Loss of a Hen

so, we lost a hen to the dogs over the weekend. Its bound to happen, and you prepare yourself for it, but still it's no fun. Two things make this a tragedy, one is that the hen was one of our Black Jersey Giants, and two, she was the broody hen that was sitting on the nest of eggs. Actually i can count a third here, i was unable to butcher her for our freezer. Not for lack of trying, mind you...... One cannot force herself into the right frame of mind for chicken butchering early on a Saturday morning before the coffee has perked. And add anger at yourself for not being able to accomplish the task and this episode quickly turned to disaster!

Since we only calculated about a week until those eggs were due to hatch, and out incubator is on loan to a friend, i gathered the eggs and made an impromptu brooder, two heating pads, a box, bowl of water, and some towels. Maybe we can still have those chicks.....

We also are in the process of having those trees felled so we spent the day Sunday moving the backyard around. the hen house was quite a challenge, and almost more than we were prepared for. But it was moved safely, and we dread the day we have to move it BACK to its permanent location! The goats were left in their pen since we ran out of time, they will be easily moved when the time comes. And the dogs have been limited to a smaller penned area until all this is done. Nobody is thrilled around here with all the commotion, but we keep our happy thoughts by imagining sunshine and green grass to come in our yard!!

The garden is being planted and it's coming along nicely! i love the clean look of a newly planted garden. I still need to get out there and put up two more trellis frames - one for the peppers and one for the tomatoes! I will get some pics while i'm at it to liven up my thoughts! Happy gardening!

cheers, Nyn

Down come the forests

We have chosen to rid our front and back yards of trees. yes i know all the good things about them, shade, oxygen, animal habitat, etc but when the pine needles have taken over.....it's time to say adios! Right now the tree man is next door taking care of our neighbors trees, then he will move on to our yard. We are so excited! The only problem is that we will have to take down the back fence, and the chicken pen, and the goat pen.... yikes! I think we will most likely end up relocating their coop and shed up against the back of the house with one pen for both. Surely goats and chickens can cohabitate for a week? Oh i sure hope so! Then we will need to put another fence up to keep the dogs close to the house. oh, and can't forget the bunny hutch....that will have to be moved as well. And then there's the matter of my trusty man servant and his parts car that doesn't run and is parked in the way. I guess we will be taking down yet another fence and pushing that thing further into the back yard so that the trees out front can come down! I will be posting progress pictures once this gets underway! I can't wait to have enough sunshine to grow grass in the yard, not to mention less shade in the garden! Sweet :)

I also got started with my medicinal herb training. I maserated dandelion and in nine days i will finish the process....then i will show and tell!

Now, off i go to watch a forest become a glade.....


cheers,
Nyn

finally feeling like spring!

yes, its true that spring has been with us for awhile now.....but only the last couple days has it FELT like spring! We have temps in the mid 80's finally :)

Updates on our doings here......

the baby goats are doing great! At two weeks and one day old, Brownie and Chookie are taking their bottles like champs, enough so that we are sending our 8 yr old daughter out to feed them! That sure does take a load off of me :)



That's Brownie taking care of an itch :)

The three baby chicks we sent out into the coop with the flock are thriving, if a bit ugly right now! But the best news......we have a broody hen!!!!!



She is one of our Black Jersey Giant hens, and she sure does get mad when someone opens up the coop door! I originally placed 14 eggs in a nest hoping to entice one of the girls to be a mom, and it finally worked. Although the original eggs are no good since they sat out there for a month, ewwww. I started pulling a couple of the older eggs that i had marked with red, and replaced them with new eggs marked in black once i noticed this girl sitting on the nest longer. There are about 20 eggs in there, but half will be duds. Can't wait to see how many hatch!

The gardening is getting ready to go full swing. Look at the squash and cucumber plants!! i will start hardening them off next week so they can go out in the garden! Then herbs..... ooh la la



The onion sets we put out are growing great! i will have to thin some out to get nice big onions this summer. I am so excited since this is the first year i have planted them by sets. The garlic i put out last fall is doing so so.....the long cold winter was hard on them, but i haven't given up hope. Most of the cloves look like they will produce.



One last thing.....we paid off the land. that's right folks, Nyn Acres is ours free and clear! We sat on that news for a month without telling anyone, and that was hard! But we wanted the deed in our hands before we spread the news to the family. With all this good news, comes hard work....so i better be off!!!

cheers,
Nyn