Catch up

Dec22

I wrote this a week ago and never hit post. I have been inspired by another blogger to do weekly updates, so this week you get a two for one deal!

Weekly update, even though for us this is really a monthly update, maybe even bimonthly update! I know eventually my life will slow down and I will be blogging more, now is just not that time. So let’s catch up

The meat birds…
The meat birds are ready to go to slaughter any day now. We learned a very important lesson, do not plan on having your meat birds slaughtered during deer season. All of the small scale processors in this area are processing deer this time of year. They have no time to process our chickens. The birds that we choose to raise this time around are ready to be processed between 12 and 15 weeks. They are ready now, if we wait too long the meat will become chewy and we do not want to see all out hard work be for not. If I can not find someone to butcher them this week, we will have a butchering party a get it done in an afternoon. Hopefully that will be this week.

The laying hens.
We have now have 20 hens. Eight of them are not mature enough to start laying yet. We get on average about 11 eggs a day. We have some consistent customers so eggs don’t gather in my refrigerator for very long. We have had some cold weather this week and some snow, the chickens have done pretty well. We have been feeding them some freezer burned veggies (note to self do not use cheap freezer bags) and food scraps to keep them busy. They also love cracked corn, shelled sunflower seeds and flax.

Our rabbits.
We now have two senior bucks and 2 senior does, all with different blood lines!!! This makes us very happy because that means we can now sell mating trio’s and pairs. We are doing our part to save this amazing breed! We have Jr does that will be ready to breed around Christmas and other Jr does and bucks that are ready to sell.
Our two senior does both kindled this week. Bella is doing great and had a litter of 7. Aurora who is normally our great mommy did not have a very good week. She kindled 7 kits all together with one being stillborn. Over the last couple days four more kits have died. We have no idea why. It was cold this week but the other mama and babies were in the same barn and did fine. We know some of them got to cold because she removed them from the nest but no idea why she would do that. We are very upset by this and feel like we have failed these poor babies. I hope that it is not something that happens again.

Aquaponics system.
Most of our plants froze. We have since put a light in the greenhouse that keeps everything above freezing. We are hoping to start seeds this week, but with everything else going on, that might just be wishful thinking. This year with the system has been such a learning experience and I honestly am enjoying every minute.

Well that is what is happening on your backyard farm. I hope everyone has a good week and I hope to post again next week.

Chicken Tractor- Meat birds

Oct3

So we decided to raise more meat birds. The did a group of 15 in the late winter and the spring. They turned out really well, and we have been enjoying them. It is true what they say, it tastes so much better when you raise it yourself. My husband says, “You can not buy chicken that good at any price in the store”. Even though, we calculated that our birds cost about $10 for a 5 pound roasting chicken. Not bad in my book and cheaper than the store!

We recently ordered 24 slow growing cornish rock. These birds take about 10 weeks to grow to roaster size, between 4 and 5 pounds a piece. We decided to go with slow growers because watching the fast growing cornish rock birds grow was freakish. The grow so fast they can hardly move. We wanted birds that were able to forage and scratch and be more bird like. I found the slow growing meat birds at the Welp Hatchery. We have had them for about 3 and half weeks and we have already noticed a big difference between them and the fast growers. These are much more chicken like. They like to scratch and roost. They are very active, enjoy worms and fly larva from the compost pile, which is great because it saves money on feed costs. We are even feeding them hay and they enjoy that. The meat bird we raise at the end of winter did not do anything. They just laid around all day. You could tell that all of their energy went to just growing.

The slow growers are also able to be kept outside, which is another reason we wanted to raise them. We were able to raise the other meat birds in our garage and it worked, but it was very dusty and to be honest with you at the end of the 8 weeks I could not stand the smell anymore. This go around we wanted to keep them in the back yard. My husband built a simple chicken tractor using 2×4’s, chicken wire and a dumpster bag for a roof.

