I've finally taken some pictures of the chickens and ducks to post "updates" of them here- so here's a few pictures for all of you who who want to see their progress :)

Here's our "alpha-roo" Big Boy

Our "lesser-roo" Oderus ( he was the first egg I ever hatched- a Black Australorp- the only one that hatched for me on May 21)

Some of the older group of chickens on their new roost:

Some of our "middle" group of chicks- they're almost 12 weeks old now.  These guys are barnyard mixes I hatched from eggs from my egg lady.  I think they're gorgeous!

And some of the younger ones- I've got a group of hens I got from a McMurray hatchery special, along with some Ameraucana's, a frizzle and a naked neck that I hatched out at about the same time- about 8 weeks old.  In the first picture- the chick to the far left was marked as a frizzle, but I think it's really a banty cochin cross that was mixed up in my egg order- still waiting to confirm it from the lady I ordered the eggs from.  He's a cutie though, and a tough little bugger :)

And finally-- let's not forget Gavin's ducks!!   Snowball is the white one (who isn't really white anymore, he's buff) and Fez has the crest, and looks to be a Blue Swedish Crested duck ( we got the ducks as part of the McMurray special, so didn't know what breeds we were getting). They're both quite cute :)

It's starting! The chickens are beginning to lay.  Well-- one of them, at least.  The oldest ones are just over 4 months old- so the timing is right, though on the early side. We thought surely we wouldn't have any eggs for another month yet.

Shawn found one of the hens in one of the nest boxes this morning- so they're learning where to lay-- the first couple we on the floor.   It's one of the "easter egger" crosses- When we got the first group, we bought chicks that were several days old, and knew that the roo was a Barred rock, and the hens were all mixed breeds.  These eggs are green, so it's an Ameraucana/ barred rock cross that must be laying. 

Here are the pics. of the first 2 that were found ( same day- so we're not sure if it's one or two laying just yet)

Very often, when I upload photos from the camera to the computer, I'll find photos that Shawn has taken. Usually, its the moon, or the mountains, or one of our birds, or something he's seen in the yard.  Lotsof times it's rainbows- just like this one that I uploaded today. He'll usually do this so he can share something he's seen when I'm not home.

So, I thought I'd share this rainbow with you too.  It must have been taken the end of August sometime- and it's over the trees at the back of the property, beyond the pond and the barn.

Enjoy!

Yum!!  Today is one of the best days of summer-- or at least the end of summer.

Tomatoes!  Tomato Sauce!  Oh, it smells and tastes so good!

So, in case you haven't figured it out yet-- I'm canning some tomatoes today.   I don't have enough to do too much with just now, but I'm attempting to make a few jars of sauce  today- and hopefully more later in the week. 

I started by picking some great looking plum tomatoes out of the garden, along with some fresh basil and fresh oregano, a few Egyptian walking onions, and also some cherry tomatoes.

I skinned and chopped the tomatoes, diced up the onion and popped them all in the crockpot with a big sprig of oregano and basil, along with a big spoonful of diced garlic (storebought-- being my first summer here, no fresh garlic yet!)

It hasn't cooked down yet, but it's well on it's way!  I also took the cherry tomatoes and sliced them and have them in the dehydrator with the rest of the basil and oregano I picked.  Just a test batch - to see how long it takes to dry, and later in the week I'll dry some more.   I've been reading some yummy recipes to use with dried tomatoes-- like lasagna with re-hydrated tomato slices- I bet that will taste great in the middle of winter, and they'll add some summer to my winter soups!

Here's a few pictures I took along the way, and I'll take some more when it's all done and canned. 

The plum tomatoes, fresh picked and just washed.

Basil and oregano.

Egyptian walking onions, just picked.

Just started in the crock pot.

Cherry tomatoes and herbs on the drying racks.

Thanks for reading- I hope you enjoyed!!

Have a great today!

