Last night, around 1 a.m. the first Black Orpington chick popped out of it’s shell and announced to the world that HE WAS HERE! 🙂  I think all the first born are boys, someday I will mark them just to see if it’s true.  Another followed earlier this evening and all but one have at the very least pipped the shell.  It’s always exciting to watch the chickens hatch, and goodness, this time I nearly forgot they were there!!!  When I went in one day late to put them in the hatch position and increase the humidity one had already made a small pip in the shell! Imagine my suprise as I held it up to the light to candle and saw that!!!  I quickly hurried and get everyone settled in, and hoped that he hadn’t really punctured the inner sac and would be ok.  He was, because he’s out and about as I type this to you!

I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of the SOLE GLO Family 1 chick that actually developed into a chick.  Pierre I guess just couldn’t get the job done with these big buff hens of mine.  Out of almost 3 dozen eggs, only 1 chick, and I’m anxious to see if it follows suit with the rest of the buff ones or can prove once & for all that the black chick is from GLO Family 1!  I have my doubts, the more I read, the more I learn.  I guess if this one pops out buff, I’ll have to accept that he is a product of some accidental breedings through wire walls and I suppose will have to beef up my dividers to prevent this sort of thing in the future.

So, we’ve been working SLOWLY on Lexi’s new coop!  We didn’t start from scratch, we are converting our former Turkey brooder to use as her coop and so far so good!  Even though we’re not done with the finishing details, we did manage to get enough done yesterday to move her little guy & gals in.

I’ll do up a nice page on how we created her coop as soon as we’re done in a couple more days.  It’s around 7 feet long and around 3′ tall inside and we’ve raised it up off the ground with cinder blocks footings that are 3 blocks tall.  We don’t have the roof installed yet, but the frame is up and the panels are laying ontop, which as long as the weather holds for a couple of days, should be just fine.  I expect we’ll have it screwed down before the night is over tonight.  The whole coop is right up against the house, underneath one of our bedroom windows and so is actually under the eves of our house.  It’s a shady spot 365 days per year and should be a great location for them.  They will be the only chickens on the property so far that have a full time play pen or outside run.   Of course we are working toward everyone having that but it takes time.  The Cochins get the first run because their coop is so so small!

So last night in anticipation of completing the new “Bantam Barn” I went looking for some Barn Red paint!  How silly of me to think that would be an easy or simple process.  After 30 minutes at my local Lowe’s we left empty handed, no paint.  🙁   You see, apparently any decent type of exterior paint that is ALSO at a decent price +/- $20 per gallon CAN NOT BE TINTED the deep red color I am looking for.   Of course this information didn’t come to us easily as our paint rep from Lowe’s was only on his 3rd day.  Anyway, I left without a color because I did NOT want to spend any money spontaneously and so I needed to go home and think it over.  Here’s my options, what do you think.  Please keep in mind, the color I select for her Bantam Barn will be the SAME color I finally put on my own Hen House.

1.  Choose the “perfect red” currently selected is Heirloom Red from Valspar.. at a cost of $30 per gallon.  While I’ll only need 1 gallon for HER coop, I’ll need probably 5 gallons for the rest of my coops.

2.  Choose Redwood Exterior stain at a price of around $10 per gallon.  Redwood is not really the color I’m looking for, but it surely is common.

3.  Choose Red Barn & Fence Paint, which suprisingly resembles the Redwood color found in the stain, at a price of $12 per gallon.

The cheap alternatives are just the WRONG color, but can I learn to live with it and maybe even LOVE it?  I’m just not sure.    What do YOU think?  Here are some samples, keep in mind monitor colors aren’t always very true, so this is just an example:

Heirloom Red Sample: http://www.myperfectcolor.com/Match-of-Valspar-1010-3-Heirloom-Red-p/mpc0098582.htm

Redwood Color Sample: http://www.myperfectcolor.com/Benjamin-Moore-Country-Redwood-p/country_redwood.htm

You can post your comments on my paint color or anything else by clicking “comments” right below this post!

Basket of Fresh Black Beans

So, I grew up eating Black Beans anytime my Abuela (grandmother) got to cook for us.  Every Christmas eve, still as an adult,  I serve my family a semi-traditional Cuban dinner including Black Beans & Rice, Pork Roast, Crusty Bread & Salad and I just love it.  I was always curious about how they grew and was excited when I found a pack of seeds at my local Lowe’s I think it was.

