Egg Hunting or the down side of Free Range Hens

Most people only get to have an egg hunting once a year at Easter. Not me, I get to have one every day now that the girls are out and about all day. They seem to think that since they are out they don't need to lay their eggs in the coop anymore. Lets go looking for eggs.

Nope, not in there. That would have been to easy.

Come back later mom!!!

Nope not there

Hah, found one!

Jackpot, three more not I am only missing one. Where could it be? Maybe to early in the day?

Found it Mom!!!

Really, right in the middle of the yard!!!!
No one is fessing up to be the one that just lays anywhere. They swear they are all GOOD girls and go off to lay in private.

Oh, Well I am 5 for 5. It is a good day.

Homestead Barn Hop #70

Firewood and a Holz Hausen

Firewood is something with think of year round up this far north. Even in the summer it is in the back of our minds that it is much easier to get firewood now then in January when there is snow up to our waists or deeper. It is pretty satisfying to see a tree go from

This

To This

To This

BW is creating a Holz Hausen. It is a greman way of stacking firewood that is supposed to improve how it dries. This is what a finished Holz Hausen looks like

Photo Credit

Obviously it is not going to be a traditional Holz Hausen because it is around a tree but it still looks super cool and considering it is in the front yard that is important.

These are a few pictures from year ago and this trip is the reason we do firewood in the summer now.

BW

At least it was a rewarding trip

More Chickens!!!

Meet the newest members of our little Homestead

That is Mr. Hurley in the front with Lady (the lavender) and DeeDee (the Blue) they are Orpington Chickens. I got them from some friends that are moving and can't take them with. I was hoping to get some chicks from them because the Orpington are supposed to be very cold hardy and friendly. I have to say though that I would not consider Mr. Hurley to be especially friendly. I have to lock him out of the coop to collect eggs as he wants to go after me. If he keeps up this behavior he will be invited to dinner.

So the chicken count is now up to 5 mature layers, 8 pullets (although i am almost sure on of those is actually a rooster) and one grumpy rooster.

They put the funny in the farm

I though now would be a good time to introduce the animals of our little homestead.

The Dogs

Casey

(pretty but not real bright)

Rosa

(she was pissed it was raining)

The Cat

Blaze

(WHAT?)

Chickens

The seasoned Crew

(no we are not coming out, it is RAINING!!!)

The Greenhorns

Yes the newby's live in a dog kennel for now. They are still pretty little.

Well there you have it, that is the non human ocupants of our little homestead.

Homestead Barn Hop #67

Fresh Milk and Butter Making

We did it, we took the the plunge. We bought a share in a cow. What does that really mean you say? Well it means we own a little bit of a cow so that we can have fresh raw milk. We have been talking the idea around for sometime. Me longer than BW. BW has in the last year developed a disturbing intolerance to milk. Anything with much milk in it send him straight to the outhouse, and for someone who LOVES milk this is a very disheartening turn of events. I was listening to a podcast last fall about raw milk and one of the things they said was that a lot of people who have issues digesting milk have no problems with raw milk. Well when we were giving the opportunity to try this we jumped on it. Low and behold he has no problems digesting this stuff.

Now he is all excited about the possibilities. So last night he got to thinking... Can we make our own butter out of this. Well I said, give it a whirl. So he sucked the cream off the top of the jar with a turkey baster and put it in a smaller jar and shook it. And shook it, and shook it. After about 15 Min's we opened the jar and this is what there was

So we pulled the lump of butter out of the jar

And proceeded to make toast and have butter and toast at midnight because we couldn't wait to test it out. Now BW wants to know if we can get just cream also to start make our own butter all the time.

Barn Hop #66

What a difference a couple months make

I am sorry it has taken me this long to get back to the blog. Life got in the way and got very hectic. I am hoping things are mellow enough now that I can get back to the things I enjoy.

What a difference a couple of months make

this was taken just this evening. Look no snow!!!!!

