who Assaults Her Victims With Banana Bells But Who Found A Way To Make It Work!"

Yeah, I can live with that.

Hey, I have a new blog. Check me out at knitting.craftgossip.com ! And I'd love it if you'd actually leave me a comment!

Houdini Chickens

Last night I made another futile attempt to confine my chickens. I've seen other people with chicken coops, and chicken yards, and their chickens are IN the coops and yards. But not mine. Nope! Mine have discovered how to morph themselves from medium sized feathered birds into jello-ey slime so they can slip through the smallest hole in the wire.

I took left over chicken wire (this is chicken wire, chickens, chicken wire! It's supposed to hold you in!) and patched up every hole and space I could find where they might be getting out. I've clipped their wings. I've only fed them in the coop.

Oh, sure, they all go in at night, to roost, and I snicker and giggle that now I've really got them confined. But when I get up in the morning, they're all out in the yard again.

This seriously has me stumped!

Seriously.

Stumped!

I've been outmaneuvered by horses and cattle before, but they're a bit bigger than I am, but chicken? Come on!!

Pigs have gotten the better of me, but not chickens. That's just wrong.

Now I'm on a mission. I MUST find where they are escaping. Either that or forfeit the tomato crop I've worked so hard to weed and unearth.

They do love them their tomatoes!

So, tonight, again, I will put them away, clip all previously unclipped wings (of which there can't really be too many) and hope again, that tomorrow morning there will not be chickens running rampant in my garden.

I guess I can look at it one of two ways.

1. The chickens are going to ruin the garden, there's no getting around it, or

2. At least I don't have to spend money on a lot of feed for them, and whether it be through meat or eggs, I will eat my tomatoes one way or another!

But regardless of how they're doing it, I need to set up my camera so I can catch them in their morphing or houdini act, seriously, that's really not a bad idea! I'll talk to hubby about it tonight, he loves a challenge!

Gardening With Chickens, Chewing Gum and the Ultimate Red Neck Night Out!

Yesterday, I promised before and after pics of my garden. The first is "before. The buckets hanging are my "upside down tomatoes" experiment, definitely a success!
The next picture is after, I at least cleared a path, and got to the end of a few rows of tomatoes and peppers.
I need major amounts of more sticks to hike these things off the ground though.

And this is what promptly happened after I weeded.
I think all I really did was make it easier for the chickens to find the tomatoes.
Tonight... gotta get that hen house secured!!


Last night Hubby and I had the ultimate "Redneck Night Out"! We loaded up a couple of head of cattle into the stock trailer, took them for a little drive down the road to the slaughter house, and unloaded them. Sure makes for a fun evening! Actually we did have fun, but we usually do. After that we enjoyed the cuisine of Mickey D's Golden Arches and promptly laughed at how little it takes to entertain us.

That's OK, someone has to enjoy this stuff!
So 2 of our cattle have been delivered to a neighboring slaughter house, and another 2 will be killed this morning, here. It depends on who buys them and who wants them butchered and where.
Still gotta call the butcher, I should do that...

Oh, and while I'm at it... I have some advice for you.
Never chew gum and attempt to blow a bubble whilst riding a motorcycle. It's not pretty. Ask me how I know!

Oh, and another thing, remember yesterday when I said it was "a bit nippy" on my ride to work? Yeah! 35 degrees was the official reading! Good grief! I guess if I'm gonna keep riding, I'm gonna have to get out my long johns and woolen helmet liner!

I Got Nothing!

I have nothing for you today! Nothing! nothing exciting happened (except for that my laundry hanging on the line finally dried, but I didn't get it off and it's supposed to rain, so scratch that!).

My chickens continue to be escape artists and find their way out of the pen, so that's nothing new. I think I know where they're getting out though, it's somewhere around the pen.

And the best..... NOTHING is scheduled for this weekend. This might not be a good thing being as how the hay supply is far short of where it should be this time of year.

Normally, we'd be scrounging for a spot to stack all of the hay, moving and restacking just to fit 50 more bales. But not this year. We haven't had 3 or 4 days without rain all summer (well, except for the week that I was on vacation and not around anyway).

Hubby's been scouring the county (I personally think it's an excuse to ride his motorcycle and visit all his good old boys) in search of anyone who has extra hay that we can buy. Not good, he's coming up empty.

