Journal - Early March

I see these blogs, photos every day of all the things that got done.  How do y'all do it?  I can keep up with the day, or the pictures, but I can't seem to scramble enough to do both right now. 

But that's OK, I suppose.  We do what we can...and this is what we've been up to.

First, our sweet, lovely daughter has started her first grade work.  She is doing just fine with it, and we are making all our little tweaks and adjustments as we transition to the change in workload and style.  We don't have our texts and workbooks yet, but we're able to access most of that online.  We can view and print pages as needed, so there is no interruption. 

We have been doing chores for our next door neighbor the past two days.  It's fun, because they have different animals that we don't have.  They have a horse, a goat, a goose, some chickens and a hen turkey.  Also dogs and just about the sweetest cat I ever met.  We found two goose eggs, and marveled at how much larger they are than chicken or turkey eggs.  When I mentioned to my neighbor that I had two goose eggs in my fridge for her, she said, 'You found eggs?  Petrie is a girl?'  So I guess that was news to all of us (I kinda thought she was a gander too - shows what we know!)

Speaking of eggs, DD and I cleaned up the incubator and put 14 eggs in to start.  Seven are turkey eggs, the other seven are assorted mutt chickens.  Parrot, our rooster, is half white plymouth rock, half red cornish.  Our hens are rhode island reds, barred rocks, americaunas, black australorps, etc., and mutts, but we love them all, and we're eager to see what we get.  We're hoping for a good hatch rate and doing what we can to make that happen.  We did not wash the eggs, we put them pointy side down in the racks, and we will monitor the water reservoir.  The incubator has a thermostat, so it should stay at temperature, but we'll monitor that as well.  These are early turkey eggs, so we may or may not get poults from them, but it's worth a try.  I'll keep you posted!

Shadow, our sweet little bunny rabbit, is doing just great.  She surprised us today by nearly jumping a 2 1/2 foot fence!  She had herself straddled over it when I came a'runnin' to stop her, bless her heart.  She really is a sweet little bun and loves to explore.  She is teaching us what her signals are (note - a digging motion on a person or a towel means it's litter box time - stat!) and she seems to be more comfortable with us holding and petting her.  I'm eager to get a buck and get her bred, but first I have to get some cages procured or built - probably a little of both.  We took her outside and put her in a little fence corral for a couple hours while we were working on the dog run, and she seemed to really enjoy the fresh air, sunshine and change of scenery.  What a little sweetie!

In other news, I planted those jerusalem artichokes that I got from the produce co-op and they're sprouting!  I couldn't be more excited.  I've read that they can become something of a nuisance, so I won't put them in the garden - rather, I'll stick them somewhere they can grow year to year.  Since it's too early to put them outdoors, I'm just happy they are viable and growing - woo hoo!

We have our cold frames set up and the greenhouse cleaned out.  We haven't put plastic on the greenhouse yet, but we will soon.  Spring is coming, and we're doing our best to be ready for it.  Other than that, I'm just trying to keep up with laundry, kitty litter, housework and etc.  Oh, and as soon as I can get my act together, I'm going to start canning potatoes.  We had such a nice crop last autumn, and they have held really well, but we know from experience that they will start sprouting in May, so I'm going to put some up and see how we like them.  I've never canned potatoes before.  If you have, I'd love to hear how you use them.

What about you - what are you up to these days?  Leave me a note and tell me what you're doing!

Fondly,
-Laura at TenThingsFarm

How to Save Zillions on T-Shirts

Okay...maybe not zillions, but with the price of everything going up - hey, you never know. 

We have some trips we hope to take in the next several months.  And you know what you get when you go somewhere, right?  A T-shirt.  Usually in the $15-$20 price range.  And I don't understand the laws of nature that dictate this, but it has been my experience that the more you pay for any article of clothing, the sooner it gets ripped, stained or otherwise ruined.  So in an effort to create harmony in the universe while I save money, I've started keeping an eye out for 'location' T-shirts at the thrift store.

