Winter has Arrived

It was a beautiful, 7*and sunny, winter morning yesterday as I made my way to the barn.

I am glad for the water hydrant near this end of the barn.

I am wondering if any birds will use the house for shelter this winter? It is located at the back property line near the barn

Hen houses up closer to the house....

I thought the hens might like to celebrate Christmas with me!

If I don't get back before Dec 25th,

Merry Christmas to you all !

Am I Ever going to Blog Again?

That was a question posed to me recently.

My answer to that is, "I intend to". In fact I intended to several months ago. Seems time gets away, with all that has been going on here.

As well as the different outside projects going on, there is also the increasing issue of arthritis pain I have been dealing with, and searching for ways to alleviate the pain through natural means. For the last couple months I have been cutting down on all foods with wheat flour (except my occasional loaf of home-made sourdough bread) and all known products with added sugar. I do use honey, maple syrup, or agave nectar in limited quantities. But more about this later...

 

My hens are doing well, as are the turkeys, rabbits and goats. I will hopefully start updating soon. Thanks for your interest!

Can A Gal Have too Many Chicken Coops??

This was my original plan....

This is the existing coop, I hinged the windows to open out and wired on the inside to give air ventilation

I made up some goatmilk paint for the walls to brighten it up

and then built in this partition. I also bought cheap linoleum for the floors to make t easy to clean.

The chickens were to go in the middle part, and the feed room where you enter.

BUT, plans sometimes have a way of changing themselves.....

As my turkeys have literally taken over the original chicken coop (pictures of turkeys, when I have a chance), I have been perusing chicken coops online and Craigs*List 

 

My daughter found this one and encouraged me to look into it. It was on skids, was deliverable, and was half the price of other new ones I had seen.

6 x 10 with nest boxes accessible from the outside...

Lots of roosting space, chicken door to outside pen,

Nice nest boxes... and a separate space for feed storage.

Nice enough, however it only provided 6' x 6'for the chickens.

The feed and bedding storage was 4' x 6' which I thought was over-kill. And it did not have the window space as was described to me over the phone. Oh well, it is a start.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Then one day on a country road, I saw an Amish -built one with low sidewalls and stopped to inquire about it. They had built it, and used it one year to raise meat chickens; but were moving and so put it out by the road to sell.

Whew, it was clean.... and I could not believe all he was asking for it!

(my picture is crooked, not the coop)

This is 10' wide and 12' to back, a "sky-light" on the shingled roof, and 4 cut-out openings for either chickens to go out, or use plexi-glass for extra windows. Really solid built! With a little re-vamping I can do ALOT with this coop!

 

Just planning for the future.... Someday, the goats may be more than I want to (am able to) take care of. This will be a hobby I will enjoy and it will still get me outside! Hubby and I always did like diverse chicken breeds, so now I will have a chance to raise some (again) Ha!!

This is how they sit today, after the help of my kids and grands: in place, off the ground , and leveled.

 Awesome job, kids!! Your mom and grand-mom appreciate you!!

 

I will be up-dating with pictures in a new post when I get some fencing up and chooks in place!

Also, new garden lay-out coming soon!

Thanks for visiting!  



Waterline is In!

It has been a while since I have posted. The summer has been very busy!

I hope to do some catching up ........

The guys showed up early in September to put in my waterline to the new garden/hen-house area, and on to the barn, about 150 + feet.

That little Kabota machine did a great job! Of course, so did the operator :-)

It really didn't take long at all....

This will save me carrying water a L-O-N-G way during the winter.

He is almost done with the digging. I love watching these machines work, and smelling the freshly dug earth. It reminds me of all the Bobcat 'n bucket work my husband did both in PA and later when we moved to KY.

If you click on this next picture, you can see the first hydrant has been put in. Look below the right corner of the house. The on-going waterline is at the lower right corner of this picture.

The ditch was dug and waterline covered by 1 pm that day. Now all I have to do is wait until it rains several times fro the ground to settle. They say that is the best way, instead of packing the dirt back down right away, as that would tend to leave a "ditch" later on.

So glad to have this job done! Thanks to the guys for such a good job!

 

 



Summer Projects -Pergola

This project took place the end of June

The same crew that put on my new garage roof last year. They do such neat work!

Rick, in the orange tee-shirt, is head of the crew, a really nice guy.

Finished!

From the doorway looking out at mid-day....

(with pet-gate#1, found on Amazon)

I had the chiminea, that I brought back from AZ, moved to the deck.

Yes, it will be safe to burn, but don't leave un-attended.

You only want a small fire in these.

and pet-gate #2

My dogs love to go out and sit with me. Well, I sit...... they run around!

Have a wonderful day! I will be back with more projects!



Pretty Flowers this Year!

Want to see some of my pretty flowers?

Thanks for visiting!

 

What was I thinking???

So I had to wait a whole year before those 2 little goats would kid and produce some milk???Where was my head? I had been having stomach trouble again and in the past the goat milk had always helped. So back to Craigs*list...

That's when Greta came to live here...

And then there were three!!

Doesn't she have a sweet face?? If I saved her milk for a few days

 

I could make cheese....

and yogurt..... Yumm!!

 

 

Again, I went back to C*L .....

....and brought home Heidi (the one in the middle).

She has a real Alpine temperament,

 but I love her anyway.

She is a beautiful cinnamon brown color and white.

 

So, 2 milkers, 2 kids, and that is the extent of my herd( other than the buck which my friend and I bought together and will share) Jack's picture will be posted soon.

 Meanwhile, Daughter #2 and her hubby came over and trimmed up these pine trees for me so the ground in front of the barn would dry up and I could see the barn from the house

There is a little door up top where hay can be put in the loft. It should hold at least 80 bales of hay.

 Front and left side of barn.

And the saga continues....
Thanks for stopping in!

Back-Tracking

Craigs*list can be addicting; especially when you are feeling antsy and don't know exactly what you should be doing, or want to do, or what you wanna be when you grow up!

  Izzy and Joe just lay around most of the time.

So, I thought I'd like a parakeet or 2 to give my home some "life".  I found them on Craigs*list!
Then I found out from this book ....

that oil painting fumes as well as air fresheners and scented candles and cleaning products can be lethal for these birds. So THAT wasn't going to work! I will still want to do my painting!
 I kept the cage and traded the birds for some "Red Valentine" rhubarb plants, also found on Craigs*List.

....which I planted on the other side of my garden near the edge of the trees. I got a bucket of horse manure from a friend to add to the soil. Rhubarb loves that. I hope they grow well so I will have plenty of rhubarb next year.

My grandson Bobby, came over and helped me get the weeds out of the fence surrounding the garden and we put down roofing shingles under the fence so I would not have that problem again. He did a great job and worked hard.

I had also ordered 6 blueberries bushes that I planted on the backside of the garden. Unfortunately I think only 2 are surviving. We shall see.... 

And then..... I saw this picture of these 2 little goats (again.... you got it, on Craigs*List) I thought about it for 3 whole weeks. Daughter #2 wanted to go see them.

Ok , so they ended up at my place somehow ....

Aren't they sweet???

My brother, who was visiting from AZ, helped me build that nifty door for their pen.

Thank-you Deaf Ranger!

 

Thanks for visiting. The adventure continues.....