Today we’re talking about different aspects of dirt and how it shows up in our lives. It’s really not a serious topic, but we are surrounded by it, so it plays a big part in our lives. Did you know that chickens love dirt? They take dust baths on a regular basis – this helps control mites and live. The photo on the left shows brown little chickens who were, just moments before, pristine white little chickens. They could not get enough of the dirt today.  It was pretty darn funny. Continue reading →

How in the heck does that happen? Well, when you’re trying to sprout over a hundred tree seeds, in bags, with moist paper towels, in the dark- sometimes moldy just happens. These seeds have been through the gamut of preparations already, maybe mold is the next step! Some of the steps have been: warmth, dry cold, moist cold, and scarification. Not all seeds have the same requirements, and not all seeds have survived. Continue reading →

Seems like just yesterday that I did an update of weekend happenings, is it really Wednesday? My folks left today to go home to California, at this time, they are only a couple of hours away from their own bed and comfy home.  It was great to have them for as long as we did; although it seems a whirlwind of activity, it is always too soon for them to leave – at least in my mind. But things do go on here, regardless. Continue reading →

Easter weekend was a busy one; as was the whole week, actually. Because we were getting ready for our Family Easter Gathering, not too much was accomplished. Sue did continue her work, in earnest, on the new chicken tractor. She had the frame completed by Friday evening, she had fetch and hold help from mom and Aunt Carolyn. Tonight she worked until dusk getting the door attached, cutting the wire and stapling it to the frame. It’ll be done in no time. She’s working so diligently on it because the teens really need to get out and stretch their legs and eat some grass and bugs, but we can’t let them out in the regular chicken run yet because they just fit right through the holes in the fence. We do let them out, but only under supervision. With the chicken tractor, they can be outside all day, and still go in at night if need be.  Continue reading →

We’re still not exactly sure when they’re coming, but they will be here Thursday or Friday.  This set of chickens, fifteen in all, will be the first set grown specifically for meat. We will be keeping a few and selling the rest.  Four are already spoken for, but if you’re interested in an organically fed, home grown chicken ~ let us know and we’ll put your name down. It’s a first come first served type of thing, if not all the chicks make it, the person towards the bottom of the list will be crossed off first. Sounds rather ominous doesn’t it?  Anyway, its the next step in the adventure! Continue reading →

This Thursday or Friday (we think) we’ll be receiving our next batch of Chicks, Grey Rangers (more about these later on this week). 15 little bitty babies again.  What this means is that we needed to move the Delawares, Ducks, and Roman out of the top area in order to make room for the newbies. Yesterday, Sue and I brought over the large dog crate and one of the finch cages because we had to separate everyone out from each other. The chicks had started to peck around the eyes of the ducks whenever they felt they were in the way.  The ducks just decided to take it. We didn’t want the chicks to continue with this behavior if we were going to keep the ducks, goose and chickens together as adults. Continue reading →

 This little cutie is our newest family member; a gosling! Specifically a Tufted Roman (also called simply “Roman Goose”).  We don’t know if it is a girl or a boy, but we’re calling it Roman for now. According to The Livestock Conservancy, Tufted Romans are on the critical list.  We wanted to have a guard goose for the flock, and thought we might as well have one from the critical list… perhaps we can breed later.  Plus, this breed of goose has an illustrious history of guarding.  Again, from The Livestock Conservancy, “The Roman goose originated in Italy. More than 2000 years ago, Romans considered these geese sacred to Juno (the goddess of marriage). In 365 BC, as the Gauls attempted to steal into Rome under cover of night, it was the honk of a Roman goose that awoke Marcus Manlius and saved the capitol.” Continue reading →

…the number 9! We’re starting today’s blog off with the Egg Report, just to mix things up a bit. Nine eggs! Yesterday and today, this seems to be the preferred number from the chickens. They are laying happily and steadily… occasionally we receive an egg from everyone, but that is still a rather rare happening. We’re just happy that they are producing regularly. And today, there’s that one ginormous Easter Egg again. We haven’t come across another double-yoker, but Sue’s pretty sure that the one she had isn’t going to be an anomaly.  We’ll be sure to document that if/when it happens. Continue reading →

There are just so many!  Where do we start? Well – do you remember a post where I encouraged you to “never say ‘no’ to free”?  We’ve done that again, or not done that again, whichever is correct there.  Our contractor friend Brent had a tent trailer that he was going to refurbish, but decided that it would take too much work and time and money to get it to the point of usability again; he asked us if we were interested in it.  Sue jumped on that opportunity. She’s been looking for a trailer frame/body to use as a large, movable Chicken Tractor out in the further pastures. We need something that’s relatively heavy so it doesn’t blow away, like so many others – and it needs to be movable, something we can hook up to the tractor and just take around to where we’d like the chickens to be working. This tent trailer will be great. We’ll end up gutting it, but there are so many  usable items in there that we can re-purpose.  We might be able to use the sink in our outdoor kitchen area (it’s just a little bit smaller than we were hoping for), and there’s a table that would be good to use outside as well. There isn’t a stove or fridge, but other parts will probably find good homes!  Dustin has already claimed the bed mattresses for use in the dinky house, as their blow-up mattress was punctured by their kitty – oops!  There are many design options for this new  chicken tractor, quite a few plans on line, so we’ll just have to see what will work best for us and the chickens. Take the photo just above; I am NOT saying that this is what we’ll be doing, just that it is an option. Kinda cute though – trailer chickens. This is definitely something to be working on in the near future. Continue reading →

Next week at this time  we’ll be receiving our first batch of new littles. (The old littles have graduated to being called Biggies… all the biggies are together.) We’ll be getting 15 baby chicks and 4 ducklings. The chickens are Delawares and the ducklings are Welsh Harlequins.  Continue reading →