New website

I started a website that has a blog built in, so I won't be keeping up with this one. You can now find me at www.flamingarrowfarm.com. See you there!

Update

It's been a LONG time since I've sat down to write here. I'm sorry! Things are moving along day by day here. Here's a quick snapshot update: Bees are doing good. We were able to harvest one box from them and still leave them with 2 full boxes of honey. They have an empty 3rd box on the hive for winter. I went back and forth on whether to leave it or not and figured, they don't get to make a tree smaller so I left it. The size of the hive has really shrunk since the height of the nectar flow. They are definitely preparing for winter. They have glued shut every little opening so I am not opening to disturb them. One window is still accessible so at least I can check on them that way. They were still flying about this morning, though I don't know where they are packing anything away in there. The pugs are doing well. Basil is currently in heat so we are keeping them separate the best we can. They have bested our efforts a couple times but I'm pretty sure we were able to catch them before anything happened. Twice I have had Barley with me in the goat area and turn around to find Basil with us. Sneaky little girl! Another time I locked Barley in the crate only to leave the house and get a call from Wolf a few minutes later that he just saw both of them run through the yard! Fingers crossed she isn't pregnant! There were a few days Barely was going absolutely nuts not being able to get to her. He has calmed back down a bit so hopefully she's on her way out of heat. The dang foxes have come back around a couple times looking for another meal so we decided to get a couple Livestock Guardian Dogs to protect our chickens. Lots of reading beforehand to make sure we knew what we were getting into. Glad I did the research! They are very different than a house dog. Of course, most of the info you find is for people who have herds of sheep or goats. Since we only have 2 goats and some chickens for them to guard (the cows and horses fend for themselves pretty well) our training situation is a little different and we don't subscribe to the non-socializing theories out there. We couldn't find any LGD here in CO so Wolf Pup (aka Little Owl) and I took a road trip to KS, OK, and TX. We came back with 4 dogs and 3 chickens. We sold one of the dogs and delivered the chickens to their owner. The other 3 pups are doing well so far. They are huge and so different than what I am used to for a puppy. They get excited but calm down really fast and just lay around. They are good with the chickens so far, only needing a reminder here and there, that they aren't toys. I'm sure they will continue needing to be reminded until they are grown, but overall it's nothing like the interest another dog would show. The calf, Little Man, has gotten pretty big already. He's only a few inches shorter than his mom. He is still very skittish and won't let us touch him much. I'm sure a lot of you already know about my adventure with Estelle (our cow). We needed to inseminate her so she can freshen for next year. To do this you need to give 2 shots 2 weeks apart and then load her in the trailer and take her to the vets office. I researched online and saw that the best place was the neck, but then the lady at the vet's office told me to do it in the buttocks. So when the time came I stood up by Estelle's head while she was eating, leaned over and stuck the HUGE needle right in her butt. She flipped around so fast and kicked me in the thigh so fast I didn't have time to react. She kicked so hard I fell backwards into the horses. Luckily they didn't kick even though I startled them pretty good. She also flipped so fast I couldn't pull the needle out of her. She wouldn't let us anywhere near her after that so the needle had to fall out on it's own. Unfortunately for me, I had to leave town on a work trip a few short hours after all this. My thigh was very swollen and started bruising immediately. Wolf figured out she ripped some of my muscle tissue there (quadricep contusion). I wasn't able to keep ice on it once I left home so it got pretty painful, especially when changing positions. Standing up and walking really hurt. It's been more than a month now and there is still some small lumps where the muscle is healing and the whole area is a grey color. There is also a big divet in my thigh. Before the next shot we built a milking stanchion to try to hold her so we wouldn't get killed. I made Wolf give her the next shot. I was having too much anxiety about it and didn't want her associating me with pain too much. He did it in the neck and while she freaked out she didn't kick anyone! The next adventure was getting her in the trailer to go to the vet. She did not want anything to do with it or our treats. It took Wolf and I 2 hours to finally get her in the trailer. It took 3 fences and an atv but we did it. Fingers crossed it took! The garden this year was atrocious. We got a few scrawny tomatoes, some teeny potatoes, a handful of baby eggplant, 1 cucumber, small onions, and 1 squash. We didn't get anything in the ground until late June. We had a very wet soggy spring and then a very dry summer. It was crazy weather. The good news: 1) I didn't amend the soil at all and things grew. That means next year when I do amend it should do great. 2) The hail netting I bought did a great job. It protected the plants from a couple hail storms beautifully. I think that's about it. One of these days I'll make some posts on individual things.

