2nd Annual Bath Tub Chick Days!

 Yep you heard me, I've once again got chicks in the bath tub. After a predator got my three fancy silky trio (two hens and a rooster) I was very very upset and in my upset ness I ordered 35 Silky chicks off the internet. The internet can be very dangerous that way so watch out. Twenty-five is typically the minimum order so I may have gotten carried away by ordering 35 chicks.

They even arrived a day early. Bonnie the cat is most disgusted with newest arrivals. Typically it means I sit in the recliner less so she the Queen of Lap Cats doesn't have a warm lap.  Oh well, I am getting the chicks settled in. It has been a bit more difficult finding a sutible brooder box for them to live in (in the bathtub). This is a good thing as it means we have gone through and gotten rid of most of the large boxes we moved in with.  (YAY) So I had to use a empty clear plastic tote, just means more cleaning and no more switching to a clean cardboard box. I sure get better pictures without the extra brown/yellow reflection from the cardboard. 

Cute and Fluffy

I do believe that raising chicks in the fall will be a Wienhold tradition. Someday perhaps they won't all end up in the bath tub but knowing me a few always will. Fall chicks do have their place. As my hens started last fall grew up all winter and started laying eggs right away in the spring. Spring is an excellent time for the hens to be starting to lay. But if you get chicks in the spring then they do all their growing in the summer and don't start laying until fall. Fall typically is when the chicken slows down egg production (decreasing in daylight). My hens have been laying eggs steady all summer and are now slowing down, meaning I get fewer eggs now then in July when I got a record of 26 eggs in one day. Now I get about 15 a day.

Before I lost my fancy Silkies and made a internet order for chicks, I was planning on borrowing an incubator from my neighbor to try and hatch out my own chicken eggs. Save me some money and get more hens for the summer and roosters for the freezer. So I did, I gathered a couple days worth of eggs layed by my hens, that are hopefully fertilized by one of the two roosters. And put them in the incubator on Saturday September 15th. It should take aprox 21 days for the eggs to hatch. Out of the 37 eggs I put in the incubator I am hoping a couple hatch out, any more will be a bonus.

Straw and Paint

In the last post we were quite disappointed to have to purchase straw bales but thanks to my uncle, he's one of those guys who starts his morning at the local cafe talking to everyone, we got to bale our own straw too! Some days I don't mind my family connections. Below you can see the square baler we used and a nice shot of our pickup that my Father kindly sold to us way under value. Thanks Dad. We baled about a 100 small square straw bales. Then the last few days after work we load up the pickup truck stacking high as we dare (missed the picture sorry) about 35 bales and brought them home to stack next to the barn.  I'll try to get a picture of the straw all stacked by the barn. The chickens love climbing all over and pecking the little bits of grain mixed in with the straw.

 

The 'paint fairy' was smiling on me last weekend when I went to Menards. I've wanted to paint the chicken coop since we built it, however like most things it has gotten pushed back. On a whim I went and checked the 'MissTinted Paint' section in Menards. Side note: most paint places have a section like this you might have to ask, it is where paint that gets mixed isn't quite right color and is often sold at a fraction of the regular cost. I got very lucky finding two gallon jugs of premium exterior paint in two different bold colors. The best I usually hope for is a couple different shades of brown. The first can was a great terracotta orange/red and the other can was dark green. The next day I got to painting.

Here is the coop completely unpainted

I really love this orange color

Here is with mostly complete. It was getting cold and very windy. Another nice day and I'll get the last details finished.

Meet the farm's newest addition!

IT was Labor Day and we both had the day off. Thank you National Holidays, they seem to be the only time we both get to be home together. We got a late start but went at it hard. First the small square baler needed a new tire and inter tube - we had scrounged all week finding the replacement, turns out old implement tires aren't stocked often. Richard ended up finding a very old but better than the one on the baler in our rock pile, then couldn't find a inter tube but did manage to find one a half size bigger. Yay we have a tire and tube. Next came the fight to put the new tire and tube on.

