Hello everyone!
Sorry for all the mess ups on the blog, my husbands computer got attacked & it seems it messed up my blog as well. Things are finally better so hopefully this blog will come out alright.
I have had a lot of ups & downs mentally since I have returned home. I miss the farm & what I was doing there plus just the peace of it. I would get up everyday & have a job in mind to do once I tended to the kids, drank my coffee & woke up.
Here I wake up & am just overwhelmed by everything that is staring me in the face. Every room is a mess that needs to be dealt with & I can't seem to keep my mind on getting just one job done or completed. So I am avoiding the most of it which is making me not sleep right. I get blue over all the stuff when I am used to living pretty much in a 20ft by 10ft area & here its lots of rooms.
I did get the yard cleaned up of all the junk that was out there, got huge sheets of plastic down on the areas I want gardens next year & had firewood delivered. Thomas started stacking it yesterday so hopefully most of that will get done before the snows come, but at least I have a huge tarp to cover it if its not all done.
The last week has been crazy with accidents, burned hand from the wood stove, 2 nail holes in one foot, cut cheek from a metal door hitting me, lots of splinters & a bruised ankle. I knew while at the farm my eye glasses were not helping me but its gotten so bad I can not recognize distance at all & hurt myself way too much.
Thomas had a week long military drill event & was able to make enough money so I can finally get new glasses after nearly 6 years, so am happy about that. We also broke down & bought me good work boots since all I have is cheap shoes I work outside in. My work boots I had for 28 years finally had to be thrown away when the bottoms split. I can't tell you how important having good work boots is to me since I tend to do a lot of outdoor work & here there is a lot of nails/boards & things for me to step on. Plus I have no winter boots besides the rubber mucking boots so it will be nice to have dry feet once it snows.
The kids are doing well now that they are home & back in their old coop, well enough many have decided to molt. I worried they would be too cold with it getting down into the 20's at night while they grew new feathers, so put 2 ceramic heat lamps in the coop for them. So far so good as the coop has been staying warm enough while they finish molting the old feathers.
Even Lauria & Piper, my 2 in house kids have decided to molt but they get to stay in front of the wood stove when its going. Funny how they all decide its time to shed old feathers at the same time. I think I have enough old feathers to stuff a pillow with now if I wanted. I was able to get their winter feed mix before Congress did their thing so there is 2 55 gallon barrels full of oatmeal, stone cut oats, 7 grain mix, flax seed, sunflower seeds, wheat germ, wheat bran & corn meal all ready for them to enjoy this winter for breakfast. Total cost for about 475 pounds was just over $200 but well worth it as I have healthier kids each winter & less sickness.
Athol finally allowed chickens while I was at the farm, but I was worried my 2 roosters would be illegal so I gave a woman my age CeeCee & Moonlite for her 20 hens up in Westport. Her grandson stopped by just before I moved home to tell me both Roosters were very happy having 10 hens each so that made me feel better. I do miss CeeCee who I had 3 years & had raised from an egg, he was such a sweet boy but am glad he is content where he is now. My hens don't know what to do without him though I am sure they are thrilled not to be mated with. CeeCee was quite the man & was always chasing after them wanting a bit of romance.
I do know now that I am home its ok to have roosters, so if I get another when I get babies from some one I won't worry so much about it. It is calmer without them & the hens aren't so stressed but I like knowing that they are all well protected since most of my hens are now 6 years old.
I also miss Monk (kitty), he refused to come home & we had to make another trip up to the farm to try & bring him home. He decided he was happy where he was & would not even answer me when I called. At least he has 5 barns full of mice & rats, 2 creeks & a huge hay barn to sleep in, but I do miss him & hate I had to leave him. I have never left an animal before so its been hard for me.
Its funny how being gone for just over a year can make so many things hard here mentally. Its not that I mind most of it but its so easy to get trapped into the TV or computer again & ignore everything else. I had hoped I could still pretend I didn't have them, but I do tend to take a rest & click on to the computer to check emails & so on. I never missed it while at the farm & loved that I could read, do crafts or write each night once the sun went down. Here its too easy to think I'll just be on the computer for a few minutes & then look up & see its been hours.
