Almost forgot

 

If you will please forgive my unmade bed, and messy bedroom, I am pleased to present, the rippled afghan I made my father in law for Christmas.  He absolutely loved it!!!! He calls my crocheting tangling thread, and it always makes me giggle. What really cracks me up is when I have something with me that I made, and he asks me if I tangled that myself, and I'll tell him that yes I did, and he'll proceed to say, well then, you tangled that right nice.  But well, it did take me what feels like forever to get this completed, but it was well worth it. I was determined to have it done in time to give to him for Christmas, so I spent two solid days of doing nothing but hooking, and then got up that morning, and crocheted for about 2 hours, and got it done, and wrapped just before we had to run out the door to get to my in-laws house.  I haven't worked on anything since I finished this...but I will be soon. I plan on getting back to getting patterns designed.  

Done

Well, Christmas is over. Today I'm going to start putting away the Christmas stuff, and getting out my album that I put all of the pictures in that are sent to me as cards or in the cards.  And hoping that I put everything away organized enough that everything will come out easier in a year. (ha ha what a dream) Some people say not to take down Christmas stuff until January 2nd, but those people are apparently unrealistically addicted to their Christmas junk.  But I'm glad its over for the year. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and I feel so much better now that its over for the most part.

The original 7 of our chicks are growing swiftly still. In fact I had to do a double take the other day, one of them was standing next to my red star, and she's almost as big as her already. Right now they are on an eating binge, so I'm thinking they are about to hit another growth spurt. We bought 200 lbs. of feed from Tractor Supply on Saturday, 100 of it was grower/starter feed, and 100 of it was cracked corn. We are mixing the cracked corn and grower/starter feed for everybody who is not in coops, those who are still in coops are getting straight up grower/starter at the moment. This spring we will go back to mixing the grower/starter feed with layer feed, but for now, the higher protein is good with the cold weather. Especially since we have some molting chickens.

I'm hoping to be able to release the 10 in the coops, and the 5 here in the house sooner than we did the last batch. I think with the forage block, and a head of cabbage we should be alright. I'm ready to be done with all of those separate feeders, and water containers. Not that its a bad thing, it just takes many trips back and forth to keep everybody fed.

Well that's about it for now, I'm going to try to get some pics today of my pullets and young roosters for you guys to see. Its been quite the journey with my first batch of hatchlings, but it was a good one.

Chicken Life

My Red Star chicken...my best layer

 

So I tried adding captions, but could only make it work once...so I'll just go through and talk about each picture individually...I guess I'm just not computer smart some days.

 

The first pic is of my red star chicken. She is the best little layer. She's pretty calm, and just sort of goes with the flow.

 

Up next is one of my Marans laying an egg in a spot where the eggs are really hard to get out. My hubby is going to make an egg scoop for me. I've cracked a few too many eggs working on getting them out of there.

 

 Next is just some of the gang enjoying the sunshine. My crazy flock. I love them so.

 

 

The next two pictures are of my White Leghorn chicks, and my Rhode Island Red chicks. They are all female, and are now 6 weeks old. They are too little to let out with the rest of the gang, but big enough to be out of the house. So they are tucked away safely in coops in the house. We did separate them by breed. Generally I probably would have just mixed them all together, but decided this time to just keep them sorted.

 

And lastly is another pic of the gang just kind of scratching around, enjoying some of the cracked corn I threw out for them.

 

 

 

Wishing you a Merry Christmas

 

Wishing you all a Very Merry Christmas, From our Family to yours.  

Still raining, but....

Even in though it was raining, we still managed to get the bigger of the chicks out in the coops. We took them out in groups of five. First we took the Rhode Island Reds out, catching them in the kennel was exciting..one even made a mad dash into our bedroom...that was kind of funny, and thankfully she didn't poop and was so surprised by her surroundings she was easy to catch.

Next came the White Leghorns. Catching them was still pretty tricky, but none of then got free in the house...however once we got into the chicken house one did get a freedom run. Thankfully she didn't get hurt by the bigger chickens. She got pecked on the head a bit, but she's ok, and tucked safely in the coop with her sisters.

The five babies are still in the kennel here in the house. Since Frank worked last night, and then has to work tonight we are going to take them out tomorrow. That's going to take a bit more work anyways, we have to move some stuff around so that we can fit the crate in there with no problems.

