Three Lil' Acres Farm - the Stone Family Homestead

And now for May...

2010-05-16T11:08:00.004-04:00

It's hard to believe May's already here and well gone! The trees are full of leaves, the spring march of blossoms is well on its way. Our Lilies of the Valley are up, the gooseberries, currants and raspberries have all set fruit. There are cherries on the cherry tree and we're waiting for the first blossoms on the apple trees. The Elderberries are coming on strong, as are the newly planted blueberries and clove(black) currants.

But spring has been odd around here, so the garden is just now getting into motion. We planted garlic last fall and it's growing like mad out there, Mike has cauliflower that is loving the cool spring. At the beginning of this week we had sub-freezing temps, though, and he thinks the parsnips took a hard hit. We're still waiting to see if they come back.

We had a touch of sadness hit Friday though; our doe Blue broke her back Thursday night during a thunderstorm. Rabbits are flighty, jumpy creatures and we've been aware that it's a concern, that we might find a rabbit had leapt up in response to thunder(or any number of the loud noises they make next door). Part of the reason we chose quanset style hutches was for that very reason. So, our dear sweet Blue is gone, leaving behind a litter of 4 week old kits that we're hoping are weaned enough to be okay.

Let's see...what else.

Our mama hen and her two chicks are doing quite well living in the rabbit side of the barn. She's teaching them to scratch and forage and they're just starting to get real feathers :) Soon they'll be ready for her to take them outside and the fun will really start. Mike thinks they might both be roosters *oy* but we'll have to wait and see.

We are finally getting some nicer weather though, the sun is shining, gentle breeze, comfortable temperatures that don't require layers!

Hope everyone's well, and we'll try to update more often! It's just hectic around here!

First Cookout

2010-04-10T14:51:00.004-04:00

We had a streak of abnormally warm weather in early April that just begged to be taken advantage of. So, on April 9th we enjoyed our first cookout!

So, we had steaks and grilled veggies...

Though when asked what she wanted Mandon picked a hamsteak...so yes...that's what that is..

Then we made smores! Happy child, yes?

they turned out soooo tasty...

Though Mandon thought she had to rub Mike's head for good luck in order to guarantee a perfect toasted marshmallow..

See? mmmmm...

No pictures please....

Oh, alright...

mmmmmm....

Gorgeous, no?

Can't wait for the next one(hear that Mother Nature? we'd like real spring weather any time instead of the freezing stuff!)

Good People

2010-04-10T14:47:00.003-04:00

The nice thing about friends who are farmers is they know just what you need when a hen goes broody. A rooster! And if you don't have a rooster? Then you get lucky to have a friend who does and will send you fertile eggs for that blasted hen to sit on!

My friend, Vanessa, was kind enough to mail us a dozen eggs for our broody hen to sit on. They arrived thoroughly protected and wrapped! What a gal! Our hen managed to hatch out 2 of the dozen...we think we didn't get more because she was chased off the nest a couple of days in. Stay tuned for pics of the adorable little buggers!

It's all egg-citing :)

2010-04-10T14:42:00.003-04:00

Okay...so this post is wayyyyy late...

Some how I think it was a bit of a jinx to decorate my Easter egg as Humpty Dumpty...

Easter Morning....Mandy had fun, can ya tell?

Mandon's cute little lamb...that Pollux thought was his for a brief moment!

Look what I did!

Pretty pretty eggs :)

Too old for this?

2010-03-13T20:04:00.004-05:00

Oh no....she went back to the toy box...

Are those barrettes?

oh dear...Dad's gonna owe me for this one...

Dad? Why am I in a crown?

you know we wore her out...

when she falls asleep in her pizza.

Changes coming a little early...

2010-03-13T18:02:00.001-05:00

We always pick the best weather for things, you know that right? So...when a storm finally threw stuff our way this is what it looked like outside. Gorgeous and thankfully the foot that fell came over the course of three days.

But, that didn't stop the latest event from happening!

Wednesday Mike hopped a Greyhound to Ohio. Life being what it is and disregarding schedules and well thought out plans and the like, Mandy and Mandon's expected move date at the end of March was bumped up to last week.

So, Mike and Mandy picked up a moving truck, packed up her stuff and drove up through snow and wind and white-outs. They pulled into the driveway late Thursday night and by Saturday morning the truck was unloaded and dropped off a few miles away.

Believe it or not everything that's going to be unpacked has been and we're settling in. Mandon's thrilled with her room and having her 'Poppy' around.

The cats love that we have an extra couch and spend a great deal of time on it.

This was taken the evening we unloaded the moving truck...think we wore them out? I think the girls felt she was safe to lie near once she zonked! ;)

You wanna know what!?!?

2010-03-10T08:31:00.002-05:00

Hello everyone. This farm update will be a bit different. We recently received a survey from the US Census Bureau entitled "The American Community Survey" - now this is something I had never heard of before but, being it is a Census year, opened it up for a look. This "anonymous" survey starts out with the Census-required number of occupants and quickly delves into some incredibly disturbing questions. Like what, you may ask. In addition to questions (to the anonymous survey, remember) of name, age, address, DOB, phone number, ethnic origin, marital status, and sex, there's:

(Numbers are actual question numbers from the form).

(7a) How many separate rooms are in this house, apartment, or mobile home?
(7b) How many are bedrooms?

(9) How many automobiles are kept at home for use by members of this household?

(11a) What was your electric bill last month?
(11b) What was your gas bill last month?

(16) What do you think this house and lot would sell for if it were for sale?

(18a-c) (Paraphrased) Do you have mental or emotional problems? Have problems with stairs? Difficulty dressing or bathing?

(30) Where did you work last week? With street address.

(31) How did you get to work?

(33) What time did this person usually leave home to go to work last week?

(47a-h) How much money did you make last year? And from what sources?

So, you've asked me questions about my net worth, income, and when I leave for work and how many hours I work (I left that one out, sorry). Isn't this information that burglars need to know? And you want me to give it to temporary employees that make 10 or so dollars an hour?

I won't even go into details about the 243 laptops the Census Bureau has lost and how people have had their personal information "accidentally" posted on government websites repeatedly. Or how Scientific American recently revealed that "confidential" Census information was used to identify Japanese-Americans who were later interred during WWII. Or that Homeland Security has admitted using the (once again, "confidential") information for profiling Americans of Arab ancestry for profiling during Bush's "war on terror."

I also can't help but notice that some of the questions are part of the public record: How much is my house worth? Ask the tax assessor. How many cars do we have? Ask the BMV. How much money did we make? Ask the IRS. Where do we work? Once again, ask the IRS for W-2s. The other information is none of your business.

So, this 28 page form is supposed to be mailed out to 3 million homes annually on a rolling basis (at a cost of $120-$150 million/yr from the GAO). And it will enable (according to the handy-dandy pamphlet that comes along with it) "your community leaders from government, BUSINESS, and non-profit organizations to plan more effectively. Since when is it the American taxpayer's job to subsidize market research for businesses?

And if they are just using this information anonymously, why do they need your name, age, DOB, and PLACE OF BIRTH?

The Constitution (does anyone even remember it exists) allows for a decennial ENUMERATION of the population for congressional redistricting and apportionment. THAT IS ALL.

So, I have a couple of other questions: Why has it been around since 2003 and yet no one seems to have heard about it? Could it be that if they asked all of us these questions at the same time, we would assemble with our family and co-workers and decide that we weren't going to answer such intrusive questions?

And if it such a neighborly questionnaire (American Community Survey certainly seems benign, doesn't it?), why are you threatened with a fine for failure to comply? This is all a bit too "Big Brother" for me, (and yes Dad, I know they know when I brush my teeth, probably and what toothpaste I use) and we refuse to roll over and willingly cede our Right to Privacy. We are not "data sets." We are human beings and American Citizens!

Sunday morning experiment...

2010-02-21T12:59:00.002-05:00

These pictures don't need much explanation ;) I've a recipe for refrigerator dough that I use for pizza crusts...well, the recipe also comes with a recipe for the following, using half the batch. So, Friday night I made pizza and with the leftover I made these delicious lovelies. YummmmmY!

Waiting to rise...

Fresh from the oven...

Turned out on a plate...

Ready for serving!

They were absolutely fantastic. Definitely something we'll have in the future!

So I went to collect eggs...

2010-02-17T20:03:00.002-05:00

...tonight, just like every other night. Trudge out through the snow(still falling) feed the rabbits and make my way into the hens' side of things. I toss out some food for them, fill the water trough and turn my attention to the nesting boxes.

Peek in the first and EEK! There's a freakin' opossum grubbin' on eggs!! Talk about a nasty surprise!

looked something like this!

So now what do I do? Well, the barn's at least a hundred feet from the house, the wind is howling and, of course, everything's closed up tight. No chance I can yell and get Mike's attention.

Now, picture this, okay? I'm standing in the middle of the hen house, chickens scratching about my feet, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there's a PREDATOR IN THE BARN!

Ok. So I have a water bucket and my egg bucket. No help there. I stand back, keeping an eye on the little bugger. Thankfully it IS a little bugger and it looks like it's hoping like hell I don't realize it's there.

Well, I have to do something. Hoping for some inspiration I go back to the rabbit side of the barn and look around. Finally I decide I'm going to see if I can get the blasted thing into the water bucket so I can take it up to the house and get Mike's help.

With heavy gloves and an empty feed sack in hand I head back to the hen house. The thing's still in the same spot, in fact it looks like it's cowered even further into the back of the nesting box.

Now, I'm really not all that keen on getting bit, and I can't seem to see anyway around that. 'Possums have killer teeth and the gloves I had weren't 100% leather ones.

Okay.

*deep breath*

I turn the feed sack inside out and bunch it together in my hand. Carefully I stuff it in the nesting box, figuring if the thing was going to attack me it could attack the bag instead. Thankfully it didn't! Taking the bull by the horns I reached in and grabbed it with the bag and yanked it out. The front of the box turned the bag back over it and I was able to drop the critter into the bag like some crazy ass Crocodile Hunter.

Well. Phew. Okay, that part at least was dealt with. Holding the bag(with the opossum in it) in one hand I fished the rest of the eggs(the whole ones at any rate) out. With the 'normal' chores handled I made the trek back to the house, water bucket, egg bucket, and 'possum filled sack in hand.

So now what the hell do I do?

Well, thankfully I was now close enough to get help. Mike fetched the .22 and shortly thereafter there was a dead 'possum.

Now how's that for some mid-week excitement?

Spring Fever?

2010-02-07T20:00:00.006-05:00

This last weekend Jen and I decided to try something we have both been interested in some time, home brewing. We bought each other kits for Xmas this year and finally got around to playing with them.

This is Jen's kit. It came with instructions (all 5 steps). Just grape juice, yeast, and toasted oak chips (for those of us who don't have wine barrels at home, I presume).

Here is the wine-to-be all mixed up and on it's way to being White Zin. The peat mossy looking stuff on the top is the afore-mentioned oak chips.

Here is Mikey's kit. Notice the number of ingredients. (Beer is much more complicated than vino - as evidenced by the 25 step instructions that accompanied the kit).

Here we are after the grains have been steeped, malt and bittering hops added. Boy did that smell like heaven. Btw, this is a brown porter that I'm working on.

Here we are on Sunday. An hour or so before the Super Bowl, Jen tells me that we have grape juice on the office floor as her wine decided to "explosively ferment" (no shit). So we transferred her brew from the carboy into an extra fermenter (positioned next to mine full of "sweet wort") and both have been bubbling along happily since.

So, after two weeks, Jen has to transfer hers over into the carboy for another 12 to 14 weeks before it can be bottled (and needs to wait for another 3 months to age). Mine will go into bottles with corn sugar (to provide carbonation) for another two weeks before it is ready to drink. I can't wait.

Afternoon...um...visitor?

2010-01-22T15:43:00.002-05:00

I do believe there's truth to the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words..."

I'm just not sure which thousand that would be!

Both pictures were taken this afternoon as I stood on the front porch. This was the second pass the chopper made!! The first one had them hovering over directly over the house, then over the neighbor's! Yes...we are wondering "what the hell!?!"

Breeding like rabbits...

2010-01-18T13:25:00.000-05:00

Well, if there's one thing owning rabbits has shown us is that there IS truth to the old saying "breed like rabbits". We have a rabbitry full of kits right now, with all four does having litters.

Ready for some cute bunny pics? Oh of course you are!

Lily was the first in the barn to have babies this fall after we took a hiatus from breeding to let the does regain condition and to ease the load for our trip to California. It took a few tries before any of the rabbits finally were bred, and we were beyond thrilled when we went out and found little squirming bodies in Lily's nest box.

These guys are seven weeks old now and will hang around for another three before we butcher.

Blue and Josie were next. Blue had eleven kits while Josie had four, so we ended up fostering three of Blue's with Josie's litter. As the babies were born during a bitter cold snap Blue still lost two of the kits to the cold. They're growing well now and will move into growout cages in a few weeks.

This little one is one of Josie's crew, and was playing peekaboo with Mike! Too freakin' cute!

What a face! (One of Blue's crew)

Josie's crew, I think ;)

Definitely one of Blue's. This little black otter was playing hard to get, but it's one of the cutest faces out there!

Last but not least is our youngest doe, Nestle. She's a chocolate color(duh!) and is Cocoa's daughter. She kindled Thursday before last with nine babies, all alive and well and birthed in the nesting box. One of the things I've always been told is that first time moms are prone to kindling on the floors of their cages, so we are just thrilled with her. On top of that is the sheer size of the litter, which is a good sized litter for a doe of production age, let alone a first timer! She's giving good milk and all of the babies are looking great!

Miss Nestle checking to make sure we covered her babies well after taking pictures.

So little! Their ears have only bee open for a couple of days now, but the fur is coming in great!

This silly oaf is our "backup" buck, Hydro(short for Hydrox...you know...the Oreo knock offs?) He's a trip, and we're still up in the air as to whether or not we'll be keeping him around.

