Hill Country Backyard Homestead

Jungle theme baby shower cake

2011-07-12T13:22:00.003-05:00

I know this doesn't tie much at all to the general topic of my blog (although I did use eggs from my chickens!), but I just had to post this picture. I made this cake for a friend's baby shower and am really proud of how it turned out. A few people at the shower asked if I do cakes professionally and while I haven't done that up to this point, I decided that I might start looking into it. I will keep you all posted on my progress - from my initial research it looks like there are a lot of licenses and permits I need so it may take awhile but I'm going to plug away at it and see if I can't get set up to go into business (on the side of course - I definitely can't quit my day job!).

Wish me luck!!

Greek Lamb Shanks

2011-04-13T13:43:00.004-05:00

I know it has been ages since I posted anything - and I definitely need to get you all some garden and chicken updates - but I made a great dinner last night and thought I should share the recipe. I modified a recipe from my mom with some ideas I got from a lamb shank recipe by Anne Burrell on Food Network - and viola!

This recipe can be made with beef stew meat, lamb stew meat or lamb shanks – all work well.

2 lbs stew meat OR 2 large lamb shanks
4 Tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tsp salt
8 whole cloves crushed
½ tsp cinnamon & fresh ground pepper
¼ tsp nutmeg & allspice
3 cloves garlic
½ large sweet onion
1 stalk celery
5-6 baby carrots
1 can tomato paste
1 14 ½ oz can of diced tomatoes
2 c. dry red wine
½ pkg whole frozen pearl onions
10-20 pitted kalamata olives

In a food processor – purée the sweet onion, carrots, celery and garlic to a paste-like consistency.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Salt the meat well using the tsp of salt. In a large dutch oven heat 2 Tbsp of the oil and brown the meat thoroughly – do not skimp on this – the browning is essential to the flavor. Remove the meat from the pan, dump out the oil and add 2 Tbsp fresh oil to the pan. Add the puréed vegetables to the pan and cook until the vegetables purée starts to brown – do not let it burn – stir it frequently to ensure it does not burn. When it is golden in color add the spices (cloves – allspice) and cook a few minutes more. Then add tomato paste and cook another 3-4 minutes. Add the can of diced tomatoes, red wine, frozen onions and olives to the pan and bring back to a simmer. Add the meat back into the pan. The liquid should come just to the top of the meat or cover it slightly – if it does not – add water to bring the level of liquid up.

Cover the dutch oven and put it in the oven. For shanks – you will need to cook it about 3 – 3 ½ hours. Stew meat should go at least 2 hours to be tender. Check every 45 minutes during the cooking process and add more liquid if the sauce starts to get too thick or brown. If making shanks – turn the shanks over half way through the cooking process to ensure even cooking as the level of the liquid reduces. Be careful not to add too much water near the end of the cooking process, in the end you want a thick luscious sauce.

Either stew or shanks can be made up to a day in advance and warmed up – this stew is even better if it gets to sit for a half a day or overnight.

I like to serve this with a nice crusty bread to mop up the sauce!

Sorry no pictures - I was so anxious to dig in I forgot to take any :)

Finally done

2010-10-11T16:52:00.005-05:00

It is finally done! Well, the structure is anyway - I still need to get some more flagstone for in front of the coop - but the structure is done and the roof is on! I haven't painted the nest box yet so it is still in the garage, but the roost is in the house and the little girls are all moved in.

I think it will take them a little while to figure out the ladder to the hen house though. I put them into the house this afternoon before we left for some errands and when we came back they were down in the lower part, so at least they figured out the coming down the ladder part. Usually going up the ladder takes them a little longer to figure out. :)

Now that the new coop is done I need to get going on my fall garden. The broccoli, Brussel sprouts and Bok Choy in my living room really need to go outside. I really hope I can get the garden ready to go by the end of this week and get them in the ground. Then maybe I can just relax for a few weeks.... well, as much as I know how to relax anyway ;)

I guess I shouldn't plan to much rest anyway - the leaves are starting to fall here so that means soon my yard will be a pile of leaves and pecans. This year I need to try to actually pick up some of the pecans and do something with them. Perhaps it is because I am mildly allergic to them that I am never that inspired to cook much with them.

Getting closer

2010-10-04T22:13:00.009-05:00

I am getting closer but still not done. The hen house structure is done - it just needs a nest box and a roost and then its ready.

Once everything is in - the wire goes on the top and then the roof and a little wire on the the bottom of the front and it is DONE! I can't finish it this week but I am shooting for Sunday to be done.

I also got a little break to get into the garden and as forlorn as it looks right now there were still a few goodies to be found - a few eggplants, some yellow tomatoes and a handful of green beans - added to two lovely green eggs from Saturday and it made a lovely combination of colors in my kitchen :)

I also managed to cook up a few more Asian pork buns this weekend with the left over smoked pork shoulder that I froze a few weeks ago. They are just as yummy this time as last - I can't wait to try a Southwest version with some of the roasted Hatch chilies I froze.

Lately I have had too much work and not enough time in my yard and kitchen! I have so many things I want to do and not enough time to get it all done. I have broccoli, Brussel sprouts and Bok Choy growing in the corner of my living room and I need to get them outside but I need the coop done first. Goal for this weekend - coop done, veggies in the ground where they belong for the fall! Wish me luck!

Mini coop progress

2010-09-28T19:12:00.005-05:00

Well, I was hoping to be done by now but you know what they say about the best laid plans.... Well, ok - in my case I didn't have a well defined plan so I have had some rework this time that has slowed me down. I had planned to arrange the sides and ends the opposite of how they are set up now, but did not account for the door opening into the coop when I thought out that plan (and no I didn't draw it - lesson learned), so I had to rearrange the sides.

Unfortunately for my plans, that made the whole coop 8 inches wider and now all of the purlins (roofing supports) are about 8 inches too short! So back to home depot to buy some more 2x2x8s, a few T brackets I forgot on the last trip, some gravel and sand for the floor and then I THINK I should be about there in terms of having everything I need to finish it off. Of course there is still more to stain and I need to paint the inside and build a nest box and cut the egg door into place and build a floor and put the roof wire and actual roof on and ..... well, you get the idea. So with all that to do, I don't think I will be done before the weekend. I hope I can finish it up by Sunday so the little girls can move into the new house. I think Athena (the Barred Plymouth Rock) may be getting close to egg laying age so I need a coop with a nest box for them soon!

Sandpaper Eggs

2010-09-28T17:36:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posts - I have been swamped with work and my latest project. I finally decided to bite the bullet and build a permanent coop extension for the little girls to keep them safe from floods and from the big girls. I should have new pictures to post later this week to show the finished product - at least I hope I will!

In the meantime it seems the hammering and sawing etc. have stressed out Cadbury a little - her egg production this week and past weekend has been only two eggs in four days - normally she lays 6 or 7 days a week rarely skipping a day. She also laid what is called a "sandpaper" egg today. I had never heard of it or seen one so I checked on the backyard chicken forum (one of my favorite sources for chicken info of all kinds) and one of the users sent me a link (added to my list of favorites below) that talks about different kinds of eggs and what can cause it. It is a good source for me since is this my first adventure with chickens and sometimes changes in egg production can be a sign of illness. Luckily this one doesn't seem to be - it can be based on the info on the egg site - but in this case since Cadbury does not seem to have any other symptoms, I am guessing it is just the commotion in the yard. The picture above shows Cadbury's normal egg on the left and the sandpaper egg on the right. The sandpaper egg is much much lighter and the dark spot on the end is raised and very rough. The whole eggs feels a little rough - not smooth and glossy like her normal eggs.

Smoking time

2010-09-13T22:43:00.004-05:00

Smoking time in the new smoker! I got an inexpensive charcoal/wood smoker at Home Depot over the weekend and smoked a shoulder from the pasture raised pig I bought about a month ago. It was my first attempt to smoke something instead of grill it and I think it turned out pretty well. The smoke ring was about 1/2 inch into the pork and it tasted amazing. I meant to take a picture of it but didn't remember that plan once that shoulder finally came out of the smoker and it was time to eat!

Tonight - using the left overs I made some Asian Pork Buns. They turned out really well. I chopped up some of the left over shoulder, cooked down the pan drippings from the smoking process, added a little soy sauce and used that for the filling. I thought about using regular barbecue sauce and making them like pulled pork inside - but the smoke flavor was so good I hated to cover it up with barbecue sauce. The dough is a fairly simple to make -

10 Tbsp milk
4 Tbsp butter
1 large egg beaten (for dough)
2 tsp yeast
2 Tbsp warm water
2 1/2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups flour
1 egg beaten (for egg wash)

Warm milk and butter together in a microwave safe bowl just until butter melts. In a medium sized bowl, put the 2 Tbsp water and the yeast and allow the yeast to soften. Whisk the egg in a bowl and add the warm milk and butter to the egg. Add the mixture to the yeast. In a sifter combine flour, sugar and salt and sift into the liquid mixture.

Stir until the dough comes together, then turn out on a lightly floured board and knead. You may need to sprinkle with a light dusting of flour to keep it from sticking - but use as little flour as possible. knead about 5 minutes and then put dough in a oiled bowl (turn to coat the dough lightly with oil), cover with plastic wrap and let rise for about an hour in a warm place.

When the dough has risen and the filling is ready punch it down and divide it in half. Roll each half into a 12 inch log and cut each into 4-6 even pieces. roll the pieces into balls and press them flat and spread them out to about 4 inches across. The dough should be thicker in the middle than around the edges. Place 2-3 Tbsp of the filling in the center and pull the edges up together over the dough into a purse shape and pinch all of the seams together. Put filled bun seam side down on a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet. Continue until all the buns are done. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise for 30 minutes. In the last 10 minutes of rising preheat the oven to 350. Before putting the buns in the oven - brush the tops with egg wash. Baking time depends a little on the size of the buns you make - generally 15-20 minutes is all it takes for the buns to become deep golden brown on top and sound slightly hollow when tapped. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack for a few minutes before serving.

I have had similar buns with a sweet red bean filling - I am hoping to find a good recipe for those and try them next. The great thing about the little buns is that you can freeze them for up to a month or refrigerate them for a week - simply rewarm in a 350 degree oven for 8-10 minutes and they are ready to pop in a lunch box - no mess and nothing can fall out of the nice neat little package. I am going to experiment with some other fillings too - maybe Teriyaki chicken or ground pork with cabbage and ginger (like pot sticker filling) - I think you could even make lovely ones with grilled veggies inside.

Floods, spiders and frog cakes - oh my

2010-09-13T22:01:00.008-05:00

It has been a crazy few weeks - travel for work, flooding rains, "high water" chickens rescues, my daughter's birthday party, a new smoker and some new recipes!

First - the floods. When hurricane Hermine hit the gulf coast, she kept coming inland as a tropical storm and hit San Antonio and Boerne dead on. We had two days of pouring rain and strong winds. For the most part my yard stays fairly dry, but the run off runs down the fence behind the chicken coops. The big girls were fine in their coop - most of the run stayed dry and when the wind started they could go up into the hen house and stay nice and dry. The little girls didn't do as well in their mini-coop. The water pooled up around it and the wind was blowing rain into the opening if the little house - so they were not staying dry. In the picture that is water from the fence to the edge of the driveway - a muddy little mini lake. When I realized the water was getting too deep, I tried dragging the coop forward to higher ground and turning it to avoid the wind - but it wasn't going to work, so I brought the little girls into the garage and put them in their original small dog kennel for a few days. They were crowded but at least they were dry. I was soaked but they were nice and dry :)

The yard clean up was a bit of a chore but once everything dried out I was able to get everything put back in order. In the process of pruning one of the Butterfly bushes in my front yard I ran across this lovely garden spider and I had to take her picture and bring the kids out to see her.