I know this is thing to sound bad, but I feel like we've been raising chicks for what feels like forever...in all reality we've been raising them for 9 weeks...that's how old our first batch of chicks are.

Not to go all over the place with the chick talk...but it does look like 3 out if the 5 we kept from the last hatching are little boys. Its kind of disappointing...but we need meat as well as eggs.

Rain!!!!

Got up this morning all nice and happy and optimistic. Today we were moving at least 10 of the chicks outside, and then the other five were thing tomorrow. I turn on lights, with two dogs doing the pee pee dance saying hurry mom, hurry...get to the front door, throw it open...and...it's pouring down rain. Sam and Jasper make a mad dash outside, to do their business, and I start a pot of coffee. I'm hoping I'll get lucky and it will stop raining before my husband gets home from work.

In the meantime, I've got my morning cup of coffee, and Sam and Jasper are watching cartoons.

One things for sure though, this rain is sure to make my poor chickens quite moody today. At least I gave them something to be happy about yesterday. I had boiled some eggs, to make pickled eggs, which I did..more on that later though. But I had about 4 eggs that didn't peel nice, and I chief those up really well, and took them with the cooked egg shells and gave them to the chickens...it was a mad dash, with some happy chickens. Even my young chickens (don't think I can call them chicks anymore) were in on the action.

For 1 week

Facebook....just about everybody has it. Those who don't more than likely did, but got fed up with it, and shut down their account.

I've had a fb account for a few years now, and I've gotten fed up with it, and have walked away from it for a day or two.  I have one of those smart phones, and I find myself randomly checking FB when in all reality I have other things I should be doing. I would estimate I waste about 8 hours a day messing with fb...that's a lot of time...it's not all at once, but spread out through the day, and includes the time spent playing the games on my laptop.

So, I plan on staying off of FB for an entire week. I will not log back on until next Saturday.

I figure I will either get way more done, OR I will go into Facebook withdraw. I'm betting my phone battery will thank me.

Apple butter cake



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Sometimes the canned goods just sort of add up in the pantry, especially if they are stuff you  make yourself on a pretty regular basis.  Sometimes I make a whole lot of something one year, and not so much of it another. Well After a while you just end up with a cabinet full that you have to use up. Not that its going to go bad, but just the same, its always good to be able to use it up anyways.

 

Well a couple of weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to make some apple butter cake, but couldn't find a recipe that I liked, or that didn't call for a bunch of fancy ingredients that I would have to go in search for at the store. So, I pulled a bunch of stuff together, and here we are.  This is a very moist cake, so no matter what you insert into this is going to come out with moist bits of cake on it, so its going to look sort of raw, but I promise you, its not raw, AND your not going to notice it when you eat it. In fact, If you let it sit out over night it will dry a bit. 

 

2 Cups Sugar

2 sticks of butter (16 tbsp.) softened

4 eggs

4 &1/2 cups apple butter

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

4 cups flour

 

1) cream together butter and sugar

2) add eggs one at a time while mixing

3) mix in apple butter

4) while mixing all all dry ingredients except flour

5) add flour a little bit at a time until its all mixed in

 

Preheat oven to 375, and grease 3 bread loaf pans. Divide the batter between them.

Bake for 65 minutes.  Allow to cool for at least an hour before you turn the

cake out of the pans. Enjoy!!!

 

Now, for this batch, I was almost out of apple butter, so I substituted the remaining apple butter, with apple sauce, which was also home made and sitting in my pantry from last year.  Its just as good, but you will want to add about a half a tsp of cinnamon, and a pinch more ground cloves if you do this substitution.

 

Enjoy, and happy baking!!!!

Old posts

If you notice a couple of my older posts being republished, it's because I'm adding tags to some of the recipe posts.  Thanks for reading!!!!

My luck

So I realized I never updated you guys on the coffee plant I posted pictures of over the summer. Well it wasn't exactly in plant stage, but in seed stage. Unfortunately it never sprouted or grew or anything. It just didn't do anything. That was disappointing, but the good part is I had gotten it on clearance so I wasn't out much at all.

I still haven't started again on the celery plant either. I killed that when I put some coffee grounds on there. That was a bad idea, I don't recommend that at all, if you ever try to grow your own celery. I plan on trying that again the next time I make soup/stew.

And my carrot tub...I forgot to water those....*sigh* I am a plant killer...I seriously don't have any house plants at all. I'm thinking I may however crochet some plants for some greenery around here...I don't even have a real tree, I have a fake one!!!

