New Additions

It's finally here, or I should say "They are finally here!" A few weeks back we had yet another broody hen who we decided to try hatching out eggs. I was a little worried as this was her first time and if things did not work out I would have to bring any chicks that hatched into the house to care for them. However, I am happy to report that Spice and her new babies are doing wonderful. We lost an egg early on, so our 21 eggs went down to 20, then we had 1 hatch on day 20 that did not survive, 4 hatched on day 21 and another 4 have hatched today on day 22. There are still 11 more to go so we will give it a couple more days.

We do have some idea of what hens these came from but will wait until they are all hatched and can get some good pics of each chick. Hopefully we aren't doomed with the magic number 8 again, Fingers Crossed!

 

As for Thumper and her chicks, they are doing wonderful. After this photo was taken she gave up on caring for them as they were able to handle their own with the 1st batch of chicks that we hatched out, which are about a month older. It is too cute to watch the sexlink boys bump chests with the older boys and win. Thumper was accepted back into the big flock but still does not roost with them. I figure it will take a little more time. She will definitely be a good choice to use again if we ever decide to hatch out more chicks.

 These Easter Eggers are getting huge! The one we know is a male has started to crow, which sounds like a party horn. The jury is still out on who is a male or not. Of all the chicks we have ever had, the females never had their comb change color until it got old enough to start laying, but a lot of these are a slight red tint in their combs. Obviously only time will tell for sure.

Chickens and Produce

An Ancona in our 4-in-1 Pear tree.

I didn't plant a garden this year as I had a lot going on with chickens, projects going on around the house, and not being home as much. There are other reasons as well that I thought it best not to do one; mending the soil, eradicating weeds and blackberry bushes, plus trying to figure out how much sun the garden gets now with the 2 big pine trees gone. We have had an unusually dry year so far. Yeah it has rained some but not enough to keep our other fruits, flowers, and trees wet enough. We did get some strawberries from our patch but now there are none and no new flowers. All our fruit trees still have no fruit and the 2 that we bought that should had started to set fruit, we lost. Our Meeker raspberry canes are starting to get fruit ripening.

I checked on my kiwi cuttings and it looks promising for 3 of the female plants and at least 5 of the self-fertile ones. Even our fig tree sapling is looking really good! We also have Jerusalem Artichokes growing in many pots. I am super happy that my Calla Lilies are doing very well and even have a bloom on one. I moved the butterfly bush again to a semi sunny location. It gets a few hours of sun now unlike the other place it was where it got almost no sun. However, originally it was in full sun and did not seem to be growing at all. We plan on adding the Stinging Nettle by it, along with moving the Foxglove from the opposite side of the yard to this same location, plus moving the fuchsia bushes as well, and adding some milkweed. We are going to try and make this location around the butterfly bush a place for hummingbirds and butterflies to hang out. I see Caterpillars in our future! The kids will love that!!

Our Globe Artichoke is finally growing. I guess removing that tree sure helped. Yes, I realize I could have just moved it but the tree was coming down regardless. The Horseradish is also growing better now too! I cannot wait until our garden is finally fenced in, mended, beds added, and everything is ready to plant. There are so many things I want to grow. Probably a good thing the garden is going to be 4,000 sq. ft.

 This year we bought 6 new blueberry plants to add to our 2 that we already had. Every plant is full of berries and they are starting to ripen. 4 of the plants will ripen July/Aug and the other 4 will ripen in August. I have a good feeling that I won't get to freeze any or use them in recipes. Not with 3 growing kids around, but I am okay with that! I love the fact that they would rather eat their fruits and veggies than junk food any day! Plus the love it more when it comes from the garden, it just taste so much better.

Now for the chicken updates! If you read the previous post our Silver-laced Cochin, Spice, decided to go broody on us and it felt like such a waste not to let her hatch out chicks since we already hatched out 2 batches of chicks via the incubator. We have never done it naturally with a hen before, so this will be a first. We collected the eggs over the course of 3 days, made sure they were as clean as possible by wiping any bedding or poo off with my hands. Since our nest boxes are relatively clean there wasn't much to do. All the eggs were marked with the corresponding day they were collected. Normally we put them in the refrigerator and then warm them back up before incubating but I wanted to try it differently since a hen would be doing the work. Trying to make it as natural as possible. The eggs were left out at room temperature until it was time to put them under the hen. I sat the eggs under her on Wednesday the 19th. She is doing good so far. I am a little worried that we put too many eggs under her, but she fluffed herself up a lot to cover all those eggs. I have not seen any eggs uncovered, which is a good thing. Waiting is so hard. The only question remains.. Will she be a good mom or will she turn on the babies? Only time will tell and we have some time before that happens. When it gets close to hatching day we plan on setting the brooder up in case she doesn't do good for caring for the babies.