We also had a birthday party for my daughter over the weekend. She asked for a pond theme cake with a frog and lilly pads. I struggled a bit with the frog, but in the end I think it turned out pretty well and my daughter and her friends loved it! A few of the mom's suggested I go into the cake business - but I honestly have no idea how to charge for a cake and I'm not sure my figures are good enough, but it is something I am going to think about. Maybe I can do a few more and then hang up my shingle - kids theme cakes - get 'em here!

We found her and she's ok!!

2010-09-02T09:18:00.003-05:00

Lilly is ok! She wasn't grabbed by a predator after all!

She was wedged into one of the concrete blocks that is the foundation of the coop! I don't know how she got in there but this morning I heard a kind of muffled peep sound coming from the ground under the edge of the coop and when I went into the coop I saw a tiny fluff of white feathers sticking out of the block. I managed to get her out and she seems ok - just hungry and thirsty! I am soooo relieved!

Rest in Peace Lilly

2010-08-31T19:08:00.003-05:00

Very sad news today. The girls were free ranging in the back yard - like they always do when I am home and I was in the house working as usual. When I went out in the afternoon to check them and go pick up the kids from school, Lilly - the sweet little Silkie - was gone. There were no signs of a struggle, there were a few feathers but really not many more than usual, and it was broad daylight - so all I can think is that because she was so small, maybe a cat jumped the fence and grabbed her - or maybe a hawk. We are all heartbroken and feel terrible that she was taken by a predator. All I can say is that I learned a lesson. If we ever have one again I will never let Silkies free range - they can't run quickly or fly or see well - so I should have realized she was an easy target if a predator ever spotted her. I thought being inside of a solid 6 foot wooden fence with lots of places for cover and to hide and where I can hear any commotion was safe for her during the day. Rest in peace Lilly - you were so funny and adorable and you didn't deserve a violent end. I'm so sorry we weren't able to keep you safe.

Fun bento lunch

2010-08-30T21:21:00.003-05:00

The kids started school this week and my daughter likes to take her lunch. My sister gave us bento boxes last year and we have been playing with different accessories to make cute lunches.

With the little eggs the girls are laying we have the perfect sized eggs to put in the little rice molds so we got cute shaped eggs - the white bear face in the bottom left box is a hard boiled egg that we put in a rice mold and then colored with food coloring pens :) The little monkey next to the bear is a shaker bottle with garlic salt inside. The creature on the top right is piece of smoked sausage cut to have eight legs so it looks like an octopus - he is in a bed of celery "sea weed." It was fun to work on it with my daughter - she came up with the idea to shave the celery with a veggie peeler to make strands to look like sea weed. Its fun when she brings home the report of what her friends say about her lunches!

I'm also glad she is taking hard boiled eggs for lunches so that we can work through the volume of eggs we are getting :)

Hatch green chilies

2010-08-28T20:35:00.006-05:00

It is Hatch green chili time! So today when the kids and I went to the store and smelled the roaster going outside I knew one of my favorite times of year was here!

I bought a bag of the roasted mild chilies and haven't figured out what to do with all of it, but tonight with dinner I decided we should have some fresh homemade Hatch chili cheese bread.

It turned out to be a little too spicy for the kids - even with the mild chilies - but I loved it :) My daughter liked the flavor but the heat was a little much for her - so I am sure when she gets a little bigger she will be a Hatch chili girl like her mom :)

I haven't decided what to do with the rest of the chilies - so I need to come up with some ideas. If I can't think of anything else then I will probably make a few more loaves of the bread - or maybe make it into rolls - and freeze it for later this fall to have with chili. Of course I guess I could always use the rest to make chili - maybe with white beans and some ground pork from my freezer..... hmmmm - I may have to work on that idea a little more. Thinking about it is making me hungry even though I just ate dinner!

Here is the recipe for the Hatch Chili Cheese Bread

Roughly 1 c. of roasted, peeled, seeded Hatch green chilies - chopped
1 pkg active dry yeast
1/4 c. warm water
1/2 c. milk (I used skim)
2 Tbsp butter
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
3 1/2 - 4 c. flour
3/4 c. shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 egg yolk combined with 1 Tbsp water

In a large bowl, sprinkle yeast over warm water and let stand about 5 minutes until yeast has softened. Warm milk and butter in the microwave or in a small sauce pan to about 110 degrees - so the butter melts but not too hot or the heat will kill the yeast. Add the milk and butter mixture to the yeast. Next stir in the chilies, salt, sugar, cheese and about 2 1/2 cups of the flour. Stir until combined and sticky (a dough hook on a mixer works well for this but I usually just do it by hand). Once the dough is combined - turn it out on a floured board and knead in the remaining flour. The total amount varies - it depends on the humidity and other things - but basically I knead in flour until it is no longer sticky and it becomes smooth and elastic. Once it reaches that stage - about 8 or 9 minutes of kneading, form it into a ball and put it in an oiled bowl and toss it around so that it is lightly oiled on all sides. Then cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm place until doubled - about an hour.

Punch down the dough, turn it out and knead it just enough to release the air from the dough - 2 or 3 minutes. Shape the dough into a loaf and place it in a greased 9x5 inch loaf pan. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise again for about 45 minutes. When the dough is nearly done rising - preheat the oven to 375.

Brush the loaf with the egg wash and bake at 375 for 30-35 minutes until the loaf is golden and sounds hollow when tapped on top. Remove from the oven, turn out of the pan and let cool on a wire rack before slicing.

Eggs and a raccoon!

2010-08-27T21:39:00.006-05:00

When I go out of town I have a wonderful lady who comes to take care of my pets and look after my house. I was out of town this week for work, and she came as usual to take care of things. She collected the eggs for me and even after taking a half a dozen for herself (I asked her to take as many as she could use) I got home to a bowl piled high with eggs! I am definitely going to be gifting some friends and family with eggs this weekend and coming week because in addition to this bowl I already had almost two dozen in my refrigerator from the week and a half before I left. When the two bantams start laying I am REALLY going to be in egg overload - but I am sure my parents and friends will help me work through them :)

So as exciting as the eggs were to find - we had a little more excitement in store for us. When the kids and I got home this evening it was just before dusk and I thought after being cooped up (literally) for the last week that the girls might like a little yard time so I let them out. I got dinner for the kids and then noticed it had gotten dark so the kids and I went out to close the girls back into the coop for the night. They were all up in the house on their roost but a raccoon was also in the coop and headed into the hen house! The kids screamed and ran into the garage and I ran in grabbed a rake and went out and chased the raccoon out of the coop and out of the yard. Luckily all the girls seemed to be unharmed - I don't think the raccoon had been in the coop long so we got there just in time. I am going to buy a live trap just in case it comes back. If we can catch it I will have animal control take it away. I am sure there are more because I live close to where a creek runs through town, but that is the first time I have seen one in the yard since I got the gate and the coop. I hope I scared it enough not to come back - but I have heard once they start sniffing around a coop they keep coming back. I really don't want them in the garden and I don't want them trying to get the girls - so I will see if I can relocate this one and hopefully not have another for awhile.

Double yolk

2010-08-17T22:08:00.005-05:00

With the heat the girls haven't all been laying every day and Amelia has skipped a few days here and there- but yesterday she laid a HUGE egg and it turned out it was a "double yolker." I have heard that sometimes this happens with pullets (hens under a year old), but it was kind of fun to get one! It looks big in the picture, but really it was about the size of a normal "large" egg from the store. :) My daughter loves fried eggs so she asked to have it fried for breakfast (unfortunately I broke one yolk when I cracked it)!

You can see a little in the picture how tight the white is around the yolk - that's the sign of a really fresh egg. I had never seen one like that from the store before so I am always amazed when I crack them how high the yolks stand up and how little the white spread out. The yolks are also darker yellow than the store bought eggs - even the cage free Omega 3 eggs. In the picture below the egg on the left is from the store and the egg on the right is from my girls. I have seen even darker yellow yolks from chickens that always get to free range, but mine aren't quite as orange looking.

And then there were four

2010-08-15T16:13:00.005-05:00

This weekend Milkshake started laying! So now all four of the original girls are laying. The eggs in the picture from left to right are from Cadbury, Milkshake, Amelia and Pouf. Amelia's are the most sage green of the eggs and Pouf's are bluest. The colors look a little washed out in this picture - the eggs look almost white, but they are on a white towel to help show the color.

I also finished converting the dog kennel into coop number 2 for the little girls. I am not sure what to do when they start laying - but hopefully they will lay in the "house" part of their coop - but I am betting I will need to modify the interior to have a nest box in half and a roost in half. I took some new pictures of them (at the end of this post) - they are 12 weeks old this week, so I have a few more weeks - probably about 8 befor they start laying, so maybe by then the big girls won't pick on them too much if they are all together. I keep hoping I can get them incorporated into the big coop - but for now this works and it will work in the future when we have new chicks to integrate. Hopefully that won't be for awhile, but I guess we are ready when the time comes.

The inside seedlings are progressing - nearly all of them have sprouted at this point so now they just need to grow for a few weeks inside while the worst of the summer heat passes outside. My plan right now is to move them outside the first or second week in September - hopefully by then the temps will be back down into the 80s.

Not much of a post today - I need to get out and get the yard mowed and the grass trimmed - its a disaster from two weekends in a row with busy mornings and afternoons that are too hot to be outside!

Welcome home

2010-08-13T20:48:00.005-05:00

We went out of town for the end of the week to take my son to the coast to celebrate his birthday and when we got home we had a full six pack of eggs waiting for us! I have a pet sitter who comes each day so she puts the eggs in the refrigerator for me so they didn't sit out in the 101 degree heat!

The trip was so awesome that even though it has nothing to do with my backyard gardens or chicks or anything I thought I would post a few pictures. We drove down to the Texas Coast for the weekend and went to the Padre Island National Seashore to watch them release baby sea turtles. The Kemps Ridley sea turtle is one of the most endangered of all sea turtles and one of its only nesting areas is along the Texas gulf coast. There are patrols that watch for nesting turtles and then the eggs are collected and taken to a hatchery where they are monitored and kept at a temperature that will result in a 60% female hatch rate (so cool the temperature determines the sex of the hatchlings). Once the babies hatch - they take them to the beach very early in the morning and release them under the protection of nets and volunteers to make sure the babies all safely make it to the water. Of course once in the water there is no way to protect them, but ensuring the full hatch makes it to the water increases the number who have a chance to grow to maturity over the odds they would have if they hatched on their own with no help. It was really amazing to see and I highly recommend it to anyone who visits the Corpus Christi/Port Aransas area in the summer. The information on it can all be found on the web site for the Padre Island National Seashore - http://www.nps.gov/pais/naturescience/releases.htm

Busy day and lots of food

2010-08-09T21:44:00.005-05:00

When I was up in Portland, Oregon about a month ago, I got the most amazing picked garlic I have ever had. It was smokey and delicious. I don't always like pickled garlic because it can be very hot, but the kind I had in Portland was unbelievably good. Since even a small 1/2 pint jar was about $8, I decided to try to make it myself. So tonight I made my first attempt at it. I'm not sure I got it quite right - but I am going to let it age for about a month and then give it a try. If it is good I know what I'm giving this year in my usual batch of Christmas goodies. Paired with some blue cheese on crostini and you have an amazing and easy appetizer.