Now don't worry about the chickens, I'm good with living people/animals, just not plants.

8 weeks old

For any of you who have been following me, and remember we hatched chicks, this is the first batch we hatched out. It's hard to believe they are 8 weeks/2 months old already.  They have grown so much, and quite swiftly.

It looks like only 2 out of the 7 are female though, but we can't be sure just yet..we will be able to tell for sure in another 4-6 weeks.

More Snow

Well, its snowing again here in the Shenandoah County. What really stinks is we are still trudging through the snow from last weekends storm. I guess December is our month for snow. Maybe we will have that White Christmas that Bing Crosby is always dreaming of. 

The Chickens up on the hill are not loving this snow at all. They just stick their head through the door, and eat the snow, but they wont go out in it. Yesterday they had managed to get a spot in front of the door melted and cleared with all of their pecking, and about 6 of them were trying to stand on this tiny patch of mud all at the same time. It was pretty good. I'm thinking that maybe tomorrow if all of this snow has stopped, I may go up there with the snow shovel and make them a clear spot to play in outside.

I think today is going to be spent working on finishing up a rather large crochet order that's going to California. I'm hoping to get it in the mail on Monday. I figure the roads will all be plowed and clear and I'll be able to get out.  If I get all of my crocheting done today, I think tomorrow I'll work on a quilted purse that I want to try out. Its out of my scrap therapy book.

Well that's it from snowy Woodstock Virginia!!!! Keep warm and safe!!!

Easy crochet Christmas wreath

Let me start by saying that this isn't my pattern. I don't know who wrote it, but its from a live crochet along that I did on face book.

The first thing you will need is a wire hanger bent into a circle, a J hook, and some worsted weight yarn in your choice of color. I used Red Heart super saver in hunter green.

The first round you single crochet all the way around the hanger until you cannot see any of the hanger.

The second round double crochet 3 times in each single crochet. This will make it full and ruffled.

Now the last row, do a half double crochet and then chain 3 in each stitch. It will give it a nice leafy look. Once you get all the way around finish off.

So this leaves you with a nice blank canvas to decorate.  I took ornaments off of my tree and attached them to mine.

This works up nicely, and you can have it done and hanging up in no time. I can also imagine that if you do it in other colors, you could do one for every holiday.

Snow day

So, when you have a little farm, what do you do when its snowing like mad??? You trudge on through it. Chickens, and dogs still have to be fed and watered...but sometimes we add some extra stuff for fun. Do a little baking, work in scrap quilt stuff, put up the Christmas tree.

I wrote a recipe for apple butter cake. I need to do another run through on it, and then I plan on posting it for your baking pleasure. My darling husband has given his approval and has dug right in.

Getting there

So, you guys remember 7 weeks ago when we hatched out our very first batch of chicks??? Well here they are, out of the coops, and integrated with the big grown up chickens.

I was a bit nervous after our first attempt at putting them together, but today went so much better. We had hung a head of cabbage, and put out a 20 lb. Forage block as distractions. Everything went great. Yes, there was some pecking, but that was to be expected. After all, the pecking order must be maintained.  Everything was awesome though. Now we just have to figure out how many are hens, and how many are roos.

In just 2 weeks, we will be moving the rest of the chicks outside. I'll be so glad to be done with raising chicks in the house for the winter. I'm thinking maybe we will just stick with chicks in the spring/summer and keep them outside.

all together now!!!!

Oh happy days!!!! Our first batch of chicks that hatched out (7 weeks ago tomorrow) are now out of the coops, and running with the big chickens!!! We really went to town bribing the big chickens so that they wouldn't mind the little guys so very much.  There was some pecking, a bit of squawking, some running, but all in all, everybody is ok, and happy. I can tell those 7 chicks are happy to be out of that coop and have plenty of room to run and move now. 

We have formed a plan for the remaining 15 chicks that are here in the house as well. We want to let the youngest ones get their feathers, so in about 2 weeks, the last of our babies will be in the chicken house. I can't even begin to tell you all just how happy I'm going to be not to have any more live stock in the house.

We've had to make our plans carefully for moving these guys up to the chicken house, because we really are getting into colder weather.  (although you can't really tell too awful much by the fact that it got up into the 60's here today) We've done pretty good not loosing chicks, and I'm hoping to be able to keep that going.