Cherries should be in, so I'll hopefully get a couple of flats of those this weekend and put them in the freezer. Then, some cold winter weekend, I'll dig out the strawberries, rhubarb, cherries, and whatever else I stash between now and then and make all of my jams and syrups. YUM!

So basically, this weekend is FREE!!!

Now I need to make a list. An outdoor list, and an indoor list (in case it rains). In any case my son's room needs to be vacuummed and dusted - he's flying out of Baghdad tomorrow! Yipee!!!

I need to fix his sign. I have a really cool sign in my yard that says "Home of a Soldier", need to spruce it up and get out the yellow ribbons. That will be first on either list, it needs to be done anyway.

The garden desperately needs to be hoed, or in this particular case, rototilled between the rows. Have to stake up more tomato plants.......

Got work to do in the barn and chicken coop, hey, I found an egg in the chicken coop yesterday, which lays to rest the "I don't know how to get from the pen into the coop" look I get from my birdies.

Still have a baby buk buk who thinks he's a cow, but that's ok for now.

Maybe I'll try to find my mower, although I'm trying really hard to not use any more gas than necessary. I've been pulling weeds for the chix and using my push motor (the old fashioned kind that doesn't use a motor), but it just won't go through some of those weeds!

And... I need to finish up my stealth knitting project. My knitting time really decreases during hockey's off season!

So that's how I spend a weekend off..... planning and making lists, and actually getting quite a bit done! Gotta do it now though, who knows, if the weather turns we'll be haying the rest of the summer with not a second to spare!

I really do love this life, but once in awhile..... oh forget it, I just got back from a week of margaritas on the beach vacation.

Introducing You To More Of Our Critters

Don't think I've ever mentioned this before, but hubby collects fish. Well, actually he collects aquariums. I don't think he's ever bought a new one, he just scarfs them up at resale shops, garage sales, and junk heaps. Ironically, they usually leak. Go figure!
Like the time I got new hardwood floors because his 225 gallon aquarium decided to gush all over the carpets and linoleum.
You gotta look on the bright side here, I probably would never have gotten my hardwood floors had this not happened and the insurance company written me a nice little check for the damage.
So, back to the aquariums.....
This is the latest, it's just your standard 20 gal or so aquarium, filled with the usual sand, shells, rocks, shotgun shells.... you know, an aquarium, oh yeah, it has fish in it too.
Recently it sprung a leak. Imagine that! Didn't see that coming!
And if you'll notice the towel hanging off of the left side, you can imagine that it's wet. Always.
And getting wetter. Faster.
Soooooo... here's the plan.....
I refer you to the aquarium at the bottom. Another of our his aquariums, also with a slow leak, but not as fast as the bigger one below, so.....

Tonight I will take out the one fish in the big aquarium (aprox 150 gals) that will eat littler fish and put him in the pond. He's a bullhead, I don't think he'll care.
I will transfer the contents of smaller leaky aquarium into bigger less leaky aquarium, and all of this will take 30 mins 3 hours tops!

How hard can it be?

In the chicken pen.....
Most of them are in!! I put a top on it last night, just as a trial, to see where they needed to be, and all that got put in are still in, so tonight, after my fun aquarium switching out, I'll make that a little nicer to look at.
I mean, snow fence in N. Mich is a given, but bright orange, on top of a chicken pen? Now that's just ridiculous!!

Results of Taking a Day Off!

This is what I accomplished on my 2 days off (the pen, not the coop itself):

This pen cost me NOTHING!! It was all scrounged from stuff found around the farm.

I doubled and tripled up on the fencing, weaving it back and forth because I didn't want to cut it, in case if we ever put a larger pen in, I'll still have longer lengths of fencing.

The gate is an old pallet, with hinges that I found left over from another project.

The tarp is for cover from the rain and sun until I get the coop done.

The pen is 20x10. The only thing left to do is put a top on it (the birds keep flying out) and to finish burying the bottom of the fence along the back wall (to keep other critters out)

Then it will be done (after I clean up the "leftovers", and I can finish the coop (an anniversary present from hubby!). I'm excited, this is really the first time I've had an "official" area for my chickens and turkeys.
Along the front of the pen, I transplanted my chives seedlings, the area gets full sun and they should do well there. I also planted some lemon basil seeds.

The turkey feathers, along with all of the chicken feathers are a result of wing clipping to try to keep them in the pen, it didn't work, it will need a top.

