Merry Christmas, etc.

Sorry for the lack of activity here. Things have been a little slow with the cooler weather and darker days. But I finally took some new pictures to catch up on things, so this is rather long!

Our friend and deer hunter Ross has had a successful fall hunting season. He bagged two good sized bucks from his perch up in the barn loft, the door of which overlooks our field. We have a group of about 15 deer that stll arrive nightly. He and our family are now well stocked with venison for a while. There are still plenty left, including another good size buck which he is "saving" for next year. This might be him below?(from our bedroom window)

I have been busy the last couple weekends building some good sized compost bins. I was able to build the bulk of them from re-used lumber from the section of the barn we tore down this summer. It took about half a day to scrounge enough to use. A lot of it was split and rotten. I hope I get a few years out of them.

Unfortunately the current compost pile had to be hand moved so I could place the new double bin where it will stay until it falls apart. There is never a lack of physical activity around here. The bin in the foreground is a beehive style, you can break it down layer by layer. I think we have a good supply of compost material to get the garden started. That is our old guinna hen cage in the far ground, they moved in with the layers so I re-purposed it to hold our shredded leaves for mulch in the garden this summer. Beyond that is a pile of leaves yet to be shredded.

This is our rock garden that Karen and the kids cleared out of weeds. The rocks accumulated around these trees during our land clearing and the building process over the past year. We planted a lot of wild flower seeds in between the rocks. We will see how it does this coming summer. I hope the chickens did not eat all the seeds we planted. I likely will need to fence it off if things grow until established, or the chickens will have a good time eating all the seedlings.

And now some more random pictures....

This was our first turkey we roasted for Thanksgiving...it was AWESOME!, as was the one we just had for Christmas... still not sure we will take them on this summer or not though.

Speaking of birds, the laying hens have stepped things up lately in the egg production. The last few days 9-10 eggs a day for 14 birds. Pretty good for the winter! I think Ethan had a talk with them when I kept threatening they would be chicken soup if they did not start producing more than 4-5 a day!

Speaking of Ethan, ...we feel quite lucky he still has his head attached! This is the aftermath of him trying to duck under a fence at the last minute while riding his bike at full speed!! That mark goes around to the other side as well. Fortunately the fence was just a taunt cord with some give in it, and his guardian angel was looking after him!

Speaking of angels, ...

O.K., angels might be a little strong, but they sure are cute! Speaking of cute....

Ha ! Just kidding, ... speaking of just kidding....

Our version of American Gothic! ... Karen preferred the more traditional family picture...

Still trying to get used to that green house! Speaking of green...

This might just look like an ugly green bowl to you. Actually, it was a Christmas gift from the kids that makes me smile every time I see or use it for my breakfast cereal. When I unwrapped it, Shalo promptly and proudly told me "We got it from the dump! " ... that's my girl !... As many of you know we can be on the frugal side. We are well known at the dump for checking out the recycle building. You never know what you are going to find! This was actually a Veitri brand bowl from Italy. And these are the crazy shoppers ...

I will accept an ugly bowl from them anytime!

So that should catch you all up with us down here. It has been a busy, yet rewarding year for our family. We have a busy, year ahead with many more projects to go. We feel blessed in many ways and are thankful for them them all. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night...and upcoming year!

Fall Harvest and Shed update

Just a quick update. The shed is nearly completed, ... other than getting the front window in. It blew over one day and broke during the construction process. I just got it back from the glass shop yesterday. But otherwise I am quite pleased with how it turned out. That stack of lumber in front of the barn is the siding for the front of the barn and north side of barn. Yet another big project, but after building the shed, I think that will be pretty easy. The hardest part will be replacing any "rotten" framing underneath, which overall is rather minimal. It may wait until spring. I will dry stack the lumber in the barn for the time being.

This Saturday is out fall harvest of the meaties. This is Ethan starting to say good bye, he really will be glad when they are gone I think, as he did not particularly enjoy cleaning out their three waterers every night. We have 45 left out of an initial 56. Neighbors dog got about six, hawk one, one gimpy one that had to go (despite our initial efforts to nurse her along) and one of unknown causes.

