Category: Backyard

Backyard, chickens, Cochin, death, eggs, gardening, homesteading, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, killed, Olive egger, Urban

The Loss of Backyard Friends.

Olof

I knew when I took on having backyard barn animals that at some point I would have some sort of loss. That something would get one of my ladies or that they would get sick or something. But my last month of experience really threw me off of my rocker.

Several weeks ago I went and got new chickens. The Cream Legbar that I had was laying white eggs instead of the blue that she was supposed to be laying and the breeder was nice enough to get me another pullet that would for sure lay blue eggs. While there, 2 more pullets followed me home. There was a cross between a Cochin and a Road Island Red and a Maran/Cream Legbar cross. The Cochin I named Sweety Pie because that is exactly what she was and the Maran mix I named Heidi because she just seemed like a Heidi to me. 3 days in to having them the Cochin was killed by something and it ate her head and left the rest. Two weeks later the Cream Legbar (which I named Stinky because she smelled so bad on the way home) had gotten caught on a neighbors fence and been there for some time and when I got her down she died shortly after. It was really sad. I hated that she had gone through that. The temp was over 100 that day and she hung upside down, for God knows how long, before we found her. I feel so horrible about that. I just thought she was in the shade somewhere in my backyard. Then only a few days after that Heidi starts looking a little lethargic but still spunky when I got close to her one day and only hours later I walk out and find her dead with her legs int he air. Having never lost a chicken before I was shocked. All 3 different ways. My other girls are fine. No problems there for over 18 months. Have you ever had a sting of bad luck like that?

Sadly, due to not wanting to invite carnivores to come hang out in our backyard, I had to put their bodies in the landfill. That brought on guilt too. If you have chickens how do you deal with your carcasses when there is a loss?

Backyard, bees, carrots, chickens, farm, gardening, heirloom, herbs, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, peas, squash, tomatoes

2014 Spring Garden

Olof

This year in my garden I focused more on getting things planted to grow rather than to make it pretty or well organized. My older son helped a lot and because of that I had all kinds of things sprouting all over the place. Here are some photos of what is going on at the moment. 
Cilantro from Botanical Interests was quick to sprout and has been thriving well. 
This was one of those “just stick something in the ground and lets see what it ends up becoming” I don’t know what kind of squash it is but I do know that it is squash. 

Lady Gaga my Polish hen is quite the sight and interesting to watch but all she does is teach my other hens bad habits. I really need to rehome her. She finally started laying this spring but like I said she is more trouble than she is worth. 

 This Zucchini is growing so fast and has plenty of female flowers on it already even thought they are not blooming yet I am looking forward to some amazing zucchini dishes this summer

 I planted some Sweeter Yet Cucumbers this spring and I look forward to eating them. They are not an heirloom but they are REALLY good. And they already have female flowers growing. So excited! Hope to eat plenty of these this summer.

 This basil popped up so quickly. It is one of Botanical Interest’s variety  packs and it is so nice to have all the different types of basil to try.

 A few days after I took this photo these vines wilted due to a vine borer infestation. I was so sad to see them wilt and not being able to do much for them. What do you do to save your plants from the vine borer?

 In the past years I have not done well with peas. I have had poor plants and poor yields but this year was not bad at all. It is getting towards the end of these peas but I have enjoyed they fresh and cooked. Beside the peas I have carrots in all different colors. I love how I am surprised each time I pull one up at what color it is. In the past I have had a problem with my carrots tasting bitter. Is there a trick to making sure that they taste sweet?

Something keeps eating my Okra pants. I love Okra and was looking forward to eating plenty of it since over 10 plants sprouted but due to both chickens making it into the veggie garden and just some sort of bug eating them I am starting to wonder if I will get any. I love the flowers that bloom on these and since this is red okra the seed pods are beautiful too. I haven’t seen what is eating them. Do you know of anything that eats Okra plants like this and if so how do you stop it?

Swiss Chard that seems to be thriving.

 My Bees bouncing back from having lost their queen at some point. I checked the hive 3 weeks ago and there were queen cells and little to no brood. I was worried that I had lost my bees but they are growing in numbers again so I will have to go in and check on them again next weekend.