I also had to run pick up 154 pounds of pork around lunch time from a whole pasture raised pig I bought a few weeks ago. With just the kids and I in the house, there is no way we could eat all that, so I split the pig 4 ways with some friends and my parents. I ended up with 47 pounds for myself - two shoulders, quite a few packages of soup bones, lots of country style ribs, 2 racks of baby backs, about 8 chops - some bone in some loin chops, and about 10 packages of ground pork. So I expect that I will be posting quite a few recipes during my upcoming adventures in pork! Char Sui Bao - Asian pork filled buns are on my list - I think they will make great lunch box meals for the kids. I am may make some "Texas" style and use smoked pulled pork inside - but will probably make some traditional Asian style ones as well once I get going with it - time will tell. I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to borrow my dad's smoker or get one before this adventure is over! :)

We also got enough green beans from the garden to combine with some asparagus I had left to make a side dish to go with dinner and we had about 1 1/2 cups of black eyed peas, so I boiled those up with some onion and some ham stock I had in the fridge and have enough to be a lunch for someone.

Lastly of course we have our daily kaleidoscope of eggs. We got eggs from all three of the laying girls today and more signs that Milkshake is getting ready to lay - but no eggs from her quite yet. I can't wait to see what the next color will be!

Easter Eggs

2010-08-07T11:10:00.003-05:00

YAY!!! I guess Pouf laid her first egg today because when I went out to check this morning there was a pretty blue egg in the nest! I haven't gotten a second green egg yet but I'm wondering if I might get a second one today. It has been pretty hot here which slows down laying so I'm not sure when Amelia will lay again but I would guess today or tomorrow.

Its fun to look at the carton and see all the pretty colors! Can't wait to see what color Milkshake will lay - if she lays pink (very unlikely) that would be a perfect easter basket!

Green eggs and ham!

2010-08-05T15:57:00.003-05:00

Amelia finally came through and laid her first egg this afternoon! The kids were checking pretty much every hour and came running in the house yelling "Amelia laid a green egg! Amelia laid a green egg!" It is very exciting. So since I just bought a freezer full of pasture raised pork - now I can really have green eggs (or egg) and ham. ;) Now we have two more Easter Eggers to start laying and we could get more fun colors from them. Green or light brown are most likely - but I am still hoping for a blue or maybe pinkish egg. If everyone lays a different color egg then I can tell who has laid and who hasn't each day. I think Pouf (picture below)will be next - she started the egg squat today and has been checking out the nest boxes, so I hope in the next week she will start. I think Milkshake is still a few weeks behind the others, but we will see.

In gardening news I have seeds sprouting in my living room - the bok choy, broccoli and Brussel sprouts are all starting to come up so in a few weeks (hopefully the first week of September) I will have seedlings to transplant into the garden. I am hoping to also start some mache and lettuce soon. I'm wondering if maybe I can just grown those under the light year round - so when it is hot in the summer I can still have freshly grown lettuces. I have to decide if I want to give up that part of my living room permanently I guess :)

So with luck by this time next week I will be getting three eggs a day on average! The waiting is the hardest part!

Still waiting

2010-08-01T17:23:00.010-05:00

Amelia has been singing the "egg song" and doing the "egg squat" for over a week now and still no eggs! Every morning we go check hoping for two eggs but so far there is only one egg each day from Cadbury. With luck we will get a blue or green egg soon!

The good news is that the girls were all able to free range today so the little girls were able to come out of their kennel. They still are too nervous to venture far out of the coop and mostly stay inside, but at least everyone can peacefully co-exist (for the most part) when the big girls can get out into the yard. So - at least on weekends everyone is "integrated" - although I admit it is certainly tenuous at times. I am hoping that with a few more days of everyone being in and out of the coop that they will all start to be more used to each other and not fight on the days they have to share the coop.

Other than some yard work to clean some worn out dill and tomatillos out of the garden today I decided that I should probably start a few veggies inside to move out to the garden in a month when it starts to cool off. So today I set the grow lights up and started seeds for broccoli, brussel sprouts and some baby bok choy. I have seeds for cauliflower too - so hopefully I can start some of that when these get going. If not I will just buy transplants for those this year. I also need to get some cabbage, onions, garlic and hopefully shallots. I tried some shallots this spring but I guess it was too late in the spring and they didn't produce anything, so hopefully fall planted shallots will do better. It seems strange to talk about "fall planting" when it is nearly 100 degrees here and the coming week is probably going to be our hottest of the year so far. But I guess starting a few things inside - with a transplant date in September seems reasonable.

One other accomplishment of the day - but it seems a little silly to even mention it - I canned one pint of spicy dilly green beans. Yes - that's right - only 1 pint. My beans are producing but not very well (my mom thinks its too much nitrogen in the soil) - lots of green leaves but very few beans. So since there were not enough to actually make a side dish for dinner, I stuffed 'em in a jar and pickled them. I have not made pickled beans before, but I had amazing ones at Jazz Fest in New Orleans a few years ago so I wanted to try to make some myself. Ok - I grant you that they were in a Bloody Mary and it was at the end of the day - but honestly - they were really, really good. I can only hope mine will be as good!

So another weekend is over - and I head back to work tomorrow. I wish I could just garden, can and bake every day - but considering my garden has not produced much this year I guess I'm going to need to keep the day job a little (ok - a lot) longer! :)

Birthday time

2010-07-31T16:55:00.004-05:00

For my son's birthday we are going to head down to the coast to hopefully catch a sea turtle hatchling release at Padre Island National Seashore - so today he had some friends over to go roller skating and then come back to play for the afternoon. So this morning I had to rush to get a cake made for the party. I baked the cake last night and froze it (makes it less crumbly to frost) and this morning there was a flurry of activity to make the Swiss meringue buttercream frosting and my daughter helped me make a sea turtle and eggs out of rolled fondant. The kids like helping with fondant decorations because it is like ply-dough except you can eat it. We don't really like the taste of it though - so we just use it for decorations.

I have lots of yard work I need to do tonight and I need to figure out how to build a separate area for the bantams - but it will have to wait until tomorrow or later tonight, but I wanted to post the picture of the cake since I think it turned out pretty well.

We are still getting eggs from Cadbury - I was out of town last week for work so they couldn't be out in the yard at all, so she only laid 3 eggs the 4 days I was gone. I think she is happier when she can get out in the yard during the day so we got more eggs the week before when she was able to free range each day. Being gone has one advantage though - I came home to a carton with enough eggs to make up a meal :) Now if I can just get the Easter Eggers to start laying eggs I might actually be able to fill up a whole egg carton!

So much for the truce

2010-07-26T19:47:00.004-05:00

Well things were fine and peaceful all day when the big girls could be in and out of the coop and the yard. But this afternoon there was a rainstorm and we put everyone back inside and the big girls managed to get between the mesh and the run wall and totally attacked the little girls. My son ran in and rescued the little girls and we got everyone separated again. I took the kids to a friends for the night and when I got back they were all in the little girls section again and were chasing them around like crazy. So I guess its back to the kennel for the little girls for a little while longer until they are a little bigger, or until I can build a full wall to keep them separate - which I guess will end up on my chore list for next weekend :(

At least I had good news in the nesting box and a surprise snack from the fig tree. Hopefully the commotion of catching everyone and rescuing the little girls from the attack won't throw off Cadbury's laying - she is the only one who hasn't attacked the little girls and she is the only one laying - so right now she is my absolute favorite. In the last 7 days she has laid 6 eggs and they are delicious. I have to say the Easter Eggers all seem to have a mean streak - so if there aren't some blue and green eggs soon and they continue to be so aggressive to the little girls - they may be headed for new homes before too long.

New home for the little girls

2010-07-25T16:22:00.008-05:00

The little girls now have their own little house and a divider to give them some run space without subjecting them to the pecking and attacks from the big chickens. I am hoping to get them all integrated by the end of August so the little girls can start free ranging too,but they need to be a little bigger first. Their house has a little perch for them - only about 4 inches off the floor so that it is "hopping" height since Silkies aren't fliers.

I continue to get an egg a day from Cadbury and I think Amelia isn't far behind her. She has started checking out the nest boxes and cackling more like Cadbury does - so I think the time is near. I can't wait to see if I get blue or green eggs - I hope so!!

Lilly - the Silkie - is so cute - she is a little fluff ball! The only problem is that yesterday - when working on the house and dividing wall I swear I heard her trying to crow! I really, really hope Lilly does not turn out to be a rooster because I don't want a rooster but I really wanted a Silkie. I am hoping that maybe it was just a unique call that was due to her being frightened by the sounds of the drill and tools, but I guess time will tell.

Nesting box time

2010-07-22T18:41:00.008-05:00

Another egg today! I put it next to one from the store for comparison. You can see how small my little eggs are - but I like how dark they are. I hope they will be very dark brown once she reaches her prime. I was able to confirm they are from Cadbury - she went into the hen house today as soon as I moved the little girls down into the run. She scratched around and was very talkative and went in and out several times. About an hour later I wen to check and there was the new little egg :)

I didn't get one yesterday but I think it may be because the little girls were in the hen house all day in their kennel. So I need a new plan. I think I am going to have to temporarily separate the section of the run that is under the house and give the little girls their own little house in there until they are big enough to all be together. I tried letting them together today, but Pouf and Amelia immediately went on the attack. Lilly (the silkie) actually got one good peck in right on Pouf's head, but Athena (the Barred Plymouth Rock) basically was getting beaten up so I separated them all again.

I did move the nesting box into the hen house - I am hoping that having it there doesn't disrupt Cadbury's laying and that she will like the coziness of the nest boxes. I guess I will find out soon enough :)

Just one more picture today - the sunflower below was in my garden but the rain bent it over so I cut it and brought it in to enjoy a little sun in my kitchen!

Eggs!!!!!

2010-07-20T19:50:00.007-05:00

WOW! I guess I must have counted months wrong because we just got our first eggs! I didn't see any when I put the girls away last night, but this evening when I went out there were TWO little brown eggs! I am thinking that maybe they are from Cadbury - our Silver Cuckoo Marans (in the picture below). Marans are supposed to lay dark chocolate brown eggs. These are not very dark, but I understand that Marans egg color darken as the hen matures. Eggs also typically get larger as the hens mature - so while these two eggs are pretty small we can expect larger ones as the months go on.

If they are both from Cadbury, she must have laid one last night when I put them into the coop for the night - and maybe the other one today sometime. I didn't see either egg when I let them out this morning, so maybe I have two girls who started at the same time? I honestly have no idea how to figure out who laid them! The Easter Eggers will hopefully lay blue or green eggs, but sometimes they also lay brown eggs so these could be from one of the "EE"s. Any chicken people out there who can guess at which breed these came from? One looks like it has a stripe around the middle and is darker on the ends than the center. You can see that in the picture above. I included the quarter so you can judge the size better.

Is it dorky to be SO excited over eggs? :)

Mmmmm Fredericksburg peaches

2010-07-19T21:27:00.005-05:00

In addition to the chicks moving out, I got a few other things done over the last few days. I finally got the kids out to Fredericksburg to pick some peaches. Those of you who aren't from Texas who have never had a Fredericksburg peach may have had delicious peaches in your lives, but there is nothing like a peach from the Texas hill country! We picked close to 13 pounds of peaches in just under 2o minutes. It was a hot day so the fast results were fine with me! I am sorry to say I did not take a picture of the cobbler I made - I was so amazed with it that we dug right in and didn't think about pictures until after the fact. I will share the recipe with you though - it was so easy it is amazing.