So, there ya have it, an update from the rabbitry. There's more pics of the bunnies, if you want to check out our photobucket album!

Shake your groove thing..

2010-01-13T18:49:00.002-05:00

This past weekend was Jen's company xmas party. This is the 3rd one we've been to and it was the best one yet. It was also the first one not accompanied by a snowstorm. The turn out was a little light but that meant more chances of winning door prizes.

Here we are on a very rare occasion that at least one of us (that would be Jen) wasn't on the dance floor.

Jen dancing it up with the girls:

When Jen wasn't on the floor she was either refilling my drink or up requesting songs. She tells me that the caption that should go w/ this is: "No, no play some good stuff not this wedding shit." (That wasn't her saying that, btw).

This is what happens when stiff white guys dance:

This is the stiff white guy's mom, Inez (she and her husband own the company). She was out working it with the ladies.

My turn to help keep the tunes coming.

And just to prove that you can keep the party going with liberal social lubricants (I did mention it was open bar, right?) Here we are tearing up that rug again.

Anyway, we had a great time (and didn't embarrass ourselves, believe it or not) and hey, we even won a couple of those door prizes. How 'bout that?

Take care all. Til next time.

Yuletide Staycation

2009-12-31T16:27:00.002-05:00

Hello everyone! 2009 is almost behind us and it has been another busy year.

We hope everyone had a wonderful Xmas as we certainly did though it was a quiet one at home for Jen and I. We received some wonderful, thoughtful gifts all-around: my baby sister managed to find the obscure biscuits for my biscuit joiner and got me a couple of Ohio State beanies (go Bucks!) and she got Jen a bunch of organizational supplies for her newly (mostly) completed craft room. (I'll post before and after pics as soon as I complete the chair rail).

We received a wonderful "care package" of naturally raised pork products from my dad and Joanne. We started out with some breakfast sausage Xmas morning with the French toast I made with Jen's homemade bread. We're already planning to try the bacon with blueberry pancakes this weekend.

Last Sunday, we went to the Buffalo Botanical Gardens for "Dollar Day" and it was worth every penny (one would hope, right?) We decided that 72 degrees and humid with flowers all-around qualifies as a mini-vacation. (Especially after the 17 degrees and snow the week before). They have several themed domes - we especially enjoyed the epiphyte one - even if it wasn't very photogenic. They had a display of poinsettias as one might imagine and there are actually some really pretty ones, go figure.

These were my favorites:

Jen's Favorite:

Jen and I also enjoyed the assortment of Orchids that they had (so much so that we're gonna try to make it back for the Orchid show in late February).

Can you tell that Orchids trick insects into pollinating them by pretending to be insects to mate?

They also had some pottery on display from the local college students, this was my favorite:
Anyway, I'm gonna cut this short as Jen and I are about to start our "guilty pleasures comedy movie marathon." Anyone who is interested in seeing the rest of the pics is welcome to do so at our photobucket account.

Holidays - Niagara Style

2009-12-26T19:06:00.004-05:00

Hello everyone, we hope the holidays finds everyone well. Last weekend we took a road trip up to the Niagara peninsula to check out 283 year old Fort Niagara for Christmas by Candlelight. Our visit happened to coincide with the anniversary of the British's recapture of the fort from the Americans during the war of 1812. It was quite the fascinating visit. The tour was pretty much self-guided from room to room in the castle where we met up with various reenactors.

Here is one of the massive gates. (Jen's helping me by illuminating it w/ her flashlight).

Here is the supply area with some of the provisions available.

Here is some of the gear needed to hunt & trap for food in the treacherous New York winters.

It was quite chilly while we were there and while the castle did us all a huge service by blocking the Canadian winds that roar off of lake Ontario, it was far from from warm and cozy though the pics may make it look otherwise.

The kitchen was the warmest room of all and, compared to the others, was the coziest by far. (This room was the busiest all night - I'm thinking that the roaring fire had something to do with that).

Across the parking lot from the fort's visitor center is the Old Fort Niagara lighthouse which was built in 1872 and decommissioned in 1993.

Of course we had to stop at the falls on the way up because, apparently, Jen thinks that late December is the best time to see the falls. (FYI she has never managed to see the falls any other time of year). Needless to say, it was cold! 17 degrees with a windchill of maybe +2 degrees.

This is what happens when those frigid winds get a hold of the mist.

Ok, I feel like I need a blanket. Don't worry, though. I have a much warmer post planned for next time. Until then.

On Vacation...

2009-09-25T09:31:00.003-04:00

Well, we've an update, but it isn't from the farm! We're on a much needed vacation and enjoying ourselves immensely! We arrived in California Wednesday, and after a lovely evening spent with our friends we drove down to the Monterey pennisula yesterday. I got to see my first sunset on the Pacific ocean and Mike took tons of pictures at the beach.

This little guy sat for umpteen photos and when we were done took himself over to another couple and asked them to take photos too!

Today we're heading back up the coast to take a tour of Alcatraz and meet back up with our friends. They're going to be showing us the "local" side of San Francisco tomorrow and even more sights before we leave.

But, it looks like the sun is coming up outside, so we're off to see what other pictures we can take!

Hope everything's going well for everyone, and we'll post more pictures when we get back!

At Summer's End

2009-09-06T06:38:00.004-04:00

Well...it's hard to say that summer's ending here, when it seems it never really started. The last week has been gorgeous, but you can't help but feel the arrival of fall imminent in the mornings when the air is crisp and the dew heavy.
I know, I know...we've been terribly lax in posting the goings on here at Three Lil' Acres. Let me see what I can do to bring you up to speed!

Mike warred with the weather to keep the garden alive this year. He had a little more luck with the squash and cukes than last year, but they were still hit really hard by the plagues of various mildews that the cold damp summer encouraged. He had similar problems with the tomatoes and countless were lost to blossom end rot. We're finding that the soil here is rediculously out of balance and will be amending quite thoroughly this fall.

But, we had some successes.

An okra flower. This is an experiment to see if we like them. We're hoping to try some okra pickles!

These are the flowers for Purple Podded Pole Beans. Aren't they pretty? While these will never replace Kenntucky Wonder for flavor, they were still better than storebought and really neat to grow.

Now, one part of the garden that has been a resounding success is the peppers! Mike put in Jimmy Nardello frying peppers(the long red ones), Bull Nose and King of the North Bell Peppers, Czech Black hot peppers and Jalepeno peppers. We're still harvesting steadily on these, and enjoying them thoroughly!

The beans were another success. Mike has put up somewhere close to ten pounds of green beans, and that's beyond what we've been eating fresh. The tomatoes are producing, though not as well as we'd hoped, and the flavor is...well, flat. And that's for ALL of the varieties grown, Blue Beech, Rutgers, Cherokee Purple and Speckled Roman. We're not sure if that's because of the deficient soil or because it didn't get hot enough up here.

On other fronts, our new laying flock is freeranging and should be laying eggs in about a month. It looks like we got one rooster in the bunch - a Barred Rock that has been dubbed "Rocky"(of course). And I still maintain that there's nothing funnier to listen to than an adolescent rooster trying on his crow. Here in a month we'll sell off the extra pullets to bring us down to our 15 hens.

The three laying hens are doing well, though they do enjoy picking on the young pullets. They've been paying their own way(and then some) with egg sales since the spring and I can't wait for the pullets to start laying so we can expand our customer base. I've regular customers at work and a few others that buy eggs occasionally.

So...that's a brief rundown on the place! We'll try to get better about posting(I know...I say that all the time)!

A Little Taste Of Home

2009-08-07T21:07:00.000-04:00

I know, I know....it's been a while, to say the least. A farm update should be upcoming in a day or two since we have big news on that front...for now, let me tell you about our latest visit.

The last week of July saw the arrival of more rain and my mom, baby sis, and niece from Ohio. We had a great time - even though they stayed for a whole week (what's the saying? guests like fish begin to smell after 3 days). As is becoming tradition, my sis brought up a crave case (for those of you who don't know a crave case is a box of 30 white castle "belly bomber" hamburgers) and a case of Barq's red creme soda. Boy, she sure does love her big brother. Anyways...

Apparently, the girls had a wild banana daiquiri-fueled party Friday night after I went up to bed. (All that hard farm labor tuckers a feller out doncha know?) I don't know if they're just keeping hush hush about the goings-on or not but I'd like to think that someone woulda taken blackmail photos had anyone decided to dance on a table or wear a lamp on their head - but who knows?

While Mandy and mom were up we went to the Sterling Renaissance Festival (where Jen worked for 5 years during high school and college) where ma (my mother-in-law) got herself corseted, my sister kept being picked up on by pirates (while ma was trying to pick them up), I got picked to be a cat, and munchie got to see "the princess"and ride a horse among other things.

Jen receives catechism tutoring from a naughty nun

While we were out at Jen's moms, we (Jen, me and munchie) picked blueberries from the patch in the backyard. Munchie really enjoyed getting to (taste) test them to see if they were ripe enough to pick. (She also got to hold a couple of snails and some really small toads that are all over around our house).

We also had a lot of great eating while we had company (that is one of my favorite parts of guests, I must admit). Jen made some awesome banana-walnut pancakes by request (good idea ma), mom made fetuccine alfredo (which I love but my tummy doesn't), and Jen made up an amazingly good (yes, she outdid herself) batch of rajitas. (For those of you who don't know, that's what we call rabbit fajitas). This was the first time that both moms had tried rabbit (and of course my mom is probably finding out right now - sorry mom) and they both enjoyed it greatly. We also made up some bruschetta with home grown basil and got chinese take out, mmmmmm....yummy.

We, minus Jen, went up to Niagara Falls (which is the first time I've ever been there during the day) and got some great photos. And small miracle, there was a clear blue sky for the whole day.

The visit flew by and before we knew it, it was time for our guests to go :( So, thanks for coming up, we had a great time and I woulda even liked a couple more days (to make up for the days that the rain kept us inside).

So, who's next?

A little taste of home

2009-08-07T08:02:00.001-04:00

I know, I know....it's been a while, to say the least. A farm update should be upcoming in a day or two since we have big news on that front...for now, let me tell you about our latest visit.

The last week of July saw the arrival of more rain and my mom, baby sis, and niece from Ohio. We had a great time - even though they stayed for a whole week (what's the saying? guests like fish begin to smell after 3 days). As is becoming tradition, my sis brought up a crave case (for those of you who don't know a crave case is a box of 30 white castle "belly bomber" hamburgers) and a case of Barq's red creme soda. Boy, she sure does love her big brother. Anyways...

Apparently, the girls had a wild banana daiquiri-fueled party Friday night after I went up to bed. (All that hard farm labor tuckers a feller out doncha know?) I don't know if they're just keeping hush hush about the goings-on or not but I'd like to think that someone woulda taken blackmail photos had anyone decided to dance on a table or wear a lamp on their head - but who knows?

While Mandy and mom were up we went to the Sterling Renaissance Festival (where Jen worked for 5 years during high school and college) where ma (my mother-in-law) got herself corseted, my sister kept being picked up on by pirates (while ma was trying to pick them up), I got picked to be a cat, and munchie got to see "the princess"and ride a horse among other things.

While we were out at Jen's moms, we (Jen, me and munchie) picked blueberries from the patch in the backyard. Munchie really enjoyed getting to (taste) test them to see if they were ripe enough to pick. (She also got to hold a couple of snails and some really small toads that are all over around our house).

We also had a lot of great eating while we had company (that is one of my favorite parts of guests, I must admit). Jen made some awesome banana-walnut pancakes by request (good idea ma), mom made fetuccine alfredo (which I love but my tummy doesn't), and Jen made up an amazingly good (yes, she outdid herself) batch of rajitas. (For those of you who don't know, that's what we call rabbit fajitas). This was the first time that both moms had tried rabbit (and of course my mom is probably finding out right now - sorry mom) and they both enjoyed it greatly. We also made up some bruschetta with home grown basil and got chinese take out, mmmmmm....yummy.

We, minus Jen, went up to Niagara Falls (which is the first time I've ever been there during the day) and got some great photos. And small miracle, there was a clear blue sky for the whole day.

The visit flew by and before we knew it, it was time for our guests to go :( So, thanks for coming up, we had a great time and I woulda even liked a couple more days (to make up for the days that the rain kept us inside).

So, who's next?

Homegrown Goodness

2009-06-12T20:11:00.006-04:00

Things are growing like mad for us this year, and what a relief that is! We're running like crazy as always, but that's the way we like it, most of the time.

So, here's what's doing on our three little acres.

The garden is almost entirely planted. Parsnips and eggplant will get transplanted this weekend, and we're aiming to get the corn in, too. Sweet corn, popcorn and dent corn, hopefully. After we get a couple more beds in, we have cabbage, broccoli and brussels sprouts to transplant as well.

As we've mentioned in previous blog posts, we've gone with raised beds to help combat the long cold spring. It's working wonders, and we've blossoms on peppers and tomatoes already, which is much better than last year. Of course, last year was a very cold, soggy one!

Here's our first pepper blossom. This is on one of our Jimmy Nardello pepper plants. Nardello's are a frying pepper and delicious!

This is the first of our okra sprouts. We've actually never tried growing okra before(or eating it, for that matter), but decided to after watching a show on it. We hope to at least pickle these, but we've a few recipes to try to see if we can conquer the infamous okra slime!

We don't have it fenced in yet, but this is the majority of the garden(we've one more bed to go for this year, at least). In the far left bed we have planted some cutting lettuces, spinach, chard, some head lettuces(you can't really see those), and Kentucky Wonder Pole beans. We ended up having to replant the beans, but now all of them are up and doing wonderfully. The first bed in the middle is our tomato bed. We have speckled roman, blue beech, and rutgers tomatoes in there, all three of which are paste tomatoes. Behind that is the root bed. Turnips, beets, and radishes, as well as some snap peas and a new bean for us, a purple pole bean. Those are all doing phenomenally well.
The first bed on the right has our peppers(two different bells and some nardellos), and will also have our eggplants(Diamonds and Rose Biancos) and possibly some edamame. Behind that is another root bed. Already there are celeriac(Root celery) and the rest of it will be planted with parsnips. You can't really see, but along the fence behind all the beds is an asparagus bed.

