Because You Can't Spell Slaughter Without Laughter

Now, I certainly don't want to make light of our Saturday chore, but I think the coping method of our Crew is to share in laughter. A couple Saturdays ago, was Slaughter Day - our Cornish hens had reached the 8 week mark and it was time, although we all were kinda both excited and dreading the day. Remember, we weren't raised on a farm, we don't hunt (yet?), we are kind, loving souls and don't go around killing things for the fun of it. We raised these chickens for the past 8 weeks, making sure to not get attached - but you see them grow from sweet baby chicks to these chunky, meaty creatures and know it is time to make them into dinner. We eat meat. We don't have any plans to stop eating meat. Now, we all know where our meat comes from, how it grows, and how it dies. Our birds were treated very well - with both inside and outside room to roam. We treated them kindly. We offered them plenty of food and water and even pet them occasionally. They weren't raised under terrible conditions, shoulder to shoulder, cruelly thrown about or stepped on. They didn't have to live a terrible life, just to die a terrible death. We respect these birds and are thankful that they gave their lives to feed our family.
We offered up for all of our friends and family to come and learn about the experience with us - we did have a few takers. My cousin, Rhett, is always down for the experience, my friend, Alysia and the family of one of Drake's friends came out. We ended up slaughtering 8 of the 10 birds, we still have two that had a bit of a reprieve and will need to be slaughtered soon.
WARNING :: Here is where I get a little more descriptive and the photos will start - so if you are sensitive to or offended by this process, please stop reading this post and come back for the next one.

We had planned on starting the process at 1:30 on Saturday, but as usual, crazy things happen around here and we just cannot get started when we expect (this time..Cora got a concussion after crashing on her bicycle - she's ok, but it was scary and then one of the wheels started to come off our van - WHILE I WAS DRIVING - fortunately, I pulled to the side before anything bad happened and the tire company that recently put all new tires on our van helped us out - with these things happening during the week, it set the rest of the week, including slaughtering day, off a bit. We got to the house (after picking up some supplies and snack food) around 2:00-2:30 and our guests had already arrived. We still needed to put together some sort of contraption to hold the chickens during the process - so Mark built an amazing wood structure that was rectangular on the top - with a square on each end to hold a cone. He attached legs to get it off the ground. It was perfect.

I really don't like pictures of me, especially from the back, but hey, this chicken slaughtering day and I had to pose fancy. Our dog, Blue, was interested in the whole process. Our can see the contraption in the background.

Here's Mark and me with the slaughter set up. Yes, we used traffic cones. There are kill cones, that are a little spendy and since we weren't sure that this was a process that we wanted to continue with, we didn't want to invest too much money. We heard that traffic cones are sometimes used - so we tried it out and are very happy we did that. The cost was minimal.

Here's me - picking out our first bird.

Got her!

Handing the bird off to Mark.

Here's Mark, holding the chicken upside - it makes it docile and chill.

Here's Mark, Rhett, Drake and Blue - trying to figure out if the cone is short enough for the head to come down through. We had to cut a portion of the cone off, since it was too deep - see the part Mark has in his right hand?

We decided to move the structure to the back of our property - 1) so we didn't have blood splattered all over our driveway and 2) we wanted to make sure that we were tucked back a bit and didn't freak out our neighbors too much (although, I really don't think it would have been too much of a big deal for them).

Here are the turkeys - they didn't get slaughtered, but they sure were interested in what was going on.

Here's Mark making the first cut. It broke his heart a little bit - he felt bad about taking the life of the chicken. I'm extremely proud of him.

The chicken tucked back in for a second, while the blood began to flow out. We thought that it would take a while for it to bleed out, but it was over really very quickly. There was some thrashing, but due to being in the cone it was minimized to just twitching around. It was sad. The kids said that it wasn't as bad as they thought it would be - but that they didn't like it. I explained to them that none of us LIKE it and if they did like it, I'd be worried. This is something done out of necessity, not enjoyment.

Still draining out a bit. We placed the 5 gallon buckets underneath the birds to catch the blood

When the first bird was cut, it pooped itself and since it was upside down, the poop shot out of its bottom and landed on Mark's leg. Poor Mark, paybacks are hell.