4 cups sliced fresh peaches
2 cups sugar (divided)
1/2 cup water
1 stick of butter
1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups milk

Preheat the oven to 350. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together into a bowl. Stir in 1 cup of the sugar and set aside. In a medium sauce pan, combine the peaches, 1 cup of sugar and the water. Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. While the peaches are cooking put the stick of butter in an oven safe casserole (I used an 8x10 casserole dish) and put it in the oven. When peaches are cooked remove them from the heat. Stir the milk into the flour mixture and combine thoroughly. When the batter is combined, remove the hot casserole from the oven - being careful not to burn yourself. Pour the batter into the hot butter - DO NOT STIR. Spoon the peaches over the batter and drizzle on about a cup of the cooking liquid - DO NOT STIR. Put the whole thing back in the oven and cook for 35-45 minutes or until the batter has puffed up around the peaches and has turned a golden brown. Remove the cobbler from the oven and let cool about 10 minutes and serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

I have seen this recipe called "floating peach cake" and "canned peach cake." It was so good that I really want to make it again but knowing the peaches won't be available for long I decided to can my own in cobbler recipe portions :) So the three jars in the picture at the top will be used to make cobbler in a month or two when there are no more fresh peaches available. Somehow I think that when my birthday rolls around in November I will make myself a cobbler for my cake :)

I also made the nesting box for the chickens over the weekend. It is in the garage for now - until the new chicks are out of the kennel and then I will move it into the hen house. There are two nest boxes - chickens share so two should be enough for 6 chickens. I also had enough black eyed peas to make some ham hock and black eyed pea soup and I got a nice squash from my only remaining summer squash, a cucumber and a few small cloves of garlic. I may plant a few more squash but it is pretty hot here now so I may need to wait until late August or early September to get the second harvest planting started. I may try starting some in my living room in a few weeks and try moving them outdoors when they are a little bigger.

Moving time for the new chicks

2010-07-19T21:03:00.006-05:00

Sorry it has been so long for a decent update! The good news is - the chicks moved out into the coop. They are still in a little dog kennel to keep them safe from the big girls but they are out of my living room - YAY!!! The picture on the left is the day they moved in - they are in the house part of the coop. Each day when I am home I move them out either into the coop run or out on the grass - still in the kennel - but that way they can peck around in the grass and sand and start to pick up grit and get used to the routine. They really enjoy the time out on the grass. I am a little nervous about letting them all out together because since Athena (the black and white Barred Plymouth Rock) and Lilly (the white Silkie) are bantam breeds they will be much smaller than the big girls so I think they will be safer if they have a little more size before they are all together.

The big girls are really enjoying their free time in the yard. I am lucky to be able to work from home so in the morning before I get started I let them out of the coop to roam around the yard. I check them at lunch and then lock them back into the coop in the evening when I take them the table scraps (mostly just the starch and veggies). They usually come running because they are eager to see whats for dinner each night :)

I have about 6-8 weeks to go before I start getting eggs and I can't wait! Since we will average about 12 eggs every 3 or 4 days I decided I better come up with some ways to use up all those eggs so I started practicing some egg heavy recipes this weekend. I have to say the kids loved it Sunday when we had a Dutch Baby for breakfast (uses 3 whole eggs) and then home made ice cream for dessert after dinner (6 egg yolks). Of course I still have to use up the remaining 6 egg whites, but I have a few ideas - maybe Angel Food cake? Baked Alaska? Meringues? Going to try to use them up tomorrow night. I will keep you posted!

Video clip

2010-07-13T17:18:00.002-05:00

My daughter was bored today and decided to take my new toy (iPhone 4) out into the yard to shoot a little video of the chickens. The little girls are still separated so they won't get picked on but so far everyone seems to be getting along fine. I will keep them separated for probably another week and then let them all be together. But even in their little crate they enjoy being out in the grass and being able to peck around. I have some other pictures and will try to get them posted soon - I know I am terribly behind on updates - summer vacations and chores have kept me too busy.

In gardening news I am sad to say I don't have much to report - I seem to have an uncanny ability to kill squash plants which is odd considering most people I know get so many they don't know what to do with them. On mine the stems all seem to split near the ground and they dry out and die. It isn't a beetle - I read they can split from uneven watering and we have had some periods of heavy rain so maybe that is what caused it? I'm not really sure but I planted a few more and am hoping they make it. I am getting lots of black eyed peas - now I just need to make some soup or something to use them up :) I got enough cucumbers to make a few jars of pickles before leaving for vacation and got back to plants that look very unhappy so I am hopeful that those weren't the last cucumbers I will get this year. Our temperatures are in the mid-90s so it is pretty hot - I may have to wait for a fall crop to get many more.

Sorry for the lack of pictures - I will do my best to get some new ones posted this weekend.

Eggplant recipe

2010-06-25T09:43:00.005-05:00

Well - this is very late being posted - I apologize for the huge lag in new posts, but things have been busy since my kids got out of school for the summer.

In the post prior to this one I had some eggplant from the garden and was looking for what to do with it and I found a yummy recipe for grilled eggplant with a grilled tomato relish. Here is how to make it:

2-3 small Japanese eggplants (6 inches long each)
3-4 tomatoes - Roma and/or Green Zebra
1 Tbsp roughly chopped parsley
1 Tbsp finely minced red onion
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 1/2 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
Crumbled Feta Cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Slice Japanese eggplant lengthwise, brush lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt. Halve Roma or Green Zebra tomatoes and brush with olive oil. Grill eggplant halves until charred and cooked through (time depends on size of eggplant - for these small ones it was about 8 minutes total). Grill tomatoes until charred and roughly chop. Combine hot chopped tomatoes, red onion, parsley, olive oil, vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Place grilled eggplant - cut side up on a plate, top with warm tomato relish and sprinkle feta cheese over the top.

Here are a few more pictures of produce gathered from my garden over the last weeks. You will notice there are no plums - sadly when I was on my last business trip the squirrels (raccoons? possums?) cleared them out - not a single plum was left! I don't have any good pictures of the new little girls - they are so jumpy when the flash goes off that I had to take the pictures with my hand in front of the flash. You can see that even with that Lilly (the silkie) jumped a bit - that is why her wings are out :)

Eggplant recipes anyone?

2010-06-09T21:17:00.015-05:00

The chicks are growing and doing well. They grow so fast. At two weeks they have nearly fully feathered wings and are showing tail feathers. All except Athena (the little black one - bantam Barred Plymouth Rock) - she has barely any feathers anywhere - she is still all fuzz. Sometimes I guess roosters feather out more slowly than hens, but also different breeds seem to develop at slightly different rates - so I am not sure which scenario is in play here but I sure hope Athena doesn't turn out to be a rooster! We had this same concern with Pouf, but right now I think Pouf is a hen, so hopefully Athena is just a late bloomer!

The big girls are really enjoying being out in the yard - but I think they are sad that I had to fence them out of the veggie garden. In this picture Cadbury is in the front (she is a Silver Cuckoo Marans), the Amelia is next and Pouf in the back (both Easter Eggers). Milkshake (also an Easter Egger) is not in this picture but she is usually right there with the other girls grazing in the grass and eating bugs. I have been out of town this week so they have been in their coop all week and I am sure they will be really excited to get out this weekend.

As you can see in the picture from the garden across to the coop the driveway eats up a lot of what could be "pasture" for the girls, but I think I have taken advantage of the space as well as I can at this point so they will just have to be content with the few little strips of grass. I am hoping to get some white clover to grow in some of the bald spots, but it is becoming clear that to give it a chance to get established I will need to fence it off or keep the girls in the coop long enough to get it going.

In the garden, I was able to pick some plums off the tree before I left - they were still a little too green but I was afraid they would fall off before I got home from this trip. I hope Friday morning I have a whole bunch of plums perfect for picking and not a bunch of plums lying in my yard! I also an starting to have black eyed peas (the long skinny pods in the picture below) and I think I will have one or two Japanese Eggplant to pick when I get home. Does anyone have some good, fairly healthy eggplant recipes you can share with me? I have not cooked with it much before so all I can think of right now is either grilled eggplant or maybe make Babba Ganoush out of it. I would appreciate pointers if anyone has them! I also had a few tomatoes on the verge of being ripe that I didn't want to find on the ground after getting home so I picked those before I left and gave them to a friend to let ripen on his counter. They won't be as good as they would be if they ripened on the vine but I figure they must be better than the ones picked totally green that they gas to turn red and then put in the stores!

Happy gardening everyone!

Straight from the garden

2010-06-01T19:31:00.008-05:00

Just a few pictures today - along with the recipe for tomatillo salsa that I made.

1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro
1 cup chopped tomatoes
1 cup chopped tomatillo
2 large carrots
juice of 2 limes
juice of 1 orange
salt to taste

I like to chop all the veggies in the food processor - it is quick and easy that way. If you like it spicy - add however much chopper jalapeno you like!

Tonight we had the left over salsa before dinner and then with dinner we had a few yellow squash sauteed with a little caramelized red onion - both from our garden (harvested over he weekend), and we had a cucumber tomato salad with basil and a little feta on top. I also made pasta with garlic and olive oil - the garlic also from the garden!

I got a whole rainbow of tomatoes tonight - green zebras, chocolate cherries, a few romas and a yellow pear, along with a cucumber and a few plums!

Sunny sunny days

2010-05-31T18:19:00.014-05:00

It has been a gorgeous sunny weekend! I got quite a bit of yard work done and did a little harvesting from the garden. The potatoes had all pretty well given up the ghost so I pulled them up and found about 2 pounds of potatoes down in the soil - added to the pound I already dug up and I have to say I think I did pretty well for just 8 plants. I think if I plant some again at the end of the summer I might be able to get a second harvest so they will go on my "try again in the fall" list. :) I also got another huge number of tomatillos - so tonight for dinner the kids and I had some salsa and oven fries courtesy of the garden to go with our dinner.

Soon it looks like I will start getting cucumbers, tomatoes and plums too! The plums are starting to turn a nice rosy color - I am betting I will have a few ready to pick in the next day or so. I am HOPING that next weekend I have enough that I can make some plum jam! I also have some eggplant starting to form and lots of flowers on the yellow squash. I wonder if I could get the kids to eat stuffed squash blossoms? Hmmmm - maybe I will try it later this week if the flowers keep coming at the rate they are now. I did get my daughter to try some sauteed yellow crookneck squash and she liked it - so that is a good addition to the growing list of veggies she enjoys. My son didn't try them - but I am hoping next time I can get him to give them a try.

I finally got some plants into the small raised bed on the corner of my patio and also potted some citronella plants and put them on my back patio. I am hoping I can keep the mosquitoes away from the patio so the kids and I can enjoy it this summer and not get chewed to bits. Even if they don't work 100% - I think they look nice - so the patio is ready for summer.

The chicks are all doing well - with the exception of the Barred Plymouth Rock that was my son's specially chosen chick. She keeps getting "pasty butt" - which means she gets poop stuck in the feathers around her bottom and can't go to the bathroom. So I have been carefully washing her feathers off about once a day hoping to help her get past it - but it has me a little worried. My son will be really upset if she doesn't make it. Other than the pasty butt issue she seems fine - eating and drinking and pecking around in the shavings - so I am hopeful that she will be fine.

New little peepers!

2010-05-26T20:27:00.006-05:00

Our new (and final) set of chicks arrived today! It was a sad start because when we opened the box, two were dead. I think the box might have been a little too big for so few chicks, but whatever the reason, they did not make it. One was a Silkie and the other was an Easter Egger - luckily one Silkie survived. She is pictured to the left - unlike most chickens, Silkies have 5 toes instead of 4, they have black bones, skin and meat, and their "feathers" look more like long fluffy fur. They are a bantam sized chicken so they will be about half the size of a regular chicken which means eggs that are quite small - about twice the size of a quail egg if I understand correctly. I desperately wanted one - and so did my daughter - so I am so relieved that one of the two survived the trip.

We also had special ordered a bantam sized Barred Plymouth Rock - that is the kind my son wanted. I am happy to report that she also survived the trip - her name is Athena. My son loves mythology and decided Athena would be a good name - I have to say it is a pretty lofty name for a chicken, but perhaps she will live up to it ;)

The other two girls that survived the trip are two more Easter Eggers. They were originally ordered for my mom, but she has had a lot of medical issues this year and decided she cannot take them. Luckily I have a friend whose parent's have decided they would like them - so when they are big enough they will move to a new home. But for now they are in the brooder with Athena and the yet to be named Silkie. My daughter is very concerned with getting exactly the right name for such a special chicken. Originally she was going to go with Lilly which is her favorite name for all things, but she also likes Fluffers and Marshmallow - so she is still weighing the options. The Easter Eggers are also missing names - but we will work on those next. Oliver has already resumed his normal post on the back of the couch watching the chicks. He is very interested in them but seems to remember they are off limits - but I am still keeping a close eye on him just to be safe!

