Movin'

Hey everyone!

I'm moving the blog to my own domain at http://www.knightsanddreams.com

I'm still working on learning WordPress and getting everything perfected (including a logo for our future farm), but I'll be posting there from here on out.

I'll still be reading all your blogs here on blogspot, though! :)

Heh.

You know, I wouldn't have thought that working from home, I'd be BUSIER than I was working outside my home.

Real update coming soon.  :)

Peter Petunia

So I wound up taking my rooster back to the feed store a week and a half ago.

As I was waiting to speak to the owner, I noticed a man with his family edging closer to see what I had in my cat carrier.

"Hey," he said finally.  "Is that a buff orpington?"

"Yes sir."

"Is it a rooster?"

"Yes sir."

"So... what are you doing with him?"

I explained that he was sold to me as a pullet, but since mother nature likes throwing wrenches into our plans, and I cannot keep roosters where I live, the owner of the store was taking him back to find him a home for me.

Turns out, they were there to ask her to find them a rooster for their flock of buff orpingtons!

So PetuniaPeter immediately went to his new home with 17 girlfriends.  :)

Here's Peter at his new home.  :)

I was afraid of this...

One of my Buff Orpingtons is a rooster.  :(

Petunia has turned out to be Peter.  This is my favorite chicken, and by law, I am not allowed to keep roosters.

I called up to the feed store where I bought them, and the woman told me that she's actually got a waiting list of people looking for roosters, so hopefully, he can be rehomed before he starts to crow and upset my neighbors.

Garden Update 2.0

On Saturday, The Architect and I rented a little trailer and went over to Bubba's house to relieve him of his compost pile.

We spread it on the garden, and today I limed since it's supposed to rain here in a few hours.  I've begun to harden off the plants, and I hope to plant them this weekend.

I'm working from home full time now, and at first, I had a hard time making the change.  I just kind of felt... lost.  Couldn't get a groove.  I'm doing great now and much happier (despite a few annoyances due to the bureaucracy of getting the proper paperwork to make a business legitimate) to be at home with all the animals and cooking more.  I'm slowly starting to learn how to coupon.

I sold three of my chinchillas, leaving me with three.  I used to breed and show them, but I had a hard time finding good buyers, so I kept my last six as pets.  Since I've been getting into the more self-sufficient mindset, I wanted to downsize on the number of chinchillas I had since they were animals I was feeding who weren't producing for me.

Now the three I've sold have gone to a great home, and I have time to love the three I have left.  I also have a free cage to use as a grow-out cage for when I get rabbits.

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the warmer weather.  :)

I'm going to do something I'm going to regret...

So living in a residential area, I'm limited to the type and number of animals I can keep.  Therefore, while I can have a couple hens for laying, I cannot raise a couple dozen chickens for food.

I just found a local farm that sells chicken that was pastured on grass, and you receive the chicken the day after it was dispatched and dressed.

I've never had meat that fresh.  So while I'm excited about getting to try it, and thrilled I can support a local farmer, I know it's going to spoil me forever until I get my own farm where I can raise my own meat.

Chickie house

The Architect and I put together the girls' house yesterday.  It's a Chick-n-Villa made by WARE manufacturing, the same company that made the rabbit hutches I bought.

It's super cute and was easy as pie to put together.

There's a few modifications it needs.  It needs a door for the henhouse.  We already swapped out the latches to ones that are more raccoon-proof.  We already know that we're going to extend the run out a good few feet.

We've got a bit of a cool front right now, and the girls have been in the house since we got them.  They stayed outside for a little while yesterday, but I could tell they were cold.  It's supposed to be sunny tomorrow, so I think they can stay outside for the majority of the day.

Garden Update 1.0

I promised an update a couple days ago, and then my brain decided to short circuit and present me with a rather debilitating migraine.

For those of you who get those things on the regular, ugh, I feel for you.  I've only had maybe three in my whole lifetime, and those are more than enough.

Anyhoo, for my slightly overdue garden update, I have to admit: I think I've kind of buggered something up.

I started with the discs? Pellets?  Things?  On the left.  I neglected to leave the clear cover on it per the instructions, because I am a doofus.  However, despite being exposed to the air, I've had a mold/fungus problem with the discs.

Despite that, I still have managed a few viable seedlings - I transferred those to the stand alone peat pots furthest to the left there.  There's a few bush beans, a few cucumbers, a zucchini, and a squash.

So, while still taking care of my first set of sort-of-failure, I started another pallet of discs.  This time, I left the clear lid on them 'til stuff started sprouting.  The zucchini, squash, and cantaloupe have gone nuts.