 

As for Thumper and her 8 chicks, all are doing really well. It is so funny how the Black Sexlink boys look like Barred Rocks. We have never seen a Black Sexlink rooster before but have had females in the past. One of the Rhode Island Red pullet does not seem to be growing at the same rate as everyone else and I think it is because of her deformed toe. Her middle toe was curled when she hatched out and I currently have it splinted to help straighten it out. It is so crazy to think they are already 3 weeks old.





As for the other 8 chicks we hatched out. These Easter Eggers are getting big fast! When they first hatched I thought we had all males with only 3 being females, as time progressed I changed my mind and thought we only had 1 rooster. Now I am reverting back to my original thoughts..lol

Seeing their combs changing colors and noticing their feathers are becoming more pointed, it is looking like there are definitely more males. Only time will tell what we have exactly, but it is still fun to keep guessing.

Chicken madness!

 I'm a little late posting the weekly photos, but alas they are here! Yep, these EE's are 5 weeks old and of course we have a few more with combs turning color. This has me worried that me we have more roosters. It is very hard to determine sex, even with looking at legs, combs, vents, feathers it can all be so confusing. So for now, we will just wait until they get older or maybe when they start crowing.

As for mama and her babies, they are doing FANTASTIC! Oh my word these babies are getting big so fast. I am so in love with these little balls of fluff already starting to feather. My only regret is not being able to hatch more so we had more girls than boys. Oh well, there's always next time!

Speaking of more chicks, as if we don't already have enough chickens, we decided that since we have yet another broody hen we would put her to good use.

 

Meet Spice, a Silver-laced Cochin. The look on her face shows such disgust that I pulled her out of the nesting boxes. I am hoping she turns out to be a good brooder and mama, only time will tell. Not sure as to how many eggs we are gonna try to have her hatch out.  It will be within the next couple of days that we put eggs under her, separated from everyone else. She will be hatching out more Easter Eggers as we are down to just 1 rooster now. It will be interesting to see what these chicks look like, their moms will be Sicilian Buttercup, Black Langshan, Australorp, Brown Leghorn, Ancona, and Silver-grey Dorking. 

This will be the first time we will ever have a hen hatch out chicks, which is really exciting! No worrying about temperature, humidity, turning, and all the constant checking. Talk about worry free, sort of. We will still need to keep an eye on Spice to make sure she continues to sit on the eggs and not give up half way through, or any other things that could go wrong. Crossing fingers!

Chicken updates

   

      It's been crazy here with chicks growing and waiting on more to hatch. While the first 8 have been enjoying their sandy brooder, they have been growing so much that now they almost have no more fluff. We have been keeping an eye on their combs to see which ones are roosters and I have a good feeling that we only have 1. Can you guess which one it is? With them growing so fast it is also getting harder to tell some apart.

     With it being warmer out, I decided it was time to let this young ones outside to have some fun in the sun. They loved playing in my flower bed of violas. It is kind of hard to see but there is 3 looking directly at the camera next to one another. It is still too cold to leave them outside at night. Yes, it still is cold here at night. It's been in the 40s, so I feel it is too cold for them. They chirp loudly even with the heat lamp off in the house that is 70 degrees. This does seem a tad odd to me as the other lot we hatched out ended up being outside with a surrogate hen.

Thumper is a Cochin who decided to go broody about the same time we started incubating these batch of chicks. We have never had a hen successfully hatch out chicks before or be broody at the same time we were hatching chicks until now. I read up on how to sneak them in to trick her into thinking they were hers. We were also concerned with how or if she would take to them. We moved her from our big coop a few days before the chicks were to hatch, into a smaller coop that would be big enough for the chicks to grow up some before venturing out into the run area. We also put golf balls under her so she would know she was sitting on something. The 1st night that the chicks hatched it was decided that we would put out 2 black star males. This way if we lost them it would not be a huge loss as roosters do not lay eggs, plus we do not need a bunch of rooster for our small flock. The little chicks were placed under her during the middle of the night, leaving the golf balls as we were going to add the rest if all went well. The next morning we checked and she was happily clucking about while they snuggled up under her warmth but darting out any chance they got. SUPER CUTE! We continued to check on her and the 2 chicks throughout the day and with everything going so well, we put the last of them out that night while it was still dark out. Out of 15 eggs only 8 survived. 3 Had hatched out but did not make it, 2 started to develop but stopped early on, and the last 2 were almost fully developed but for some reason just never hatched. Out of the 8 that survived; 4 are Rhode Island Reds, 2 males and 2 females, and the other 4 are Blackstars, 3 males and 1 female. I guess this was our karma for only having 1 male from the last batch we hatched out..lol Momma and babies are doing wonderful. We do check on them numerous times a day, daily. They run around peeping, while momma hen clucks at them and pecks at the feed and water to get them to eat and drink. I will say, it is nice having this batch of chicks outside already getting acclimated to the weather. I cannot wait for the older ones to finally be outside.

