HAIRCUTS MAKE HAPPY CHICKENS
After sending Oscar off to get a haircut today, I turned my attention to the greens garden and gave it a haircut too.
The chickens of course approved!
This is the second haircut of the week for this bed. The other bed was trimmed once this week and will be ready again next week. Happy chickens!
We got the apple trees netted so, hopefully, that will prevent the birds from scarfing up my apples. Cross your fingers.
The radishes have taken over my life. After making Pickled Radishes, I gave away a quart of fresh radishes to a friend, then a quart to another friend, and then a pint to another friend. A few days later, thinking they should be pretty much gone, I found another gallon to harvest from the garden! Since then, I’ve just been throwing the whole radish plant to the chickens (instead of just the greens). You would think I’m about done with radishes now but if I say that out loud, I’m afraid I’ll find another gallon or two. I think even the chickens are tired of them.
Preparedness Thought:
One area many of us don’t think of when preparing for emergencies is “How am I going to cook dinner when the power goes out?” Having alternate means to safely cook meals is vital to your family’s physical and mental health during an emergency.
HOW TO PREPARE: 1) Learn how to safely cook on an outdoor grill and other outdoor cooking equipment such as a solar oven, tornado grill, camping stove, etc., 2) Acquire cooking equipment and keep it in working order, 3) Safely store cooking fuels (charcoal, wood, propane), 4) Learn how to safely build, start, and put out a fire. Each family will prepare for this challenge differently depending on where you live, available resources, and your personal skills but each family does need to prepare.
IT’S THAT TIME
One of the nice things about using the Deep Litter method in the chicken coop is that over the course of the year, we can just add more bedding on top of the old, with an occasional layer of Diatomaceous Earth. The bad thing of course is that, eventually, you have to clean it all out.
The Day of Reckoning came on Saturday. For Oscar. (hee hee)
He scooped out all the bedding, down to the layer of sand at the bottom, gave it a hour or so to “air out,” put down a layer of DE (if he did as he was told), and dumped in a new bag of bedding to start over again.
My tasks this week were less physical.
When I planted my greens beds, I mixed radish seeds in with the other seeds. I have used radishes as “spacers” in the garden for decades. That way, instead of measuring how far to space the different seeds out, the spacing is created as the radishes are harvested.
I don’t eat radishes. Even if I did eat them, keeping up with the multitude of radishes coming out of the garden would have been impossible. I had to come up with an alternative use for them.
Enter Pickled Radishes.
I’ve never had Pickled Radishes so didn’t know if this experiment would result in something edible.
Tuesday, I sliced the radishes with the Mandolin Slicer — successfully leaving my fingers out of it this time.
I packed them into 1/2-pint jars and poured brine made with Mrs. Wages Refrigerator Pickles mix over them. Once lidded, I put them into the refrigerator.
I took them with me to Easter Dinner for a taste test. My son-in-law wouldn’t even consider trying them. The boys tried them but, while they didn’t hate them, weren’t particularly impressed. My daughter said she’s “not offended” by them. That was my impression of them also. Overall, I’m glad I tried them but it’s one of those things I don’t need to repeat.
Thursday, I went to my favorite strawberry place – Kildee Farm – and picked up a flat of strawberries. I haven’t processed strawberries since 2022 and it was time!
From the flat, I first made a batch of freezer jam. I’ve decided I prefer freezer jam for strawberries. Freezer jam tastes like strawberries. Canned jam reminds me of strawberry Jello where the sugar overwhelms the strawberry taste.
The remaining berries were dehydrated for snacks.
I’m pleased with what I accomplished last week!
Today, we tried something new with Calvin.
As you know, none of our attempts to incorporate him into the flock have been successful. Today, toward the end of the day, we let the hens out of the chicken run for a long overdue walk-about. They have not been out for a very long time because of hawks and other dangers. The three Buff Orpingtons were funny – they didn’t know what to do and huddled together on the grass for quite a while. They had never been Outside. Everyone else scattered – excited to be out.
Calvin was beside himself. He was finally actually able to touch the girls. Rather than trying to woo them though, he just immediately started jumping them. No one was putting up with that nonsense and every one of the hens dumped him off and walked away.
The theory behind this experiment was: Calvin will follow the girls into the coop when it’s time for bed.
Nope. Chickens continue to prove that if human thinks it, a chicken will do the opposite.
As the daylight dimmed, most of the girls headed into the coop for bed. Calvin headed to his home, calling for them to follow him. Loki and Betty apparently got confused about where they were supposed to go and dithered in the yard until Oscar went out and put them in the coop. After everyone was in bed and the coop door closed, Calvin returned to the chicken run. He sure had a perplexed look as he tried to figure out where everyone went and why they didn’t follow him!