I had read that if you hose off the birds, after they are drained out and before you scald them - it cuts down on the smell.

Mark got two birds at one time. Does that mean we are farmers now?

Spraying down the birds.

Do you like the way my headband matches my gloves...I'm a classy farmer. The kids are watching and learning while I defeather - Blue is offering her "assistance" with the birds. Behind me, we had a propane two-burner stove, with a pot of scalding water on it. We would dunk the birds in and swirl them around - before bringing them to the table for defeathering.

More defeathering.

Here's the propane set up. This was such a nice set up.

Drake swirling a bird in the water. He was probably the most involved child (go figure, that's my Drake). He also chopped off a head.

Like I said, not a fan of pictures of me...but this shows David, Kait's boyfriend helping too.

David pulling out the guts.

I have more photos on Mark's phone and will load them with the next post. But after the 8 birds were slaughtered and gutted, my friend Alysia went inside and washed them all down. She got them bagged and in the cooler for us. We let the birds rest for a couple days, on ice. Some went into the freezer after that and we ate two almost immediately. We roasted them with some potatoes....and I realized that chicken actually has flavor. It was delicious and we are already ready to place our next order....

A little bit of this and a little bit of that.

We've been spending so much time living and doing around here that I find it hard to sit down and write a proper post. I've been keeping close friends and family in the know on Facebook, but I need to take the time to document everything that has been happening around here. So I thought I'd go through each of our projects for an update.

:: The Barn
Our barn was cleaned out earlier in the Spring, as I mentioned in another post. During that time, we realized just how nasty the dairy goat pen kept getting. With the addition of the four kids this year, we just ran out of room quickly. With a little maneuvering, we opened up the space for them and nearly doubled their square-footage. Originally, there was an open pen that we kept all of our misc items in....the feed bins, hay cart, cat food for the barn cats etc. But, we were able to move some of the wood around and find new homes for those misc. items and give the goat the space that they need. I hope that soon we'll be able to get the siding done on the barn and get it painted - they we can move on with that. There are other projects involving the barn area - like putting an awning on the back for the animals when it is too sunny and building a hay bale holder etc. But, we're making it work for now.

:: Milking
We've decided it is finally time to start weaning the kids off of Mabel (and maybe Flora, but her udders seems so small, I'm not sure that she'll be worth the time to milk). I milked Mabel out for the first time tonight - we didn't get hardly any milk from her, but considering that the kids had been on her all day, I wasn't surprised. I believe that the plan is to keep the kids separate from from Mabel (and Flora?) at night by sliding a fence panel across their pen, now that they have that extra space to spread out. We'll start with morning milkings - that way she can build up all night, get milked out in the morning and be with the kids all day/evening. Hopefully they'll end up weaning themselves and we'll be able to get more milk.


:: Turkeys
Oh my hilarious, goofball turkeys...We heard SO many rumors about raising turkeys when we got them and I'm going to KNOCK ON WOOD when I say this - but so far, we've only really liked having them around. They aren't hard to take care of - food, water, grit and space. If we are going to be out and about doing yard work etc., we've just been letting the turkeys wander around the yard. They don't seem to want to run/fly away - the four of them typically stay together, constantly cooing and gobbling deciding which has the best rock/bug/blade of grass. They seem to get nervous if they are out and don't know where one of the humans is - if we go up on the porch, they'll make their way up, if we walk around back, next thing we know they are back there hunting and pecking. I believe that we have three males (both blue slates and one red bourbon) and the other red bourbon is a female (I think)...in all my infinite turkey wisdom. LOL But I've seen the three spread their wings, strutting around all bad-ass...and the one doesn't seem to do that. I don't know, I guess time will tell. The plan is keep a male/female breeding pair (hopefully the red and a blue) and have the others for Thanksgiving/Christmas, depending upon their size.

