A coop a coop!!!!

My chicken stuff is growing!!! Its growing quite swiftly. Today my husband and his best friend of about a hundred years or more went to Lowes, and picked up a metal shed. Yup a metal shed, it will go up quicker, and cheaper than building a coop from scratch, and we can make it quite secure to keep unwanted wildlife out, and our girls in. Unfortunately its not going to be put together for a couple of weeks, we have to wait for the next weekend that my hubby and his buddy are both off again. The plan is to paint the inside white. Then they are going to put in ventilation around the top to keep the breeze off of the chickens, but to allow air flow so that nobody gets sick.  It will also help to keep everybody drier when it rains, or snows, or sleets, or hails or whatever the weather deems necessary. the best part is, its going to make putting everybody to bed go a whole lot quicker, because instead of having to shut them up in those little coops that we have for them, I will simply have to shut a door!!! 

In the spring, we have plans to get a rooster!! Yup, a rooster. I know I said I didn't want one, but well, in the end its going to be more economical than buying new chicks to grow for eggs, or butchering.  We are waiting for spring because we want to make sure that we make it through the winter with our current 8, without anybody getting sick. I know it sounds bad, but truly this is our first set of chickens, and its been a learn as we go kind of thing.

Well I guess that's about all for the moment. I'll post pictures as the building gets put up, and once we have everything set up, and everybody all snug in their new, bigger better home.

September is halfway over

Well, we are well into September. This month just waited for no man. I.did get a lot of crocheting in. The awesome part is most of it was paid orders.

I have started writing a little story. It's nothing much, just a little something to work on when I can't fall asleep. I'm nowhere near as good as my hubies cousin Shana. Maybe if it makes sense I'll share with you all.

On a Thursday

Thursdays seem like such a strange day. It's close to the end of the week but it's not. It's almost like a teaser.

I've had a busy week. I've been worKing in cleaning and organizing my craft room, and working on some crochet orders. I'm far from done with the room, but halfway done with the orders.

Pictures

Fall is just around the corner

Technically its still summer, but for some reason, I always just transition into fall once September gets here. I can't help it. I think its because School starts on September third here. Some of the tree's have started turning, and the weather has cooled off some.

I've started my yearly Fall cleaning. I clean year round, but I guess twice a year I do big cleanings, purge stuff, wash curtains...all that good stuff. I'm hoping this weekend, while my hubby is off we can move furniture around in the living room so that we can steam clean the carpet.  Its still too warm out yet to turn off the AC, and throw open the windows and just let the whole house air out, but that's just around the corner.

My chickens are doing well!!! I'm getting between 4 and 5 eggs a day. Those are good numbers. Although having 8 chickens, I wish It was more than that, but well, I can't be pushy. Different breeds of chickens have way different laying habits. There are plans in the works to build a good size coop, and expand the run. Once that's done, we are going to add 4 more chickens. Yup, there are only 2 of us, and that's going to be a lot of eggs. Well, we are going to share eggs with the guy that's going to be helping Frank build the coop, and of course we have family to share with...and maybe sell a few on the side to help pay for the chicken feed.

Sam and Jasper have adjusted since Nikki crossed the rainbow bridge. Sam's personality has altered somewhat, and he has different habits. They aren't bad, they are just different. He's taken to sleeping in the hallway, in front of the book shelves, and he stays near me. If Frank works over longer than usual, then Sam gets to stressing pretty hard.

Well, that's about it from this little farm for right now, I'll post some pictures later on.
Happy Fall!!!!

Update on us

Hi Everybody, I know its been a while since my last post. We've had a lot going on. Our 13 year old Siberian Husky Nikki started going down hill in a hurry, and required a lot of attention. We had to let her go last week. The only good part about her being gone is we know she is not suffering any longer.


Our chickens are doing great! They are really producing well. My hubby is making plans to build a bigger better coop that will give them more space in their run, and give them more room in their coops, and a better place to be when its raining. (I still haven't replaced the tarp on the top of their run...soon very soon) There are also plans to expand their run, and to add a few more chickens. We are planning on more red stars, some road island reds, and some easter eggers.  All of those are really good layers. We plan on getting some chicks from Tractor Supply in the spring.  I'm not quite sure how many we will be getting, but we do know that the plan is to butcher the roosters, and whatever chickens are not good layers next fall.  That is meat that we plan on canning, and putting up for the winter.

The peaches ended up being rather sad. What the deer didn't get, got stung by wasps, and rotted on the trees before we had a chance to blink. (that gets a big fat frowny face) we are going to get some fruit tree spray next spring and trying to give them a hand that way.  It looks like that's the only way we are going to get some without having to go out and buy them.

Well that's about it for this blog, I promise I will be back soon, with pictures, and some recipe's, and things like that.

Lots of stuff

My chickens are doing great!!! 4 out of the 8 are laying now, ago that's awesome!!! I'm getting between 2 & 4 eggs a day I can't wait until it's more, but what can I do but wait.

The other day I had to scrub out their water container. It was nasty with a capital  N. I now know to put apple cider vinegar in their water. It helps cut down in the nasty, and is good for my girls.

Our garden has basically quit producing for us. We're still getting a handful of tomatoes, and some hot peppers, but that's about it.

We've gotten a few peaches off of our tree, so that was awesome.

I'm learning how to make ruffled scarves using the red heart boutique sashay yarn. I'll post a pic of my progress.

My dogs are all doing ok for the moment. They are all napping in various places here in the cool of the house.