Chicken Sketches!!!

And my husband says that I am the crazy chicken lady.... They are showing up in his sketches :)

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 Quirky 

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My favorite sketch :)

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Snowy fun!!!

Chickens and ducks in the snow... they decided they would come out from under the cover for awhile since we had some more Christmas week goodies for them...

My dog thinks it is snowing just for him...will literally jump in the air trying to catch the flakes....

Why yes sledding is for dogs too

Hope you all had a warm and wonderful Saturday!!! 

Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas!!!!

The cats are all settled in, and we actually had a white Christmas this year.

The girls had a great time decorating the tree this year... next year my goal is to make most of our ornaments...
This is the first year we have had a real tree since the girls were old enough to remember.  We certainly had an adventure the day we went to pick it up.  Started with our Van not wanting to start, locking both of our keys, phone, and dog in the van while at the tree farm.  We were in a rural area and decided the cheapest route would be to break the window.  Never realized how hard it actually was to break a window in a car, which actually made me feel good about something.  Cleaned up our mess at the lot and the owners were so very kind in lending us a shop vac to clean up the grass and the car... in the very end the van wouldn't start again and we needed a jump.  After the cold ride home we finally made it...Was an interesting, memorable story to say the least, but look how pretty our little tree turned out :)

Pinterest inspired fun with my sister :)

 

House all done up...

 

Happy puppy!!!

Bucket List!!!

Baby it's cold outside~~~

I am so very excited for tomorrow
I will be going to fulfill one of my bucket list tasks!!  I am going to learn to spin on a spinning wheel.  I have always been intrigued--  Is something I always thought looked relaxing. -- Is something I can hopefully do that may lead to more animals on my little homestead.  I am envisioning angora rabbits and sheep>>>> Oh how I love to daydream!!!! Wishing for a little farmette somewhere.... wishing for more time at home...someday....someday.... It is good to have goals!!!

Some days there are no words for how I feel....the more I look at this world and what it is becoming, it saddens me.  While watching TV with my children briefly, every commercial was one wasteful, cheap, bizarre, toy or trinket that they should want and need.  You can tell that the materialistic Christmas in on it's way....I mean it is November, why celebrate Thanksgiving.  Christmas music is on the seasonal music channel, trees and decorations are in the stores (which I had seen some of those in stores the end of September this year), and the generic gift packs are out and ready to buy.  What happened to enjoying life one day at a time? Why can we not as a society slow down and enjoy the moments a little?  What happened to homemade and handmade Christmas's?  Where did the idea come about that you have to buy and have 20+ presents under the tree or spend X amount of money per person?  How do you go about teaching your children what Christmas is really about when there is all of this commercialism, and things that don't matter being hurled at them on a daily basis?  I am done with the questions that I can not answer... I have decided I am going to try to teach them how to be thankful for family and friends, to show love in ways as little as baking and decorating a cake together to show that you care.  I think we are going to try to have a homemade Christmas this year.  Time spent with the one's you love means so much more then some store bought dust collector, some of the best gifts I have ever received were the 1/2 hog for my freezer, a quilt my children helped make, and the gifts that you use on a routine basis, love my slippers, hats, scarves and camera, but in the end the best present that can be given is oneself. The best Holidays for me, are when the family gets together, we spend the day eating, talking, laughing, and playing games together!!! I hope that everyone can slow down enough to enjoy this holiday season and realize that all that "stuff" really is not important at all.

Random Rambles

Well officially cold here already today, looking through some of my pictures from the end of summer and thought I would share :) Missing the warmth already...

My amazing chicken hearder and ball fanatic

We had a praying Mantis breeding bush or something this year... this one liked to watch me while I was on the computer.  I am fairly certain that this was the year was a good year for these little ones, I had seen numerous on my house at one time.

