ubiquitous non sequitur

Whirlwind

2015-08-06T07:52:00.000-04:00

Every time-related adage I can think of is absolutely true. Being the mother of young kids? Time goes by so fast. Getting older? Time goes by so fast. Farmer in the summer? Time goes by so fast....

And when they all it at once it is absolutely mind-boggingly exhausting. My favorite is when people are just getting to know me and asking questions to scratch the surface... "oh. You work full time? And you're building a house?".... "oh. And you have kids with all that? And animals?" The beginning of the conversation may have people politely wondering about everything and putting themselves in my shoes.... by the end they can't even fathom it anymore and start looking at me as if I MUST be an escaped mental patient, and surely nothing I am saying is true?

And yet here I am, once again, sitting staring down the downhill slope that is the rest of the summer. I'm not sure how we did it, but we're past the point of no return on this particular frantic season. It's time (or was time a bit ago) to get my fall and winter garden in, and I never really aught up to my summer one. It's time to get the house finished (so close!) and get ready for winter. It's time to resist the urge to hatch out more chickens, give up on breeding the rabbits, and stop putting cuttings and small plants in new pots. Thankfully, it is NOT time to stop canning, because I don't know that I could ever get my fill of that one.... and I don't feel like it's something I get to do a lot anyways....

But I don't have a choice. And while it seems that most of the people staring at me as if I'm batshit insane and from anther planet entirely from the one they pleasantly and sense-numbingly nhabit are terrified of that, I relish not having a choice. I would never ever get 1/2 of what I do done (and that's far from how much I'd like to get done) if I had a choice about it. My kids, the house, the garden, the animals, if you bite it off, you have to chew.

So I dream of being able to blog as much as I'd like, and I dream of being able to do many romantic probably-pinterest-inspired things as I feed, schlepp, nurture things along.... and try not to plan too many more big bites for the next year.

The Acorn had a birthday!

LOVES Kombucha!

Babies!

Veggies!

BUMPER crop of marigolds

Fur harvest.

Gherkin, Oops.

Haven't barely harvested any this year... :(

Snarkles began his photography career

Mommy's trunk = best playhouse!

Just Enough To Be Dangerous Pt 2

2015-04-25T17:33:00.001-04:00

....so after all that, the next day I get a phone call from the Redneck telling me I have idiot bees. Ok. Fine. In the realm of expected reactions out of said manfriend. Plus the cell reception was kind of crappy as he was driving back from somewhere and the phone was cutting in and out and I didn't push the WHY the bees were idiots issue.

Was not expecting to come home to this:

Just to prove how big of a point I am trying to make, note the lack of caption on the photo. Ahem.

When installing your package of bees, you're supposed to, AND I QUOTE: "spray them down, bump the bees back, open the box up, and shake them in".

Got it? Good.

We talked about it in class extensively, and watched videos in class as well. Of people doing this. They showed us how to do it at field day (although I was not one of the few who tried it there....). And then in preparation for doing it myself, I watched more youtube videos of people doing it. Guys and gals with no protective gear whatsoever transferring happy bees into their new happy home happily and probably then turning off the camera and going home whilst singing tralalala through the woods.

So. I sprayed mine down, bumped them back, opened up the end instead of the top where the can is because with the newfangled containers we got that did not match ANY of the videos of bee shaking I watched (but I'll get back to THAT in a minute) you can do that, shook them in and good golly holy hell where there a lot of fucking bees flying around. The acorn, who had been taping up until about this point when the battery on my phone died because I was TOTALLY prepared, started backing away slowly at this point. I can only imagine what thoughts were going through his head as he watched a million gajillion angry bees swarm around my body. I had been told (and told, and told....) that a few bees would be left in the package and that you just leaned it up against the hive body and that they would want to go in after their sisters and would within 24 hours or so. OK. No biggie. Got it. It seemed like a rather large amount of bees that hadn't made it in the hive, but surely that was OK....

Did package #2, although with this one said 'fuck it' and decided to open the middle top of the box where the can of syrup is inserted like they did in ALL the videos I watched (albeit of the older packages, but still). Spray, bump, shake, boom, all in. Lean package up against side for stragglers. Except not nearly as many stragglers on this one. Hrrrm. Went back and checked #1.... only to find a good half of the bees still in the box. Fuck. Figuring I had royally screwed this hive up and probably didn't have enough survivors anyway, I decided I had nothing to lose by opening that hive back up again and spraying, bumping, and shaking the bees into the box again in hopes of getting them all in.

Whew. Mission accomplished. Ish. I think. I've never done this before.

Being a total genius and *not* wanting to burn down the 40 acres of woods and new house we're building, I set the still-lit smoker down on a cinder black a good 15ft or so from the hives and went down and went to bed excited that I finally had bees. SQUEEEE!

Until the Redneck called me at work the next day.