    After having this last batch hatch out I realized that even if we do hatch any more, we need a better set up for chicks. Especially if we get a larger incubator. Plus I had originally planned on hatching more chicks in August, but was worrying about the what if's, as in no one wanting chicks at that time due to it going to be getting colder. Something to think about that is for sure. 

Been 2 weeks already?

Seriously, where did the time go! It is hard to believe that it is already 2 weeks since our 8 little bundles of fluff came into this world. Each has it's own markings so we are able to tell them apart, sort of. The verdict is still out on whether or not who is male and who is female. Care to take a guess? Put your answers in the comments.

8 Easter Egger chicks at 2 weeks old.

Normally for a brooder we use whatever bedding material we have on hand, however this time we decided to go with sand. I personally still do not understand the difference between play sand and all the other types out there. We went with a commercial grade sand that was washed. The kids loved the fact that the chicks were getting a beach to play in. Using sand is definitely less dustier than other bedding material. The sand is also easy to keep clean as well, just scooping out all the tiny poop as needed.

I will be digging out our big coop and having sand brought in to fill it. We have a drainage problem, plus all the poop it just isn't very pleasant. We get a lot of rain here which does not help at all either. Having the sand should help plus the "girls" will be keeping their feet nice and clean. It will have to be sifted out which shouldn't be to hard to do. 

In other news, I finally mowed the yard for the 1st time this year. It looks so much better and I got a nice work out in the process. Our lawn tractor was having issues, which lead me to use our gas powered push mower. Took about 4 hours to get it all done, but all in all was worth it. Even got the strawberry patch half weeded. Never did get any mulch in, but it has been raining all week so we may not get it until we get some sun. That's all for now. Not sure what project we are gonna tackle next but as always, will keep you posted! 

17ft x 23ft Strawberry patch

Signs of life

 

  It's been a busy week with new chicks to take care of. They are such cute little balls of fluff and after a week already have feathers coming in. We still cannot tell which ones are boys and girls, but sometimes that is the fun of hatching eggs. I think it also makes it harder when we did different breeds. For instance, we did 2 Golden-laced Wyandotte eggs that were fertilized by our Ameraucana rooster, 1 of the chicks has dark legs and the other has light colored legs, other than that they are quite similar. Personally I think we have 3 girls and 5 boys or vice versa.

      We even started another clutch of eggs to hatch. These little ones will be Rhode Island Reds and Black Sexlinks.We were only able to put 15 in this time as 1 we found was cracked. We also moved the incubator into a different room since we had problems the last hatch with humidity. This room does not get much foot traffic and is on the opposite side of the house, so the room temperature is much different. The 18th day, which is the day we stop turning the eggs, is June 1st.

I also was able to take some pictures of some of the fruit trees and plants we are growing. We have many more plants and trees out there, but these were the ones I had taken recently. Already having fungus issues with our nectarine tree. We have never sprayed our trees until now. Hoping this fixes the problem and we do not have any issues with the other trees we have. I cannot believe out of all the kiwi starts we have at least 1 potential female plant that is rooting and possible 2 males, which are actually self-fertile plants but can be used in place of male kiwi plants to pollinate female kiwi plants. Our blueberries are doing wonderful! It's nice to see so many berries out there. This is our first year doing raspberry plants. We purchased the from a lady off of Craigslist and they will bear fruit this year, making it even more worth it! My new variety of strawberry plants have had flowers on them since April, but have finally fallen off and berries are starting to form on them. We have lots of plums in the making. However, the wild elderberry I tried to transplant did not make it. I should have left it until after it was done berrying and then transplanted it, but I was too inpatient. Hopefully it may come back next year, but if not there is still another one that I did not dig up that I might try moving making it easier accessible. Our pomegranates are still very tiny trees. We also have lots of jerusalem artichokes. I had thought I pulled all the rhizomes out and separated them evenly throughout all the buckets, but I found extras growing plus a few in the blueberry plants. We had decided not to do a garden this year with all the projects going on in the yard, however we ended up with some rogue potato plants coming up that we must have missed last fall and I will be doing some October beans. After our vacation this summer I may plant a few things that can tolerate the cold, but time will tell if that happens.

