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....