Update on chicken stuff

Almost as if on cue the weather switched on Sept. 1 and got colder.  Fortunately my sweet guy decided he wanted to spend his birthday insulating the chicken coop so they won't freeze this winter.

 About a month ago he put a ceiling in and over Labor Day weekend we went to Menard*s and got some sheeting and rolls of insulation. It's even been wired so that we can have a light on in the winter and even put in a small heater, if necessary.

 There used to be more perches but the girls decided that they only liked one so when the boxes and perches were re-installed it was decided to just keep one.  The girls hop up onto the nesting boxes and then hop up onto the perch.  

 We've also had these nesting boxes installed for a while.  There is some interest in the boxes but not much.  The babies have spent a few nights in there though.  I think it's because it's enclosed and when the four of them cram themselves in it stays pretty toasty.  Hard to believe that those little bodies generate so much heat.

Artsy photo of the coop

 Probably about a week after we got the babies we knew we couldn't keep them in the house for very long.  Being the capable man that he is, my DH build a "nursing/brooder" coop for the babies.  He did it without any plans and had it done under eight hours. He is so smart that way.  I love how he can think something and make it come to life.

Here are the babies jumping out of the pen after being let out when we get home from work and school.  All the chickens free range together in the evenings and the weekends now.  They still haven't formed a cohesive group but they are getting used to each other.  Since it's starting to get colder out at nights we've been having the babies sleep in the coop. But putting them in their pen during the day.  The big girls still chase and harass the little girls and I don't think they can be enclosed together just yet. 

We are pumped that we will have this for next spring when we get a new group of chicks. 

 My guy built this almost all from scraps we had around the house from building the big coop and pen.

Here's an inside view of the coop part.  Yup, we put windows in on the sides.  The babies spend some time in there during the day.  They even have a perch to sit on. 

I'm debating on whether the coop part should be painted to match the big coop, which matches the exterior color of the house.  Yes, we are cute that way. 



Beets were planted in these two containers and they didn't really do anything.  I'm sure it's because of the cooler temps we had this year.  So we let the chickens have at the foliage. They loved it.

 Thankfully, the chickens have no interest in the lone two tomatoes we have.

They would rather eat the moss off the birch in the back yard. 

Weekend project

A few weeks ago my guy was able to get some kitchen cabinets that were in need of some TLC and rehab work.  This week the cabinets were delivered to the homestead and this weekend my DH set them up in the garage.

Don't they look great?  Now my guy has got himself a work bench, a place for tools, storage space and a place for processing any deer that may be harvest this year and the years down the road.

We purchased the counter this weekend at Menard's for a great price and he installed this a.m.

The cabinets completely change the personality of the garage. It's a bit brighter and the garage doesn't feel as cluttered as it used to. 

Just like that, summer is over (Or, school is back in session)

My son started the new school year Tuesday this week. My little man is now in third grade.  That just seems so surreal.  *I* have a third grader.  Before I know it, he'll be driving. (yikes).

Tuesday started with a power outage. We woke at 5 a.m. and I thought a light was burned out until my DH said that all the power was out.  I told him "This is not a good start to the first day of school"  Thankfully, the local power company found the problem within an hour of us waking up.  One of the power company's trucks was going up and down the road, flashing their spot light.  I can only assume they found the "issue" on the power pole across the road from us, in the neighbor's yard.
 

First day of school 2013.  Look at that smile!

Despite any protests that my son may have put up, I think he really was eager to get back to school and some sort of schedule. We are four days in and he still seems eager to get up and get going.   He's also on the other side of the elementary school and it has thrown me each time I've gone to the school.

This summer flew by.  I feel like there was so much stuff that I wanted to do.  But for one reason or another, it didn't happen.  I was certainly busy enough, especially the last few weeks with all the blackberry picking. I really should take a picture of the blackberry jam jars together.  I think we still have over 100 jars.  I still have so many pictures of things that I want to share on the blog. And memories, but now that so many things have past I worry that half of it won't make sense. ... Like when we had family our for a picnic and we all had such a good time.  Oh well ... This just shows me that my life is "full" not necessarily "busy" and that I'm out actually doing something instead of life passing me by.

The weather has really cooled down.  Though I guess we are in for a hot one today.  But I think that for the most part, we are on the cool down til winter.  The county next to me already had a frost advisory.  All in all, it's been a cold summer.  I do see some color in the trees already.

Canning season is upon us (and jerky making)

The family has spent the last week or so berry picking. We've got a few nice patches on our property and we found a few nice patches elsewhere.

This weekend I dusted off one of the pressure canners and got busy.  But first, I got a new kitchen gadget.  An OXO food mill.  I couldn't wait to try it out. I kept the blackberries and raspberries in the fridge and kept my fingers crossed that the food mill would arrive on Saturday. Thankfully it did because I'm not sure the berries would have lasted much longer. 

Long story short, I really like the food mill.  I can't believe I waited as long as I did get to get one.