Came home to find all those bees all over the smoker. I figured it was no big deal. I had to feed the bees anyway (um. yeah. because I only had enough sugar for about a quart total of syrup when I really needed close to a gallon....), so sprayed down the outside of the smoker and bumped and shook them back into the box. Yes! Success! Wait. Is that a bee coming out of the spout? Oh! And another! Ok. A few must have gotten inside. No biggie. I still have sugar syrup in my spray bottle, I'll just spray them down and open up the can and bump and shake those into the box, too.

Except when I opened the lid, a million gajillion bees came pouring out of the can of the smoker like a horror movie of some sort. They just kept coming out!!

Loooong story short, it took gasoline and taking the bellows off the back to get all the bees out. Yup. It sucked.

Carnage

Still. More. Bees.

My smoker's all cool and vintage and shit. Got it from a very awesome local farmer who kept bees 30 years ago....

Old staples...

...new staples!!

Back in action.

So lesson learned. Spray, bump, and shake with confidence.

Or - follow the video of the maker of the new-fangled package we got and set them in the box and let them crawl out on their own.

Or something. But definitely no leaving lit smokers 15ft away from bees looking for a home and a refuge due to an idiot beekeeper not knowing how to bump and shake them properly!

Just Enough To Be Dangerous Pt 1

2015-04-14T14:50:00.000-04:00

Because once you've taken a 10-week course, had 2 field days (or a field day and a hive removal at one of the instructor's houses), passed a written and a practical test and trolled all the facebook Beekeeping forums that'll have you, you obviously know ~~tons~~ jack shit.

I think at one point my facebook status read something along the lines of 'I hope passing a certification test in beekeeping is more helpful than High School French was in France'. Totes magotes. I know *just* enough to be dangerous.

I was SO EXCITED to get my bees. Finally the day I had been waiting for had arrived! Weeks of anticipation on top of 4 years of wanting to had finally come down to one day in which I would go to work at 6am (where we were down a person) on 2 hours of sleep, dip out at 9:20, get my bees, drive them home, go back to work by 10:30, stay until 5pm, go home, feed childs and manchild and the menagerie, and then! Oh! And then! INSTALL MY BEES.

Oddly enough all of *that* part went off without a hitch. Seriously surprised the shit out of me that it did. I left my bees under (what will be) our back porch so they could stay cool and wait for dusk.

Adorable! This is what 6lbs of bees comes in!

Wait. Hold up.

A few days BEFORE the arrival of my bees, because I've totally reinvented myself this year into a planner/organizer extraordinaire, I actually set up the hives outside where they're going to be. The phone call that day to the Redneck went something along the lines of "...oh. yeah. I set up the hives.......Where did I set them up?......You remember where we talked about them going? Where I showed you?.....Yeah, I didn't put them there." Thankfully he is amazeballs awesome and this is a typical conversation for us.

So I actually had them all set and ready to go for bee arrival day.

If my life were an old book, this plate would read "where we find that the Element, indeed, acts as a farm truck"

SO MUCH HELP hauling heavy-ass cinder blocks and commercial pallets. Sidenote: that was the pallet the cinder blocks for our house foundation got delivered on, so pretty damn sturdy methinks.

Because CUTENESS! And ready for BEES!

There's a lot of equipment involved in setting up your bees. And I'm not even talking frames and supers and whatnot. Syrup to feed them, syrup to spray them (so they can't fly AND so they're distracted while you're shaking them around in a box they've been cooped up in during transport for 2 days....), protective gear, rubber bands (!), the list goes on and on.....

Checking the equipment.

But I had help.

Bee buddies!

First thing you do is check the queen cage to make sure she's alive and kicking.

The queen in her cage with her attendants

Yay for 10 year-old videographers.

Then you get her situated on the frame. She'll stay like this for a few days while she and the other bees chew through the candy plug that's keeping her prisoner. Then she'll get to the business of laying eggs as soon as she can. The hope is that by the time she gets out (3 or so days) the hive has accepted her as their queen and they have drawn enough comb for her to have somewhere to lay said gazillion bajillion eggs. The game here is to boost the population enough that they store a LOT of food for the winter and so that they still have an OK population to start out with next spring.

Queen cage installed onto frame. Note the super professional rubber bands. Next up: install the rest of the bees!

The Acorn's fancy shmancy shot

Needless to say at this point I kinda screwed some shit up that took another day to fix. But that is another story for another blog post.

Spring!

2015-03-26T21:24:00.002-04:00

So excited to see spring springing. I was talking to my dad on the phone the other day, and as I was gushing on and on about the first leaves popping out on the apple trees I bought and planted, he responded with a "what did you expect to happen?". So he's not the most outwardly sentimental of folks, but dammit if nature doesn't surprise the shit out of me every year when it does EXACTLY what it's supposed to. I don't feel like I emerge from single digit temps as enthusiastically as my plants do - I seem to have to spend some time licking my wounds and reminding myself that it's a whole 9 or 10 months until I have to go through that again. Our plants, with their lack of dwelling on the past, just burst forth and make the most of the turning tides of weather. Gosh darn it I gotta take a hint.