From Barn to Beach...

Things have been pretty busy down here the past few weeks. Karen and I have been continuing to plug away at the barn addition/coop, the kids have just finished up their fall break. The coop is turning out nicely. Below is a shot of the walls framed up. I divided the area up into a garden tool storage area, a chick brooder area, and the far section is a 12 foot chicken coop area. It should allow us to easily have up to 30 -40 layers should we choose to be that crazy. Currently we have 14 hens. I don't think they are all laying yet, as on a good day we are getting only 8 eggs. Some days only 3-4! I suspect they are hiding some where we are not finding them.


Karen patiently spent an afternoon helping me heft the rafters into place and listening to me curse how different the birds beak notches were for each one, mistakenly I cut them all at once after the first one fit perfectly... if I ever do anything like this again I will know better. But all in all the roof framed up quite nicely.
Aki is a good helper if you keep a close eye on him!
Putting up the metal roofing went pretty well, again I had to have Karen help heft and hold each panel until I could secure it in place. There was a brief learing curve with the screws, but overall it turned out nicely. The hardest thing was keeping from sliding off! The roof is actually finished, and I have the front of the addition sided and windows up. Hope to finish siding the ends this coming weekend. It is a slow process with the batten board siding. Lots of cutting and nailing. But it is looking good. More pictures soon.

Towards the end of the day the turkeys dropped by to check things out!

Actually, I think they were trying to stake their claim on the new digs for a new roosting site!

We took a day off to take a day trip to the beach in Wilmington, NC... it was about a three hour drive. Nice weather, relaxing,.. but a long drive for a day trip. I think worth it as the kids had a great time...

Finally... Cooler Weather!

Not a lot of news down here this past week. The weather has certainly been more pleasant. And the last tropical storm blew in some very nice rain early last week. We also just got grazed by a tornado, and only lost a few big tree limbs. We are anticipating temps in the seventies this weekend, and fifties at night. Looking forward to that. This past weekend the kids wanted to camp out in the field. We pitched the tents, we could not get to sleep, and all came in by midnight to the comfort of our beds. I am getting too old to sleep on the ground, especially after a long day of hard labor preparing slab area for new shed/coop. It may not look like much , but that was hours of hard labor, digging footings with pick ax, spreading gravel. .

The turkeys are in the freezer except for the left over three Bourbon Reds(above, wondering where their conrads are...) Which we were hoping to breed in the spring. The turkeys were not fun too harvest, I had to wrestle them down to the ground to catch them. They were BIG, the biggest tom dressed out at 30+ pounds ! Not sure if we will do again next year or not. Will have to see what we think after we try one or two of them.

We got the new metal roof on the barn, they did a good job. I have the sight prepared to pour the slab for the lean-too shed off the side. This will serve primarily as out chicken coop, which needs to be done like yesterday! I will also section off some for a garden tool storage area, and a chicken brooder area. Hoping to get that started this weekend, if slab gets poured this week. I found a local saw mill to cut some rough sawn lumber to match current batten board siding pattern at a reasonable cost. One week later... slab is poured, foundation blocks laid. I got the end walls framed up, and hope to finish framing this weekend(09/24/2011)

And this is Ethan tending to our "9-11" fire which kept burning the whole weekend in memory of that horrible event...it also allowed us to get rid of piles of junk wood from when we tore down the rotten half of the barn. Surely undoing a years worth of effort to decrease our carbon foot print!

And just an update on the colored rangers, to date they are 7 weeks old, about six to go...this picture is two weeks old now. Unfortunately I heard some of the young cocks trying to crow this morning! That could be a lot of crowing as they continue to grow for 6 more weeks!

Poultry Farm Happenings...