The strawberry tower is working fantastically. We've berries all over this puppy, some all filled out and working their way from green to white, soon to turn pink then red. We can't wait for those first berries :)

Can you spot the gooseberry in this picture? We transplanted our poor little bush this year, and it's coming on strong now. There are two berries on our little thorny gooseberry - one for me, one for Mike ;)

We have 25 red raspberry plants in this year that are coming on strong, but were we surprised to find some volunteer berry canes popping up around the property! We don't know what they are yet, but we're looking forward to finding out!

We did discover yet another benefit to having more than one bathroom in the house. 26 day old baby chicks arrived Tuesday, and after a long trek via truck, bike and air Mike settled them in the downstairs bathtub! The difference in their temperment is distinct, and they're doing well.

As for the rabbits, we've three litters in the growout cages totaling 22 fryers. I think we'll be butchering the oldest six in a couple of weeks, then the balance a couple of weeks after that. We will be culling a couple of our does when we do the first butcher, however, after hemming and hawing for weeks about it. We just don't need to have five breeding does.

And don't you know we work everyone around here hard? Willow just had to stretch out and take a nap the other day. You know, watching her dad work so hard is just exhausting!

The three day weekends

2009-05-24T08:07:00.003-04:00

Well, Memorial Day is here at last! Mother Nature has gifted us with a gorgeous weekend, and we're taking advantage of it here. Yesterday was devoted to some necessary, though rarely enjoyable tasks.

The morning went to butchering rabbits - yes, even on a holiday weekend that has to be done! Thirteen rabbits, all of them with beautiful pelts and nicely sized. After than I ran into the Village for a much needed haircut, then back home to tackle the rabbit once more! All of the meat is now parted out and more than half of it is wrapped and in the freezer. I think I'll try to get the remainder done later today.

Mike's knee is healing, and he's been getting around without crutches since Monday. Some days are better than others, but on the whole the knee is better than before the surgery. Wednesday is the followup visit, and we'll find out where we go from here. Otherwise, he has exercises from the physical therapist with a couple more weekly visits before he's free to proceed on his own.

We had a wonderful dinner last night. Mike grilled up some chicken and rabbit - and we were both thrilled to find out that my treatment of both of them addressed the worry of overly dry meat! A little oil, my special spice mixture and Mike's careful grilling turned out mouthwatering spicy grilled skinless chicken legs and thighs and lean rabbit quarters. Yummy. Accompanying that was the first pasta salad of the season!

Tomorrow we're going to be grilling out again - brats this time! We picked up a watermelon, and a friend might be coming down from Buffalo to hang out for a bit with her dog. Pollux should love that!

On to some farm news.

On the poultry front, we have 25 day old chicks coming in a couple of weeks. We're getting 11 Barred Rocks, 11 Golden Laced Wyandottes, and 3 Delawares. Here's what will be populating the chicken coop here shortly.

Initially our intention was to get the 25 and perhaps sell most of the pullets once they reached laying age. Well, tragedy struck last weekend, the day after Mike's surgery. A fox and her litter wiped out all but three of our hens. We thought we had lost the entire flock - no one heard a thing until the the last Buckeye squawked and drew out attention to the goings on. Needless to say, neither of us were happy. We're going to be taking a trapping course this summer and over winter we will take advantage of the fact that we are permitted to trap on our property. The predator pressure has been increasing, with raccoon, opossum, coyote and now fox all sighted in our yard.

Starting next week, we're going to a schedule of four 10 hour shifts at work. So, for the duration of the summer, I'll have three day weekends! I'm positive that the long weekends will more than make up for the long days.

Today we're hoping to get the tomatoes and peppers transplanted into the garden, as well as some more seeds planted. We're going to give okra a shot this year - the seeds we picked up are merely 56 days to harvest, and the plants produce until frost! We've a few different recipes to try, and hopefully this is another vegetable to add to our garden permanently.

Well, time to make some blueberry pancakes and get going today!

A pictoral walk through our place

2009-05-16T13:12:00.002-04:00

Mike and I took advantage of the explosion of foliage and color last weekend to take some photos as we did our walk through, check on our plants and trees. I thought I'd share the shots!

The first three raised beds for the garden. We took out the pool(way to expensive to upkeep, especially with the lake a mere two miles away) and will fence this in one the remainder of them are built and filled. We have beans, snappeas, beets, radishes, turnips, swiss chard, spinach, mesclun, and lettuces in already. The bed in the foreground will be devoted the tomatoes - we're trying five different varieties this year.

The strawberry tower is coming along wonderfully! These two sides are planted with Tribute strawberries and the opposite two are planted with Ozark Beauties. We have blossoms already coming in, and I think we need to pinch those off to let them get a bit more established.

This is one of the three quinces that were here when we bought our house. We got a couple of fruit off of them last year, but they are jut gorgeous in bloom!

This is one of our raspberry plants. The coloring on the leaves is just breathtaking. We planted 26 starts, and 25 of them are showing new growth. We won't get raspberries this year, but next year...yummm!

This isn't the best shot, but those tiny blossoms are on my currants! My Gramma Jean gave us five rooted cuttings last year, and these babies are just taking off! Can't wait to get some berries this year :)

This is a Black Lace Elderberry. It is extremely ornamental, and Mike planted it below the kitchen windows. It should grow in to create a breathtaking showpiece.

I just love this shot. The foliage of the Peashrub is wonderfully textured, and I love the fact that Mike was able to catch the raindrops clinging to the leaves.

This is one of our two Carpathian Walnut trees. We planted them in the backyard to provide shade, and they're coming on wonderfully.

Isn't this a beautiful shot? this is the Wolf River apple tree(at least, we think that's what it is) that the previous owner planted. Its in full blossom this year, so we might just get some apples!

And this is a cluster of blossoms off of our 4-on-1 apple tree that we planted last year. And is also the reason we might get some apples off the wolf river. It's nice knowing we have a tree that will pollinate that one! We'll have to pinch these off once the blossoming is done - the tree is definitely too young to be letting fruit.

So there you have it. A walkthrough of what we have growing here this year.

Spring is here.

2009-05-09T07:14:00.001-04:00

Spring has arrived in glorious fashion. The rising sun spreads a carpet of exploding dandelions across the lush green lawn, blossoms blushed with pink cluster on the apple trees, and the crab apples erupt like fireworks along the roads.

It is gorgeous and affirming, that once again we have made it through the winter.

The chickens scratch amidst leaf litter, announcing their finds with happy chirps and warbles. The rabbits have nests full of babies. A robin has a nest atop a post against the barn and scolds me daily as I go about my chores. Soon she'll be feeding babies from the bugs she finds in the yard.

The trees have finally donned their leaves. One can no longer look deep into the woods behind the house, between naked branches and trunks. Instead a brilliant wall of leaves has filled in - beech and poplar, oak, maple, cherry and birch. The canopies dapple the ground and sing as the wind moves through the leaves.

Soon, soon, vines will climb the trellises in the garden. Beans, snappeas, cucumbers. Seeds unfurl leaves and grow their roots.

It is spring, and I am renewed.

Spring is here.

2009-05-09T07:14:00.000-04:00

Springtime at Three Lil' Acres

2009-04-26T15:54:00.006-04:00

Well spring has arrived in startling fashion here in Western NY, and we're double-timing it trying to keep up. Over the past two weeks we've planted:
~Two apple trees
~Two pear trees
~Two Plum trees
~A sweet cherry tree
~Two heartnuts(one a seedling, one grafted)
~Three PawPaws
~One seaberry(more on the way)
~One Elderberry bush(more of these on the away)
~2 blueberry bushes
~50 willow starts(for a living fence)
~100 strawberry plants(two different varieties)
~25 asparagus plants(all male, so all will produce spears)
~25 red raspberry plants

We've also transplanted the peach tree, peashrub, cranberry and gooseberry to more suitable locations. Still to come are more seaberries, more elderberries, a corkscrew willow, and a buartnut.

Yes, we're planting like mad! And thankfully we're almost done with the permaculture additions for the year.

Last weekend was a busy one. I took Friday off, and it was devoted to the strawberry tower. After losing most of our strawberries(and plants) to deer and rabbits last year, when Mike found a plan for a strawberry tower, we were both gung ho to go that route this year! It took alot of scratching of the head to figure out all the angles, but we finally got it! So, Friday morning we moved it out to its permanent location and filled it with dirt and composted rabbit manure. That evening, after the heat of the day had passed(and yes, surprisingly, it was warm enough in April to be concerned about that!) we got the 100 strawberries planted.

Pretty cool, huh? They've been in for five days now, and are leafing out wonderfully! So far we're really happy with the way it's shaping up, and a nice side effect of the tower is that the base is merely 28 inches square, which makes fencing out chickens, rabbits and deer very easy and economical. Oh! And we're proud to say that all of the materials for the tower, like our coffee table, are recycled from pallets!

Today we're working on the garden. So far we've three 11 foot by 3 foot beds built and ready for dirt - that's next on the agenda, that and fencing the chickens out of both the new garden area and the asparagus.

Yes, I've taken today off, because we've a lot to get done in the next two weeks. On May 14th Mike is going in for knee surgery. It turns out that he did a lot more than just tweak his knee back in January, he tore the meniscus. That's the pad of cartilaginous tissue that acts as a shock absorber in your knee. He'll be laid up for six weeks after the surgery, so we're trying to get as much done between now and then as possible, so that hopefully it's just a matter of watering and weeding while he's recuperating.

So, that's that! I'll do my best to post pictures of the garden this weekend, but I can't promise anything at this point.

A visit to the fields of Iceland

2009-04-10T12:25:00.002-04:00

Okay, okay, so it wasn't Iceland, but fields of Icelandic sheep! It was cold and windy, however.

Last weekend we made a pilgrimage two hours east to visit Hearts Ease Farm and spent the afternoon learning about Icelandic Sheep.

I started researching this breed of sheep a couple of months ago when the discussion arose once more of what type of livestock we thought we might succeed in raising on our three acres. Cows require too much space, and goats are notorious for climbing their way out of any fencing they encounter - not to mention neither of us are certain we like goat milk(or meat, for that matter). So, the conversation turning to sheep - we know we like sheep cheese(see below) and wool is always handy.

So why were we drawn to the Icelandic sheep? Well, they're a multi-purpose breed, of course! You certainly didn't expect anything less from us, right?

They are by nature a meat breed - lambs born in the spring are ready for butchering in the fall. They are also thrifty eaters, gaining weight easily on good pasture, as they are a hardy breed developed on the scant pastures of Iceland. It is said that even people who don't care for lamb like Icelandic lamb, as the meat has a unique flavor and texture. Wendy and Frances, the shepherds of Hearts Ease Farm, were kind enough to send us home with a leg of lamb, and we'll be cooking it up this weekend - hopefully we like it!!

They are also a breed than can be milked. While they won't produce anywhere near the volume of milk given by the dairy sheep or goat breeds, they would still allow us to produce our own milk on the property. Cheeses made from sheep are varied; pecorina, ricotta, manchego, Roquefort, and more.

And, last but not least, they're a fiber sheep. While I could go on and on about the dual layered coat, the fineness of the wool, and the many many natural colors, I'll save that for later ;) Suffice it to say, this third aspect is one that we will make full use of as well. Icelandic wool is very highly prized, and we're hoping that once we make our stock selections, we'll be able to take full advantage of the many uses.

So...back to our visit. The sheep had already been sheared the weekend before, so we saw these ladies in their underwear. Still, they were beautiful animals, with well shaped udders, and most of them VERY pregnant! They were inquisitive, a few were downright friendly, and all of them were quite comfortable with us standing around staring at them.

Oh, and we were able to see some babies too!

And so, without rambling further, here are some shots from our visit.

These two were quite playful, bounding around all over!

This little one was born the evening before(if I remember correctly, and was quite adorable). He(I think he was a ram) was one of three lambs born to this ewe, though she lost the other two.

These two were very very cute, and quite sleepy. They stayed all tucked up together most of the time we were there.

Stay tuned - later this weekend(or at the latest next week) - for a rabbitry update!

making sawdust

2009-03-08T14:36:00.004-04:00

Hello all! Well, so much for updates coming in a more timely fashion. I'm sure we'll get there when the weather gets warmed up since there are many more little things to keep everyone up to speed on.

So, here's the new coffee table. I have spent the last 4 weeks designing and building this much needed piece of furniture. So lemme tell you a bit about it: this table cost less than $30 to build as everything was recycled except for the drawer pulls. The wood came from 2 large pallets from Jen's work (tho not everyone would be lucky enough to find 12 foot long soft maple pallets). And the top is 1 1/4 inch thick soapstone 54 x 24 inches (was a table top from a school science lab that was purchased for $10 in Ohio and was once an island in the old kitchen.... TWICE recycled, how about that? ;) ).

So, I tell Jen that I just designed a table to fit the top. So, what design features might there be, you ask. Well, let's see... there are 3 drawers for seed and nursery catalogs, a large top for working in front of the fireplace, and a shelf for the multitude of library books that we always have around. (The erie county library system is exceptional).

I decided that I wanted to show off the wood and that it was recycled so I finished it with linseed oil to show off the figure and didn't fill any of the nail holes from it's previous incarnation. One of the really cool bits of figure is on the shelf. I think it looks quite a bit like a buffalo. Do you think the wood could know where it is? Probably not...but still pretty neat.

So, this is some of what I've been up to for the last month. Next on the list? A strawberry tower for those 100 strawberry plants that should be here in the next month or so. Then maybe a new kitchen table, finishing the built-in in the living room, shelves in the craft room, new raised beds, finishing the upstairs bath, matching end tables...... ok, I'm gonna stop thinking about it before I get overwhelmed.