    I tried to do some weeding in the strawberry patch but haven't really had time, but I best get on it as I have 40 yards of mulch coming to help keep the weeds at bay. I wanted to weed as much as I could to make it easier to lay newspaper down before we lay the mulch over it. Yeah, I probably should have done this months ago.

     Eventually we will be cleaning up the area that will be our garden, laying cardboard down, compost, fertilizer, and mulch. Granted I won't need it all over the garden but plan to do the whole thing like that just to keep the weeds down so I can put in raised beds, trellises, and an area for plants that will get direct seeding. I still have yet to fence it off, but now that the brush is finally burned that will be happening soon I hope. As you can see the blackberry bushes are starting to grow back, plus I have some wild foxglove that I also need to move.





     I think that is all for now. After all the burning yesterday I am still exhausted. As always, will keep you posted with chick updates, incubating updates, and of course our yard updates. Feel free to subscribe and/or comment. Have a wonderful day!

Oh boy our eggs are hatching!

   

While incubating our 16 eggs we had a few bumps in the road. The Humidity we could not get right and water kept spilling everywhere, even getting some of the eggs wet. We finally manage to get things under control but got another hiccup when it came time to stop turning the eggs and increase humidity. We do not live in an area where we have a lot of humidity so increasing it is a huge problem. At a last ditch effort to save the hatch we plugged in a humidifier. I am not too concerned since the day after we stopped turning the eggs, we had 3 hatch out and another 5 on day 20. We did lose 1 that couldn't finish pecking its way out, she pulled her yolk sac out trying to peck her way out. As it turns out those last 7 never hatched. 4 didn't make it past a few days, 1 stopped midway through the incubation process, and the other 2 looked almost fully developed but for some reason did not make it.

    These little balls of fluff are so cute! We have 1 from Roo, 1 from Muffy, 2 from our golden laced Wyandotte, 1 from an Ancona, and 3 from our brown Leghorns. The one we lost was one of Muffy's and from the look of the comb it was a hen. So far by looking at combs, we have at least 3 roosters out of the 8 that hatched. Telling by combs is not a normal way to determine sex, however a few years back when we hatched out 14 chicks we could tell by the combs. I do not recommend this as an alternative to vent sexing or feather sexing.
     Hatching eggs is such an exciting thing. I was careful when collecting the eggs, making sure to mark with a pencil the date I picked it up and who laid it if I knew. I picked up eggs for 7 days and all eggs were unwashed and refrigerated until 24 hours before placing them in the incubator. I have heard that you should not do it this way, however it has worked for us. I recommend doing what is best for you and your situation. Most say to keep out at room temperature until ready to put in the incubator. My husband did the incubator part. He made sure it was cleaned, plugged in for a couple of days and ready to go for hatching these chicks. He also made sure to check temp and humidity throughout the time the eggs were in the incubator.
     I like this incubator we have, as we can do duck, turkey, chicken, and even quail eggs. That being said, I would like one that would hold more eggs so we don't have to do so many batches. For now I will have to settle for what we have until I can get some funds together. I would have already had it had I not spent it on an upgrade for the chicken coop. Decided that the nesting buckets we currently have are too much of a nuisance and wanted some external ones and build roosts for the chickens to sit on instead of sleeping in their nests.

     


 I had no idea how we were going to add external boxes onto our existing coop so I took to searching the Internet for help. I came across this one  http://www.thegardencoop.com/blog/2011/03/10/external-nest-box-plans/ , however I had to make some alterations due to the fact that I have a much bigger setup. We made it longer and added a 2nd tier to it. If I had to go back and redo it I would definitely make some changes. As it was I had to dig out some of the run in order to finish attaching the hinges for the bottom nesting box door. I also would probably make the whole back piece 1 piece and cut out the doors. Everything has its flaws and we shall see how this one works.

     Next up we are purchasing a chicken fountain from, http://chickenfountain.com/ so we will no longer have dirty waterers or the need to refill them since it will be hooked up to the garden hose. Plus I am going to be tilling up the run, digging it out and putting in sand. It always ends up super muddy in there when its wet out. Not a good thing for anyone checking for eggs or the chickens feet. Eventually we will be changing the layout of the run fencing, adding a roof that extends over the chicken coop and put up a rain barrel system to help with watering the garden and plants out in that area of the yard. So many things to do and they are not little things. I also would like to paint the chicken coop as well making it look prettier.


 That's all for now. Time to enjoy the rest of today, it being Mother's Day and all I want to wish all the mom's out there a Very Happy Mother's Day!

