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Backyard Chicken Farmer

14 Mar

I asked Bill years ago if we could get some chickens and he always said no, but after chatting with some backyard chicken farming friends of ours, he relented. And thus began my journey to becoming a backyard chicken farmer.

We picked out our coop and started researching the breeds we would get. Who knew that there were chickens that are cold or heat tolerant? I bet you didn’t know that there are breeds of chickens that are considered more suburban birds because they tend to make less noise…I sure didn’t. We also needed to research what the rules were in our township. 

I placed the order in early December of 2017…Yes, I ordered my chickens from the internet. Who knew?!? 

My girls were hatched on my thirteenth anniversary (2/12/18) and shipped overnight to my local post office. I was learning something new at every turn of this adventure and I was educating others along the way, like everyone who happened to be in the post office when I picked up a box of chirping birds.

Backyard Chicken Farmer

They made their home in a 50 gallon tote, which they quickly grew out of. Since we got them in the dead of winter, they needed to stay inside for the first few months. They stayed in my kitchen! 

I pretty much gave up on the mess quickly. Even having them living in a giant box, the dust and feathers that they sent into the air was INSANE! At one point we gave up on the kitchen table and started eating all our meals at the island. 

Finally they were big enough and it was warm enough for them to go outside. I spent the next three days scrubbing the first floor of the house. 

We’re a little more than a year into the adventure of being backyard chicken farmers and I have to say it’s been a great experience.

My plan is to break out different bits and pieces of backyard chicken farming to share with you. Do you have any questions? Is there anything you’d love to know about having your own flock of birds? Drop me a line!

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The Mommyland Farm (Volume 24)

17 Jul

The garden has just been just eh this year.

The critters have gotten to the back two beds (peas and cucumbers) despite our best efforts and lots of repellent. It blows my mind how when we hardly had any kind of protection around the garden the animals left it alone. Now that it has all kinds of fencing around it we can’t keep them out. It’s been a frustrating couple of years on The Farm.

New to The Mommyland Farm this year are the strawberries. They have been tasty but we haven’t gotten too many, I think we’ve been averaging about one every other day. I’m hopeful that they’re the gift that keeps giving and we’ll get some more as the summer progresses. I don’t think I’ll be using my own strawberries for my strawberry shortcake any time soon.

Mommyland

Juicy strawberries.

We’ve gotten one green pepper so far and there are many more out there that just need to get a little bigger. The red and yellow peppers refuse to change color though. We had this problem last year, three different colors were planted but we only had green. They all tasted good though so I guess I shouldn’t complain. Anyone have luck with different colors of peppers?

The cherry tomatoes are doing really well. We’ve got more than Logan can eat coming off the vine. It’s nice to not have to buy them at the store for a few weeks.

The beefsteak tomatoes are OK so far. There are a lot of them on the vine but, much like last year, they’re not turning red. So far we’ve only had one red one but it was worth the wait. There’s just something about tomatoes fresh from the garden, they’re not always as pretty on the outside as their grocery store counterparts but they are gorgeous on the inside and tasty.

The other thing we’re waiting on is the carrots. We’ve tried them before but something always ate them before they had a chance to grow. This year they seem to be thriving and Cameron is really looking forward to eating one right out of the ground. Carrots are the only veggie he’ll eat and they have to be raw and he only eats them every once in a great while. I’m looking forward to sneaking them into my meatloaf. HEHEHE

This was our second year with the potatoes and while we didn’t get as many as we did last year we still got a respectable haul. I’ll be making some chips with some of them VERY soon. I guess I should share a few with my Mom too.

Mommyland

Our potatoes. That’s a little more than half a five gallon bucket.

I’ve had some questions as to how to grow the potatoes and honestly, they’re the easiest thing in our garden. We got the bulbs in the spring, cut them in half and planted them cut side down. All you really need to do is keep them watered. The bulb package said to pile more dirt on top of the plants as they started to grow but we never did that. When the plant looks like it’s about to die we pull them out of the ground and go hunting for potatoes.

Mommyland

Potato hunting.

The boys love searching for the potatoes, probably because it gives them an excuse to get dirty.

The herbs? Don’t even ask! The potted herbs blew away and are laying dead on the front porch. Second year of herb failure.

I’ve been hearing a lot of garden success stories this year, how is your garden doing? Do you have any tips for getting my tomatoes to turn red while still on the vine or how I can get my red and yellow peppers to stop being green?

Happy Gardening!

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