Chicken brains. SMH.
The week before, I completed another quilt top.
With things ramping up on the homestead, I don’t know if I will be able to keep up the pace I’ve been producing quilt tops. We shall see.
FIRST OFFERINGS
The beds of greens I planted for the chickens are exploding so I pulled a bunch of the radishes to thin them out and gave them to the chickens. Boy, did they go enjoy the treat!
When I watered the beds this afternoon, I noticed I will need to pick even more tomorrow.
Also, look at all the apple blossoms!
I need to get some netting on the trees this year so I get so the birds don’t get all the apples again.
I’m three weeks into Retirement and have had to lean into my structured personality to adapt to my new normal. To do that I made a list of several areas I want to make regular progress so that when I am just sitting around, I can refer to the list to see what I should be doing rather than turning into a couch potato. Each day I record which of these categories I put any amount of effort toward. The list includes:
Household Chores
Purge (there is stuff that just needs to get out of my house!)
Organize
Physical Therapy (I tend to forget to do my exercises if there’s not a reminder)
Food (this could simply be I ate a fruit or vegetable that day or perhaps I did some food preservation, took inventory of my food supply, etc)
Homestead (outside stuff like working in the garden or taking care of the chickens)
Preparedness (this includes prepping activities beyond Food Storage, which falls under the “Food” category)
Quilt (I continue to try to get one quilt top done each month)
Walk (I bought a walking pad because even working part time I realized I wasn’t getting enough exercise – my only rule is to use it daily, no step or time requirements)
Maintenance/Repair (I want to get the house ready to sell in case that possibility comes up)
Yes, for me a list is necessary as is being able to see what I accomplished each day. Otherwise, I will sit and stare and have no clue what to do with myself. That’s not the kind of Retirement I worked all these years for.
When my children were young, I made our bread from scratch (even ground the wheat!). That fell by the wayside over the years. When the Covid Pandemic hit and there was no bread at the store, I didn’t panic as I knew I could just make it. But I couldn’t find my preferred bread recipe and was never really happy with the several recipes I tested during that time. Once bread was available at the store again, the search for a decent bread recipe ceased. Now, that the price for a loaf of bread is beyond ridiculous, I decided, “It’s time to make bread again.”
I found a nice straightforward recipe and baked a couple of loaves. SMH. While the internal texture was right, it was tough and flavorless. Even with jam, I just couldn’t eat it.
However, I refused to waste it! So, I cut the bread into cubes and toasted them in the oven.
With those I made the Stuffing Mix recipe from my Make-A-Mix cookbook out of one loaf and breadcrumbs out of the other.
I feel pretty good about that!
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A WEEK MAKES
How exciting Spring is!
The greens I planted started poking through within 4 days. Now, they are well-established, and I will have to do some thinning soon.
Not only that but the apple trees, elderberry bushes, and fig all have leaves on them.
I was surprised to see that the chives came back. They were planted beneath the apple trees to deter the dreaded Japanese Beetles. Since I don’t have to re-purchase them, that money can go to other plants!
I need to get out this week to fertilize all my beds. Raised beds and container plants need more frequent fertilizing, which I have not been very diligent about doing. I will do better this year. There’s quite a bit of garden clean up still to do, too.
I look forward to hitting the Farmer’s Market next month for a few plant starts.
GOOD NEWS AND MORE GOOD NEWS
Good news #1: The temperatures have warmed up significantly so today I planted a mix of lettuces, radishes, kale, and basil in my two raised bed planters. None of these are things I eat – they will be greens for the chickens. Last year I had a partial bed of greens and was able to cut and re-grow all summer long to provide occasional greens for the chickens. I’m hoping two full beds will allow for at least one greens-fest a week for them.
Good news #2: While I was prepping the beds today, I discovered that the worms I put in my beds last year had no trouble surviving the winter and are very active.
Good news #3: Today was my last day of employment. I am now fully retired. Besides continuing to work on finishing my quilt projects, I plan to do an inventory of my pantry, purge the house, and get some of the deferred maintenance done. Everything else I will just have to make up as I go.
It seems there’s been one question my whole life: “What do I want to be when I grow up.” Slipping into retirement is no different; I’m still asking that. I guess we humans just keep reinventing ourselves as we move through life. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next years bring.
CLOSER AND CLOSER
February can be heartening to winter-weary souls. This is the time of year that the Parade of Hope begins.
While we had another bout of below-freezing temperatures, and even got some snow, we also heard the first calls from Spring Peepers (frogs) and spotted blooming daffodils. Both are sure signs that Spring is around the corner!