But I'm trying. I almost finished hemming in our meadow garden this year, although putting in 3 rows is more than enough (so says my back) for now. My trapezoidal gate is awaiting chicken wire and then it's done. The onion starts are ready to go in the ground, and I've got rabbit-poopy hay to go between the rows and mulch/fertilize. My starts up in flats are ready to be joined by more starts of the warm-weather variety. Holy hell it's gonna be a busy growing season!

Handsome dog amongst the flowers

Embarrassed to say I'm not sure what this sweet little white flower is. Damn you eastern flora!!

Three rows. 3!! About 10 more to go...

Not everyone has a trapezoidal garden gate. BOOM. Lucky girl, this one.

Red maple.

Bradford pear.

Vinca.

Daffodils + vinca = Spring!

Onions!!

(almost) wordless.

2015-03-18T19:58:00.000-04:00

Ume.

Preparing for Bees....

2015-03-15T19:53:00.000-04:00

I am so so so very excited to be getting bees this year. And so so so very excited to cross #2 on my list off for the year.

I mentioned that I had like a 1 in 4 chance of getting a cost share - AND I DID!! Whoopee!!! The list of things they give you is long so I won't list it here.... suffice it to say that I really just need protective gear, a smoker, and a bee brush. And so many people have come out of the woodwork to give me old equipment they found or no longer use, or whathaveyou. Which means I have to find a bee brush and some leg bags and possibly an old white shirt.... and then I'm good. Everything else has been supplied through the Farm Bureau's cost share, or friends. AMAZING. Thank you thank you thank you!!

I don't know yet who my mentor will be, but I know a lot of the members that live near me, so very excited. A bunch of really cool people.

OOOH. And one of the women working in the county planning and inspections office put this little map together that shows all the locations of beekeepers in the county with a one mile radius around them, emulating the bees' range. SO COOL. I grew up in a household with maps in the bathroom, and now that I am going to have 2 GINORMOUS bathrooms, I ordered a 38 x 48 copy.

Starting on hive bodies!

Finished hive bodies!

SO. MANY. EYELETS.

25 done. 15 to go....

Couldn't resist getting started on these. Such a yummy yummy smell.

Lift off!

2015-02-22T17:54:00.000-05:00

We have lift off, folks. I was going to do it last weekend, but the damn snOMG 2105 screwed all that up. And I was freaking out because I didn't want to plant seed trays only to have them reach -3 Fahrenheit in an un-insulated shed, but I didn't want to keep the lights on 24/7 to keep the trays warm enough..... duh. Idiot. We're not living in it yet, but we (more or less) have a HEATED HOUSE. Idiot.

So this weekend.... I planted (what will be) our garden.

I feel so very (overly) organized this year. I used a planner and planned both the back garden with raised beds and the meadow garden with rows. I calculated the numbers of each plant that I want. I tried to put friends with each other and keep plant enemies separated. I incorporated pollinator and pest attracting flowers in the plans. I got soaker hoses for the blueberries (they have been in my car for a week now, and will continue to rattle around in there most likely until our first drought-like conditions, thankyouverymuch). I am prepared. I hope I don't fuck it up.

Planning his own garden. Or world domination. Or just destroying a new notebook we (thought we'd) hid

Supplies!

Almost...

Ta da!!!

Blink and You'll Miss It

2015-02-09T11:12:00.002-05:00

...so there went that plan. It really does seem that farmsteading, and life these days in general, is all about taking a giant leap forward, and then getting knocked several steps back. It's frustrating, it's annoying, it's heartbreaking, and the few victories that you have (however brief) are so addicting you go back for more. In this day and age it would be easy enough to hide my head in the sand and not do ANY of this. No garden, no chickens, no rabbits, no house building... just do what 99% of our countrymen and women do - work, pay rent, watch TV, sleep, rinse, wash, repeat....

But I can't. I'd be miserable. I have been miserable without my garden DESPITE my being preoccupied with being pregnant, giving birth, and ~~not sleeping~~ taking care of my baby. I've been miserable not PRODUCING anything here off the property, so I have chickens, a rabbit and will put in the garden this year. All is peachy.