Puppy delivery adventure

Starting Saturday Basil stopped eating. I knew labor was eminent. She was acting uncomfortable. It took longer than I expected but around 8:30 on Sunday night I knew it was time. She was sitting on the couch with us and started nesting in the towel I had on the couch (it's been wet out so I'm trying to protect the couch from muddy paws). I told her, "let's go to bed." She jumped down and ran to her fenced off spot. She started nesting right away and wouldn't let me leave her side. If I left to go get anything she went to the gate and stood there staring at me whining. Last time her labor progressed smoothly. She had her puppies anywhere from an hour to 15 min apart. I expected similar this time. Boy was I wrong! The first puppy came at 9:30. He came out without a sac and his umbilical cord pulled off the placenta on his way out. 

First born

 He became cold really quick. I think he didn't get his last boost from the placenta. I held him but my hands are never warm enough so I put him on a microwavable heat pad. That still didn't seem to do the trick so I gave him to Greg. He put him under his shirt and warmed him. Eventually he had to go to bed so I put him on my stomach then got the heating pad in front of the space heater, and wrapped him in a hand towel on that. He finally stayed warm! 

Snug as a pug in a rug

During all this I kept expecting Basil to have another contraction and expel the rest of the sac and placenta. After about 30 min of waiting for that I decided to help her out. I took a washcloth and grabbed the little bit that was hanging out and pulled. Luckily, it came right out. 

Bit of sac hanging out

I expected the next puppy before 10:30. Around midnight I was getting worried. Got on the internet and found that up to 4 hours can pass between puppies and as long as momma doesn't seem uncomfortable or straining for long periods, all should be good. Around 1:15 I hit the internet again and found that low calcium and/or glucose can cause a stall in labor. Thanks to someone online for the suggestion to feed momma a bit of ice cream. Of course normally this would not be fed to my dogs, but under these circumstances, I didn't think a little would hurt. Luckily we had about 2tbls left of some all natural vanilla ice cream. I gave her about 1tbls of it and she gobbled it down. Within 5 min we had a second puppy. I don't know if it was the cold, the sugar, the calcium, or just a coincidence but I was happy. This second puppy also came outside of the sac and was hanging from her for a little bit by it's umbilical cord. 

Hanging puppy

I tried to hold the puppy up to help her but she kept spinning and sitting so I wasn't much help. Eventually the cord ripped and I was really worried it was going to hurt the puppy. It did look like it pulled quite a bit away from the body but hopefully all that will result it an outie belly button. I had to help her pass the placenta again. Luckily this one didn't have the cold problem since I had a nice warm spot with a sibling to cuddle up with. 

 Around 2:30 I again started getting worried. While I had found that 4 hours could pass, I also saw a lot of references to 2 hours being the max and after that to get your dog to a vet asap because the puppies could be in distress or start to die. I tried the ice cream trick again. It seemed to give her one contraction but then nothing. By 3:00 I was giving her a 15 min count down. At 3:15 there was still no sign of anything so I loaded her and the 2 puppies into the car. As soon as she got in the car, the garage door hadn't even finished shutting yet, she started acting like she was having contractions. I didn't really want her having puppies on my car seat so I brought her back inside. She ran out and pooped instead. Then just sat there like nothing was happening. I gave her 10 more minutes then loaded everyone back up in the car. The emergency vet is 30 min away and she acted like she was having contractions often, but no puppy. We made it to the vet, got inside, did the standard vital check and history, and they took her back for xrays to make sure no one was stuck. As the tech carries her back into the room Basil yelps and a puppy drops right there onto the floor. Luckily its fall was broken by the tech's shoe! It was quite a surprise for all of us. She wasn't whining or acting like she was in labor at all. 