Neighborly

One of my neighbors recently had surgery. I've got to admit, she's one of my most favorite neighbors too. She also makes candles and gift baskets, and we've gotten into buying from each other, she'll buy my crochet work, and I buy candles and gift baskets. Its a win-win situation.  We can get unique gifts for our family members that way.  Well anyways, I took her over a few pick me up gifts today, because I just love her. I took her some Fresh eggs, crochet dish cloths, and some home made apple butter. these are all things I made here at my house...well my chickens made the eggs, but I got to thinking about it, and I was like wow, I wonder if that's how they gifted back before stores were common, and gifts weren't something you just ran out and bought. It was kind of a neat feeling to realize that hey, I can do stuff.

I've spent a good deal of the evening working on a crochet order that's going to California.  I'm hoping to have that order finished by Thursday. I don't have any patterns, so I'm doing them based on the pictures. I love a good challenge.

Well, I guess the night is calling for me to settle in and get off of this lap top now. I've been sitting for far too long!!! Hope everybody is having a great week so far!!!

December

Its the first day of December, which means Christmas is literally just a few weeks away. I am so not ready at all for this. I still haven't decided if  I'm going to put my Christmas tree up or not this year. It feels like its been such a very busy year. I've gone to new doctors, we've started up the chickens, I've been expanding my worm farm through them breeding. We lost a pet that was more family than pet. I've done new things with my crocheting, tried new recipes, started this blog. We've done repair work to our house, and just so very many things. 

I don't have any pictures ready for you all today, but I'll have some pictures coming soon!!!

Green Bean Casserole

First off, I'd like to say, Happy Thanksgiving to all of my readers. From what I understand I do have readers from many different countries, and I find that to be really awesome!!! If any of you, my readers have your own blogs, please, feel free to add me to your reading list, and I'll add you back. I go through and read blogs almost daily. Its always fun to see what people are doing on their farms, or with their hobbies, and what they are cooking!!!

I'm fairly certain most of you are already done with the majority of their cooking. My family isn't celebrating Thanksgiving until this Saturday when everybody can be together due to work, or other family get togethers. As we know that happens once everybody gets married, has children, and so on.

Today I'm sharing with you a traditional Holiday Casserole. Green Beans are a very common dish at every get together, but sometimes, its fun to spice it up, and do something a bit different.

This recipe makes 4-6 servings, but is easily doubled, but if your family is like mine, 4-6 servings might be more than enough because there's going to be so much food there already that everybody is only going to take a little bit of everything.

1 & 1/2 lbs. sausage
1 quart green beans, fresh or frozen
10 & 3/4 oz. can mushroom soup
5 large potatoes, cooked until tender and sliced
3 Tbsp. oil
salt to taste
pepper to taste

1. Crumble or slice sausage into large skillet and cook until browned, stirring frequently.

2. In saucepan, cook green beans until crisp tender.

3. Alternately layer sausage, green beans and mushroom soup into greased casserole dish.

4.  Pour oil into skillet where sausage browned and add sliced potatoes. Cook over high heat, stirring  them up from the bottom frequently, until all are browned and crispy, but not burned.

5. Layer over top of casserole and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

6. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until heated through.

Hope everybody has a happy and safe Thanksgiving.  Remember, Be thankful for what you have, and worry not about the things that you don't have, and that friends are just as important as family.

Cold evening

Brrrr, it's cold outside!!! We've had snow, wind, ice, and rain. It made for some very unhappy chickens, but they were out of the cold and wet inside of their nice warm house.

I did have some sadness today, a one of our chicks passed away. He hatched last night with help. The poor baby couldn't walk right, and was blind. I think that's the hardest thing I've been through with the whole chicken adventure. But we do have 5 funny healthy chicks, that are eating and drinking and chirping, and playing.

Now that my day has come to a close, I'm having a hot cup of coffee, watching Gone With The Wind, and working in crochet orders. To me that's the best way to spend a cold evening.

Baby Baby Goodbye

We had a massive chick hatching here that took place over a two day period, and is still happening right now.  I'm thinking a couple of the eggs might not hatch.

Today we are going to be delivering 20 of those chicks to their new home. Plus we now have a new home for those 11 free rooster chicks!!! Hoorah!!! I'll be a little sad to see those 11 go, but not too sad the way they eat. I believe I've been a bit overwhelmed by this massive amount of chicks we've had. Partly because it's just not something I'm used to.

