Exploring Life In The Grit Of The Earth
Posted in Chickens, Home Schooling, Mothering, Organic Gardening on Jan 16th, 2010
Finally, it’s gotten above 35 degrees!! The snow has been on the ground for a month and it seems like every morning I’ll wake up to a little more! The past few days it’s gotten up into the 50’s and it’s been wonderful! The chickens are having a field day taking dirt baths and stretching [...]
Posted in Chickens on Nov 9th, 2009
Despite all of the garlic and pumpkin seeds that I’ve been feeding the chickens, it seems they have worms. Maybe that explains why I’ve been getting 2-3 eggs a day from 24 hens!!! I thought they were just taking a long time recovering from their molt. So, after dusting the whole hen house, laying boxes, [...]
Posted in Chickens on Oct 26th, 2009
We finished the coop this weekend, and the chickens are ecstatic!! It was quite a show trying to chase them down and move them all into the new coop. Luckily we had help! They are settling in nicely, but still having a bit of a problem figuring out how to get onto the roosts. Some [...]
Posted in Chickens, Mothering, building our home on Oct 21st, 2009
The coop continues to be our main project around the homestead (although it would be a really good idea to get to winterizing the house!!)
Toby’s father came up last Friday and gave us a hand siding the coop. We still have to put up the windows and doors and then put the roosts and boxes [...]
Posted in Chickens, building our home on Oct 9th, 2009
We have started on what I hope to be our last project this year… The Chicken Chalet (I was going to call it the chicken palace, but being in the country, it just seems more like a chalet Toby and I have promised each other that we will have no more big projects [...]
Posted in Chickens, Home Schooling, Mothering, Pets on Sep 25th, 2009
Kaia has been studying the 5 kingdoms of life at school for the past 4 weeks. So, we thought we’d take a trip out to the Nature Center to see what in the Animal, Plant, and Fungus kingdoms we could find.
Poor little papa peacock is moulting and has no tail feathers. But you see behind [...]
Posted in Chickens on Sep 11th, 2009
I headed in the house after picking up Kaia from school today. She took a while getting her stuff gathered up and then followed me into the house a while later. When she finally came in she said, “Mom, there is a chicken in the car. I tried to get her out, but she wanted [...]
Posted in Chickens on Sep 11th, 2009
Well, that funny little bear that was knocking over my chicken food bin decided it was hungry. Wed. night, at about 1:30 Suki started going crazy. She was inside for the night (dumb me for keeping her in) and was whining and pacing at the door. Toby went and let her out and heard a [...]
Posted in Chickens, Mothering, Organic Gardening on Aug 5th, 2009
Of course, we’ll start with the cutest!!
Leif had a few bites of rice cereal yesterday, and he downed it!!!
“Hmmmmm, I think I might have a bite, thank you!”
“WOW! I LIKE! Give me that spoon!”
“Mine!! ALL MINE!”
“Yes, boys can too play with Barbies! They are very tastey!”
I finally got around to harvesting most of the chard. [...]
Posted in Chickens on Jun 9th, 2009
Last week, Buttercup hatched 7 of her eggs. Two died within hours, but the other 5 are doing great!
So that makes 9 new chicks altogether! Yay! I hope they are all hens
Posted in Chickens on May 12th, 2009
Snowflake ended up hatching a total of 4 chicks (out of 8 original… but one was squashed, one was dropped, and two didn’t fully develop). Poor Sparkle didn’t hatch any. I waited until day 23 before I took her off the nest. I cracked open all the eggs and only one had [...]
Posted in Chickens on May 6th, 2009
The chicks are very late in hatching… normally, a chicken has a 21 day gestation. Our first chick hatched at 22 days, three more hatched at 24 days! I don’t hear any peeps coming from the other two, but they had moving chicks in them last week. Our other broody mama is [...]
Posted in Chickens on May 4th, 2009
Well, at least one that I know of. The chicks were due yesterday, but snowflake never hopped off of her nest, so I couldn’t tell if they’d hatched yet. But, just a few minutes ago, I went outside and heard some peeping. One little chick had just hatched (I believe this one [...]
Posted in Chickens on Apr 23rd, 2009
We went out to candle the ladies eggs this evening. I made my own candler with a strong flash light and a piece of cardboard wrapped to make a cone for the egg to sit above. that focuses the light so that it shines through the egg.
I thought it would be [...]
Posted in Chickens on Apr 17th, 2009
Well, they say (who ever They are) that Silkies often go broody and make great mamas. So far, They are right. Both my silkie ladies are broody. Snowflake started sitting on eggs this past Sunday, and Sparkle started sitting a few days ago. So, Toby, sweet construction man that he is, [...]
