The Boys are Here!

Well, the newest additions to our little farm are here! The boys came yesterday and are all installed in their new (temporary) corral. They had an hour and a half trek from their old home to ours and they seem to have made the trip very well. Here they are still in the horse trailer, unsure of how happy they are to get out into the unknown.

We let them stay out in the yard for a while to acclimate to their new surroundings. It's probably colder here than where they were born so we have them in a temporary area until we can get them into the barn. The meat chickens are still in that area of the barn so the boys had to wait another week to get into their new digs. We are also going to change up the barnyard a bit to accommodate both donkeys and pygmy goats. They can't live together as the donkeys play rougher than goats do.

So far my nieces and our granddaughter have come to see them and seem to be pretty excited. We did not let them in with the donkeys yet but as time goes on we will introduce them and all should be great. No need to traumatize the poor boys anymore than they have already suffered. When they are comfortable with the new digs, we will let the kids touch them.  Until then, the boys get a reprieve!

My New Favorite

I have a brand new favorite in my life. Ok, so it's a brand new favorite in my 'kitchen life'. The chicken, goat or donkey life has nothing to do with this. Except on page 155. The chickens would most certainly take exception with page 155. I won't show it to them. They are on a need to know basis and they just don't need to know about fried chicken just yet.

I love cookbooks. This is utterly amazing even to me because I don't really like to cook. I cook but I just don't enjoy it. Maybe when I have a new and pretty kitchen I will like it again but for now that's on hold. But I love, love, love this fun cookbook. The Pioneer Woman Cooks is a gem as far as practicality goes. I like to know that what I cook will likely be eaten. I would even go as far as to say I would also like them to like it. Is that asking too much? Thank you, I didn't think so either.

Ree Drummond, the author is a great photographer and her writing is well worth reading. I know, who actually reads a cook book, right? Well I did. Start to finish and I smiled through almost all of it.The rest made me laugh out loud. My husband thinks I have officially gone around the bend. He may be right.

A friend directed me towards the Pioneer Woman blog earlier this year and I visit often. It's fun to read and great to look at too. Plus it motivates me to cook, yikes..... did I just say that out loud?

I am so going to try this sometime this weekend. It looks very doable. 

The Pioneer Woman also has a recipe site now called Tasty Kitchen and it is great. It's just starting up but I can see how this will absolutely explode over the next year. It's all that and a bucket of bees. (Bees are my other new favorite but don't tell my husband yet. He thinks it's just a phase I am going through.)

So if you haven't had the chance to check out The Pioneer Woman Blog or her new cookbook yet, I suggest you do. It is well worth the trip and Ree did not pay me to say that. In fact, I seriously doubt she knows I am writing this or will ever find out for that matter. She seems busy.

To Live and Breathe a Garden

This past summer my husband's niece and her boyfriend scored a job as garden builders and keepers for a saw mill in Montana. This family owned mill wanted to provide farm fresh food to it's employees on a regular basis. The kids are very earth oriented and this was something they dove headlong into. The lived on-site and this was their job everyday all day long.

It gets colder earlier and stays cold later into the spring in Montana, so they concocted ways to extend the season on both ends to accommodate a variety of more tender veggies.

 

This photo shows the saw mill in the background. The scale of this garden must have been enormous. If they do it next year I may have to go check it out myself. You know I am intrigued by huge gardens.

Here is my mother-in-law, Vonda, and Tracey harvesting something out in the garden. Huge garden to weed.

I had a few rows of beans that were only 10 feet long. I cannot imagine picking beans when you have rows this long. Yikes, what an undertaking.

The number of unique and standard crops was staggering. The kids said that many folks that received the bounty from the harvest didn't know what a lot of it was.

They had drip irrigation which made water conservation much easier. Jesse, Tracy's boyfriend, has done some large scale gardening in the past. These kids are only in their early twenties, it took me till my thirties to even have a grasp of some of the things they did this summer.

They obviously had a successful season. The garden grew with amazing results and I must say I am impressed. It's hard to impress me and they certainly did. If they do it again, I am going to see.

A Major Milestone!

Today marks a major milestone on our little farm. We got our first egg! This means many things to me. First, it means I am not a failure at chicken rearing. That's a huge relief! Second, it means that my chickens are progressing as planned and that winter is not going to impede their ability to earn their keep. And third, homegrown breakfast is right around the corner. I am so excited. This picture shows the freshly layed egg in front of a fake egg placed there to teach them where to lay.