Replanting

Semi Dwarf Plum and Nectarine trees.

    We really love fruit here, so it makes perfect sense to add as many fruit trees, bushes and plants. Recently I purchased a dwarf plum tree and quickly replanted it into a bigger container, as the pot it was in was so small it was mostly root and very little dirt. I would have put it in the ground but we aren't quite sure as to where all these fruit trees are going and I do not want to have to dig them up later. Since I was doing some replanting I thought I'd better check on our cherry trees as well. Sure enough they needed to be replanted into bigger pots.

   I also had time to spread some viola seeds I collected from last year and spread them around the flower bed out front in the bare spaces. I started working again on the area in front of the house where we plan to put stairs in with a pathway. It is not an easy task with little ones running around, plus the rain.

While surveying the front yard area, I noticed some flowers among the wild blackberry bushes. Turns out it is red elderberry. I hope to cut back the blackberry bushes there so I can dig out the elderberry and move them to a more ideal location. Nothing like getting free fruit, thanks to the animal that dropped the seeds there.

Have you ever had ideas as to how you want your yard to look like but don't know where to start or even have a bunch of different projects going on at once? That's me! With all these things going on, I would really like to knock out 1 thing so I can be finished with it and move on to the next.

Oh, 1 last update... The eggs in the incubator are on day 9, we are half way there to lock down. Which reminds me I need to get the laundry room cleaned up so we have a place to put the brooder for the chicks. 

Chicken Eggs and incubation

1st egg from our Sicilian Buttercup Hen

 
   

      It always amazes me, when I pick up eggs from our hens, at how different they all can be. We get a variety of colors, as well as sizes. We have a few hens who lay some super jumbo eggs. We are talking they are so big they usually come in at 4 ounces, now that's a really big egg! Lately though most of our eggs are small/medium sized, except for the pip squeak one we got from our newly laying Sicilian Buttercup hen. Not much bigger than a quarter.







  To give you a better idea as to how small this egg is, here is a comparison of the various size eggs I get next to this tiny little egg. It looks so little next to all these other eggs.

      It will be awhile before we will ever be able to hatch her eggs, as our roosters are extremely bigger than our littlest hen. Until then though we do plan on hatching some eggs instead of buying chicks this year. We plan on doing 2 hatches.

  
     Our first hatch is going to be an Easter Egger batch. Breeding our rooster Curly with 5 different hens, 2 other Easter Eggers, Brown Leghorns, Anconas, and Golden-laced Wyandotte. Needless to say it will be an interesting batch of chicks and we cannot wait until these babies are peeping, but that won't be for at least 3 more weeks as we just started them in the incubator this morning. 

      

      We collected eggs over a period of a week. Each egg had the date and the hen/breed who laid it. Of all the eggs, we placed 5 from our EE hen "Roo" (far right), 4 from our other EE hen "Muff" (just left of Roo), 2 from our Golden-laced Wyandotte "Lacey", 3 from our Brown Leghorns, 2 from our Anconas. In total we were only able to place 16 eggs in our incubator. Hoping for some pretty birds and mostly hens at that. 

 Will keep you posted as how things go and of course the peeps when they hatch!

Progress...

   I finally made some progress with the blackberry removal along the property line where are extension for the garden will go. Most of it was already dead canes but still quite a few green ones. Even with wearing long sleeved coat and jeans, those thorns can be vicious!

    As you can see from the picture above there are some decent piles of the brush and different levels of dirt. As it turns out the height of the dirt at the base of the property fence in some areas is 2ft higher than the ground where the piles of cut brush sits. This in itself can be a problem but I have already decided on a solution. I plan on making a wood retaining wall about 2 feet away from the property line and back filling it with all the extra dirt. This will give me a raised bed where we plan on growing Jerusalem Artichokes and Mammoth Sunflowers. It will be, we think, 48 feet long by 2 feet wide by 2ft deep. Hoping to have the tree cut down, fence and T-post fixed, with the rest of the area cleaned up soon so that I can get started on that retaining wall.

     Some probably think I am crazy for taking out wild blackberry bushes but as you can see, this is what happens when you leave them unattended. We have chickens and they loved digging through the bushes to get all the bugs but alas because the property line fence was buried and damaged in a few spots, they kept escaping into the neighbors yard. We constructed a barrier fence of 3ft U-post and chicken wire to keep the chickens out until I could get rid of the brush. Between the property fence and the barrier fence is about 10-15ft. Who in their right mind would want to give up that much yard? Add on that it is at least 75ft long, that's a lot of gardening space!
     If you are going to keep wild blackberries or even growing other varieties, you should make sure to cut the dead growth and dispose of accordingly. The plants will be healthier and produce better berries if you upkeep them properly.
     I am so excited to be this far into this clean up project! It is not easy to take out these kind of bushes when they start flowering, which is why I took them out before that could happen. The goal for this project is to have everything cleared, fixed, cleaned up, and fenced with the retaining wall up by this fall.