I planted the seeds directly in the garden in June I think, I know not very technical on the details, and just hoped for the best.  My first crop of carrots & parsnips died so I planted these in thier place really.  9 seeds went into the ground, sprouted almost immediately and began growing like weeds!  By the time I pulled all these bushes, they had created long running vines reaching across the entire bed.  I think they would completely take over any space and plan to plant twice as much as I did before next year.

They were super easy to grow, but were full of these little yellow fuzzy bugs that seemed to enjoy the leaves and the occassional bean pod immensely.  I guess I’ll check into those sometime before next season to learn more about them and how I can easily prevent them.

I’ll close with a couple more photos!

Fresh Black Beans to pick!

Our Full Yield of Bean Pods

Not just someone, my daughter is the culprit, and not just any freezer of course, it was the one outside with almost a  months worth of recently purchased meat & veg plus stuff harvested from our garden this year. 🙁

So here’s how that started.  Yesterday we woke up nice & late on my husband’s day off, enjoyed leisurely cups of coffee and some much needed quiet time together.  I decided to head out to feed the chickens kind of late, around 11am and then we spent a while inside again before it occurred to me that I should go out back and check on Lexi’s Cochins.  She was scheduled to have a really long day which started early, so I wanted to be sure they would be ok until she got home with clean food & water.  I opened the back door to find a big puddle in the middle of the porch, and I knew right away what it was.

I probably started swearing within seconds of seeing the water.  This isn’t the first time this has happened, but it is the first time since I had it all packed up with meat for long term storage.  After bringing myself around to the front of the open freezer, I found everything in it soft but still cold; the puddle was from the big bag of ice we keep on hand, well used to keep on hand anyway.   My husband started bringing in the meats while I went to the other end of the house to gather my thoughts, and calm down.  I was really so upset, she went in for waffles, and out comes dozens of nights worth of food that needs to be cooked NOW.  Isn’t that always how it is though, you never get warnings for these little upheavals in life, they just jump out there and smack you upside the head!

I began planning the easiest ways to cook 8 sirloin steaks, 16 center cut pork chops, 2lbs of flank steak, 2lbs ground beef, 6 perch & 6 cod filets, 3 or 4lbs of pork necks, 1 turkey breast, 2lbs smoked sausage, an apple pie filling, some mixed veg from our garden and from the store.  Wow… a lot of food to need to prepare at once, but it needed to be done or it would all be a loss.   I had to run to town and get some things from the store, as I hadn’t planned on making most of this stuff anytime soon!  They weren’t necessarily the best choices but it all ended up being Steak dinner last night, steak fajitas with the rest, all the pork chops went into the crock with onions, peppers, garlic & bbq sauce, the flank steak went into a Cuban Fricase, we made the ground beef with an old box of Hamburger helper to eat while we were cooking, the fish went into the oven and is being fed to the chickens, pork necks are only used in this house for Cuban Black Beans so I made up a batch of those (fresh from our garden Black Beans were used), I just baked the turkey breast as normal, and finally made a pie crust for the apple pie filling, which I had originally hoped to send to the ROTC picnic on Friday.  I cooked it all up yesterday, did 4 loads of dishes and today after it was all cool I packed it up for the freezer again.

Yesterday I had hoped to blog about the black beans that I harvested from the garden, half of which I used already in the afore mentioned Black Beans.  I will make that my next entry and include the pictures I took.

For now, I must say goodnight, and I hope that YOU don’t leave YOUR freezer open accidentally and then have to cook all your food for a couple of weeks ahead of time.

My Darling Husband has finally completed the new coop. My daughter and I spent half a day installing a perch system & tying the wire walls together and now the happy little hatchery White Orpingtons are enjoying twice the space as they previously had. I’ll get some pictures as soon as the weather clears up a bit.

My Black Australorps are now moved into half of the hen house, which is REALLY nice because the 15 of them DID NOT fit well inside my brooder anymore at 4 weeks old. They too are very happy with LOTS of extra room. The sand floor is new to them, but they are doing great.