The chickens were inside the house for about a week, then they moved to an empty rabbit cage in the bunny barn and finally they have been put outside for over a week. At night, we pull the dumpster bag down so it covers the sides and we turn on a heat lamp. During the day we open the sides so that they can get fresh air. We move the tractor every couple of days so that they can get new grass to eat and new dirt to dig in. We still use some bedding but not as much as we did before. Our back yard does not have the best soil quality, in fact it is all construction fill dirt, and there is almost no soil at all. After we move the chicken tractor we are planting grass seed in the bedding and covering it with straw. The only problem with this plan is when we let our laying hens out in the afternoon they are eating all our grass seed. But either way, we are still creating more soil and increasing our ability to hopefully grow grass in the future. Right now we have more weeds than grass.

It is hard to believe that these birds have already been here for more than three weeks and that they go to be processed in less than 7 weeks. It is pretty cool that I have not bought chicken from the store in 9 months and we hope to never have to again! Next fall I might even be able to convince my husband to let me raise our Thanksgiving and Christmas turkey!!! That would be so cool!

Days old

Week 1

Week 2

Our chicken tractor and the birds at 3 weeks! They grow quick!!

Broody Hen

Oct3

Fall is the time of year for changing of leaves, harvesting, splitting wood, pumpkin everything, and baby chicks! Most people do not think of baby chicks when they think of fall and honestly until this year I have not either. It all started when we had a hen that decided she wanted to be a momma. She would gather all the eggs from the day and sit on them. She would get oh so very mad when we would try and take them away. My son called her “beach ball” because she would puff up so big when you opened the door to get the eggs. We have never had a broody hen before, so we really did not know what to expect or what to do with her. We decided at first to just ignore her, I mean really how long could this last. Well the days turned into weeks and she still was adamant about sitting on those eggs. I will get back to her in a moment.

Our broody hen!

Last year we raised meat birds in the late winter, early spring. It took 8 weeks, we kept them in our garage until they were ready, took them to be processed, and we had a full freezer. It was a thing of beauty. We have been enjoying those meals through out the year, especially the ones cooked on the grill, and we needed to raise some more to get us through the winter. So we have been thinking about getting more meat birds but still had not decided one way or another and I had been dragging my feet on ordering them. Our broody hen helped us to make that decision. We ordered 24 more meat birds and asked them to add a couple egg layers for our broody hen to raise.

We ordered our birds from Welp Hatchery, a mail order company. And for those of you that think it is cruel to order birds in the mail, please send a letter to my Councilman and tell them why I need to be allowed to have a rooster! The company was wonderful and all of our chicks arrived in perfect condition. The cheeping box made the people at the post office smile. The mail order companies always add extra chicks to your order just in case some of them do not make it, so we really were not 100% sure about how many we were going to get. We ended up with 24 slow growing cornish rocks, and 8 pullets of unknown breed.

Our box of chicks, when we picked them up from the post office!

Back to my broody hen. Once we ordered the chicks we moved the broody hen or our isolation coop. It is always best to move a bird at night. They go into a trance and don’t really know what is going on. We put 8 wooden eggs under her and let her sit. The next morning she was very happy to have her eggs and to be in her own space. She was really happy because we put food and water close to the nesting box. She had not been really eating or drinking much the last two weeks because all she wanted to do was sit on eggs. The baby chicks arrived in the mail early in the morning. We fed, watered and watched them for the day to make sure they were all healthy, and then that night we removed all the wooden eggs and put the pullets under the broody hen. When we checked in on them the next morning they were one big happy family.

Mama and her babies!

It has been a pure joy watching her raise these chicks. She is very protective and will run at you when you try to change the water and fill the food. She has been a very good mama bird. She has taught her babies how to scratch and eat worms. Mama with a chick on her head!

Today I was able to get a good look at the chicks. They are three weeks old and I think that we have 4 barred rocks and 4 golden laced wyandottes. A great addition to our egg laying flock! They are still in isolation, but in another couple weeks we hope to let them run with the rest of the flock. What a great experience and I am sure we will do it again.