 I thought after I fenced the chickens off in a smaller part of the yard that this would definitely not happen. I thought that in such a small space they would keep it nice and mowed if not completely void of vegetation but this is what my chicken run looked like a few days ago. I have since chopped down all of the weeds but left the sunflowers for shade. Does this ever happen in your chicken run?

This is what looks to me like a pumpkin vine popped up on its own. Anybody have a different opinion on what this could be?  it is right in front of my grape vine and I struggle with deciding if I should let it be there or not and am worried that it will take all the nutrients away from my growing grapevine. Do you ever have surprise veggies pop up in your garden? I had several tomato plans shoot up this spring. If you do what kind of surprises have you had?

Backyard, bees, chickens, Parenting, simplicity

Long Time No Post…

Olof

The bees are still alive!
All the girls enjoying the warm day!
Buff posing for the camera

This is where Buff likes to lay her eggs
Fridge full of eggs

My shaggy big boy.
Shaggy next to biggest boy.

My current project
My Valentine Present from my Hubby

Today’s bounty from the girls
The baby sleeping next to his Pabbi on the couch.

Thought I would just give you a glimpse into my world at the moment. My backyard is still busy with my farm animals and bees. My home full of boys both big and small having fun and being loud most of the day. We have all been fighting a cold this weekend. When I went out to let the birds out to free range today I stopped in the sun and felt the warmth of the day. I work inside most days nowhere close to windows and even if I were the weather has been cold and dreary for so long. The beautiful weather was such a blessing and warmed both my body and soul as the feathered ladies waddled around me.

I work a lot these days keeping me too busy to keep up with this place. I am finishing my 3000 hours of supervised experience at an inpatient facility for people in psychiatric crisis. I have to finish my hours before my time runs out for my license since I took time off to have Alex and be home with him for the first year he was born. I don’t regret being with him. I do hate that I only get about 2 hours of time with them after work on weekdays before it is bed time these days. But I keep telling myself that this is what it is at the moment. My boys just need to hold on tight for one more year and then we can reevaluate what is what at that point. I did the math though and even after I finish my hours and make more money because of having my license I would still be paying more for childcare for my 3 boys those last 3 hours of the work day than I would be making in those last 3 hours. At the moment I pay about 2032 dollars a month for daycare for my boys. Which leaves me about 168 dollars of my paycheck each month for gas and physical up keep. So I am working at the moment just to finish my hours. I am not making any money.

This brings me to my Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids leadership classes and my thoughts that have come up those teachings. I started my group yesterday and I look forward to the many more group calls to come. I won’t be able to teach Simplicity Parenting until I finish my hours for my license because I signed a no competition contract with my current employer. But I will have it in my tool box for after. As a back up plan and be able to maybe help friends and family with my teachings even though I might not make any money with it. It has me thinking back to my childhood. How was I raised? How did that have an effect on the person I am today? What impact do parents really have? How much can we guide after a certain age? How much is it teaching as much as it is modeling? How do we give our children the ability to find their own way with their own unique talents? How do we guide with out pushing our fears and needs on to our children? How can we just be that training wheel until they are ready to ride life one their own? How long do we hold on to them and how do we know when it is time to let go and let them fall and learn from their own mistakes?
There are so many parenting styles out there. Picking one is not the easiest thing to do. My thought is that if it works for your family then go with it. If it doesn’t work then it is time for change but make sure to pick the change that falls with in your value system and try to be as consistent as possible.

Thank you for stopping by and reading my update. What is your view on the perfect parenting style? Do you believe there is one true way? How much does genetics and personality have to do with parenting? 

Backyard, Cat, chickens, Coop, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, IKEA, mother, working

Time Flies….

Olof
Happy Sunday!

I know it has been a long time since I last posted. I have been very busy with life as a working mother the last couple of months. I have finished the “training stage” of work and actually started working as an intake therapist at a local inpatient psych facility. I really enjoy work. I know that I am making a difference in peoples lives. I am sometimes the first step in someones road to recovery from mental illness. I enjoy the people I work with and even though at times I feel like I don’t know what I am doing I know I have people supporting me that do.

My office at work.