Next on the TO DO list is to get Pierre & his ladies ready to move to their new home this coming week.  Then get Steve back with his ladies, which frees up an entire stall, Stall 3 to be exact!  We plan to conver this stall for the winter months to a 3 pen rooster coop for keeping our extra guys through the winter.  Making use of the roof will be great, as that is always the hardest part about making chicken shacks… getting a suitable roof in place.

Once Steve is moved into his new place, I can get our Small Coop ready to house the Gilman Farms White Orpingtons (I decided to keep these guys but offer the hatchery type ones for sale).  That will be fantastic as they are fast approaching the age of lay.  Then I need to move Miguel out from his black hens, move the new Blue roo & pullets in with the blacks, and I think that is the biggest part of the moving & switching.

Finally I’ll have to make something to keep our Blue Australorp Mixed rooster happy for a few more months until the Black Australorp pullets are ready to meet him.  So by winter, everyone will be happily settled down and hopefully busily producing.

Oh I forgot my GLO Chicks!!!!!  How silly of me!  Anyway, my two GLO Families will occupy the hen house for the winter months since it’s already split down the middle for the little chicks.  That will be so much easier than splitting another coop in half.  Why the split?  Well there will only be a pair and a trio, so they don’t really need a WHOLE coop to themselves.

Well.. the weather has been overcast here and so I haven’t been too motivated.  The shingles are better, wow what an ordeal, although I feel the stress in my back now when I’m stressed, I’m still hoping I’m on my way to total recovery.  The kid & hubby have been helping out immensely with all of my chicken chores, I can’t thank them enough.   I know today’s post is kinda scattered, I just wanted to give you a quick update before I head outside to start doing what I’m typing!

🙂

We also have to finish Lexi’s Bantam Barn.. her little bantam cochins are the CUTEST LITTLE CHICKENS EVER!!  I never thought I would think feather footed chickens are so cute but they really are! Their personalities are so unique, SO friendly and really just great.  Who knows, maybe I’ll become a convert someday 😉

Well, you probably thought this post would be about roofing shingles, but alas, it is not.  It’s about Varicella Zoster, the Shingles Virus.  Working around here in the woods, I get bit, scratched & itch just about everywhere, so when a new small rash erupted on my lower back, I paid it no special attention.  It was rather large & distrubing, was very hot to touch, but didn’t really itch.  We kept an eye on it, but on Day 4 I started having severe chest & upper back pain.  Not knowing what the rash/bite was, I began to fear the worst!   My DH came home from work early, to help me make my way to one of our local clinics where I could hopefully get some answers.  But by the time we got to the clinic, the pain had progressed from a solid 7 to a solid 9.5!  One look at the rash/bug bite and I was informed of my condition.

The doctor looked at me with pity, and apologized because I have Shingles.   The sinister virus that caused painful pox all over my body & face at age 25, has been lying in wait for one day, when the stress was a little too much, when my body was fighting an infection from one of the many scratches & cuts I obtain, to JUMP OUT & COMPLICATE my week.  Not to mention, bring me to my knees in pain.   The treatment is a week & a half of AntiViral medicine with a little OTC pain medication to help.  Nothing too serious, but regardless, it hurts.

I’ve been on the meds for 4 days now, and things are looking up.  The spasms in my back are far less severe and overall I’m just a bit sore.  I get tired pretty easily and right now I can’t move as freely as I used to because of the muscle pain & tension, but it seems like I’m on my way back.  Tonight I even managed to help put up a tarp over our big dog run, as a few days of rain are headed our way, and since I was down with back pain, we did not yet finish the newest of our coops.  The blue & white orpingtons must spend another week or so in their old run and I hope the tarp will help keep them a bit dryer than before.

I did set some eggs a couple of days ago… more from my GLO Family and a few Black Orpington eggs taken before Miguel moves out & the new Blue Rooster moves in.  This is my 2nd to last hatch for the year I suspect.  I will gather some Black/Blue/Splash eggs after combining the new Blues with our old Blacks, and they will likely be my last hatch for the year.

That’s what I’ve been doing lately, how about you?  My new blog allows you to post comments easily, so why not do just that, and tell me what you’ve been up to!  Hows the progress on your hobby farm going?

Well, the blog has been updated with the fantastic WordPress software!  This is my 4th or 5th installation of WordPress in the last few weeks and I’m getting better at it all the time.