Anywho, I had two VERY FULL gallon-sized buckets of berries in the fridge and I got to work on them.  

iPod photo of before-milled and after-milled blackberries.

Canning jam was a bit of an adventure this year.  For whatever reason my jam wasn't setting up at all.  The jam looked like I hadn't added any pectin to it.  But a rebatching (or two) took care of the problem.  My Tattler lids really saved the day since I could just rewash them and use them again.  I use a mixture of Tattlers and single use lids.

 

My son counted all the jars that had processed and the final number of all the jars of jam I've done this year was in the 70s.   I have never made that much jam in one season.  I think I got a little crazy with the "free berries".  This picture doesn't have all the jars showing.

 Isn't it pretty?  I just love the jewel tones that jam has.

In other news.  I talked to my husband about making beef jerky.  He was intrigued by the idea and started doing a bit of research online.

We have a smoker (or two, ... maybe three. Okay at one time, it was four) and he put seasoned meat on the smoker for one or two hours, to get that wonderful, yummy, delicious *drool* smoked flavor and he finished it off by drying it out on the grill.

For making jerky for the first time, he hit a home run with the flavoring.  Oh! It is wonderful. He already got a request from someone to make more.

There is a local place that has a meat counter that includes smoked foods.  Their jerky is nothing compared to what my DH made this weekend. 

This weekend after the jerky was made my son ended up eating about 1.5 lbs of it. Which is amazing to me.



 

Berry picking!

Last night we went blackberry picking for the first time. Um, wow.  There were so many berries

Just look!  And this was just the first wave of berries.  We found an area that is just thick with blackberries.  I'm surprised -- we were the first ones to pick.  Though when we first got there we thought all the berries had been picked.

So many ripe berries on the canes that they were practically on the ground. You could pick all the berries you saw, then lift up the bush and there would be that many berries just hanging below the leaves.

Here's my son with half of what was picked in about 1.5 hours. You can't see it, but his legs got scratched up quite a bit. But the thorns and pickers really didn't stop him from charging into the brambles.
 

 

We ended up with more than 4 pounds of blackberries.  The bright red berries are raspberries that we picked while on our way home. The berries were SO ripe. You just had to look at them and they fell off the bush. 

Tonight there is plans to make some jam. It will be my first time making blackberry jam. I just may have to make some bread to go with it.


 

We lost another one :-(

Saturday DH noticed that our wee-est baby chick wasn't looking so great.  One of her wings was hanging low and she looked sad.


We got her back into the house and set her up in a space where she could be alone while we monitored her. 

Crappy ipod photo of Junior

She exhibited symptoms that were very similar to Little Red before she left our homestead.

I contacted some online friends and they offered ideas.  We ran to town and got some antibiotics to put in the water for ALL the chickens.  Just to be safe.

Saturday night all Junior was doing was sleeping.  She feel asleep on the plastic lid that had food for her.  She had no interest in drinking.  But we were determined to give her a chance to pull through.

Before going to bed I had my son hold her and he whispered endearments to her.  But 10 p.m. she was barely moving.  I didn't expect her to last through the night.

Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013, our sweet little junior, with her punk rocker hair, went to heaven to be with Little Red.

I handled this one much better than the other farewells.  It still stinks though.   My DS thought Junior was back in the coop until last night.  You could see his heart break as it sunk in. 

I told my DH this weekend that I didn't think I ever want to purchase chickens from a private party again. Not only do we have this unknown (to us) illness that could potentially kill all the babies, but I do worry that it's something that could somehow get to the big girls.  The two groups really haven't been together.

Berry picking

 A week or so ago we went wild blueberry picking and then strawberry picking at a local berry farm, and then I made jam. 

This was just the first two batches that came out of the water bath.  I think I wound up with 16 jars of jam, total.  Maybe 20. ... It was a lot and it's all delicious. I have to keep my son from eating the blueberry jam by the spoonful.


Last night we decided to go check out the blueberry patch.  We weren't really expecting to find much. We were convinced the wild life had found the berries and there wouldn't be anything left, but we wanted to see how the patch was faring and make mental notes for next year.

Wow!  There was a TON of blueberries. The picture above is berries from 10 seconds of picking on one plant. To bad we didn't bring buckets.  We will know better for next time.

This was after a picking on another plant for a few seconds.  We found the patch early and picked early, never dreaming that the patch would pretty much be left alone. You could tell that a bear had been in the area but it had gone after an anthill instead of eating the berries.

The boy did NOT want to leave the patch.  He was really enjoying eating all the berries off the plants. 

Then we headed down the road and came to a little clearing. The original reason for stopping is that my dh thought that there would be a view of the main river in our area. 

No such luck, but it was still a nice view.

DH meandered around and found a raspberry patch.  Yum!  I had no idea the raspberries were ready.

The patch went on for quite a ways.  The berries were quite sweet.

Now we just got to keep our eyes open for the blackberries.  I'm really excited for those.  We have several blackberry patches on the property.  Just got to get them before the wildlife does.  I'm eager to try my hand at some blackberry jam.