June

June 8, 2019

This month has held new adventures.

Sadly one of our chickens died. It was moving slow and seemed to just want to sleep. We separated her from the flock and put her in the smaller coop/run area. We put her near food and water. The rest of the flock would come by the fence to check on her. At times she seemed to perk up but mostly she slept. The first night she put herself in the coop, the second night my husband moved her in. The next morning she had passed on. My husband buried her. She was one of the KFC's that our children really liked because she was friendlier and seemed smarter. Our son was at work and somehow we failed to tell him. Several days later he asked about her, if she was doing better. Oops. Sorry.

Our son built, filled and planted a 4*4 raised bed with trellis for his Senior project. Our daughter is caring for one as a goal for her Personal Progress. I have 3 others I am caring for and we have a "main" garden area for corn, pumpkins, big squashes and extra tomatoes. The back bed is mostly planted with strawberries and we have two raised raspberry beds and others planted on the north side of the house. I am working on a herb bed in front of the house and just added some Lavender. I started Basil, parsley and sage inside. My Rosemary and Lavender did not do well from seeds so I bought some. I plan to add some garlic and garlic chives to the onion chives, mint and other herbs already out there. I love all the green coming up :)

Today a Western Tanager flew into our window so hard it left some orange and yellow feathers smeared on the window. Odd because I have not cleaned the windows yet this year. They are kind of dirty. Poor bird sat stunned on the near by bush for quire a while. So long our 4 year old was out talking to it and getting pretty close and it didn't fly away.

Our poor mower was abused last year then I made a few mistakes with it and hastened its demise. We think long term we want a big riding mower, but in the mean time we bought a self-propelled mower and a lighter weight one to work together to keep the property reasonable mowed. I called my Dad to ask about mower advice. I love that he gave me the advice to research it. He suggested going to a lawn equipment store to talk to knowledgeable employees. We looked into that and decided to research online. We learned a lot and feel good about our purchases fitting our current needs and resources. I am so grateful for my Dad's wise advice.

Sadly we killed our weed eater too, but it was corded and really a gas or battery one would better meet our needs here. We are currently investigating them....

We have been working on a 100-200 foot long "flood bed" along our creek. It is a 2-3 foot tall raised bed to help keep spring water in the creek and also provide a place to plant perennial foods. We felt it would provide multiple uses in one, and hopefully be more attractive then a giant berm of dirt and weeds or un-kept grass.  It is kind of hard to balance allowing for natural beauty and controlling the chaos/weeds... it is fun trying though :)

Raspberries

May 16, 2019

I tried 3 times last year to start some raspberries here.
Attempt one: I bought some discount raspberries, at a not great time of year to start them.  They seemed to die :(
Two: A friend let me get starts from her bed. I think the chicken manure was still to hot in the bed and they fried.
Three: They seemed ok and I had high hopes, but when a friend offered me other starts I realized hers had leaves all over and mine did not and figured I had killed the third one, so we got more to try again. A few have leaves so I thought I would get just some. I had left the old ones from last year, not sure why. This week I was prepping the beds by the house for strawberries and herbs and realized that one of the raspberries I had planted on the North side of the house (yes I know not a great place for Raspberries) had leaves on it. Today I was working on the beds again and pulled up one of the canes I thought was dead and was shocked to see new growth on it. Yeah! I realized that the canes from last years third try were actually alive and well. I moved more over to the North side and now have 18 plant starts there. And about 20 in the main garden area (I need to re-work the raspberries there to give them more room). I am so excited!!!!!
Next year we should have a great crop of Raspberries!!!!

War of the Thistles

Last year we discovered many thistles on our land. We worked to remove them from the yard area. We dug up some on other parts of the land but focused on the yard. This year we have worked to remove them from the middle yard, chicken yard, and area by the creek. Yesterday we finished by the creek and earlier in the week we finished in the chicken yard. Some regrow and some may have been missed, but for the most part they are gone there. Next we need to work on the perimeter by the trees and on the other side of the creek. It is nice to walk the land and only see an occasional thistle, rather than having them over take the land.
We can enjoy the flowers they make on other peoples land without having to worry about stepping on them on ours.

Black sex link

Not sure -- coloring is like a Colombine Wyadotte, but I am not sure Might be a white leg horn but she is calm and that breed is typically high strung

Looks like a Golden Wyandotte, with Brahma feathers on her feet and smaller like a Brahma

Not sure Best guess White Rock

I have been calling this one Red Sex Link but I think I was wrong and it is a Rhode Island Red, and I think ours that we named Buffalo is also a Rhode Island Red.

We also got a Buff Orphington, but I did not get a picture of her.

