Catch-up Day!

I took this photo leaving the farmer's market last night. Hard to believe that market will only be going through February. We are thinking for the time being, I will put more time into our own farm stand before committing to another market.

The sunsets certainly are beautiful!

While Bailey was at her town class today, I got a few errands run, checked on a friend, and got a little time for cardio! It was only 2.5 miles on the elliptical, but I was so thankful to do it with all the ways I have barely been teaching classes and students and athletes since I got sick a couple weeks back.  Moderate intensity, but consistent, a good step back so soon I can do more!

I knew I had made these and set them aside, but it took me until today to find them to go with another project.  Sometimes I feel certain I could misplace my own head if it weren't attached!  And all because I put things where I think they will be safe and easy to find...

Some of the plant cuttings I had rooting were ready to be transplanted.  These are a couple of them, but also two mint plants and one of the red leafed house plants I have somehow kept going since one of my clients, who was on the Game and Fish board, gave it to me years ago in a glass jar, just a cutting with a beautiful root mass.

These are all new plant cuttings in water for the next batch of mint and house plants to filter the air.  It is hard to see, but there are still a couple jars on the left where I will start some more mint. I have a special experiments I hope to try with the mint in the coming months!

One of the many things that I lost track of when I was sick for a couple weeks in there was the sprouts. We dumped the remains int he compost late last week and let the containers dry.  On Monday, I set the first batch of the containers in to soak.  I finally got them clean early this afternoon, and got the last of them in to soak.  I am still hoping to switch to different trays soon, my friend and I are planning a trade for soap, but she is as busy as I am and on the other side of town, so we ar working with the prototype models for now!

I had started the Barley soaking on Sunday after church, so those went in to three of the cleaned sprouting containers to start.  When we were recently out working on the goat projects, we checked out the sprouting setups of a few of our friends, and Charlene mentioned using a splash of ACV in the first soak to combat the growth of mold in the sprouting system, so we are trying that too, this time. We will let you know how that works for us =).  Have any of you tried that?

These are the next jars of Barley in their first soak.  They will be started Friday night, I hope!  A big thank you to Lynn for the tip of using the plastic needlepoint canvas in the jar rings for straining and keeping unwanted visitors out while soaking.

Also finally got around to candling the egg in the special hatch in the incubator. Unfortunately, the ones we have had in there were infertile, though we have several in there to hatch for ourselves. The six little ones in our brooder- three Brahmas, one Buckeye and two Silkies are doing well.  Wyatt also has new roosters nearing the end of their time in the quarantine pen. They have beautiful plumage on their heads, so we are looking forward to seeing what they bring to the line here. 

These are this yer's strawberry plants- yummy!

And the bright beautiful moon above us tonight had me wondering when the full moon would arrive for this month =)

I had the random idea that in this area along the side of the house, I would like to have additional asparagus patches and lavender. The melons I tried last year didn't work so well, so I figure this might? We shall see. But I needed a more defined space, so I took some scrap wood and made a little planter space for the asparagus starts I brought home today.   I ran out of daylight, so I will do the other little patch tomorrow morning!

I think I mentioned back when we had our first freeze, that despite the really nice frost cover, our pichu plants took it pretty hard. The stalks were still green, so we were letting them limp along and try.  Earlier this week, I was beginning to lose hope. But then, after transplanting the rooted cuttings and making the asparagus patch and beginning the watering...

I found new leaves!  Now I will need to share them on one of the gardening pages, because I really don't know when to cut back a Pichu plant!  Wyatt loves the fruit, so I have several saved to pull the seeds out of, but I really hope the plants we have can make it through the winter. 

The boys also worked on Wyatt's Science Fair project- a cycle powered generator. It is beginning to take shape, but now tomorrow Wyatt needs to try to resurrect an old laptop to try to power with it, and look up answers to some of the questions that are coming up as they work. The paper is also requiring some attention!  Wow, so much to do, but we are plugging along as usual.

Well, I suppose it is time to get the laundry rotated and the dishwasher started, and get some sleep to get on to the next part of the list tomorrow!  Hope you all have a great night!  Love to all.

Custom Hatch DC, part 4

Today was a big catch up day- again. I finally felt well enough to push the workout and work on projects on my list, as it has felt like treading water since I was sick and the beginning of the semester came with so many other commitments!

I wish I could say I had the video and other photos, but something went wrong with that process! Nevertheless, I finally got a chance to candle the second set of eggs for the DC Special Hatch.  You see, there is no candling eggs, or touching eggs or livestock when I am sick. The kids didn't complain at all about taking my chores, I take theirs when they travel or get sick.  So the candling, along with several other things, waited!

I am sorry to say, but this batch was also infertile. It came from a Dutch that belongs to a friend of ours, who has been laying consistently and is in with a rooster.  It was worth a shot to see if they would be fertile! We had hoped, but perhaps later this Spring we can try again and it will work better. =)

Our (current) ongoing project...

Around here, there is always a project going.  It is just a part of life, with animals and their needs changing, crops changing with the seasons, and children growing, not to mention the natural progression of "Oops" that is life.  One of the things we have been collecting in anticipation of a fun project is doors!  Fun, odd, mismatched and inexpensive doors.

There is actually a really cool plan for the doors in at least the project we are working on, but I have to keep it a secret until the project is complete- you will all be glad I did!

