Babies!!

 They're here!!!

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 I have new babies! Only 2, but still babies! They are full blooded Easter Eggers and should lay blue or green eggs when they grow up (I always assume they're girls until I hear a crow or see some other "boy" sign.)

My 2 Easter Egger chicks

 They hatched last night, the other 3 in their group haven't showed any progress. I wasn't sure if ANY of them were going to hatch so I'm happy with these 2. 

In the brooder

 I don't really have anything else to say tonight, just more pictures of the animals.

Boris is trying to eat the log and Lily is a cowgirl princess

Such cuteness

The goats

Sniffing around in the clover

Cuddles

Stepping on her sister's head

Planting and puppy dogs

 Okay, first I have to admit that as I sit here typing this I have a cute little fluff ball at my feet. We got a new Great Pyrenees/Lab mix puppy yesterday. I had no intention of getting a puppy when the day started, but there was this ad on Craigslist...it had a picture...I just couldn't resist. So we picked up Boris yesterday afternoon. He's 8 weeks old and already HUGE!

Boris on Gabe's lap on the way home

 Anyway, that's all beside the point. The real point of tonight's blog is the garden. Mike and I got all 6 of the new trees planted (today Bruno ate the top off of the plum tree, so I'm not sure that one is gonna make it.) I spent Sunday afternoon getting the asparagus and garlic planted in the garden. 

Asparagus roots, ready to be covered with dirt

 Then, today I started my herb seeds and a few veggies. 

The seeds I started today

 Lily thought it was great fun to help fill up the pots and plant seeds. We got 81 small pots started and 5 bigger pots.

Herbs

Veggies

More herbs

I'm cutting tonight's entry a little short because Daddy is out of town and I have to put the munchkins to bed on my own tonight. Luckily the puppy (and the batch of soup I made this afternoon) kept Gabe occupied and calm. So goodnight everyone, Blessed Be

Rainy days

 Hello everyone. Things have been pretty quiet around here for the last few days. We got a big rain storm which dropped 4 inches of much needed rain here. Considering Texas is in the worst drought in recorded history, I'm happy to put up with the mud and the cranky goats (they hate the rain and glare at me like it's somehow MY fault that water is falling from the sky!)

4 inches of rain in my handy dandy rain gauge

 I was a little bit afraid that my brand new garden would wash away, as it's still bare dirt, but it looks just fine. The onions that I put in on Monday seem happy with all the moisture. As soon as the soil dries out enough I will be back at work getting my early plantings in and spreading wood mulch in all my paths.

Muddy but happy onion seedlings

 Egg production has gone WAY up in the last week or so. I was only getting 1 or 2 eggs a day before. Yesterday I got 10!! Maybe the Buffs won't end up in the freezer after all. Of course, chickens don't wipe their feet before going into the nest boxes so there is quite a bit of mud on the eggs. I will wash them off just before I use them so that the bloom isn't removed from the eggshell. The bloom is what seals the pores in the eggshell so that bacteria can't get inside.

This week's eggs, time to make quiche

 In hopes of getting some of my seeds started indoors this weekend I spent a good part of the last 2 days making little newspaper pots with my PotMaker. I love this little contraption and highly recommend it to anyone starting a lot of seedlings. I think I have around 80 done so far, only about 300 more to go. 

Lots of tiny pots

 It makes pots and also gives your pecs a nice workout. I have to say I didn't even remember that I HAD pecs until I used this thing. 

My PotMaker

 Yesterday Mike, Lily and I went to a great seed store here in town and got 6 new fruit trees, 30 asparagus roots, and lots of seed garlic (from Gilroy, Ca the best smelling town in the USA!) After I brought them home Bruno decided that the trees looked a lot like sticks, so he should carry them off and chew on them. He managed to get 3 of them and chew off the small roots before I caught him. Let me just say that he's really fast when he needs to be, which saved him from the swift kick in the ass I was about to give him. I think (hope) that the trees will survive the trauma.

2 figs, 1 cherry, 1 peach, 1 apricot, and 1 plum tree

 All morning he has been trying to make up with me. It was the last straw though. He is an expensive pain in my butt. I put an ad on craigslist but nobody wants him. Mike will be calling a local no kill shelter to take him in. 