It is hard to leave my children in the care of others each morning though. If I wasn’t finishing my candidacy hours then I would probably not be working full time. But I only get so long to finish my hours and I already took 18 months off to have Alexander. So I pay 2032 dollars a month so that someone else can watch my children. Mamma guilt gets to me when I am picking up my children at 5:30 or later because I couldn’t leave work fast enough. I try not to think about how many hours they spend in other peoples care. I hate that I spend the days that I do have them cleaning, grocery shopping and doing all the things that need to be done to keep this family of five running. Just yesterday I went grocery shopping and then to get my hair fixed for the first time in 4 months. Today I am about to spend the rest of the day putting clean sheets on all the beds, doing all the laundry, cleaning the bathroom, and mowing the backyard.

Speaking of the back yard. I got a new coop. The great coop that my husband made me was not big enough for all the birds I have. It is better suited for 2-3 standard birds or 3-4 bantams. So that coop will be sold. The new one I put together myself!!! With power tools and all!! I am so proud of myself and the birds like it. They actually go in the coop instead of trying to roost on my back porch which was becoming really GROSS! Lady Gaga is the only chicken that keeps trying to roost on the back porch still. But she is not the brightest of the bunch. I got this coop at mypetchicken.com.  While it looks nice it was very beat up when I got it and broken in several places that I ended up having to fix. Unless you are handy I would not order from them.

My chickens have been molting and they also got an upper respiratory infection from the Americauna that I traded the rooster Cowboy for. Being a new chicken keeper I didn’t know that hearing a chicken sneeze is a bad thing. Well it is. Very bad. Stopped all of my chickens from laying for over a month. I got my first egg yesterday and that in the nesting box. It was one of Buff’s eggs. I was so happy to see it. I was so scared that they had gotten a line of strep that keeps chickens from laying for ever. Can’t wait for them all to be laying and the beautiful colors that will come with it.

We have had a visitor in our back yard this week. This poor cat looks like its hind quarters have been saved. Also it is hard to see in this pic but it’s tail is either dislocated or broken. I’ve been letting it eat our cat food. It has been getting cold at night and I can’t think of not helping him grow his fur in by feeding him some good food. 

 Alex and his baby. We got that baby in IKEA in Iceland this summer when my mother died. He didn’t show much interest in it then but now he walks around and hugs on it and kisses. It also sleeps with him at night. Poor Alex has had pneumonia and a double ear infection. He has been a trouper about it too. He almost had to go to the hospital last weekend but we got pediatric home health to come to the house instead. He was still drinking and eating fine so I didn’t see a point in stressing him by putting him in the hospital. 

Australorp, Backyard, bees, black americauna, Buff Orpington, chickens, farm, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, sunflowers, Urban Homestead, veggie

Mini Farm Update

Olof
In my backyard I am trying to be more self sufficient. I have 4 chickens for eggs and entertainment, a veggie garden and a bee hive. I live on  an 1/8 of an acre so I don’t have much room but I am doing the best I can with what I have.
https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=10153098812410118
This video was recorded soon after we got back from Iceland. Since then the rooster (Cowboy) has gotten a new home and we got a Black Ameraucana Pullet as a trade. She is only 4 months so it will be a while before she lays her blue eggs.
First eggs laid in our backyard the day after we got them back from the friend that was nice enough to watch the chickens while I was in Iceland. The chickens started laying for her while I was in Iceland.
 One of the ladies kept laying double yokers and did that for almost a week straight.
You see the difference. The one on the bottom is the double yoker. You can tell be the thick band in the middle of it. 
 They made a nest under the deck so I put a bucket next box under there and they made a next right next to it so that I have to crawl under there to get them.

Chipmunk the Cream Legbar should start laying blue eggs by the end of the month and Mathilda the Australorp is the one that laid that egg next to the nest box.

Buff the Buff Orpington laid an egg for me this morning that I had already collected. She is like clockwork while Mathilda is a little off laying either double yokers, shell less eggs or oddly shaped eggs.
This is our new girl! A black Ameraucana and we named her Crow. She both looks like one and sounds like one when you pick her up.
 Sunflowers are really the only thing that I have grown well this year.
 My crazy overgrown garden.
As you can see in the video my garden is really overgrown since I went to Iceland and it was not being taken care of. I have had a hard time keeping up with it after mom died so I’m being kind to myself and not beating myself up for it. 
As you can see that the second deep is not full at all. They have a ways to go before there will be honey to harvest. The First Deep is full thought so that is good. 
How is your summer going? Growing anything? Knitting anything?

