Spring and Other Changes

Wow, it's been a long time since I have been here! I didn't realize just how long until I logged in today. My job keeps me so busy, but now that I am working from home most of the week, I am trying to find the new balance of things in life. 

How is #Safeathome changing your life?  We have done most of our shopping online, and groceries we have done through curbside pickup with the exception of one trip to get our Easter ham.  Even though I love to cook, I would love a break, which is where frozen pizza's have been helpful!  Even though we are in such a rural area, we do have restaurants offering curbside pickup, so we will probably do that tomorrow night, cuz this girl would like a break that doesn't involve mozzarella and pepperoni! AND, I would also like to support these local business's that are trying to stay afloat.  In another effort to support local, we are going to try and order some lumber and small electrical items from a local hardware store this weekend.  In the past that was always a trip to Menards.  As long as these "mom and pop"stores are making the effort to stay open, I do think we need to support them whenever possible. 

So, on to other things... I'm sure you are all reading to much about viruses and staying at home anymore. I've been thinking about my blog a lot since the first of the year, and just trying to find the inspiration to come back. And my camera has been getting dusty, that is just wrong!  Well, inspiration finally hit this past weekend, thanks to my amazing friend Carla at The River.  Thank you Carla!  So, if life cooperates, you'll be seeing me around again on a more regular basis.

Stay healthy my friends and see you soon!

Our Newest Additions

Several years ago I was looking for baby chicks on Craigslist. During my searching, I stumbled across a "new to me" breed of chickens called Icelandic.  After doing some research on this breed, I was completely intrigued. I reached out to the person on Craigslist selling the chicks, but they never responded.

I have looked into this breed a few times since then, but the price per chick and the minimum quantity prevent me from ordering any. But then this year, things changed. In one of my chicken groups on Facebook, a lady from central Wisconsin was advertising her Icelandic chicks for sale. I was so excited. But, with our schedules she was still to far away. My husband insisted we could find a way to make the journey because he knew how important they were to me. In a conversation with the lady to see about scheduling the trip, she asked where we were from. Turns out she has a friend that lives 20 miles from us and she also raises Icelandic Chicks! I was put in contact with the local lady, and the rest is history! 

We are now the proud owners of Icelandic chicks. So far it appears that we have all pullets, but we'll see!

 They are about 2 weeks old in this photo. Still living in the house.

After battling our excessively rainy spring, they finally got to start sampling grass and bugs this past week! 

If you would like to read about Icelandic Chickens, here are some interesting articles:

Mother Earth News.

The Modern Homestead

What's your favorite breed of chicken?

Life on the Farm

Happy Spring!! There is no shortage of changes in the seasons happening, so I wanted to share some photo's of what's going on around the farm.

Our lovely Joan, has been happily free ranging and tends to always keep an eye on where I am. 

She seems to think I will have treats for her! (I usually do!)

The Queen of the Farm, happy to soak up that sunshine!

A man and his dog.

Our garden. Oh how I wish we would have cleaned it up last fall. But, we both dived into this past weekend, and even got some dirt worked. Hopefully get some early seeds in this coming weekend.

If the dogs go missing, just look for them in the last bit of remaining snow!

And, things are growing!  Tulips seem very early for us.

The strawberries are happy to see all this sunshine!

New Kids on the Block

A while back I introduced you to the new additions. Well, they are doing great! And getting so big!

They are so full of energy, it is really hard to get a picture or two of them if it's daylight out, but I did manage to capture a couple yesterday.

This is the Buff Laced Polish Hen. Isn't she stunning? 

And, if you noticed I specified that she is a hen, that's because the other Buff Laced Polish is a Rooster! 

He has so much personality, we just had to name him, so please meet Mr. Idol. 

We typically don't name most of the flock. We did that once and bad things happened, so we have stayed away from it. Until this year. Since we named Mr. Idol, we felt the Mrs needed a name, so I'm pleased to introduce Lita.

Joan didn't want to pose pretty, but she is the solid black one.

Then we have Tina on the right, and the one on the left has yet to be named. 

 If you've picked up on my theme of names, and have any suggestions, I'm listening!

And, just because she is a ham, and LOVES attention, here is one of the old girls!

Growing Up!

