Finding Contentment

Moved my blog!

This blog has moved to http://victoriahillfarm.blogspot.com/.

I will still be keeping up with all my Homestead Blogger friends. Please join me at my new blog!

Spring has sprung

The coop is just about finished, and I can't wait to put the new chicks in there. A few days ago they went from the house to the unfinished basement because I couldn't stand the smell anymore!

Baby chicks are so cute but when they start getting big they're not so cute anymore! Okay, so they're still cute, but the smell kind of knocks you down - no matter how often you clean.

Our established flock is only five hens, and the new one will be seven. But because the pecking order is already established in the first flock, we decided to keep the flocks seperate. That required totally rebuilding the coop. The hen house (in the middle) will be split down the middle with a wall. Each flock will have half of the hen house and has their own run coming out of their side of the house.

You can't really tell in the picture, but there is chicken wire on both runs and windows from floor to ceiling to keep predators out. Hubby is finishing up the inside now, and making new nesting boxes. Hopefully he can finish with the inside in the next few days and we can put the new flock out. We allowed the babies to run around the coop for about 20 minutes the other day to stretch their wings while the adult chickens were foraging for bugs in the yard.

On the left is Cinco, the 5-toed Salmon Favorelle. She is supposed to be a hen, but her coloring looks more like a rooster to me. We'll have to wait and see, but I'm really hoping she is a hen! Next to her is Lucy, a New Hampshire Red - so named because her red feathers and mischievous personality reminded my husband of Lucille Ball.

Here's Della, as named by my DS, 12. She is a Delaware chicken, hence the name.

This is Doe, so named because she is either a John Doe or a Jane Doe. She was the freebie the hatchery sent with the others. We can't decide if she is an araucana or a Silver Laced Wyandotte. What do you think?

This guy with the dirty mouth is my DS, 5, with one of the Buff Orpingtons. He named one Pickachu and one Ash (two Pokemon characters).

And this is my favorite, the beautiful Simone, a Buff Polish. She is the smallest of the chicks and the most docile and sweetest. I had also ordered another Polish, a Golden-laced, which would have been beautiful. Unfortunately she died within hours of arriving home. I guess the transit via the U.S. Postal Service was too much for her. The chicks were actually delayed a day in the post office of another city and were a day late arriving. We ended up with three dead ones, but I've heard of people who received entire boxes of 25 chicks where nearly all were dead, so I'm counting my blessings.

By the way, in the photo of the chicken coop you will notice the garden. It has been plowed and is ready to go, but hasn't been planted yet. Not only have we been short on time, but our weather has been really weird lately. One day we will have freezing temperatures and the next it will be in the 70s. I can't wait to get the garden planted!

As the post office employee said when we picked the babies up a month ago, "I know spring is arriving when the baby chicks start arriving!"

Daily Happenings

We didn't get to work on the chicken coop any Monday, and only for about an hour Tuesday.

I didn't think about it at the time, but the purple plaid shirt and the camo pants Hubby is wearing don't really match, do they.  

We probably won't get to work on the coop today as Hubby has a late meeting. I had hoped to go outside with the kids and get some more painting done on it today, but there's been too much other stuff to do. This morning I had to go to the church to make the bulletin and put it on the pastor's desk for review. Then I went to Wally World (Wal-mart) for the express purpose of getting a bigger plastic tub to put the ever-growing baby chicks in. This will not surprise those of you who know me well, but I came out of the store and drove home before realizing I bought a lot of stuff, but not the tub.

The kids have had colds for the past couple of days, so I didn't make them go outside and help on the coop. But here's some pictures of them helping to round up the chickens up over the weekend.

I have got some things done inside the past couple of days. I reorganized the pantry shelves. The clipboard you see hangs in the pantry with our weekly menu. A few weeks ago I sat down and made four weeks worth of menus. So now I just rotate them and we don't have to have the same meals but once a month. Of course, the menu is flexible if I find a really good sale on something, though.

I also made a couple of loaves of Amish bread. We are using one loaf for sandwiches and I used the other loaves to make garlic bread. I just sliced it, spread soft butter on the bread and sprinkled on some garlic powder and Italian seasonings before putting it under the broiler for a couple of minutes. It turned out great.

