Our Chicken Coops New and Old

We've had chickens for forever. It feels that way at least. They've lived in all sorts of places. We've built a number of chicken tractors. They still sit around the homestead. Occasionally a duck or chicken decides they're a good place to raise a bunch of babies. Right now in fact we have a Mommy duck sitting on eggs in one. No one actually lives in them, just random chickens and ducks decide to lay in them now and then. Having a few chicken tractors around is always a good thing though. Whether it's having a good place to quarantine new poultry, a temporary holding place for all sorts of animals, somewhere to raise a new batch of chicks from the feed store or a place for Mommies to hatch babies, everyone should have one around. They're a "Good Thing". In fact here's a happy Duckie Mama working on hatching some baby duckies as we speak.

She's in this old HEAVY chicken tractor. I need it moved for a garden there but man, the last time we tried to move it it tried to just break into a million pieces. :)
We also have the chicken trailer which just an old rickety trailer that we gutted and put roosts and nesting boxes in. The chickens lived in there for the last year. And we moved it more than once. Chicken coops on wheels are convenient for a number of reasons. But the chickens decided on their own to move out. Now the new chicks live in there.
Here's our happy little chickies in their trailer. I am a firm believer in the trailer coop. Cheap. Most people will almost want to pay you to take their old ugly one away. It can move. And easy to gut.

Why the chickens decided to move in with the ducks I'll never know but they did. We needed a new place for the ducks so what we did was run chicken wire all around the bottom of our back porch which is fairly high. I can't stand underneath it but still fairly high. We put a gate on it and presto! In 30 minutes or less we had a complete pen for the ducks.
*note that Adric sprayed the orange marking paint for marking the garden post holes all over the back porch. Dad's yet to see that one. He will soon. Uh oh Adric.

Yet of course, the ducks have decided to just free range in the yard all night. Whatever. I can't tell these things what to do. We used to round them up every night but after months we had enough of that nonsense. Hopefully they fly away when a predator comes. They've survived all winter so who knows. Stubborn creatures.

So the chickens moved in under the porch. The only problem with that is that they stopped laying in regular places. And it's not so safe with the gate open and ducks free. So this weekend we finished up the chicken coop. Note to mom - you'll probably be annoyed we didn't turn this into a playhouse like you wanted but really, even after we cleaned it out, it never would have been clean enough to be a playhouse. It was a mice house for way too long. Yeah it just couldn't get un-icky enough to be a playhouse. Here it is: Forget the stuff out front. We have yet to haul all the stuff we gutted out from it to the dump.
*note since writing this Clay has taken all that stuff to the dump. Hooray!*

We ran roosts on the framing beams.

We had leftover cabinets that work perfectly for nesting boxes and a feeding center. LOVE reusing things for free!
The cabinets worked great for nesting boxes! Clay ran 2x4s across the front not only to keep the straw and eggs in the boxes, but to give the girls a place to easily jump onto from the ground. They're loving the higher boxes. Us women like to make things as difficult as possible. Go figure.

And everyone is happy! They've been laying us eggs everyday in there and things are hunky dory.
And I'm really happy to have one more permanent part of our homestead finished. With so much to do and with the fact it feels like it will be years before anything is really done, as each thing gets ticked off the list, it feels like a huge victory.

The girls should be really happy now. I hope one day to run a small run around it so they can be outside in the morning before we let them out. Hmm... but then that would mean we'd have to have a chicken door open all night so it's open in the morning for them to get out and critters could get in. Well I still want a run so that they can be outside when we go out of town.....someday. We never go anywhere and like it that way.

The Birthday to Top All Birthdays

Tuesday was my birthday. I'm still awaiting packages from all of you. So often our birthdays around here are pretty low key. We rarely do anything. Just a day to relax. My amazing grandmother always sends me package filled with perfect goodies. This year though.... Was just over the top. Honestly how can a day go wrong that starts with these on the table:
Then I go outside and find out that these little cutie pies are the newest additions to our homestead. Born on my birthday. I awoke to 3 hatched. By the end of the day, 9. And that Mama doesn't look too happy that we're taking her picture does she. Be afraid. Be VERY afraid. I'll expect you sometime next week Katie to take some home.
And this boy who fell yesterday comes downstairs looking cute but still looking like this:

And a box with this on the side awaits opening (yeah you're drooling now)
And your mom brings over not only Mexican food but a cake from Whole Foods that says this on top:
*note that we were far too distracted actually eating the cake to take pictures before it was almost gone* And a special thanks to my friend Nancy for sending her to get this cake and paying for it.

Boy oh boy.

My grandma went above and beyond this year. Honestly it will knock your socks off. Inside the Lehman's box from her was this:
Notice the nice big tank so forgetful people like myself aren't having to fill it every night. Woohoo. I'm so inspired now and want to buy a few more lanterns! Another big one like this. A little one to hang on the post that we can take room to room easily. A rockin hurricane one that can go outside and never blow out. One for my bedroom. You rock grandma.
Also in the box was this:
Galvanized clothesline. Drool.