The little ones graduated to their new "mini" outdoor coop! Maybe because we have never had these deluxe accommodations before for the little ones, but I have never seen a chick sunbathe the way the older hens do. It was quite entertaining to watch. Of course, the photo doesn't quite capture how much they were enjoying the beautiful sunshine, but they were!

This Black Jersey Giant was really enjoying the rays since her feathers are coming in slower then all the other chicks!

Here is the Jersey Giant again, she is a week older with a few more feathers, but still just a lot of fuzz.

The Golden Laced Wyandottes starting to show their beautiful colors.

 The Buff Laced Polish are getting super fluffy heads and lots of feathers.

Here we have all 6 of the new chicks together enjoying some green grass.

In the midst of taking care of the chicks and chickens, I finally made a cookie recipe worth raving about and sharing. I hope to make it again this weekend and get some pictures taken so you can all share in some cookie bliss with me. It's so good. It's been worth the wait!

Mushrooms - The Wild Kind

It's almost that time of year again. That time of year where I must make the time to go strolling through the woods looking for the prime spot to find the incredible delectable morel. But, many times these walks do not lead me to any "edible" mushrooms. Last year I took pictures to share of the other types of mushrooms I found. Of course, I can't find all of these photo's now, but did find some to share.

Leading the photo show, is the top dog. The one. The only. The Morel.

This guy is not one I will sink my teeth into. 

Gyromitra Esculenta, I was shocked to learn that people do eat this.

Pheasant Back. While very edible, and enjoyed by many, I don't have the nerve. It breaks one my mushroom rule. 

1.) If Gram didn't pick it wild and eat it, I'm not going to either.

I really have no idea what these are besides pretty.

 These area a fairly common site for me. They remind me of jelly fish. 

Do you forage for any wild mushrooms? Where did you learn what's ok and what's not?

The Flock Grew

One sunny April day, after much discussion we decided that we would indeed get some new chicks this year! And, we were off to the store before we could change our minds!

We are only adding six, as that is all we have room for.  Buff Laced Polish, Golden Laced Wyandotte, Americana, and Black Jersey Giants are the beauties we selected, and they are all new breeds to our flock. 

We have them set up with their heat lamp, and they are happily staying in the basement until they get bigger. Then we will move them to phase 2 until they are ready to begin mingling with the big girls and boy. I am sooo excited to watch these little ones grow up. They should all be hens, except for two that we aren't sure. So, there is a little mystery left in the mix!

Having picked up the chicks the weekend after Easter, we were feeling all nice and springy. And then this happened. 

I know it will melt quickly, but this seems to have been such a long long winter already! 

I am anxious to get to the woods picking morels, and of course to get the garden going! 

Come on Mother Nature, lets get spring in full swing!!

Are you already planning or working on your gardens?

Sharing at:

Clever Chicks Blog Hop

February On The Farm

You never know what winter in Wisconsin will bring. I took these photo's on January 27, a mere two weeks ago. The chickens were happily free ranging. They had their paths around the ice and the minimal snow. 

I didn't realize how much things had changed until looking at these pictures. We have received lots of snow in the last two weeks. One snow alone brought us 6 inches, so we are looking quite a bit more seasonal and snow covered now. 

 The chickens had a nice break though and have been able to stretch their legs. Hoping as the days start to get longer, we will begin to see some eggs from them again. We don't provide heat or light for them, it's all up to Mother Nature, so in the winter eggs are not plentiful!

 While we didn't have a lot of snow up until recent, we did have more than enough ice. This "field road" is so covered in ice, I won't even try walking over it!

Mr.C. is hesitant to go over the ice also :)

Mr. C enjoying the nice day we had. Queen of the farm was near by, but wasn't in the mood to pose for a photo. Maybe next time!

Be warm my friends!

The Ladies and the Mister

It's been a while since the ladies have made an appearance, and they aren't looking to pretty lately. They are molting like I have never seen before! I don't know if it's a sign of a bad winter coming? Or since they are getting older, maybe molting just hits them harder?  I fully intend on researching this more when the garden winds down and I'm getting some couch time again.  Are you chickens having a harder molt this year?