When in doubt use a hammer.

Sadly all our work was for not, as the straw we were to bale didnt amount to enough to bale. Basically the farmer left the spreader off his combine but the wheat wasn't tall enough to leave much straw after he baled. 

Then it was time to get hay for the goats. Their pasture is pretty dry and dead not much grazing. My uncle and cousin baled us some mini round bales, using their large round baler. They stopped the baler before it was full and made a smaller bale. We still have to move these bales with the tractor or they can be pushed by  a person. Richard thought rolling the closest one to the barn was too much work. He suggested using our trusty garden cart. I was skeptical but look it worked!

On a whim we decided to search our favorite online classifieds site (Bismanonline.com) during our lunch hour. We have been looking for a pony, small square straw bales, a puppy and other farm additions. This time we were in luck. "wagon pony for sale" I made the phone calls, Richard hitched up the trailer. We were off to look at a pony. We both agree that we didn't have to bring this pony home, if he wasn't right/safe we would turn around and come home with an empty trailer. It would be a 2 1/2 hour drive just to look. Boy was it worth every minute. The owners were friendly and honest, the horse was just as they told us. They hitched him up to the cart and we went for a spin. Then we talked price and shook hands. 

'Wow we just bought a pony' kept running through my head the whole trip home.  

Meet Bernie. Sounds like Barney, right?, hopefully it will stick, I really cant stand the name Barney. Images of purple dinosaurs come to mind. Anyway Bernie is a 10 year old gelding, who has only been driven. A big thing with ponies is their feet they often have hoof issues, we got lucky and Bernie has strong black feet with out any signs of issues. (such as founder) His hooves are little long and need a trim but we can handle that. 

Today I brushed Bernie until he shone then got him harnessed up for our first drive. Sure I'd driven him at his old place but here he was mine. I called the neighbor (friend, cousin and horse owner) down the road to see if I could drive him down there for a second opinion. What fun, a little pony to go places with.

Here's whats been happening

Life has been hectic the last few weeks. So instead of a bunch of words, here are some pictures to sum our lives up:

May 5, 2012
Went to an exotic livestock auction. Got to see this beautiful Royal Palm  Turkey, I think he sold for $90

May 5th @ the sale.
Look at the cute highland heifer my friend and I bought, who is standing next to  Hamburger  a little dextor  yearling bull

May 13, 2012
Tomato's planted, snug and warm wrapped in walls o'water

May 20, 2012
 We have goats! Two older does, and two babies

May 21, 2012
Here Richard is straining goats milk. Yummy!

May 20, 2012
Helping our neighbors brand calves

May 20, 2012
Hamburger the soon to be steer, happy at his home with my neighbor's bulls

May 22, 2012
Super storm crossed my path on my way home from work
The dust devils it threw up, were a little scary out by my self on the road.

May 23, 2012
Better late than never, to start seedlings

Easter Chicks

Really I shouldn't be allowed to go to the feed store during the 'Chick Days' event by my self. But we needed feed for the meat chicks and the laying hens. So meet the Easter Chicks:

They are bantam chicks, mini chicks, assorted breeds and mixed gender. I only got six, with my luck they will all be roosters. Oh well they are so adorable I have a hard time leaving them in their box. Yep I have chicks in the bathroom again, they are very small and not compatible with the meat chicks. Here is a size reference, a large egg, egg carton, and Richard holding one of the chicks. Enjoy the dose of cute.

 

Yes we are farmers,

Seriously I've been thinking of post, but working full time doesn't allow much spare time for actual posting. Enjoy this one.

Here are our tools:

Don't forget the land. People around here must not think we are that crazy, or my Dad is very clever. Because Friday out of the blue my uncle came over and used a larger disk (then the one pictured above) to disk this plot of land pictured below.  I didn't know my uncle had a disk, only knew he had hay equipment. The land will have to be gone over a couple more times but this was a great start and a great blessing.