Let the harvest begin

2010-05-23T19:50:00.014-05:00

After what seems like weeks in the house and away from home, I spent most of the weekend working in the yard and I am so happy. It looks so much better! The Butterfly Bush is starting to bloom and both bushes have really grown a lot and filled in and I think they are going to be gorgeous this year when they are in full bloom.

I also got some new plants in around the mail box - last year I have annuals that burned up - so I went with some perennials this year - Bee Balm and some purple salvia - the tags say deer won't eat them and at my house only the plants at the street edge are usually in danger of being munched - so I am hopeful they will leave the new plants alone. I also have a Satsuma Mandarin in front that nearly burned up last summer and ultimately froze to death over the winter - so I replaced that with a self-pollinating nectarine which should have pretty pink flowers in the spring and of course the added benefit of fruit for the kids and I. It doesn't get a huge amount of sun where I had to put it - so it may not have much fruit but we will hope for the best.

It was also a good weekend for starting the harvest in my garden! I got enough tomatillos along with a handful of cilantro and a tiny red onion that I was able to make some salsa just adding a few store bought tomatoes. My tomatoes are just starting to turn red and I think in another week or two I am going to be overloaded with them - which means canning season will begin! I was a little bummed today because some of my potatoes had turned yellow and looked dead so I went to pull them out and was happy to find a handful of potatoes! The brownish looking things in the picture with the potatoes are from my "Chocolate Cherry" tomato. They are not pretty but the taste ok - although I have to say as tomatoes go they aren't the best so I will skip those next year.

Free rangin'

2010-05-21T22:33:00.005-05:00

Well, it has been much too long since I have gotten out in the yard and the grass needs mowing and the pecan flowers(?) need to be raked up - but there was no time for that today. But I got out long enough this afternoon to let the girls out to see how they would do "free-ranging" in the yard. It took them some time to build up their courage enough to come out and when they did they didn't go far from the door. They haven't figured out their way around much yet so when one wandered in and the others were outside there was quite a bit of anxiety caused by the separation but eventually they figured it out. I think I will have to keep an eye on them as they get braver and go farther into the yard because it only took them about 5 minutes to mow down the bean plant that was growing by the corner of the coop. It was a Lima bean plant that my daughter planted at school and since I don't like Lima beans at all I have no sadness over the girls munching away on it. Besides - greens are good for them :)

I still need to plant something in the bed at the far end of the coop. I am wondering what I can plan that might stand a chance of survival pitted against the four of them and I am thinking not much! But maybe if I rig up some kind of wire cover to protect seedlings they could graze on the green bits that come through the wire. I definitely need to put up a barrier so when they get brave enough to cross the driveway they don't eat up my whole garden.

It was fun to see them out - I think they enjoyed pucking at bugs and seeds - but they didn't go near the big fuzzy caterpillar that went right by them. Guess the fuzzy ones aren't a flavor they like :)

The new chicks come next week - hopefully Wednesday so I will post new pics then and with luck and weather on my side maybe I can even get my yard cleaned up enough for a few more pics and updates. I have empty spaces in the garden and I am feeling the need to plant more ... but the question is more of what?

Everything is growing...

2010-05-11T21:26:00.006-05:00

The chickens are still getting bigger - and the gardens are growing too. Unfortunately while on a business trip the temperatures went up and the broccoli bloomed so I had to pull it all up and throw it in the composter. The brussel sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower all followed suit - right into the composter. I have to say its a little disappointing that none of those plants produced anything - but if I look at the bright side at least I now know that I need to plant those crops in the fall - not in the spring. Lesson learned.

The cucumbers are starting to work their way up the trellis, the second planting of pole beans (center in this picture) are starting to grow, the fennel is starting to form small bulbs (in front of the pole beans) and the carrots are about 6 inches tall. I am so anxious to actually be able to harvest something it is killing me! We have picked a few snow peas but I really didn't plant enough so the kids are mostly just eating them as garden snacks. I also learned that next year I should probably plant a whole row of them and that I need a taller support structure for them than I tried this year. This garden expansion has no end to learning opportunities :)

So to reintroduce the girls - in front in this picture is Pouf - I think she is a she after all! The "blond" in the middle is Milkshake - you can really see the ruff around her chin in this pic. Amelia is peeking over Milkshake's back - her face is a dark gray and she has a really pronounced ruff that looks like a beard. Maybe Lincoln would have been a better name :) Cadbury is in the back - her feathers are silver in the center with a dark edge around each one. She seems to be the smartest of the four and is usually the first to explore a new treat. Tonight they got horned worms out of the garden - I plucked the little destroyers off the tomatoes and tossed them in the coop. The girls tore into them - a little gross perhaps - but as a friend at work said - it is good revenge!

I hope to get more progress on fences and other things to finish up the yard - but with summer setting in and vacations coming around things may have to go slowly for awhile.

A few more little projects

2010-04-25T19:22:00.004-05:00

I decided that I needed a break from power-washing and re-staining the fence, so I stopped by my favorite stone store and picked up a little more flagstone and a few more pieces of limestone chop block. I put the flagstone across the front of the coop - but I didn't get quite enough so I will have to get a little more to finish it up. The chop block went on the end along with a little of the left over dirt from the other raised beds. A quick stop to Home Depot and I got a Jasmine and a few deep red geraniums to make it look a little more finished. The downside is I like it so much that I think I should add another little flower bed on the far end of the coop too!

The chick(ens) and really at home in the coop now - they enjoy the roosts that are outside - in the late afternoon they get some nice sun and the girls like to perch there and sun bathe a little.

I did manage to get some staining done - but I admit I didn't make much progress. I spent a lot of the weekend doing things with the kids - they deserved it after so many weekends of working on the coop and yard and helping care for my mom (she has been recovering from several surgeries the last few months).

This week I have to hit the road for work again, so the staining will have to wait for the weekend. I am hoping to maybe get one side fence done - but it is fairly slow going. I tried using a power sprayer but to be honest I don't think it was a lot faster than just using a paint brush - so I think I will keep working away at it the old fashioned way :)

A New Gate

2010-04-23T19:38:00.003-05:00

The gate to enclose my backyard is in! This means that no deer can get in to eat my garden and hopefully fewer stray cats will use my gardens as a litter box!

The problem now is that between the coop and the new gate - my old fence looks pretty shabby. So the next step will be to power wash the old fence and re-stain it. I am hoping to get a little done tomorrow - but it Saturdays are busy with swimming lessons and things so I will have to play it by ear.

In chick news - they finally figured out to go up into their house at night and to come out on their own in the morning. I have to start thinking about a way to divide the house so that the new chicks can go into the house a few weeks after they arrive. The new chicks arrive in one month - two white Silkies, a bantam Barred Plymouth Rock and three more Easter Eggers. The three Easter Eggers are for my mom - they will stay with me until they are big enough to go outside - then they will move into a horse stall at my parents place.

The garden is doing well - I think by next weekend I will have broccoli to harvest! It has been a cool rainy week, so as long as we get one more week like that I think it will keep growing and not bolt. The Chinese Cabbage bolted so I had to pull it all out, and I harvested the two head lettuces I had. They were both very good. I think it will be too hot soon for more lettuce, so I am going to plant pole beans where the lettuces were and maybe radishes and pumpkins where the cabbages were. I hope I can get that all done this weekend, along with the fence work - we will have to see.

My yard doesn't look very nice for pictures right now because the grass is too long - but my lawnmower starter broke so it is in the shop until next week. So please forgive the shabby looking yard in any new pictures in the next week :) I hope I can get it all spiffed up in the next few weeks - when the new babies arrive I really want to have a coop warming and new chick welcome party out in the yard! Wish me luck!

Teenage chickens and veggies galore!

2010-04-18T14:18:00.023-05:00

Pouf (on the left) and Milkshake (on the right below) are both showing really pretty coloring. It is hard to see on the picture of Milkshake, but the kind of golden caramel color around her head outlines the edges of her feathers so she has kind of what they call a "laced" pattern. We are still not sure if Pouf is male or female but I'm still thinking maybe male - but only time will tell!

Cadbury is also a laced pattern - she has black feathers with a silver outline. Amelia for all her bravery is rather dull looking - her body is mostly a kind of ashy gray with a sort of golden layer over the gray and then black feathers on her head.

She looks like she is getting kind of a ruff or beard of feathers around her chin- that may give her a bit more style! What lady doesn't look better with a beard! :)

Not only are the chicks growing but so is the garden! It has rained for a week and the garden has been loving it. The asparagus that I planted has shot up so I was able to fill in the bed with dirt around the little stalks and they are ready to just grow for a year and hopefully put down strong roots and have some I can harvest next year. The spears are so thin right now that they are about half the size of a pencil - next year they should be a little bigger. I am so excited to have my own asparagus!

The tomatoes have set tiny fruit the size of a pencil eraser (below right) and there are quarter sized heads of broccoli also forming on several of the plants. The tomatillos are loaded with flowers and are also setting fruit - that is the little green thing that looks like a paper lantern. I love tomatillo salsa and chicken enchiladas verde so hopefully I will be making some with my own tomatillos this year! I need to find out what to do about the plum tree - the branches are so loaded with fruit that they are bent way over - so I think I need to probably removes some fruit from each branch to keep the branches from breaking as they ripen and to allow the tree to put more energy into the remaining fruit. My daughter is thrilled - she was very disappointed last year when we didn't get any plums.

Lovely spring day in the garden

2010-04-10T21:18:00.005-05:00

I finally got back out into the garden today after nearly a week cooped up in the house. Who knew a silly thing like a broken nail could have such a big impact! On the last day of building out the hen house, when picking up one of the pieces of plywood, I slipped and it fell and snapped my finger nail about half way down my finger. I happen to have acrylic over my nails, so it didn't tear my nail off totally, but hurt nonetheless. Anyway - I put a band aid on it and went about my work. Tuesday night the finger with the broken nail was hot, red and throbbing - never a good sign. I went to the doctor and it turned out that I had a staph infection from the skin breaking under the nail. Anyway it was several days before I could get my finger back into a glove so I could get back out in the garden, but today I was finally able to get back into the dirt! YAY!

On Thursday I had sprinklers moved around a little and raised some up to accommodate the new raised beds and now all the beds can be watered on an automated schedule which will be much easier than having to hand water all summer. With the sprinklers moved I was also able to get the asparagus root stock planted in the corner bed. I would post a picture but it looks like shallow dirt at this point - hopefully in a week or two there will be more to see. I didn't realize it but when you plant asparagus they recommend barely covering the roots and leaving just the top of the crown exposed, then as the shoots start to emerge you keep adding dirt until it is about 6 inches deep. So right now the little roots went in near the bottom of the bed and I covered them, and will gradually fill up the bed as they grow - if they grow. Wish me luck!

This week I have to spend away from home to help care for my mom - who has a broken pelvis - so probably no new updates until the end of the week when my new gate goes in and the yard is finally enclosed.

The chicks are still doing well, but they seem to struggle a little with the ladder - so they haven't been utilizing the run much unless we help them down and then back up again at night. I may need to adjust it somehow so that it isn't as steep, but as they get bigger it might be OK. I guess we will just have to keep helping them and see if they can figure it out.

Moving Day!

2010-04-06T19:34:00.010-05:00

Moving day has arrived! The coop is all stained, the roosts are in and the ladder is done. The picture on the right shows the "fully furnished" version of the hen house with paper shavings for bedding and the roosts in place.

