They grow up so fast

Ahh, internet.  You finally let me upload these pics.

The hens we have now we got when they were already "teenagers".  We all know babies are much cuter that teenagers!  This is also very true for chickens.

Take a look at our babies growing...

a couple days old

one week old



D thinks they are easier to catch with his baseball glove.

three weeks old

Today they are six weeks old!

(picture to come later)

They can now fly up to the first shelf in the greenhouse.  Found that out the morning I went out to check on them and they had eaten the tops off of everything at that height!  Oh, the things I'm learning.  We have been keeping them in the greenhouse because (1) it's warmer and they can't stay in our house and (2) they can't be with the big hens yet--they don't eat the same thing and we don't want the hens getting too rough with them.  However, if I'm going to be able to keep anything in the greenhouse they are going to have to be relocated pretty soon. 

Learning, learning.

The Milk Goat Project

Meet the newest members of the homestead...

We have recently acquired a couple goats, one of which we get to milk. 

I'll let you guess which one.

Yes, the milk is good.  It tastes very much like whole cow's milk.

Yes, we drink it.  And use it in our cereal.

We made ice cream with it last week and it was a definite success.  Yogurt and cheese is on the agenda.  If I can only find the time.  Maybe when school gets out things will slow down a bit.  (a mother can dream, can't she?)

The new girls are barred rock hens, same as our chicks.  They are already laying (eggs) and since the chicks won't be laying until September or so this ups our daily egg count to 4!  Yea for fresh eggs!  I take some spinach from the garden, saute it in a little butter, and throw it in with the scrambled eggs.  Breakfast of champions.

Now that's eating local!

What's growing?

Our new greenhouse works!

If you haven't gotten a glimpse yet of our marvelous greenhouse made from recycled windows, click here!

 (from top to bottom)

beets and lettuce

mint and basil

Trek's bean plant and strawberries

more strawberries and cucumbers

(also growing in the greenhouse but not shown)

oregano, lavender, cilantro, rosemary, Thai basil

cherry tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, Cherokee purple tomatoes,

green peppers, jalapeno peppers,

yellow squash, zucchini, spaghetti squash

Due to our late frost date (last year it was May 31st), we have only two things in the outside beds.  Spinach and peas.  They are coming along nicely and if the weather continues to be as nice as it has we may get to transplant before June this year!!! 

Watching these tiny seedlings pop up is super exciting but it is even more exciting that the greenhouse is being used by several others in our neighborhood.  The different squashes have come from three different people.  Since a single squash plant can produce a plethora of produce we are going to share it between ourselves.  So, instead of force feeding zucchini to my children every day for the next year, we will have a lovely variety of fresh squashes.  And tomatoes.  And herbs. 

Now that's community, y'all! 

I made cheese!

I cut the cheese, too.

Not in the sense that would set my boys rolling with laughter, but literally.

The recipe I used was from this beautiful cookbook that my hubby gave me for Christmas.  Homemade by Yvette Von Boven.  Also available in Dutch. :)  She illustrates recipes.  She is a recipe illustrator!  I will find my niche yet.  See more of her work here.

 Garlic, green onion, lemon salt and pepper cheese (above).

Dill and lemon salt (below).

Wanna come over for a taste test?

1/2 gallon of milk and 1/2 gallon of buttermilk gave me about a pound of cheese and 2/3 gallon of whey.  I read that I can use the leftover whey when baking bread (check) and mixing with your smoothies (check) for an added protein boost.  My kids think they are so special getting smoothies all the time.  They have no idea how sneaky I am!  maniacal laugh.  maniacal laugh.

Carrots + Juicer

A friend passed on a juicer to us. 

I was thrilled!

Joe was thrilled.(?)

Maybe he'll have a future in the food industry.

Hmm.  Or maybe he just likes to mash things to a pulp.

So I whipped out the few carrots I had in my veggie drawer and we went to town.  We had one cup of marvelous carrot juice!  To share between all 6 of us.  One cup of juice and one bear of a clean up.

It was decided that the next time the juicer came out it better be for a good deal more than 1 measly cup of juice.

Enter the 25 pound bag of carrots.

Abby spotted it in the grocery store.

Perfect!  That definitely merits getting the juicer out!

And we juiced us some carrots!

Joe was tired of it after about 5 pounds.  But we went through the ranks, everyone got a turn to throw the carrots in and shove them down to their juicy end.

I poured the juice into my muffing tins and froze them.

I quit measuring after a while but we got at least a gallon of carrot juice.

Each carrot cube equals about 1/3 cup of juice.

They are great for adding to...

smoothies

orange juice

pancakes

muffins

zucchini bread

soup

chili

spaghetti

and on and on!



I'm so glad to have another sneaky way to get veggies into my kids' diets.

What else do you think I should do with all this carrot juice?

Windows Repurposed...Greenhouse!

Jono has worked hard building this lovely recycled greenhouse for us.

And now it is finished!

It's quirky and cute (kinda like us!) and completely functional. 
It is keeping in the warmth nicely.
The chicken shed is on the right side.

You can see the roof in this picture. 

We used clear corrugated plastic roof panels.

Now to get some seeds started!

Good thing I have some willing helpers.

They are planting some lettuce.  Beet seeds were also planted this week.

Such cute little helpers!

So there you go.  A look at the new/old greenhouse.

The shelves are in the process of being built so we'll give you an inside tour when they are done.