He looks smug

 I'm most excited about the asparagus. It's my favorite veggie, but I've never grown it because I haven't had the land to do it. I didn't want to start a bed at a rental house for fear that I would do all the work and wait the 2-3 years before it was ready to harvest just to move. Now that we have our own land I can plant to my little heart's content. Since we got 2-year-old roots we will be able to harvest 1 or 2 stalks from each plant this year and then for 6 weeks next spring. The best part is that once I get them established they will produce for 20 years or more!

30 asparagus roots

 I think Mike is most excited about the garlic. I put it in everything I cook that isn't sweet. Not only does it taste good, but it's incredibly good for you!

Garlic!!

 Anyway, that's what's been going on around here. Blessed Be

Garden progress

The Plan!
The only thing we've changed is the position of the compost bin.

 I have gotten so much done on the garden in the last few days. The whole area was tilled 3 times. I hurt myself the first time, until Mike explained that I needed to stop fighting with the machine. After that I was fine.

Halfway through the first tilling

The kids and the dog thought it was great fun and no amount of explaining that I was trying to fluff up the soil would stop them from stomping on it and rolling in it. Gabe was especially pleased.

Happy boy

After they got their fill of getting filthy. I started raking all of the loose soil out of the paths and into the raised beds. Right now only one of them is enclosed but eventually they all will be. They're not raised very high yet, but as I add more compost and improve the soil they will get higher.

The first raised bed

 Bruno helped too...

He's such a big helper

 Many, many hours and sore muscles later it looked like this.

Making progress

This morning I rushed to get some onion plants in the ground before a big rain storm rolled in. I still have one medium bed to rake up and 3 more paths to clear but I'm nearly there. And now that I have plants in the ground it's really a garden. Now that we're actually growing our own veggies I feel like I can really say that we live on a farm. It's a tiny farm, but it's a farm. It even has a name.... 

 Everyone, welcome to Cackleberry Creek Farm!

Incubating and other chicken news

 Tonight I finally candled the 10 eggs I have in the incubator. Half of them are clear, they probably weren't fertile. Another 2 are iffy, there is development, but I didn't see a heartbeat. The other 3 look really good, I can see blood flowing through the little vessels around the developing embryo.
 I have to admit, I was hoping for a better hatch that 3 or 5. I decided to add a dozen more in a separate tray to hatch 8 days after these ones. I dated each of the new eggs so that I don't get them mixed up with the old eggs.
 Now chicken people all know that the eggs need to go on "lockdown" on day 18. Non chicken people have no idea what this means. I will explain. Because I "dry" incubate I keep the humidity around 30% during the first 18 days (I basically don't add any water at all, the eggs lose enough moisture to keep it at this level) and turn the eggs every 8 hours, then, on day 18 I add water in a shallow dish to bring the humidity up to 70%. Then I shut the door and leave them alone until they hatch.
 So, what, you may ask, happens when you have a staggered hatch? How can you lock the eggs down if you have to turn the other eggs? Will terrible things happen? No, it works just fine. I bring the humidity up to 70% and stop turning the hatching eggs on day 18 but I do open the incubator to turn the others. I quickly open the door, grab the tray, close the door, turn the eggs (and candle if I need to) then open the door, put the eggs back and close the door. The door isn't open for longer than 30 seconds each time. Because my incubator is so small the humidity comes back up within just a couple of minutes and everything is fine.
 Once the chicks have hatched I move them into the brooder and remove the water dish to bring the humidity back down until the next bunch are ready to go on lockdown.
 Now, for other chicken news. my buffs are starting to lay well. As soon as we hit the winter solstice and the days started getting longer they started laying. I'm up to 6 or 7 eggs most days. The Easter Eggers are starting to molt and are producing a lot less. Since they've been laying for 18 months straight I will cut them a little slack. They need a break.
 I did a head count (beak count?) today while I was out in the run and we are down to 16 hens and Moonshine the rooster. I do have 4 young chickens (about 12 weeks) out there but one is a young roo who is going to be dinner as soon as he's big enough to make a good meal. I'd like to build my flock up to about 50 by the end of the summer, maybe more if we can scrape together enough cash to order some new chicks.
 The laundry calls so I will say good night and Blessed Be