Except this morning, when I went to check on the rabbit and chickens in the pre-dawn gloom... no bunny. Wide gaping hole in the side of the pen, and a few tufts of fur. I'll save you the gory details, but it wasn't our dogs, although it was something comparable in size and potentially smarter. (Sorry guys)

Got back to down where our dogs are, and the wall of skunk smell hit me. Looks like Luke got skunked, although it's still fresh enough it could be either of them - you can't tell. And then I saw a small body in the driveway behind my car. Obviously my first thought was that it was the bunny and something and dragged her 1000ft down the driveway and left her behind my car. Upon closer inspection, it was a possum. I sat and tried to tell in the light of the flashlight on my iPhone whether it was dead or just playing dead.... it was dead. No idea by what. Dogs won't go near it, but Zora is walking very stiffly this morning which usually means she ran hard the previous day. her poor old arthritic bones can only take so much....

We will rebuild and try again. I feel terrible about the rabbit. It is so easy to get lulled into a false sense of safety... we've been so lucky so far. The only animal massacre we've had was in broad daylight when a fox (we think) got several of our chickens and our poor dogs were tied up and couldn't get to them... and our chickens have always been secure in their coop. But just because they have been safe doesn't mean they ARE safe. We will persevere. Lesson learned.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

2015-02-07T17:16:00.000-05:00

Thank you for indulging me last time. I really did rant, but I really did need to. Sometimes if I don't let it get to a boiling point, I don't do it. I know. But I learned to procrastinate at one of the BEST schools ever.

See?

But I'm excited. Progress is being made. I can cross #3 OFF my 2015 to do list!
And it's only February! FUCK YEAH!!

A THIRD kind of animal has taken up residence here at Stoneyhaw - The Rabbit. She is a (just shy of a) year-old French/German Angora Rabbit. However, I noticed today in the daylight that her ear has a breeder's tattoo, so I might see if I can find out any further background info on her. She's a very warm light brown, with grey guard hair. She looks like she needs to be groomed soon...

The meat/fiber production adventure has begun.

We still owe her a box/shelf/shelter, but the tote will have to suffice for today. I wish we had something more substantial than chicken wire for the 'walls', but feeling good about the hardware cloth underneath the bunny butt, so that's a start.

And she needs a proper name...

Bunny feet!

"You assholes better finish my palace soon..."

THIS was NOT the agreement

Inspected by the Chicken Mafia. Bunny doesn't even flinch.

Tub is temporary. Bunny is pissed...

She found a way, despite inadequate 'shelter'

Inching Closer

2015-01-31T18:02:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned before, I have a great desire this year to produce something. Don't get me wrong, we're producing shit. Babies and houses and whatnot. But I have this grand desire to produce something smaller and more intimate.

I had a baby. Maybe 'intimate' is not the best choice of words. You mama's reading this know what I mean.

But having a baby, building a house, juggling a young family.... these are big big things. Big things that take up all your focus if not time and energy (and resources). And I feel like they're floating on an infrastructure that's quite shaky, frankly. If you could strip them away (which you can't, thankfully), there would be nothing left. And that's kind of starting to feel empty to me.

So it's time for me to come "out of the baby funk" (thanks for the perspective, mom!) and get to building that foundation. The house won't be under construction forever. The baby (OK, toddler) won't be a baby forever. The family won't be young forever...

So three things I'm looking to produce this year. Like I said before, if we pull ONE off, I'm a fucking winner.

#1 - THE GARDEN
We're bringing it back. Yes yes. It's time. I planned it (I used a planner! What!), I ordered half of the seeds, I found the seed starter light set up thingy I got from a generous soul, I bought seed starter trays, I bought seed starting mix, I am patiently awaiting time to start 'em (just around the corner). I got everything all figured out, and then in a casual sort of way the Redneck threw out that we should use the meadow instead of my raised beds... Time to re-plan! Which I did. Which of course just made the project bigger, because if I'm going to plant in the meadow, then OBVIOUSLY this opens the beds up to being herb beds.... snowballing already, this one. And I've barely even begun.

Thankfully the rainwater tanks are still in good condition and I was already planning on putting a soaker hose in the blueberries this year, just in case. The Rabbiteye blueberries have a tendency to ripen late and right when the rain stops, so hoping this way every single last berry gets a chance to ripen instead of shriveling up into nothingness....

#2 - BEES
Everybody I know personally has listened to me squee! every Tuesday night for the past two weeks (so twice...but it feels like there was a LOT of squeeing...). Dude. I'm in a beekeeping class. And effing LOVING it. (Because I was born an eighty-year old peasant woman) I am the one in the middle of the county extension auditorium surrounded by people in varying stages of boredom fucking wide eyed and so excited I'm about to pee. And then coming home and verbal vomit gushing/regurgitating it all back to the Redneck who very patiently pretends to listen to it all when he so just wants to get back to his video games now that the toddler has FINALLY gone to sleep.... and he threatened to stop letting me go if I thanked him for taking care of the kids every Tuesday night (on top of already having them every Monday night) just ONE MORE TIME.