Small compared to most farming standards, but it seems gigantic to this new farmer.

Richard has big plans for this tilled land. It is all his business, I will have a garden and he will grow crops.  His plans include growing oats, barley, wheat, field peas (yes the same ones we eat), and lentils. I am excited to see how this turns out. We got seed from the NDSU extension office in Minot as there wasn't and elevator in the area that could give us a 5 gallon bucket of anything.. Spouts meant for large semi's don't fill buckets, well they do but let's not go there. 

There are days I truly believe I was born 150 years too late.

On other notes we have meat chicks! I bought 15 from Tractor Supply last Sunday. So far we have lost only one. The little cornish rock cross breed chicks are growing fast. I had to get a few laying hens (something cute to cuddle and get attached to) and it seems like they aren't hardly growing compared to the meat chicks who look fat. These cute little balls of fluff are happy living in their own space in the barn. No more chicks in the bathroom.

Finally I leave you with the little bit of spring I found while out wandering:

The very first rhubarb shoot. Happy spring everyone.

A month with out buying Groceries

First off let me tell you this wasn't my idea. I gathered it from this blog Another Year Without Groceries- they went a whole year with out groceries. Granted they live in southern California and can grow near anything year round.

Anyway, the idea is an appealing one when you live four miles from a very small town grocery store and an hour and half drive to the nearest big grocery and retail stores. We did do some pre-purchasing in December to prepare for our month (January) without grocery shopping. Mostly we stocked up on dry goods - flour, sugar, cereal, cliff bars, paper products, frozen vegetables, and a little meat for the freezer. Then we thought of any exceptions that we wouldn't be able to stock up on or provide from the farm example we have chickens so we don't have to buy eggs. We came up with two grocery store exceptions: Milk and drinking water. Our well water isn't safe to drink as were the results 13 years ago - the water needs to be retested (on the 'to do list'). We also didn't restrict our eating at restaurants mostly because we rarely do and it is always a treat. I think we ate out twice in January and filled our ice cream craving at Cold Stone once.

It was a good month, it wasn't that hard not to buy groceries. We don't have TV programming (aka cable/dish) and don't get a newspaper so there wasn't much in advertisement 'here buy this' to deal with. The local grocery store does mail out a flyer but I quickly learned to just throw it away with out looking.

I did have trouble once while at Walmart - I had to have tortilla chips, I was given homemade salsa and needed chips. Yes I could have made chips and I have found a recipe but I'm not too hard on myself. Oh and on the 31st of January hamburger was really on sale at the local in town grocery store so we bought some having been out of meat for the last week. All in all those were the only two breaks in our 'no groceries'.

Richard and I hope to continue this trend by purchasing less and less at the grocery store. Our plans include a large produce garden, getting a milking animal (cow or goat), more meat animals, and lots of canning and preserving.

Winter Garden

First let me introduce the NeverEnding tomato plant. Last summer I had a small space next to our apartment garage that I put out a pot of flowers and a small tomato seedling in the middle. I didn't have much hope for that tomato seedling, but it proved me completely wrong growing up crooked and strong, producing a sweet cherry tomato here and there. When we moved out here in the late fall the tomato pot came with us and lived outside enjoying the sun. Normally I would have let nature, aka frost, take its course ending the life of the tomato plant, but you see I started a edible ornamental pepper plant at the same time. The pepper was to live in the house all winter in a sunny south window, you might say I got sorry for the tomato and it ended up living in the the house too.

IT has sense taken over the whole south window. I had to move the poor pepper plant to the other room to for its own south window. However both are happy and producing lots of tomatoes and peppers. 

Secondly I have been craving a good salad. Therefore I planted two! I had some salad mixed seeds in my seed stash and I bough potting soil in preparation for spring seedlings. And then I used some left over take-out food containers for my soon to be salad!

 I've also got a bowl of spinach starting, but it hasn't sprouted yet.


