The big dream: many acres of land with a large log cabin home, orchard, winemaking, beer making, garden, huge fenced in areas for the dogs to run, and a barn full of animals–chickens, ducks, turkeys, maybe even a few pheasants or quail (separated from everything else), goats, sheep, horses, cows, bees, and maybe even pigs. … Continue reading From Dreams to Fruit Bushes
However the frost and freezing at the end of April resulting in, most likely, the death of not only our 1 red pepper plant but all 7 of our tomato plants… that bothers me quite a bit. This weekend I’ve had to go it alone, so to speak, while Troy is away at drill. That … Continue reading The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway
In this case, a couple really good rainfalls were just what we needed! The ducks had a blast splashing around in all the puddles that accumulated in the run. Nothing real surprising there, right? Two of our tomato plants now have flowers growing already and they are all growing bigger and taller. No flowers on … Continue reading A Little Rain Must Fall
Our chick babies are now 2 weeks old and getting more chatty. They are starting to chirp and peep early every morning as a good morning reminder as well as any time their food or water starts to get low. The babies are also beginning to fly all around. As soon as I take the … Continue reading The End of Vacation Days
So how would we spend a day of our vacation but to begin planting our garden? Is that really any surprise to anyone? Troy had been drawing up the plans since the first snowfall. Naturally that made about 5 drafts. However, this version was too small. Therefore Lana’s large princess coloring book was re-purposed for … Continue reading Building a Permanent Garden
I have discovered within the past year, and particularly within the last 6 months, that Troy and I raise remarkably fat chickens. All of our year old chickens are between 6-10lbs. Not too shabby. Our little ones are not even all completely feathered and they’re already starting to look chunky. Since we have been on … Continue reading Chickie Babies
So all of our little ones are now outside in the coop and we’ve lost three. Billi Jean is alone living in our basement. The kids and I go to visit Troy at work and he mentions that the farm store down the street has wyandottes. I’d seen them there before, but we’d had no … Continue reading Empty Nest Syndrome
While last year we waited until at least mid-May to put the baby chicks outside, mostly due to necessary construction of the coop, this year we knew it would not be as long. Part of this was due purely to the fact that we had significantly more chicks. There was no way we could possibly … Continue reading Introduction to the Flock
So March 2015 marked our second chick days. After all the excitement on my birthday, I was eager to expand our flock this year. I wanted to make up for the ones we’d lost on top of simply expanding. We had magazines and websites full of different chick breeds. I was fascinated by the pretty … Continue reading Chick Days (Take 2)
As previously mentioned, last year on Easter we planted our garden and I ended up with a tetanus scare due to a rusty nail going straight through my muck boot into the bottom of my foot, a sunburn, and feeling dehydrated. This year Bryn, the youngest daughter, and myself woke up with some kind of … Continue reading Easter
chickensandtomatoes 