The winter garden, as limited as it is, has been doing well. The garlic shoots are still green and growing. The pansies, despite the frigid days and nights over the past couple of months, have continued blooming! I’ve always loved pansies. The fact that I can grow them here in the winter provides a bright spot of color throughout the dreary winter.
I was ill for part of the month. As miserable as it was, there were worse things going around that I, thankfully, did not catch.
I was delighted when a friend brightened my month with flowers. They added a spot of “pretty” in my home for a week or so.
The chickens are doing well and have been steadily laying eggs through the winter months. This, as you can imagine, makes me very popular among those who don’t want to pay the grocery store price for eggs. It sure is a shame I’m allergic to eggs.
I also was able to meet my goal of finishing another quilt top this month. I’ve had the material (Janet Rose) since 2009 so, besides being able to work through more of my fabric stash, I now have this beautiful quilt top. The pattern is “Wedding Rings.”
Garden planning begins in earnest next month. I’m not sure how extensive my garden will be this year, but I will definitely do something … planting stuff is one of my happy places.
Into March we go!
WINTER SLOW DOWN
The weather was the most exciting aspect of January. Other than the Polar Blast we got though, January was just another slow month on the homestead.
With eleven bodies heating the coop, the girls were fine in the frigid weather. The challenge was keeping them with adequate water. The bottle of salt water I keep in there in the winter only keeps the water thawed down to about 20 degrees F, and then only if the day warms up to 40 F. Two weeks of below freezing weather with daytime temperatures barely getting into the 30’s meant their water container was a solid block of ice. Subsequently, I needed to take a dish of water out to them twice a day.
My logical mind of knowing that the chickens can handle the cold failed me the couple of nights the temperatures dropped down to 11 degrees. We zip-tied the heat lamp in the coop, out of the chicken’s reach, and I felt much better on their behalf.
The only other issue was that Marble’s breathing became noisy. When it didn’t improve on its own, I was worried she had a respiratory infection and gave her a dose of Oregano Oil. She improved after that. I know there are people who shout and fuss about using Oil of Oregano instead of antibiotics. However, animal antibiotics are no longer readily available to the public and I have repeatedly had excellent results using Oregano Oil, so I don’t listen to the nay-sayers and continue to use it.
Amazingly, lonely Calvin survived through the bitter cold. We almost caught him once but he’s a wily thing. I continue to feed and water him. In fact, if I don’t show up with my daily offering, he stands outside the kitchen window and makes his dis-satisfaction known!
I finished another quilt top in January and started cutting out another one. I am determined to plow through the fabric I brought from Wyoming. What I will do with the quilts and tops I am making is a mystery but I’m enjoying creating beautiful things.
The picture doesn’t capture the richness of the colors in this autumn-themed quilt top.
BACK IN THE SADDLE?
I know I have been absent from the blog for several weeks. I’ve not been completely idle, I just haven’t been doing anything of interest on the homestead. The homestead has been in “maintenance mode” for winter. You know, watching the cats dig up my pansies and a good bit of my garlic, watching the garlic (that they didn’t destroy) grow, feeding and watering the chickens (including Calvin), and the like.
Sadly, I’ve not yet caught Calvin. It’s been sad to watch him wandering around in the cold and rain. He seems to have a somewhat safe place to roost at the neighbors, but every day I wonder if this is the day he doesn’t appear at the coop door. I’ve been providing him with food and water (the chicken feed keeps him fuller and will keep his internal temperature higher than the little bit of green plants he can find). He often comes running when he sees me walking out to the coop with his food but if I get within 8 or 10 feet of him, he takes off running. Last week, something made a serious attempt on his life – there was blood on his food and water dishes and a pile of feathers in the woods.
One thing that I have made good progress on is my quilting.
I previously shared the two quilt tops I completed in the Spring. Then I jinxed myself. I self-imposed a mandate that I needed to quilt and bind those two tops as well as a top finished in 2011 and bind a table runner that was made a few years ago before I could make any more tops.
That caused my quilting efforts to come to a Full Stop.
I read blogs and view You Tube videos but just could not figure out how to do any more than the stich-in-the-ditch method I already knew (which is serviceable but not particularly attractive). Finally, to break the dam, I took a Free Motion Quilting class in November. That helped but I still felt inadequate that I could do it and have it look good. At least I had the basics to practice with.
More significantly for getting things moving along, I saw a flyer advertising that there is a group for loved ones to donate all the unfinished projects left behind by a deceased friend or relative. I felt the weight lift from my shoulders: I CAN JUST MAKE TOPS if I want to! I told my daughter about it and left my guilt behind.