Cleaning her first hospital puppy

 The xrays came back clear but they were surprised to see so many still inside of her. 

Next they did some blood work to see how her calcium and glucose levels were. While they were waiting for those results to come back they gave her a shot of oxytocin to try to speed things up. Withing 30 min of that shot the next puppy arrived. Again with no real sign of labor. Basil was just sitting calmly next to me, then yelped and there was a puppy. 

They setup 3 IV bags full of warm water covered by a towel to keep the puppies warm. But eventually we had too many puppies and they brought in a warm water mat and made a new bed for them. 

Sharing the warm water bed with her puppies

The blood tests came back normal. The next puppy arrived 12 min later. Each time a puppy came Basil would yelp and the vet would hear it and know to come check on her. That left us waiting on three puppies. Around 30 min in the vet wanted to do an ultrasound to make sure the last 3 weren't stressing since they had been in there so long. As the vet tech comes in to get her Basil stands up and drops another puppy. At this point I'm thinking an ultrasound isn't necessary since only two puppies are left but after 15 min and no more puppies they take her back to do the ultrasound. The cynical me is thinking this is just for more money at this point but I can't really argue since their argument is that the puppies have been in there for over 9 hours since labor started. While she is back there I hear a yelp and am not surprised when the door opens and the vet comes in carrying a puppy. She said the one that was just born had a slow heart rate but the last one looked good. It didn't take too long for the last puppy to come. 

Cleaning the last puppy

After 10 hours we were finally able to call it a night. Needless to say Basil and I are exhausted!

On the ride home. 

Bees!

Warre (war-ay) hive

While I've had my hive done for awhile now (pictured above), yesterday began my bee adventure in earnest. In the morning I picked up 3 packages of bees, 1 for me and 2 for friends. It was an interesting experience to have something in the back of your car humming.  I forgot to take a picture so the one below is courtesy of my friend Kelly after she picked her bees up from me. 

I also have no pictures from the installation. I didn't have nearly as easy an installation as Kelly and wasn't organized enough to have my camera somewhere it could record for me. 

Last week my research on installing and taking care of the bees picked up some momentum. I received a couple good bee books as presents from my parents and have been reading those all winter, but while they taught me a lot about bees in general, they had little to say about the warre hive. Since it is different than the standard Langstroth or even Top Bar (what Kelly has) I had to do some additional research. First thing I realized was I wasn't nearly as prepared as I thought I was. I realized in my reading that I was going to need another box. Even though all the kits you buy and most of the pictures you see about the warre only show 2 boxes, I learned it's better to give them the third right away so if they need it it's there without you having to constantly monitor them and then try to lift the whole hive to put another box on the bottom (since warre hives build from the top down). So I ordered another box and paid for 3 day delivery so it would get here before my bees did. Unfortunately the company had a backlog and didn't get the box sent out for 6 days. I complained and they refunded my shipping price but that doesn't help that the box won't get here until tomorrow. So we'll have to deal with that next week. 

I also didn't know until last week that I was going to need to feed my bees for awhile after installing them. I chose the warre hive because it suits my hands off approach and I just assumed since I was going to let nature take it's course, I wouldn't need to worry about feeding unless we had a bad season and they didn't have enough stores going into winter. Well, after reading I realized that there's no way they'd have the energy to make a successful hive if I didn't feed them. One problem with that, the warre hive does not lend itself nicely to feeding. The langstroth and even the top bar have a couple of options but the most popular option I saw for the warre involved an extra box and a homemade feeder. I'm ok with the homemade feeder but my extra box was nonexistent at this point. Then someone posted on the warre facebook group about their baggie feeder. She was asking about ants but just happen to mention the feeder. That led me to find an easy and cheap way to feed the hive. I needed to make a 3" spacer box though. Luckily I had a spare piece of 1x3 from an unknown project sitting in the garage. I did some quick measurements and horrible cuts. It is more difficult that Wolf makes it look to use a circular saw with no one holding the wood for you and no table to put anything on! My cuts were horrible and the resulting box sits crooked but hopefully it will do the job. What are you going to do when you figure this out the night before your bees come and you don't have help? This crooked spacer sits on top of the top box and then inside that you put a baggie of sugar water on top of the bars. I found someone that talked about a sugar slurry and after looking into it I liked that idea a lot better. Trying to work with a baggie of liquid and then cut holes in it while it's sitting on the hive didn't sound fun to me. With the slurry I cut the holes before going out there and I could easily  move it without the sugar spilling all over the place, so when I was putting the hive back together after installation, throwing the bag on there didn't take up any time. 

