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! :-)
Showing posts with label Planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Planning. Show all posts
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Monday, November 19, 2012
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!
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.
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!
Saturday, December 31, 2011
15 days
In just 15 days we need to start some our seeds inside. Hopefully we will have some frost covers in place so we can start some of them right in their beds! We're looking at either putting some brick or some sort of covering to keep the grass and weeds from coming up in the paths. I think that was one of our biggest problems last year, other than the bugs, heat, and hardly any rain that is! ;-)
I'm sure we will figure out how to get this rolling here this year!
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
25 days
25 days until we start seeds!!
We're SO excited to start the 2012 gardening season! We have big plans for this year.
We're SO excited to start the 2012 gardening season! We have big plans for this year.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Planning for 2012
So, as I said yesterday. we are in the planning stages for the spring. We learned last year that deciding in April that you want to start a garden with no planning whatsoever isn't the best idea. We learned a lot!!
Last year, almost our entire garden was a bust. We got a few peppers, which were hot peppers that we got from our neighbors. Unfortunately, the only one who LIKES hot peppers is Sam. Most of them went to waste, and it was a terrible shame. We also got a few of the white cucumbers, but, we forgot to save any seed from them. (oops!) We did get quite a few beans tho! Monk decided that he really likes the beans from the garden a lot better than the ones that we get from a can. None of the carrots or onions came up. We got quite a few tomatoes. A few watermelon were had, but they were small at best and then the bugs got them. The pumpkins were attacked by vine borers and didn't make it. :-( And despite our best efforts, our corn didn't make it either. It was REALLY hot and dry here this past year, so, I'm hoping that this next year will be much better!!
This year we are trying Broccoli, onions, eggplant (maybe Monk will like it if we grow it ourselves... LOL), tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, beans, corn, cucumbers, watermelon, pumpkins, cauliflower, peppers, and some celery, basil, parsley, cilantro in containers. I also want to plant some "beneficial flowers" in pots in my garden as well. We're busy trying to shred a bunch of papers and newspapers for the beds this next year. I'm not opposed to weeding, but, having the paper in there not only makes it almost impossible for the weeds to get thru, it helps keep the moisture in the ground REALLY well!
We're really hoping that we will be able to put in a coop in late winter/early spring and get some chickens for our back yard. I've come up with a pretty good design for a coop, and I know how I want to make the run and everything. I'm just a bit worried about how the dogs are going to react to them being in the back yard considering they bark at the neighbors Guinea hens whenever they get out. I think I may have to get some type of electric fence or something to keep them away. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do with them. I may have to place the coop on the outside of the fence behind the mulberry bush. If we go that route, we will have to put pad locks on all the doors and such so the neighborhood kids can't let them out.
We've still got some time tho, so all of these plans are still brewing, except for the garden, those are what we will be planting! So, I've got a little over a month left to get all of my beds worked and "wintered" (which probably should have been done at the end of the season....) before I get to start working on new plants! So exciting!
Last year, almost our entire garden was a bust. We got a few peppers, which were hot peppers that we got from our neighbors. Unfortunately, the only one who LIKES hot peppers is Sam. Most of them went to waste, and it was a terrible shame. We also got a few of the white cucumbers, but, we forgot to save any seed from them. (oops!) We did get quite a few beans tho! Monk decided that he really likes the beans from the garden a lot better than the ones that we get from a can. None of the carrots or onions came up. We got quite a few tomatoes. A few watermelon were had, but they were small at best and then the bugs got them. The pumpkins were attacked by vine borers and didn't make it. :-( And despite our best efforts, our corn didn't make it either. It was REALLY hot and dry here this past year, so, I'm hoping that this next year will be much better!!
This year we are trying Broccoli, onions, eggplant (maybe Monk will like it if we grow it ourselves... LOL), tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, beans, corn, cucumbers, watermelon, pumpkins, cauliflower, peppers, and some celery, basil, parsley, cilantro in containers. I also want to plant some "beneficial flowers" in pots in my garden as well. We're busy trying to shred a bunch of papers and newspapers for the beds this next year. I'm not opposed to weeding, but, having the paper in there not only makes it almost impossible for the weeds to get thru, it helps keep the moisture in the ground REALLY well!
We're really hoping that we will be able to put in a coop in late winter/early spring and get some chickens for our back yard. I've come up with a pretty good design for a coop, and I know how I want to make the run and everything. I'm just a bit worried about how the dogs are going to react to them being in the back yard considering they bark at the neighbors Guinea hens whenever they get out. I think I may have to get some type of electric fence or something to keep them away. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do with them. I may have to place the coop on the outside of the fence behind the mulberry bush. If we go that route, we will have to put pad locks on all the doors and such so the neighborhood kids can't let them out.
We've still got some time tho, so all of these plans are still brewing, except for the garden, those are what we will be planting! So, I've got a little over a month left to get all of my beds worked and "wintered" (which probably should have been done at the end of the season....) before I get to start working on new plants! So exciting!
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