In other Wienhold news: 

I've completed a 750 piece puzzle, its kinda sad now that it is done. Growing up we used to do puzzles in the winter. This is the first year I've done one all by my self. Soon it will get put away for another year.

Finally I'll leave you with another garden that lives at our house:

The aquarium garden. Someday I hope to put the 30 gallon tank back up and let these plants fill it up with greenery, but for now the little 10 gallon tank is a bright spot in our lounge.

Experiments with Dry Edible Field Peas

Dry Yellow Field Peas, whole peas in the measuring cup and  'split' with a blender in the bowl

A person can buy green or yellow split peas at their local grocery store. The one pound bag costs a couple bucks at most. This is fine if you only eat split peas once or twice a year, we however really like split pea soup and I am always running out of peas.  Long story short, I had Richard bring some edible dry field peas home from work in a 50 pound bag for the huge price of $16. Come to think of it, I think that price included a five gallon bucket of lentils too.

Yesterday I had some ham thawing in the fridge and decided pea soup sounded good. I put two cups of whole peas in bowl of water to soak about 9ish in the morning. By noon they were not very soft, it seemed that the clear seed coat was absorbing the liquid. I read somewhere on line that a person can use a regular kitchen blender to make legume flour.

So I stuck a cup of whole peas in the blender and as you can see in the picture had surprising results. The seed coat comes off and a the pea is bright yellow just like the store bought ones. You can see a pile of the seed coat to the left in the bowl (picture). I skimmed off some of this 'chaf' seed coat but left most in the bowl. Next I added water to the bowl full of blended peas. These seemed to absorb the water better.

A few hours later the whole peas still weren't very soft, they still crunched when I tried to chew them. It was time to add some heat. I boiled the whole peas with the blended ones and they were starting to get soft but the texture wasn't the best, kind a chewy crunchy and they didn't seem to be breaking down like the store bought pea splits. Dinner time was approaching and I didn't have time to let the whole peas cook. Into the blender the peas went, out came yellow pea soup, very thick. Success

In retrospect I will try soaking whole peas in overnight then cooking on the stove top. I will also try putting the whole peas in the crockpot to cook/soak all day. All in all buying field peas from the local elevator is a great way to save money and eat healthy.

I did it!

It was scary, there was lots of steam and noise.  I successfully canned pumpkin. Unlike the store bought canned pumpkin, home canning requires peeling, chopping and blanching chunks of pumpkin. My pumpkins came to us late last fall from a friend overwhelmed with garden pumpkins. The are still hard and fresh, I just love how squash and pumpkins keep over winter.

The blanching took 3 minutes in boiling drinking water. Then I filled the hot jars, 6 wide mouth pints, with chunks of hot pumpkin and ladled the water from the blanching pot on top.  In retrospect I should have got out a ruler to measure the headspace, as the one inch for vegetables looks a whole lot different than the 1/4 inch for jelly.  Next went on the clean hot lids and rings, into the pressure canner they went. I easily filled the canner with room to spare. Then came the steam, let it steam out the vent for 10 minutes before putting the weight on and bringing up the pressure to 11 pounds. Once at 11 pounds I set the timer for 90 minutes and waited checking and turning down the heat to maintain a steady pressure. It was interesting on my gas stove I had to turn is all the way to low or else the pressure kept rising.

Constantly I was checking the pressure canner user guide and my Ball Blue Book Guide to Canning books making sure I was doing everything right. It was kind of nerve racking, having read the warnings of under processed food and the tragic story of a MN family who died from eating under-processed peas.

Finally the timer rang and I turned the heat off. Life got in the way for the next hour as my dad blew a tire and needed help. Once back at he house the canner had cooled and carefully opened and lifted out the still boiling jars. Pretty cool site to see the contents still boiling away in jars that have been off the heat for over an hour. I lined them up on a towel on the counter, four out of the six jars had a good solid seal. As for the two that didn't seal I'll be using them soon in soup.

All in all I'd call it a success.