I had to order a pressure canner weight so I can do up the pumpkins I have in the basement. A friend gave me one of his extra canner but had no weight, it should be here within the next week & I will be dragging out all the jars ect & enjoying the canning. The pumpkins I grew at the farm & thankfully they were ready when I moved so I could take them with me. I also bought some more spaghetti squash & butternut squash from my neighbors dad that I want to cook up & freeze. There is something about the whole canning process that I really enjoy. I like getting lost in it & then seeing all the wonderful jars full, sealed & ready to be eaten later. I was able to do some canning at the farm with all the tomatoes (24 plants), onions & herbs I grew. I also canned apples & rhubarb while there as the farm had 2 apple trees & a huge patch of rhubarb. I even canned milk but have yet to open any, so am hoping that it turned out. Its hard to can milk if it has cream in it & I was not able to remove all the cream so will be interesting to see it came out, if not it will go in the garden.
One of the things I did at the farm was when the yellow summer squash got too big & tough was to cut it up & cook it with scarred up apples for the kids instead of it just rotting. That got put in quart sized baggies in the freezer & will be heated up & mixed with the winter mix for the hens warm breakfasts this winter. I gave away a lot of summer squash to the area people while at the farm cause mine went crazy & I couldn't keep up with them. But the ones that were hiding I missed so am happy I thought to make them up for the hens. That's one of the reasons I grew the sugar pumpkins there was for the hens as well. I planted enough butternut squash for me to have over the winter but knew I'd really not eat a lot of the pumpkin. I learned all these years of raising chickens that some veggies they really enjoy & since I already have the gardens to add some of the things they like.
So this last summer I grew sugar pumpkins, red clover, turnips & spinach for them to have & set up gardens that were not fenced for them to wonder about & nibble in. Thought they did figure out how to get into my tomato's...just glad there was so many plants I didn't mind them going after a few of the ripe ones.
I do miss having all the land I had at the farm, even with 7 different gardens set up I still have tons of land to wander & enjoy. Here I have to plan a bit better since there's only 1/3rd of a acre that has a house & shop on. I decided I needed more garden area than I normally put in here since I want to grow more than potato's, green beans & tomato's this coming spring.
It was fun to be able to grow a bunch of things I haven't grown like white onions & spaghetti squash so I want to do them again plus grow other things I enjoy but never put in the garden. Winter is when I map out what I want to grow so I should have a lot of fun with that while the snow is here.
Ok I think this is long enough & I need coffee so I will close for now.
have a great chicken day!
M'
Sorry for all the mess ups on the blog, my husbands computer got attacked & it seems it messed up my blog as well. Things are finally better so hopefully this blog will come out alright.
I have had a lot of ups & downs mentally since I have returned home. I miss the farm & what I was doing there plus just the peace of it. I would get up everyday & have a job in mind to do once I tended to the kids, drank my coffee & woke up.
Here I wake up & am just overwhelmed by everything that is staring me in the face. Every room is a mess that needs to be dealt with & I can't seem to keep my mind on getting just one job done or completed. So I am avoiding the most of it which is making me not sleep right. I get blue over all the stuff when I am used to living pretty much in a 20ft by 10ft area & here its lots of rooms.
I did get the yard cleaned up of all the junk that was out there, got huge sheets of plastic down on the areas I want gardens next year & had firewood delivered. Thomas started stacking it yesterday so hopefully most of that will get done before the snows come, but at least I have a huge tarp to cover it if its not all done.
The last week has been crazy with accidents, burned hand from the wood stove, 2 nail holes in one foot, cut cheek from a metal door hitting me, lots of splinters & a bruised ankle. I knew while at the farm my eye glasses were not helping me but its gotten so bad I can not recognize distance at all & hurt myself way too much.
Thomas had a week long military drill event & was able to make enough money so I can finally get new glasses after nearly 6 years, so am happy about that. We also broke down & bought me good work boots since all I have is cheap shoes I work outside in. My work boots I had for 28 years finally had to be thrown away when the bottoms split. I can't tell you how important having good work boots is to me since I tend to do a lot of outdoor work & here there is a lot of nails/boards & things for me to step on. Plus I have no winter boots besides the rubber mucking boots so it will be nice to have dry feet once it snows.
The kids are doing well now that they are home & back in their old coop, well enough many have decided to molt. I worried they would be too cold with it getting down into the 20's at night while they grew new feathers, so put 2 ceramic heat lamps in the coop for them. So far so good as the coop has been staying warm enough while they finish molting the old feathers.