I've been so darn busy- worked the last 7 days straight, that I haven't had a minute to myself, or gotten much done. Shawn started a temporary job, overnights, this week- so we're on alternate schedules, and trying to keep the birds quiet during the day so he can sleep has been challenging. We've got 3 cockatoos who all talk (yes- human words) and know the meanings of the words they speak. They call out for Shawn, since they know he's home, and unless I can occupy them, they keep going endlessly. So, I've been keeping them as quiet as I can and trying to stay quiet myself until he gets adjusted. 

I did make another batch of chokecherry jelly just now, and froze up the rest of the juice I have until I can get to it. I have enough cucumbers for a batch of dill pickles, that I'll probably make up after I grill some chicken and chops to feed my hungry man, who's outside mowing right now and waiting for dinner :)   So off to cooking for me, then pickles, then to the garden if I have any daylight left.   I'm off today, work tomorrow, then have the whole weekend off ( 4 days) when I'll be going crazy in the garden- I can't wait!

I've had a busy day today- but wanted to make a quick entry-

I canned 5 jars of beets, 11 bread and butter pickles and 12 jars of chokecherry jelly today.  I've got an early day at work tomorrow, and will post photos another time.

Have a great today!
Annette

Thanks to all the information and recipes from Sister Brenda, I was able to make some jelly.  

It's a funny story actually.   Sister Brenda had been posting about her Chokecherry jelly, so I had asked her what Chokecherries were.  They next day, she sent me a detailed email, with photos and everything, about Chokecherries. 

Coincidentally, Shawn had come in the evening before with a stem from a tree, with some berries. He had told me that one of the town elders, who had visited a few weeks before ( he had actually owned this property many years ago) had shown him the trees.  Shawn said "Can you post this on one of your websites to see what this is?  Mr. D. said it is some type of cranberry"

So, you all have one guess what the photos that Sister Brenda had sent me looked like!  My "cranberry" was a Chokecherry.  And I have millions of them! There are dozens of trees full of them all over the property.

I sent Gavin out picking, and he did a great job!  2/3 of a half-bushel basket in just a short time. 

Sister Brenda sent me another email, full of photos and a recipe, and I was all set.   It took a couple hours on Monday to strip all the berries off of the stems, but after that, the rest of the process was much quicker in comparison.

I cooked down the berries into juice: (isn't that color great?)

Then using Sister Brenda's recipe, I had jelly in no time!

We had it on toast this morning.  It's really quite yummy!!!  Shawn doesn't like things really sweet, so I might adjust it a bit with the next batch-- I've still got enough juice for 2 more batches, and many more berries I can pick- so, I can play a lot!

I think I'll post at another time about the Chokecherries.  The story behind this native North American plant fascinates me, and I'm so surprised I haven't heard of it until now! 

Tomorrow I'll make more jelly, some pickles, and can some beets.

Enjoy your today!
Annette

That's what my kitchen sounds like today. 

I'm happy to say that I'm very tired tonight, after canning 28 pints, half-pints, and quarts of peas and beans today.  Since I am not supposed to mess with them yet, I haven't photographed them yet- but they're done!

We picked what we could between raindrops yesterday, and I shelled peas and cut beans this morning, and canned all afternoon into the evening.  The last batch just came out of the canner to cool down-- so I've been at it just shy of 10 hours.  I told Shawn that whatever he can pick tomorrow while I'm at work, I'll put up on Wednesday when I'm off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 I had planned to go to sleep, but decided I needed to post pics!

Here's the beans before they were washed, sorted and cut. ( I never did get a before pic of the peas-- sorry!)

And afterwards- all the jars (with water spots-sorry!)  and a close up:

Now.. I'll head off to sleep! Goodnight everyone!

It's been a long time since I've seen so much rain!  For the last 3 weeks, it rains nearly every afternoon or overnight.  I have this weekend off- 4 days, Friday through Monday.  It poured rain non-stop on Friday, so Saturday during the day it was too wet to work in the yard-- we just sunk to our ankles in the mud.  I was hoping that today would be better, but again, it's rained overnight and it's still drizzling.