So hurricane Irene came and went and we sustained no real damage. We did experience some pretty strong winds, and got a measly 0.3 inches of rain.. which I am thankful for, as it is the most we have had in a month or so. Usually a hurricane brings several inches of rain, which is what we really could have used. Otherwise things have been going well. The layers are coming of age and we are starting to get a few small eggs each day. In full production I anticipate about ten a day. Two of our "hens" turned out to be roosters! Alas the first one liked to wake me up pre-dawn with constant crowing... he also was a bit rough with the young ladies... he crows no more. His predecessor, also a very similar appearing Light Brahma has better early AM manners, or is blessed with the fact that the sun is coming up more around 06:20AM now instead of 05:50AM. Or he saw what happens to un-mannerly roosters... he seems a bit gentler on the young ladies so far, but perhaps his hormones have not truly kicked in. Time will tell.

"Chicken and Herbs"

Hens dusting in the compost pile... this is the day after the hurricane.... dry, dry, dry!

Our new meaties ( Colored Rangers, or Freedom Rangers) are about 4 weeks old now. They should be at harvest age in early November. I like them so far, they are pretty active, supposed to be better foragers then the Cornish Cross we did previously. We moved them to pasture by hand this weekend, one or two at a time. We could not get them to move on land...

I think the chickens have been like pet therapy to Ethan, he loves holding them, watching eggs come out, making the rooster crow, mate, etc..

I took our last sick turkey into the local vet school diagnostic facility this AM. They will sacrifice it and do a necropsy( like an autopsy). So hopefully I can find out what I was dealing with. I had a preliminary call from the poultry vet who thought it might be a viral transmitted liver cancer. Waiting on the histopath results.

And finally the barn is getting a new roof this week, this I hired out, as I won't be much good with a broken back, leg , etc. Our kind neighbor came over on his Bobcat and saved me a week of back breaking shovel and wheelbarrow work by digging down the foundation sight for the future chicken coop. I plan on putting it on a full slab, with a low block foundation wall. I am sure we will get some good rain in the next couple days... now that the barn roof is torn out...even then, it would be a welcome sight.

The problem with free range turkeys...

We finally had a little break in the weather,.. upper 80's instead of upper 90's... which was a welcome change. I thought I would let the turkeys out to see what they would do with some open spaces. Turns out instead of wanting to roam the 4 acre field they felt more comfortable sticking around the human folks. They spent hours roaming about the yard, hanging out with us while we sipped a cup of coffee out in the yard Sunday morning. Later, when we were inside they came knocking at the front door, I guess wanting us to come back outside to play!

It all seemed real cute, later we saw them perching on our cars,... later we discovered those big claws can put some big scratches on the hood of your car!! Oh, well... that is one good thing about having an 18 yo car!

We recieved our 56 meaties (colored rangers) they are currently stinking up our screened in porch in the wading pool brooder... which needs to be cleaned out daily and woodchips replaced... that many chicks produce a lot of chick poop, which will hopefully enrich our garden next year. I am sure I will have picts of them after I get them out in the chicken tractor in another week or so.

We are looking forward to the cooler weather. It will make it so much more enjoyable doing things outside. We are anticipating a new metal barn roof in a few weeks, and building the chicken coop soon after that. I found a local saw mill that will cut the rough cut siding for our barn at a decent price. The problem with that is we may end up having to dry stack dry it for several months before we can hang it. Sounds like a spring project. Though it will go up on the coop this fall?

Inside the homestead...

With the hot weather I have been cooped up inside more, so finally took a few pictures inside the house to share, though it is really hard to do justice to things. With the camera I have, I really can't fit much into a picture inside the house. I'll share some random snippets so you can get a general idea of how the inside of house finished out. No particular order.

Well, this is not exactly inside, but it was the view from the BF nook window last evening...


Kitchen in the morning...

From up on the balcony, looking over kitchen and into the BF nook...

Karen's favorite room, ... in full production it appears...

View from the reading loft upstairs....

Upstairs balcony,...

Downstairs looking down hallway west to east....

Dining room,....pass through in the upper right corner, fireplace to the left....

Living room....east end of house..

Fireplace between living room and dining room...

Sun room doors which lead into the West entry area screened in porch...


View from sun room out to front yard....