Oh and that wasn't the only box she sent!! There was an assortment of amazing books that I can guarantee will keep me up at night obsessively for days to come. Click the images and go straight to Amazon to buy them.
The Apple Grower. The best organic apple growing book. We weren't able to get our fruit trees in the ground in early Spring like we should have. We'll probably put them in late fall instead. Which is great. It means I have all Summer to read this book, prepare the soil, till and put a nice ground cover. Then trees.
Seed to Seed. Even just skimming this book I am impressed. No frills. Vegetable and herb species by species it breaks it down . How to plant the seeds, how far to separate each plant to not cross pollinate, how to hand pollinate, etc. etc. How to plant, fertilize and save seeds from almost every garden plant out there. I'm almost scared of how much information is in this book.
And the Encyclopedia of Country Living. If I thought I was afraid of the info in Seed to Seed this book terrifies me. Okay it doesn't. I love this book. And you know who loves this book? Frankie! It's his new bathroom book. And if you're not careful the child will spend 15 minutes in the bathroom now. 10 times a day I hear "Mom did you know that all other ducks take 28 days to hatch their eggs but our muscovies take 35 days?" " Mom did you know that you can just cut the head off a rabbit and just peel the skin back like a sweater?" I LOVE that he loves this book. He can read it cover to cover 100 times for all I care. Please do Frankie dear.
And if that wasn't enough, there was this:
The picture doesn't do the color of this justice. It's a big gorgeous sewing basket. I don't even have enough to fill it right now. When we got our German Shepherd, Chief, one of the first things he did was chew up the sewing basket I got when I was a kid. So everything I had had to fit in this little space underneath my sewing machine. I've been wanting to get into sewing for so long. Now I really have to.
There aren't enough words Grandma really. I love you.
And Gary and Mary Pat, thanks for always helping out Grandma by picking up the packages and taking them to be shipped. This is always such a huge blessing to her.

So one would think that this break from our normal low-key birthday would be over. Nope. Hubby gives me this. It's a terabyte harddrive for all my pictures and scrapbook stuff. Here soon I'm going to do some basic digital scrapbooking posts and maybe a recycling around the house to scrapbook posts. AND he's started transferring all my stuff onto it because he loves me so. Now I can sit and scrapbook on the laptop. I miss it and am so behind. Funny on one hand to be working towards less electricity and the other getting terabyte harddrives. The perfect example of the paradox of our lives.
And the harddrive was special because on things like this I know we don't have that money just sitting in the budget so my darling husband had to plan, save and make it work to get it. I love you Clay honey.

Remember me telling you the Moms brought Mexican food and cake? Well the Moms is moving here to TN from CA and has started bringing some of her stuff. So she brought me these rockin rockin pots. She's already found me a immersion blender for my soon-to-be soap making project. Now I not only have some big new pots for our family but a new stainless one for soap making. Yay! And the orange La Cruset? I'm shocked she gave it to me. I love love love it.

And the Lord is so good and thoughtful. I'd been asking on a couple message boards for some ideas for making over our bedroom for my hubby (forget you read that part husband who secretly reads my blog). The favorite one I had been shown had a gorgeous aqua coverlet over it. I knew I'd never be able to afford something like that but it gave me something to look for at garage sales or Goodwill. I never told Moms that I was looking for that. I only started looking last week. Turns out that when she was in CA she found this marked down from $130 to $30!! EXACTLY what I wanted.
See? Told you it was a birthday to top all birthdays. Now back to reality LOL.

Cows Go Quack

So I just ate the best steak I’ve had in a while. Mmmm steak. Thick, juicy homegrown steak. Homegrown you say? Um… didn’t I read that you think you may only have an acre total land that’s not woods?

Yep. No cows for us. Not unless the Lord blesses us with a big piece of land someday. But we’ve found the next best thing. Muscovy Duck. Okay it’s a toss up between deer and muscovy. Deer is free and boy you get a lot of meat. But it is a bit gamey. AND well... we haven't gotten one this year. Our tiny piece of property doesn't make for the best hunting. Anyone in Middle TN have a large piece of land they want to let Clay hunt on? Please? But muscovies cost feed all year, but man, no gamey flavor and taste like beef. It’s almost crazy how much they taste like beef.

This is how I cooked these couple ducks. I take the breast off. You cook those just like a nice steak. I sear them in a pan and stick the pan in the oven for a handful of minutes. We like ours nice and rare. Then I parted out the rest of the duck. I put in a roasting pan and slow roast em at a low temp for a number of hours until tender. I picked all the meat off. I had Clay taste the meat and he thought it was beef roast. I swear it tastes just like roast. It’s unbelievable.

And oh duck fat. Muscovies have a lot of nice fat. I’m stoked to be able to put a big tub of it in the fridge. Good stuff. Right now I’m cooking all the bones down to make “beef” stock. I’m going to use that yummy shredded meat I picked off to make “beef” stew tomorrow.

Hmm I wonder how many ducks we’ll need to raise next year? Beef twice a month? Two ducks each time? So 50 ducks or so to raise for butcher next year? We have about 12 more to butcher in the next few weeks so that’s 6 meat meals + 6 soup meals.

Why didn't I take pictures of our beautiful steak and stew? Food is the one thing I forget to take pictures of. I want to start doing some cook alongs. We'll see if I can remember to do it before the food is totally cooked and half eaten?

Soon (and it will be soon as we'll be killing most of these guys in the next month!) I’ll show you my handsome flock of muscovies and talk about raising them. Had to talk about eating them while yummy flavor was still lingering in my mind.