The weeds have taken over, and it's so wet that my squash is rotting before it can grow.  :sigh:..... We need some sunshine to dry it out so I can work outside.  Something tells me that come next Friday-- when I have to work the whole weekend, we'll have sun!

Happy Sunday to everyone!

I'm really pretty tired tonight- it's been a busy day, but it's been nice, and I wanted to post a couple of quick pictures before I pack it in for the night. 

Gavin's mom and brother are here visiting for a few days, and we went out sight-seeing and shopping today, and his mom and I went to see some sights later in the evening. I'll post our complete adventures tomorrow.

My first photo is a gorgeous scene taken while we were in Smyrna Mills early this afternoon.

And the second one is the sunset from a scenic view spot in Weston.  You can just barely see it-- but the shadow of Mount Katahdin is to the far left edge of the photo.

That's all for now-- enjoy your evenings!

Gavin and I took a ride to the grocery store this afternoon ( a 100 mile round trip, but the meat is great!), enjoyed an ice cream on the way back ( after my terrible experience on the way there--  getting stung 5-7 times on my shoulder by a bee that blew into the car and down my shirt!)  and we also got a special treat--- we drove by 3 wild turkey hens.   I turned around because Gavin couldn't see them, and snapped a quick photo ( that didn't come out-- help! I need a new camera!).   I pulled into the small turnout that was right there, instead of driving past and turning somewhere ahead, and I am so glad we did!   Out of the grass popped about 10 little turkey heads!!  The hens all had chicks with them, and they wer so adorable.   They were cautious of us ( we stayed in the car), but kept moving along, and we got to watch until they were well into the brush.  Such fun!

As promised-- some of my veggies are below. The photos are at least a week old, and the garden is now a jungle!!  This being my first year planting in very many years,, I planted too much, too close and everything overlaps.   Our peas and beans are hard to find, and my summer squashes are so covered ( and so wet from all the rain) that they are rotting before they fully grow, so I've been trying to rearrange, trim and thin.   The wonderful news from this-- the herbs and tomatoes are doing spectacularly, and we'll have sauce and salsa to last til next season, as long as everything ripens nicely :)

Cucumbers aren't doing well- we got hit with slugs, and too much damage was done before I cleared up the problem. I've got a few small cukes, but not enough to pickle.   If I come across a great deal at a farmers market, tho-- I will be pickling!

Lettuce, chard, beets, broccoli  and carrots are super too!  Spinach grew wonderfully, but way too fast for us to eat it- so a lot got fed to the chickens ( who adored it, along with chard--- I'll post a pic of them eating chard and spinach in the chicken run)

First-- Here is my very first home grown salad.  The eggs aren't from my chickens yet, but are local-- from just up the road. Everything else came from our garden--  Lettuce, Spinach, basil, red cabbage ( this is growing awesome!), broccoli, and a little cuke.  It was great!

Forgive the photo quality-- my camera is horrid--- but here are the chickens with the chard!

A tiny squash ( on a very big plant)

Now this, I think, is broccoli.... It could be cauliflower, but I don't think so.  It's too small to know just yet, lol!

Red Cabbage-nice and bright and colorful!

Attack of the killer squash, and pumpkin, and...

And finally... remember that first garden photo I posted down below??   Take a look at this side view-- things have grown, and grown!

So- that should give you all something to read for a bit, and some pictures to see what we're up to!  Enjoy, write soon, and watch this space for more to come.

Whew!!   I can, once again, add some photos! I"m thrilled.  I'd maxed out my account photo space, and couldn't figure out how to add more, got frustrated, and have missed my blog since.  Now I've figured it out and can begin to blog again!

We now have a total of 44 chickens and 2 ducks.  The ducks are Gavin's pets.  The chickens are all from 4 days to 3 months old (wow--- I'll have to re-calculate-- I can't believe the big ones are that old yet!)

