*scenic Sunday

 Rebel, one of our Buff Leghorn hanging out in the coop with her "twin" as she starts to go through the broody mood now...

On a day like today on the Emerald Coast, I can't say that I blame them. I would want to be inside out of the brisk windy conditions as well!   We hope you all have a great week.

*chick inn residents increasing soon

This photo was taken with my phone *sigh*, these little chicks are about a week old in this picture. We picked up 8 chicks from the hatchery in Alabama last month and these little girls look nothing like they did when we first brought them home and added them to the chicks that Rebel hatched out that very weekend.

This however, is one of our two Bronze Broad Breasted Turkeys that we acquired this week. This is the gift that my dh and I gave to each other for our anniversary, a pair of turkeys and a Wynadotte chick along with a watering system for our large gardens.  We are content to do this instead of a individual gift for each other at this time in our lives. What is most important to us is that we are knitted together, that we love each other and enjoy being in each others company.   One of the things that has knitted us closer together is the way God has used this land we are living on and what has sprung forth from it all.  I am seeing a side of my dear husband that I have never seen before. He adores raising animals.  He is loving the farming and living off of our land as much as possible. It brings me joy to see this!

 This is one of the pretty little chicks that Rebel hatched out.  We think this one must be a cross of the Jersey Giant White rooster (Husan) and one of our Barred Rocks - either way she is a pretty girl (we hope it is a girl).

 These were all some from Rebels' hatch as well, I think I see two Barred Rocks there for sure. They are all sort of in their ugly stage right now.

 Show off. I LOVE chickens. Just sayin.

 The first three you see in the picture here are from the little hatchery in Alabama. The little buff there is going to be a Buff Orpington, then you see just beyond her one of the Welsummers, and right beyond her is the Americauna that we got on that day. The Americauna looks a bit grey, she will be much lighter than the Americauna's that we already have in our flock.

If you look just about center of the picture you will see a VERY small chick. This is the Silver Laced Wynadotte that I just couldn't live without. OK. OK, I surely could have lived without her, but am happy that she will be living among us!  I adore this breed and think they are among some of the prettiest. 


These chicks will all start laying in mid summer and I will have customers lined up by this date hopefully.  We currently have 19 hens who are laying - well most of them are laying. Rebel still hasn't gotten back in the mode of laying although she is in the mix with the other hens, but unfortunately now her sister, the other Buff Leghorn, decided she was going to go broody. We have NOT given her any eggs to hatch out as we don't really see that we NEED any more chicks at this time.   

After reading a dear blogger friend's blog, From City Streets To Country Roads, I brought our girls home a treat today -a Flock Block! I can't wait to give it to them. I will of course be ready with camera in hand to get some great shots!  The older girls will enjoy the Flock Block and the little ones will eat their grower rations for now, but soon they will catch up in size and join the others in the Chick-Inn Coop! I am hopelessly in love with chickens. What has happened to me?

*bunny news and such

Sometimes it is good to get away, to take a break and refresh from whatever task is at hand. It has taken me a bit to get back to my regular blogging, there has been no lack of things to blog about, just motivation to get it down in words.  I hope you all have been doing fantastic!

Last weekend one of our pregnant does kindled. She had an odd time of it this time around. Isis, our Californian doe, had her first kit of this litter on Thursday morning, one solitary baby.  She did not give birth to the remaining kits until more than 20 hours later.  It was the oddest birthing I have been through with one of our rabbits thus far. As you might imagine I had to keep that single baby warm until others were there to join it in the nesting box. So, I wrapped it up in a soft cloth after I brought the body temperature back up (the poor thing was stone cold when I found it), and then I kept it on my person for the next day until there were other warm bodies to maintain body heat.   Isis did finish her birthing.. bring forth 9 kits in all.  She was acting very much out of the ordinary this time around, as I stated before and unfortunately the third morning of having birthed, we found all of the babies in their box dead. I know, I know.. nobody wants to read about these things -trust me, I didn't want to live it either. I am sure some of you might be thinking.. um, don't you raise these to kill for meat? Yes, yes we do, but having a mother to neglect her  young so severely and humanely raising them to process for healthy clean lean white meat later is totally different.

This month thus far has been super fulfilling.  We have gotten so much done in the barn and in the gardens. Flowers are bursting forth. Grass is turning green, although I am not super excited about that part as 4 or so acres of our land is all grass... Our prospects on a Nubian buck are getting better. Yadda yadda... On the other hand it has been a bit heart breaking, in the respects of a homesteader.  We had a hen to abandon her nest after 2 and half weeks of being broody, leaving 5 embryos to die after almost completely forming, and the baby rabbits dying.  Eric always catches me and reminds me that this is part of this lifestyle.  He does his best to protect me, to help me stay focused and not get too attached.