I can't help it. I have been trying to take this class for the past 3 years. I finally just sent the check in and figured I'd figure out logistics later. And so I'm doing it. I have a 1-in-4 chance of getting a Farm Bureau sponsored pair of beehives and bee packages and I've got my fingers crossed I'll be a lucky recipient. Because there's a lot of equipment involved and that shit is pricey! And they give you bees, too. And one of the requirements of the cost share is that you agree to take a mentor. Ahem. GIVE ME A MENTOR, YO!

I'm really, really excited about this one.

...and #3 - BUNNIES

We need to supplement protein. Our chickens give us a lot of eggs, 'tis true. But we need to start supplementing meat. It's time. And chickens take forever and a day to get big enough to eat. IF they go broody and raise hatchlings. Because let's face it, with everything else going on, I'm not getting on the incubator bandwagon. That is too mush trouble. So with my far-fetched dream (it's good to have goals!) of a fiber farm in mind, I'm eying some Angoras. French Angoras, specifically. I'm hoping to be kicking myself that my table loom is at my mom's and wouldn't fit in the last car load out this time next year. Oooh - raised bed garden with herbs morphing into dye garden? Fuck yeah! I already ordered the indigo seeds. Not even kidding.

Maybe it's the company of some truly inspiring women recently and getting to spy into their farming endeavors (here and here - and one of the spouses is in my beekeeping class! Small world!), maybe I'm coming full circle, maybe I'm in fantasy land... but I am a strong believer in if you say it out loud, it's true. So I'm saying my shit out loud. I would love to make these three things a reality this year. I'm anxious as hell to get started.

Happy New Year! Yay 2015!

2014-12-31T23:13:00.002-05:00

... or "2014: The Year That Got Away From Me".

Either way. The urge to shed this past year and get organized and prioritized for next year (is it weird that I'm excited that it's a year divisible by 5? Just seems so much more manageable that way!) set it at 9:00pm on New Year's Eve. Needless to say. So there's that.

Oh wow 2014 - SO MUCH SHIT HAPPENED. Or did it? It felt like a year that whizzed by in a blur of activity rushed together, pieced together, with 60% of my attention because the other 40% had already moved on to the next thing... or was still reeling from the last thing.... I have regrets. And if you know me at all, you know that my one goal is to try to live without regrets. Regrettably something that is getting tougher and tougher to do as I get older (having kids doesn't help!).

Ha. I'm hilarious.

No, But seriously - I let too much escape me this year - too many moments with my kids and family by, too many opportunities to DO things slip by, too many priorities out of whack.

Not this year. NOSIREEBOB. I don't know who the hell Bob is, but he's gonna stop the siree's from fucking it all up. Or stop me, at least.

Now, the good things. Because SO MANY good things DID happen this year amidst the turmoil and trudgery. (Trudge + Drudgery. Come on Lone Reader (hi mom!) - keep up!)

A year ago! Such a baby!

The year started with a snow storm

Cold enough the chickens tried to steal the dog house

BUTI'MAGOODDOG!

60 degrees the day after the snow storm. Dinner al fresco!

First turkeys at Stoneyhaw!

Happy boys!

Naturally-dyed eggs. Kinda. I got it figured out now.

Warm sunshine makes Zora sleeeeeepy.

My only garden this year... :( And they did all the work...

I had the honor of making a friend's wedding cake

Double trouble at Biscuitville.

More cousin shenanigans

Fish are awesome.

So are penguins!

But mostly (drunken) tandem sister lawnmower driving

First selfie. (He got loads of practice in the months to come...)

Stoneyhaw blueberries still going strong!

Thanksgiving and Christmas (Bob and Spare-in-case-we-fuck-up didn't make it)

Blueberry hoarder

We love sissy!

Waiting for a train. The CITY PARK TRAIN!

Days got colder... boys got sillier....

So excited to build the house. Safety goggles!

I'MSTILLAGOODBOY!

Mystery turned four.

We learned how to go down slides.

...and love to rider the mower.

The eastereggers started laying!

We went to the state fair!

I'm in love with my new kitchen!

Almost there.

Date afternoon = kitchen counter making.

...which the man finished after I went to sleep :)

Toilets went in.

My awesome sink went in.

And our stove is in :)

We sang along to White Christmas with our grandmother

We grew long curly locks...

...and got our first haircut!

Family portraits weren't really a thing this year.

But Santa brought us some good shit.

Ready to build.

The middle of the train track is the BEST place to get some computer work done.

Stairs are almost done!


Stoneyhaw has a (someday-will-be) steamboat-farmhouse! Almost :)

So I have my goals and priorities laid out - I have a bunch of things I want to tackle, and for the first time in a long time I feel like I *might* actually get to. I am starting to see the light at the end of the housebuilding tunnel, and that means I can DO things again. I will have a "proper" kitchen again for the first time in over 4 years! I can do the things I miss doing so so much. Fermenting this, culturing things, baking things - soap making, canning, preserving, the list goes on and on.... And at the top and foremost on my list is my family. The redneck has done so much and sacrificed so much to build us this beautiful home.... I'm going to make the time to fucking enjoy it!