:: Chickens
Our chickens hatched seven weeks ago today - this means that D-day is nearly here for the meat birds. They are ginormous and plump, you can feel when you pick them up that your fingers sink into their tender meat. We've decided that Saturday (June 1) is THE day. We've invited people over, if they'd like to be a part of our learning experience. We've got a couple kill cones (inverted traffic cones), buckets to catch the blood - we'll need to sharpen our knives (or purchase a couple of other good butchering knives). I worry about this day. I know it needs to happen. I understand that this is why we purchased these birds. I think that it's important to go through this process. I won't MAKE the kids be there, but if they'd like to be there, I will let them. Death is a part of life.
We keep expanding their outside space - I don't feel as comfortable letting all of them wander the yard - as we do the turkeys. They move slower, the cats could likely get the one up on them - unlike the turkeys who like to temp cats and then fan out their feathers in a "FEAR ME" like fashion...and they do fear them. LOL This weekend - we built actual fence panels that we can add to as needed to make more space. I'm really happy with how they are turning out.

:: Mowing the lawn
This sounds like such a simple task, right? Well, except when you are on over an acre, your riding mower hits a rock and breaks and you are left with three mediocre push mowers...OH and haven't mowed the back yard yet this year. UGH. We've only mowed the front lawn once this year and it seems like the yard grew super fast with the rainy Spring we've been having. It's also hard to carve out so much time - with all of our other projects. We even debated hiring a landscape crew to come in and mow for us. But no, we just did it! We mowed the front, the sides, the back - we weeded a bunch of the back area (a MAJOR feat). The yard looks so nice now. We just have to keep it up.

:: Wildlife
While we were mowing, we actually came across a couple of neat things - the first was a salamander, it was so neat, I picked it up and let each of the kids hold it, until it dropped to the ground and scurried off. Then, while I was mowing the front, near the street, I saw a garter snake wiggling back and forth in front of me trying to get away from my mower. I yelled for Mark and he picked it up to show the kids - we all got to hold it (so cool!!!) - later, Mark found another garter snake, but this one wasn't as friendly. He didn't get held.
Drake also found a owl pellet out in the field - that kid must have hawk eyes, because I don't think I would have ever found something like that against a backdrop of field dirt. Soon we'll be dissecting it to see if we can determine what the owl ate. What a great learning experience that Drake has offered us. 

:: Shearing
Honestly, we should have already sheared our animals - well, at least right around Memorial Day, but it has been a hot couple of days (but thankfully a cool couple of nights) and I worried about our big wooly sheep. They haven't been sheared...ever, since they were babies last Spring. So they have a LOT of fiber on them - I often find them hanging in the shade or if it's real bad - they hang in the hallway of the barn, away from the sun. We've reached out to our shearer - but since we are small potatoes (and not much money) for them, we aren't the highest priority. He is currently in Kentucky and will be working us in once he is back in Ohio - hopefully that is REALLY soon. I'm anxious to see all of our animals sheared...the alpacas, angoras and sheep will all get done and we should be up to our ears in fiber to clean. That is SO exciting.

:: Bees
Oh, these bees. Right from the start there was the one hive that was doing significantly better than the other. The one on the left is our "bad hive" and the one on our right is the "good hive" - The good hive was going gangbusters - nice and strong, a healthy laying queen, filling out the brooder box - so much that we had to add another brooder box on top. They immediately took to the new box and started to build out. Unfortunately, the other hive...was queenless. :-( According to the leader of our beekeeping association, it appeared that our hive started to collapse a couple of weeks before we got it, queenless and very little brood and they sent it along anyway. Meaning that 50% of my hives were done. Since there wasn't even enough brood to make a new queen, the colony was getting ready to fully collapse. Don Popp, a local large scale beekeeper, came over to our house and helped us out. He brought us a new queen and five frames of brood and comb. The worry with that situation is that the existing bees would try to kill the new queen. We went out to take a look at her and to put another brood box on top (since, in theory, this hive should be much stronger and ready to spread their wings) - we found her, doing her thing, waddling around from frame to frame, alive and well. We went ahead and put the second brood box on and figured that they will fill it out when they need to. I'll be checking on them this week though, because their activity level seems much lower than that of the "good hive" - I think that this hive is just going to need more love than the other. For example, this morning, when I took Cora out to the bus, the "good hive" had a ton of bees flying around it and landing/taking off on the landing pad...and the "bad hive" had two. Grr...these hives...we're learning about this whole beekeeping thing...I hate to overthink all of it, but want to see good results, and want to take good care of the bees.