The tomatoes are sadly lagging.  And some of these discs have mold/fungus starting to fuzz on them, too.  I don't recall having this issue last year.  It's very frustrating.

Oh, well.  At least spring has arrived.  :)

Chick Update #5

The girls are three weeks old now, and really starting to look less ragged and more like real chickens.  :)

Heart-shaped chickies!

And here's a quick video of the girls in the yard. 



Tomorrow, I have a garden update! :)

Chick Update #4

 

Lucille, Petunia, and Gertrude here.  Norway is out of frame.

For those unaware, don't let anyone tell you that chickens cannot fly.  Oy....

Some cool photos-

I wanted to share this link of a bunch of pictures from about 1880.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2011/02/23/from-the-archive-frontier-life-in-the-west/2713/

As an aside...

...I am COMPLETELY baffled at the number of people who do not understand that you don't need a rooster for hens to lay eggs.

Blog Award! :)

Lamb over at "Waiting on the Other Shoe" gave me this for blogging my gardening and homesteading efforts! :)

In return, I must award it to three more awesome gardening/homesteading blogs, and they are:

OlivYew Farm (I love reading about her rabbits and new chickens!)
BerryVine Farm (I love all the pics she posts!)
and the gang at the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-Op (they have fabulous tips and how-tos!)

Keep up the awesome, everyone, and spread the love!  I hope everyone has a great day!

Why?

I've had a few friends and family members ask why in the world I want to farm and grow my own garden, and, eventually, raise and eat my own livestock.

Personally, I find it hypocritical of anyone who eats meat but is unwilling to kill the animal themselves.  I feel, as a whole, people are too disconnected from what goes on with their food.  I think that it's appalling that livestock are kept on feedlots knee-deep in their own feces; or in tiny cages with no access to the outside or to sunlight, without room to sprawl or stretch their legs.

No, I am no PETA enthusiast.  In fact, I abhor the organization, but that's another post.

It means enough to me that the animals I eat for food get space, grass, sunlight, the best feed I can afford, and love.  Because it is that important to me, I'm willing to do everything I can to move away from commercialized meat and dairy products.

It means enough to me to have fresh fruits and vegetables, untouched or modified by Monsanto or their ilk, that I'm learning to grow my own food as organically as I can.

Furthermore, I have very little faith in this country remaining stable in any meaning of the word for much longer.  I pray I'm wrong, but my gut tells me that I'm not.  Besides, on a much less dramatic scale, it wouldn't take much to disrupt the flow of food to the supermarkets.  A gas shortage.  A trucker strike.  A natural disaster...

I feel that the more I can provide for myself and my family, the easier and more comfortable we can survive anything that's thrown our way.

While we don't have a farm yet, The Architect and I will make the best of the acre we have until we do.

Maybe I can't save the world, but I CAN save my part of it.

Chick update #3

It's gorgeous outside so we took the chicks out for a few minutes.

Blaze desperately wanted to play with them.  Not that I would ever let her do so, but I honestly think she just wants to play and wouldn't hurt them on purpose.

The chicks are growing like weeds, and are starting to tame a little bit.  I got them to eat mealworms out of my hand today, and they're doing better about being handled. 

I've noticed that their little "voices" are starting to change, too.

We've changed Chaps' name, since both the araucanas are developing tails.  We've decided on the name "Norway," since there's a running joke in the house that The Architect thinks that anything with ear tufts is a Norwegian Forest Cat, and one of the araucanas has very distinct ear tufts.  :)

Garden 2.0

Well, here we go!

I started some seeds yesterday.  Bush beans, tomatoes, cucumber, melon, peppers, etc.  The Architect and I are totally going gung-ho this year and making a much larger garden than what we had.

Bubba and Crash have offered to give me a bunch of their compost, so we'll be attaining that in a couple weeks to till in.  After that, I've got to lime.  I didn't lime the garden last year, but it still did very well. 

One other thing I didn't do last year that I meant to do was to mulch.  I'm going to make sure that I mulch my garden this year.  Weeding what little I had last year was bad enough, and now we're making it bigger?  Ugh, my back would absolutely rebel.

I still need to get a couple window boxes so I can keep salad greens and broccoli in the house since they tend to not do so well in the summer heat.

The Architect built me this awesome seed starter/light box for my seeds.

It's made from PVC and has two 120 watt grow lights.  All the parts were about $80, and took us about an hour to put together.

