Candling Day

Friday night we had candled all of our eggs. Candling means that we took one of the eggs into a dark room, and shined a really bright light into it so we could see what was going on inside the egg. We did this with ALL of the eggs in the incubator. One at a time, with the ducks first. Every time we would put a duck egg up to the light, the little forming duck inside would wiggle around and squirm. It was probably the second most awesome thing I've ever seen in my life, the first being seeing my own kids wiggle and squirm on an ultrasound. DS was there watching as well and he was just so excited to see these little "blobs" moving around inside the eggs. 

We've got just under 2 weeks left before we should have a bunch of tiny animals running around in tubs in the bathroom. I'm really hoping that we can get our new coop built soon because we're running out of roost space in the coop! We sure didn't think out the whole "what if we get more" (also known as Chicken Math) thing well. We're going to build a big 17'x10' coop soon. The coop itself will be 10'x10' and then we will have an area where we will be able to store feed, to put our processing equipment, our chicken/rabbit first aid kit, have a "sick bay", and possibly a brooder box for any eggs we hatch. HOPEFULLY we will get some broody hens and they will do it for us. I'm not holding my breath too much tho. ;-)

We will candle again right before we go into lock down, which is the last 3 days of incubation. By then we should be able to tell for sure which chicken eggs are going to hatch, and which ones we should just take out. We're very excited about out new "fluffy butts," even tho most of them will be for eating. It will be interesting to see what we get, that's for sure!

Update on Gregg and assorted other oddities.

So, Gregg was REALLY limping around badly outside, and he was getting chased all over the place, and I just felt horrible for him, so I bought him inside for a few days. He was fairly immobile in the chick brooder, tho it was big enough for him to turn around and move a bit, he preferred to stay rather still. Gregg spent a couple of days inside with us, getting extra love and treats, and today we checked to see how his leg was doing. The swelling is almost completely gone, and he can walk on it again. I decided that he needed to be with his Lily duck, so we put him out there. Lily and he reunited, and then Steve had to chase him around for a bit so he would remember that he's the "2nd in command" drake.

We also got our seeds today! I was so excited! Sixteen year old me would have NEVER thought that I would be so excited about chickens, incubating, and growing a garden in my 30s, but here I am! I'm LOVING it! I wish I had more space so I could have more ducks, chickens, and more garden, but this is what we have, and eventually, we will get a bigger place. As my mom always said "Ya gotta work with what ya got little one!" and she is completely right!

In other completely off the wall news! We are going to be remodeling a few things around here, FINALLY! Sam has okay'd some wood laminate for the laundry/dog room, the kitchen, and the dining room. I'm hoping that for around $2000 we will have a completely "new house!" I think the flooring will be the most expensive part. The most time consuming part will be mudding all the walls, patching any holes, and then sanding before we paint. Since we live in a modular, the walls all have this textured wall board. It's either mud over it, or find inexpensive wallpaper and wallpaper over it. I'll take my chances with the mud!

It was also a sad day on Ivy Hill. One of our friends is going to have to have bypass surgery, and had to sell off all of her birds. We went to Wilmington to pick them up and have distributed the majority of them to their new homes. One have one more person that is supposed to come tonight to pick up the remaining birds, and  they will all be gone. :-(

I'm going to be sure to hatch her some chickens and ducks when she gets better. I know they won't be her originals, but, at least she will have some babies to love! :-)

Day 8

Today is day 8 for our duck eggs, and day 1 for *some* of our chicken eggs. When our friend brought us the mallard duck eggs, she also brought some chicken eggs. They had already been under a broody chicken before she brought them, so, we figured "why not?!"

So, in 21 days, around 09 February, we are hoping that we will have some little ducklings and chicks! I'll be sure to post a lot of pictures!

In other news! We got a gift certificate to Seed Savers Exchange for Christmas from my Kris (my sister), and we finally got around to ordering seeds! We've got some new tomato seeds coming! I'm really excited about them. One of them is called the German Pink, and the fruit can be up to 2 pounds each!! The other tomato is called the Mexico Midget, and it says it produces "hundreds" of 1/2"-3/4" fruits all season! Kris wants some pictures of the garden, and of course I told her that I would send her some home grown, home canned goodness. :-) We got a few other seeds as well, and as soon as the potatoes are out, we will be ordering 5 pounds of seed potatoes to plant as well. We're very excited about this years garden. We've planned on putting a fence up, and making another 4'x4' spot for some herbs. This fall I planted close to 100 flower bulbs to help attract bees and beneficial insects. We have a friend that lives a couple streets over, and she said that she could put a honey bee hive in our yard, and pay us "rent" in honey. It would definitely give us experience in honeybees! I absolutely think that it needs to happen!

