The chickens are now residing in a new home.  My challenge was not wanting to keep them cooped up.  They were fine to wander in our yard and the lot next door, but they started wandering a whole street away.  If we kept them cooped up in a chicken yard or the coop itself, we would be buying even more feed.  My husband reminded me that this wasn’t what we were aiming for…the cost of feed, due to the cost of corn has been steadily rising.  So, a good friend with lots of land and animals took them a few months ago.  I’ll admit, I miss them. A lot.  But it is probably for the best.

I started working part-time to supplement our income.  Our oldest got married on 12/31 and I even picked up an extra part-time job over the holidays to help with the wedding expenses.  Working more meant I was less available for my family.  Even though the boys are young adults, I still like to be available to them.  I also found us eating out or more convenience foods, since I didn’t have time to cook from scratch.

I was so thankful the extra job ended a few days before the wedding!  Now we’re entering a different season with one child out of the house and another graduating high school in a few months.  I’m looking forward to getting to some creative projects around the home and getting our little garden going again.  This is a great time of year to grow lettuce, kale, swiss chard and broccoli.

The older I get, the more home-focused I become.  I sometimes look back and wish I had really valued my role as a homemaker when my kids were younger.  As I move toward having an empty nest, I’m also looking forward to growing in personal areas and learning new skills that I might pass on to my daughter-in-law and hopefully, grandchildren.  I’m blessed that my husband doesn’t want me to go out and find full-time work.  We are quite content with my part-time job that is worked mostly from home.  A perfect fit for us during this season of transition.

I’m also looking forward to growing and learning from other bloggers and those who visit this blog.  I’m committed to giving more and living more purposefully, with more faith in the coming year.

Regarding more pics of my Union Loom — I’ll try to take some, but it is hard to really tell how to assemble it with just photos

Now about the flies in the chicken coop.  The Diatomaceous Earth continues to work great!  As for how to mix in feed, I’m afraid I’m not very scientific.  I just sprinkle some in the feed container (maybe a tablespoon or two) then add more feed with a bit more sprinkled again, finishing with more feed on top.  The DE also worked great in getting rid of carpenter ants that made a NEST in the top of the coop.  There were hundreds of them up there last week.  I thoroughly dusted the nest and top area of the coop where the girls roost and have their nest boxes.  Within a couple days the ants were gone.

I’ve been busy adjusting to working a part-time job, while still homeschooling, and working around my suburban homestead.  To address some health issues I’m exploring more traditional cooking via the book Nourishing Traditions.  Interesting this is, this way of cooking/eating totally fits in with a more simple, sustainable lifestyle, but more on that adventure later!

Now I know why egg production had been a little low for a couple weeks!  When you only have three hens, you definitely notice when one or two don’t lay like normal.  There is no cure for avian pox, basically you just let it run it’s course.  It is contagious to other birds, but it looks like only two of my three have had it so far.  They are both already on the mend.  Since garlic is so helpful when humans are sick, I decided to add some garlic to their feed and water.  I also tried to give them more roaming time outside the coop so they could eat more greens, also good for their immune system.

I don’t have a picture of the girl’s with avian pox, but this site does, as well as providing more information.  Even suburban farmers have to deal with livestock issues, and do our best to treat whatever comes a long.  Thankfully, their respiratory tracks were not affected and things are back to normal in the hen house

Everything was fine during the winter months, but when spring came, so did the pests.   After visiting a couple forums dedicated to backyard poultry, the Wolf Creek Ranch site was recommended for further reading.  The author recommends using food grade diatomaceous earth (DE) for fly control.  DE is actually tiny fossilized, hard-shelled algae.  The microsopic shells are rough and sharp.  From the Wolf Creek site: “When diatomaceous earth comes in contact with the insects, the sharp edges lacerate the bugs waxy exoskeleton and then the powdery diatomaceous earth absorbs the body fluids causing death from dehydration.”

My local feed store sells DE, and I also knew I needed some bedding to help with moisture during rainy season, so I chose pine shavings.  I put down a thick layer of pine shavings and mixed in the DE.  I also put it in their feed.   After about 2 weeks – no more flies!  Plus the DE helps with moisture and smell as well.

Since trying diatomaceous earth for the coop, I’ve learned that there are many health benefits for both humans and animals.  You do need to be careful not to inhale the fine dust when using it.  DE makes a natural pest control and kills all sorts of critters in feed and around the house.  Nutritionally, it is high in calcium and other minerals.  MoreThanAlive.com also has a lot of ideas for using diatomaceous earth for a variety of household and nutritional purposes.

I am so glad to have discovered diatomaceous earth!  I have used it for dusting garden plants (be careful though, you don’t want to kill the good bugs), and have found that it holds down algae growth in the chicken’s water container.  That one layering of pine shavings and DE in the coop has been all I’ve needed for several months, so it really is a low cost way of keeping pests and smells under control.

As much as I love the fresh eggs, I’m amazed how I can be overrun with eggs with only three hens!  If a couple days go by when I don’t bake or fix eggs for breakfast, they really start to add up.  It doesn’t help that neither of my boys are real fond of eating eggs.  I know the days will be getting shorter, and in a few months I’ll not be getting as many eggs while the girls take a natural break.  So, I’ve decided to preserve eggs so I’ll have them during the winter for my baking projects.  Pickled eggs don’t appeal to me, so I’ve decided to freeze them instead.

To begin, I pulled my favorite reference off the shelf, “The Encyclopedia of Country Living” by Carla Emery.