This picture shows $1.25 in T-shirt expenditure for our daughter.  Not $1.25 each, but total. 


How cool is that? 



So now, when we go to see Mt. Rushmore, she can wear her shirt to the monument.  Sweet!



Have  you ever been to the balloon festival?  It's really something.  There is this vendor that has a machine that makes little tiny bite size donuts.  Not like the ones you can buy in a store - lots smaller.  You can stand there and watch the dough plop into the oil, then a mechanism turns them, then they go on a wee conveyor and cool a little and get covered in cinnamon sugar.  When you get the bag of them, they are still warm.  Oh, and there are also a lot of amazing balloons. 

heh.



And this is the year to go visit Hawaii Grandma and Grandpa.  How lucky is this kid to have grandparents in Hawaii!  Not only that, she has grandparents in Tennessee!  Seriously, does life get any better?

Well, yes, yes it does.  Because I figure I saved an hour and a half of total shopping time on vacation, along with at least $40.  That would buy quite of few of those little donuts, don'tcha think?

Yum,
-Laura at TenThingsFarm

Shadow

This is Shadow.



She is a rabbit.  That is about all we know so far.  Well, she's about two years old.



She has a bit of a double chin.  I like her already.



She likes to sit in our laps.  The floor is too slippy, I think, for her sensibilities.



She weighs between 6 and 7 pounds, but she looks a lot bigger than that.  She feels bigger than that too.  It's hard to weigh a bunny, especially when you just met an hour ago.  Perhaps we'll try again (with the scale and some photos) when she settles in just a bit. 

You might be wondering - why on earth, when I already have the chickens and the turkeys and the cats and the dog and the child - why a rabbit?  Well, it's not like I'm getting just one.  When it's all said and done, I'll probably have four to six.  But there are lots of good reasons to have rabbits:

1.  They are very, very quiet.
2.  They do not eat much.
3.  Despite eating very little, they somehow manage to poop considerable amounts of garden fertilizer that can be applied directly to the garden without any composting.
4.  Alternately, you can raise worms in the rabbit poop, sell the worms to fishermen, then put the rabbit poop in the garden.
5.  They can be taught to do this:

(And yes, I plan to give that a try with Shadow.)
6.  They breed, well, like rabbits.
7.  Rabbit tastes a lot like chicken.
8.  The library district hired me to do a series of bunny programs for the summer reading program this summer.  So having some rabbits will go a long way toward making that happen!
9.  Rabbits can also produce wool for yarn, if you are willing to invest the time in one of the wool producing breeds. 
10.  They are stinkin' cute!

And no, we won't be eating the program rabbits, but they may well be breeding stock.  I haven't figured all that out quiet yet, other than being fairly certain that I won't get any fiber bunnies.  They are adorable - once upon a time I had English Angoras - three does and a buck - but by the time I get my daughter's hair braided, I barely have time to run a brush through mine.  I just don't know where I'd find the time to groom a small herd of puffballs.  So I likely won't go that route. 

But for now, I'm enjoying getting to know Shadow.  Sweet girl!


Any idea what type she is?
-Laura at TenThingsFarm

They Grow Up So Fast.

Our daughter learns at home, a-la virtual school.   Some day I will do a post all about it, but for today, I just wanted to share that my sweet 'Little Bit' is all done with Kindergarten and will start first grade lessons on Monday.  We're really happy and proud for her, and just amazed how quickly she learns.

And at the same time, the thought that my baby is going to be a first-grader in a few days makes my eyes leak. 

This past week we did some fun activities with money.  We had a little pretend 'yard sale' at the kitchen table to help reinforce the values of different coins and how they add up.  We also learned that there is more than one combination that will add up to a given total.  Well, I did already know that.  But now we both know it!



My daughter chose a few of her favorite little plastic animals, and I got some money from the change jar.  We made up prices that were numbers that would help us with the concepts we were working on - all 30 cents or lower.  She mixed up the money, then we got started.



As you can see, this little frog is twelve cents.  She used her coins to show me several different ways to make twelve cents. 