And I got my shit together before midnight. Yes. Things are looking good.

7 months....

2014-10-14T15:46:00.000-04:00

7 months have gone by since my last post. It's amazingly difficult to comprehend just *how* that can happen. But then again it's not. I get so busy and wrapped up in all that is going on that I forget that not everyone has 2 kids, a bunch of chickens, are 2 parents that both work 50 - 60 hours a week (on different days), and are building a house.... and I forget that not everyone lives out in the woods the way we do. So. Yeah. I've been preoccupied.

But oh my goodness we're getting so close. SO CLOSE! I oredered flooring for the bedrooms and bathrooms this morning - and a bathroom vanity! Eek!

Tiling.

The master bedroom now has a ceiling.

We got this awesome tongue and groove paneling - NC pine. It's absolutely gorgeous in real life.

Bathroom tile!

The downstairs corner where our kitchen will be. Staircase will be against the left wall.

Upstairs loft = TV room!

TV room!

Umm. Hello cuteness.

Slide love.

Sadness

2014-03-21T21:48:00.001-04:00

Our chickens bring us such joy. We love them so very much. Even the ones we ended up eating.

A few days ago, we came home to a gruesome sight - most of the 'pet' flock lay dead in our yard. 7 of the ten were gone.

We *think* it was foxes. Or maybe a neighbor's dog. It wasn't ours... they were tied up at the time... just out of reach to save them.

We still have a flock up top in the meadow. We still have the 8 babies and 4 turkeys. We still have Waddly Wanda, Mystery, and our Silke rooster Fluffernutter.

But we lost two of the original girls that I got oh so long ago, on sale, my first spring here. We lost Cindy.

And we lost Henrietta.

We miss our chickens :(

Henrietta, poised.

When she was all molty and having issues, we gave her an epsom salt bath and got to spend the night inside with us. She even got blow-dried.

Henrietta was a great companion while I waited for Mr Snarkles to arrive. (Those are my really pregnant feet)

The morning I went into real labor, I walked up by the meadow with my mom and the meadow was covered in beautiful mist... and chickens.

No matter how many times Mr Snarkles yanked on her feathers or her comb, she never pecked him. Not once.

Fast friends.

Cindy indignant stare while she molted was quite the thing...

Awkward stage...

Lookout scouts.

Henrietta looking for Mike. Per usual.

The first few weeks of her laying life, she would only lay eggs on the couch...

...and I would come home to this...

... and sometimes this.

Holiday Layaway Plan

2014-03-16T13:32:00.001-04:00

With housebuilding, working, 3 kids to shop for, etc, etc, by the time Thanksgiving and Christmas roll around the thought of shelling out some serious dough for a bird for the table just seems to hard to do.

This year, I'm going with a layaway plan:

Baby Turkeys. Cute. For now.

Four baby turkeys. I only wanted 3 but the nice young man at Southern States held them for me and I couldn't help but feel bad to leave him with just one.

And before you get all "oh but they're so cute and if you name them you can't eat them" and blah blah blah on me, yes they have names, and YES we will eat them. Their name are: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Alternate-In-Case-We-Fuck-Up, and.... (wait for it)... Bob. Everyone should have a turkey named Bob.

Since I was firing up the brooder anyway, I got 8 Easter Eggers:

Baby Easter Eggers. Floooooofy.

The child put them in their new home:

Hard at work

The two groups are mingling fine and getting along well!

Hello?

Bob

And for no reason at all:

Mr Snarkles!

Oddly looking forward to the holidays this year!

Antsy.

2014-01-16T14:42:00.000-05:00

Antsy.

Antsy antsy antsy!!

We are so close and yet so far from our house being done.... we were on a roll and making great momentum, and now life is getting (irritatingly) in the way again. SO ANNOYING! Stupid things like work and kids and this and that and the other thing getting in the way....

I *am* however, allowing myself to picture a not-too-distant future in which I have the luxury to DO things because I have a kitchen again. And it makes me so happy, despite current cramped conditions. What kind fo things you say? Many things. My beautiful friend's wedding cake, another batch of blueberry wine, ressurectling my Kombucha brewing, preserving, baking, cooking again....

The problem with allowing myself to picture having a kitchen, is that it spills out into other areas of the house. We'll have room for a proper dining table...which means family dinner AT THE TABLE. Something I miss so so SO much from my own growing up.

And the gleaming play kitchen in the shed (we bought a stove and dishwasher when they were drastically on sale and we couldn't not take advantage), and the fact that my parents were kind enough to bring me all the stuff from my last house I had stored in their basement is NOT HELPING. It's just taunting me....

Maybe it's just because it's been cold outside and I've been cooped up....

Soon. Very very soon!

This is not relevant to this post. Obviously.