A few updated on the homestead.
Skiffbaby got a clean bill of health for a while so that is off my mind now.
Probably not going to be doing any major renovations/ additions to the cabin this year. Boo :(
Had a brown bear get into my chicken coop this spring and kill 2 of my chickens and tear the door off the coop.

This is all that is left of my flock

My three poor hens were not producing enough eggs for our little family so we decided to get a "few" more hens...

This is what we ended up with

Eight little 10 week old "barnyard mix" hens. We really have not much of a clue of their actual breeding but they are supposed to be good layers. We are pretty sure at least one is a rooster but he will make great chicken and dumplings when the time comes. I have no interest in having a rooster again.

And a little update on my garden

I have those three planter boxes and the little pop up greenhouse. I love my planter boxes, BW made them for me out of some T&G cedar that we had for another project. They are beautiful and smell GREAT. The boxes have lettuce mixes, Swiss Chard and kale in them and the greenhouse have nine plum and slicer tomato plants. I will also be adding basil to the greenhouse.

Homestead Chickens

In my way of thinking the perfect homestead chickens breed is one that the hens lay well but the roosters get big enough fast enough to be good broilers. Add to that my need for a cold hardy chicken and it makes figuring out the perfect one a little tough. The way we have been getting around some of this is to get a batch of Cornish Cross chickens and just doing a batch of meat chickens in the summer. After this last batch we swore (again) that we are not going to get them again. They are pretty nasty birds as well as being pretty unnatural. Once before we had gotten the dark cornish chickens like these.

We ended up keeping one of the hens because she never got as big as the rest and she ended up being the bast layer we have had. So I think we will probably get another batch of those for meat. I am still trying to figure out if we should just keep some of the hens for laying or if I should try another breed. The tiny dark cornish hen (Tiny Bird) was my favorite hen and I just lost her. I think it may still be to soon.

Our Homestead

                                                               Our Homestead

The home part of the stead :)

This is a picture of our cabin. Our homestead is actually located on my families property, it is a little weird but it is nice to be close to family, we can help each other. We did buy a house and property of our own but then we had Skiffbaby and the house was not big enough, also the property ended up having poor soil and we were to high up to have a good long growing season. So when faced with the decision of adding onto the house or moving back to the cabin until we can afford to buy the property we dream of and build we decided that the cabin was a better plan. This is a picture from years ago of the back of the property were the outhouse and greenhouse were.

The outhouse is unfortunately the same but that greenhouse long ago succumbed to a wind storm. I was thinking that I was going to try to put the garden in the same spot but we may be putting an addition on the house back there. Hmmm back to the drawing

board.

The chicken coop is in the front side yard for now. When we moved in there was so much snow that that was pretty much the only option we had. I think we will be building a new coop this spring and when we place it I will have it faceing south instead of the north facing direction it is now. Then we will create them a yard around the base of the trees in the picture.

More snow, running for your water and the OUTHOUSE

More snow, really.... not what I was hoping for. This is my view from the last blizzard, on a good day there are mountains behind all those trees. The forcast for the near future...  more snow.

So every since we moved back to the cabin we have running water, as in we run to get it. This is not a uncommen thing in Alaska but it still kind of stinks. When we lived in the other house we only had to haul drinking water. We had running water for doing dishes, showers, cleaning and oh yeah an inside toilet. Which brings me to a hole nother topic. The OUTHOUSE. Most people only have a fleeting knowledge of the outhouse. Most people if they have any knowledge of an outhouse at all, runs to the distant past, summer camp, highway rest stops of the past and camping trips. Most Alaskan have a much closer relationship with outhouses.

                                                                                (my dream outhouse)
There is an art to proper outhouse care, one should never put Tp in the hole, Lime cuts down on smells, leave the door open just a little to promote ventelation and regularly move the outhouse to a new hole. That last one is the issue we are having, we moved back into the cabin after the big freeze. this means that we did not have a chance to dig a new hole so we have been useing the same hole that has been there for 6 years. After multipule sets of renters this is a stinky endever. We can't wait for spring for many reasons but this is a very important one.

                                                             (not my actual outhouse but it feels this bad a -15)