This weekend we have a gentleman coming to pick out 3 of our rabbits for his breeding stock, we are excited to be selling some of our girls and boys to a family who will too use them provide a self sustainable meat source for their family too. 

*cattle upon a thousand hills

*winters triumphant return?

We have only had a few below freezing temps this winter, which one might think is normal for Florida. Not so much on the Gulf Coast, in fact the area we are located at is considered the coldest spot of Florida. When my dear husband found this out, he laughed. He does not like cold weather and was thrilled when we left NC in April's cold temps last year.  It seemed to have been a record cold winter for many states last year, this year is just the opposite - much milder. This, my dear is the kind of weather my dear husband loves! He is always saying, always summer, that is the theme of his Florida license plate, "Endless Summer". Smh

Tonight we are to have 24 degrees, um... that is cold.  This means our baby chicks will have to come back in doors along with their heat lamp in order to keep the temps warm enough for them.  It also means that some of our flowers, plants, and bushes that are sprouting or blooming may get set back with a freeze. There are a few preparations and precautionary measures we can take in order to protect our plants. Just this past week I transplanted over one hundred strawberry plants.

We started with 16 strawberry plants last spring.  When growing strawberries you can choose to do one of two things when your strawberry plants put out runners.  If you trim them your plant will produce more hearty fruit harvest, but if you let them grown you can increase the number of plants in your strawberry patch next year for zero dollars!  We now have over one hundred and fifty strawberry plants in our "strawberry patch".  We chose to let the runners grow after last years small harvest and put a bit of soil over the runner as it got rooted nicely, then we clipped it from the main plant.  This year, I transplanted all of the MANY runners that are now beautiful strawberry plants.

Today we spent time covering strawberry plants with hay.   Our neighbor told us we should wet the plants. Water the plants, wet them?  Um, did you hear that it was going to be below freezing tonight and tomorrow ? Interesting, because my best friend and I were talking just yesterday about preparations and she said she had read where farmers water their plants before a freeze.  We both commented on how we didn't understand how this would help.  After reading this, I have a better understanding of this method.

Hopefully the goats, chickens, baby chicks, rabbits, tender new growth of plants, and pipes are all safe and sound from winters' triumphant return! 




linked to The Country Garden Showcase
Barn Hop #49

*gardening today for tomorrow

A few days ago I posted on gardening and planting potatoes from your cupboards. I had several to comment on my blog and private message me regarding this idea. I wanted to give a bit more attention to the potato seed planting today.

I thought I would read just a bit before writing this morning so I could bring you accurate information outside of my own experiences. You see, each year we buy "seed potatoes" from our local farm store. Many nursery's carry them, or seed and feed stores will carry them by the pound.  I do utilize any potatoes in the pantry that have started sprouting in the garden as well.

I have know for years that the potatoes from the grocers shelves have been treated with a chemical that inhibits sprouting, molding, wards off pesticides etc.   There are many groups who are in agreement that the chemicals put on produce, not only potatoes, is toxic and harmful to our bodies.  Furthermore reducing the value of the produce itself. The FDA however has approved such practices stating that it is not harmful and helps sustain produce for the demands therein.  The FDA also states that the food values are not lost and if it is that such problems can be taken care of by vitamin supplements. (read more on this at Food Irradiation: The Risk)  I was surprised to find that this practice is used on so many products.

With this in mind, I am so very grateful that we grow most of the veggies that we eat on a regular basis.  I cannot allow myself to get crazy with this idea, because believe me- I could.  I could easily decide we are NOT buying anything that we can't possibly produce here at home - there might be some revolting going on if I were to shift in that direction. On the other hand, I can do all I can do (without loosing my mind) by contributing to our families daily intake with home grown vegetables, fruit, milk, and meats.  We know what has gone into the meats we are eating from our farm, we know what has gone into the soil where our plants are growing.  I know everyone does not have the opportunity to raise their own meat, procure and maintain a large garden, raise chickens for fresh eggs or even have the desire or time to do so.  Seek out farmers markets, fresh produce at road side stands and grown a few things each year in your small spot.  Look on your local craigslist to see if you are able to locate a family that sells fresh eggs in your area.