The chicks were nervous at first but very soon after being put in the hen house they found their way down the ladder and were pecking around in the grass and checking out the dust bath we made for them (under the house in the white block area). I am so thankful to be done enough to have them outside and get my living room back to the way it was meant to be - chicken free! I still need to build nest boxes and add them, but these girls won't start laying for at least another 20 weeks so I have some time for those!

The garden is also growing like crazy and starting to really look like a garden - not just little green shoots coming up. The mesculin that was just a few little leaves poking up into the air is now nearly ready to harvest. I am hoping to harvest some of it for a family dinner on Sunday.

The picture of the lone flower on the plum tree that I posted back in early March? Now the tree is covered with tiny green fruit that with luck will ripen into delicious plums. I say hopefully because last year with the drought we had the tiny little green plums all fell off - but there are so many this year that I have hope.

I have people coming to reposition some sprinklers to accommodate the raised beds later this week and the gate to enclose my yard at my alley entrance is scheduled for next week, but right now I am just going to enjoy being done with the coop!

Nearly there...

2010-04-04T18:51:00.006-05:00

After about 10 hours of work on the coop this weekend, I was able to finish the hen house part of the coop! There are Plexiglas windows on the end to let in extra light and on the front there is a small door that can be opened to access the nest boxes and collect eggs without having to go into the coop. I still have to stain the cedar siding and one piece of the door frame - but I think I can finish that one night this week. I also need to build the nest boxes, add roosts to the interior of the hen house and a few in the coop and I need to add rungs to the ramp from the coop to the hen house. I also have some linoleum tiles that I may add to the floor - especially under the roosts to make it easier to clean. Then I will be 100% finished. So with luck the chicks will be moving into the coop by Friday night!

The picture on the right is looking into the coop through the hen house access door inside the coop. The nest boxes will go along the front where you can see the inside of the egg door.

From inside the coop there is a large access door to allow cleaning the inside of the hen house easily. The small door on the right has a ramp that comes down from the hen house to the floor of the coop. The ramp needs rungs still and needs to be stained.

The floor of the coop also needs gravel and sand and I need to hang the food and water feeders from the floor of the hen house. I guess thinking about it there is still a lot to do - but at least all the work that is left is light work - no more heavy lifting, no more jigsaws and no more skil-saws! I guess I will still need to cut the roosts to length - but those are small compared to what I have done the last two days!

I will try to get new pics of the chicks and garden in the next few days - both are growing very quickly. The chicks really turned a corner this week and are looking much more like chickens than chicks. The are awkward teenagers now! :)

Ouch!

2010-03-28T20:31:00.005-05:00

It was a long hard weekend and I am missing a good portion of skin off of a few knuckles and have some nice scratches, but the good news is that the hardware cloth/wire mesh is all on the coop! I also was able to get the door built and the mesh on the door. My dad came today to help put the upper section of hardware cloth on which was a huge help - it is pretty hard to hold up a big length of the hardware cloth by yourself while nailing in poultry staples - so I cam really glad he was able to help. After he was gone I finished up the lower wire, my son and daughter helped stain the door (which still needs to be hung) and I back filled around the coop piers. I decided behind the coop by the fence I should put in some pavers to keep it from being a weedy mess since the space is too narrow to mow and would be a bear to weed whip. The limestone pavers and crushed granite I used to fill in between the was left over from a garden project last year and I need one more bag of granite, but I think it is going to look very nice. I have some pavers not too far from this around one side of the house - so at some point I may connect the two areas to try to tie it in and make it look a little more finished.

I did some work on the garden as well, things are doing very nicely and growing really well - I am hopeful that I may start to see florets on the broccoli soon. I did a little weeding and spread a layer of compost around all the plants in the fall veggie bed to add a little more nutrients to the soil to see if I can't kick those veggies into production! I have a lot of yard clean up around the beds to catch up on once the coop is done - but for now I am focusing on the coop and keeping the veggies going - the rest is going to have to wait. Although I did manage to at least mow my front yard Saturday so it doesn't look like I have also taken to growing my own hay!

I have to do some traveling this coming week for work, so other than what I can get done tomorrow night after work I have to wait until the weekend to be able to do any more work on the coop. I am determined to get the exterior siding on the hen house next weekend, but I think I am going to have to call in the reinforcements to get that all done in one weekend. There is still a lot to do after the siding goes on, but I am hopeful that the chicks will move out of the house and into their new house by April 10. I love watching them grow and watching their antics, but the dust in my living room is unreal. I dust one day and three days later there is a layer of dust on everything that makes it look like my house got hit by a dust devil.

I am exhausted and will be happy for a long nights sleep tonight - I am hoping to get the door hung tomorrow evening, but I also have to pack from my trip so I will have to play it by ear. Wish me luck everyone!

Happy gardening!

Wired - but not for sound

2010-03-26T19:53:00.009-05:00

Well, not totally wired, but at least it is a start. The hardware cloth is on to the bottom half of the front of the coop. I need to cut out around the door, but figure that I can do that once I finish stapling it down the rest of the way around. So for those of you who haven't built a chicken coop before, I will share that you can't use a staple gun, not even with large staples apparently. You have to buy special "poultry net" staples and hammer them in, so of course they bend and mash and don't all go in straight. For someone as Type "A" as myself bent mashed staples are really annoying, but considering how many of them I have to put in, I am learning to give up on the idea of perfection and go with "its good enough." :) I am hoping that I can finish wiring all the way around the bottom half tomorrow, between swimming lessons and other things planned. Hopefully the top half on Sunday when I have recruited my dad to come help again.

The chicks are still growing and eating like mad and I think I have basically two more weeks max before they outgrow their new larger brooder, so I need to pick up the pace a little on the coop. The picture on the right is Pouf - I think she (he?) is funny with her (for now I will go with her being a hen) big cheek tufts and the little light colored feather "spikes" on the top of her head - almost like little horns!

The spring flowers are starting in the yard which is a nice touch of spring too - the first rose bud is on my roses, the irises are blooming, the salvia (center picture) is blooming (which will hopefully mean hummingbirds soon) and the mountain laurel with its grape candy scented blossoms (picture on the right below) is also adding color to the yard.

The never ending project...

2010-03-25T20:28:00.007-05:00

No rain today meant I could do a little more on the coop tonight after work! Yay - trench digging! Seriously - the things that make my day are starting to scare me :)

The plan calls for either a 12 inch deep trench to bury the hardware cloth OR "burying" 12 inches of hardware cloth on the surface by bending it away from the coop at ground level - to help keep out predators. I chose the trench option, but I didn't dig down 12 full inches - more like 6 and I will bend the hardware cloth so it goes out across the bottom of the trench too. Hopefully this works OK. I don't really have the right equipment for digging a 12 inch deep trench. I may look into a post hole digger tomorrow, or I may call it good and start putting on the wire tomorrow night.

I was also able to get dirt into the last bed I put in - I planted some of the overage red peppers in one end and Yukon gold potatoes in the other end. I think I am going to try to add some blackberries along the fence in front later this summer, but it depends how far I can stretch the garden funds :)

The chicks are really amazing me - they grow soooo fast. They are starting to get feathers on their backs and breasts now in addition to their tails and wings. They also eat like machines. I filled the quart jar of food for them last night before I went to bed and before I left for work this morning I had to fill it again - it was nearly empty. By the time I got home tonight it is nearly empty again! I clearly need to get a feeder that holds more than a quart! They still don't really seem to be bonding to us - I am afraid they think Oliver, our cat, is their mother! He sits by the brooder all day and watches the chicks so they are used to him standing guard. I guess that is OK - they know we bring food, I am not sure "lap chickens" are really what we want anyway. I am starting to think Pouf (behind Cadbury in this picture) may be a rooster - how funny would it be to have a rooster named Pouf! :)

Slowly but surely...

2010-03-23T20:35:00.000-05:00

It may be hard to see in the picture, but the hardware cloth (1/2 inch mesh wire) is installed in the ceiling of the coop and the other side of the hen house frame is in place. I couldn't have done it without help. My son's best friend came for a play date after school and his dad offered to come by after work and help with the coop when he came to pick up his son. I have to say nailing in poultry staples basically upside down is not an easy thing to do. I am so glad this part is done! I have a lot more wire to put up, but the rest gets nailed in straight ahead instead of overhead so I am hoping it will be easier. Unfortunately I now have to dig a trench around the coop so the lower wire can go down into the ground - but it is supposed to rain the next two days so that means probably no progress again until the weekend. I have said it before but this is both good and bad - bad that I won't make progress but my hands are killing me. Between working on a keyboard all day at work and then all the hammering, painting, drilling, etc. after work - my hands are really really sore. Anybody know where to get a good hand massage? :)

The garden is really getting exciting - I can't wait for things to get big enough to eat! The carrots are all starting to sprout, I saw tiny shoots from the dill and fennel, the potatoes are growing (but I'm pretty sure I didn't plant them with enough space though so the harvest may be pretty limited), and the yellow straight neck squash and cow peas (like black eyed peas) have all sprouted. It is so exciting to know that if you have some good soil, add a few seeds and some water and sun - soon you have all kinds of things sprouting up and growing. A few months of watching them grow and then you get free food! How cool is that? In my book it is pretty darn cool!

Tonight - I actually picked a few leaves off of the lettuces that I planted about a month ago to add to our store bought lettuce for a salad! The leaves were from the outside of the red and green lettuces in the picture on the left (with a potato and some shallots in the foreground), I read that for head lettuces you can harvest the outer leaves and the head will keep growing, so you can take little bits here and there and still keep a growing head of lettuce to harvest later. Of course, there wasn't enough to make a salad on its own - but it was fun to get a little tidbit to add to the salad and feel like we are starting to get some payback for the hard work. I think I may try to grow lettuces under my grow light in the house as the weather gets hotter and they die back outside... certainly worth a try! :)

Time to get myself and my kids to bed - I hope you all are enjoying spring and getting out in your gardens!

We have a roof!

2010-03-22T18:31:00.000-05:00

Yes - it took me Sunday afternoon and today after work to get the roof panels on. I had the wrong screws, I had the wrong drill heads, I had split wood that I had to replace and I needed "mending plates" to join the wood into long enough pieces - but VICTORY!! The roof is on. It looks like a metal roof in this picture, but it is actually a clear gray polycarbonate roof (like what they use on greenhouses. I got help putting the roof panels up from my dad - but mostly he held the ladder so I wouldn't break my neck and I did the actual assembly. He also helped me get the right attachment for my drill to drive "hex head" screws - I didn't have the right equipment for that so he made a quick trip to Home depot to get me a set of hex driver attachments for the drill. My dad is in his late seventies and I have to say I don't think there are a lot of men his age that still are as active as he is - and without his help I'm sure the roof would have gone even slower, so thanks Dad!!

The garden is doing well too - I had to cover everything the last My mesculin salad mix is coming up nicely - in a few weeks hopefully I will have baby greens enough to make salad! I think I need to plant more though - these three little rows will probably only make a few salads worth and we eat salad almost daily so I really need tot plant some more lettuces. I'm not sure how long into the season I will be able to keep harvesting lettuce though, it gets pretty hot here and lettuce is a cooler weather veggie but I will see how long I can keep it going.

My peppers that have been under the grow lights in my living room are about ready to go outside too. I am hoping to get them in one night this week if I can. If not they can wait until this weekend. It is supposed to be rainy Wednesday and Thursday - so it would be perfect if I can get them in tomorrow evening.

Tomorrow I am also signing the contract to have the gate put across my driveway which will finally fully enclose my yard and keep the deer from finding my garden. I just hope I can get it in before they find it! Last year everything was growing well and one morning it was all mowed down. Unfortunately, even though I am only two blocks off the main street of my small town, there is a herd of deer that is land-locked into the area. Right now I see them on the property of a local nunnery - so hopefully they will stay there and now venture out and find my garden before the fence goes in!