Since then, I made two quilt tops and one quilt from beginning to end. Not without hiccups – I’m still struggling with my sewing machine – but at least I’m now working through my many, many quilt projects.
First, I made this quilt. This was made from a charm pack I had in my stash – the fabric line was called Cotton Blossoms and who knows where or how long ago I acquired it.
I named it “Plot Twist” because I kept having to revise my plans. First, I was just going to make straight-forward Nine-Patch blocks with sashing but since I had just something similar, I did a Disappearing Nine-Patch instead. I was going to do the four blocks in the staggered formation shown with a lot of blank space, but my quilt math was off, and I didn’t have enough of the tan material to do that. So, I adapted by adding the two-patch squares made from left overs from the charm pack). Even then, I had to piece the tan sashing around the upper right two-patch. When I say there were no scraps left, I mean None! When completed, this will make a nice lap or wheelchair quilt.
After a lot of starts and stops, I finished this top today:
This one is named “Swizzle Twist.” The material was purchased and cut back in 2009. I want to finish this one with yellow fabric for the back and binding. This will be a cute baby quilt when it’s done.
I have a good friend at work and I decided that if I finish only one quilt, it would be hers. I used a kit to make a Christmas quilt top and applied the things I learned in my Free Motion Quilting class to complete it.
As has been the case all year, what should have been a very simple project was fraught with frustrations. First, I mis-cut one of the fabrics and because the kit gave barely enough material for the project, I had to sacrifice one of the borders. I had to order more material for the binding but it was the wrong shade of red and was unusable for this project. I ended up using some material dedicated to a different project to bind this quilt. I broke 5 needles in the course of this one project. When I was doing the quilting, the thread kept breaking. The alternate name for this quilt became “Blood, Swear, and Prayers” because that is exactly what was involved in getting it done!
Since she has been my friend these past 10 years, despite all my flaws, I gave it to her with the hope that she would accept this quilt with all its flaws, too. This is “Angel’s Christmas:”
The front is Traditional Christmas and the back is Festive Christmas.
So, that’s what I’ve been up to throughout November and December.
Happy New Year!
TRICK AND TREAT
TREAT: With Halloween done, the cost of pumpkins has gone down so I got one for the chickens. I got a nice sized pumpkin for just $2.99. Chickens love pumpkins and pumpkins are good for chickens (click the link to find out how) so they will appreciate the treat.
I cut several wedges out of the side. Doing so makes it easier for the chickens to get it started and entices them to peck at it.
The wedges I removed were given to Calvin, the neighbor’s rooster.
TRICK: A cage for Calvin. Calvin still runs from us, but I’ve started to leave him food, hoping to gain his trust.
I’m concerned about him surviving the winter. He runs free all day, wandering between my chicken coop, the woods behind the property, and the neighbors back yard. He goes to the neighbor’s yard at night. There are no other chickens over there to share warmth with and he doesn’t have a structure to stay inside for protection. My newest concern is that there are some neighborhood cats that have taken an interest in him. They have been stalking him!
If I can “encourage” him to let us catch him, I will do an exam to verify that he is healthy and then let him in with the girls.
Today, I took the project to the next level and put out a cage. I put the pumpkin and other food inside.
He was definitely suspicious but eventually went inside to get the treats. Perhaps someday, we will be able to shut the door on him.
IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN
While I decided to not plant a winter garden this year, that doesn’t mean I’m not planting Something. My internal nagger just wouldn’t let me do that, so today I planted garlic.
Garlic is an easy crop. Plant it, water it occasionally (if the sky doesn’t), and harvest it (in May or June).
To plant garlic, you first separate the cloves from bulb(s) of garlic, leaving as much of the “paper” on as you can. I had four bulbs and each one of the cloves will, with luck, produce another whole bulb.
Make a hole about 3″ deep and put a clove in each hole. The cloves should be planted about 4″ or so apart.
I read somewhere that it’s good to mulch it with comfrey leaves so I tried it this year. I only have two comfrey plants so that didn’t provide a sufficient cover. After consulting Master Gardner Google, I used lemongrass as mulch too.
I ran out of space in the brick bed before I ran out of garlic cloves, so I planted four cloves in each of three fabric pots. We’ll see how that goes.
I hope I get a bigger crop this time. The garlic powder I made from the garlic I planted last October is amazing.
A few days ago, I planted pansies in the planter I cleared out a few weeks ago. They will make a nice, bright, spot to see on the gloomy winter days.
Gardens aren’t just for food; they are a joy for the eyes and a balm for the mind.
Two Chickens Homestead 
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