Who needs TV?

I have said that animals are often more entertaining than TV. The chicks and the geese are proving to be a constant source of entertainment. The chicks are fun to watch as they go about their usual business and I find it amazing at how quickly they are getting their feathers. Being a city girl, this is all very fascinating and the kids are having a blast.

Plymouth Rock about one week old.

Rhode Island Red about one week.

 They have now been moved outside into the chicken tractor so they can have more room and get used to being outside. We have started construction on the coop and I plan on buying the fencing this week so we can get one paddock put up. If we can buy materials every payday, then we can have the entire system set up in just a couple of months. They have actually gotten a lot more feathers since I took these pictures so I will have to take new ones soon. They are almost three weeks old now and it is becoming more apparent which ones are the males.

The chicks in the chicken tractor.

 Right now it looks like we may have about four male Plymouth Rocks and 2-3 male Rhode Island Reds. It's still hard to tell but they are beginning to challenge each other. One interesting thing I've learned is that 5 goslings can out eat and drink 20 chicks. They are also noisier and smellier. Within the first week the geese were going through as much food in 24 hours as the chicks were in two days. That doesn't count the water! We have gone to letting the chicks out during the day so they can eat grass in addition to their feed and they now have use of the 1 gallon water container. They are going through at least half of that a day plus what we put in a large dish for them to splash around in.

We have also started taking them to the creek once or twice a day to let them take a dip and cool off. The temperatures have been pretty warm the last couple of days and they enjoy being able to get in the water to swim around. We will wait about introducing them to the pond until they are bigger. They actually have done very well about staying by the house when we are not outside with them. As long as they have shade and water, they will stay around the house munching on grass. Of course the funny part is how they will follow us around. We have taken to calling them our fuzzy children.

Let's go for a swim!

The garden is hanging in there and I plan on harvesting the Romain lettuce soon. The potatoes are growing like mad and we added some soil to them today. We are beginning to think about what we may want to plant for a fall garden. It's almost June so we have to start planning now. We are also thinking about ordering some berry bushes so we can get them planted this year. It will be a slow process to get all of the trees and bushes that we want but we just have to take it one step at a time.

As we make progress on the chicken coop I will post pictures and keep you updated on the progress of the chicks and geese. In the meantime, Happy Memorial Day!

Potatoes before we added more soil.

Chicks!

Finally! The chicks and goslings have arrived! And I have to say...they are so cute! They all arrived safe and sound and have been making plenty of noise since they arrived. We ordered 11 Rhode Island Reds and 9 Plymouth Rocks. We also ordered 5 African geese.

The geese checking out their new home.

All 20 chicks.

Plymouth Rock

Rhode Island Red

African Goose

The cat isn't too sure what to think about the whole thing. So far she has just sat and looked at them so we are keeping the boxes covered with a wire mesh. I just wanted to share the pics and I'll be giving updates as the grow!

They think the blue bowl is a pool.

Garden Update

Now that the garden has been in for a little while I thought I'd give you guys an update. So far just about everything is doing well. We actually have a few tomatoes  and more blooms are coming out everyday. The romaine lettuce is doing pretty well as you can see.

Here is a picture of one of the marigold flowers.

There are four raised beds that we have planted. We have one more that I think we are going to use to experiment with growing corn. The zucchini and bell peppers have started putting out flowers as well so hopefully we will see something developing there as well.

The potatoes are going crazy! They have popped up all over the place and growing by leaps and bounds. Before much longer I will have to add some dirt to them so they can keep going.

The Potato Bed

I planted some garlic about a week ago and it's coming up already. We have some more that can be planted by we may wait and do that as a fall crop. As the garden continues to grow I'll put up some new pics so you can see the progress. Hopefully our chicks will be here tomorrow. I'll post some pics of them soon so you can see how the little fuzz balls are doing!

TPH Episode 22

Welcome back Homesteaders! This is going to be the first of a 4 episode series centering around the elements and a mundane activity that may help us to develop our relationship with that element. Today's element is water and we will look at rain water harvesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGFDlkJOdaM

http://www.save-the-rain.com/world-bank/

Formula for finding amount of rainwater from a roof:

Multiply the square footage of roof space x 0.6 gallons per square foot per inch of rain.

Not So Creepy Critter

Ambush Bug

The Wonderful World of Poo!

And no, I'm not talking about Winnie the Pooh.

Before we ever moved here we had discussed getting a composting toilet. I had looked into the commercially available toilets and thought that was what we would end up getting. I liked the idea that the compost bin only needed to be emptied once or twice a year but I knew the cost would keep us from getting one for a while. Once we decided to move here, I knew that we had to come up with another solution that would be much more affordable since we wouldn't have running water for a while. That's when we started to seriously look at sawdust toilets.

For the last several months we have used a sawdust toilet but we had been placing a bag into the bucket and disposing of the bag. A few months ago I finally finished reading The Humanure Handbook and we were inspired to get to work on our humanure composting bin. Using some scavenged lumber, my husband has gotten one bin completed.

And yes, the posts on the left are taller on purpose. Eventually there will be three bins total. The next one to be built is the center bin which will have a roof over it. Hence the taller posts. This bin will store the hay and probably the sawdust as well. The hay is used to cover the humanure so there is no odor. The third bin won't be used for about a year. Deposits will be placed in the first bin for a year and then we will switch to the other bin. The first one will be left to age for a year and then we should have some rich compost that can be used in the garden.

 We also dug a hole in the bin and filled it with about 12-18 inches of hay. This forms a biosponge that will absorb liquid and help keep it from running off. We have only been using this for about a month but so far it is working very well. Our clothes line is pretty close to the bin and I have never smelled anything while back there.

The hole before we added the hay

Once there is a roof on the center bin, we will add some guttering that will lead to a rain barrel. This will collect rain water that can be used to clean the buckets every time they are emptied. Overall it is a pretty efficient system and not very hard to manage. We have decided that we will continue to use this system even after we finally get running water. Eventually, I want to build a nice box to encase the bucket so it looks a little prettier and not so obvious.

If you would like to see a well established system, check out this You Tube video. If you do a search I'm sure you will find more. I'm also providing the link to The Humanure Handbook website.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZTZTVv6kYs

http://humanurehandbook.com/














If you're thinking about a composting toilet don't discount a sawdust toilet. You may find it's your best choice after all!