Now that I had figured out the food and watched a bunch of videos on installing the bees, I felt pretty confident. My next step the following morning was to get the site I was going to install the bees setup. Wolf didn't want them to close to the house, understandably. I had always planned on putting them in the corner of the front yard, under the tree, facing the pasture. Problem is the ground there is not level in 2 directions. It took me awhile to find a fairly level spot and then use cardboard to level out each leg until the table sat level. 

Once that was done I was ready to install. I got my spray bottle of sugar water ready, a bee brush, and my bee hat. Taking out the queen went pretty well. There were more bees than I expected still stuck to the bottom of the feeder can, but I just set it on it's side and covered the hole on the package. I replaced the cork in the queen cage with a piece of marshmallow. I really wish this company used a candy plug, pulling the cork and getting the marshmallow in there without letting the queen escape was a little nerve racking. She wanted out! 

I placed the queen inside the hive and as much as I hated it, I had to thump the package to get the bees loose to pour them into the hive. I didn't do it as much as others I watched and I didn't worry about emptying the package completely. I just got as many as I could out, set the package by the entrance, and put everything back together. While putting everything back together I realized wearing jeans with baggy bottom cuffs and sneakers wasn't the best choice. I had a lot of bees climbing all over my shoes and inevitably up my pant leg. Understandably one stung me when it got stuck too high. I wasn't mad at the bee, in fact I felt sorry for it since it just gave it's life to defend itself against fabric. I was mad at myself for not thinking about at least wearing boots. 

Bee sting on my leg that night.

The bees climbing up my pant leg distracted me and I made a few silly mistakes. First I put the top of the hive on backwards, then the very top was crooked, then I left my tools near the hive. Eventually I got it all settled and was happy.  

While all this was going on the dogs were of course hanging out nearby. Apparently a big black dog is a threat to bees even when they don't have a hive to protect. Once the bees were set free a few of them went straight for Jasmine. I told her to go inside and once she was about 15ft away she realized that was far enough to be out of the danger zone and watched from their the rest of the time. Poor thing. 

After the bees were installed, my friend and I (she came to watch me before installing her bees) were talking on the other side of the house. Jasmine was suddenly going crazy and there were a couple bees buzzing her. I told her to go inside and she gladly did. Then the bee turned it's attention on me. I don't mind a bee buzzing around me but this one got stuck in my hair. I got it out and it came right back. This time as I was trying to get it out, it went down the back of my shirt! I don't think there's a way to safely get a bee out of your shirt without it feeling in danger and stinging. I ended up having to rip my jacket and shirt off right there in the driveway, and it still got caught in my hair on the way out. Standing in the driveway in my bra tying to get a bee out of my hair.. probably pretty safe to say it was not the experience my friend nor I expected to have that day. Yes, it stung my back and I had to pull the stinger out. When a bee dies attacking something it releases pheromones that bring other bees around to defend whatever the attack was. At this point my friend and I retreated to the safety of the house and I steered clear of the yard for a few hours. When I went back later that afternoon the package was empty and there were only a few bees on the outside of the hive. 

It stormed last night and was drizzling this morning. A good time to take a peak inside the observation window since none of them would be outside the hive. Here is what I saw

In the bottom photo you can see them covering the queen and hopefully they are building comb in at the top. Let the adventure begin!

Spring building

It was a productive day today. First we split the main run (the metal pole by the black dish is the new fence line) to give the breeding pens that are soon to come more run space. Then we added a bunch of roosts to each run so they have more areas to explore and get off the ground when it's muddy.

New fence and start of roosts

Carter checking out the new vantage point.

While we were building in the coop Estelle had to come check it out to make sure we weren't doing anything wrong. She has often stood at the outside of the run and looked in like she wanted in. I guess she couldn't pass up the opportunity of the gate being open.