I like to use real coins.  Her math book came with some nice, realistic looking coins that we punched out of the tagboard pages, but I think the sound, heft and feel of the real thing helps the whole activity to be more meaningful.  She has been using the play money with her bigger toy dinosaurs - I think they are starting a dino bank.  So even when she is playing on her own, she is still practicing her skills. 

This was a lot of fun, didn't cost a thing to set up, and she played 'yard sale' for a full 45 minutes.  I'm sure we'll do this again and again and she'll continue to develop her money math skills.

And just so you know, she also got a tiny peek into the world of astronauts.  We put a tablespoon of instant pudding powder into a baggie, added a half cup of milk and sealed it up tight.  She massaged it around until she had astronaut pudding.  Then we slipped a straw into one corner so she could enjoy her treat.  Astronauts don't get to use utensils, you know.   The food would float away, and as you can see, the idea of missing even a tiny speck of that delicious astronaut pudding is beyond imagining. 

Bless her heart - her little eyes are bugging out!


Proud of my almost-first-grader,
-Laura at TenThingsFarm

Happy News! She's Laying!

This past week has been a blur, and in that blur, our hen turkey began laying.  This is her first ever egg.  Isn't it beautiful?  Unfortunately, we have had temps in the low teens at night, so this egg was frozen...and cracked.  That's why it looks a little shiny - it's sweating because it's warmer in our house. 

Since it had cracked, I went ahead and opened it up and left it in a bowl to thaw out.  Tell me...do you think those spots are where it's fertilized?  I know our tom has been mating with her, but I'm not sure if this is a fertility spot or something else. 



The dark shadow behind the yolk to the upper right is a spoon.  I couldn't get the angle right to photograph the spots without the spoon in there.  But what do you think?  Could it be?  Was it fertile?  Because it was frozen, we know it wasn't viable, but we are excited all the same.  Because of our very cold temperatures at night right now, I'm gathering her eggs as she lays them and holding them at about 55 degrees (our basement) until I have a few, then I'll put them in the incubator. 

We are hopeful that our hen will set her own brood as well, but we will also do some incubation to maximize the number of poults we are able to get.  So...what's 'cookin' (har har) at your homestead?

Happy happy,
-Laura at TenThingsFarm

As Soon as I Catch My Breath!

So much to tell you - and I will! - as soon as I can get a couple more photos taken, all of 'em uploaded and 'autofixed', as soon as I get enough laundry done for us to manage this week, as soon as I can find enough time to compose thoughts about the wonderful things that have happened this past week...squee! 

Soon,
-Laura at TenThingsFarm

Aaack! Crazy Week!

Hi, Friends!  This week has definitely had it's ups and downs.  Some of them were temperature - yesterday it was 60, this morning, 22.  Between those two temps were 50+mph sustained winds that delivered us a bit of snow as well.  I don't sleep well when the winds blow that long and hard, so that's probably what I'm whining about.  Spring is unpredictable here, that's for certain. 

Hubby has been working hard when the weather is not too rough.  He has been clearing a few trees out back.  One was dead.  Some are just in the way.  More on that soon!

I've been tidying - in the freezer!  See, I bought a couple of  rather large turkeys when the sales were good at Thanksgiving.  A family of three just can't do much damage to a 18 pound turkey, so I partially thawed them, sawed them into parts and wrapped and froze most of those parts.  Now they are in more manageable pieces for our family and much easier to use.  I also took the backs, necks, etc. and canned some cubed turkey for quick and easy meals.  It's so handy to open a jar of cooked, seasoned turkey for a rice dish, enchiladas, a quick soup or something similar.  I'm still making broth, and will be canning or freezing that soon too. 

We are all eager for springtime to really stick.  The now is a blessing because it's moisture, but I've heard that rain is nice too!

How are things in your neck of the woods?  What are you up to this week?  Leave me a note and tell me what's happenin'!  Me, I'm just trying to get the next installment of my gardening posts written.  Stay tuned!

Have a great one!
-Laura at TenThingsFarm