I am however keeping 4 of the chicks that hatched out, 3 of them are grey, and one is yellow with black spots. If I'm lucky they will be female, and I'll be able to add them to my egg layers for the summer. If not, then well, it's soup.

Yesterday I got a happy surprise! One of my Black Copper Marans laid an egg for me. That was quite welcome since they haven't laid for about 2 maybe 3 months.

Cranberry Relish

This is a side that I've been eating at thanksgiving since I joined my husbands family. It has become such a tradition for me that I've come to love and enjoy, and have even started taking my turn in making it that I thought I should share this wonderful recipe with you all. This recipe comes from our church cookbook.  It really only takes a few minutes to prepare, you  just fix it the day before and forget about it.  This year, I'll be preparing it, and will be so happily doing it that it brings that warm feeling of love and warm family memories.

Here we are Cranberry Relish

1 small can pineapple (don't drain)
1 (3 oz) box raspberry Jell-O (small)
1 (15 oz) can whole cranberry sauce
1/2 c. chopped pecans
1/4 c. chopped celery

Dissolve Jell-O with 1 cup hot water; don't add cold water. Mix in other ingredients. Chill.

That's it, that's all there is to it!!! Simple right???? The only work that really goes into it is opening stuff, and chopping the celery, and that's got to be one of the easiest things to chop up!!! 

Brunch Egg Casserole

What do you do with all those eggs???? I get asked this question a lot!!! Well we do give some away, right now, since its Really cold out, I'm only getting a couple of eggs a day. I guess I can't blame the poor girls, I don't care for all the cold either!!! Brrrrr

We eat a lot of eggs, fried eggs, eggs in batter, scrambled, and in casseroles.  To me there is nothing better than an egg casserole. I mean, yeah, I have to crack all of those eggs into a bowl, and since I'm a little weird, I crack them in one bowl, and pour them over into another. Mostly it has to do with my fear of there being a chick in there. It hasn't happened to me yet, maybe because for the most part we eat and give them away rather quickly.

I'm going to share with you all one of my favorite Egg Casserole recipe's.  Its called Brunch Egg Casserole, but well, the way our schedule works around here, its good for any time.

this makes 8 - 10 servings

8 slices bread, toasted and cubed
1 lb sausage, browned
8-12 oz. shredded cheddar cheese
8 eggs beaten
4 cups milk
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp prepared mustard
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/8 tsp pepper

1. Spread toasted bread cubes in greased 9 x 13 baking dish. Layer on meat, and cheese

2. Mix together eggs, milk, salt, mustard, onion powder, and pepper. pour over mixture in baking dish


3. Refrigerate overnight, or bake immediately at 325 for 45 - 50 min (bake up to 1 hour if casserole has been refrigerated)

Hope everybody enjoys!!!!

Crockpot Macaroni And Cheese

Its hard to believe that Thanksgiving is just around the corner, even though its later this year than I've ever known it to be. We spend Thanksgiving with my husbands family, so the menu is divided up between 4 of us, which means the load is lighter. I have about 4 or 5 things on my list. One of the things is Apple pie, and I'll be using the apple pie filling I made last month.

Another one of the things I'm making is crockpot macaroni and cheese. I generally make baked macaroni, but decided to change it up this year. I've tried this recipe before and its really yummy. I thought I would share it with you all, just in case your looking for something easy to make that will also sort of save some time!!!

This only makes 6 servings, but is really easy to double or triple.

8 oz. dry elbow macaroni, cooked
3-4 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese, divided
13. oz can evaporated milk
1 and 1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
chopped onion to taste

1. Combine all ingredients, except 1 cup cheese, in greased slow cooker. Sprinkle reserved cup of cheese over top.

2. Cover. Cook on low 3-4 hours. Do not remove the lid or stir until the mixture has finished cooking

That's it! Simple as that, and chances are you wont have any left overs!!!

I'll be posting more recipes this week!!!
Enjoy!!!

Chicks, Chicks, and more chicks

Its so hard to believe we've only been raising Chickens since June, we've really grown with this. We put up a house for them, built a giant roost, got an incubator, heater, hatched out our first chicks, ordered chicks, and are about to hatch out some more chicks.

This Sunday, our incubator goes into lock down, which means that those eggs will be hatching out on Tuesday or Wednesday.  If everything goes right, all 32 of those eggs are going to hatch out. No, we don't plan on keeping all of those chicks, I'm only planning to keep about 3 maybe 4 of them at the most. It looks like we have a buyer for the others. 