Supervisor visit

Our next project was giving Estelle an area where she could have access to pasture without giving the goats the same access, but still be able to get her back to the stall for morning milkings. Here is the final result. The fence used to continue from the gate to the stall separating the horses from the cow. We moved the fence to the other side of the barn, adding the stall to the pasture and separating the goats to their own area. The board across the opening keeps the horses out of the cow area but lets the cow come and go as she pleases. The goats are going to miss their stall but they had pretty much already lost it to Estelle. They went back to sleeping under the tack room. They also have a large dog house full of straw. That might get moved to the meat bird pen eventually though. If so, we'll need to figure out something else for them. 

Next task is to add a mini stall in the stall for a calf. Since we aren't going to bottle feed or take the calf off Estelle, we will need to lock up the calf separate but near Estelle during the night. Once we milk her in the morning we will let the calf out to spend the day with mom.

Getting ready for spring

My winter checklist helped me stay on task and not forget an important project. And who doesn't like crossing off things on a list? Makes me feel productive to watch my list shrink.
So here is my getting ready for spring list:

1) Prune fruit trees - boy do I not look forward to this. Not only do I not know what I'm doing, I have a hard time cutting away something that has buds on it! But I've learned that it is healthier for the tree and produces a better harvest, so I'm going to be harsh and prune away this year!
Done! I prepped myself by watching a lot of videos. I had already read quite a few books and articles but felt like I really needed to see it in person with a real tree. It helped a lot. I had a hard time following what is suggested since my trees are already about 2-3 years old (they were ~4ft tall when I bought them) and they did not grow in ways that lent themselves to good pruning. But I'm proud of myself and think they'll do fairly well this year. Next time I by trees (maybe this year?) I'll know what to look for to start with!

2) Paint and place bee hive outside
Beehive is painted. Now we just need to find a table for it outside.

3) Deep clean of chicken coops. This needs to be done just before the garden prep because I want to incorporate all the old litter into the garden.

4) Till and level garden area. I know there are some no-till people out there, but where I want to garden is currently grass, so it's definitely getting tilled! I don't think I will till after that though since I"ll be planting in beds I'd like to keep in place instead of rows and areas I can start fresh from each year.

5) Divide breeding coop
This is half done. We got the outside run split. Just waiting on my friend's chickens to go and we'll separate the inside. 

6) Build broiler pen

7) Buy remaining plants needed (blueberry, raspberry, grape, onions, shallots, asparagus, potatoes, strawberries, corn, sweet potatoes, and sage)

8) Get brooders setup
This is mostly done. Just need to drill a hole for 1 waterer and find the last brooder which I think is hiding in Little Owl's room. 

9) Get calf stall and milking area ready
 Thanks to Wolf's great idea and help, we got the cow area separated in a way that she can now get out onto the back pasture with the horses, keep the goats in their area, and keep the horses out of the cow area. Hopefully next weekend we'll get the calf area built.


I'm sure there's more, I'll add to this as I think of them. Spring is a lot busier prep time than winter!

Meet Estelle!

Estelle

When I first started researching having a dairy cow at home I stumbled across Dexter cows and fell in love. They seemed to be the perfect cow for our homestead. They are naturally small (rather than a bred down miniature of a full size breed), have a gentle personality, aren't known to be fence pushers (a good thing since we only have a 3 wire fence around our pasture), produce a high butterfat milk (about 1 1/2 - 2 gal a day), don't need as much food, and are also really tasty as beef cows.
I've been keeping my eye on craigslist for them ever since I got interested in them just to see what they went for and how often they popped up around here. I also looked into breeders so I'd have an idea where to go if I couldn't find one on craigslist when the time came. As I posted before I had come to the conclusion that the cow was going to have to wait. I was thinking about where would we milk it, where would we keep the calf, what shelter would it use, etc and it just got overwhelming. I mentioned to Wolf that it was going to have to wait and listed the reasons and he said that shouldn't be a big deal and started listing off answers to my worries. As I have a habit of, I was perusing the farm ads on craigslist, just to see what's out there of course, and saw a dexter here and there going for $3000-5000! And some of those weren't even bred! That's WAY out of our price range. We're not looking for award winning here, just a nice family cow. Then the week before last I came across an ad for someone downsizing their Dexter herd to focus on their heritage pigs. She had a 3 and a 7 yr old cow that were both pregnant for sale. She wanted the exact price I had budgeted and set aside ($1200). I couldn't pass it up. Little Owl and I went out to visit them and they were very sweet and mellow. Even their bull just hung out next to us wanting scratches. We decided on the 3 year old.