My curious little americana, (my girls named her soda??)

happy little ducks swimming and bathing in the pool ;)

the girls just hanging out

thinking the funky egg in the middle may have been a duck egg (new layer)

my little old man, still catches presents for me occasionally

my daughters cat

 This little cat was a stray who came to our house and adopted us...she had 2 brothers with her that we found a home for, but they ended up being happy farm cats.  This little lady has bonded with my girls and the chickens.  She has brought me voles, mice, baby birds, assortment of wild birds including a humming bird, chipmunks and recently a squirrel.  She is a tiny little cat, and we wanted her to be an inside cat and hat her fixed and de-clawed in the front only.  She had other plans and loves to hunt.  Such a good girl and a great help with the critters that like to come and eat the chicken food.

obsessing about a ball :)

love my cone flowers and the critters that come to check them out.

Happy November 1st

Well we had a few fun happenings this last month, we had the hurricane Sandy blow through, thankfully we didn't have too hard of a time here and surprisingly did not even loose power which is unusual. Thankful that this area was not too badly effected, and praying for those that are still working on cleaning up in the parts of the country that were.  On the plus side this did force me to get the yard cleaned up earlier then normal.  

During Hurricane Sandy

The ducks were loving playing outside today in the puddles that Sandy made :)  

The chickens and dog did enjoy being out today as they all seemed to be having some Cabin fever issues.

We still have some girls molting also, which means that egg production is still not where I would like, we did get 6 eggs today, one of which was a duck egg. I am selling a dozen a week and have more people begging for eggs.  Once all the new girls start at it regularly we should be good, but it seems like it is taking forever for everyone to get it on board with the plan.  I do go out and have discussions with the girls about this and they just happily cluck back at me...I have even threatened that if they don't step up I will be forced to rename some of them potpie :)

No tail feathers, so my new name is fluff.

 One of the drawback of having the chickens is some of the little friends the food attracts.  We were putting the pool cover on and found this little mamma.  The cat thought they were very interesting also.

The other issues my girls seem to have is any time the back door opens and they are free-ranging they expect some kind of treat to appear for them.  This little girl thought she would just come in and see what I could give her in the house :)

Happy Almost October!!

I love this time of year!!! The crisp fall evenings, the changing of the landscape, digging out the sweatshirts...My favorite holiday!!! My husband would give you the traditions and origins of Halloween, I will just share a painting he did instead :)

My chickens have decreased on the egg laying, I keep trying to give them pep talks.  I think at least one of our hens from this year gave us her first eggs, but hoping they all get into the production system here too.  People are wanting eggs from me and we are not even keeping up with what we use.  The ducks should be starting to add to the egg collection here shortly also, but we are still waiting slightly impatiently.  Our gardens did not really do very well this year and we are trying to figure out what we need to do for them to improve next year.  Thinking that I am not going to bother with seeds this year and may just go to the local greenhouse and see what I find there for next year....

Went the http://www.motherearthnews.com/fair this weekend!! Had a great time!!! Learned a lot!! And I got to personally meet Jenna Woginrich http://coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com/!! She is such an inspiration! My husband was even mentioned in her talk that she gave at the fair since he told her that she was the cause of so much hard work on his part.  (due to the chick days book and me going slightly chicken crazy :)  Was a great weekend, thinking a piglet and meat rabbits are in the not to distant future.

Potatoes in a Tire :)

Have been talking to lots of people about gardens lately.  Love listening to others' ideas of what grows well here and there.  Hubby told me about a family that grows his potatoes in tire stacks... Lots of harvest, vertical gardening, and recycling.. SOLD... not to mention lots of FREE tires for the picking.  Found some other ideas on Pinterest also, for vertical potatoes with chicken wire, if this doesn't work, will try that next year...

Well let's see if this really works.

I put some straw down, then added tire, red potatoes and  dirt, compost and mushroom soil about 2 weeks ago!!! Today I have some plants starting :)

Next step is to keep adding tires and dirt after these grow up a bit more, will be adding another tire soon I think...