As you can see, we've got a lot going on. Below I'm posting a picture of our "good hive" and a picture of one of our turkeys...because that's where much of our focus has been lately. :-)

"Workin' for a Livin"

Oh! What is that? That bright light...it's hurting my eyes...It's the light at the end of our tunnel! On Friday, during a field trip with his class, Mark was offered a job! He is, if everything goes as planned, a Second Grade Teacher!!!! I'm so proud, excited, relieved, breathing easier, planning for our future and in love with my husband. We've had a tough road, Mark and I. We are madly in love, but it seems life likes to throw giant road blocks at us to see how we handle things. We've sent eachother through college, later in life, while raising five kids etc...after Mark's graduation, we weren't exactly sure where we'd end up and his career went on hold for a year, after that - the teaching careers just were extremely hard to come by. He's been working as a substitute and even going back to his previous employer to work temporarily this summer - to help support our family...but FINALLY, he will be working a full-time job, getting full-time pay, to add to my full-time pay and we'll finally be able to relax a bit. We'll be able to pay bills, complete projects and have money left over for saving and extras (...and maybe a vacation!?!?)...This is so incredible!!

 

Mark will be officially starting in the Fall. I love you, Mark!

Fresh Egg's Farm...Population 35,062

Well, it appears that, for now, the gang is all here. We've had our honeybees here for just over a week and they seem to be settling well. One hive is doing significantly better than the other. It does make me worried that we may have lost the queen in the one that isn't doing so well. Twice we've taken the frames out of the hives, one by one, searching for her and cleaning as we go - today we even took photos of the frames and some of the bees to show what we are seeing - I'll share those below. Just because we haven't seen her, doesn't mean that she isn't there - it just means that we haven't spotted her, that said, I don't notice much of a brood pattern either. Unfortunately we aren't going to be able to go to our beekeeping meeting this Thurs because we are going to Drake's concert (which is VERY fortunate) - so I think that to ease my mind, I'll write an email to our association leader and see if he has any input. If any of you keep bees and have any suggestions, that would be wonderful.

As first time beekeepers, everything is new to us. That said, this looks strange. Rather than each cell being individually capped, There is like a blanket of capping material.

Same frame as above - notice that lighter colored bee?? I don't know if that is normal or not...could it be a baby bee?

Same hive, different frame...notice anything? If you are a beekeeper, you'll likely notice that there isn't much brood (babies) - just a few scattered capped cells. AND there aren't many bees. I mean, there is a decent amount, it's just not loaded with bees (like some of the other frames from our other hive). I feel like this hive needs some help...I'm just not sure how to give it the boost that it needs. This is a question for our beekeeping veterans.

As we got closer to the center of the hive we saw more and more bees...but still did not compare to the other hive.

Here is a frame, from the same hive - more brood is on there, more bees too. Hopefully it just needs to build itself up a bit.

I love this picture - you can see capped cells, bees working and feeding the larva, see the white larva in there? Future honey makers...LOVE

Here is a picture from the second hive that is doing SO much better. The queen is in here...do you spot her? Hint :: she is golden in color...longer and thinner than the others...on the right of the picture, half way between the top and bottom.

Now, this is what I'm talking about! Look at all those bees. COVERING the frame. Go bees go!

It might be hard to tell, but this hive has already started to build out the cells on the frames we put in there. Love it. So strong.

Look at all of those bees, covering one of the frames that we put in there.

Hmmmm not sure if this photo does this justice - but you can see lots of different colors - yellows, oranges...so neat.

So the bees are kinda a big deal around here...but they just kinda do their thing. We check on them (and get stung by them...ouch! I got a stung on my head and Mark got one on his arm last time and another on his leg today)...but we let them be, unless they are in need of intervention. Hopefully, the hive that doesn't seem to be doing well will get stronger and we'll just reap the benefits of eating their honey.
There are still SO many other awesome things happening around here. Blossoms and gobbles...Spring is good.