Hope everyone is doing well, I'll poke Jen and get her to fill everyone in on the latest bunny news.

Mike

Our latest arrivals

2009-03-01T11:07:00.004-05:00

We're in a bit of a holding pattern here of late, waiting for the right time to start seeds for the garden, for things to thaw, and for it to warm up enough to work outside. But, one thing that is always a constant around here is the arrival of more bunnies!

The babies above are two of our three litters born Monday and Tuesday this past week. Amber, Blue, and Josie all gave birth, and total we've 21 new babes! I can't wait to see how they grow up. All three does were bred to our guest buck Splotches, and he's easily twice the size of our castor buck. Not to mention the colors!

These guys and their five siblings arrived about four weeks.
They're Lily's and just cute as all get out!

We're in luck of late as well - this litter, in addition to the ones above will be headed to our local TSC to be sold as pets! Cool, huh?

Just look at that face!!! Mike's taken to calling this lil' one "Choo" in reference to its Foomancho whiskers :) I'm hoping it's a boy, cause we'll be keeping him then!

Driven to egg-cess

2009-02-05T19:14:00.003-05:00

It felt like Christmas in July...or Easter in August or..what month are we in? Surprisingly enough, apparently our young pullets are just as confused, as we are flush with eggs once again! Yesterday saw eleven eggs come from the coop where our 15 hens and pullets have been fairly well cooped up since before the holidays. But, despite bitter cold temperatures and more snow than anyone would ever wish to be subject to, our new batch of pullets are laying!!

So...as you can tell, our fridge has been filling up rapidly with eggs! I bet you're wondering....so, Jen, Mike, just what ARE you going to do with six dozen eggs?

Well, Mike took ten of them the other day, boiled them up and made a huge batch of delicious tuna salad. Of course, that was before I brought 11 eggs in yesterday, so unfortunately that left us with the house, zip, chickens +1.

So, we started digging through cookbooks! The first on the agenda this evening was bread pudding - that did in four eggs!

Of course...once I cracked those four open, this was what I found...two double yolkers!! Otherwise I might have tried to use a full half dozen :)

And then we decided we wanted to try homemade pudding...after a bit of whisking, stirring, tempering of beaten egg yolks and a bit more cooking and stirring - TaDa! Homemade chocolate pudding! There are six of these individual servings hanging out in the fridge to chill, and we're hoping they turn out quite tasty!

I imagine the weekend will see quite a few more recipes full of eggs - omlets, bread, marshmallows, egg salad...and whatever else I can find to use up some eggs! I might just scramble up some eggs for the cats!!

Rise and Tan...

2009-01-25T14:53:00.003-05:00

Despite being thoroughly covered in snow here in western NY, we haven't fled south for warmer climes. No, we're working on completing that inevitable process like anyone who lives in a land where temperatures plunge far below freezing every winter. We're converting our blood to molasses.

But, while waiting for this to occur, to make the cold more tolerable, and to pass the time, we're trying new things!!

I can see my mom now...wondering what other hobby we've decided to pick up....;)

Lifting the spirit

There's something inherently spiritual, I think, to the art of making bread. And when one takes that process clear from the grain on through, it sees the baker gain yet another level of appreciation for this artform. Can you imagine the expression on the very first bakers when they happened upon the miracle combination of ground grain and wild yeast that lifted a ball of dough skyward?

So...as many before me, and I'm certain many after, I have developed a hearty appreciation for the effort and outcome of the breadmaking process. Mike and I screen our wheat, sorting the last of the husks and so on from it, pour it into the grain mill and work our muscles against the grinding of the burrs. After grinding sufficient enough flour, it needs to age for a bit. I tried making bread with two week old flour last week, and that was a touch young - so we're going to let the next batch sit for three. Once we find the magic time, we'll keep ahead of the supply, grinding now what we'll need for the future.

Courtesy of my friends over at the Green Branch, I've been playing with a few different recipes. Some that are 100% wheat, one that definitely isn't. The all wheat recipes are something of a leisurely process. You start with a biga(starter) and a soaker, softening the grains and freeing the gluten from the wheat. Those two rest overnight in a cool place(your fridge, or in our house, the kitchen counter), are brought together the following day with the remaining ingredients. After that, the dough is worked quite similarly to doughs with white flour. The bread from this process is rich, dense and hearty, and has quickly found a place in our meals.

The recipe for this loaf was from a book called Peter Reinhart's whole grain breads : new techniques, extraordinary flavor. I must say, it's a great book, and I'm certain I will add it to my cooking resources when I decide to visit a bookstore again. Thankfully, we have access to an awesome library system and make use of it as often as possible.

We tried another recipe from that book today. Bagels! And not just any bagels, rye/whole wheat bagels. As with the bread, it starts with a biga and soaker, which I got going yesterday. Today, I combined the two kneaded the quite stiff dough, then let it rise for about an hour and a half. At that point, we were ready to start turning the dough into bagels!

Here are the formed bagels. Really easy to do, just roll the dough into a rope just like when you played with PlayDoh as a kid, then connect the ends into a ring! Mike was much better at the process than me, and made certain that I allowed the proper 2" round hole in the center.

After that was a one minute plunge into alkanized water. What is that, do you ask? Well, it's easy enough to make - boil water, add baking soda. Tada!!

Post boil, prebake. The bagels grew significantly after the boiling! After this it was into a 450 degree oven for half an hour.

Tadah! Beautiful, aren't they? We haven't tried them yet - they're still cooling, but they definitely look good enough to eat! Assuming they taste as good as they look, we're planning on doing big batches of these then freezing them. Why give Tim Hortons our hard earned money(not that we do that often) when it really wasn't all that hard to make on our own! (Not to mention it's nice to get to use the oven when it's only 15 degrees outside....;)..)

Now, for that one recipe that is decidedly not 100% wheat(although I am working on gradually introducing more whole wheat to it). I know, you were on pins and needles, weren't you? Okay, okay, I won't keep you in suspense any longer!

The other recipe is the one that produced the dough for the phenomenal crust for these pizzas. The recipe was posted by a friend on GB(click here to check it out) and I've simply fallen in love with this easy process. The dough's ready to use in three hours, though it's better the longer it sits, and is one that you can make up and leave in the fridge, using it as you like for up to two weeks. From what I can tell, if I were to make up a batch of pizza crusts, I could make 6 crusts out of one batch. The longer it sits, the more of a sourdough tang it developes(yum!). I've made small loaves of bread with it, but really love using it for pizza dough. It's really nice to have it in the fridge, knowing if we get craving pizza I can just pull out a couple of hunks of it and have pizza in half an hour or so!

Tanning

No...we're not developing an affinity for tanning salons, nor are we sneaking off to the Bahamas. Over the holidays I tackled my first batch of rabbit pelts, and am quite happy with how they turned out! Grand total I think it took a total of two weeks' time between the time spent in the pickle and the time spent drying and working the leather until it was supple. The process was both easier and harder than I had expected, but I'm glad I gave it a shot, as it cements our intentions of raising dual purpose breeds in our rabbitry. I've my second batch in the first(and weaker) pickle right now - I'll tackle the first step of fleshing the hides this evening before strengthing the tanning solution and leaving them to soak for another week or so.

So, without further ado, here are some shots of the furs.

Oh, and the bagels were delicious!!! :)

Twas the night before...day of...and a little after...

2009-01-17T17:43:00.004-05:00

Yeah, we know...it's sure taken us long enough. Bear with me as Jen is using this as an opportunity to teach me how to make updates too. The holiday was a small family affair as it was just us and my baby sister Mandy and her 3 y/o daughter Munchi (my name for her).
Papi (that's me) put up the tree and put the lights on it while waiting for decorating help to arrive from Ohio.

These are some really great animal bell ornaments that Jen's mom has gotten for the tree the past few years. The baby had fun showing off her barnyard knowledge by identifying them as she put them on the tree.

Munchi and Papi putting the angel on top of the tree.

Munchi poses in front of the tree she decorated (I just put a couple of the hand blown ones up near the top for her). Good job, huh?

Santa Claus came! Look at alllllll those presents.

Munchi did a great job cleaning up the wrappers as she went. (If we waited for the end we probably woulda lost the little thing).

Munchi became such the expert unwrapper that she's giving Jen some help.

Another round of cleanup...man, she's getting good.

Here Idgy tries to get in on the action while trying to avoid detection by an affectionate toddler.

Ooooh..what'd ya get Auntie Jen?

Is that all there is?

Papi said that Santa asked him to put a special present somewhere it would actually fit.....now where could that be?

Awesome! A tricycle! (I can't help but wonder if it shouldn't really be called a TRYcycle while one is working out the mechanics).

A picture for posterity.

Idgy is more than happy to fill an empty lap.

Apparently we wore her out.

Hopefully everyone had a wonderful holiday. We sure did. Perhaps now that there are two of us on the job, this thing will get updated more often.....well, we can hope.

Winter's Bite

2009-01-15T09:56:00.003-05:00

Our little farm is firmly clenched in winter's teeth as we've hunkered down this past week. A mass of arctic air has gripped the center of the country for a while now, and this week it spread east to make us chatter in it's fist as well. Luckily enough for us, we'll climb back into double digits this weekend, but the single digit highs have certainly had us shivering this week.

So, Mike and I are hauling hot water out to the barn three times a day for the rabbits and chickens, and otherwise staying in the house unless shovel duty demands we attend to the driveway.

But, weather like this is perfect for pouring over seed and nursery catalogs, and that is exactly what has been taking up the vast portion of Mike's time of late, as he's researched and studied various permaculture options for our place.

You know you've gotten a lot of snow when...

2008-12-22T17:57:00.002-05:00

Your porch looks like this....

Your front yard looks like this...

And....after getting the driveway to look like this...

The snowblower engine looks like this.

Yup. I broke the snowblower. REALLY broke it. Good thing this was one our our finds off Craigslist's free page, huh?

Kinda sad, though....we just got it running yesterday...just enough to decide we'll give it a go tomorrow. And then. Boom. Dead. Gone. No Workie.

At least it held out until we were ALMOST done with the driveway. So hopefully we can find a rebuild kit, and see just how good JB Weld is.

On other fronts...everyone's doing well here. We've 20 baby bunnies in the barn...

...that are thankfully being kept warm by the diligent attention of their moms. The 20 babies are from three of our does, two of whom are first time mamas, and for Amber, the third, it's her first live litter(she lost her first litter due to a bad batch of feed). They're doing great, despite temps in the teens and windchills well below zero, and we're quite happy with our girls!

The chickens are doing GREAT! Our three newest hens(the ones hatched by our mama hen this summer courtesy of eggs from my friend Vanessa) have started laying! We've been getting between 3 and 4 eggs a day from the six hens now, which is just phenomenal considering it's winter. We're not sure when to expect the new batch to start laying, but once they do we'll be flush with eggs once more!

Giving Thanks

2008-11-30T10:45:00.002-05:00

Mike and I spent Thanksgiving out at my mom's this year, and we had a great time. The weather threatened to keep us homebound, but cleared up enough that Thursday morning we got up and headed out, getting to mom's around 10:30 - leaving plenty of time for me to help mom wrangle all the sidedishes.

We got to hang out with my great grandmother and Mom's boyfriend Ed, and had fun talking and teasing and laughing. It's nice to get to spend holidays with family.

Mom loaded up the truck yet again - I swear, by the time she's done her house'll be empty and ours will be full! We planned to go hunting why we were there and ended up having to pass on that, as I started fighting a bug(still working on that). So, it was a nice few days of relaxation.

On the way back home we picked up a rabbit from the breeder we got our stock from - Mike's calling him Splotches, and he looks very similar to Josie. He'll stay with us over the winter to help get some outside bloodlines into the mix, then he'll go back home.

Here's some shots of the gang...rabbits, cats, dogs, and chickens :D

Blue loves playing in her hay!

"Hellllooo?"

Our new chickens :D

"There's supposed to be heat coming from that register..."

" I love my toy."

Look what I found under the bench!

Meet Sam...she's my mom's cat(formerly my gramma's) and boy does she know how to relax!

Look! Sam and her little sister Gracie!! We were flattered Gracie came out to see us :)

Yeah, I know...I know...

2008-11-03T09:03:00.003-05:00

Ok...apparently I forgot to post this one...wrote it back on November 3rd...stay tuned for more recent happenings...working on those now!

I'm slacking. Really, I don't mean to!! It's just been busy, and when it hasn't been busy, we've been taking the chance for a little R&R. But...I know ya'll are just on the edge of your seats wondering what's doing up here...sooo.

My mom came to visit!! :) We had a great time, though I just realized that we didn't manage to take and pictures! Shame on me!!!!! Mom came out the weekend of the 24th for a bit of an escape, and celebrated my birthday with Mike and I. We went out to dinner Saturday and had carrot cake for lunch Sunday. Mom got to see all the stuff we've been up to since she first saw the house(which was gradually filling from the Uhaul as she left). I got to show off the chickens, and the rabbits, too. It was perfect timing, as we had three litters in the rabbitry that weekend - Cocoa's barely hours old litter, Lily's 6 week olds, and Cocoa's last litter at 11 weeks old, so she got to see the full range. And no, I didn't feed Ma rabbit - the freezer was empty!!

But, we did butcher the eldest of those litters last night - tonight I'll get it all wrapped up and into the freezer, and we'll be set for meat for a while! Lily's litter, the Lilliputians, were moved into the growout cage, and we should see some really nice growth on them now that they have to room to grow. Lily's happy to have her cage to herself again, though she'll be moving tonight - we're going to switch Josie and Lily, to have an experienced doe next to each of the new does. Hopefully our next breeding cycle will pan out much better. Amber did kindle the 24th - unfortunately, she had the babes on the wire, and it was much too cold for them to survive long - they were gone when I found them. She had 8, though, so we're really hopeful for the next go 'round. We'll be breeding Amber and Lily next week, I think.

