*turning the soil

This morning I knew when I woke up, had my quite time and coffee that I would be heading out the door for some time in the warm sun planting onions, more broccoli and kale.  I had contemplated sewing but these things NEEDED to be done, so I went with it.

 All finished...

Before I got started this is how it looked...

We bought onions last fall and planted I don't know how many, but before they were all planted I was tired of onions, so I put the rest of the bulbs in a nice furrow and covered them with dirt. There they lay all in a crowded pile, until today.  The area where they were coming up looked like one of those little cups you put seeds in and it grows hair (grass) of the head - I don't even know what they are called. At any rate, I picked up the clumps of onions  that I refused to plant in the fall and planted them in a nice row with the others.  I have been trimming off the tops of the onions, chopping them and putting them into the freezer. These will come in hand when I am making soups, topping baked potatoes, sauteing veggies etc. They are already growing new tops back at this point.

Eric and I picked up some broccoli and kale plants this past week when we were out together and today they went into the deep dark rich soil where they will grow beautifully!  We have started eating kale like it was spinach, I believe the goodness of one is just about as good as the other. I have found kale easier to grow. The broccoli will be something we eat as it comes mature, however we did purchase it with the rabbits in mind as well. They love leafy greens and the broccoli plants give off a lot of great large green leaves. 

The goats are fed their grain in the mornings in their stall and then let out in the fenced barnyard area to roam around and forage for food.  I caught them napping, or resting while I was working in the garden. I just love this picture. Cleo is laying up against Bodie and Jazzy is laying in the crook of Cleo's legs. So cute! Each time I went near the garden/barnyard gate all of my sweet chickens would come running as if I was going to let them into the garden area.  It doesn't take long for them to learn a pattern, albeit a bit early in the day for such activity.  I will heed their request a bit later in the day, their work in the garden and around the yard beyond the barnyard is much appreciated!

If you have a small patch of land, whether you live in the rural area, suburbs or urban area you can plant some onions at this point. You can usually find a "bunch" of onions at your local feed store, Walmart or Lowe's at this time of the year. Just turn your soil over with a shovel, level it off and make a hole about 1 1/2 inches deep and plant the onion. These will grow with no help from you other than a bit of watering along the way.  Onions will grow nicely in a sunny flower bed and not take away from the beauty of your flower bed either. What about potatoes.. do you have potatoes in your pantry that have "eyes" on them? If so, cut about an inch under where the "eye" is coming out. Simply slice that piece off, leaving a bit of potato under the eye area. You will leave the slice you cut off on the counter or outside somewhere safe for a day or so. The slice will need to "heal" over a bit and then in a day or two you can plant this in an area where the soil is mulched well.  In a few months you will be able to harvest numerous potatoes from that part you would normally cut off and throw away.

Go ahead, I encourage you, if you have even a small spot - plant a seed, or two. Turn those sprouting potatoes into plants that will produce for your family.



shared at Your Gardening Friend
Rural Thursday

*preparations under way

 Preparing has to take place in order to make ready. We have began to make ready our garden spots for the coming planting season!  We have been tilling, turning, building and getting excited about this season that is on our doorsteps.

Eric has been turning the well mulched garden spots so we can begin our planting in about one month.  We have decided to seed our garden about mid March, praying that no frost will set in after that date. Last year this time he was still in North Carolina, so he gets to be a part of the garden from the ground up this year.

This year we are adding two more hives to our property and instead of buying the hive boxes, bottom board and top boards, my talented beloved is building them.  We still have to purchase all the frames to go inside each  hive box or supra but we are still saving a considerable amount of money with him building them.  One of the hives will be a gift to Eric's mom and dad. They showed some interest in honey this past year, so as a Christmas gift to them, we are giving them a completed hive with two supra's, they will just populate it with the purchase of the bees.  The bees are starting to become active again which is exciting to see.  Beekeeping is really quite rewarding with many benefits.