The Peeps and Ducks Have Arrived!!!! May 22-23 2012!!

 We have been pretty busy around here... preparing for the ducklings and peeps that have finally arrived... Have been working in the gardens some too, not to mention working full time.  My wish is that I could go part time and have more time at home to do this homesteading thing :) Anyway I digress...

Ducks are here and wow they are so darn cute!!! 

We got them from http://meyerhatchery.com/ 2 Khaki Campbell Runner Ducks and 2 Swedish Blue Ducks.  We ordered a straight run and are hoping to have both a boy and a girl of each, but time will tell :)  They came in a little white shipping box with a little heating pad.  We received the call from the post office at 7:00am saying there is a little peeping box here for you :) Opened them up and they looked like the trip went well.  Made sure they found the water and food and they started gobbling it up as fast as they could.  Unfortunately I had to leave for work instead of staying home to play with them.  As soon as I got home though my girls and I got them out to play in the yard for a short time before putting them back under the heating lamp in the brooder.

Peeps are here!!! {they were actually were here first-- but super excited about the ducks} 

16 peeps and 4 ducklings... have you ever seen such a cute pile of fluff :) 

We got our peeps on Tuesday... felt like forever since we had ordered in March... but sooo worth the wait. We ordered the Brown Egg Layer Assortment all Pullets, also because my husband could not resist the Golden Laced Wyandottes we ended up with some of them also.  I know 16 seems like a lot of chickens to add (especially since I recently just added in March-- darn feed stores and cute little fluff balls of peeping), but I assure you we are not keeping them all.

..... You see this chicken addiction I have is catching :)  I got my brother in law into it (who is getting some of these peeps)...not to mention I helped convince another friend that she could not live with out some too. (I think she now has 20+ all different kinds, none of them are older then 3 months) We also helped build a coop for a co-workers mother, (she has 5 or 6 I think, she got older pullets and just started getting her first eggs last week or so) so that is 3 in just one year of me having my chickens... I also know of at least 2 more that have added a flock to their backyards that I am friends with on facebook... I am not going to take the credit for them.....BUT I had been posting cute fluffy peep and chicken butts for a year on there :)  Just saying :)  I caught my addiction from a friend/family member, we were asking lots of questions and my children were enthralled with with their flock... was something I had thought about for awhile but finally convinced hubby that we just had to do it...so many positives...not many negatives.

Anyway now we are trying to figure out what breeds of chickens we have... figured out the Wyandottes, we are pretty sure... we think we know what at least one of the other breeds are....but again time will tell, as their little feathers continue to grow?  Anyone want to help guess?

What breed are we??

So with all of these chickens we had to make an extension on the coop and run...we were definatly not set up for all of these birds... 

The coop and run 2011.. first chickens :)

The coop and run extension in progress...

Such a pretty gate... 2012...

Sadly we lost our first chicken...May 21st... we didn't get the top on as soon as we were hoping and something took one of our March babies... it was the Jersey Giant Hen :(

Needless to say the top is now on, but I didn't get any pictures yet because we still have to make it look pretty.

Duck run isn't started yet, but hope to work on that next weekend, they will not be out there for at least a month we are thinking.

The ART Part :)

The Art Part !!

My husband is an artist, his work inspires me to be creative too.  He is the reason I needed to start raising chickens :)

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This is one of my favorites...makes me think of a summer day :)

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Dandi-

-why would people be so offended these are in their yard--reclassify them as flowers and you are set!!

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One of the local feed stores :)

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He certainly has a sense of humor...

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Pipes and drum

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Spring House in the snow

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Tools of the trade

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Hidden picture painting-- called Zombie~Too Much TV

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This old Truck - prior to matting and framing

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Quilt on a line

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These are so much better in person--as my photography skills are certainly lacking when it comes to photographing paintings...but it gives you an idea of how great his work is..and makes them not worth taking his images :)