First Harvest!

Hey, Readers! It's my favorite time of year, fresh veggie time!!

This week we picked some yellow neck squash, some zucchini, and we are rolling in peppers! One of our favorite things to make this time of year is zucchini boats, and they can't be easier. Simpy cut the zucchini in half length wise, scoop out the seeds, fill with whatever you want (our favorite is spaghetti sauce, but I've also use taco fillings and that was pretty good too!), throw some cheese on top, and throw it on the grill (or the oven works too). Delish!

Our jalapeno plant is going nuts this year. It is LOADED with jalapenos, and we're not complaining because we do love jalapeno poppers. "Come on Niki, how many jalapeno poppers can you eat?", one might ask. Well, I do a play on jalapeno poppers in a couple different ways. I chop them up (I actually prefer my jalapenos chopped up rather than whole), mix them in some cream cheese and/or sour cream and/or Mayo (depending on what I'm making), and throw in some seasoning (onion, chives, garlic, salt, whatever I find) and use that as a basis for whatever I'm gonna make. Two of my favorites are dip and meatloaf.

For the dip, I usually add a bit of mayo to thin out the mixture a little. I mix in  a little (or a lot, what ever) cheddar cheese, put in in a baking dish, add more cheese on top and bake until bubbly.If you have shredded chicken laying around Its pretty good mixed in there too! I'm drooling just thinking about it!

Jalapeno popper meatloaf? Mix up your fave meatloaf recipe (hamburger, egg, breadcrumbs, season to your liking), flatten it into a rectangle. I put some cheese down, spread your popper mixture (see above) down the middle, add more cheese, and roll it and seal it up. You can bake it in the oven, or wrap it in aluminum foil and throw it on the grill. Nom, Nom, Nom!

Weekly Update 8/2/19

This week: We named four chickens, and started building our bar room!

Among my chickens are three crazy White Leghorns. They are tough, adventurous, crafty, flighty little psychos, but they are entertaining, incredibly reliable, and oh so lovable. I never named them because I could never tell them apart. They don't really have any distinct markings, they are all just pure white. However, the other day I was watching them and noticed that I could tell them apart by their combs. So I decided that it was time to name them.


I knew I wanted a, obvious theme, and the first thing I came up with was Mean Girls. Gretchen and Regina I liked, but Karen wasn't doing it for me, so scratch that. Then I thought Golden Girls, but there is four of them and wanted to save that for when I have a group of four to name. I thought about The Pink Ladies from Grease, I thought about the girls from Friends, I thought about Charlies Angels... Nothing seemed to fit. Until exactly what I was looking for just pupped into my head out of nowhere. Meet

Dolly,

Dolly's comb is big and it flops over.

Loretta,

Loretta's comb is smaller than Dolly's.

and Patsy!

Patsy's comb has is smaller and she has a little unicorn horn sticking up!

Also, by BFF named my little  Barred Plymouth Rock pullet Athena. ❤️

This week we also tore down the ugly paneling in the mudroom and replaced all the windows and framed in the patio door. We'll have a man cave bar room before we know it!

Weekly Update 7/26/19

Earlier this week, I noticed one that our second hatched was walking funny. I saw he had some buildup on his toenails, so I thought that was it. I cleaned them off, put him back in the box, but while watching him I noticed that his leg was bending funny. At first i thought it was broken., then I thought it was possibly dislocated, but then I realized that he was walking on it and moving it just fine. It was just bending funny.

After doing some research I concluded that I thing he has a Valgus/Varus Deformity (VVD). Basically a deformity in his leg that causes it to be twisted. It may grow out of it, but it may get worse. In some cases they learn to deal with it and live happy lives. If he doesn't grow out of it, he will most like be going to freezer camp with the meat chickens. 

Speaking of meat chickens, they're huge. It's they're job to grow quickly, but its astonishing to watch. It seems that at about 2 weeks old, the babies seem to double in size overnight. That happened this week. My babies went from being little tiny fluffies, to being "pre-adolescents".

 In other news, we have tons of blooms, blossoms, and tiny unripe veggies. Because of the long spring we had, our plants are a bit behind this year. I'm getting impatient waiting for my garden(s) to supply me with lots of yummy food!

Hang In There, Chick!

This is Roxie. Roxie is a good girl. She is a pretty little girl, and quite the little model, but not too long ago things were a little different.

See she had a little boo-boo on the back of her head (we think the rooster was a little rough while he was rooster-ing her), and ended up getting picked on by the other girls. It looked really bad. We almost thought we may have to put her down, but decided she deserved a chance to fight!

This was before they really got her. I'll spare you the graphic before picture.

We built her her own little pen within the chicken yard, and her own little house. She was separated, but still with her flock. She stayed in her house for the first week or two. Her wounds started scabbing over and started to look like they were going to heal up. We had hope. The day she ventured out of her house and into her little run was an amazing sign.  Eventually she had little feathers starting to grow on her neck. Then the skin starting growing back on her head. The feathers starting coming in. After another week or two she starting laying eggs again! Its been about 2 months now and she is almost completely healed up. She is happy, healthy, and itching to scratch around the yard with the rest of her flock.

Whats left of Roxie's boo-boo.

The moral of this story is when the world knocks you down and pecks the back of your head raw, hang in there chick, eventually your feathers will grow back.... or something like that.

There Is No "I" In Eden Hallow

Life on the homestead doesn’t get put on hold. There is always work to do, and the work always has to get done. It stops for nothing, not even this.

