May 2014

Hello everyone! It's been a couple of months since my last update.  Many things have happened.  This was a very hard winter and I had lots of problems with my chicken flock.  I had a couple I lost to sickness, and a fox got 6 of them.  My buildings are starting to really shift in the ground since they are close to 80 years old.  We are getting a new small barn this spring and I got 2 dozen hatching eggs to hatch!  Here are a couple of photos of the hatching eggs and one of them in the incubator! Our approximate hatch date is May 27th!  Exciting!  Blue egg customers will be happy, 8 of the hatching eggs are blue! If those hatch there is a chance those chickens will lay blue eggs!  This incubator is the same one we used when I was a kid!

So far we have some tomato, pepper and cucumber seeds started in the greenhouse!  Here are some photos.  We also planted kale, swiss chard, beets, carrots, radishes, lettuce and dill.  We still have many rows to fill.

Ok, here are some various photos of just things happening around me.  Some of these are just blooms from trees, some hyacinths, a succulent ground cover my mom has, and some mushrooms I found.  Also, I had this decorative haunted house birdhouse my sister gave me.....during the winter, a mouse was in it inside the house!  I put the house outside and now a couple of wrens have started making a nest in it! I took some photos of that!  Yesterday I found a robin's nest!  The robin isn't too happy as we pass by and often times swoops down at our heads.  Enjoy the photos!

I will update again soon with some more photos of what we have planted in the garden and how the plots look so far.  I got rained out today! I was going to take some video!  Enjoy the photos!

First Blue Egg!

Yesterday, after Thanksgiving dinner I went outside to close up the coops and found the first blue egg! Which means, one of my Easter Eggers has started laying.  I took a few photos so you can see how small a pullet egg starts out, and how it looks nice in the carton with the rest of the brown and speckled eggs I have.  I also combined both flocks of chickens today.  I will maybe take some video if it warms up above freezing.

Rainy Days

It's been raining for the last two days here in Central Ohio.  I've been wanting to post more spring photos and tell more about what I'm doing in the garden, but I've decided to wait until there are sprouts!  I thought I'd post a couple of photos while we wait for the sun to return!

I have 4 different breeds of chickens that make up my small flock.  This is what their eggs look like!  They range from light brown to dark speckled brown!  I will be adding 3 new breeds to the group this summer.  Two more brown egg layers and one breed that will lay greenish blue tinted eggs! Stay tuned!

I found countless articles on the internet showing how plastic feed bags (birdseed, cat food, chicken feed etc.) can be recycled into reusable shopping bags!  This was NOT my invention but my mom decided to make one.  She has since made several out of chicken feed bags, and they work great!  One less thing in the landfill!

I'll be posting another update soon, hopefully with sprouts!

More Signs of Spring

Just thought I'd do a quick update with a few photos of flowers since I usually don't post those.  Enjoy!


Blooming Daffodils!

Blooming Grecian Wind Flowers!

The eggs I've collected so far this morning.  There will be more!

First Egg!

Today is an exciting day!  When I went outside early this morning to let the chickens outside I was raking around the bedding on the inside of the coop and found the first egg! I have an idea which one laid the first egg but I don't know for sure.  Of course it wasn't in the nest boxes....I found it on the floor!  It had a few scratches (but not any cracks in the shell, just scratches from the sticks on the floor)  on it and is small like the first eggs are, but was completely clean!  I took some pictures!

This picture is the first egg next to a store bought white egg.  Just for size comparison....the first few eggs that chickens lay are small...but they'll get bigger after a few small ones I think.

Hooray!!  I was planning on writing a blog today about something else, I guess I'll save that one for another time!   Thanks for reading and check back soon!