True story. One morning last week when I went to open up the coop for the day, I had to do a head count. There were so many feathers on the floor I was sure that a predator had snuck in and bad things had happened. Thankfully not. All were present and accounted for.

Here is how my pride and joy Annie normally looks.

Here is Annie today. Yikes!

This hen is one with more minor molting. The white gal behind her as a near naked rear side!

I wish I had a "before" picture of this lady to share, but she is nearly half her normal size right now.

Remember our new Black Copper Marans? Sadly, we lost Mr. about a month ago. 

He got sick and we weren't able to save him.

 But, Little Miss is healthy and our old rooster has taken her under his wing. 

It's really quite entertaining to watch the dynamics of him and his ladies.

And, the most exciting thing is, she is laying already! Look at that beautiful chocolate colored egg. 

I am one proud chicken mama over these eggs!

Do you like colored eggs or do you prefer white?

Around the Farm

The last time I checked in with an "Around the Farm" was late May. Since time is flying past, I took the time last week to walk around the farm and take some pictures so I could share what's up.

Gardening. Wow, what a difference a year can make. We definitely are not having the thriving garden that we had last year. Actually the past couple years we have had such amazing gardens, I guess it's our turn to have an off season. We started off with sooooo much rain. Not floods like last year, thankfully. Just constant, and heavy rains. That lead us to having to replant some things. Several times. Ohh... and lets not forget that the house cats ate off some of our plants we had started by seed. That set us behind right from the beginning!  But, on the up side, our lettuce is thriving! Radishes have been doing well also. Everything else we will have to wait and see. 

Chickens. Ugh. They've been a challenge too! We have the two new chickens you met last time. We were letting everyone free range together and all was going well, so we finally combined everyone into the same coop. We don't know if it was coincidence in timing, stress from the change, or what, but the entire old flock of 15 chickens got sick. It was horribly nerve racking as we have never had an illness in the flock before that didn't result in the unthinkable. As soon as this started we learned that you can no longer buy medicine in the store, you need to buy it through a vet. One hurdle after another. So, while trying to find a vet, I had started a natural treatment I read about. Mixing vinegar and fresh garlic in with their water. I rotated that every other day, and on the alternate day they got a vitamin mix water. We did finally find a vet and get medicine. But, treating with medicine means throwing all eggs away for several weeks, and we were starting to see improvement, so we held off. Well, everyone is finally better, and they are back to almost normal egg production.  The two new chickens, are doing well. They are much more home bodies and don't leave the coop much. Other than that, all I can say is we are waiting for one of the two to give us a cockle doodle doo song soon. 

Berries. Strawberries were a challenge. Most of our heaviest rains came right when they were at their peak. Being we both have our day jobs, we just weren't able to stay on top of getting them picked quickly enough and the rain took most of them. Black raspberries however seem to be thriving!! We've devoured tons while just being outside, picked more than ever, and even were able to invite family and friends to come pick to their hearts content! Red Raspberries were on the downside of things though. We seem to have a virus out there, so mowed off one patch in hopes of keeping it from spreading to the second patch. Fingers crossed we have that under control.

Flower beds. Thanks to my parents, who get all the credit in reviving one of our most prominent flower beds, that we just lost control over. It looks amazing now! They got rid of all those crazy weeds that were also thriving this season, did some pruning, removal, and added some new beauties including a dahlia and climbing rose! 

In the kitchen. I have several recipes lined up to share with you. Two should hopefully be this week, and a third just as soon as a I give it another test. I am really excited about that one. It's a Strawberry Drizzle Cake that I learned about thanks to the tv show, "The Great British Bakeoff".  A couple weeks ago, when I thought I was catching up on things, I started following along with the show through Wisconsin Public Television. Basically, they challenge you to make one recipe out of each episode. I pulled it off for the first episode! That's as far as I made it, but I learned a new cake that I fell in love with. 

Husband. Husband has a new hobby. Off roading. It fits doesn't it? It involves wheels, motors and getting dirty.  I give it the thumbs up because it's cheaper than some of the other hobbies he's tried in the past. AND... the bonus is the off roading leads to trails through our woods which is giving me access to area's I've not been able to get to before! 

Wow, this turned into a long post! Guess I had a lot to catch you up on. 

Tell me, how is your summer? How is your garden??