If you would like to see what this area looked like before, you can check up my other 2 post: http://thebornehomestead.blogspot.com/2013/02/yard-clean-up.html  and http://thebornehomestead.blogspot.com/2013/02/yard-clean-up-continued.html

Spanish Tortilla

Spanish Tortilla with sausage

     My DH found this recipe for Spanish Tortilla in a magazine, where that recipe went I have no idea. We make it so much now that we have added our own twist to this simple recipe that consists of potatoes and eggs. 

     Spanish Tortilla with Sausage and Peppers

• Oil
• Yukon Gold Potatoes
• eggs
• sausage/ham/bacon*
• peppers/onions/mushrooms*
• cheese*

*(you can add however much of the items with the * or any other food you might want in your tortilla.)

 This recipe below is done up for 2 people but depending on how many potatoes, eggs, meat, veggies, and cheese you add it can be made to stretch for more people.

You will need to heat up enough oil in a frying pan/skillet (whatever you use to make scrambled eggs in) to cover the whole pan, on medium heat. While the oil is heating up, peel 1 medium potato and dice to the size of hash browns. Once oil is hot enough, add diced potatoes. You will need to cook these until tender, do not over brown. While the potatoes are cooking: scramble 4 large eggs, add to the egg mixture, 2 cooked sausage links that have been diced up (I use the precooked ones heated up in the microwave), and 1/4 cup of chopped peppers. After potatoes are cooked, remove from pan and let drain on paper towels. Reserve the oil to use for next step. Take drained potatoes and add to egg/meat/veggie mixture, stir. Add final mixture to remaining hot oil in heated pan and cook. Once it looks like it is almost cooked, then flip like a pancake and cook on other side. Depending on how much mixture you have, flipping can be tricky. I recommend if you are doubling the recipe or your mixture is almost double with what I have, then you will want to split the mixture in to 2 separate batches for cooking. 

I have done this with ham, bacon, and sausage. With peppers, cheese mixed in, and when we didn't mix  in the cheese we added it to the top when serving on plates. Choose whatever ingredients you like and create your own take on this simple recipe. If you have problems flipping or there is just too much in the pan, you can always just break it up and cook like you would scrambled eggs.

Warm weather makes for constant busyness

   

     It's been awhile since I last posted, due to being constantly busy. With Spring arriving, warm weather, conferences, and Spring Break chores around here have been slowly getting done. Of course with it being nice, we stopped at some nurseries to check out plants, trees, and bushes. Came home with more plants for the front yard and a bunch of seed packs. Cleaned up some more of the blackberry brush next to the property line in the back where the garden  is going and was able to burn a small portion of it. Still have over half left to pull out and move away from the property line so we can take out the tree that is growing through the fence. We did finally measure where the final garden will be, a whopping 34ft wide by 118ft long! We won't ever have to worry about not having enough room to grown everything we want, or at least I hope that is the case. However, so much more needs to be done before we can even start fencing it in and planting anything. Acquired some Stinging Nettle from a lady off of Craigslist, scored some really large pots from her as well. Finally dug up the holly bush that was growing in the yard and it's now in a pot since I cannot decide where it will go if I decide to keep it.
   

Since we have been busy with things around the house we decided to take a break and head off to Sequim, to the Olympic Game Farm. The kids had a blast feeding the animals and I got some pictures but realize that I definitely need to start shopping for a better lens.

Curly, our Ameraucana rooster.

 




   Now that things have cooled back off and the week is half over, it's time for us to get ready to start thinking about creating some hatching eggs. We currently have 3 roosters; a barn yard mix, a Rhode Island Red, and what we think is an Ameraucana rooster. We have a couple of Easter Egger hens that we would like to breed with the Ameraucana rooster. Then eventually do some sex-link chicks by crossing our Rhode Island Red rooster with our Barred Rock hens.

That's all for now. Hopefully soon I will be getting started on the Permaculture for the Blueberry plants, so I have something more informative to show you.