This weekend I also moved the chicks into a new bigger brooder. It is made out of a large plastic storage box with a top made out of wire. It allowed me to put the water up on a block so they don't get quite as many shavings in the water quite as fast. Now that they have more space, they are trying out their wings and actually able to fly short distances in the brooder. It is amazing how quickly they act like big chickens and not like chicks. They are two weeks old today and they are taking "dust" baths in the shavings, preening and cleaning their feathers and working out who is in charge. Right now I think maybe Pouf is in the lead to be the lead/alpha hen (I don't think you call it an alpha hen - I need to look up the right term - but you get the picture).

The St Patties day party was a lot of fun and even though it reduced my productivity for the weekend, I think it was well worth it - after all - you know what they say about all coop and no play!! ;)

Rafters and Corned Beef!

2010-03-19T20:53:00.000-05:00

The last two days have been very busy so I only had a few hours this evening when I was able to work on the coop - but I got another part of it checked off the list! Today was my first time using a Skill Saw and I think I did OK - I was able to make the cuts needed for the rafters - and I only cut into the saw horses once! I have to say Skill Saws really kick up a lot of sawdust. I don't have safety goggles so I just wear my sunglasses - but I would be willing to bet that is the first time someone has worn Prada sunglasses while running a Skill Saw!

I'm having some friends over for my annual St. Patty's Day bash tomorrow - so probably no coop work until Sunday - but I am hoping to get the roofing on and MAYBE some of the wire on - but it all depends on how fit I am for work after a night of Guinness and Irish festivities! In case anyone else is going to make their Irish dinner this weekend - I have a great Corned Beef recipe to share that is adapted from one found in Sunset magazine many years ago.

Recipe (Serves 12):

2 very large sweet onions
8-10 large carrots, peeled
2 heads green cabbage (enough to cut into 6 wedges each)
3 Lbs small (2 in.) thin skinned potatoes - I like red potatoes for this
6-8 Lbs Corned Beef
2 c. malt vinegar
2 large cans Guinness (the kind with the nitrogen cartridge in the can)
1 Tbsp mustard seed
1 Tbsp coriander seed
1/2 Tbsp black peppercorns
1/2 Tbsp dill seed
1/2 Tbsp whole allspice

You will need a very large stock pot - 15-20 quarts. Using a sharp knife cut away as much of the fat on the outside of the corned beef as you can - this keeps the dinner from ending up very greasy. Put the prepared meat into the pot. Coarsely chop up enough carrots and onion to make 1 cup chopped of each and add it to the pot. Add vinegar, Guinness and all the spices to the pot. If the liquid does not cover the meat you can add water to cover - but I personally like to add more vinegar and Guinness - sticking to roughly the same proportions listed above. Cover the pan and put it over high heat (it will take about 20 minutes to come to a boil). Simmer for about 3 hours until the meat is tender.

While it is cooking, cut the cabbage and onion into wedges so that you have at least one wedge per person. Cut the carrots into 3-4 inch long pieces and scrub potatoes. Once meat is tender - add onions, carrots and potatoes to the pot and put the cabbage in on top of everything. Bring back to a boil (about 20 minutes); reduce heat and simmer for about 20 minutes or until the cabbage and potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork.

Remove everything to a platter, cut the corned beef on the diagonal across the grain and serve with coarse grain or Dijon mustard (some people like both - I prefer coarse grain).

SLAINTE!! (cheers in Irish)

On the chick front they are growing so fast it is hard to keep up! They nearly empty a quart feeder full of food and also a quart of water a day - its really amazing they can eat so much. Of course, some of it gets spilled into the bedding in the brooder, but I think they eat the majority of it. I put the last food in today so I HAVE to go to Tractor Supply tomorrow and get another (bigger) bag than the one I got when they arrived a week and a half ago.

I did some checking on the backyard chicken forum and everyone seems to think the chicks being skittish is still pretty normal - they said we just need to keep at it and do our best to make time to hold each one for a little time each day.

So tomorrow I am off to the farmers market in Leon Springs to check out the produce, then Tractor Supply and then the whirlwind to prep for the party begins. I should have more coop pics by the end of the weekend!

Coop frame up!

2010-03-17T19:04:00.001-05:00

Victory!!! I took another hour of vacation time to try to give myself enough time to do some work on the coop tonight and I managed to do quite a lot! I moved the back row of concrete piers, got the frame up and all connected (and the corners are actually square - yes!), and managed to also get the last remnants of limestone chop block into place for yet another small veggie bed.

Yes, my back is tired, and no I don't care - I am thrilled that I was able to get all this done - all on my own!

Now I just need to decide what to plant in the new bed. I still have some Yukon Gold seed potatoes that I need to put somewhere, so maybe those can go in this new bed. I also have been thinking about getting an artichoke plant - those get quite big so that might be better planted on its own. Another option would be something like raspberries which my daughter and I absolutely love, so I need to think about it and figure out what would be best. I still have one other small area out back where I could potentially put another bed, and I have a front fence that has nothing on it that might be great with raspberries growing on it. So I need to think through the space I have left and figure out what's best.

I have a friend who owns a nursery - so maybe I will ask him what he recommends. He also offered to come help me put some siding on the coop for the hen house - and although I am pretty proud for my progress on my own, some help might be good to get things finished. I think in another two or three weeks the chicks are going to need more space, so getting the coop finished sooner rather than later would be great.

The chicks are doing really well - they are getting very bold and don't hesitate to come running for strawberries. They still don't like being picked up - but once they are picked up they settle down. I'm not sure if they will ever like to be picked up; there must be some way to teach them not to mind, but I am not sure how to do it. I may need to ask on the chicken forum to figure out what we aren't doing that we should.

So generally I had a busy evening and now I am off to relax, make myself some dinner, pour another one of those martinis and watch a movie!

Trial and error

2010-03-15T19:57:00.000-05:00

Well - I guess when you try something new a little trial and error is expected. Unfortunately my "error" means I have to move the back row of "piers" for the chicken coop. I neglected to take into account the four inches of depth for both the front and back walls, so the foundation piers are several inches off. I am smart enough however to move the back row, instead of the front row, so I have less re-digging to do since the back row is mostly above grade due to the slope of that part of the yard. So although I was extremely proud of myself for managing to get all 7 additional blocks in place and level - I have the back row in the wrong place. So I am a little less proud knowing that I will need to do them over. I took a little time off from work this afternoon to try to get ahead - too bad I have to take a few steps back to undo the misplacement. However, the silver lining is that the back row really requires very little digging so my back will be thrilled!

So more on the silver lining front - the fall veggies are looking great. I ran out of time before the sun went down to get them sprayed with some liquid seaweed fertilizer, but it is supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow (I hear it outside my window right now actually) so maybe that's better saved for a day when it won't all wash away right away. :)

The chicks are doing really well - they are starting to understand that people mean treats, so when we put a hand in the brooder they come running. They still aren't too fond of getting picked up, but we got Milkshake and Cadbury to relax
and just enjoy getting strawberries with no one chasing them!

We also finally came up with a name for the last chick. She is so fluffy and her cheek tufts are so big that they nearly poke her in the eye - so my daughter thought that "Pouf" was a perfect name because she looks like a big pouf of feathers. So we now have Amelia, Pouf, Cadbury and Milkshake. I'm not sure if these are appropriate names for chickens or not - but those are their names none the less. Its amazing how quickly they grow- they are all starting to get real feathers on their wings and everyone except Cadbury (in the pic below with the strawberry) has the start of tail feathers too.

So with rain and a wet muddy yard I am quite certain I cannot move the piers tomorrow - and Wednesday will also probably be too wet - so I am on hold for at least a few days - unless I can work on the roof assembly in the garage - but I'm not going to count on that. Perhaps a day of no building, no digging and no heavy lifting will do me good :)

More coop progress

2010-03-14T20:11:00.001-05:00

This may not look much different from what I posted yesterday - but all the walls were sanded and stained today so they are ready to put together. Of course the time change threw my schedule off a bit - I didn't reset the clock before bed so I woke up and by the time I got breakfast to the kids it was nearly 10:00! I was going to try to assemble the coop today but decided it will be too hard to move assembled. The 10 foot walls are pretty heavy and I need help from the kids to be able to move them. So, I decided it will be better to get the foundation piers ready and then move everything outside and set it up.

I was able to get 3 of the 10 piers into the ground - 7 more to go! But I have one short end wall set of piers in the ground and level which I am happy about. I am hoping to get two more piers each night this week after work, but there are certainly a lot of things going on this week. The kids are home for Spring Break - so I am not sure I will be able to work each night - but who knows - maybe I can get them to help dig holes!

Once the piers are all in place, I need to cut, sand and stain two more 2x4s to go across the top to connect the front and back walls. and then I can move it outside and set it up. Some friends are coming for dinner next Saturday (annual St. Patties day feast - I will post recipes when the time is closer) - so I am hopeful that I can have the coop set up by then. If I have the roof supports started by then they will be able to get a feel for the way it will look which would be great!

The chicks are still doing very well - more strawberries and more chicken rodeo as they stole them back and forth and peeped and ran around like crazy. The kids also had some friends come by today to see the chicks (the friends' parents also brought me a few sanders so the kids could help me with the sanding which was a big help!). Everyone thought they were very cute and so soft and sweet - kids really love them and even grown ups can't help but think they are adorable.

So that brings us to the end of the weekend. It went by too quickly and I wish I had two more days off so I could get the coop up, but the work week calls and honestly my back won't mind the break!

Coop Recupe Martini!

2010-03-13T19:04:00.000-06:00

A long hard day today - so I decided the best way to recuperate was with a nice rosemary, lemon and pear martini! This one is great for parties or just to mix for yourself! Love the way the blue flowers from the rosemary look floating on top!

Recipe (serves 2):
1/2 c. chilled vodka
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 Tbsp pear brandy (also called Poire William - look for the bottle with a whole pear inside - NOT pear Schnapps)
4 Tbsp Rosemary simple syrup

Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice and pour into a chilled martini glass!

To make the rosemary simple syrup combine 1/2 c. sugar, 1/2 c. water and 1 sprig rosemary (about 6 inches long) in a saucepan and bring to a boil, boil until sugar dissolves, remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Remove the rosemary sprig and chill syrup. The rosemary syrup can also be used combined with lemon juice and seltzer water to make a non-alcoholic rosemary lemonade fizz!

So why am I tired and in need of a martini? Well I worked my tail off this morning on the coop! I followed the instructions very carefully and managed to build the main frame of the chicken coop. The front and rear walls are 10 ft long and 6 ft high, and the end walls are 6 ft wide, so the coop will have 60 sq ft of run space. Having the 4 main walls done sounds like I would be nearly done, but unfortunately I'm only about 5 pages into a 25 page set of directions! But I am really proud of myself - I did it all myself - with just a little help from the kids to do some sanding and move the finished walls into the garage to keep them out of the elements until I can get them stained.

I am hoping that tomorrow I can get them all sanded and stained and with luck if I am not too tired I will start work on the roof supports.

So last but not least, a chick update! The babies are all doing well - tonight we hand fed them small pieces of strawberries and you should have seen the hilarity that ensued! They leaped and ran around and chased each other like mad all trying to steal whatever piece of strawberry that someone else had. All this even though there was a whole dish of strawberry pieces - more than enough to go around!

Second garden planted!

2010-03-12T18:24:00.000-06:00

More good progress! This evening after work, I was able to move the tomatoes and cucumbers out of my living room and into the larger of the two new garden beds today! The cucumbers were already blooming so hopefully they will take off now that they are into the garden. I'm not sure the tomatoes will do as well as I hoped - they are very tall and spindly - so I will have to keep an eye on them. Worst case I replace them with transplants from the store. I also transplanted the tomatillos transplants and the two tomato transplants I bought - so those are all in the ground!