Bunny Barn

Sep24

Our three bunnies had been living in bunnies hutches in the chicken yard. The bird netting above the chicken yard and lack of storage made our daily chores with the rabbits and the chickens a little frustrating. That bird netting has worked great to keep the hawk from eating our birds, however it has almost decapitated me EVERYDAY. We had been putting the bedding, feed and hay in the basement. I knew it would be just a matter of time before we would get mice. We had been brainstorming about what we were going to do long term, thinking about building a shed.

On the way home from strawberry picking we stopped by a road side Amish shed place. We just wanted to brain storm and see what was available. After talking to the salesman we found out that they had used pre-built sheds for very reasonable prices. We bought a 10 x 12 pre-built shed. It would be our Bunny Barn.

Inside the Bunny Barn we built two level bunny cages on two of the walls. We have wire cages with a slanted shoot underneath. The shoot empties into a rain gutter and the gutter empties into buckets that are than emptied into the compost bins. The Bunny Barn holds eight 3 ft x 3 ft rabbit cages. The slanted shoots under the cages are built out of plywood and covered with plastic vinyl. We have learned that the plastic vinyl is not a good idea, we will be replacing it with another material in the future, but the bunnies need to start earning their keep first. I got the idea for the rabbit cage set up from http://willowcreekfarm.wordpress.com/. They have a similar set up in their barn.

One of the best things about the Bunny Barn is that all of our supplies is not now in one place and close to the rabbits and the chickens where we use it. It saves so many trips back into the house to get feed or all the other supplies I forget when I try and do my morning chores before my coffee has had time start my brain.

It also makes working with the rabbits in the rain or in the dark a lot more enjoyable. I am able to sit out with them and groom them with out having to worry about the dogs or the crazy bird netting that drove me crazy everyday!

Busy Summer, Aquaponics part 2

Sep18

We have had such a busy summer that I have not had a chance to write. But busy is good sometimes, especially when it involves planting, harvesting, building and other farm activities. In the last month we have finished the first half of our aquaponics system, finished the bunny barn, harvested and replanted the garden, raised bunnies and started more baby chicks. I am going to try and write about each one of those things over the next week. Wish me luck!

First, I wanted to take a moment and think about the people in Colorado. There is a blog that I follow that is about a homesteading family in the mountains in Colorado. They have left their homestead, had to find new homes for all their animals, and are told that they can not go back to their house for 6-9 months. I can not even imagine! Reading about what they are going through really puts me in my place… I have nothing to complain about! My house is not perfect, my kids drive me nuts sometimes and there is always work to be done… But praise God I have a house, kids and work. Please do not become numb to the suffering of others. If nothing else, it helps us keep our lives in prospective.

OK, I dried my tears and now I am ready to tell you about the great things we have done this summer. We have finally finished our aquaponics system! Eventually we would like to have two systems up and running, but we are very excited about the one right now!
For those of you that have no idea what I am talking about let me tell you about my system. It started with a 275 gallon pallet tank, this is the home for our fish. We currently have just pond gold fish in there because they are more tolerant of our errors and the learning curve. In February the gold fish will be replaced with tilapia.

There is a pipe that the top of the fish tank that overflows into a gravel plant bed. In the gravel bed we have tomato plants, and beans. The gravel bed is a flood and drain system. Meaning just that, it fills up with water and then it empties. The process repeats itself all the time, keeping the roots of the plants wet.

When this bed drains it empties into a sump bed or a deep water culture bed. Currently, this bed just has a couple feeder fish in it to keep up with the mosquito larva. But normally this bed would have a floating foam raft with lettuce and other greens growing in it. I will post a picture of that when I have it in the system, right now I am still starting the seeds. We had a batch of bad seeds and I had to start over, it was very sad. In the bottom of the sump bed there is a pump that pumps the water back up and into the fish tank… and the process starts all over again.