Holiday Spirit

2013-12-15T20:59:00.002-05:00

It took my mother coming out from Vancouver for us to finally get into the holiday spirit. But into the holiday spirit we got.

We sang Christmas carols. Loudly.

We put up a tree. A Christmas tree. And we even broke with tradition and put up a not-so-Charlie-Brown tree.

We went out and it was dark when we came back. It was nice to be greeted by it at the end of the driveway.

Because OF COURSE it is outside!

Cutting utensil

Making a stand

Tree!

**My mom took the first two pictures.*

Cindy

2013-11-28T16:50:00.002-05:00

Cindy is one of our original batch of Tractor Supply Rhode Island Reds. She came home with me with 5 other peeping little furry bodies in a box with holes in the sides, despite the fact that we had some New Hampshire Reds ordered to come in the mail, because I could resist a sale (they were on clearance!).

To alleviate fears, let me state that Cindy is not dead.

K. Cindy was always the fattest of the 6, and stands quite a bit taller than the other girls (we ate most of the boys). She also has the deepest red color of them all, and I *think* the Acorn's Sissypantstacular named her. I think.

A couple of months ago, Cindy - despite her product chicken origins - decided to go broody. She sat in the nesting box, stole everyone's eggs, the whole nine yards. With 4 clutches of eggs hatching out this year, the last thing we really wanted was another group of little cheep-cheepers running around everywhere. Especially with the brutal winter winter we're expecting. (because we're experts, the house isn't finished, and, you know, we're due) We tried to break her of it - dunked her in cold water, ran her out of the nesting boxes repeatedly... nothing. I should mention a Wyandotte and an Australorp went broody on either side of her at the same time, and so we were triply eager to break them of it. The girls only use 3 nesting boxes (they are provided with 9....) and now they were all occupied. The Australorp took one swipe out of the nesting box and decided her heart wasn't in it. Thankfully. It was her THIRD TIME THIS YEAR. The other two, not so much.

Eventually the two birds took refuge in a part of the coop that we really can't get to (when accepting a free chicken coop, inspect even more carefully for design flaws. Lesson learned). The hunkered down on the ground and soldiered on. We did our best to rouse them out daily - I think we gave up on breaking them of broodiness, but I at least wanted them to get a fighting chance at eating and the like.

Th Wyandotte didn't make it. She just would not give up the broodiness, and it is our fault for not making sure she had something to hatch. If she had, she would have been triggered out of the broody trance when the chicks started peep-peeping. I am sorry Miss Wyandotte.*

Cindy did finally make it out of her Broody state, although the lack of eating, exercise, and sunshine has surely taken its toll. She has red sores/lesion thingies on her face, and is so so skinny. We weren't sure if they from laying in the dirt on the floor of the coop (and therefore transmittable to the other chickens) or not, but it is clear that her compromised immune system couldn't fight whatever it is off. We have her in the brooder by herself where she has her own food and water and is close to us for observation.

Cindy's older flockmates all started gradually molting over the past few months. You don't notice it in our flock immediately - you kind of suspect egg production is down and feathers on the ground are up, and then one day you realize you have NO EGGS (AGH!), your driveway looks like chickens have exploded on it there are so many feathers, and you can see spikey little new feathers here and there on your chickens. No biggie.

Cindy has apparently decided to catch up all at once on the molting front. The poor thing looks like she lost 75% of her feathers all at once, and has turned into some half-porcupine, half-chicken thingy:

They don't hold still when you're trying to take unflattering pictures of them

Or ever

We love her dearly, though, and the number of huge brown eggs she has given us over the past 3 years means that should she not recover from this latest bout, she will still have a home with us until she is no longer happy.

Which by the looks of it, could be a very long time. She eats and drinks with gusto, and woe to the unassuming chicken that tries to get some of her food through the chicken wire...

Growing Things

2013-11-14T08:50:00.000-05:00

Things seem to grow around here.

Things you pay no attention to:

Neglected Asparagus or weeds?

Child is for size reference, only.

And then things you DO pay attention to:

Halloween shenanigans

Bathtub box!

Cousins!

Hanging out on a beautiful fall day.

House Update

2013-11-11T08:33:00.002-05:00

No. We're not in it yet, but goodness we've made progress. The Redneck would argue that it's quite slow, and with forcasts of snow this coming week I'd be happy to agree with him, but considering all involved we've done quite well. Thankyouverymuch.

Or rather HE'S done quite well. I just leave him stuck with Ze Bebe and go off to work. Thanks again dear Redneck (who does not reads this blog as he gets the email subscription but has a general 'ignore all emails from the potamus' policy, so...) for all you do.

Those will soon carry water all over the house!

My super pricey bathtub we got for like 60% off. Woot!

And we have a shower in the upstairs bathroom...

Septic tank. In the ground. BOOYA!