Even Lauria & Piper, my 2 in house kids have decided to molt but they get to stay in front of the wood stove when its going. Funny how they all decide its time to shed old feathers at the same time. I think I have enough old feathers to stuff a pillow with now if I wanted. I was able to get their winter feed mix before Congress did their thing so there is 2 55 gallon barrels full of oatmeal, stone cut oats, 7 grain mix, flax seed, sunflower seeds, wheat germ, wheat bran & corn meal all ready for them to enjoy this winter for breakfast. Total cost for about 475 pounds was just over $200 but well worth it as I have healthier kids each winter & less sickness.
Athol finally allowed chickens while I was at the farm, but I was worried my 2 roosters would be illegal so I gave a woman my age CeeCee & Moonlite for her 20 hens up in Westport. Her grandson stopped by just before I moved home to tell me both Roosters were very happy having 10 hens each so that made me feel better. I do miss CeeCee who I had 3 years & had raised from an egg, he was such a sweet boy but am glad he is content where he is now. My hens don't know what to do without him though I am sure they are thrilled not to be mated with. CeeCee was quite the man & was always chasing after them wanting a bit of romance.
I do know now that I am home its ok to have roosters, so if I get another when I get babies from some one I won't worry so much about it. It is calmer without them & the hens aren't so stressed but I like knowing that they are all well protected since most of my hens are now 6 years old.
I also miss Monk (kitty), he refused to come home & we had to make another trip up to the farm to try & bring him home. He decided he was happy where he was & would not even answer me when I called. At least he has 5 barns full of mice & rats, 2 creeks & a huge hay barn to sleep in, but I do miss him & hate I had to leave him. I have never left an animal before so its been hard for me.
Its funny how being gone for just over a year can make so many things hard here mentally. Its not that I mind most of it but its so easy to get trapped into the TV or computer again & ignore everything else. I had hoped I could still pretend I didn't have them, but I do tend to take a rest & click on to the computer to check emails & so on. I never missed it while at the farm & loved that I could read, do crafts or write each night once the sun went down. Here its too easy to think I'll just be on the computer for a few minutes & then look up & see its been hours.
I had to order a pressure canner weight so I can do up the pumpkins I have in the basement. A friend gave me one of his extra canner but had no weight, it should be here within the next week & I will be dragging out all the jars ect & enjoying the canning. The pumpkins I grew at the farm & thankfully they were ready when I moved so I could take them with me. I also bought some more spaghetti squash & butternut squash from my neighbors dad that I want to cook up & freeze. There is something about the whole canning process that I really enjoy. I like getting lost in it & then seeing all the wonderful jars full, sealed & ready to be eaten later. I was able to do some canning at the farm with all the tomatoes (24 plants), onions & herbs I grew. I also canned apples & rhubarb while there as the farm had 2 apple trees & a huge patch of rhubarb. I even canned milk but have yet to open any, so am hoping that it turned out. Its hard to can milk if it has cream in it & I was not able to remove all the cream so will be interesting to see it came out, if not it will go in the garden.
One of the things I did at the farm was when the yellow summer squash got too big & tough was to cut it up & cook it with scarred up apples for the kids instead of it just rotting. That got put in quart sized baggies in the freezer & will be heated up & mixed with the winter mix for the hens warm breakfasts this winter. I gave away a lot of summer squash to the area people while at the farm cause mine went crazy & I couldn't keep up with them. But the ones that were hiding I missed so am happy I thought to make them up for the hens. That's one of the reasons I grew the sugar pumpkins there was for the hens as well. I planted enough butternut squash for me to have over the winter but knew I'd really not eat a lot of the pumpkin. I learned all these years of raising chickens that some veggies they really enjoy & since I already have the gardens to add some of the things they like.
So this last summer I grew sugar pumpkins, red clover, turnips & spinach for them to have & set up gardens that were not fenced for them to wonder about & nibble in. Thought they did figure out how to get into my tomato's...just glad there was so many plants I didn't mind them going after a few of the ripe ones.
I do miss having all the land I had at the farm, even with 7 different gardens set up I still have tons of land to wander & enjoy. Here I have to plan a bit better since there's only 1/3rd of a acre that has a house & shop on. I decided I needed more garden area than I normally put in here since I want to grow more than potato's, green beans & tomato's this coming spring.
It was fun to be able to grow a bunch of things I haven't grown like white onions & spaghetti squash so I want to do them again plus grow other things I enjoy but never put in the garden. Winter is when I map out what I want to grow so I should have a lot of fun with that while the snow is here.
Ok I think this is long enough & I need coffee so I will close for now.
have a great chicken day!
M'
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