Adding fruit trees and bushes

     With our property very open, with no more standing large trees in the yard, we have plenty of room to add a small orchard and a bunch of berrying bushes to our yard. This is something I wish we would have done years ago but just now really started getting into "growing our own" food.
     Recently we bought 6 blueberry bushes, bare root stock that is 3 years old. We will see some berries on it but it will take a few more years before they are heavily covered in berries. We had already 2 Tophat variety and purchased 2 Jersey, 2 Toro, and 2 Bluecrop. The one we have and the Jersey are tiny berries, good for eating of course but also great for baking. If you ever baked with the big berries you know what I mean. They are messy, but the tiny ones work perfectly. The Toro and Bluecrop of large berries. We made sure to have 2 different varieties that flower at the same time to help with cross pollination. We were lucky enough to purchase them as bare roots from the nursery at the right time, as it was we got them half off. The lady had said, once they go into pots they double in price. We did pay a little more than I would have liked but I got to pick out the ones I wanted, plus I got to see the root system. I had no idea how to pick the "right kind" of plant and made sure to ask the man who helped me what to look for. He talked about how it is best to get plants that have a few canes as opposed to have only 1 or 2, lots of buds, and nice root system. I felt bad because I picked up just about everyone and gave it a good look over, but at least I know I got the best ones.
     I know where I am planting these, however there is so much that I need to do before I can plant them in their permanent spot, so for now they went into big black nursery pots that I acquired for free from the same nursery I purchased the plants at.
     I want to try a permaculture raised bed for the blueberry bushes from the pine tree we took out last fall. I was originally going to use it for raised beds along our property line but after reading what woods are best I nixed that idea and thought it would be best for the blueberries since pine is acidic and blueberries are acid loving plants.
     We also picked up a semi-dwarf, super sweet, nectarine tree. It is already taller than me and has lots of buds on it. I still need to put it in the ground but alas it is currently raining out, so it will have to wait.
     We bought a 4-1 pear tree and a 5-1 apple tree a few years back, but still haven't gotten fruit from them yet. 2 years ago we put in pomegranate, cherry trees, and pawpaw trees. These will take awhile also before we get fruit from them. That is the price for buying new plants as oppose to paying a lot more for ready to go trees. Plus we have Meeker raspberry canes that I purchased from a lady off of Craigslist, the Quinalt strawberries I planted last fall after taking out 4300 unknown strawberry plants, and rhubarb.I also have a fig tree and kiwi starts that a lady gave me.
     We plan on adding other fruits too, just haven't gotten that far yet.
    

Chickens vs Flying Predators

    

Some of our flock in July 2011

     We have had chickens for years and have been fortunate enough to not have many predators trying to snack on our chickens. Over the years though, we have notice an increase in incidences with predators the more we add to our flock. Plus with all the brush clearing I have been doing hasn't helped either, nor the 2 big pine trees coming down this past fall.

     I loved having a blank slate for a yard, however, with little to no hiding spots for the chickens, they become easy prey for the flying predators. I did do some research and found that depending on the flying predator they need a certain amount of space to land and take off. My hope is by adding more trees and bushes it will help deter the hawks and eagles while keeping our chickens safe from harm. The other plus side to having more trees and bushes, it provides not only shelter but food as well.

   Yesterday my chickens started cackling like crazy. Sometimes it is just hens making noise from laying or screaming at other hens to hurry up with the nest they are using, but there are times where you just know something isn't right. I grabbed my coat and ran out the backdoor, surveying the yard and sky. I did not see any feathers nor predator flying above, that is until my DH yelled out about the big bird hanging out in the trees in the back part of the yard. This bird took off and my word the span was massive! I guess it liked what it saw and decided to make a return trip today to snack on one of our hens. This time when I went out I did not notice any noise or chickens. I knew something was up, especially once I saw the big bald eagle taking flight from the back corner of the yard after sensing the jig was up.

    It is always sad one a chicken is taken, but it does happen. That is the price when you free range your chickens without providing adequate protection for them. Hence the fact that we are trying to fix that very problem. Obviously I still free range my chickens, but I always try to be aware of their cries or lack there of.

Homemade Beef and Bean Burritos

     My family loves eating the beef and bean burritos that we buy from the store, but I always wanted to make my own. Finding a good recipe was a must but also making sure the ingredients were to my family's taste. Turns out there are many recipes out there for such a thing. YIKES! I finally settled on this one http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Traditional-Beef-Burritos/Detail.aspx . I did do a few things differently, so I will post what I did below.

    The only drawback to making homemade beef and bean burritos, is that it is not very cost effective. It cost me almost twice as much as if I would have paid for the premade ones from the store for the same amount. The plus, we can customize to our liking, it is most likely better for us, and we know what is in it.