Other than that...well, we've only one of the kittens left. Ghostie's still with us, and getting cuter every day! I swear though, she's like Fizzgig from the Dark Crystal...cute as can be but skittish and loaded with teeth! The rest of the critters are doing well...Idgy and Willow adore the new bench we built under the living room windows(pics later!). Mom helped me make cushions for it while she was out, and now, well, Willow is QUITE appreciative!

The chickens are doing well...we do have a rooster among the three that our broody Buckeye hen hatched, so he'll be freezer bound when we butcher the broilers, as will our last EE hen, Jackie, as it's been close to three months now since we've gotten eggs. Our new group of pullets are eight weeks old now, and I think here in the next couple of weeks we may ponder letting them out to meet the rest of the hens and start ranging the yard.

Let's see...not sure that there's anything else of note...just same stuff, different day!!

Assessing new furniture

2008-10-17T07:16:00.002-04:00

Willow has a a set way of examining new arrivals to her domain. First, are pieces that allow her to be as close as felinely possible to her chosen human, Mike. Well, that would be the new recliner, so she tried out both arms, the back, and the footrest within moments of the new chair's arrival in the spot previously occupied by the old one.

Arms are wider - point in its favor, as this allows her to lay next to Mike more easily, as well as providing a nice platform to land on. When vacant, it's more than adequate for full body lounging. The recliner was quickly given Willow's stamp of approval.

Now...on to the second piece of new furniture. Mind you, both chairs were brought home Monday - but, as the other chair took up a previously unused spot roughly ten feet from where Mike usually sits, it took a bit for her to get around to her examination, though we did sniff it occasionally while walking through the living room.

But, last night, she finally did her evaluation. So, please, allow me to present, Willow's assessment, in four movements.

I believe the final decision is that, while it's satisfactory for waiting for her favorite seat to become available, it's far from her choice. The arms are too narrow for anything, and the back, while delightfully tall, offering a wonderful panoramic view of her domain, is impossible to lay comfortably upon.

Falling behind

2008-10-14T20:49:00.002-04:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a while...everytime I sit down to work on an update, something comes up, or I think..."Well, I should wait until after...[insert reason here]. But, ah well, life happens, right?

So, here's the rundown on life here in Western NY. :)

Rabbits - Cocoa, Amber, and Josie are pregnant, due in three weeks, Lily's three week olds just decided to pop out of the nesting box, and the eight teenagers are freezer camp bound this weekend. We did get the last of the cages done, and now have three double cages and two singles hung in the barn now, with a spare single as well.

Chickens - Our broilers and pullets are roughly 5 weeks old now - the pullets are fully feathered and looking cute, the broilers are getting HUGE, and due for butchering in about three weeks. The hens are laying eggs sorta kinda steadily, though Jackie, our one remaining easter egger hen, has decided she's done for the season, so I think she'll be stewpot bound when we deal with the broilers.

Kittens - Well, it took some doing, but two of the kittens were adopted by a family Sunday evening, and I think I may have a home lined up for Ghost as well. Sparky may become part of the family, but that's still up in the air, at this moment.

Garden - well, it's done. We had a pretty good frost last week that did in the rest of the garden, though we've been gleaning a few tomatoes and peppers from the plants. We'll be working on prepping the garden plots for spring, so hopefully we'll have an easier time of it getting stuff going come spring.

And, to help with that venture, we added another member to our team. Mike hasn't decided on a name yet, but I think he looks like Gossamer...what do you think?

In addition to getting a riding lawn mower for $150 cheaper than what we paid for our push mower, the guy threw a little trailer in as well, so between the two, firewood, the garden, and other miscellaneous chores should be much easier!

We had a pretty nice weekend though - beautiful weather, crisp and clean, with the leaves turning into the full Autumn show. Oh, and yesterday, on the way home from work, I spotted a couple of chairs sitting out by the road for free. So, we scored a new(to us) forest green leather recliner and a wingback style chair(though that definitely needs reupholstering - I don't care for the color, but the construction is nice and solid).

So, that's the doings here. This weekend in the opening of the Fall turkey season, and we're hoping to get to go out and take a shot at that :) Other than that, and sending rabbits to freezer camp, I'm not sure what else will be on the agenda. Might work on taking the pool down :)

Rabbits and chickens all around...

2008-09-28T15:16:00.005-04:00

It was a pretty quiet weekend here, but we got quite a bit of work done on cleaning and rearranging the barn, making room and arrangements to move the three week old pullets and broilers from the office outside. The pullets now occupy a small enclosure under the unoccupied side of the new growout rabbit cages, and the broilers are in a setup just inside the main barn door.

We had the luck to pick up ten bales of really nice timothy/grass hay for a great deal, and took the time to do some cleaning and rearranging in the main barn section, clearing enough space to stack all the bales right inside of the door, and finding enough space to lay everything out in a much more organized fashion.

The picture below is what you see when you first open the barn door now. In the foreground on the left is the space the broilers now occupy - they'll stay here for a bit over a month before being butchered. To the right, just out of sight, is where the hay is stacked. Also on the right is where the feed is stored. Directly back are three of the current seven cages - Buck, our new blue otter doe, and, in the corner, is Amber. We'll be constructing another six foot long double doe cage here shortly, and it will replace Amber's current cage, and add another cage to the mix.

The cage just visible in the lower right corner of the picture below is the edge of Buck's cage. The main space of the barn makes an "L" shape around the chicken's area, and this is the short leg. Cocoa and Lily reside in the double cages along the right, and the cages along the left, where a couple of little curious buns are peaking out, is the new growout setup we installed last week. Cocoa's litter of eight is in there now(7 weeks old), and it's under the back section that our pullets are brooding.

And, here are our newest additions to the herd. This is the blue otter - she has a temporary reprieve - as we've decided to hold off making the final decision to send her to freezer camp until after we get a litter from her. We haven't named her yet, but she's an absolute cutey! She's fourteen weeks old, so we'll probably see about breeding her when we breed Lily back next time.

This is our newest addition - she's what's called a broken blue, and her coat almost looks like she has wings on her back.

And, last, but far from least, here's a shot of Lily's litter. Believe it or not, there's ten little kits in there. There's three black ones and the rest look to be castors.

I think that'll be all for this post. We've been up to alllll sorts of stuff, including canning more than 18 quarts of applesauce...and that's with a full bushel left to process! I'll try to post more later in the week :)

It's a grind...

2008-09-21T07:08:00.004-04:00

Thanks to our wonderful local Pennysaver(that Mike reads cover to cover nearly every week), we are now stocked with grain for at least the next year. We met a local farmer who sells grain to the public, and we now have 100 pounds of wheat, 150 pounds of corn, and 50 pounds of oats. Cool, huh? Since all of it is in its natural form, we'll mix in some food grade diatomaceous earth to take care of bugs, and store it all in food grade buckets, courtesy of the local bakerys. at $7/50#, you can't beat the price, and in the inflationary market current gripping the country, it doesn't hurt to be prepared!

So. What are we going to do with all this stuff, you ask? Well, I've been wanting a grain mill for years, but never could find a source for the whole grain that was reasonable. So...now that we can get the grain, we got a grain mill. Here are some shots of Mike and I giving it a test run Tuesday evening....

First pass of corn through the grinder. You have to crack it, before you can grind it.....

After the second pass...a somewhat coarse cornmeal. I might have to pass it through again for some recipes, but that'll be a matter of trial and error.

And here's a couple of cups of fresh ground wheat flour. That wasn't bad at all. The grain mill we chose is a "Family Grain Mill", and is german made. It's incredibly easy to turn(we're manual for the time being, but will probably mechanize the process at a later date). The mill is incredibly versatile, and we ordered a flaker attachment to work with it as well, so we can make our own oatmeal. Of course, before we can do that, we have to figure out how to hull the oats!!!

Arrivals and Departures...

Well, we've had some arrivals and departures since the last post. We butchered our second litter of rabbits(Lily's first litter) this past monday, and her second litter arrived Friday evening. Her first litter was 6 - this one is 10!! She's very proud, and happy to be unpregnant, and we're very happy with her! We won't know colors or anything until later this week, but once their fur starts to come in I'll take some shots of them. Cocoa's second litter of eight is growing well, and they'll be graduating to the growout cage later, and we'll be breeding her back this coming Wednesday.

Other arrivals are these little fuzzballs! They're nearly two weeks old now(the pic is from the day they arrived), and are peeping, pooping and eating!

Yesterday was a day for running errands, today, for chores and tasks. We got the new chimney cap on - a LockTop Damper, that will hopefully help us battle the amazing winds we face living so close to Lake Erie. While up on the roof I took care of a piece of the trim that was a vicitim to one of our early spring storms as well.

We also took care of getting two grow out cages built for the rabbits, and hanging them in the barn. Cocoa's litter of eight will be moved into it when I go out to feed them this evening. All told, I think it took us more than two hours to build the cage, and probably an hour and a half to get it hung in the barn. We had to do a bit of rearranging/renovating to put them were we planning, but a pleasant side effect is that the chicken area is not much more secure, and looks much neater.

Now I'm off to work on apples - we were lucky enough to find a guy looking for people to take care of all the apples on his five trees, and came home with two 50# feed bags full, as well as a box full. So...applesauce, applebutter, and all sorts of other things apple are on the way!

A full week ahead...

2008-09-09T07:47:00.002-04:00

Or rather, a full week in process.

We started remodeling the upstairs bathroom over the weekend, spending a good chunk of Sunday pulling up the peel and stick tiles that were put down by the previous owner. A piece of advice - peel and stick tiles are nice, easy to use, no mastick to worry about and so on - but not at all the appropriate choice for a bathroom. So, Mike and I took turns wielding the heat gun and prying up the tiles, one by one.
By the time we were done, we found the original green mosaic sheet linoleum beneath - and, actually, if it weren't for the tears and such in front of the tub, it wouldn't be all that bad. So, Mike spent the greater portion of yesterday struggling to get the adhesive left behind by the tiles up off the floor - inch, by torturous inch. He's about halfway through the bathroom, and we're hoping that we can work on laying the new flooring down tonight. If not, we'll be making the trip downstairs to use the bathroom until probably this weekend.
So...we have that going on, we're expecting chicks tomorrow - after hemming and hawing most the summer away, we finally decided that we really need to increase our flock. So, we've got 11 golden buffs(one of the most common brown eggs layers - the hatchery was sold out of Buckeyes), and 14 meat birds coming out way. We'll have to get them settled, then we'll be off to the first of two days of hunter education class.
We also need to butcher rabbits this week, Saturday is going to be spent finishing the hunter ed class, and we're expecting a visit from the breeder we got our rabbits from. She's interested in Otter - we'll probably trade for one of her rabbits, which'll help us keep some diversity in our gene pool.
And, at some point, we really have to start working on roofing the garage, and doing some changes in the barn that will allow the new chicks to move out there in a couple of weeks, and let us increase our growout cage space for the rabbits. Oh...and firewood...and tear down the pool...and start prep work for next Spring's garden...and...boy...I'm tired already!

So...any family wanna come join us for a working vacation? We have plenty to do!!

Late update...again...

2008-09-05T13:45:00.003-04:00

Well, so much for keeping on top of my updates. I'll try to do better, I promise. But, as a card carrying member of Procrastinators Anonymous(okay...I'm not...but I would be one, if I stopped putting off filling out the membership form), well, I'm just really good at thinking I'm going to work on something later.

But! I do have good news! Over the labor day weekend...or, maybe what should be called the Labor Weekend, Mike and I finished the barn roof, and sealed the driveway. Two huge tasks crossed off our list of to-dos. No...no pictures yet, for a good reason. We have to scrape and paint the barn yet, so, I'll post before and after shots once that's done. The barn's seen quite the makeover, and I plan to devote a blog entry to it when we get through with all the projects.

This weekend...well, we've a number of things planned, not the least of which is tackling the upstairs bathroom and making more rabbit cages. We still haven't gotten the additional cages done, and we're getting to the point where our rabbits are forcing the issue. There really is a reason they say "breed like rabbits", honest!

As for the bathroom, we picked up all the supplies to work on it earlier this summer; new flooring, primer, paint, etc, and it's time to tackle that room. We'll be popping off trim this weekend and pulling up the floor - how much more than that we manage, I'm not sure.

Today, though, has been dedicated to dentists. Well...our dentist, at any rate. I took the day off(why go to work for four hours just to drive around the corner from the house for your appointment, right?), and went in to get my teeth cleaned, and Mike to get his crown done and his cleaned as well. there's a reason I hate going to the dentist - they always seem to deliver bad news! I've been scolded by the hygentist for not flossing enough, and may have to undergo scaling come January if I don't manage to get some icky stuff in my gums under control. .

Some good news, though - we're going to be welcoming into the world another nephew or niece come spring! My little sister is about three months pregnant, and is doing a much better job of giving my Mom grandbabies than me so far(don't worry Mom - we're working on it!).

Oh, and we finally got to pick some tomatoes out of the garden! Only took until Labor Day weekend . Just was not a good year for gardens here in Western NY - hope they're better next year!

A Much Needed Update

2008-08-23T14:21:00.002-04:00

Yeah, I know...I've been slackin'.

So this is going to be a long one...just to warn you ahead of time! I thought I might just do a chronological update of the past month's going's on, but I think it might be easier to follow if I just go by topic. So...here goes.

Rednecks and Rememberance

Last weekend Mike and I made a trip out to my mom's last weekend to attend a BBQ held to honor my grandmother's last wishes. It was nice to get to see some of my family members, and to hear other's memories of gramma, and we all shared quite a few laughs and tears.

I think Gramma enjoyed watching over us all, and my mom made sure to give her the seat of honor, right up close to the bonfire :)

I hope Gram heard us ribbing my aunt, though...I really think she would have appreciated it! She always had a great sense of humor, and loved to tease.

So...take a look at this...Aunt Coleen and Jess are quite proud of their outhouse, since they have so many bonfires and bbqs and such.