Here is our first strawberry blossom - unfortunately, we needed to pull the blossoms off today, since these are new plants, we aren't supposed to let them grow until after June 1st. We are strawberry blossom killers.

...and with that, I'll leave you with a photo of our turkeys - Well, we now know that at least one of them is a Tom-turkey. Look at him strutting around, feathers all ruffled...and he gobbles REALLY loud. I love having them here...but look forward to eating them.

Springtime on the Farm

It's Springtime on the farm. Well, at least that is what the calendar says...and that's what my projects list says, but Mother Nature is still trying to figure out her next move. She seems so fickle lately. Winter is warm, then freezing, then maybe we'll have an early Spring, or maybe a late one. It is currently 61 degrees in the house. I refuse to turn on the heat, even if I did it wouldn't pop on, because we have it set at 60 degrees for the heat (yes, 60 - much higher than that and we'd be oil poor). Today is only supposed to hit somewhere in the 50s (we've had a few frost warnings this week - perfect timing for all my peach blossoms)...but this weekend is back in the mid-60s with rumors of the 70s by Monday...we shall see.
That said, our projects have hit the point where we just cannot wait for Mother Nature to make up her mind. It's definitely "go time" around here - hence the previous "overwhelmed" post. Last year, we had all of these grandiose plans about the farm and many went on the back burner. This year, we are trying to check off all of those boxes...and more. With so much time "doing" around here, I don't have much time for writing. So let me take some time to catch you up.

First, here is a picture of me and my partner in crime. Seems like many of our pictures are like this. Of us in our "comfy clothes" taking a silly picture of ourselves ("selfies").

See, here's another one. I love this picture of us for some reason.

Here's how gangsta we are. LOL

Teaching spinning at Mark's class.

So Mark has spent the past several weeks at two separate long term substitute teaching jobs. The first was for a first grade class, while the teacher was on maternity leave. After Sweet Pea was born, we decided to take her into the class and show the kids a baby angora/olberhasli cross and explain the reasons why we keep goats. Living in a more rural area - I knew that we'd have a lot of kids that had goats and knew why they had them (mostly meat, some for milk), but I didn't realize how many would say that they've never pet a baby goat before. Surprising. See the cat carrier over my shoulder? There's a baby goat in there! I can't believe Sweet Pea was so little that she comfortably fit in there. I brought some fiber with me and the kids watched me spin for a bit and we talked about why spin fiber and what we could make with the yarn. It was a really neat day.
Mark is now subbing for a second grade teacher, who is out for a knee surgery...and apparently retiring after the school year is over. Mark is in the process of interviewing for this (or possibly one of a few other positions that are opening at this school). He has made it to the second round of interviews - at this time he is supposed to prepare a lesson plan and the interviewers (including the principal and a couple existing teachers) will decide if he should be put into the role permanently. He is up against three other people (narrowed down from 600) - this is specifically for two second grade positions - so he has a 50/50 chance. I am SO hoping this works out. This would be the ideal position for him - second grade is a great age, the school is just 10-15 minutes from our house, it's a nice community school.
Since he has been in this class, we've brought in our baby chicks and Ethel (pictured below with Drake) and I've helped him work on his bulletin board (for Earth Day). I'm hoping that this level of attention to his sub-job will help push them on their decision.

Drake getting an Ethel snuggle - she is SUCH a SWEET goat. We just love her.

Here is a picture of Flora cleaning off her son, Herb. I just love this photo. So sweet, what a good mama.

So, we've been working on the compost pile. Since we moved here, we've just been creating this large compost pile (containing our kitchen scraps and barn clean outs) - thus far, it really has just been a big pile of (mostly) poo. Our set up made it difficult turn the pile and it kept sprawling across the yard and generally looked really bad. We are in the process of building large bins to contain the mess and make it easier to turn etc. In the photo above, you see that we have two bins built...the bins are 4 ft. wide, 4 ft. tall and 8 ft. deep. (and completely filled). The stuff on the right will be ready to go for next year's gardens (and even to fill in for this year). The stuff on the left is mostly from our big barn clean out of 2013. It will definitely need to bake for a while to get the waste to break down. What was really cool about the day that we were building and cleaning - we actually saw the smoke coming out of the pile! It's working! What I like about the photo above - if you can see it - I noticed it. But the one on the right, when you look at the bottom 2x4 rectangle in the front, it is definitely darker than the rectangle on the left. COMPOST!