Hubby brought home some brown fruit somebody at work gave him yesterday. We made a fruit salad for the chickens and now I am off to make banana bread out of what is left!

Book Review: For Pete's Sake

I  love a book with a bit of a mystery to it, and this had it! For Pete's Sake had everything I love in a book:  romance, mystery, and unfailing Christian values in a real world. This was the second book in the "The Piper Cove Chronicles." I haven't read any of the others; I will have to find them now!

For Pete's Sake is a remarkable story about the unlikely live between a grown-up tomboy and the millionaire next door.

Ellen Brittingham isn’t sure true live exists until she contracts to do the landscaping of the estate of the sophisticated widower next door, Adrian Sinclair. Adrian has it all—at least on the surface, He’s engaged to a beautiful woman who helped him build a successful business and he’ll soon have a mom for his troubled son Pete.

Yet, from the moment Ellen rescues a stranded Adrian on her Harley, his well-ordered world turns upside down, cracking his thin façade of happiness and revealing the void of faith and love behind it. Even more, his son seems to have his own sites set on Ellen – as his new mom.

As Ellen’s friendship grows with Pete, she realizes that his father is about to marry the wrong woman for the right reasons. And despite her resolve to remain “neighbors only” with the dad, the precocious boy works his way into her heart, drawing Ellen and Adrian closer. Close enough for heartbreak, for Pete’s sake!

But how can her heart think that Adrian Sinclair is the one when he’s engaged to a sophisticated beauty who is everything Ellen isn’t. When Ellen’s three best friends see she’s been bitten by the love bug, they jump into action and submit her to a makeover that reveals the woman underneath her rough exterior and puts her in contention for Adrian’s love.

But Ellen must ask herself whether she’s ready to risk the heart that she’s always held close. Will Ellen be able to trust that God brought this family into her life for a reason? Or will her fear of getting hurt cause her to turn away from God’s plan and her one true chance at love?

The new coop

Hubby doesn’t get much time off, so we decided to make the most of Easter weekend and do family projects in the yard. Last week our new baby chicks came! We ordered 25, but only seven of them are ours. The rest are a friend’s. The hatchery marked my seven by painting their heads red! We will add these seven to the five we still have.

Two of my friend’s Patridge Cochins died upon arrival. One of my chicks also died - my Golden Polish. I still have a Buff Polish, though. I love her hair-do!

In order to keep from stressing the chickens by messing up their “pecking order,” we decided to keep the two small flocks separate. Our previous setup included an indoor coop and a small run. We decided to close in the entire thing and put a wall down the middle to make it into two coops. Then we will add a large run to each side of the building.

We let the chickens out into the yard, and they were more than happy to go. Because we have several stray cats in the neighborhood, we no longer let the chickens out unless we can be out there with them. That’s also why our entire coops, runs and everything will be surrounded 100% by walls or chicken wire. But because we are outside less in the winter, the chickens haven't been out that much in the past couple of months.

Hubby put up the posts and the roof for the first outdoor run. Then while the kids and I primed the posts, he started putting up walls on what will be the indoor coop. He left two spaces in the middle so each flock will have its own window on its side of the coop. Last year’s walls were made out of what I call press-board (particle board?), and they were crumbling. So this year we bought heavy duty plywood not only for the new walls, but to reinforce the old ones.

We got one run and all but one side of the coop framed in, primed, and the trim painted. I know you usually paint the trim last, but Hubby is going to have to nail chicken wire to the posts on the run and wanted them painted so he could that and put the chickens in there.

We managed to close up the unfinished coop in a temporary way last night except for the windows. The chicken didn’t realize they had an opening until this morning. We are going to my MIL's for Easter dinner at 1 p.m. and don’t want to get dirty working on the coop until we get home. So Hubby is currently trying to find a temporary way to block the windows.

This is as far as we got last night. The coop is in the middle, that is one of the runs on the left, and there will be another run on the right. The gray part is actually primer, we will paint that and all the walls barn red. These are the chickens that escaped this morning.

I think the coop is looking great, thanks to my husband’s creativeness – he free-handed this whole thing without any plans. He just plans it in his head, but even those plans change often as he goes along. All I have to do is the painting, and I run errands to the hardware store whenever he decides he needs something else. I am also his sounding board, as he needs someone to bounce ideas off as he goes. I can’t wait to see the finished product!