But...check out the decorating on this puppy....talk about your nice digs! Jess said she wanted to make sure you knew you were using the restroom "under the stars" :)

Now...the funny part is....and I wish I'd gotten a picture of it...that the outhouse is finished, but their kitchen is still under construction!!!

Things around our 3 acres...

Well, we've been trucking along rather well, livestock wise, but the garden is struggling. The weather has been unseasonably cool this year, with an amazing amount of rain, and that has proved a bit much for our garden to overcome. Our cukes have given up the fight, and the rest of our squashes have just been shivering in the chill. Our green peppers have been handling it rather well, but we've pounds of tomatoes just hanging out on the vines, waiting to make the transition from green to red. We've been harvesting green beans rather steadily, and our canillini and hutterite beans are drying - we'll be pulling them probably in a couple of weeks. The corn's doing so-so...we've got ears developing on the Painted Mountain and Golden Bantam, and the Kandy Corn that we planted late in the season is puttering along fairly well.

All in all, it's definitely been a season of learning about our climate and soil, and I'm definitely hoping we fare better next year.

The rabbits and chickens, on the other hand, are doing phenomenally well. Our mama hen is doing a fine job of teaching her three chicks how to scratch for bugs and free range, and it looks like only one of those is going to turn out to be a cockerel, which is pretty awesome. We've got an order of chicks coming the second week of September - half will be meat birds, the other half will be a pullet run of Golden Buffs, which are a standard egg laying breed. We wanted to get more of our favorite Buckeyes, but they were sold out.

As for the rabbits, Lily was bred Wednesday, so about four weeks from now we'll see her second litter born. Her first litter is seven weeks old today. We'll weigh them in two weeks and see how they're doing...and will probably head to freezer camp that weekend.

Cocoa's second litter is three weeks old today, and there are some beautiful coats coming in on those babies! She had eight healthy kits, and we lost two - though we do think we know what happened there, and will endeavor to prevent that happening again! They're growing well, eyes fully open and I expect to see them start to venture from the nesting box sometime this week.

Last but not least, here are shots of Otter and Amber. They're the two does we decided to keep from Cocoa's first litter, and will be added to our foundation herd to bring us up to four breeding does and a buck. They're growing well, and we'll probably start breeding them come the end of October or beginning of November. The same weekend Cocoa had her litter we butchered the other three from her first litter, and found that to be MUCH different than processing chickens, and while it's not something I enjoy, I definitely won't approach it with anywhere near the dread I view butchering chickens with!

So....that's what's going on here. We've been working steadily on projects around the place, some small, some larger, and are looking forward to building the future of our 3 Lil' Acres. Our fruit trees are coming along nicely, and I can't wait to get the rest of what we have planned to round out the place.

I'll try to be a little more diligent in posting updates...depends on what's on our plate from week to week though!

Seeing results...

2008-08-03T10:25:00.005-04:00

Well, we're really starting to see results now, around 3 Lil' Acres, from the garden to the barn and beyond.

We harvested some more honey today - a full bar - though it's still draining, and so on, so I don't know how much we have yet. As with the first bit we harvested, we'll store this back until spring, in case we find the bees need it. Our visit to the hive went smoothly, and for that I'm grateful. They've another bar in progress, and three empty ones besides, so I think this'll be all we're taking from the hive until spring when the nectar flow begins again. We're already looking forward to getting another hive built to add to this one, as we both anticipate needing to split the hive.

We weighed both Cocoa and Lily's litters this morning, and are very happy with the numbers. Cocoa's five are at 10 weeks as of today, and weighed as follows: Amber- 4#5.5oz, Hossenpfeffer - 4#5oz, Fricasse - 3# 13.5oz, Hershey - 4#8.25oz, and Otter - 4#8 oz. Not to shabby, considering they're a smaller breed than traditional meat rabbits who are expected to reach four pounds at eight weeks.
We weighed Lily's litter of six as a whole, just to get an idea of where they're at. At four weeks, the whole litter weighed 6#.5oz. Meat breeders aim for a litter weight of 10 pounds at four weeks of age for a littler of 8-10, so I think that means we're not doing too badly. We'll keep track of the numbers and see how we do. We didn't think to weigh Cocoa's litter, so we don't have a comparison there.

Mama hen is doing a fine job of taking care of her three chicks, and is teaching them to scratch and scrounge for bugs and other edibles. They're venturing farther and farther with her every day, and the rest of the flock seems to have accepted them without issue. It's really neat to sit and watch them though, and it's hysterical to go to check for eggs and find she has them up in the nesting box with her. Nothing like reaching under a hen for eggs and finding chicks!!

The garden is coming along, though struggling. Our poor cukes and zukes are fighting a wilt(not sure which one though), but the tomatoes and peppers are growing well, and we should be able to harvest our first tomatoes in a week or so, hopefully. Our Painted Mountain corn is in various stages tasseling/silking, and we've little ears starting to form. The spaghetti squash has set four so far, and hopefully alot more to come, and we've been steadily picking peas for about two weeks. Didn't plant enough to freeze or anything like that, but they've been delicious to snack on!!

Let's see...other news. We're working on reshingling the barn roof, and hope to have the whole of the front side done today. Here's a shot of our progress as of yesterday when it started raining - I must say, we've gotten a LOT of rain this year!!

We just finished the front of the barn, but my foot slipped, and I ended up spooked, so we stopped there for the evening.

Meet the Chiclets...

2008-07-27T16:45:00.002-04:00

Our Mama hen finally brought the wee ones outside today, and Mike was able to get some pictures of them. They're quite energetic, and follow their mom diligently as she scratches up goodies for them.
The black one is a Dominique chick, and the other two are from what our friend calls her "mystery red hen" with a Dominique rooster. So, we'll have to see what they grow up to look like!

The rest of the critters are doing well, Lily's litter is growing and has taken over her age, and Cocoa's litter is putting on weight quite nicely. Next weekend we'll weigh the three that we aren't keeping for breeding stock, and see how they look.

We got to harvest some turnips from the garden today, as well as peas, and a cucumber. We've radishes and lettuce ready as well, and will go pick some of those when we get a little closer to dinner time.

Other than that, our week has been occupied with worrying about my grandmother, who passed peacefully last night. She will be greatly missed.

An update from the barnyard...

2008-07-21T17:17:00.003-04:00

Well, this past weekend was a busy one. Our broody hen suceeded in hatching her eggs, though only three of them were viable eggs. So, we've two little fluffy yellow ones, and one black one. She's pretty protective of the little peepers, so no pictures of them as of yet.

The garden is truly beginning to come on strong now. Mike picked some peas today, and there are blossoms on nearly all of the plants - tomatoes, peppers, squashes, beans, peas. The first spaghetti squash has set on the vines, as well as the first cucumber. We pulled a handful of turnips and radishes out, and picked two heads of lettuce.

We got the growout cages completed yesterday and hung up in the barn. Poor Cocoa was cramped beyond belief, and everyone seems to be quiet happy with the new living arrangements. Fricasse, Hershey and Otter are in one of the new cages now, while Amber and Hassenpfeffer are staying with Cocoa for the time being, while they wait for me to pick up another feeder to outfit the other cage. Cocoa's due to kindle in a little under three weeks, so we'll make sure they're out in the next week or so, leaving her some time to chill.

Lily's doing really well, and her temperment seems to be improving a bit with motherhood. The babies have all abandoned the nesting box, and it's rather amusing to see Lily hanging out IN the box trying to avoid her kits.

A Box O' Bunnies

So, that's the goings on here-abouts. Working on the garden, taking care of the critters, and trying not to overheat as summer continues. Hope all's going well everywhere else, and I'll try to post more pics of everything sometime in the next couple of days.

The garden's growing...

2008-07-13T17:22:00.002-04:00

Well, finally remembered to take the camera out to snap some shots of the garden. Now that we're finally warming up here and getting some sun it's starting to come on strong.
We're definitely experiencing a learning curve, though, and hopefully will find it much more successful next year.

We're growing: broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, beets, turnips, mangels(which is a livestock beet), radishes, cucumbers, a few different lettuces, summer squash, zucchini, spaghetti squash, delicata, pumpkin, cannelini beans, hutterite beans(a soup bean), peas, pole beans, tomatoes(4 different varieties), and peppers(a bell pepper, a frying pepper, and jalepeno).

Here are some shots of the garden...

Barely handfuls and more than...

2008-07-12T19:41:00.002-04:00

Well, Lily's litter is a week old today, and I can't help but find myself amazed once more at how quickly the kits are growing. Their fur is in now, and the final tally is four solid black kits, and two castors(I think...we won't know exactly what shade - castor/lynx - until their fur is in more). Lily's proving to be a very attentive and protective mom, though she's still showing quite the attitude, though more with me, than with Mike. I meant to weigh the litter today and forgot, so I'll try to do that tomorrow, and add it to our records. I would weigh them individually, but unfortunately there's really no way to tell them apart, aside from separating the black from the castors, and no way to mark them, (the way most meat breeders mark is to dab a color on the back of the head - but those rabbits are white) since food coloring or something like that wouldn't show up on those colors.

As for Cocoa's litter, we'll be weighing them tomorrow as well, to get their six week weights recorded. They seem to be growing quite well, and three of the five(Fricasse, Hassenpfeffer, and Hershey) will move out of Cocoa's cage and into a grow-out cage tomorrow, all things going the way we have them planned. Amber and Otter will stay with Cocoa until she's closer to kindling, then will move into another doe cage(Otter's fate being up in the air at the time being).

We bred Cocoa to Buck Wednesday evening, so we should see another litter from her around August 10th. We're hoping for a better litter size from her this time, though still hoping to see the nice range of colors that she gave us the first time around. Definitely looking forward to the outcome there!

Population Explosion!

2008-07-06T07:50:00.003-04:00

In the course of two days, the population of our little farm has gone from 21 to 32!! Lily had her litter some time between 6 and 9pm last night - six baby bunnies!

So...for all of you who are wondering what makes up that number....

Mike & Jen

Willow & Idgy(the indoor cats)

Pollux and DJ(Our lab mix and tabby outdoor cat)

DJ's litter of 5 kittens-shortterm residents, there ;)

Seven laying hens(one of whom is sitting on a nest of 11 eggs...more residents are imminent!)

Cocoa, Lily, and Buck(our rabbit breeding trio)

Cocoa's litter of 5(one of whom will be staying on a permanent basis)

Lily's litter of 6

Enjoying the long weekend....

2008-07-05T12:39:00.002-04:00

Mother Nature has decided to grace us with some sun, finally, and everything on the property is enjoying it! The garden has started a burst of growth, and all of our berries and trees are thriving.

We checked the bees today, and they're doing really well. I managed to get the first bar up enough to see that it's full and capped, and they've just started building comb on the 5th bar from the back(there's a total of 17 bars in the hive). So, in about two weeks we'll check and see what kind of progress they've made on that bar, and depending on that, we may harvest in about a month. We'll store the honey back on the off chance it's needed to help them through the winter, but hopefully we'll find come spring that we're free to enjoy!!

Lily's due to kindle this weekend, and just looks very put upon by her pregnancy. She's due today or tomorrow, and Mike and I are checking regularly. She has a decent little nest built, but hasn't started pulling fur yet. I'll post pics of the babies when they arrive!

Cocoa's litter is growing amazingly well, and they're a trip! They'll be five weeks old tomorrow. The first is of the chocolate otter...all of the bunnies used to love to sleep under their feeder, but they've grown to the point that they don't fit anymore...so Otter's shoved her head underneath - she's camera shy!!

And it was bath time when we visited this afternoon...

And, last, but not least, here's the latest additions to our farm. DJ managed to sneak a heat past us and a tomcat found her...sooo, yesterday five little kittens arrived to take up residence in a box in our garage. There are three white ones, a black one, and a grey tabby. I took these pictures today. We won't be keeping any of them, but I'm going to make certain I tame them so we can find all five good homes :)

A mostly dry weekend...

2008-06-22T17:34:00.003-04:00

We've been receiving an astounding amount of rain of late, so we made sure to take advantage of the mostly dry weekend we were graced with. Worked on the pool some more, strung support twine for the peas, did some trimming of the trees along the front of the property and around the garden, and checked the bees.

We also have a hen that has decided to be broody...extremely so! So, a friend of ours is going to be sending a dozen fertile eggs our way(since we no longer have a rooster), and we'll let her set the eggs, and see if she'll hatch them out for us!

The bees are doing amazingly well, in fact, they've filled so many of the bars that we harvested one today! The honey is light, sweet, and without the bite you find in storebought "clover" honey. Hopefully next year we'll be able to label the bars as they fill, and identify what is being harvested as those are filled. The honey is being strained as I write, and it looks like we'll be getting a pint from the bar we pulled!

And now on to the bunnies....Cocoa's litter is growing well, and are very active and interactive. Lily is due to have her litter in two weeks - we bred her to Buck a little over two weeks ago, and we should be on a nice steady rhythm of breedings from here on out. Cocoa will be bred again in two weeks(or so), around the time the current litter moves into grow out cages, which should have us seeing a litter born every month(and subsequently one going into the freezer every four weeks).

Time flies when you're...

2008-06-16T16:57:00.004-04:00

...on vacation...or so it seems! I took last week off for Mike's birthday and our 2nd anniversary, and can't believe how fast the time went! But, we did manage to get a ton of stuff done :) The weekend before last we picked up a free load of firewood, as well as a free load of compost, got the compost spread in the garden and the tomatoes and peppers planted. We made a five gallon automatic waterer for the rabbits which turned out awesome, though I keep forgetting to take a picture of it!

We made a trip back down to Ohio Tuesday, so Mike could spend his birthday with his family, and we loaded the truck up with more stuff from the house, including the soapstone countertops from our old kitchen. The visit went well, and we had a great time playing with our niece. It was definitely a warm visit though, and we both managed to get quite the sunburns on the drive back up!

So, on to this weekend's projects! Courtesy of gift certificates to our favorite catalog, Lee Valley, from my mom and Mike's dad, we invested in a pump to clean out our pool and get it opened up, and in a scythe to allow us to hay our pasture area and put up some of our own for the winter.

