Homegrown & Homemade
We’ll call this one a “learning experience.” (I generally hate those, by the way) If you’re wondering how to sell the wood from an old barn, if your old barn wood is worth any money, and how to handle the process… I hope you can learn from our experience. That is to say, selling our old 1800s barn turned out to be a pretty terrible …
Little Henny was one of our original chickens, she was on the homestead for three years with us. The name “Henny” is because we had five Buff Orpingtons who I couldn’t tell apart at first, so they were all called “Hennys.” As they got older and developed personalities they got additional descriptors… Little Henny was the smallest of the bunch. We’re wildly creative. Little Henny had a …
Living in the country on an old property with a big barn comes with a few inherent resources- like cats. People drop their unwanted pets outside of town, and cats seem to come and go, using our big vacant barn as shelter and a smorgasbord of rodents. I knew this was going to be hard for me. And I’ve held strong! I’ve been so good! …
I never would have guessed that I’d turn into a “chicken lady,” you know… one of those. I own chicken pot holders, and I talk to the hens like they’re real people. I’m full-blown Chicken Lady. Crazy Chicken Lady. Or as I prefer to call myself: “Chicken Enthusiast.” Before getting chickens, I had no idea that they were so full of personality, including many facial expressions and legitimate …
A word with many different definitions: homestead. Simply put, to us it means a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. It means growing, raising, and producing as much as we can for our own needs. But why? Oh why would someone want to live like this? We’ve asked ourselves this question on more than one occasion… like when we’re lugging buckets of water through two feet of snow and thirty below zero …
If you’d like to hear about life on the homestead, our crazy antics, and a story with a happy ending about a duck and her babies, well then- you’ll like this. And if you are thinking of putting some baby ducklings under a broody duck and wondering if that will work and how that might look- then this one’s for you! I’ve also included the …
Anyone who’s had a dog or cat would tell you that they definitely have feelings. Quinn exhibits shamefulness when he’s been caught sleeping on the bed, and sheer joy when Karl comes home from work. And the cat… well, he gives me the sourest look of anger and betrayal anytime I return from an overnight trip. But a chicken? A little peanut-brained bird has feelings? Oh, …
If you’ve followed my chicken journal you know that this past spring we got 20 Red Rangers to raise as meat birds. A handful of them developed leg problems when they were younger, and right about when we moved them from the house brooder into their outside coop, two of them developed a substantial limp. They could barely walk. Being hurt, they were low on the totem pole …
A couple weekends ago we celebrated the spring season with Karl’s family. His Grandparents came over to the big city from their small farming town a couple hours away. As usual we had a meal and talked farming with Grandpa. No one can talk farming like an 85-year-old farmer! (That’s him, above in the picture.) Grandma and Grandpa are in their 80s and still farming. Every building …
You’ve heard “busy as a bee;” you’ve probably even said it! But do you know how busy that really is? We will be first time bee-owners in just a few short weeks. I helped my dad raise bees when I was younger, but this is the first time I will be the head-beekeeper. The queen bee, if you will. I always knew that bees were pretty cool, …