I lived in a rural area as a child and our family always had a nice garden that produced abundantly. We also kept chickens for a while and often ate meat that we either raised, caught or hunted.  When I married and left home we moved away into a suburban area where I neither had time, money (we were broker than a corn flake), or desire to garden at the age of 20.  Some years past and on our small lot in a suburban area I did have a garden that produced some produce for our table.  We have had a garden in suburban areas and it was a joy of mine to work in it.  It can be done. I did not have the motivation then that I do now, such as wanting cleaner food for our bodies.  I am more determined today to do as much as I am able while still not making myself crazy about the whole thing, to provide what we can from the garden to the body.  

SO.... back to planting potatoes..
As I said before, we do purchase seed potatoes from the feed/seed store here in the area, however if I have a potatoes in the pantry to sprout it goes in the ground as well to produce what it will.  Here are a few tips on how I plant potatoes.

As you can see this potatoes has several sprouts or eye's on it. I can cut in in order to produce several potato plants.  You need to make sure you leave a good portion of potato with the eye because the plant will get some of its feed from the potato seed as it starts to grow.  I use plant whatever has sprouted in the potato bin, whether it is a red, Yukon gold or baking potato.

Here you can see that I have sliced the potato in half so I will have two plants to grow from this one potato. I could slice the one to the right in half again, but I am going to leave it as it is.

You will gently turn the slice up on its side so air can move around it and cure or dry the moist exposed part of the potato.  After a few days you can put the seed into the soil.  you will want to use your shove, hand spade or whatever you have to loosen the soil around the area where it will grow.  There are many different methods to planting a potato. Some use old tires and put the potato in the center of the first one and as the plant grows they add more soil weekly as the plant continues to emerge from the soil they add more and eventually adding more tires etc. I personally have never done this but read about it often.  We dig a little furrow in the soil, drop the seed potato in cover it with about an inch or so of soil and as the plant grows we add more and more soil (and or leaf mixture) around each plant. Within a month or two there will be a nice mound of soil up around each plant.  Once the plant has bloomed and the leaves start to die off a bit you can start to dig your potatoes.  This is usually several months or a bit more after you have planted your potato seed.   Each plant might yield you 6 to 8 potatoes, it depends on the type of potato. 

Source: blogs.ft.com via Eric-and Lynette on Pinterest

Once you have dug your potatoes you will want to store them in a nice cool place in order to extend their shelf life. We have a large closet that has shelves from the floor up all the way around the large closet. We stored all of our potatoes in there this past year. You will want to store them on newspaper or freezer paper side by side. Do not stack the potatoes.  They will need to be stored just the way you dig them out of the ground. While you will be tempted to clean them up, don't wash them. Once dug  you can put them on a shaded area so the soil can dry a bit, where the bulk of it will fall off. Do not leave the in the sun and if you dig that morning, be prepared to bring them in to the storage place that evening.  Choose the coolest place you have available to you.  If you have a crawl space under neath your house that you can get to easily, this also works well.  We grew a ton of potatoes last  year, or so it seemed. We dug about 100lbs and used potatoes from our storage room for many months thereafter as well as share some with family and friends.  I hope this has helped spark some interest in grown a few things on the little or big spot of land you have.  No spot is too small, many even use containers when they don't have much ground that is usable.   OK.. I am getting off the soap box.  Y'all have a super week!



shared at Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop

*turning the soil

This morning I knew when I woke up, had my quite time and coffee that I would be heading out the door for some time in the warm sun planting onions, more broccoli and kale.  I had contemplated sewing but these things NEEDED to be done, so I went with it.

 All finished...

Before I got started this is how it looked...

We bought onions last fall and planted I don't know how many, but before they were all planted I was tired of onions, so I put the rest of the bulbs in a nice furrow and covered them with dirt. There they lay all in a crowded pile, until today.  The area where they were coming up looked like one of those little cups you put seeds in and it grows hair (grass) of the head - I don't even know what they are called. At any rate, I picked up the clumps of onions  that I refused to plant in the fall and planted them in a nice row with the others.  I have been trimming off the tops of the onions, chopping them and putting them into the freezer. These will come in hand when I am making soups, topping baked potatoes, sauteing veggies etc. They are already growing new tops back at this point.

Eric and I picked up some broccoli and kale plants this past week when we were out together and today they went into the deep dark rich soil where they will grow beautifully!  We have started eating kale like it was spinach, I believe the goodness of one is just about as good as the other. I have found kale easier to grow. The broccoli will be something we eat as it comes mature, however we did purchase it with the rabbits in mind as well. They love leafy greens and the broccoli plants give off a lot of great large green leaves. 