I hope you enjoy the new features, like being able to comment on my posts directly!  Not to mention better organization as it continues to grow.

I get a lot of feedback from my visitors, and I just love every bit of it.  As you know I work hard to make everything here work well, look pretty, reflect my personality and I learn all along the way.  I hope you enjoy this latest upgrade, as I know that I will!  And for your viewing pleasure, a slideshow of my Gold Lace Project Gallery

Please, FEEL FREE TO COMMENT ON ANY POSTS!

Another coop has been constructed, and we now have to put up new wire walls.  It’s a 4 post structure with a roof right now, and will become another completely open coop.  I’m still not sure who will be moving in exactly as it’s almost that time again; to re-evaluate and figure out who is going where to do what!  We have all our little chicks on the back porch now, growing like weeds…  11 Bantam Cochins and 15 Australorps.  Also, from my GLO Families, it looks like I’ll end up with one trio and one pair only.  Yes, unbelieveable but from GLO Family 2 I have 90% cockerels.  What a bummer really, but I think it’s still enough to go forward with.  I may still decide to match everyone back up to get more chicks, but at this point I’d like to just trudge ahead with what I have.  I still have ALL the white Orpingtons, as it’s been a slow season for selling chicks over here.  I am considering using the production type whites as extra girls to keep our extra boys busy, I’m just not sure at this point as I have so many of them.  Right now I’m collecting eggs from the Black Orpingtons and from Pierre & the girls (GLO Family 1) and have just over 2 dozen.  I’ll collect for another week and then start incubating.  SO many people want Black Orpingtons, and it’s likely that Miguel will NOT be with the girls too much longer, so before the eggs become B/B/S (Black/Blue or Splash) I thought it important to collect the true black eggs.  I’m still thinking of combining my blues & blacks for the winter months, to save space so right now I am planning accordingly.

The gardens are doing well… I’ve pulled our first onions, we have a lovely watermelon in the fridge waiting to be cracked open today.  One of the Topsy Turvey Imposter bags is regrowing with pickles, the sweet potatoes have gone CRAZY taking over the entire back garden.  The cherry tomato & one of my roma tomatos are like 7 feet tall, and nothing I have will hold them up so they just keep falling over.  They have GONE CRAZY TOO!!!!  We planted our 2nd run of sweet corn a couple of weeks ago and it sprouted within 4 days and is already approaching a foot tall!  July is a GREAT time to plant corn!  Now lets see how the season holds up to a full second crop; it takes 60 days or so to get corn.  Within the new corn I’ve planted 2 more cantelopes and 2 more watermelon and I’m about to plant a HUGE crop of cucumbers for pickling.  Well.. maybe not HUGE, but for us it’s big, I’m planning on planting at least 8 plants and allowing them to run across the old corn field.  There should be plenty of room.  Yesterday we weeded the strawberries as they are being overrun by this awful grass that runs everywhere and strangles everything!  None of our spaghetti squash has done very well, so I may try that one again.  OH, and the Black Beans I planted have started sprouting bean pods!  This is all so exciting, I can’t wait to start harvesting them!

June was such a busy month for me, I’m afraid I only blogged twice!  It’s really a shame because I should’ve been on here spending time bragging about my new GLO Chicks, but instead I was busy, hatching, cleaning, moving, rearranging, building, and working in general!Since I last wrote, I have decided to let go of all the White Orpingtons I have aquired this year, in order to make more room for my GLO Project.  They are LOVELY birds, but I just don’t have the room to mess with this recessive white variety, many of whom hatch with the wrong color legs.  There were a few people on the waiting list for White Orpington Fertile Eggs, and I have written to them to give them the first opportunity to aquire the birds I’m letting go of.