You can see the black pump in the water and the white PVC pipe going up the side of the tank.

Most of you can stop reading here, but for our aquaponics friends I will let you know what supplies we used.

~The bed liner is Dura Skrim 20 WW 6’ x 50’ from Global Plastic Sheeting.

~The pump is ActiveAqua Pump 500 GPH from the Aquaponics Store.

~The net pots for the floating rafter were also from the Aquaponics Store.

~The Grow media is ViaStone from the Home Depot.

~The tank is off craigslist.

~The greenhouse is 12×10 from Harbor Freight.

If you have any specific questions let me know. We are very happy with it and we look forward to what it is going to do through the winter.

Lyme Disease

Aug8

Gardening is wonderful, it allows you get outside, get exercise and raise your own food. However there is a down side, bugs. This summer me and my daughter both got Lyme Disease.

medical illustration of Erythema migrans This is a picture from the CDC website of a bulls eye rash. http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/signs_symptoms/

I never saw the tick on me, I just noticed the bull-eye rash on my leg. I also had secondary rashes spread to my torso. At first I thought that I was bit by a spider. I went to Patient First when the “spider bite” spread to twice its original size. The doctor at Patient First referred me to a Doctor at Johns Hopkins that is doing a study on patient’s with Lyme Disease. http://www.lymemd.org/

The study follows me for one year, they draw blood a couple times, do cognitive testing and skin biopsies. My blood test was positive for Lyme.

After I started my antibiotic my head aches and body aches started to get worse. One morning close to the end of my three week treatment I woke up with numbness down my right side and stiffness in my neck. My doctor sent me to the emergency room to rule out meningitis. The only way to test for meningitis is to preform a spinal tap and test the spinal fluid. I did not have meningitis but was admitting into the hospital and was put on IV antibiotics for the remainder of my three week antibiotic treatment. I ended up leaking spinal fluid after two spinal taps and had a post spinal tap head ache. Eventually they did a blood patch to stop the leaking and I was discharged.

The Lyme bacteria affects everyone differently, some people who have Lyme Disease never have a rash or any symptoms until it is too late.

My daughter was bit by a tick the week before I was, we actually saw the tick on her and removed it. She never had a rash, or a fever. Her only symptoms were that she had a headache and joint pain that came and went. Her blood test was negative. However because her symptoms were not going away, we decided to start her on the three weeks of antibiotics. So far so good and after three days of medication she has stopped complaining about the headaches and joint pain.

I have been asked many times what my advice is for someone who has a tick bite. I would say to go to the doctor. Make sure you document when you pulled off the tick and when your symptoms started. Even though the blood test is not as accurate as doctors would like, it is better than nothing. If you have a head ache or any symptom that is just not explained, I would have a Lyme Test done. It is better to be safe than sorry. That was the approach we took with our daughter. We would rather have medicated her for three weeks and known we did everything for her we could, than her have life changing symptoms a couple years from now that can’t be treated.

I hate bug spray, but it is needed when you live in the North East and like to be outside. I also wear gardening clothes that are long pants and a long sleeve shirt. I refuse to stop gardening, but I know I never want to have Lyme Disease again.

I have learned from my doctor that there is a spike in Lyme Disease in both the spring and the fall, just because the weather is getting cooler does not mean the threat is gone. Please continue to be aware of ticks, where bug stray and check you and your family.

Safe gardening everyone!

The first weekend in August, Love it!

Aug5

The weather has been amazing for August, which has been wonderful and has allowed us to be very productive.

Our bunnies are getting big and it is time to wean them off their mommies. We have turned our unused chicken coop into a bunny nursery. There is enough room for all 15 of the babies to be able to run and play until they are full grown. We will be removing the bunnies from their mothers gradually over the next week. So far it is going great and everyone is enjoying the extra space and room at the water bowl.