I have to get the rototiller back in the garden. With all the rain, and trying to get this pen done before we leave for our vacation, the weeds have taken over. There's nothing yet to be harvested, but the weeds do need to be eliminated.

So, before we leave IN ONE WEEK (diving and family reunion in Mexico)!!!! I'll get the chicken coop done, the pen covered and the garden de-weeded.

When I get back it will need to be done all over again!

We currently have a house resident (one of our "kids") who is staying with us, she'll take care of the farm while we're gone. It's so nice to have kids that know how to run a farm, so we can get away once in awhile. There isn't any of our kids who couldn't keep the farm running, summer or winter, keep the house warm, start up the generator if we lose power, or basically just take care of stuff if we need them too, that's a big security thing! These kids definitely have survival skills! Which is a great comfort with what the economy is doing to us.

Now, to see how well The Mouth does at "the touching up of the roots" before we leave! They seem to be growing out and not looking quite so summery as they did before. I had hoped that the summer highlights would kick in by now, but not so much. Oh well, it will be another blonding episode!

Thinking now, with the chickens penned up I'm going to need to maybe find another barn cat or two, I'm thinking the snakes will start to show up. We'll see.

Strawberries and Chickens!

So, the strawberries didn't happen. As usual, I'm a day late and 3 weeks early, or something like that.
We went to get them picked and found that they had already been picked out. It would be easy if it were the same every year, but with the wacky weather lately, they were late as it was.
I can still go north, to get some, but I think I'll concentrate on the cherries over on the west side of the state. Have a friend who lives over there who will keep an eye on it for me, then we'll go to get bunches of those. The sweet cherries are about 1.5 weeks ahead of the sour cherries, but both are just yummy! Cherry syrup and jams and stuff are just as good as strawberries, but the strawberries are local. Oh well, maybe next year. Actually, I'm going to make a note of that in my really cool portable brain that I can't live without, to start inquiring about strawberries around the 1st of June.

Got our first "batch" of hay in last night, well, when I say "we" it wasn't me helping. at all. this is a first!
I was daddy-sitting, so didn't get to partake in the festivities, but not to worry, there's LOTS more hay to be got!

Stupid coffee pot! Just got up to get a cup of coffee and realized that it never turned itself on. grrr.
OK, I'm over it.

So anyway, in my scattered little brain, we've covered strawberries and cherries and touched on hay. Let's go to my awesome chicken self feeding system shall we?
The items needed for this include as many 5 gallon buckets as can be rounded up (on the farm, this isn't a problem), a shotgun or drill to drill lots and lots of holes in the sides and bottoms of the buckets, A way to suspend them above the chicken pen (sticks work great, as does left over binder twine - the plastic stuff) and as many dead critters as you can get your hands on. Again, around here, shooting possums, raccoons and stuff that attack my critters are plentiful, as are fish guts from hubby going fishing, so usually don't have to look real far.
Hang the buckets up above the chicken pen (pre shot or drilled for holes) and throw in the dead critter. Within a matter of days, the flies will swarm and lay their eggs. The maggots will fall out of the holes and chickens will eat them up. It gets a bit aromatic, but if there's a reason for it, well.... it's easier to put up with.
See? Self feeding chickens! Works great!

A bit too redneck for you? Well, it works, and around here, we're all about making these critters pay for themselves, even the dead ones! If you happen to like the idea of this system but lack dead critters, leftover garbage, especially meat scraps would work too, just not as quickly. But we don't have a lot of that, the leftover garden scraps and vegies go to the chix and the leftover meats go to the Bu-Dawgh, with the exception of leftover chicken and turkey, which the barn cats will happily relieve you of.

And the most exciting news of all? I got a heifer last night! This brings my cow total to 4! She hasn't come to live with us yet, but hopefully soon. You know what this means? a constant source of calves as I have a friend with an awesome bull, and an almost constant source of milk and cream for drinking, cheeses, yogurts, butter and ice creams. All organic and natural and everybody with no antibiotics or growth hormones, no pasteurization or homogenization, nothin' but milk, grass fed, right from the cow! Life is great!!

Tonight? more garden work and more chicken pen work, it's supposed to rain, so that will put a halt to the haying, temporarily. And if it rains too hard, there is the hayloft that needs to be organized before we bring in any more hay! The sound of rain on the tin roof of the barn is just one of the best sounds ever!

I love the farm, can you tell? Now, to make it pay a salary that I can live with....