We've got to put about 2000lbs of sand into the duck and chicken run. Not only does it have NO grass in there, it gets super muddy when it rains, and there is a lot of holes starting. Two of our ducks have sprained their legs by falling in the holes. Of course, it doesn't really help that there are only 3 ducks for the 3 drakes. So, today we decided that we were going to get rid of the most aggressive one to one of our friends that lives WAY out in the country, has quite a few ducks, and a pond! After catching Gregg to make sure he was okay, his ankle was very swollen and warm. We're hoping that doesn't mean that he broke it. :-/

That's all we have for now! We should be updating again real soon tho! :-)

And so it begins!

So, the other day, I finally put some eggs in the incubator. I am SO excited about having some ducklings I can't stand it! LOL

Today was actually the end of day 2. I turned the eggs 3 times today, moving them around the incubator just to make sure that they were all getting adequate heat. We have 26 more days to go for ducks, and in 5 more days, I will add a few chicken eggs. Today, if I were to candle (meaning use a light to look into the egg) it would look something like this:

 {via}

I didn't candle mine, and I won't until about day 14. It's fun to know what all is going on in there. 

I'll keep everyone informed about how the hatch is going!

So exciting!!!

     So, the other day our friend Pam got a new 200 egg capacity incubator and was begging for eggs to incubate from anyone and everyone in our local barnyard group. So, we chipped in and gave her 7 chicken eggs, and 2 duck eggs yesterday. This morning I sent her a text asking her if she had set any of them yet, and if we could bring over a couple more duck eggs to toss in. She said that was fine because she hadn't set any of the eggs yet. So, we took her 2 more duck eggs and 3 more chicken eggs for a total of 10 chickens and 4 ducks. The deal was that she would give us back all the duck eggs because she didn't want the ducks, and she would keep half the chicks that hatched. I told her that it was a fair deal and that I looked forward to having some new "fuzzy butts" in the house.

     Well, when we got there, she surprised us with her old incubator! I was so shocked! I thanked her profusely and we sat and visited for a while before she had to take her daughter to a doctors appointment.

     I've got it plugged in right now to get the temperature set correctly, and if all goes well, we should be able to put some more duck eggs in there, and some more chicken eggs as well!!

     We're so very excited about hatching our very own eggs!

     We also planned out the garden for this year. We're adding 2 more watermelon types, one of which Sam wants to try growing vertically, a couple different tomatoes, one of which being small cherry tomatoes, and some dry beans! We should be starting seeds here in the next week or two, so that will be exciting!

     Gretchen also turned into a Gregg, and the friend that we got him from is certain that he is a full runner duck. He has turned into a BEAUTIFUL black/grey/silver color! Another one of our friends has a fawn runner and wants to breed them to see what colors we would get. I told her that when he's old enough to breed that would would put them together for a few weeks and we would set some eggs! Of course, now we can hatch them in our new incubator! :-D

     The same friend that wants to breed runner ducks with us also gave us a new rooster as well! He's about 3 months older than Robbie and has a full tail! He's not show quality because he has white in his tail, but he is a beautiful bird! Sam named him Scrappy because he is a feisty fella! He's also a Buckeye. I can't say enough nice things about the breed. They are very adaptable. They're friendly. They're dual purpose birds, so they can be used for meat or eggs. And they're just beautiful!

     Here is a picture of Scrappy

     Isn't he a pretty boy?! I just love him.

     That's all we have for now! Hopefully we will have some more for you soon!

My Goodness!!!

So, it's been WAY too long since I've updated the blog!! Sorry about that!

A LOT has changed since June!!

It turned out that Phineas and Ferb were both drakes, and Candace and Stacy turned out to be Candace and Steve! So, we traded Phineas and Ferb for 2 female Pekin from a local guy. He said they were both female, so we named them Zoe and Midna. It turns out that Midna is a drake as well!

 We then inherited our neighbors Khaki Campbell, Lily, because they were getting rid of all of their ducks. Lily was DDs best friends favorite duck, so we said we would take her. It wasn't until after I said that we would take her that we learned that she had broken her leg, and they had never done anything about it, so we have Lame Lily Duck! Around Labor Day I gave a friend 6 duck eggs to try and hatch. I had no idea if they were fertile or not, and it turned out that all 6 were fertile!!

 Then there was a mishap and the table that the incubator was on was rocked and only one egg remained. It hatched, and we named it Lucky. Since she was the only one, another friend gave us a Muscovy duckling (that we're debating is either a runner, or a Runner Scovie cross) that was about a week and a half older than her. So we had Gretchen and Lucky. Unfortunately, just the other day, Lucky choked on some food and we put her down. So, Gretchen is the only one who remains. :-(

All of our chickens are doing really well!! We ended up getting Buckeyes on 18June to replace the chickens that were lost in transit from Meyer. They all showed up happy, healthy, and chirping!

Robbie is our only rooster, thank goodness!! He welcomes the dawn every morning with a crow! He's fairly silent during the day tho. That makes me happy. We got our chicken coop done about a week before they were ready to go outside. Since at the time DH was traveling for work, it was just me building it! I did have a friend come over and help me with the initial build, but, after that I was on my own!