Wanting to read the book The Urban Homestead. Any of you read it? Is it any good?
Amazon, Backyard, bee, beekeeping, BeeWeaver, farm, frames, hive, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Ozark Bee Supply, starter kit

How to Start Right With Bees

Olof
As many of you know I was talking about getting bees and ladies and gents I DID IT!!! I am a proud urban beekeeper. I live on less than an 8th of an acre in the middle of Tulsa and I keep both bees and chickens.

Here is the story.

Months ago I got the bee bug. I was very interested in starting my own hive so I started reading, watching YouTube videos, talking to people I know that keep bees and surfing the web. I learned a lot about the bee’s life cycle, the different problems that could arise and the different illnesses bees can get.

I contacted BeeWeaver and Ramona said that they would sponsor my queen bee and then I started looking for local bees as worker bees to start my hive. I went on craigslist.org and found Ozark Bee Supplies and the man that runs it, Greg, was very helpful and full of information.

I started doing my research on where I could get a starter kit which includes the hive, a head vale, a hive tool, leather gloves, 10 plastic base frames and a smoker. I found one through Amazon and since I have Prime I didn’t have to pay for shipping on it. I also bought another deep super to put on top of the 10 frame hive so that the bees had plenty of space for brood and honey through the winter. I’m told I won’t need a honey super this year.

A little over a week ago on a Friday I got my queen bee IN THE MAIL from BeeWeaver apiaries. Yes you read me right I got her in the mail. She came in an envelop, but in the envelop she and some of her companions were in a sturdy wooden enclosure. The post office had tried to call me to pick it up but the number was wrong for some reason on the envelop but the nice lady at the post office delivered it to me on her way home from work.

The BeeWeaver queen and her attendants in the wooden box she arrived in.

I had gotten my hive ready the week before. Set up in my veggie garden and talked to Greg. a local bee keeper of Ozark Bee Supplies, that was willing to part with three frames of brood (baby bees), honey and worker bees for $20 dollars a frame and he keeps the frames from my hive that he is replacing.

So since my queen was there Greg told me to bring my hive, my queen bee, and a strap to keep the hive together for the drive home. I drive out to Jenks, OK to pick up my worker bees and frames and meet Greg for the first time in person. He was exactly what you would think a cowboy would look like but with a bee vale instead of a cowboy hat. Just wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. He put the hive strap on my hive to take it to where the bees are and he doesn’t put on any more protective clothing. I put on a black army jacket on and he tells me that Black is not a good idea and that I should probably get something more Bee Keeperish for the future.  I wish I had gotten photos of this experience but I was so excited about getting my bees that I forgot to take the camera with me. He takes me to the bees and opens my hive and then opens a nuc that has the frames that he was going to put in my hive. He did this with his bare hands and doesn’t get stung once. I was in awe. At first a little stressed with ALL the bees buzzing around me but then when I realized that they couldn’t care less if I was there or not I relaxed and just enjoyed the sounds and sights of the bees.

He put the three frames in to the hive and then just knocked the rest of the bees out of the nuc into my hive and put the queen in her wooden cage into the hive between the frames he put in my hive. Then he closed up the hive, secured it with the strap and then taped the entrance closed with duct tape so that they couldn’t get out! Then I asked my questions about how long to keep the queen in the cage and so fourth and the hive went in my Mazda5 and I drove home with a hive full of angry bees in the car with me! Very exciting but also I was very aware of EVERY bump in the road and prayed that I would not get in a car accident on the way home and be stuck in a car full of angry bees that have escaped their hive because of the accident.

I brought my hive home put it in place where I took the duct tape off and let the bees be bees for a little over a week. Only feeding them some sugar water to help the workers accept the queen and help with a stressful transition. Watching them come back from foraging with their back legs FULL of orange and white pollen. They have been such good bees.

Bees busy being bees.

Yesterday I let the queen out of her cage so that she can start laying her eggs again and my sister in law was nice enough to document it with her iPhone. She did not have a bee vale and even though it was a bit windy (not ideal) my bees were only a little unhappy when I grabbed the queen cage out of the hive. Had I not had gloves then I had been stung a few times. But when I was messing with the frames to see what sort of work they had been doing (they had been very busy bees and built up great comb) they couldn’t have cared less. I also opened the opening up to its next size up to make it easier for my bees to get in and out of the hive to bring in the pollen and honey.