Posted in Beekeeping, Chickens, Mothering, building our home on Apr 17th, 2009
sdlkrnyiod!! ltionadfshlk!!! Did you understand that??? NO!! That’s because it is crazy language! I know, all you parents out there are saying “yeah, I know what you are going through”… But OH NO! She is driving me up the wall, out the window, and over the yellow [...]
Posted in Chickens on Mar 9th, 2009
I took Judy’s advice and went on the internet and found a really simple pattern for a chicken apron
Here are two simple patterns… I used the second one. Chicken apron 1 and Chicken apron 2 (Scroll ~3/4 of the way down).
I had some extra green fleece from Leif’s leaf blanket, so I just cut [...]
Posted in Chickens on Mar 6th, 2009
Our pour hen, Vera, is a little worse for the wear since we got our rooster. He really seems to favor her and now she has no feathers left on her back. His spurs have been cut, so he’s not hurting her, yet. But with no feather protection from his feet, I’m [...]
Posted in Chickens, Knitting, Mothering, building our home on Mar 5th, 2009
Though we had a big snow fall this past week, the chickens are telling me that spring is on its way! They have really picked up their laying and our little Welsummer, Rosie, laid her first egg today! It’s the dark speckled one… isn’t it pretty?
The top pink egg is from our Easter [...]
Posted in Chickens on Dec 23rd, 2008
Fezzik (the gentle giant Ameraucana Rooster, 8 months old) Isn’t he lovely?
Buttercup (the Buff Orpington Hen, 10 months old)
Rosie (the 4 month old Welsummer, dark egg layer)
So, we are back up to 8 hens, and have 2 roosters now. They are all getting along wonderfully! (Oh, well, that’s mostly because we gave [...]
Posted in Chickens on Dec 17th, 2008
We’ve added some ladies to our chicken family… two silkie pullets. One is white (“Snowflake) and probably about 3 months old. The other is blue (I think) and ~2 months old; her name is “Rainbow Sparkle” but Kaia has agreed that it is ok if we just call her Sparkle. They [...]
Posted in Chickens on Dec 13th, 2008
Yesterday morning, as I was getting Kaia up for school, I thought I heard an odd sound coming from outside. We all stopped dead in our tracks and waited patiently to hear it again…. and there it was, loud and clear… ‘cock-a-doodle-do’. Now, if Crowy were still alive, we wouldn’t have thought this [...]
Posted in Chickens on Nov 29th, 2008
Our rooster died. We nursed him for 2 days but he just never got better. The last day he was having breathing difficulty, too. So, we’ve buried him and put the 6 hens on garlic and other herbs to be sure they don’t catch anything if it was contagious. If all [...]
Posted in Chickens on Nov 25th, 2008
I don’t know what’s wrong with him…. he has the same symptoms as the chicken who died a month ago: lethargy and clear/white diarrhea… but otherwise nothing notable, no discharge, no smells, nothing. So, I brought him inside and made him a warm nest. Every hour I’ve been giving him a little bit [...]
Posted in Chickens, Mothering, building our home on Oct 20th, 2008
Progress on the guest house is slow going because Toby only has a day or two a week to work on it, but it’s looking really cute!
This is the view as you drive up:
This is the side view, where the front door will be:
The other speckeled sussex died this morning. We don’t know what [...]
Posted in Chickens, Hooping, Organic Gardening, Sustainable Living, building our home on Oct 1st, 2008
You can call me that if you like!
This Sat. Toby helped me finish up a new little chicken hut that I’d started. It’s a 3′x4′ shed that sits at the edge of the fencing of their run. The back side opens so I can put their food and water in. That way, [...]
Things are going mostly well with the new chickens. The 3 older ladies are slowly adjusting to having new chickens in their space. They still don’t mingle at all, and the younger ones often get chased away from the food if the old ladies are eating. I found one of the sussex [...]
Posted in Chickens, General, Pets, building our home on Sep 3rd, 2008
This weekend, Toby started working on the front steps. We are putting in 4 steps that come from the drive to the front door. We will also be putting in a little landing-type porch, just to keep the mud and dirt from coming in the house all the time.
Since you always get the [...]
Posted in Chickens on Jul 26th, 2008
I don’t know what else to do! About a month ago, with in a week, two of our chickens disappeared. First it was Ralph, so I thought that maybe she had gone broody again and was just laying on a clutch somewhere. But then Spike disappeared. I had a weird feeling [...]
Posted in Chickens, Holistic Medicine, Mothering, Pets on May 7th, 2008
Sorry for the slack in posting. All is well here.. just busy. We are settling into the house and really enjoying the space and amenities! Kaia and I are especially having fun cooking together (something that was really hard to do in the little cabin). We ate so poorly the past [...]