I still need to get the red peppers into the garden so I left some room for them, but I have almost filled in the rest. In addition to the transplanted plants, I sowed seas for corn, fennel, bush beans, purple cow peas (like black eyed peas), carrots, watermelon, yellow squash, a mesculin mix for salad and dill. I tried carrots once before but the soil was too heavy and I pulled them too soon - so I thought I would try again. Worst case I can pickle them like last time!

In my other garden things are progressing - most of the garlic shoots have come up and I see tiny, tiny grass like sprouts coming up where I planted leeks. I'm very excited about the leeks - I love them in soup ans braised and I can't wait to see if I can grow them successfully! Once they come up I understand that I need to pile dirt up around them so that the base of the leek is buried - this is what keeps that part white. I need to read up more on it to see exactly when I need to do that.

I hit Home Depot at lunch and got all of the coop supplies ordered - they say they will deliver it all tomorrow - hopefully before lunch but we will just have to wait our turn on the delivery schedule. I am excited to start work on it - but a little nervous too. I have built small things on my own (like step stools for the kids) but most things I have built I have had help on - or I assisted and someone else did the main "building" part. Either way in a few more weeks the chicks are going to be ready to move into bigger living quarters! Today I was able to feed them little bits of egg white from my fingers and when I put my hand in now they come running. They don't really like being picked up still, but the kids are determined to solve that!

In this picture my daughter s holding the smaller of the two Easter Egger chicks. Although it looks like her eyes are closed - you just can't see them because she has big tufts of feathers on her cheeks that nearly cover her eyes. This is the brave one - she is always out in front of the gang - the first one to explore and is definitely already trying out her wings - perhaps we need to name her Amelia after Amelia Earhart! The kids think that the yellow chick should be Milkshake - they are sure she will be white - I am betting slightly beige speckled - but we will go with Milkshake regardless. :)

Wish me luck with the building project tomorrow!

Another day

2010-03-11T19:49:00.000-06:00

Well I don't have too much new to report today - other than a cold which kept me out of the garden when I got home from work. However, when I got home, I saw signs of spring with the first Iris blooming in my front garden. The sun was starting to set, so I apologize for the bad lighting in the picture, but try to picture it with the sun glistening on the beautiful salmon colored petals and the striking blue-green foliage coming up all around it. Truly a sign of spring and new beginnings!

The chicks are all doing fine and getting stronger and showing personality. The smallest of them all is the bravest - she is one of the Easter Eggers - every time I put my hand into the brooder she runs to the front and pecks at my fingernails. I am not sure if she is protecting everyone or thinks I have treats for her! The others are not quite as brave yet - but when held and softly stroked on their neck and back they close their eyes and relax. So I think they are starting to get used to people. I think they may also be getting used to Oliver (our cat) he loves to watch them (yes they are protected by hardware cloth so he can't get to them).

So on to another day - tomorrow I head to buy coop supplies - they will need to be delivered so they should come Saturday morning so I can start the work! More to come!

Peep peep peep!

2010-03-10T19:03:00.000-06:00

The baby chicks arrived today! The one on the left is called a Silver Cuckoo Maran - when she is grown she will lay dark chocolate brown eggs, so we decided that since Easter is nearly here she should be named Cadbury!

The other three (center in the pic below) are all Easter Eggers - but we don't know what colors they will be when they grow up (or which color egg they might end up laying, blue or green or pinkish brown)- so we are still working on names for them - suggestions are welcome!

It has been a busy day - after the chicks arrived and I went to retrieve them from the post office I came home and got them introduced to the brooder. after dipping their beaks in the water and the GroGel (nutrient powder you mix with water - that's the green stuff in the picture above. Once they were settled in I got back to work on my real job. A few hours later the bell rang and it was one of the contractors I asked to give me a bid on putting a gate across the end of my driveway to fully enclose my backyard so that I can keep deer and dogs out and the chickens in (when they get older). That was no sooner done than another truck pulled up - this one loaded down with two cubic yards of garden soil and another 1/2 ton of limestone chop block to finish off some other yard projects that I started last year!

The kids got home from school just before 5 and they went crazy when they saw the chicks were here! They were so excited - they spent the next two hours holding the chicks and petting them and just watching them. By the end of the evening the chicks would just sit on their laps - so cute!! Even Oliver, our cat is adjusting. He watched them all day from different vantage points, but didn't make any aggressive moves. Of course, he will still be separated from them when we aren't home or are sleeping - I'm not taking any chances :)

So it has been quite a day and I am going to relax now with a nice glass of wine to relax while I plan out the frenzy of coop building and garden finishing that needs to go on this coming weekend!

G'night everyone!

Rosemary, but no chicks

2010-03-09T17:54:00.000-06:00

Well unfortunately no fuzzy little peepers arrived today - they are still in transit. I talked to the post office and they think they will probably get here in the morning. They said they will call me as soon as they arrive in the building (which they said is typically 5:15am) and I can come pick them up. So I am hoping for a wake-up call from the post office tomorrow! I'm pretty sure the kids will be a little late to school if our little fluff bundles make there way here.

Even with no chicks it was a beautiful day in the hill country today - sunny and mid-70s. In March! Spring and Fall are why I love it here. In my evening garden check today I noticed that I have Red Swiss Chard sprouting up little leaves with bright red stems, the garlic is just starting to poke through the soil and the rosemary has lovely blue flowers. The transplanted cabbages, Brussel sprouts, broccoli and cauliflower are all looking good and finally seem to be growing. I wondering if there might have been too many leaves in the compost which might be making the soil a little to acid (I have read that can happen) - so this weekend I may buy a soil kit to test it and see. Of course a lot depends on the chicks and the coop building plans for the weekend. Soil tests may need to wait :)

So not much new tonight - hopefully more exciting news and pictures tomorrow!

Nesting

2010-03-08T19:20:00.000-06:00

The baby chicks were due to hatch and ship today - which means sometime between now and Thursday four little fuzzy chicks will arrive! That means I have to get ready! I have been reasearching all I can on baby chicks, checking off lists and making sure I have all the right supplies on hand - it reminds me of the nesting period I went through just before I had my children - only this time "nesting" is a little more literal than it was before!

I ordered three Easter Eggers (EEs) and one Silver Cuckoo Maran - all pullets (female chickens for those new to the lingo like me). From what I have read, the EEs will lay either blue, green, pale brown or pale pinkish eggs - each hen only lays one color egg so you never really know what color eggs you will get until they start laying - so hopefully we will get at least a few green and blue layers. Marans lay dark "chocolate" brown eggs - but the pictures I have seen seem to range from typical looking brown eggs to very dark (yup - they are pretty close to milk chocolate) eggs. Eggs are a long way down the road though so we will have to wait and see when the time comes. I have read that hens don't start laying regularly until they reach 24-26 weeks and don't really reach full production until they are 30 weeks old - so we will have to wait until the end of the summer to know what kinds of eggs we will get.

I have a brooder area all set up for the new arrivals and I have my fingers crossed that they make the journey safely so the kids and I can start our journey with them! Fuzzy chick pics coming soon!

No luck on low cost coop supplies

2010-03-07T18:17:00.000-06:00

Well, all I can say is that I tried. I trundled up to Austin to check out the Austin Habitat for Humanity ReStore to see if I might be able to find any of my building supplies for the coop there at a low cost. I did manage to find a screen door spring and some inexpensive linoleum tiles for the floor of the coop, but that doesn't even make a dent in the page and a half of supplies listed in the coop plans. :) Guess Home Depot will be getting my money this time around.

I did however have more luck getting the baby chick supplies - so the weekend was not wasted! I got a galvanized feed tub, some hardware cloth, a brooder light and red bulb, a thermometer, a 1 quart waterer, a 1 quart feeder, chick starter and some stuff called "grow-gel" that the local chicken store recommended to reduce shipment trauma. Its this powdery stuff you mix with water and it expands into this green gel stuff that helps rehydrate the chicks after shipping and it has protein, vitamins, amino acids, fats, carbs and probiotic bacteria - I hope it does the trick and helps the new chicks settle in and recover from the shipping process!

I did not manage to get the fill dirt for the new garden beds - it rained today so the stone and soil store closed shop early. I will call them tomorrow though and see if they can bring it by so I can get that garden going. I found Chocolate Cherry and Green Zebra tomatoes at the grocery store today and some tomatillos too - things I don't have seed for - so I bought them and set them in outside in a shady spot and will put them in the garden hopefully as soon as the dirt arrives! I also have a whole bunch of Yellow Pear, Roma and Brandywine tomatoes, along with Pickling cucumbers and some Marconi red peppers (Italian variety commonly used for roasted red peppers) all growing in my living room under my new seed starting light (pic below). They are getting BIG and need to get outside so I need that dirt!!

Wish me luck with the dirt and coop materials - lots to do in the next few weeks!

The garden expansion

2010-03-05T17:27:00.000-06:00

So as I mentioned in my first post, I started by expanding my veggie garden. These are the new gardens - which are next to my original garden (sorry for the less than fabulous picture!).

I used 1 ton of 6x4 limestone chop block of varying lengths. Seriously - its kind of freaky to order a "ton" of anything and actually mean it!

I did it by myself - so ladies - don't think you can't do these things if you are on your own. You absolutely can. I am not big or burly and other than a sore back the next day I am no worse for the wear. Just remember as you stack up the block, don't align the seams or it won't be as stable - so stagger the seams and you should be fine. There is no mortar needed because the total height is only 8 inches and the blocks are wider than they are tall so they don't tip over very easily - especially not once they are full of soil.

The larger of the new beds is 4x12. I decided after a few years of working with my original bed, which was 6x12 ft, that it was too difficult to get to things in the middle without wasted path space. So the new bed is narrower so that I can reach to the center from either side to improve access and reduce wasted space. I think it turned out well if I do say so myself!

The other smaller garden in the corner is going to be an attempt to grow asparagus. I have read that asparagus doesn't like "root competition" so it is best to plant them on their own. I have ordered the asparagus from Gardeners.com and will be planting that bed as soon as it arrives.

As a side note, I LOVE Gardeners.com - I get all kinds of things there - and they always seem to be high quality (and no I don't work for them and am not affiliated with them in any way).

As you can see, both beds still need soil - I will be having garden soil delivered in the next week and amending that with some composted horse manure that I got from my parents ranch. I am hoping that I will get a nice rich soil that gets everything off to a good start. Over time I will also be adding my own compost from my yard, lawn, kitchen and soon chicken waste. I have composted for a few years but adding the chickens will improve on what I have right now.

Step 1: Take the leap

2010-03-05T16:42:00.000-06:00

There are a lot of sites out there that talk about the virtues of backyard farming and "urban homesteading" and I have to say after reading a lot of them, and watching Food, Inc., I decided to give it a shot.

At this point I have started an expansion project on my gardens to expand my growing area, and have ordered baby chicks and will be putting in a backyard chicken coop for eggs. No roosters, no birds for meat - just a few pet chickens that will also provide us with fresh eggs.

I am a single mom of two elementary school age children (one boy and one girl) and we have a house cat named Oliver. I didn't grow up on a farm but I did ride horses when I was young and have had limited exposure to various kinds of livestock. So I am learning as I go and expect to make many mistakes along the way but with luck I will learn from those and get better at this with time. :)

So now to set expectations - I am not expecting to raise all my own food or live off my 1/4 acre, but I do expect to substantially increase the produce I grow vs. buy, stop buying eggs from what I consider to be cruel sources, get my kids engaged in gardening and spend more time outdoors!

I will blog a little each week about my progress and hope to get lots of feedback and ideas for how to expand and still keep it sane ;-)