Today we went to pick her up and bring her home. She loaded beautifully into the trailer with a little grain incentive. She did a MUCH better job than our horse, Nevita, did! When we got home we opened the trailer and she walked out and after a few seconds of looking around, she decided to walk into the area we wanted her in. We have her in the goat area for now (the goats are locked in a smaller subsection of their area for the day). She's obviously not fully comfortable or relaxed yet but that's understandable. All the neighbors horses had to come running and converse with our horses about the new animal.

She's due to calve in late April / early May so stay tuned! Our next step after she's a little more comfortable is to halter train her. We need a way to let her on pasture yet bring her in at night so we can milk in the morning. I don't think we'll have a problem with it, she's pretty mellow, but who knows. Wish us luck!

Cow!

Ok, so of course right after I post that the cow is on hold, I'm perusing the Farm ads on craigslist and up pops an ad for the type of cow we want (they are hard to find). The lady has 2 cows that are both pregnant. She is asking a good price for them. In fact it is what I had hoped to pay but lately I'd been seeing them for more than triple that price (one reason I thought it was on hold). Alanna and I went to meet them today and loved the 3 year old. She was so sweet. All of her cows just hung out around us letting us scratch them, even her bull. This cow has never been milked but she let me touch her teats and just turned around to look at me. I think she'll do well with a little practice. And finding a pregnant one is awesome! That means we'll be in milk in a couple short months! :) I won't be picking her up for at least a week and only if the ground has dried out more. I got stuck in the lady's driveway today! lol I will post a pic of her when we get her.

Store

We have a real store now! It's still being completed but it's better than it was. :)

Cooking - fried pickles,, gyros, and mushroom tart

It's been a long time since I've been in the mood to cook real meals but feel like I should be. So this week I got on my recipe board on Pinterest and started browsing. No one else was home so it was only my opinion that counted. I picked a couple things that looked good and went shopping.

Here's what I've tried and my reviews of them:

First: Fried Pickles. We tried some fried pickles for the first time on vacation in FL at a bowling alley in Downtown Disney. Everyone that tried them really liked them. They were crunchy and had a nice dill flavor. Since then I've tried them 3-4 other times and most were soggy with no dill flavor. One at a brewery in Omaha came pretty close though. So I decided to try making my own.
This is the recipe I picked because it said crispy.

Recipe photo

My pickles

I bought Vlassen whole dill pickles and cut them myself because I love how crunchy they are.
The result? Hmm. Mixed feelings about this. The breading was one of the better fried batters I've had. It stuck to the pickle nicely, it cooked evenly (no spots of gooey batter left), and was crispy. It could've used a little more salt but the main problem was it clung to the pickles too thickly. It ruined my pickle/batter ratio. Second problem was the pickles lost all their dill flavor in cooking. I'm not sure if this was the type of pickle or if I just needed to cut them thicker. I cut them about the width shown in the picture. I might try again with thicker pickle slices, thinning the batter, or different pickles (or a combination of these).


Next for dinner I picked Gryos for Little Owl. She swears she was Greek in another life. She loves everything Greek. Here is the recipe I used for the chicken/tzatziki and I made homemade pitas with this recipe.


The result? To die for! We all absolutely loved them. The seasoning on the chicken was delicious and blended perfectly with the tzatziki. And the bread, Wow! We will be using these recipes again and again for sure! The pita recipe would be good as a naan substitute or even pizza crust. I'm sorry I have no pictures of my own to share, we were too busy eating.

Mine

Today for lunch I made this mushroom tart for myself.