Unfortunately, the way our house is situated, none of our windows get direct sunlight, so the light box is kind of imperative.  I hope it works out.

Chick update #2

I went to PetSmart and got about half a dozen tiny crickets for the girls.  They loved them!  Those crickets were all gone in less than a minute.

Here they are getting super excited about the crickets:

Chick update #1

I am absolutely astounded at how fast these chicks grow.

...I'm also astounded at the amount of poop they create...

The chicks are so cute, and they seem to be getting used to people once they're held.  They flee when you try to catch them.

I can't wait to get some mealworms or crickets from PetSmart to give them.  I might go get some tomorrow and see if they like them.

In the meantime, The Architect set up a chickie cam since he's an IT nerd.  :)
http://www.knightsanddreams.com

Take care!

The Girls

Excuse me.  I'm a little excited.

OOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMGGGGGG CHICKIES!!!

Two buff orpingtons and two araucanas pullets.  They have hereby been deemed Petunia, Gertrude, Lucille, and Chaps (as in buttless chaps, since some auraucanas don't have tailfeathers).

I'm going to have The Architect set up a streaming Chick Cam tomorrow so everyone can see them grow!  :)

Incoming.

My lack of posting has been the calm before the spring storm of projects.

Wednesday, I visited a local feed store, owned by a woman who spoke at the Board of Commissioners meeting where backyard chickens were legalized in my county.  I reserved four baby chicks - two Buff Orpingtons and two Araucanas.  They arrive in two weeks.  I'm so excited!

The Architect and I have been trying to figure out what style of chicken coop/run we want.  I think we've settled on an A-frame with the coop on top and the run below.

Here in the next week or two, I'll start my seeds. 

At the end of March is when I'm supposed to get my rabbits.  So many new things to look forward to this spring!

Snowpocalypse 2011

Sunday, before the skies unleashed their snowy insanity upon the southeast US, The Architect and I went to the grocery store.

Now, we really didn't NEED anything, but I thought it'd be romantic to sip hot chocolate and watch all this pass by. 

I had never been witness to the chaos of a grocery store before one of our threats of snow or ice here in Georgia.  I've heard of it, I've seen it on the news, I've not seen it in person.  It's certainly a sight to behold.  I'm glad we didn't need milk, eggs, or bread.  There was really none to be had.  Aside from the final half dozen or so boxes of expensive eggs.

Later on Monday, The Architect was perusing FaceBook.  An ex-coworker was lamenting that he hadn't gone to the store since he "didn't think it'd be that bad."  Said ex-coworker has a small car, a Civic, I think, and was stuck at home.  He had the brilliant idea of ordering a pizza or Chinese delivered to his house.  Problem was, everything has been closed since Sunday night.

This man is literally trapped in his house with no food.  None.  He's single and works for a large company in downtown Atlanta, so all of his meals he gets at restaurants.

Incredible.

...and this is how the majority of the populace reacts.  That everything is going to be just fine with no preparation of their own.  Ugh.

In case you hadn't heard...

...it snowed here in Georgia.

the cute mill 3 minutes from my house

Harumph.

I have not-so-nice things to say about anyone who suggests that the economy is "recovering."

I made half this Christmas that I did last Christmas, and I've not worked this week due to lack of work to do.  Thankfully, we have a budding home business, so it's not a crisis.

On a lighter note, I've been talking to a breeder of silver fox rabbits in South Carolina.  The Architect and I will be taking a trip out to see her at the end of March to get a pair.  I'm so excited!

Half of my seed order has arrived.  I can't wait to get them started!

Welcome to 2011!

Hope everyone had a great, safe night last night.

I look forward to 2011.  I've got so much planned.

I think I've secured a Silver Fox rabbit breeder or two that aren't too much of a drive (although it WILL be a day trip), so I will have a pair of rabbits here in the next two or three months.

I just ordered my seeds for the spring garden.  I'm so excited about this year's garden.  The Architect is actually getting excited about it, too, and since he's agreed to help me with the garden this year, we're at least tripling the size of what I had last year.

...I might snag a bunch of compost from Bubba and Crash since I don't have a compost heap of my own yet.  That's another item on the 2011 list, especially since rabbit manure is supposed to be so amazing for gardens.

The 2011 garden list has three varieties of tomato, two types of bell pepper, melon, zucchini, squash, green beans, corn, strawberries, cucumbers, and a few flower breeds to attract bees.

I'm saving up for a pressure canner so I can learn to can all the food we're going to grow.

I hope everyone is doing well.  Let's make this year a great one!