We attended a hive building party at our beekeeper's association. Fortunately, we ended up being the only newbies that brought our hive components. We learned so much from these men. The man on the right, Alex, is a professor at Miami University and an entomologist...this man knows his bees (he's been keeping them since he was like 10 or 12 years old). The man on the left has been a beekeeper forever too.

Cora and Mommy painting hives together.

Cora is getting bored.

Look at those hive supers and brooder boxes - beautiful! I love the color we chose...I believe it is called Ocean Mist, it's very light blue with a slight green tint. We are going to paint grass blades and flowers on the bottom brooder with a "welcome" sign of some sort.

Our bees are scheduled to arrive today!!! So the night before last, we set up their area of the yard. An area just past the pasture, away from where we normally hang out and play. It an area about 7ft by 4 ft - we put down weed block, held down by rocks - eventually we will fill in the area with pea gravel and make it pretty and fancy. That will have to wait until next payday (or the following) - but for now, the bees will have their space and be comfortable and safe (we have concrete blocks out there to keep them off the ground). It will be interesting to watch them and what a great learning experience, for us and the kids...AND the benefit of fresh, extremely local honey. YUM. I'll post more pictures of the apiary area soon.(Hives are locked and loaded in the car - leaving in about an hour and a half)

Cora, Turkey Whisperer.

This kids on turkey watch.

The poultry additions are doing really well. The turkeys are getting big. They are beautiful and getting to be graceful. They coo whenever we are out in the laundry room with them. The 16 chicks are still in a large tote in our parlor. They are definitely outgrowing their space (as are the turkeys)...the meat birds are about three times the size of the layers - it is obvious what their purpose is in life. Now that they are growing so large, it's hard to realize that there is no turning back. I'm not attached to these birds, as I am the layers - they don't have names, but it's difficult to realize that we have "livestock" on our property, in our home that will, very soon, be food. This is new for us. It's a challenge. It's a decision that we know that we cannot go back on (these birds will not have a good end of life if we let them die "naturally" - they will grow so big that their legs will not be able to hold them, they will have heart attacks etc.) - we know that this is the right decision. Raising meat birds is good for our family - it's healthier, it helps our children understand where their food actually comes from...but it isn't an easy task. I'm sure that slaughter day will be difficult...but necessary.

Gage - after he chopped down a tree, using only hand tools. You can see the fallen tree to the right.

Proud lumberjack ;-)

Mark, David, Gage and Drake were making sure that none of the tree found its way into the road.

Herb, realizing that the grass just might be greener on the other side of the fence.

Chicken dog pile!

I love this picture of Moo and one of the other black kitties.

All of the animals are doing well. I'm so happy that we got through birthing season and didn't lose a single animal (mama or baby). On Tuesday night, we went in front of the board to request the temporary land use for our animals - since we are technically not "rural" - as we are the first house as you begin to enter into our tiny village - we have to make sure that it is ok with our neighbors (and the county) that we have the menagerie of animals that we do. This is always a nerve wracking experience for me, because, at any time, the county can vote to remove our animals. Fortunately, we have had zero complaints from our neighbors (in fact, most think it is funny when they drive down the road and see alpacas in our front yard) AND the board members seem to think that it's funny that we essentially are building Noah's Ark...they did caution us to not grow too much (to make sure that we are able to care for all the animals properly) and then approved us for not just a single year, but extended it to two years! Yay - they like us, they REALLY like us :-)

Strawberry plants are starting to grow!

Tulips and daffodils are still blooming!