The goats are fed their grain in the mornings in their stall and then let out in the fenced barnyard area to roam around and forage for food.  I caught them napping, or resting while I was working in the garden. I just love this picture. Cleo is laying up against Bodie and Jazzy is laying in the crook of Cleo's legs. So cute! Each time I went near the garden/barnyard gate all of my sweet chickens would come running as if I was going to let them into the garden area.  It doesn't take long for them to learn a pattern, albeit a bit early in the day for such activity.  I will heed their request a bit later in the day, their work in the garden and around the yard beyond the barnyard is much appreciated!

If you have a small patch of land, whether you live in the rural area, suburbs or urban area you can plant some onions at this point. You can usually find a "bunch" of onions at your local feed store, Walmart or Lowe's at this time of the year. Just turn your soil over with a shovel, level it off and make a hole about 1 1/2 inches deep and plant the onion. These will grow with no help from you other than a bit of watering along the way.  Onions will grow nicely in a sunny flower bed and not take away from the beauty of your flower bed either. What about potatoes.. do you have potatoes in your pantry that have "eyes" on them? If so, cut about an inch under where the "eye" is coming out. Simply slice that piece off, leaving a bit of potato under the eye area. You will leave the slice you cut off on the counter or outside somewhere safe for a day or so. The slice will need to "heal" over a bit and then in a day or two you can plant this in an area where the soil is mulched well.  In a few months you will be able to harvest numerous potatoes from that part you would normally cut off and throw away.

Go ahead, I encourage you, if you have even a small spot - plant a seed, or two. Turn those sprouting potatoes into plants that will produce for your family.



shared at Your Gardening Friend
Rural Thursday

*preparations under way

 Preparing has to take place in order to make ready. We have began to make ready our garden spots for the coming planting season!  We have been tilling, turning, building and getting excited about this season that is on our doorsteps.

Eric has been turning the well mulched garden spots so we can begin our planting in about one month.  We have decided to seed our garden about mid March, praying that no frost will set in after that date. Last year this time he was still in North Carolina, so he gets to be a part of the garden from the ground up this year.

This year we are adding two more hives to our property and instead of buying the hive boxes, bottom board and top boards, my talented beloved is building them.  We still have to purchase all the frames to go inside each  hive box or supra but we are still saving a considerable amount of money with him building them.  One of the hives will be a gift to Eric's mom and dad. They showed some interest in honey this past year, so as a Christmas gift to them, we are giving them a completed hive with two supra's, they will just populate it with the purchase of the bees.  The bees are starting to become active again which is exciting to see.  Beekeeping is really quite rewarding with many benefits.

We will be breeding one of our Nubian's in a month or so, and with this in mind we need to have our goats become accustomed to getting up on the stand to be milked, have their hoofs trimmed etc.  Eric has had some plans printed out for a little while and this past weekend he made it come to life.  I love the way it turned out. We did have to purchase the 2 X 4's to make the stand, but he repurposed some wood that was already here to make the base of the stand as well as the ramp.  We had some tinted stain from some project when we lived in NC and this is what we stained it with.  You should have seen having each goat come up the ramp individually to introduce them to the stand. We gave them some dried beet pulp as their treat along with some grain which they love. They were happy to follow the cup with treats up the ramp to a certain point. It did however, take both of us to get a couple of them up on the stand and in the right place. 

 Husan is doing a great job keeping his hens together. He watches over them carefully, and he is kind to us. This kindness is good for the sustainability of his life. *wink*

 This is Ellie, one of our "easter egger" or Americauna hens, isn't she beautiful?!

 We often see this... a bird of a feather, flock together.. Two Barred Rocks together and two White Brahama's together.

Aren't those some beautiful brussel sprouts there?  Our hens are really loving life right now!  They already have free roam of a huge area of our property but within a fence for their protection from predators. Since we have been out working in the gardens and building in the barn so much lately, we have been letting the chicks go beyond the fenced area and into the gardens.  There is still a fence beyond that as well for their protection. The pickins are much better in a new spot of land that has not been turned over on a regular basis. I love to sit and watch our chickens turn the ground over seeking out bugs, seeds and whatever else suits their fancy.  We try and let them out an hour or so before the sun goes down, this way we are pretty much assured that every one of them will be in to roost as that beautiful rose colored sunset sets.  We supplement feed our chickens with cracked corn and grains as needed, but we much prefer they go and work for their food, I think they like it best that way as well.