New Film {eating alabama}

Eat locally.
Eat seasonally.
They even do it in Alabama!

Andy Grace was one of Jono's roommates in college.  He is the director of the new film Eating Alabama that will have it's world premiere at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, TX.  Pretty big stuff.  Watch the trailer above and learn more at the website, www.eatingalabama.com.

Their other roommate, Joey Thompson, scored the music for the film.  You can catch a glimpse of it in the video here.  Listen to more of the Archibalds at their website, www.thearchibaldsmusic.com.

Are you going to have a back(or front)yard garden this year?  It's so much fun and you don't get much more local than that.  Come on!  Let's get back to playing in the dirt.

Repurposed Windows

This camp has a plethera of treasure.

You just have to know where to look and what to do with it when you find it!

Jono found some old windows.

Guess what they are going to be???

A greenhouse!

We are kind of using this one as a guide.

I am so excited.  This should really help us broaden our range of produce and lengthen our growing season too.  Greenhouse strawberries, anyone?

It is going up right next to the chicken coop.  They are going to love it.

Don't the ladies look thrilled?!

I'll post more as we make progress.

Have a happy weekend!



Sustainable Living

*DISCLAIMER:  Do not read if you are easily grossed out.*

We would love to be those people that grow all their own food, get their milk from the goat out back, make their own brews, absolutely never buy store bread, etc.

Let me just say:

We're not there yet.

This summer we acquired a handful of chickens. 

Remember how one of them turned out to be a he-chicken? 

Well, he is a very good crower.  All day long.  And then he made the mistake of attacking Jonathan.  (He has this effect on animals.  Maybe his legs are just too long?)  And we don't really want tiny chicks in our morning breakfast.  I think you see where I'm going with this.

The rooster had to go.

We did some research and came across this very helpful blog on how to butcher a chicken.  It takes you through the whole process step by step.  With pictures.  Very helpful.

The first step is to catch the chicken.  We did not have a large net like the helpful blog suggested and we didn't want our first kill to be in front of the kids.  We just didn't know what would happen exactly.  What did happen was I herded the rooster into the shed with the canoe paddle (it took several attempts because we didn't want to take out the layers in the process and they kept following the rooster right into the shed).  Then, Gard-dawg took him out with the other paddle.  Away from the eyes of the curious, innocent children. 

Next, he took the rooster out and, well, chopped his head off.

It's what the instructions said.

At this point, we could contain the children no longer.  "Is he dead?  Did you kill him, Daddy?"

Their reactions were pretty predictable.



Joe and Trek were thrilled by the gore.

Dylan wanted to follow with his brothers but just not sure about it.

Abby chose not to look.

Jonathan took care of the rest of the cleaning of the rooster by himself.

He gathered all his tools.

Boiling hot water.  Sharp knives. KVMR.

And, that's about all the pictures that I feel need to be shared.

Except this one more.



I'm pretty sure he cut open something the blog people said not to cut because it was awfully smelly and quite possibly have turned my husband into a vegetarian.

So.

Got any vegetarian recipes to send my way?

Oh, and this wasn't just a way to get rid of Red.  The meat is being fried up at guys' night (a very honorable ending for our rooster, Don't you think?)



News from the Coop

We ended up with chickens this summer kinda by default.  They needed them to be part of the entertainment for summer camp and the birds had to have a place to stay, so...the old greenhouse shed is next door to our house and was easy to convert into a chicken house.  Since they were going to be living so close to us, I requested that we get all hens.  And that's what we thought we had

until recently.

One of the girls was starting to look a little suspect--going red in the gobbler and comb region.

This week it was confirmed.

There is definite cockadoodling.

AND,

we got our first egg!!!

So at least one of them is a hen.

Any suggestions on how to get her to lay IN the chicken house?

Canoe Garden

Usually you use water craft like this:

But what do you do when they get old and leaky and unpatchable?

You stick them in the barn and leave them for 10 years or so.

This summer we repurposed a few of those old canoes in our garden. 

This one grew lettuce and peas.

This one grew squash and pumpkin.

It grew.

And grew. 

And grew.

All the pumpkins that showed up in our garden were renegades.  I suppose from the seeds of pumpkins that we composted last year.  So, I have no idea what varieties we have.  But they look really cool.

Anybody know what they are?

I can't wait to decorate with these little guys!

Happy October!

By the way, look for a Halloween craft DIY later this week.

And as usual, there is a kids version and a me version!

Sweet Mint

Last week when we went to the farmers' market, I picked up this huge bunch of mint.

The first thing I thought of was sweet mint tea!

Sweet mint tea reminds me of

Hooligans in Tuscaloosa and

rocking on a back porch swing with some friends from Mississippi. 

How far west does sweet tea go exactly?  I think there is some in St. Lewis, but it surely doesn't come as far as California.  And sweet MINT tea is just perfectly refreshing for this time of year.

simple mint syrup:

take equal parts

sugar

water

& chopped fresh mint

boil for a few minutes

cool and pour into container

let it set in the refrigerator 2-3 days

then strain out the mint leaves

Add to tea to desired sweetness!

It is also lovely to add to lemonade!  Mint Lemonade!  I do suggest using the little KoolAid lemonade packets that come without sugar.  So instead of adding sugar you just add the mint syrup.

That's my summer recipe.  Tomorrow Joe will give you his.