The gardens and fruit trees are growing well. I feel a little more "on the ball" with this year's garden, than last. Our seedlings are growing strong in the dining room. We have a ton of tomato plants and a variety of others.Our strawberry plants are starting to "take" and growing new dark green leaves (root stock always looks so sad when it arrives). We have about 50 garlic plants growing strong in a short raised bed. Potatoes are growing in another short raised bed in the back yard and we even have artichoke plants growing in large pots (so we can move them into the garage during the winter). Soon we'll be moving the seedlings to the main garden that is already prepared. (Lots of work, but good work) Our fruit trees are doing so well, especially considering that many spent the first couple years of their lives in large pots. Now that they are in the ground, and have been so for more than a year, they have decided to pay us back a bit - there were blossoms all over the pears and peaches and this year, we had plum blossoms (mmm...fresh plums) AND one of APPLE trees has blossoms on it for the very first time. I hope that we get to taste a little bit of everything. I won't get my hopes up too high.
This year is going to be a much better than last.

...and with that, I leave you with a picture of Jester, the sheep...because he makes me laugh. Look at that face and those eyebrows. Love him!

Overwhelmed.

It's a cold and dreary day here. The kind that make you want to snuggle in bed with the covers over your head. I might just take a pause to do just that. I decided to take a MUCH NEEDED PTO day. I wish Mark was here to snuggle up with, but he had to go to work.

The animals are fed and out in the pasture, while the rain holds off. The kids are home from school today and in various stages of catching up on the computer, watching movies etc.

I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately. We have so many things to do around here - all take time and money and money and time. I've been asked a number of times "how do you do it all?", and maybe my response should be..."I can't". I want it all, I think it's important to our family to have it all, but I need help. I feel like everything is going crazy - work is insanely busy, home is insanely busy, Mark and I are still working on some of our challenges. Some days, I think it is just too much. But still, I keep moving forward, because I know how important it is.

Last weekend I made a "To Do" list, so I could track, in my own head, the changes and projects that need to happen around here...and to set up the expectations of my family (and because I like hearing the groans, moans and grunts when they see such a long list...joking). But we have so many things being added and "this" has to happen before "that" can.

This weekend we'll be working on checking off a few of the projects. Things I know that I want to complete...CLEAN OUT THAT BARN! Yuck! It's pretty gross in there. Deep with poo and uneaten hay. Before we can do that though, we need to build phase two of the compost bins. The bins are approximately 4 ft. wide and 4 ft. tall and 8 feet deep (from front to back). We are building at least three sections, currently we have one built and it is pretty much full. We pitch forked and shoveled the compost that was just thrown into a pile (and creeping through our back yard) into the big bin. After that and spreading compost over the entire garden, we continue to have a bit of compost on the ground, needing to be turned into the new container. Once the new container is built, we'll be able to start cleaning out the barn. Then, we'll have something to dump all that compostable mess into and "cook" for a bit (readying it for next year's gardens).

The turkeys and chicks are filling in nicely - feathers, test flights, peeping and learning to coo/gobble. Soon, we'll need to make sure that their outside coops are ready to go. The "layers" are absolutely gorgeous birds. I'm so happy with the choices we made.

I think that the coops and the bee area will be projects for next weekend (since the bees have been delayed)...but we do need to get their hives painted and ready for them.

I think I need to just take a project at a time. It will happen. Step by step. 

Farm Tour 2013

I'm posting this to honor a special request from my friend Lynda, over at Living in the Land of Oz. She's having a hard time picturing how our property lays out, so I thought I'd take all of you on a video tour of our place.
Here are my disclaimers that I want you to remember while you are viewing....it JUST turned Springtime around here and we haven't had the opportunity to mow the lawn or clean up the yard area. Also, there are a LOT of projects in the works. Finally, it won't always be so messy...it's just a work in progress that needs some love.
To the video!!!!


In addition, a while ago, we put together a layout of our property - it has changed a bit since then, but if you click on the image, you can see the idea of what we are trying to do.

The bees have been delayed for a week or so, meaning that we'll have more time to prepare. This is both good and bad - I want the bees here and working on our property, pollinating our fruit trees etc. (making honey), but it will give us a bit more time to prepare.