Chicken Trading

May 7, 2019

Last week a neighbor offered us 13 one year old chickens (12 hens and a rooster). We like the idea of younger hens, but did not necessarily want that many. We offered to split them with a friend, and give her the rooster. We just gave away 6 of our hens on Craigslist. Maybe we did not chose the wisest way, but we picked 3 that were Barred Rocks, 2 that never fit in well that we got from a friend last fall, and the Silver Wyandotte that fights with the rooster. We kept two Buff Orphingtons, a Rex Sexlink, 2 ISA Browns, and 2 Australorps. Only one is young enough to likely lay much. It will be interesting the next day or two, to see how many eggs we get, but we have high hopes the 1 year olds will lay a lot so we will be fine, but might choose to give away a few more, or at least put them in the separate coop and test their egg laying prowess. 

I also just saw a thing about saving eggs in a "water bottle" solution. One lady online says she kept hers for 8 months. I want to try it. Using Pickling lime or Calcium hydroxide in a water solution. Eggs all winter would be cool!

May 9, 2019
Tonight we picked up the chickens.
We got a Rooster, 2 Barred Rocks, a Black Sex link, A Wyandotte, a Red Sex Link, and a Buff Orphington for our Friends that gave us our Rooster and an Australorp.

We got for us: A Red Sex link, A Buff Orphington, A Black Sexlink, 2 white ones we are not sure about -- one might be Might be a Austra White or a Columbian Wyandotte, the other might be the Autra White or a white leghorn.. not sure, then one that looks like a golden and white Wyandotte. 

The smallest white one escaped as we were putting her in the coop, we had to catch her and put her back. That was exciting... I feel bad for her, she was scared, but they are all settled down for the night. We all (Matt, Me, Tober, Wyle, Emma and Avi) went to get them. Matt and I put them in boxes and the children loaded them into the car. ...

We have 13 chickens again and a rooster. I hope that this was a good choice and that they all settle into their new homes well. 

May

April showers Bring May flowers

It is now May 5th --Cinco de Mayo -- Who needs an excuse to eat Mexican food? I love it anyway

May the 4th Star Wars Day
We worked together on a variety of projects. Put tin on the new Hay/Straw shed, Moved composted straw from the floor of the old Hay Shed to the garden area, worked on the fencing around the Broody coop, dug thistles, took apart pallets for the flood bed...

Earlier in the week our eldest son mowed, and mowed and mowed some more while I puttered on other projects. I was really grateful! He also helped put up and build sections of the flood bed. We are now at 44 of the 100-150 feet we are looking to build!!! Not bad since this is our summer goal and it is almost 1/2-1/3 complete before summer vacation begins.

It is great seeing the green grass, trees and shrubs grow new leaves...

This week we might be getting some new chickens. A neighbor up the road offered us his younger chickens. We are splitting them with a friend who gave us the rooster in the first place, then later gave us one of their hens. We hope to give away a few of our older, less appreciated hens so we can keep the younger ones to lay for the next couple years. We have been getting 6-8 eggs a day, not bad for a mostly older flock. We are so blessed!

Plants

April 13th

Yesterday I moved our pea starts outside and planted some carrots, rainbow carrots and radishes in the raised beds we built last year. I hope they do ok. The compost is not as broken down as I hoped...

I have tomatoes, assorted peppers, broccoli, brussel sprouts, onions, eggplant, marigolds, assorted herbs, kale and lettuce started inside. I hope to start squash, yellow squash, pumpkin, zuchini, cucumbers and pickling cucumbers inside soon.

I built two plant lights -- one from a light I pulled from under a kitchen cabinet we moved into the laundry room, and the other from a second hand light. I bought LED daylight bulbs for the plants. They are growing in small red solo type cups with a couple holes drilled in the bottom, in plastic hospital tubs I got cheap second hand, some are up on boxes to keep them closer to the lights until they get bigger... It is fun to play with the plants.

For projects they are doing two of our children are going to plan and tend their own raised beds. One for a school project is going to build another raised bed.

I saw a video about a trellis system using fishing line I want to try for the beds. My sweetheart had
some fishing line already. I need to get more wood then set it up... hopefully in the next week or so.

I have been digging thistles in the chicken yard. The birds follow me around to get worms out of the holes as I move to another one. One of the Buff Orphingtons (Nuggets) and a ISA Brown (KFC) are the bravest and stay close the others follow. One of the newest birds an Australorp (Stir-fry) was almost accidentally hit with a flying thistle as my bad aim missed the wheelbarrow. She stayed farther away after that. Oops.

I have slowing been wacking down dried weeds from last year and pulling rocks out. We would love to burn the weeds but we are afraid of the fire getting out of control so we have not tried it yet.

Today we hope to put of the first section of the "Flood bed". A hundred plus foot long, 2.5 foot high raised bed by the creek. We hope to plan perrinial foods in it and also have an extra barrier from the creek spring melts.

We hope to built up a wall/dike/burm on the North side where the water drains from the field behind us in the spring. We are pulling rubble from the creek bed that previous owners left there, then will bury that with dirt from "run" to make that part deeper and the wall next to it higher at the same time.

Lots of work ,but it feels good to be productive and see progress on our land.

PS the chickens are laying so well I have 3 dozen eggs in the fridge all from them. I have not bought eggs for at least a month, I think maybe two, and I have given some away and have plans to bring some to family in a week or so....