Homemade Beef and Bean Burritos

• 2lbs browned ground beef
• 2 14 ounce can re-fried beans 
• 1 cup mild taco sauce
• 1 tsp garlic salt
• 4 tsp chili powder
• 2 tsp cumin
• 24 pack of soft tortillas

While browning the meat I added salt and pepper to taste plus the garlic salt (since I didn't have any fresh garlic on hand). After browning the meat I added the chili powder and cumin, mixed it together, then added the re-fried beans, mixing again, and finishing up by adding the taco sauce and giving it one last mix. 

I scooped the meat mixture onto all 24 tortillas, I'd say about 1/2 cup worth, but I eyeballed it. Then I wrapped them up like you would a burrito and placed them on a cookie sheet to cool in the freezer. I should note that I should have placed them in the oven for 12 minutes at 375 degrees to cook the tortilla. By not doing it, when reheating I found the shell to be hard on the edges and super soft in the middle. Once frozen, I placed them in a freezer Ziploc bag to until someone wanted a snack. 

To reheat: for 1 frozen burrito, place on microwave safe plate and cook for 1 minute 15 secs. Time may be adjusted to your liking. Also recommend flipping the burrito over half way through to help it cook more evenly. 
for 2 frozen burritos, do the same for 1 however this time cook for 1 minute, turn over burritos and cook for an addition 1 minute and 15 seconds. Make sure to let cool for a few minutes as they will be super hot!
 

Valentine Seed Bombs

     As Valentines day was approaching my oldest daughter was unsure of what to hand out to her friends and teachers. We searched pinterest for ideas. We had found a cute fortune cookie http://www.designwashrinserepeat.com/2009/02/index.html but could not master how to fold it properly. We also found some seed tags http://www.hillcitybride.com/2010/11/diy-from-pulp-art-plantable-paper/  but figured the boys would not like them. Alas we decided to do traditional premade Valentines with rub on tattoos that she would hand out to her class, however her teacher and a few other staff members she still wanted to do something special. I showed her some seed bombs and also came across another pinterest post that showed relaxing bombs http://www.etsy.com/listing/122530703/seed-bombs-for-relaxation-herbal-teas? dressed up in a box like chocolates and it sparked an idea to do the same thing but with the seed bombs.

  Valentine Seed Bombs

 

First we had to gather our supplies to make our seed bombs. There were many directions out there on how to do this, but we decided to use what we had on hand. Dirt from our yard, peat moss, an ice cream bucket to mix everything in, seeds, an egg carton to put the balls in to dry, and some newspaper to protect the table.

 

We mixed equal parts dirt and peat moss in the bucket, add our seeds, and mixed in water to help keep the ball shape as the dirt and peat moss were a bit dry. Once the seed bombs were formed into balls they were placed in the egg carton to dry out for a few days. 

     While we waited for the seed bombs to dry out, we got busy making the boxes. I had some heavy duty card stock on hand that we used to make the boxes. We measured out equal squares along the entire sheet, then cut out a plus shape. We then folded on the creases and also made an addition crease to make the box fold onto itself. By doing it this way we saved on paper.

    After this was done, I gave them to my daughter to color. I went on to get the directions printed out. We took the left over pieces from card stock and used them to put the directions on, however to make them even prettier we added scrapbook paper over it, then pasted the directions on over the top of that.

    All that was left was to assemble the boxes. We used mini muffin holders to put the seed bombs in, then added the directions on top, then we wrapped the boxes up and tied with a ribbon. We also used scrap card stock and punched a hole in it as a name tag and strung it with the ribbon when we tied the bow. All that was left to do, was to hand them out to the lucky recipients and hope that they don't accidentally take a bite!

 

Yard Clean Up Continued...

    I am so very thankful that I cut back a very long section of blackberry bushes last year. It made digging up the fence so much easier and I finished it very quickly. Took me about 4 days to dig up the fence, only working 2-4 hours per day.

The view from the backyard looking toward the front yard along the property line where the fence got dug up.

    There is still a few things that need to be done. Cutting down the tree that is growing through the fence, pulling up all the T-post and resetting them, rehanging the fence on the post, and fixing a few holes in the fence. It would be easier to just replace it with new fence, but with money being a bit tight at the moment it will have to wait.

The tree growing through the holes in the fence and the fence cutting into the tree below that.

I do not really want to cut the tree down, but it already has cut marks in it from the fence and if the tree gets bigger it could break causing damage to the fence and our neighbors property. That is definitely something I really would like to avoid. I also need to do something with all this blackberry brush. Blackberry brush takes forever to decompose and I really would not like to have thorns in my compost. It would be easiest to burn it in 1 big pile, but we have a few people that live by us that do not like this plus we are in an area where we are not allowed to do this. My only other option is to slowly over the course of many days to use a burn barrel and burn it. Any thoughts?