We should be figuring out soon who are roosters.   The 14 we just got should be hens, and the "in between" chicks will have to wait and see.   Bumbles and Oderus are keepers-- our blind chicken and our very first hatched chicken.  The rest of the roosters will all have to show us how good they are at minding a flock, and we'll pick 1 or 2 to keep ( more like 1 since we think Oderus is a roo) and the rest will proceed to the freezer when the age is right.

I know.. some of you are cringing, and I won't cite too many pros and cons-- except, our reason for moving was to be less dependent on making other people money, and creating and providing more for ourselves.  Our eggs and meat will all eventually come from animals we've cared for and given good healthy lives, and not from mass produced, mass inoculated, mass medicated, and genetically engineered sources.  Plain, simple.  Anyone who'd like more information-- let me know. I'll gladly share my reading and web sources, if you want to learn more about living this way.

I had a recent request for some garden photos.   When we moved here, I was told there were a lot of perennials planted, so we left a few areas to just grow as they wished, so we could see what we have-- well, we're quite pleased!  The colors are fabulous in these flowers we've got in one of the gardens out front-- you should be able to see Shawn standing in the background of one of them  :)

Hollyhocks below-- close up

And some of the others-- I think they're black-eyed susans----- look closely, you'll see a bunch of honey bees!   I didn't dare step into the garden because there were so many bees, all I could hear was a loud hummmmmmm.....

That's all for now. Next post will include veggie garden and more chickens! Maybe even my first salad with all my own garden veggies!

I'm having trouble with photos here, so I've put off blogging-- but I don't want to, so I took a break, and I'm going to try again-- If it works, you'll see a photo of Gavin's new ducks. They were hatched last Wednesday, and arrived here on Friday:

I haven't had a chance to regularly update this blog-- we were sharing 2 computers between 3 people- which should be enough-- but not in this house full of gamers!  So, I finally got the laptop computer I've wanted!

Our chickens and garden are growing like crazy!   The chickens in the barn are just that-- chickens-- I can barely call them chicks anymore-- they're nearly 7 weeks old and getting huge!   Chicks are almost 3 weeks, in the brooder on the sunporch- and with 30+ eggs in the incubator set to start hatching in less than a week-- even the chicks will be elevated in status to chick-teens!

Here are the 6-7 week olds, outside the barn one day.

I awoke this morning to find 2 baby Rhode Island Red chicks in the incubator!!  I immediately turned into a baby-talking, squealing, giggling fool!  Oh, they're just adorable.  I've take a few pictures for starters- but they aren't all too clear-- you'll get the idea, though. 

Even more exciting-- Shawn is coming back from Massachusetts today, where he's been working all week, and bringing his son who'll be here most of the summer.  What a treat for them to come home to!

We currently have 13 chicks in the barn- all about 4 weeks old, give or take a few days.
On June 1st, we set more eggs to hatch in our new incubator-- 20 alltogether.  14 are RIR's (Rhode Island Reds) and the other 6 are mixed breeds from a local egg lady.

I candled at 1 week, 2 weeks and on day 17-and discarded 3 eggs that last candle date-- they were either clear (indicating they were't fertile, or never had growth) and 1 that looked like it started growing, but stopped very early.   So, I was left with 12 RIR and 5 mixed eggs. 

Our incubator has an automotic turner, which turns the eggs on a regular basis (without human intervention needed) - and it's necessary to stop turning at about day 18 of the hatch, so the chicks can get in position to hatch out.  I was scheduled to take the turner out this morning.   I checked the eggs when I came home last night, and, luckily, I had the urge to peek again just before I went to sleep (around 1 am).  To my surprise, 2 of the eggs had pipped. (that means they chick has poked the first hole in the shell of the egg-- the beginning of the hatch).   I'm glad I checked them-- this gave me the chance to take the turner out, and set the eggs in cartons to wait for their hatching.  I use the egg carton method-- standing each egg in an egg carton-small end down.   It keeps the eggs from rolling around, and possibly keeping things cleaner.  I liked it the first time around- so we've decided to use that again.