The kids picked the rabbits that they are going to be showing for 4H. These rabbits will get a lot more one on one time than the other rabbits. We want them to be used to being handled as well as used to noises and other animals. Everyone in the family is enjoying the extra cuddle time.

This weekend we also worked on the aquaponics system. Building it is taking longer than we really wanted it to, we were hoping to have it up and running over a year ago, but the supplies was more expensive than we thought. We are also struggling with getting ideas from our heads, to paper, and than to final product. We are learning communication skills that are beneficial to our marriage. I think the important part is we are still married and still making progress on the system, both wins in my book. We are now at the plumbing stage, very frustrating, but hoping to take small steps everyday and keep moving closer to our goal. I will be starting seeds indoors this week for the system, so it needs to be up and running in less than two weeks. I have confidence that we are that close!

This weekend I also experimented with making gluten-free pop tarts. I used the pie crust recipe from my last post and filled them with the jams that I have made this spring and summer. I baked them at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, until golden. They are amazing. I can’t wait to bake some cinnamon ones! It was crazy easy and super tasty. We have already eaten them all and I need to make another batch.

As far as harvesting veggies goes, we are still going strong with peppers. The tomatoes have slowed down quite a bit and so have the cucumbers. We had our first ever cantaloup today, it was wonderful. We should have let it sit on the counter a day to soften even more, but we ate it in one sitting so it must not have been that bad.

Time for me to go have my tea and relax for the night. I hope everyone has a great week.

Blueberry Season

Jul29

I honestly do not think that my July would be complete without a blueberry experience!

We have eight blueberry bushes that are about 5 years old. They produce maybe a pint total right now, which never even make in through the door. The kids “help” with the blueberry bushes, which translates into them eating them straight off the bush. This next winter I believe we are going to go pick up some full grown bushes. We figure they will pay for themselves within a year or two.

Since we could not pick enough on our property we did the next best thing and go to a local pick your own farm. We picked a little over 5 pounds of berries, which later that night became 1 gluten-free blueberry pie and nine 4oz jars of blueberry preserves.

The recipe I used for the preserves is:

.8oz of pectin (this is less pectin than most recipes. It was all I had, if you use more pectin you do not have to let it boil as long)
4 cups of sugar
1/3 cup lemon juice
10 cups blueberries
1 tbs butter

I processed the berries in a food processor. (It is just as easy to mash them in the pot, but I was feeling lazy) Put the berries in my stock pot with pectin, brought to a rolling boil for about a minute. Then I added the rest of the ingredients, brought them to a boil and let them boil for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly. The jam passed the plate jell test, (which is putting a spoon full of jam on a cool plate, letting the hot jam cool, and run your finger through it. If it does not run back together it is jelled and ready to can.)

I processed them in a water bath canner for 10 minutes.

It turned out wonderfully. It was thick and sweet, but still had the tartness on the back of the tongue that I love about blueberries.

I baked a gluten free blueberry pie at the same time. The recipe for that is:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Pie Crust:

2 1/4 cups all purpose gluten free flour (I use Better Batter)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
10 tbs frozen butter, grated
1/2 cup ice cold water

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl and grate the butter on top. Slowly mix together, then add the water. Mix it as little as possible. Separate into two balls and put in the fridge until you are ready for it.

The Blueberry Pie filling;

5 cups blueberries. ( I prefer fresh, but frozen work well too)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup potato flour, or corn starch
2 tbs lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg

Mix everything together and set aside.

Roll out one ball of pie crust, put it in a pie pan sprayed with cooking spray. Add the blueberry filling and then roll out the other crust and top. Cut slits in the top. Place pie pan on top of cookie sheet with sides. (The pie will boil over, I have only managed to not do that once!) Bake for 60 minutes or until crust starts to turn golden brown. Egg wash the top with a mix of 1 egg beaten, and tbs sugar. Bake about another 10 minutes. Allow to cool completely then serve. It should set up wonderfully and not be too runny.