Recipe photo

I'm sure you'll see there's quite a bit of difference here. First I don't have a tart pan so I couldn't make it that cool shape. Next I didn't put the mushrooms on top to make it pretty. And third, mine isn't as browned. I am glad I pulled it out when I did though because the bottom was getting too dark. I wish I could've cooked it for just a bit longer to really brown the top, maybe next time I'll turn the broiler on at the end for a few seconds. 

Yes, there will be a next time. This is delicious! Creamy, mushroomy, and plenty of wine flavor. I probably won't be hungry for dinner tonight since I have a feeling I'll eat this entire thing by myself! Oh well, good thing I marinated an extra chicken breast last night. Wolf can have that with the tzatziki left overs (there are no pita left overs!). Little Owl will probably be sleeping through dinner since she was up ALL night with a stomach ache, so I won't have to worry about her. I'm happy to just eat my mushroom tart. :)

Tomorrow I'll hope to make one of these:

Indian Butter Chicken

Pad Thai

       

Another webcam

I just added the link for the camera that is outside in the goat area. They have a large area and the camera only sees a small part of it so you may not always see them. I try to leave it pointed at their favorite sunning spot, right in front of the chicken run. If the weather is nice you'll probably get to see a chicken or two out in the run too. You can always find the link of the right hand side of the page but here it is also.

Seeds started

A lot of friends have already started their seeds and made me feel like I was slacking. So I had to get moving and get some started myself. This year I'm trying juice containers (and a couple milk containers) as mini greenhouses to start the seeds in. I liked how the juice containers protected my tomatoes last summer. I'm hoping these will work for seeds as well. Right now I have them in my kitchen window but once this latest storm passes, I'm going to move them to the front porch.

Fermented Feed feeder

I saw on BYC someone made a feeder for fermented feed. I thought I'd give it a try so I don't have to scoop it out into feed dishes every morning. After reading what went wrong for them I made a few changes.

I bought 2" pvc pieces with adapters to make the ends threaded. The threaded part didn't matter I just wanted something smooth to push through the hole then connect the pvc pipes to. Then I didn't have to worry about sealing as much hole, just a small crack around the pipe. 

I did 3 pipes to feed ~15 chickens. I'm waiting for it all to dry overnight then I'll test it out. 

Here are the pieces I bought:

They fit together like this.

Cut the holes (used an old cat litter container). You can see my hole saw was a little too small for the pvc so I used my dremel to finish off the circle. Caused it to not be perfect, but I think the caulk will fill in the little spots just fine.

With the small pieces in place and caulked: 

All together. 

I also bought little caps that fit inside but aren't air tight to put on if the mice are a problem:

I might also add a fermenting air lock to let the gas escape without having to crack the lid. The lids on the cat litter container aren't very air tight though so this may not be needed. I'm going to leave it off for now and see how it goes. 

Chicks for sale!

I posted our list of breeds we'll have for sale this spring on our For Sale page. Check it out and reserve yours today!

Major setback

I've been promising a post about this but just haven't felt like writing about it again. This post won't be about the details of the event, but more about the aftermath. If you don't know what I'm talking about or you haven't seen the details/pics, go here.

It's been pretty emotionally draining. Little Owl cried the first night and had to go to a friend's house to stay for awhile. She took it hard. It was a good chance to talk about seeing the silver lining and how to get past the inevitable crap that happens in life.
Our silver linings in no particular order:
1) we didn't lose our whole house to a fire or tornado like others have
2) we didn't have any major belongings in the path of the water
3) we hadn't completed the work we were in the process of planning, so we don't need to see all our hard work be destroyed
4) none of our animals were hurt
5) we have good insurance

The draining parts:
1) we can't sleep in our bedroom until everything is dry and the fans and plastic curtains are removed.
2) trying to figure out how to keep this from happening again
3) figuring out where we can save money by doing work ourselves
4) figuring out where it's worth doing work ourselves ;)
5) figuring out how we're going to pay bills and send Wolf to training to get a better job
6) making decorating decisions (fun but stressful too)
7) waiting for information to make decisions

Overall it really makes you appreciate people that go through major disasters. The feeling of loss coupled with the possibility of a new beginning is amazing. I'm really hopeful we can make everything work so that we can make it a useful spot for the homesteading movement.