Next up: electrical! Yay!

(almost) wordless.

2013-09-27T20:58:00.000-04:00

Muscadines.

Hen-brained

2013-09-25T20:54:00.001-04:00

Our chickens are flipping nuts. Pancake chicken went broody in February (January? Too tired to search through the archives here...) and started this whole mess. We have had broody chickens and baby chickens seemingly non-stop since. We hatched out QUITE a few - first because it was so new to us, second for the chicks, and the third batch was really just because we missed our window of opportunity to break her (Pancake chicken, again) of being broody. The eggs were already developing so we let them be born into full-blown chicks.

And then a few weeks ago Cindy (one of our original Rhode Island Reds from Tractor Supply) and Pancake chicken (jeesh lady!) and another Australorp went broody all at the same time.

In our more populated coop (we have several), there are three nesting boxes. All three were populated with a broody hen. This was NOT OK. We scooped all three of them out and plopped them on the ground unceremoniously and took their eggs away (like 21 or so?). The unknown Lorpy got the idea and never looked back.

I have been chucking Pancake chicken and Cindy out of the nesting boxes daily ever since.

Kerplunk.

Yes. There are ways of 'breaking' them of being broody. The most popular method seems to be putting them in a small cage (like a rabbit cage) with nothing under them and no nesting material so their belly and nether regions cool down and they snap out of it. Some people say that dunking their lower halves into cold(ish) water will do the trick; again bringing their temps down so they snap out of it. The latter doesn't work - ask me how I know - and we are so busy that I'm afraid if we put them in a wire cage we'll forget to let them out before something bad happens.

So every day I go down and pluck them out and set them on the ground all floofed and upset and bawk-bawking.

This warmed my heart, though:


Broody and offended. Together.

They are hell bent on hatching something. Or nothing.

Progress!

2013-09-20T21:49:00.000-04:00

We've been working. The redneck has been busting his butt tryinging to get as much of the house done as possible - we're still reeeeeeeaaally hoping for it to be ready to move in to by Christmas. Ish. You know. Somewhere thereabouts.

This has nothing to do with the house. This is my son's newest favorite - plums!

Happy boy post-plum massacre

Mr Snarkles meets Henrietta

Siding and roof is done! Woohoo!

New septic tank. Baby is for size reference. You know. Works better in this context than a quarter...

Epiphany

2013-09-18T21:25:00.000-04:00

Ummm... I just had a realization....This beaut of a (half-built) landing is RIGHT OUTSIDE the back door. Which is connected to the kitchen.

Back door. Siding is complete now, and it looks awesome!

Another angle

From inside...

Why is this significant? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

This means that my stand alone propane burner, kind of like this (but older and rustier) ... is right outside the kitchen door. Meaning that canning, brewing & chicken plucking can happen right outside the door, and not turn my kitchen (/whole house) into a raging humid(er) inferno. How often do you wish that the bounty of summer didn't coincide with summer weather?

Yaaaayy!!

Holy Crap...

2013-08-28T20:40:00.001-04:00

...where did August go? Seriously! I turned around and the yawning expanse of summer before me is now behind me - just a small blip in the road behind me. Hot damn where did the time go?

My parents were up for most of the summer (they left today) to get the exterior of the house finished. And it *just about* is. Woohoo! Three years of living in the woods in an Airstream, and the end goal is in sight.

Kinda.

My parents and the Redneck have spent the summer toiling away against the weather to get us a finished shell. And it shows. Our (future) house is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. White pine siding, metal roof, porch, idyllic setting...

We have had some losses this summer - most notably my beloved grandfather passed. While it was a long time coming, it was still a very sad time for us. The brighter side is that everyone - everyone - went to the funeral. We had a nice little fast family reunion. I got to meet my amazing 9 month old niece for the first time. We stopped by to see my godmother on the way back, fresh out of surgery and looking amazing (and her sister. SO GLAD to have gotten to see her, too!). We found out that 3 days in the back of an F250 is rougher on me than on the Mr Snarkles (who had NO problems riding, minus one 20-minute stretch of gas-induced screaming). We got to see my godfather who drove up to upstate NY from CT for the funeral. MY sisters, my cousins, my aunts, my distant aunts, my distant cousins.... It was great.

The Acorn spent most of the summer away and his grandmother's - and boy oh boy has he grown! Wow! I missed so much...

I'm not a church goer, or the most religious of people, but the way I'm feeling about my life right now - and this may just be the exhaustion, post birthday let down, and impending cold talking - can only be described as blessed.

He hangs out during the day during construction...

Getting there!

Framing inside has begun!

This will be my new view coming down the driveway... yay!

Dexter, supervising.

The Redneck and the Mr Snarkles

Mr Snarkles Snuggles

(almost) wordless.

2013-07-30T16:05:00.000-04:00

I can't help but think that he knows something I don't know...