Enjoy your blueberries and let me know how everything turns out. I would love to hear how it worked in your kitchen.

Tomatoes

Jul22

We have had a wonderful tomato season. Our tomato plants are 6 feet tall and we are picking tomatoes everyday. In the past we have only grown enough tomatoes for sandwiches and salads, the kids would eat them faster than I could save enough to can them. Today, I finally had enough tomatoes that I needed to can them or they would go bad, we just could not eat them all. I was finally going to make salsa from the tomatoes, peppers, garlic and herbs that I grew on my property. I was so excited. My mother-in-law and I spend the morning processing produce. I did not chop the tomatoes small enough and I chopped the peppers and the onions too small, we ended up with every watery salsa. 9 jars of very watery salsa, I was so disappointed. Finally here I was canning my own produce and I messed it up.

Instead of throwing away all these tomatoes that we worked so hard to grow, we water bathed canned the tomato mixture and I will just use it as a soup base. It will work great in chili, tortilla soup and vegetable soup. I hope that my tomato plants continue to grow and produce more tomatoes so we can get another chance to make salsa. When I create the perfect salsa recipe I will make sure to post it.

Here are some pictures of my amazing tomato plants. A little rabbit poop goes a long way, it certainly helped these plants grow big and strong.

Spa Day

Jul22

Oh blogging how I have missed you. I am not even going to try and explain where I have been for the past year, just know I am happy to be back!

So summer is in full swing. Our garden is growing wonderfully. We get a basket of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers every day. We have already harvested one planting of potatoes, our spring peas, green beans, soy beans, and blue berries. We have more peas, carrots, cantaloupes, butternut squash, pumpkins, garlic and beets that are still growing.

We started with a new batch of a dozen chickens this spring and they have started laying. We get about 10 eggs a day. We have three new rabbits, American Chinchillas to be specific, that we added to the farm this winter and they have 15 very cute baby bunnies that are 4 weeks old now. We will be selling them in 2 weeks.

OK now that everyone is up to date… On to Spa Day at our small farm. We had a mamma rabbit that had some fur matting that need to be cleaned. It was very warm this weekend so we thought that a bath would help clean her fur as well as cool her down. Not ever having given a rabbit a bath, I was not really sure how this would go. I expected clawing, biting and that it would look more like bathing a cat. I however, was greatly surprised. The rabbit seemed to enjoy the bath. She did not try and get out of the utility sink, she did not try to climb my arm. She was just happy to just sit there. At first I just assumed it was because this was my very easy going rabbit, but when I then bathed the “jumpy” rabbit she was quit content to just be bathed as well.

I think that this is something we will do after all their litters are old enough for us to be messing with mamas. The reason we had to bath mama in the first place was left over afterbirth. She was having some hair matting and skin breakdown. We bathed her using mild soap, clipped the mats and applied A and D ointment to the skin. We did not use soap on the rabbit that did not have any matting, we just used the water to clean her up and cool her down. Since this did not seem stressful to the rabbits, I think that we will do it again to help keep those hard to reach places nice and clean.

Since it was deemed a “Spa Day” we did not want to leave anyone out, we also bathed a chicken. We have two chicken coops that share the same outside area. The coops are made to fit 6 chickens a piece very comfortably. Our chickens are “special” and they have decided to cram all together in one small coop. There is just not the roosting space that they need, so there is one chicken that has taken to roasting right under the other chickens. I noticed that she was “dirtier” than the others, especially on her belly, since she spent all night sitting in other chickens poop! So we brought her inside and rinsed her off as well. Again I would have expected a very upset chicken. She was totally O.K. with it. She seemed to enjoy the one-on-one attention and the wash down. Who knew?

So, now everyone is clean, toe nails clipped, bottoms washed and cages cleaned. It was a wonderful day on the farm! Here are some pictures of the bath experience!

Shades Of Lavender

Gluten-free living, growing food, raising chickens and loving my family!

Archives