The garden doesn’t care that I had surgery on my dominant hand, it wants watered!
The chickens don’t care that I have a cast on, they say “if you got a hand, you got a hand to feed us!”

Figuring out how to do things left handed is hard enough, but using ONLY my left hand has been really tough. However, my German/Belgian heritage has made me extremely stubborn and if I want to do something dammit I’ll figure out a way to do it!

One handed dishes? I got this. Hubby wants me to make something with this rhubarb we got? BAM! 

One handed Rhubarb cake... half eaten because it's DELICIOUS!

But I’ve also had to learn how to ask for help, probably the hardest part of this whole ordeal. I have always been insanely independent, so admitting that I can’t fill up the chickens current waterer by myself was like admitting failure.
I've learned that in marriage, friendship, relationships,and life in general it takes it takes teamwork. The key to a successful homestead is everybody working together. Yes, everybody has their job (animals included!) and its important that we all do our job, but its also important that we all work together towards our goals. :)

Weekly Update 7-19-19

I have spent a great deal of time watching the baby chicks this week. I mean, come on, if you had a box of little fluffy babies at your house wouldn't you want to spend every moment possible starring at them! They're so fluffin cute!

The two older chicks are twice the size of the other pullets (baby hens), but this week we decided to just put them in together and see what happens. Surprise! They did just fine. Everybody is doing great together. The little one we hatched (that I am bout 85% sure is a cockerel, a baby roo) was play fighting with some of the bigger meat chicks (that are more than likely cockerels as well), but that is pretty normal, healthy chicken behavior. 

Ever since the raccoon attack, we've been making it a point to lock the chickens in their coop at night to keep them safe. The first couple nights some of the hens decided they may be safer sleeping outside the coop. It took several nights to try coax them in. The crazy leghorns, surprisingly, were the easiest. It's little miss Rita that is being the most difficult. It is still a struggle night after night, but she is getting better. Were also working on getting them back in the habit of laying their eggs in the nesting boxes again. I've been keeping them in the coop in the mornings until they've laid their eggs, hopefully it does the trick. 

Trying to keep cool in this crazy heat!

... The Best of Times.

Sometimes awful things happen at he homestead, as seen in the last blog, but many times the good out weighs the bad. Just days after a raccoon attack wipe out most of out flock, Eden Hallows very first chicks hatched. We missed both hatches, but there will be more as this was a great experience!

Baby on the left was born first. We were out of town for the weekend and my mom had stopped by to check on the coon attack survivors and discovered the little fluffy in the incubator. She named it Tanna after her husbands grandma. Tanna is very vocal, and rambunctious, and appears to be super healthy and thriving. Baby number two hatched over night a little after its "due date". Is is considerably smaller than Tanna, and came out of the shell with part of the unabsorbed yolk sac and a piece of "umbilical cord" attached to its tummy. It took its time being ready to come out of the incubator, but after a couple days it had to come out. Just before hatch, the chick absorbs the last of the yolk sac into its belly through the cord. The chick is able to survive off of that yolk for about 3 days after hatch without eating or drinking. This is how hatcheries are able to ship day old chicks. The two of them had to be separated in the brooder box for a short time because Tanna was picking at Baby2's belly, but I guessed they were OK to be together when i went to check on them and found Tanna on Baby2's side and they were hanging out just fine.

I really wanted to hatch our own babies to rebuild our flock. I set out to find somewhere to get some different hatching eggs to diversify our flock. In the end we decided to order pullets (baby hens) from a hatchery. I found a hatchery that would ship them to us right away, so they and the babies we hatched would only be a week apart and close enough to grow up together.
Watching them grow up is going to be so fun!I can't wait to see what kind of feathering and markings Tanna and Baby2 end up having. I can't wait to see every bodies little personalities. I can't wait to have a basket full of eggs again!

The Worst of Times...

Keeping up a homestead is work, but usually the work is somewhat enjoyable. Believe it or not, cleaning the chicken house isn’t really that bad. Many times there is a hen in a nesting box to keep you company, and the others are in and out to visit and see what your doing. I like to think they are there to thank me for being a good chicken mama, but in reality they are probably saying “oh good, our servant is here and she is doing housekeeping today.” 

Tending to the garden isn’t so bad either when you know you’ll be rewarded with baskets of yummy fresh fruits and veggies!

However, homesteading isn’t all fun and games, sometimes this go wrong. 
Chickens get sick... 
Critters eat your plants before they produce your veggies... 

Six Brussel Sprout plants.
A critter ate one right after we planted them. Its catching up!

Bugs destroy your fruit. 
Chickens destroy you garden.,,

What used to be an onion patch and some cucumbers.
The chickens has other plans.

Critters destroy your chickens... 

I was reminded of that this week.

I went out to gather that mornings eggs, and walked into a murder scene. Feathers everywhere and we lost more than half of our hens. We did what we could to secure the survivors, and threw a game camera out there to see if maybe we could get some footage of the suspect. 

And just as we suspected, we got us a big evil raccoon. We set a live be trap. We caught it. It has been taken care of. 

Rufus is missing most of his tail feathers. The girls are terrified. Some of them won’t sleep in the coop at night. It took us all week to get the last girl to spend the night in the coop! It will take time for them to get back to a new normal. It will take time for us to recoup our flock, but the homestead is resilient. We will get there! 

Rufus is not amused.