(yes, I know it's a little crooked... LOL)

The back is showing on this picture. I made it into 2 doors on the back, one large and one big, and the bigger door also has a large window in it. I'm going to be getting some better wiring to put over the openings, but, for winter I want to put some plexiglass, or something similar over them.

They seem to really enjoy it out there! They all free range in the back yard during the day.

(That's our neighbors RIR. They were have a West Side Story moment I think)

Recently a friend was moving and she had to get rid of all her chickens. So, we brought home 3 more hens, Boots, Lunch and Dinner. (I could only remember one of their names... LOL)

Boots

Lunch

Dinner

They're already laying, tho Lunch has just started a molt. Bad timing Lunch, bad timing!

Remember that tiny puppy we brought home?? Well, she's mostly grown up these days!! Here's some pictures of the little Annie from the last month or so. 

Sam and Annie

Annie and Dusty

Annie dressed up with no place to go!

Bat-eared Annie!

Our garden was mostly a bust this year. It was SO hot by the time the sun came out that none of us dared venture out there for more than a couple of minutes at most. Then our mower broke and we couldn't mow any grass, so the grass overtook EVERYTHING! (This was before we got the chickens and ducks out there to free range, they would have taken care of it.. LOL) At one point there was a deer sleeping in my garden! I scared it out when I went to feed the ducks and chickens. I didn't even see it! It just jumped up and ran off down the street! Oops! When we finally got everything fixed, it was just too late for the garden. We did find some interesting things in the back yard tho. Like this fellow:

Yes... that is a dead copperhead. We found it in the back yard. DS was moving the mower and it slithered out. He jumped out of the way and came and got me. Then he ran and got the neighbor and we cut it's head off. If it would have been in the back yard when it was mowed, I would have simply relocated it, or left it to leave, but with the grass being so high, I couldn't take a chance of someone getting hurt back there. 

We've already got a few things planned for next year, and we have some things in the garden now, covered by hoop houses! Lets see if we can get those to grow in there over the winter! Lets hope for a mild one! 

Hopefully it won't take me almost  months to update again! Until then, everyone have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

I don't use shampoo and conditioner

WE'VE MOVED!! Find us HERE!

When I first tell people I don't use shampoo or conditioner in my hair, they usually take a step back like you would a dog with fleas. It always makes me giggle.

A few months ago, I was trying out all these "natural" things, I found a few on "how to save money" websites, but this one TRULY interested me. How on Earth could you get away with not shampooing your hair?!?! Wouldn't it be greasy and gross? I know if I don't wash my hair every other day it gets really greasy and nasty! At least... that's what I used to think!

Studies show that using shampoo actually strips the oils right off of your scalp, which is why they tell you to not wash your hair the day before you have a perm or color your hair. Shampoo doesn't just clean your hair, it strips it of oils and moisture that it needs to be healthy and luxurious!

Another reason I tried this is because I was tired of going to the salon for a cut and them saying things like "Well, if you tried XYZ Product, you would have less frizz" or whatever they would have to say. I don't want to spend MORE money on products that I'm hardly ever going to use because I don't blow dry my hair all the time. HECK! I'm doing good if I BRUSH it every day! LOL

Enter to "no 'poo" method!

What I do is I take roughly a Tablespoon of baking soda, and combine it with a cup of water. I shake it up to combine it, and I pour it evenly on my head. I work it into my scalp really well, but not like you do with shampoo because it won't produce any suds. Trust me, it's working, even if there are no suds! Then I rinse it out. I then take about a Tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to a cup of water, and use that as conditioner. I also use coconut oil as a deep conditioner once a week.

Now, if you are one of those people that washes their hair every day, or every other day and starts this... I'm going to warn you to have LOTS of pony tail holders ready! Your hair will go thru a cycle where it produces WAY too much oil and you will have an itchy head, and your hair will be greasy, but it only lasts about 3 weeks and your scalp will calm down and adjust to not being stripped of all it's oils all the time. I normally wear mine in a pony tail anyways, but I do let it down occasionally. You might also have to experiment a bit to find the right "mix" for your hair. I started out using exactly 1 Tablespoon to 1 cup of water. I now use a bit more than a tablespoon, but still 1 cup of water. I find that if I use only 1 tablespoon or less, my hair gets greasy quickly.

I now only need to wash my hair about once a week to 10 days. I just went to get a hair cut on Saturday, and the stylist told me that my hair was healthy and very nice looking.

When I first started doing this I thought that my hair would be a tangled mess after I stepped out of the shower. I have VERY THICK baby fine hair, and whenever I used to get it wet, I had to put conditioner in it, or I would end up with a handful of hair that would get pulled out brushing it. I don't have that issue at all! The vinegar lives it almost virtually tangle free! Not completely, but, I have noticed that there is less hair in the shower, less hair in my hairbrush, and it has some natural bounce and body to it now. I'm falling in love with my hair all over again! :-)


**** Linking up to Prairie Homestead