We will be breeding one of our Nubian's in a month or so, and with this in mind we need to have our goats become accustomed to getting up on the stand to be milked, have their hoofs trimmed etc.  Eric has had some plans printed out for a little while and this past weekend he made it come to life.  I love the way it turned out. We did have to purchase the 2 X 4's to make the stand, but he repurposed some wood that was already here to make the base of the stand as well as the ramp.  We had some tinted stain from some project when we lived in NC and this is what we stained it with.  You should have seen having each goat come up the ramp individually to introduce them to the stand. We gave them some dried beet pulp as their treat along with some grain which they love. They were happy to follow the cup with treats up the ramp to a certain point. It did however, take both of us to get a couple of them up on the stand and in the right place. 

 Husan is doing a great job keeping his hens together. He watches over them carefully, and he is kind to us. This kindness is good for the sustainability of his life. *wink*

 This is Ellie, one of our "easter egger" or Americauna hens, isn't she beautiful?!

 We often see this... a bird of a feather, flock together.. Two Barred Rocks together and two White Brahama's together.

Aren't those some beautiful brussel sprouts there?  Our hens are really loving life right now!  They already have free roam of a huge area of our property but within a fence for their protection from predators. Since we have been out working in the gardens and building in the barn so much lately, we have been letting the chicks go beyond the fenced area and into the gardens.  There is still a fence beyond that as well for their protection. The pickins are much better in a new spot of land that has not been turned over on a regular basis. I love to sit and watch our chickens turn the ground over seeking out bugs, seeds and whatever else suits their fancy.  We try and let them out an hour or so before the sun goes down, this way we are pretty much assured that every one of them will be in to roost as that beautiful rose colored sunset sets.  We supplement feed our chickens with cracked corn and grains as needed, but we much prefer they go and work for their food, I think they like it best that way as well.

*WIP'D February

 WORK IN PROGRESS DONE!

It is that time again, another month has managed to roll around marking January in the past. Did you accomplish success in the area of finished projects in the works, starting a new one, or finishing one from beginning to end?  I did not do any of the above... I WILL be finishing something this month (I hope).

The linky will be posted on the first Saturday of each month, leaving it open the whole month, so once you are finished with your projects (and you have blogged about it), come on over and link up.  It will be a great encouragement to have your project be a part of the blog hop!

  
Here's the rules- I don't really like that word rules, but anyway..
     *Link up with a direct url to your featured post on the most recent project you finished whether it is cross stitching, quilting, sewing, crafting, upcycling etc..
     *Grab my button and add it to your featured post, or link back please
     *Come back again next month!




“/><center><a href=”http://http://www.lameinbothfeet.blogspot.com/” target=”_blank”><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7172/6609790523_f3449058a1_m.jpg" width="175" height="130" alt="quilt for Jo-2" /></a></center>

Share the word, consider posting about this or putting the button up on your side bar. Thanks!

*scenic Sunday

Henry and Tiffany (his sweet girlfriend), asked me to take some pictures of them sometime this weekend. The photo with Henry climbing the tree is very much a picture of who my son is.  We had a great time laughing, and capturing some great images!

These girls were just telling each other how grateful they are that they live at Erilyn Farm. 

We hope you all had a great weekend, we certainly did!  May your week be better than you have even hoped for!

~Lynnie

*2 out of 19 ain't bad!

If these adorable little chicks were being raised by a hen, she would make sure they didn't get pasty butt. She would, gulp, peck it off. Now that is true love!  Pasty butt, as  you probably know can be very deadly to a little chick.  This morning when I was cleaning out their brooder I noticed that only two of the nineteen had pasty butt. By the time I got them back in the brooder only one had pasty butt. I am not sure if one of the other chicks pecked it off (thinking it was food- they will peck at anything that is dark, crumbly looking).  I carefully cleaned the little on up and she was on her way. I am sure she is in their releasing right now.  Cleaning up her vent was life giving to her, I am sure she appreciates it.