I’m freezing whole eggs, so I break a few eggs into a bowl and stir them a bit to break the yokes being careful not to whip in air.  For each cup of eggs, you can add either 1 T. sugar or 1/2 t. salt.  I elected for salt – but if you’re using the eggs for baking sweets, you might want to use sugar instead.  Then pour the eggs into ice cube trays.  When they freeze, just pop them out and store them in a freezer bag or container.  Each cube is equivalent to about 1/2 an egg.  To use, thaw the cubes and incorporate into your dish.  I haven’t used frozen eggs yet, but I’ll post my results when I use them this winter.

There are instructions online and in Carla Emery’s book for separating the eggs and freezing the yokes and whites, as well as, dried, pickled, and “larded, salted”.

Other options for using extra eggs include blessing others — my friends love this idea!  I can also bless the chickens — believe it or not, hens LOVE to eat scrambled eggs and the eggs are a great source of protein for the girls.  The key to feeding eggs to your chickens is to make sure they are well scrambled so they don’t look like eggs.  I don’t want to get my girls in the habit of eating their eggs before I can gather them.

Letting nothing go to waste, the egg shells are usually put in the compost, or crushed and added directly to the garden.  Of course, my “composting” isn’t at all the way it needs to be.  I’m simply putting things in a bucket outside.  Building or buying a proper container is on my list of things to do this winter!

Urban Garden Harvest

These are not the first veggies I have harvested, but they’re the first I’ve photographed.  So far I’ve harvested about 4 pounds (mostly tomatos) from my little patch.  I’m hoping to have some Sugar Baby watermelons, but I’m afraid I don’t have enough bees or other pollinators to do the trick.  We’ll see!

While I was out of town a good friend came daily to check on the chickens.  I knew the first eggs should be layed anytime.  Of course, two of the girls decided to lay while I was gone.  On Sunday afternoon, my dear friend called me excitedly to share the news, and even took photos in a rain storm with her cell phone to put on Facebook so I could see them while on the road.   I was hoping to come home Monday afternoon to more eggs, but the nest box was empty.  When hens first begin to lay they are a bit sporadic, and the eggs are smaller.  This morning, one of the girls made another deposit, so it’s just a matter of time before we have two or three eggs a day.

My Three Girls

As I wrote before, a predator managed to get a hold of one of the Rhode Island Reds.  I had to “baby” the other one as the older chicks were not accepting it.  Imagine my disappointment when I realized that my RR was a rooster!  One of my black stars ended up being a roo a well.  That one was my fault – I totally missed a tiny white feather on its head when I got the day-old chicks.   Living in a suburban neighborhood precludes my having roosters, so they both had to go – especially when one of them woke us up crowing a couple weeks ago!  Thankfully, I have a country friend with a neighbor who was happy to take both birds off my hands.

The girls are doing fine – I’m hoping to have eggs soon.  My dear husband continues to remind me just how expensive those eggs will be   As the rainy season has come back to us down here, I’ve found there’s a bit more odor and a few more flies than I had anticipated.  Thankfully I was able to get some good advice at the Backyard  Chickens website, so we’ll be cleaning out the “downstairs” run, adding pine shavings and diatomaceous earth.

I never imagined how much I would enjoy having chickens.  We can’t let them free range, but I do try to let them out to forage around the yard in the evening after dinner.  I will sometimes take a book and cup of tea outside for some quiet moments.  It never fails that the book doesn’t get read because I’m too busy watching the girls!  My husband just shakes his head when he peeks out and finds me sitting there grinning from ear to ear.  I guess if watching fish swim in an aquarium can lower blood pressure, why can’t watching chickens run around the back yard do the same?!?

The girls are getting big, and I still have the rooster, though he is most likely finding a new home early next week.  I’m looking forward to having eggs in the next few weeks.  My younger Rhode Island Red have had to be kept separate while they grow.  The other chickens just won’t accept them, and will kill them if given the chance.  I was keeping the RRs in a dog crate during the day.  I came home one evening to find only one in the crate – the remains of the other one (mostly feathers) was outside the crate.  So, now I had one lone RR to deal with!  I’m her favorite person now – she’s very tame.  As she gets bigger she’s holding her own against the others more and more (I let them all out in the yard to hunt bugs and greens a few afternoons a week).

I have lots more to share…gardening, new soap scents, a book review.  Stay tuned!

Thankfully, I have a backup plan, so there is someone who will take him off my hands. Living in town, I need my chickens to be as inconspicuous as possible Since I knew I’d be getting rid of at least one of the black chickens, I picked up two Rhode Island Red pullet chicks on Monday when I went to get feed. They are adorable, but have to be kept from the others, as the rooster especially was picking on them.

My planting is not going as quick as I had hoped. We are so busy these days! I long to be home more, and must figure out how to cut out on some of my running in order to be “steadfast at home”. Hubby’s last day of work is tomorrow, so we have been working on cutting back as much as possible. I’ve also taken to doing some serious couponing – I finding that I love CVS! There are 3 within 2 miles of my house, so I’m often driving by one. I am trying to only run errands once a week, but shouldn’t have a problem taking advantage of the deals offered at my local stores.

We’ve started hanging laundry – I hang it around the house and on the patio chairs since we don’t have a line. Tomorrow we’re going to finish switching out our old lightbulbs for the new energy efficient ones. I’m cooking more with the solar oven, and we’re running the heat/ac less. In addition to making my own bar soap, a friend helped me make a batch of laundry soap as well. She says it works great, and the cost is so much less than store-bought. I’m waiting to use up our current jug of ALL before trying the homemade stuff.

I’m so thankful we started on a journey toward a more self-sustaining lifestyle months ago. Although I feel I haven’t made much progress, I know I’ve learned so much from experience and lots of reading! All that research is about to be put to practice

I quickly realized by box/brooder is too small, so we’ll be getting something bigger today. The cat seems very uninterested, but we’re still keeping them safe in case she gets too curious. Our home is starting to feel more like a “homestead” every day!

I’ll post more later, as we have a busy day ahead of us.