My ladies have been busy on this new frame.
One of the frames I got from Ozark Bee Supplies

Now I must wait 10 days before checking on them again to make sure my queen is laying eggs. I’m SUPER excited! Can’t wait to see how much work they will have done in another 10 days.

BeeWeaver, that sent me the super nice queen bee, also has a new store that sells bee related products. You should check them out. The store is called BeeGoods.

Backyard, chickens, city living, craigslist, Rooster, Urban homesteading

Sad day……

Olof
Found out today that Owl is actually a boy. A boy that crows.

Yep. Owl was posted on Craigslist today. I live only 2 minutes from down town Tulsa so keeping a rooster is very unneighborly. Owl doesn’t crow loud but I’m sure with time he will really find his voice. He is kind to the girls and my kids. The photo above has Owl in the front and Mathilda and Dinner behind him (still hard to say him when talking about Owl because I thought he was a she). I still believe that Dinner is a boy too so I will not have any Easter Egger chickens which makes me sad but I guess I will then just get a Isbar chicken for a nice green egg.

This is Buff. She is a Buff Orpington and the sweetest of our flock. I have handled her the most too. Odinn picked her as his bird but has little patients to sit still so that he can catch her. She is usually the first to come running as soon as I step off of the porch wanting a treat or just food in general.

 The black bird is Mathilda our australorp. She is a BIG lady and very curious. She is not as trusting as Buff though and gets very verbal when I catch her.

The other bird in the photo is Dinner and I’m pretty sure Dinner is a He. I haven’t caught him crowing yet so he gets to hang out a little longer.

 This is the chicken tractor my husband made me even though he wasn’t all that excited about getting chickens. Yes I am a lucky lady for having such a great husband. I can fence them in if I want to but mostly they roam my  backyard and eat grass and bugs all day long.

 Remember the baby chicks that were in my kitchen. Well here they are at a month old. They have hit the punk rock stage of just looking all tattered. They are loosing their baby fluff and getting feathers. They have been booted out of my kitchen into the PlayYard (my temporary chicken coop) until they are big enough to join the big girls in the tractor. The one in the back is Chipmunk, a Cream Legbar. The one in the front is Sassy, a Black Copper Maran that I have a feeling is a boy. This makes me sad. That means that as soon as they are big enough to join the big birds then I will have to find him a new home too. Boo.

 I love how proud Chipmunk is when she runs around though. She is not a friendly bird. She is quite flighty even though she was handled quite a bit in my kitchen. But she is pretty and will lay the most beautiful blue eggs.

 Nala, the stray that I saved from starvation in my back yard. Her mother gave birth to her in my back yard and then left her there to starve when she was bout 8 weeks old. The vet thought that she was not going to survive since she was just a walking skeleton. But I took care of her and now she is a happy tubby girl.

 The boys having a lazy morning with the iPad. They love accessing Netflix and watching the old cartoons.

 Alex is a force to be recond with now. He army crawls and if he is in the walker then he RUNS to where he wants to go and has started getting into anything and everything.

 This is my loveseat or what the boys call “mamma’s couch”. At the moment it represents my brain. The 3 projects of knitting, further education on Personality Disorders and the new DSM 5, Mother Earth News (my fav magazine), Menu planing board and grocery list pad, and The Mindfulness and Acceptance book that I’m looking at to learn techniques for when I go back to work.  This is why I make To Do lists because this is what my brain tries to do if I don’t have a list to follow.

As I have my cup full of coffee and a list to finish, I wish you a  beautiful day full of wonder and love.

What is on your To Do list?

Have a problem with organization like I do? This looks very promising.
Australorp, Backyard, boots, Buff Orpington, carrots, chicken, eggs, fava, garden, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, planting, sustainability

Mini Farm Coming Along

Olof
OK, so I was going to take a before pic but honestly I was too ashamed at the state of my garden and horrified that my neighbors back door opened up to it and has had to look at it. It’s the only place where we do not have privacy fencing since there was already a fence there. But so far, I cleaned out the beds, used my Garden Weasel to turn the soil, added 6 cubic feet of peat moss and some organic fertilizer then turned the soil some more to mix it all up and then watered thoroughly.

I know it’s a mess! Wish me luck!

 I planted some Fava Windsor Broad Beans a couple of weeks ago and waiting for them to pop up and this weekend I´m planting some Organic Carrot Seeds Carnival Blend, some beets, some peas, lettuce and other cold hardy plants.