So, after draining the pool(wish I had a picture of how bad it looked before the water was drained!!) You can see on the right of the ladder where I started scrubbing the liner(wow was it nasty!!).

And here's the pool after - still quite a bit to go as far as getting it cleaned, but at least I was able to make some sort of progress!!

Our "Back 40" was our other major project - it's too wet to run the lawn mower through, so we decided to invest in the scythe. As you can tell by the picture, the grass is taller than Pollux!!

It's going to take a while to get it done, but this was our progress from yesterday. It actually didn't take us too long to get this far, but scything is definitely hard work, and we have some muscles and calluses to build up. Pollux was more than happy to check out our work, and glad the grass wasn't taller than him anymore.

On to the Bunnies....

The baby rabbits are growing like the grass in the Back 40!! We're fairly certain that the fawn colored on is a girl, and we'll be adding her to our herd to keep the color going. We pulled the nesting box out when we returned from Ohio, having found that they'd abandoned it. They LOVE to bound and hop around the cage, and are speedy little things!!

Capping the Comb

2008-06-02T17:03:00.003-04:00

Checked the hive this past weekend, and were thrilled to see that the bees are starting to cap the honey comb! The bees were amazingly calm, letting me pull out five bars before even starting to buzz at me, and still never got really agitated at us. Definitely is just too neat to see the progress they're making, and we're really looking forward to them being an integral part of our homestead.

And here's a shot of one of our homemade beesuits! I couldn't figure out what to do with the sheer fabric I wore as a shawl with my wedding, until we found ourselves in need of veils! So, we wear sweats, boots, ripstop nylon raincoats(since the bees find that stuff slippery), gloves, and the homemade veils(with ballcaps underneath to keep the fabric away from our faces. To date, they're working quite well, and saving us a ton of expense in not having to buy beesuits!

Bunnies and Bees, progress photos

2008-06-01T19:22:00.002-04:00

Took some photos of the bunnies and the bees today, to show the progress being made on those to fronts. First, for the rabbits...our first litter is a week old today, and neither of us can believe how quickly they've grown!!

And Momma Cocoa wants to know what we did with her babies...

I don't have the photos of the bees uploaded yet - those will be in the next update!

Baby Photos

2008-05-27T19:11:00.004-04:00

Here are some pics of the babies taken this afternoon - they're just three days old, and already are growing in their fur.

Little wrinkley though!

But definitely still tiny!

They've arrived!

2008-05-26T16:34:00.002-04:00

Cocoa gave birth yesterday to 6 little naked bunnies - though unfortunately one of them died. Everything seems to have gone well, and the little ones are quite the little movers!

An Intro to the Rabbits

2008-05-21T18:40:00.006-04:00

As I said previously, we've added rabbits to our farm to add the ability to keep ourselves in meat without outside input. We've started out with two does and a buck, and will see how we do with these and whether we need to add to our herd or not.

So, we have Buck - his color is called Castor, and he is just gorgeous. He's also an absolute sweetheart, and you can count on him coming to the door to say hi and loves being pet.

Our youngest doe is Lily, and she's a lilac color. She's become a grump, and likes to growl and grunt at you if you try to pet her. Don't worry, I pet her anyways - she doesn't need to think she can get away with that!

And, last, but certainly not least, is Lady Godiva, aka Cocoa. She's Lily's mom, and we got her bred already. She is due to have babies this weekend, so she got her nesting box today!

Busy as bees and Busy Bees!

2008-05-19T16:57:00.004-04:00

Well, it rained all weekend, so we took advantage of being stuck in the house and worked on some projects. Got started on the builtin for the living room(no pictures of that yet, not enough progress to share) and worked on the kitchen, what a difference!
Here's the before shot...hideous isn't it? Up until Sunday, this is what it looked like, minus the pizza, and such on the counter, since this picture was taken before we closed on the house. We also replaced the stove after the infamous fireball incident.

So, on our last trip to Ohio to fetch stuff from our old place, we brought back some of the cabinets we had installed when we renovated the garage. We brought up four wall cabinets and a corner cabinet, in addition to some base cabinets for the living room built in. Two of the wall cabinets were added to either side of the microwave, resulting in this:

Much better don't you think?? We also added a 9" cabinet to the left of the fridge, and replaced the corner cabinet. The kitchen looks SO much better now, like it was unfinished before.

Busy Bees!!!

Well, our bees are just trucking! They arrive May 3rd, and this was one of the bars a week later! Amazing, isn't it?? There's a full bar before it too! It's really been neat having the bees, and knowing that they're our bees buzzing around the yard has just made me even more aware of how nature is at work.

And this is the same bar just five days later!! Can you believe the amount the got done? Granted, it's not full of honey yet, but they are just TRUCKIN' along, it's absolutely amazing. It's going to be just phenomenal come next year when we'll be harvesting honey from our own hive, and hopefully will be able to pay attention to what's blooming and label the bars so we can try honey from different flowers.

Spring is sprung....

2008-05-11T15:06:00.004-04:00

And then some.

Yes, I know, I've been lax in my updates. I'm going to make a concerted effort to post more often, especially since things are really starting to ramp up into high gear here. So, here's a general overview of what's been going on, and then I'll try to get some detailed posts on each of the main aspects.

We're working on the garden - hoping to get seeds planted by next weekend, and we've tons of seeds that we started upstairs in the windows that'll be going in the ground in a couple of weeks.
Over the last month we put in a TON of trees on our three acres, both for lumber and for food. I need to get some photos taken as things come into leaf so I can post those.
We're going to be hatching our own chicks from eggs from our flock this year, and Mike's working on making an incubator to do that. We've added another aspect to our place to replace having to raise broiler chickens once a year - rabbits. We've a pair of does and a buck for breeding stock, and are expecting our first litter of babies the weekend of May 24th.

And, last but not least, we're entering the world of beekeeping. We got our bees last weekend, installed them in the hive that Mike built for them, and they're doing great!

So...there's a brief overview - as I said, I'll get some in depth posts going on each of those, and detail what we've done, are doing, and what we plan for the future.

Hope all's going well for everyone, and I'll post more soon!

A Week from Spring

2008-03-13T09:50:00.004-04:00

Ahh...the calendar says Spring's a mere week away, but I have the feeling it'll be a bit more than that before we truly break free from winter here! This past weekend saw a major storm stomp its way half way across the country, dumping around 18" here between Friday morning and Sunday morning. The picture at the right was taken after it had finished, leaving us planted in a picture perfect winter playground. Shame its March and not Christmas morning though! It would fit much better :)

DJ is definitely not too keen on the snow, especially since it's taller than she is! Pollux is in heaven - boy is he ever a snow dog! He bounces around like a puppy in the fluffy white stuff, instead of a nearly ten year old dog.

But, all in all, we made it through the storm well. The drive home Friday was icky, but not dicey, and we had done all of our running around the weekend and week prior, so had no need to go any farther than the chicken coop - and yes, shoveling that path was tiring! Mike had it worse though, as he insisted on taking responsibility for the driveway!

Oh, and just to show you what happens when chickens encounter this much snow... the only thing keeping them from venturing further is Pollux, sitting in the middle of the shoveled path- he's the big black blob there :D By that afternoon, they had followed the path all the way up to the porch!

All in all we've made it through the winter so far fairly well. We definitely plan to stockpile firewood for next winter(didn't have the time to do so this past fall, really), which will make it quite a bit more comfortable! I've definitely learned the truth of Mike's insistence that I really didn't know how to drive in snow - they do take much better care of the roads up here, compared to Ohio. I've shrugged and headed off to work with hardly a worry in weather that would certainly have had me working from home in previous years!

I think this is all for this post...the next one will be an update on what we're getting into this spring...boy are we going to be busy!!

Winter's still here...

2008-02-07T10:34:00.000-05:00

Despite the thaw and the rain, winter is still settled in up here, which means that cabin fever looms on the horizon. So, being proactive, I decided to dig one of my many abandoned projects out of the boxes in my craftroom! It'll be months before the applique-work is complete on this quilt top, but I'm hoping to have it complete for next winter!
The knot will be completely lined with gold threadwork to make it pop...so far I think it's looking great!
I have triangular triskele knots that will go in the gold corners, and a chain knot will border the areas inbetween. Once all of the embroidery stitching is done we'll tied the quilt together, then on to the fun part! We're going to do some extensive quilting in the areas surrounding the knotwork(yup, Mike's going to help me with that part), using various celtic designs, including our initials and some animorphic designs.
It's going to be alot of work, but I can't wait to see it done!

On other fronts, we've been trying new recipes, the cats have been bouncing of the walls, and Pollux has become even more of a perpetual shadow as the rains and nasty weather keeps us all housebound!

The tail is escaping!!!

Mike's pineapple upside down cake....yum!!

DJ enjoys a brief interlude of sun...what a belly!

A New Year Begins..

2008-01-10T10:10:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know, I've been slacking and have posted for a while...work got hectic, then the holidays were upon us and next thing I knew it was 2008! So, Happy Belated Holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and a Happy New Year, too! :D

Things are going well here, though both Mike and I are eager for Spring to arrive. The holidays were quiet for us here in Western NY, we celebrated Solstice with a lovely dinner and tried roasting chestnuts(not so successful there).

We spent Christmas Eve out at my mom's, taking along with us 8 dozen eggs! We had a nice quiet day there and came back that evening - overnight trips anywhere in the winter time are going to be nigh close to impossible, as we've no one to care for the chickens. We had a nice peaceful Christmas day wiled away by installing the new rubber bumper set that Mike's dad bought him for his pinball machine. It's amazing the difference they've made!

We've just come out of an amazing January thaw, seeing a record of 64 degrees set yesterday morning at 3am! Today we're hanging out in the mid to upper 30s...what a difference. We're hoping that the warm spell was short enough that it doesn't mess with the trees too much, though it's definitely messing with our sinuses!
We sold just about half our flock last week. :( Finally had to accept the fact that we weren't going to be able to find enough buyers for the eggs at the point in time. Seven of our Easter Egger hens went to a family that lives about ten minutes for us, seemed like good people, with two daughters who seemed to just adore chickens. So, now we have Brutus, our Buckeye rooster, six Buckeye hens, and two EE hens, Jackie and Isis. They're still settling back down from all the ruckus of splitting the flock, and from the shake up the weather's given us, so we're not getting a ton of eggs right now, but hopefully everyone will settle down soon and we'll be getting some steady production.

We've been spending some of our nights with seed and nursery catalogs spread all over the couch, trying to decide what we're going to plant this spring. We're planning on an extensive change to our landscaping..or rather, doing some landscaping! We're hoping to plant a couple of pecans, walnuts, and a pair of almonds trees, as well as a number of fruiting bushes to act as a hedge. I think we've settled on a basket willow to fill in the spot between our property and our one neighbor, giving us a nice dense screen, as well as materials for baskets and such. Our garden list is up around 30 different varieties, from tomatoes to pumpkins, cabbage to spinach. We're really looking forward to getting that in and seeing how things grow up here.

Snowing Sideways...

2007-12-03T09:48:00.001-05:00

Here in Western NY, Mother Nature scoffs at the calendar. What do you mean winter doesn't start until December 21st? Hah, like she holds to that! The temperatures have steadily made their way into the chilly range, and we've had the furnace on since Thanksgiving(albeit set only on 55 degrees). We have certainly learned why there are 8 huge wind turbines on the shores of Lake Erie, as the winds have been whipping steadily in the 30 mph range more often than not the last week or so, with gusts up to 55 mph. The company next door to where I work replaced their flag the week before Thanksgiving - it's already been ripped in half and is deteriorating rapidly.

Sunday saw four inches of snow covering the ground, but melting rapidly as the temperatures worked their way into the upper 30s. It did stick around enough for Pollux to play in it...

... and for the majority of the chickens to make their opinions known, as they glared disdainfully at the cold white stuff covering the ground.

My drive in this morning was rather uneventful, as apparently I'm adjusting to driving with a steady press of wind off the lake. It started raining last night, melting the snow and turning the back yard into a pond, and was still drizzling this morning on my way in. The temperature has dropped far enough since that it's now snowing, and the wind is kicking off the lake, making it snow sideways. The schools along the lake have closed school, anticipating a really nasty afternoon. Hopefully it'll wait until I'm home before really cranking into high gear!

The First Thanksgiving...

2007-12-03T09:01:00.001-05:00

In our house, at any rate, and our first hosted Thanksgiving as well. We were lucky to have four guests come to celebrate with us; Mike's dad, Rick, his fiancee, Joann, his aunt Christina, and her girlfriend, Kim. Rick and Joann arrived around noon on Wednesday in the midst of a steady rain that continued the rest of the day. We spent the rest of the day prepping for Thanksgiving, mostly.

See...here I am working on the rolls ... I swear, there are more pictures of me cooking than I've ever had taken before!

I think we got the turkey in the oven around 10:30a(after a late breafast) ...that was one BIG turkey!

After that it was final prep time - peeling potatoes, setting the table, and putting out the snacks.

Christina and Kim arrived around 1pm Thanksgiving day, and shortly thereafter a pinball tournament commenced! Christina's the one getting some hip action into her play, and Kim's watching for pointers :)

The turkey arrived fashionably late(about an hour and a half!) and we finally got to sit down to eat! It was a good thing we put our so many snacks, or else the natives would have gotten even more restless than they did. The dishes were set out on the table, the turkey carved, and then we finally got to dig in.

Wouldn't you know it but all that work just tired us all out! Just about everyone crashed fairly early, appetites sated, and all the cooking even wore out the dog ;)

Happy belated Thanksgiving, All!!

It's all white inside....

2007-11-12T08:30:00.000-05:00

Yeah, inside. We are working hard towards getting the dining room done, and there's drywall dust EVERYWHERE. In the living room, bathroom, kitchen, upstairs...that stuff is just downright pervasive. I think Mike's planning on getting the last of the sanding on the ceiling down today and priming it, as well as priming what remains to be done in the office. Tonight, hopefully, I will finish the walls that I've been working on. I know that there's a possibility I may have to do a smidge more mudding on the bay window wall, but the two other walls will be ready to be sanding smooth, so that's on my list.