I have absolutely no idea who layed the first egg. It could be one of many. About half of the girls show signs of being ready and only one has been singing the 'egg' song that I have heard. They are 21 weeks old today.

I honestly believe it to be this one or one who looks just like her. The Black Austalorps have been the first to vocalize their rediness!

It could also be one of the Barred Rocks, they seem to show the most interest in the nesting boxes. Maybe I need a nursery camera in the hen house to tell me for sure. But that would be what a chicken crazy person would do.  I am not ready for you all to know that about me just yet.

Isn't it a pretty little thing? Perfect, if not a touch on the petite side. But I can't expect huge ones from a brand new layer can I? Poor girl, this must have been startling. I would freak if I all of the sudden layed an egg.

Natural Pest Control

Not three weeks ago we had a day where it was 94F in the afternoon and 34F the next morning. The bugs and critters never know what to think when it happens overnight like that. Everything goes into survival mode and anything can happen.

Here is my newest form of bug control. These ladies can eat their weight in bugs everyday. And tomatoes, but that is another story. I love to watch them forage for good stuff to eat. They eat weed seeds, and probably anything I plant in seed form in the spring. We will have to see how that goes. I may need to fence them out of certain areas.  But for bugs they have been amazing. We finally let them out to free range when they were 11 weeks old and fortunately that has worked well for us. When we finally have eggs they ought to be fantastic and the color of gold.

Having had such crazy and extreme changes in weather has meant gross things like gnats hatched out again when the weather went from 27F to 60F. I would have rather had 40F and kept the gnats at bay. Hard to be outside cleaning things up when you breath those gross little things in. But the chickens have found them and are doing their best to get rid of  them. The gnats coat the trunks of certain trees in my yard and the girls have figured out which ones. Thank goodness. Prizes for the chick who eats the most.

This is not the best picture but you can see strings of the gnats hanging from it. The bark is completely covered in blue bottle gnats and it looks like the tree is crawling. Once is freezes solid and stays that way for a few days again this will all be over. Sad to say I am ready for it to freeze again. Yuck!

Inspired

Some little something has me so intrigued with beekeeping. Leah, over at The Burbs and the Bees is a beekeeper and I can say with all honesty that she motivates me even more to want to do this. My husband thinks I am nuts. "Just call the local beekeeping company and see if they will store some on our property. There won't be any work on our part that way." Well it's the work aspect that intrigues me so. I want to inspect the hive and see the bees busily at work, improving my environment. Did you know having a backyard beeyard will help to keep this species healthier and intact. They are in trouble in the USA and many crops depend solely on honey bees to polinate the fields. Your food needs them. My food needs them. They will also help my garden look even better next year.

I am 2/3 of the way through the book in the photo and it is nearly a 'can't put down' kind of book for me. I actually thought reading it would quell my curiosity but it has only made it more profound. More to come as my winter research continues. I need to finish this book so I can read the Raising Mini Donkeys book that came in the mail yesterday. Three more weeks until the boys come to their new home! Can't wait.

UPink Vineyard, I want one at my house!

On Monday I drove to a UPick Vineyard about one hour south of me. What a cool place. For years I wondered where it was and this year I did something about it. I found the place!

This vineyard has been here since the 70's and is very nicely established. The vines are beautifully trellised and well taken care of. This particular vineyard grows Concord grapes.

One can come here to pick anytime during daylight hours and it truly is a serve yourself place.

There are two wagons complete with tall flag to ease finding them. You take your own buckets and pick until your heart's content. Two five gallon buckets equals one bushel. One bushel equals $5. You just mail them the check for what ever you picked. What a great example of trust in folks they don't even know. I seriously doubt that the grape picking variety will stiff them but you never know.

I had actually intended to pick two bushels worth to make grape juice. I got bored one bushel in.

So I picked just the two buckets worth I had and called it a day. Then the real work began at home. I have one bucket juiced and canned and the other bucket will be done tonight. It is amazing how crazy sweet these grapes are. I cringe to add sugar to the recipe the from my canning guide so I cut it way down. Good stuff, and as fresh as it gets.