A couple of years ago I put down some weed cloth and put mulch over it. This looked great and was an awesome idea until my cats and the neighborhood cats thought that this would be the ideal place to poop. Yeah, eeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww. I kept stepping in it. I got to the point where I didn’t want to go into my garden area. That, plus the heat and the bugs just caused me to quit all together. My garden became a mess and my harvest was lost since I wasn’t keeping up with it. Now I have vines and weeds growing through the cloth. What do farmers do then (this is an Icelandic saying when there is a problem)? I´m going to clean out as much as I can put down even more mulch and then put down pavers for stepping on. This means that I need to go to my city’s free mulch site and pick up LOTS of mulch.

Mathilda the s/he bird
Owl, Buff and Mathilda getting lost in the weeds.

OK so the chickens are growing FAST! I know one of my Easter Eggers is a rooster so his name is Dinner. I live in the city so keeping a rooster is not being very neighborly. I’m still waiting to see if Mathilda is really a girl. I go back and fourth on if she is a he or a she so right now she is a s/he. LOL. I have just started letting them free range in the backyard. They are funny to watch and much easier to keep then I thought. Don’t know why I didn’t do this a LONG time ago. If you are on the fence on this one just jump in! If this is not the hobby for you then you can sell them and people will for sure buy laying hens and your coop.
Just make sure to read books on keeping chickens so you know the basics and have a library to reference to if you start having any problems and check with your local ordinands to see if you can legally keep chickens in your city. The entertainment value alone is worth keeping these birds. I could sit around and watch them all day. In June they should start laying if what I am reading about them starting around 18-22 weeks of age. I can’t wait! I’m still waiting on my Icelandics (lay white to pink eggs) and on a Maran (lays chocolate brown eggs) and Cream Legbar (lays blue eggs). It will be so much fun keeping these fun colors in my frig and giving them to the neighbors and friends.
Waiting for my boots to arrive from Amazon. Have to have proper attire for taking care of my mini farm.

What are you doing this spring? Trying anything new? New plants, animals, hobbies?

Ameraucana, Australorp, Backyard, Buff Orpington, chicken tractor, chickens, chicks

Chicks are Here!

Olof

I did it! I actually did it! I got chicks. We are now proud to introduce you to the newest additions to our family the feathery 4! No names yet. Need some help on that point. We have 2 Amereacanas (the brown ones that will lay some cool looking greenish blue eggs), one Buff Orpington (the blond one) and an Australorp (the black one). All four are 3 weeks old but boy are the Amereacanas big! Thought the Buff and the Australorp  would be the heavyweights but the Amereacanas are so much heavier.

Finding that I will have to change out their bedding twice a day while they are inside. They are stinky! Thankfully my husband is almost done with the chicken tractor and I will be able to take them outside as soon as they finish this ugly stage of shedding their baby feathers and getting their big girl feathers.

Welcome chickies! Now what to name you? Any ideas form you dear readers?

Backyard, Book Review, homestead, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, snow, The backyard homestead

Happenings Around Here….

Olof

Today was a very happy day for me. I got snow! I LOVE snow. My kids have gone out to play in it twice today. I was a bit sad that I couldn’t go out and play with them since Alex is still so little and he has acted a bit under the weather in the last 24 hours.

My seedlings are sprouting…

And I’m reading The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre by Carleen Madigan to learn as much as I can about how to turn my backyard into a productive piece of land for my family. I am truly starting to feel like a homemaker now. I love the tone in this book and how it feels like you are siting and having coffee with the writer and she is just telling you about her experience and what has worked for her. As if wisdom is being relayed to you. I believe this book will be referred to many times this spring and summer. I am in the middle of reading about keeping chickens which is the most important at the moment since I am getting ready to go get my first chicks to raise for eggs.
The illustrations are great. This is one of my favorite multipurpose homesteading books. It is so packed full of useful information that is easy to read and covers everything from what to plant and when to raising meat that is legal to keep in the city, caning and even foraging in the wild. If you are like me trying to become more self sufficient then check this book out from the library or buy yourself a copy. It is worth the money. I don’t regret purchasing it.

I’m also very busy finishing a design project for a giveaway in a few days. Can’t wait to show you what I came up with!

What is going on in your home these days?