I am not sure why, but the moment I saw this picture in my Picasa album, I immediately thought of me and my best friend, Franziska. This picture reminds me of us. Even down to the fact that their is some poop laying on the "ground" (my quilt!!! YIKES!) around us.  That is what dear friends are for, to walk you through the crap that life sometimes throws at 'cha, side by side we shall be.

These two light colored chicks are the Buff Orppington and the Buff Brahma, Henry has claimed one of them and named her Gwen.

Psst. Psst. Do you see that little girl there, the black and yellow one with her sweet little head sort of pointing sideways downward? Well, the dear man at the hatchery, "threw" her in for free. She is a Black Copper Maran and she is challenged to say the least.  I am happy to have her in the mix and pray she is able to adapt to her differences as she grows.

 I am working on a name for her, she will be easy to recognize in the mix.  We had added two Welsummers, three Black Copper Marans, a Buff Orppington, a Buff Braham, an Americauna, a Yellow Comet, and the 9 mixed "back yard" chickens from our hen. We will be able to determine what their mother was as they get their pin feathers later this month.   Like I said, 2 out of 19 chicks with pasty butt isn't bad.  This will be the worst week for pasty butt then we will be on to bigger and better things!

*Deja vu

 The last few years here on the Gulf Coast, the winters have been rather cold. This past year we experienced a winter that was not far from what we were used to experiencing in North Carolina. This year, however, has been a different story. While we have had about a weeks worth of low 20's temps throughout the "winter season", I have only used my winter coat a few times. I am not thrilled about this one way or the other. This time last year the temps were less than desirable! But, spring is definitely on its way.  Every morning I hear the birds singing praises to their King!  The grass is peeking through, ok so most of it never left this year.  Flowers are blooming, trees are blooming, our strawberries are blooming, the dew berries on our property are blooming, the daffodils and azaleas are blooming! Last year the sweet daffodils bloomed around the 24th of February, they are almost a month ahead this year.

Last year this time I was starting to gleefully raise our first chicks for egg production here at Erilyn Farm.  It was really a lot of fun the first time, not so much this time.  I am excited to raise more pullets, don't get me wrong. 

Remember we had a hen to go broody and hatch out 9 chicks AND we picked up 9 more in Samson at a small hatchery last weekend?  We have all of them together now, yes that means Rebel is NOT raising her chicks but me instead.  We felt it would be best if we integrated the little chicks all together early on.  We had some gang issues last year when we finally put our two different groups of hens together.  So I tried to give all of the chicks to Rebel to raise.  Firstly, 18 is a lot of chicks for her little frame.  She is a Buff Leghorn and really a rather small hen compared to our other hens.  She seemed to be confused when I first put all of them in with her, she took them in or so at first I thought she did.  Later in the day I went out to check on them. She had her chicks in her small wings warming, but she was pecking towards the others as they drew near to her.  I made a decision to take all of them away, bring them inside and put them in the brooder so I could take them under my wings...   Rebel, our still broody hen now has 5 more eggs she is sitting on.  We made efforts to research if it was possible to put more eggs under a broody hen AFTER she had hatched out eggs she had been sitting on for 19 days.  To no avail we were not able to find any information at all on anyone who had removed the baby chicks upon 48 hours or so of hatching out and giving more eggs to the broody hen.  We have done it. She is sitting on the eggs as if she just went broody. I am hopeful that she will continue to sit for at least 19 more days. Sometimes broody hens can loose the desire and leave the nest completely.  I have moved her food so she has to get up and stretch her legs, get a drink and POOP outside her nest. I believe it was my fault that she was pooping in her nest as it is. I mean really, if someone brings food to your mouth and you don't need to get up for anything else why not just poop where you are?

January 2012's chicks

So my January and February are akin to 2011's January and February, it is important to add new birds to your flock every couple of years because their egg production will start to slow down after a few years of production. I suppose I will have those deja vu moments in January's to come.