The first 7 chicks that we hatched out will be 5 weeks old tomorrow, and are still growing quickly. They are doing great out there in the Coop in the chicken house. They seem to be happy. The little black Star chicks are taking after their daddy it looks like, and are starting to turn brown around the neck and chest. Its kind of hard to get pictures of them right now, but as soon as I can, I will.  The big chickens don't seem to mind them at all. They look in there, and talk to them some. Our big Rooster seems to be a bit more protective of the Chickens right now, but he's not being aggressive to us.

So far, we seem to have some kind of magical luck with our chickens. We haven't had any of those many issues that people talk about with the health of chickens. Our rooster is a good guy, he's not aggressive, he's actually kind of funny, and has good control over the gals.  Our Chicks have all been healthy, we haven't had problems with splay leg, or sticky bottoms, and they have all survived. (this is where I knock on wood)

What do Farmers/homesteaders do in the winter????

It would be so easy to believe that Fall/winter/early spring would be down time for those of us who homestead, or Farm, but that's not true. There really is a lot to be done. There is quilting, cleaning, organizing, we still have to tend the animals, maybe even a little extra to make sure they are warm, and nothing is frozen. Plus, if you raise chickens for laying eggs, or meat, you are still caring for Chicks. You will be raising your chicks for Egg laying now so that they will be ready to lay in the spring.

For me, right now, I'm going through and doing a lot of cleaning. I'm getting rid of a lot of things. I work off of a list.  Since my hubby is on daylight hours this week, I've made myself a list of the bigger things I want to get done. I also always have something to crochet as I try to get a couple of orders on a regular basis. There aren't always orders to be made, but it doesn't hurt to keep up the skill.

Winter eggs and baby chicks

Every chicken keeper knows that when it comes to winter time there are a few downfalls to having chickens. Those things are going out in the cold, keeping the flock warm, keeping the winter predators out, freezing water, and what I think is the worst part..less of those glorious eggs.  Yup, with less light, means less eggs. But take heart, there is a solution!!! As long as you have electricity in your chicken house you can hook up lights, and where as it might not put you back up to full production, it will help!!!

We installed some lights, and put them on a timer. They come on about 3 AM, and go off around 11 AM.  That helps to insure that they are getting at least 14 hours of light 

Our next step, is to install the heater that just came via FedEx. I wasn't expecting that until Monday...so unfortunately, I had the dogs out running and playing, and the package was left in the middle of the driveway....he could have at least honked the gotten or something. That might be something we will go ahead and install this evening to make sure it works.

We ordered 10 baby chicks from this company in Texas called Ideal. My babies arrived this morning. They are all happy and healthy, and adorable. Well, the company sent us an additional 11 chicks for warmth during shipping. They were free so I'm not about to complain. They are all black star rooster chicks.  The down side is I'm already attached!!! Ah well...what will be.

The 7 we hatched out are growing swiftly!!! They are now gangly teenagers, and will be going outside probably Sunday morning once we know for sure that the heater is working properly. I'll be sad that they won't be in here with me, but those 21 new baby chicks will be needing that space within a few days time. They really do grow so fast.

And lastly, I've been making hot breakfast for my flock that's already outside. I take their feed, some honey and got water and mix it together. They love it!!!

For the love of Sibes

It's been a while since I've posted anything about Sam and Jasper. So I figured I would share a couple of pics so you know all is well and goos with my loves!!!

Eggs and chickens

Yes...I know, you can't have one without the other...:)

We have a batch of eggs in the incubator. I started out with 34, and now have 32. Today was day 7. One of them wasn't fertile, and one had a blood ring, so those two were removed. I an proud to say though, that those two weren't from my chickens, they were from the batch we bought to hatch out. I put about 4 or 5 in from my girls, and three are looking good. I'm really happy though that the olive green eggs are developing nicely. Now let's just hope they are girls, because I want them to be so bad!!!! Of course because I want them to be pullets and not cockerels, I'll end up with all cockerels 

My chickens are giving me 4 eggs a day right now!!! I'm pretty thrilled with that!!! Hooray...I have 3 that are laying daily, and then 3 that seem to be taking turns. I'm hoping my black copper marans take off again soon. One just finished multing, and her feathers are growing back now. I'm hoping that means I'll get something soon from her.