Anyhow-- no progess yet this morning, but that's normal.   I did get some pictures of the eggs with the pips (thank you chickies for pipping next to each other-- made picture taking easy!)

"We" are Annette and Shawn.  I (Annette) will likely be doing most of the blogging for Shawn and I.  We are both "40-something" and were married a little over a year and a half ago.  Second marriage for me, first for Shawn.  While we have no children with each other- together we have 3---  I have a 24 year old daughter, he has a 28 year old daughter, and 11 year old son.  None of the 3 currently live with us - though that is always subject to change, and we welcome any of them!

After meeting and marrying and looking at our future, we decided that we weren't going to create much of a future where we were.  And, where were we?  Living in the south suburbs of Boston, working like crazy, paying huge rent and utilities and I was commuting my life away.  When we started to look at buying a house we soon figured that we would never retire, and likely never live to see anything we bought get paid off. 

So we left, and actually left quickly.   We decided to find someplace where we could live reasonably, have a reasonable mortgage, and have some land that we could work to make it produce some, most, or all we need.  In less than 2 months of making the decision, we had found employment and bought a house with 5 1/2 acres of land in rural northern Maine.  We've been here for exactly 3 months and haven't looked back, not even once.

We've started many of the projects that we want to put into place.  I expect to learn a lot, and also expect that most, if not all, of what we're doing today will change as time goes on, but here's a list of what we've got started (despite having moved here during the worst winter on record in 50 years and still having snow on the ground in late April, and not knowing what we'd find under all that snow!)
* Lawn mower, lawn tractor, rototiller, weed wacker and assorted other yard, garden tools purchased.
* Barn cleaned out and sanitized-- it was a mess that's difficult to describe- but has left us with many cubic feet of composting chicken and goat manure, left from what appears to be years of poorly kept animals :(
* 3 garden plots tilled, turned, and tilled again
* 2 of above mentioned plots nearly filled with veggies and herbs, 90% of which I started from seed myself
* Asparagus and raspberry beds/rows discovered and being maintained ( we knew they were here but had to wait for growth to find them!)
* Perennial gardens found, weeded and mostly mulched-- work in progress to identify what are "good" and what aren't.  I don't know plants from weeds ( unless it's crabgrass or dandelions) so this has been fun!
*Shawn is scraping and painting exterior of house
* Deck plans drawn up, lumber ordered, rock wall / rock perennial garden being disassembled and moved to other side of house where I'll have more perennials planted when painting is done
* Incubator purchased for hatching chicken eggs.  First hatch yielded only 1 chick-- but it's a beauty.  USPS damaged box of shipped eggs, so  we expected none!
* 12 additional chicks purchased totalling 13 in brooder - all now 3 or so weeks old
* New incubator purchased--Hovabator genesis with auto turner- to simplify hatching process-- so, we've got 20 eggs in the bator on day 7!

So, we've got a good start.   I'm working 3 or 4 days a week outside the house.  In between, I'm scouring the web for as much information as I can possibly read and learn about anything I can get my hands on- from raising and processing animals, to cooking and canning and preserving, to gardening, and everything in between!

I appreciate all the warm welcomes here and hope to virtually visit as many of you as I can!

Welcome to the new home of our blog.  I've been blogging elsewhere for a few months, and find that homesteadblogger.com really fits the bill better, there's a large community of folks doing the same thing as we are, and I wanted to join a community where our posts seem to fit better :)
Soon, I'll be posting our previous blog URL so you can go back and read the older posts there if you'd like. For now, I am going to brush up on this format, and start blogging!!  Be patient, I'm slow with these things!

(and for those who haven't read the first blog-- please check it out at -  http://downeyfarm.blogspot.com/