Everyone else is doing well, unfortunately, I did NOT receive my replacement order of Turkeys from Sandhill Preservation Center.  This is a major let down, as I have been planning on and waiting for them for MONTHS now.  I suppose this is just another sign that I should work on another Heritage breed, and will now set out to investigate which breed that might be.Things are in flux right now in all the coops & chicken areas as there are some growing up, some moving around, and others just hanging out waiting to see what happens next!  My GLO chicks are getting bigger and bigger and the group of rose comb chicks are looking really good!  I think that I have about 5 boys and 7 girls, finally some balance!!  Out of the other family with straight combs, I have 1 boy and 2 girls; not many but still a good variety.  There has been some disagreement about the outcome on that hatch, some experts agree that they boy I hatched COULD NOT be from the mating of my Gold Lace Wyandotte Cockerel with Buff Orpington hens, and so I have put that family back together and will be drawing more eggs for hatching in August.  I too am curious to see the results duplicated and put this issue to rest after all.  Thing is, he came out black, almost entirely black, and is now filling in nicely with gold & black feathers.  Its been discussed that this is likely an accidental mating between my Black & Buff Orpingtons, but I insist that was not possible.  So the only way to know, is to do it again.  As always, I will keep you updated.

The gardens are doing ok, there have been some changes there too.  My topsey turvey imposter bags, have pretty much finished their season.  The Bell Pepper did the best of all, providing 6 peppers so far this season.  The pickle bag was too crowded to properly produce fruit so that was almost a total waste (next year, one plant per bag for sure).  The tomatoe plant LOOKS the best but has only put out 2 tomatoes so far, with 2 more growing as I type.  The raised garden has been replanted with Black Beans and those are doing really well along side of the Leeks & Onions, and even the watermelon & cantelope located in that same bed are doing quite well.  Our green bean crop has already been pulled and replaced yesterday with a 2nd planting of corn, bi-color this time.  The sweet potatoes are growing like crazy and are doing well in the back garden.  One of our Apple Trees does NOT look good with some sort of nonesense going on with it’s leaves.  We are considering returning it to Lowe’s before it’s too late.  My spaghetti squash plants have ALL died! At least one tried to put out a fruit, but was then damaged by one of our dogs and so died.

That’s about all that is new here!  Please let me know how YOUR doing by signing my guestbook and leaving a note!

OH.. and I’ve been SO busy too working on a new website: www.SmokySaver.com Check it out please and let me know what you think!  If you’ve ever been to our area, please take a moment to login to the online forum and share your experiences!  I will surely appreciate it!

The chicks started hatching yesterday, and oh what an event it has been!  They were a suprise in many ways as we did not know what exactly they might look like!  They are just adorable of course, mostly buff looking with little wild stripes here and there.  Today we watched 2 of them race to see who would be first out of their shells!  The incubator is full of vigorous chicks and I couldn’t be happier about it.  On the downside, I candled again all the eggs in the other incubator, and all but 2 of my GLO Family 1 were infertile.  Such a disappointment really as I understand that to be my best chance really.  But.. 2 is better than none, and it’s too late for me to pair them up again, well.. not too late, but I’m too lazy!  Seriously, he’s already been moved in with new girls and those girls have a new man!  I’ll just see what happens here and perhaps it can be enough somehow to move forward to the next step anyway.  As i understand it the first generation after the cross are basically identical within one family.. so it matters not that I have a quantity of them.  But.. is it too much to ask for 1 boy and 1 girl?  Oh please???  That would at least be some sort of savior to the project in a small small way!  I do have the BlueX cockerel still, and just barely I might add!  I made the mistake of leaving him in a new pen with his siblings who haven’t seen him in a couple of weeks, only while I cleaned his run out.  Well.. needless to say, he’s now in a hospital crate with healing wounds.  They managed to pluck most of one of his wings!!!!  It’s awful.. and I feel so bad for walking away when I did.  Never again, live and learn.  He managed to hide his head pretty well and most of his body.. but one side took the brunt of the picking.  He’ll get better, poor sweetie pie that he is…  we’ll make sure of it.

Today, I’m rearranging, cleaning out and getting ready to move in the next clutch of chicks to the outside brooders.  I’ll keep them in the house a couple of days until they are surely sturdy and fluffy and eating, then outside on the back porch they go.  I’ve got to split the hen house in half and move all the white orps that are staying out there, move Bob into the isolette in the buff pen so he can get used to seeing his new ladies (he’s moving next weekend with them) and then move the bigger hen house birds into Bob’s old place as they are now up For Sale and I don’t expect them to stay long.  Then there is one last little GLW hen I picked up from Don Chandler a couple of weeks ago.. she got injured during transport so she’s been staying alone recovering.  She just started laying and I am moving her to a more shady spot on new ground.  She’s hopping around pretty well and I hope she’ll make a full recovery, but her fate here is yet undetermined.