We had hoped to get at least as far as getting the dining room primed by Sunday night, but that just didn't happen. We ended up having to make a trip to Lowes both Saturday and Sunday, which just ate up a HUGE amount of time. We're borrowing a ladder from work so we can get some of the stuff that needs done on the roof taken care of(it's 28' long - a full 7 feet longer than ours) and we got that picked up Saturday. Saturday afternoon I went up and got the flashing around the chimney sealed up(brrrrrrr), wasn't too windy on the ground, but 25 feet up, wow!

But, I did manage to remember more batteries for my camera...so I'll be able to post some pics here soon! We got some awesome shots of Pollux playing frisbee, using Mike's camera, and I need to upload those from my laptop. So, this is going to be a short post, and I'll get some pictures up later this week!

What a weekend!

2007-11-05T13:42:00.000-05:00

Well, we are most certainly into the final wind up for Thanksgiving, and winter. Mike and I spent Saturday out at my mom's, cutting firewood and helping her with some stuff around the house before having dinner and a small belated birthday celebration. :) I think we ended up bringing nearly a full face cord home, and spent a couple of hours yesterday sawing, splitting and stacking it. Well, Mike sawed and split, and I stacked - Jen and chainsaws are not compatible!

Fall weather has settled in with gusto in the last week, with wicked cold winds blowing off the lake and churning up waves, as well as stripping the leaves off the trees. The chickens are loving their expanded digs, though the high winds have kept them rather close to shelter. The weekend was clear and cool, with temps down around 30 overnight with heavy frosts, and highs during the day of around 50. We still haven't kicked the furnace on, but we did finally gave to the need for heat last night. Mike built the first fire of the year in the woodstove in the living room, and in short order we were roasty toasty in there. Made me realize how cool the house has really been of late. I think we were somewhere in the neighborhood of 52 degrees inside both Saturday and Sunday...definitely cause for some heat!

I think we're going to end up investing in a programmable thermostat. Would definitely help keep the gas bill down when we finally do kick the furnace on. Depending on how much sun we get, I don't know how much heat we'll have to run, to be honest, until the temperatures really dip. Though, one of the guys from the floor today mentioned a good side of this steady cold - it's dropping the temperature of the lake fast, which should help us out with snow once the winds shift.

I can't believe how rapidly time has been passing though. The more I think about it, the more I realize that come next Friday, I'm off for ten days...which, ordinarily would be cause for celebration, but in this case is rather nerve-wracking! Mike's dad and fiancee will be rolling into town via train on the 20th, and staying until the 24th, and his aunt and her girlfriend will be coming in Thanksgiving morning.

We have sooooo much to do in preparation. When I talked to Mike at lunch he was sanding drywall, trying to see how much more mudding he had to do before we can prime and paint. I know that I'll be working on texturing the walls this evening, and probably every evening until it's finished - once that's done it'll be prime and paint the walls as well. Well, I'm sure we're do the whole job all at once. :) I can't wait to see what the final result is!
Slowing getting more egg customers...though right now we're in excess of 6 dozen ahead of 'em! Ah well, we'll get there. Definitely will have plenty of eggs for deviled eggs come Turkey Day :)

Hmmm...lemme think...what else is going on....oh, something kinda cool for me...I was made moderator on a discussion board I belong to this past weekend. Considering we're all a rather well-behaved group, not sure how much moderating I'll be doing, but it's nice to have people I respect have that kind of confidence in me. The board is called The Green Branch, and I've included a link in the sidebar if anyone wants to drop in and visit. We touch on all sorts of topics, but the board is described as a "Politics, news, sustainability, self-sufficiency, alternative discussion forum". You can read some of the posts without becoming a member, so take a look and see what you think :)

I love three day weekends...

2007-10-29T09:11:00.000-04:00

:)

I had Friday off again(gotta love a company that gives you a day off for your birthday, in addition to your normal vacations days!), though thankfully, this time butchering wasn't on the todo list. We spent a good portion of Friday running errands, making a trip to Target, Home Depot, Sears, and Premier Wines ;). We made the trip to target to get laundry supplies - Mike's been struggling with what we thought was psoriasis for the last three years, but Friday morning we discovered similar spots on my stomach. Well, as psoriasis is far from a contagious thing, we're thinking that it's contact dermatitis, and more than likely related to either our detergent or liquid fabric softener(Mike's voting for the later). So, we picked up our old brands of both, and hopefully we will see a reduction in the rashes soon. While we were there, we tried to pick up a new pair of jeans for me. Well, apparently, Target isn't taking the growing waistlines of Americans seriously, as there were only two styles of jeans available, both ugly, for plus size women. I was rather disappointed by that. So, we went to Sears, and I managed to find a decent looking pair of Levis. At one point I had found a website selling American made jeans - I need to try to track them down again. Though, hopefully come next summer, we'll know the area well enough to get back to yardsaling.
We picked up a hot water heater blanket at Home Depot, as well as drywall mud and screws, and a few other odds and ends. We had planned to pick up our paint for the dining room, but while there we rethought our plans for that room, and are currently working on texturing the walls and such, and will probably end up getting the paint either this weekend or next. I picked up a box of wine(yeah, you read that right...a box) at Premier - I had gone in intending to get a bottle for the weekend, and while wondering past the cooler, decided to give Premier's brand of wine a try. I figure, at least I won't have to deal with oxidation issues with the box, and it'll last a while! Mike's taking to calling be "Bubba J", after Jeff Dunham's hilly billy character(search for Bubba J on YouTube - there's a few clips...if I get a chance to go through them at home I'll find one with the "box wine" reference ;)).

It rained pretty much all day though, so we took it pretty easy. We did a test run on the wall texture Friday afternoon(that worked well, so we did a good chunk of the front wall Saturday), and tried to watch The Prairie Home Companion Friday evening. Ack. What a disappointment. We bailed about 35 minutes in after being prostitized to the entire time.

Saturday was nice, though. I managed to sleep in until almost 9, and Mike got up and took care of all the animals for me. For my birthday, Mike set up the worksurfaces in my craft room for me, and it looks awesome!!

The right side and middle of the U are made up of the closet doors that we pulled out of the office - their 32 inches deep and 72 inches long, and on the left side is my rolling table that Mike made me a few years ago. All in all, I now have a ton of room to work, and all of the stuff that's currently being stored in there can slide underneath and out of the way until we figure out where it's going to go longterm.
What's going to be really nice is that the chicken's yard is right out the window in front of my sewing machine, so while I'm working in there I can watch them, too. Bonus!

For dinner Mike made me Chicken Parmesan :) Yummmmmmmmmmmy! It was awesome...I think it might be the best batch he's made. We have leftovers for tonight too!

Yesterday was a beautiful, though somewhat blustery day though. I think the winds were somewhere between 10-15 mph steady, with gusts up to 25, and it was chilly enough that we had cold ears! We expanded the chickens yard for them, pushing back into the woods and extending it out further from the chicken house. They love it! We used a deer fence from Lee Valley - what awesome stuff! fairly strong, and nearly invisible at a distance. We took them from a 100 foot perimeter enclosure to a 230ish perimeter, with nearly all of the new stuff under the trees to protect them from hawks and such.

We had our first frost last night - a fairly heavy one that had me out scraping my windows this morning. At 7:30 is was 29 out, and 56 in the house. We're trying to hold off on kicking the furnace on - thankfully, last night was the coldest night in the forecast, so if the sun comes out the house should warm up nicely.

Fall is definitely here though!

Fall is here...

2007-10-24T09:17:00.000-04:00

I don't have pictures yet - haven't even taken any, though I definitely need to, but Fall has definitely arrived here in Western NY. Every where you look, there's oranges and yellows and reds and golds and every color in between. Our grand pine in the front yard is beautifully framed by maples and oaks, its low, swag like branches vibrant and green against the flaming backdrop of the fall foliage. The yard is a riot of colors, and the chickens are in heaven. Opening the gate releases a flood of feathered fiends bee-lining for the blanket of fallen leaves, and soon they are rustling through them, looking for goodies.

Our weather has been alternating periods of crisp, cool fall temps, and indian summers. And rain, lots of rain. The month of October has seen highs of 85 degrees, and lows of 45, and we've received 2.76 inches of rain. And we're not done yet. While today and tomorrow are supposed to be dry, the rain will be returning for the weekend, with the forecasts predicting somewhere between a 60% and 80% chance of precipitation...with our proximity to Lake Erie, I have a feeling we'll be working inside the house, instead of out.

It will be cool though, so dinner this evening is going to be turkey and rice soup(made from a salvaged whole turkey breast - slightly freezer burnt- that we found in the freezer), and I think I see corn chowder on the menu for this weekend. Last night we had spicy mini-meatloaves with broccoli, and we'll be having the soup tonight before heading to a defensive driver course being offered by our insurance company - gotta save money any where we can, and the cost of the class will be offset the first year of the class's three year effective discount.

So, that's it for this week - kinda laid back I think. We were going to go out to my mom's for firewood, but the rain has squashed those plans, so that'll be next weekend, I guess. We might tackle the installation of the wood burner on the second floor - need to get a reducer and some flue repair cement to do that...not really expensive, but the repair costs are starting to add up, and we've still got a fair bit of winterizing left to do. Ah well, the joys of home-ownership!

And so it's done...

2007-10-19T18:03:00.000-04:00

Well, the deed has been done. Turk was butchered this morning, and, thankfully, it wasn't as bad as I had expected. We dropped her off around 8:15, and went off to have a cup of coffee courtesy of the gentleman doing the deed. Apparently he has a deal with a restaurant owner in town for when people like us come in from out of town to have him process poultry. So, we passed an hour and a half, and when we returned, our turkey was ready to go. She dressed out at 24 pounds!! Mike was thinking she'd finish out at somewhere around 16, and I was expecting 20ish.

So, we have a HUGE turkey for Thanksgiving....I think I need more company ;) But, it's definitely doubtful that we'd raise our own turkey again. However, the area that we went to was absolutely breathtaking. Who knew that the Attica prison would be in such a picturesque setting. We both were wishing we had brought a camera, as the leaves were showing the most phenomal colors, and I wish we'd gotten a picture of the prison, with its casilated turrets and copper peaks and weathervanes.

Tomorrow we're off to my mom's to cut firewood and attend the haunted hayride that my aunt does every year. We'll take our dog with us(he loves going to Gramma's) and we'll let the chickens out before we leave.

Oh! The chickens...I almost forgot. We are getting an amazing number of eggs from them. We have six Buckeyes and nine Easter Eggers, and have been getting at least ten eggs a day from the group, with the last few days seeing daily totals of 13 and 14. We are definitely getting buried in eggs! We're taking a dozen to my aunt, and two dozen to my grandmother, hopefully that will have us at a little more manageable level. We met our local mechanic, and he helped Mike get the exhaust pipe tweaked to where it needed to be for free, so I took a dozen down to him yesterday. He seemed to appreciate the return of generosity and is definitely a character.

A Beginning....and an End...

2007-10-18T08:41:00.001-04:00

Well, I never thought I'd do a blog, but, what the hell, right? So, here I am, with my own little place of the web to just ramble and ramble and ramble....scary thought, isn't it? But, hopefully, this will help me keep friends and family up to date on the goings on, and perhaps help me keep track of what day of the week I'm on! I'll probably post fairly frequently to start, just to update everyone, and then just do once or twice a week...unless things really get crazy! But, I think my first real one will be on just one subject...

Tomorrow is the day we take the turkey to the butcher. On April 3rd of this year, along with our shipment of chicks, we got 8 small turkey poults. Why? Because coworkers who had discovered we raised our own chickens for eggs and meat asked if we would raise turkeys for them. Well, we were interested in doing so for ourselves, and so we took the plunge.

Curious, striped, and social, they fascinated us with their little personalities. We lost one within the first 24 hours, to a chill, and another in 48. Four days later we lost a third. Raising turkeys was proving to be a great deal more challenging than chickens.

But, after than, things settled down, and soon we were moving them out to the chicken house. A few weeks of brooding saw us lose yet another to a chill when we had a cold snap, and we were lucky not to lose more. And so we were down to four. By this time we were fairly certain we would not try raising turkeys again. The weather warmed, and as the grass sprung up we created a yard for the poults and chicks to venture into.

And they grew...and grew...and grew. We lost one after three months, then the heat wave in July took another two. And so we were left with one. We had determined not to name the turkeys, make the butchering too hard, but soon the last turkey, a hen, became TurkTurk. She followed us like a dog around the yard, came running when called, and pipped happily when we came to visit. It wasn't long before we knew that butchering Turk was going to be very, very, hard. She made the trip from Southern Ohio to our new home south of Buffalo safely and well, and willingly made her home with the chickens in the old garage in the back of our property.

And so...we finally realized that there was no way we could do the deed ourselves. After five months, a roadtrip, and Mike having to nurse her back to health after the heat took her two comrades, we finally were honest and decided to look for someone who would do it for us. It took a while, but finally after giving our number to someone, who gave it to someone, who posted here and there that we were looking, we found a gentleman who butchers poultry on the side. And the day has arrived.

Tomorrow morning, Mike and I will get up, and settle Turk into a box for the trip. About a week and a half ago, while trying to keep up with her chickens, she hurt her left leg. We think it probably is just the toe, but since then she's been pretty well confining herself to the chicken house. The fact that she's not happily tooling around the yard has made the necessity of the trip tomorrow easier to bear. We can't stand to see her unhappy.

So, that's what we're doing tomorrow. I've taken the day off so that both of us can go, both to make it easier on both of us to have company, and as a tribute to a bird who's come close to being a pet.

We'll never raise turkeys again. But we will make sure to give her the honor she deserves, as the turkey, truly, is a noble bird.