This is where we worked to remove the roof from a free standing pen to attach it to another pen so we could use the extra panels to add on a new space. We use a lot of shade cloth over the regular roofs of several of our pens in order to give the animals more breaks from the extremes of our southern Arizona desert climate.

I mentioned that we were using the panels elsewhere, they are now extending the line out for this new project.  The new fence line is another fifteen feet, and 2.5 feet of it is n open expanse of the panels, so we have a lot of work awaiting us! 

I framed in the first of the doors with the help of the kids, and almost worked on another door, except that the wood we had planned to use turned out to be warped, so while we were measuring wood suitable to substitute it grew late on us!

At this point, it doesn't look like we did much!

This is the first door framed in.

The plan is to offset the second door, as you see below, so that it opens in the opposite direction.

You have just got to love those Arizona sunsets! Except that this time of year they sneak up on us earlier, so we get less done!  Tomorrow is a really busy day, so we likely will not get back to it until Wednesday, but hopefully we can get it almost finished then!

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Special Hatch DC- part 3

We do a number of special hatches here, yet hatching the eggs from other folks is more rare. Many of you saw the earlier posts about a special hatch for someone, using their own Dutch eggs.  Unfortunately, those were nt fertile, and since I was resetting more eggs in the incubator, I was able to start a few more for her again this evening.

Think good thoughts, we will share more when we candle them!

Sprouting Project, Side by Side Barley and Sunflower comparison part 2

The last I share photos on this topic was Thursday. For those of us working to learn all that we can about being able to afford to feed our livestock and produce food organically, with out soy, corn or gmos, the more we see of the process, the better.

Therefore, I am taking nightly photos of the identical bins that I started together, two of sunflower, tow of barley. The photos in the last edition of this series were from Thursday, so here is what has happened since...

On Friday night, there were clean thick short sprouts on the Sunflowers. While not much more than the day before, more of the seeds had the sprouts.

Also on Friday, lots of the thin shoots sprouting off the barley were filling in, up to and even over an inch in height. Lots of filling in to do, though!

On Saturday, the little sprouts were curling around the sunflower seeds.  Rather cute, really, but not much in terms of getting feed ready!  I have limited space, the longer the fodder takes, the more fodder containers I need in the setup.

The Barley is filling in, and was standing tall over an inch in height.

This was a few hours ago, with the sprouts beginning to stand up in the sunflower bins, more grasses filling in and height growing in the barley bins.

These are the four bins stacked together. I wish I knew the proper recipe for how thick to make the seeds in each fodder tray, but since I have not found that anywhere,  I am still experimenting! (If you happen to know, please share so we can all learn!)

Well, I am learning as I go, but certainly improving.  All knowledge is welcome, the more we share with others, the better we all do, and the more we learn from one another!

Leather fun!

Working our way through lessons, we still had to do a project with the leather circles they were assigned on Monday for the Friday meeting,  Because the leather circles weren't quite right for leather work, it had been suggested that they try to make leather roses of them.

They found some instructions on line, and started making the little clover-like circles needed while they were watching a movie about Westward Expansion. (Hopefully the movie helps with the position paper they have due to me Friday!)

After cutting out and soaking the pieces, they punched holes to make stems. I don't know if you can see the pieces, but another of my needles bit the dust in the making of this project...

I don't know if Shadow was just resting after a mad game of fetch, or if she was giving Wyatt the cold shoulder for paying more attention to the project than her...

THere wasn't a design for leaves so we created some.  There are still ribbons tied around the roses as they dry, but I will take a photo of the finished projects later.

Well, got a lot to do in the morning, so I suppose I had best get to bed!  Have a great night, and tomorrow I promise to post the photo contest!

Busy day, today!

Wow- what a crazy day! As we left home and all the animals to the boys and headed to town for the morning, Bailey and I laughed about me teaching a class format I hadn't taught in a while. It turned out, they were lots of fun!

After class, I stopped to get two new tires. Dealing with things like that is my least favorite activity, as I am stuck dealing with salesmen who have no written prices.  At least we have found an honest mechanic, but the things like this are moments I try so hard to put off!

After that, I picked up Bailey from class and  we stopped for Wyatt special order wood- big project on the horizon there. I look forward to seeing how it comes out!

Then we met up with our 4-H leader.  This silly girl and her roo came home with us as Bailey's backup showmanship bird, and to begin a project to see if our club can hatch and raise the birds needed for next year. There was a lot more info on that in a post just for them. =)

While they were settling in, we were doing chores. I ended up harvesting about half of what was left of the chard, as the chickens like it far better than the kids do! The other dark greens go over beautifully, but not those!

This is some of the brown seeded simpson which has been such an all-star around here.

Funny thing, I thought I planted broccoli there, but it sure doesn't look like broccoli to me! We did enjoy some yummy cauliflower tonight!  What is your favorite thing to do with cauliflower?

This cute little Brahma decided to make its entrance in the incubator. It ended up taking until midnight before it was ready to switch to the brooder, but it seems to be doing well

While I was inside bringing in the cauliflower and peeking at the little one, Wyatt started hollering for help.  When I asked him to look in the straw loft for hidden eggs, I did not intend for him to climb up there! But he did, and the ladder fell, so he was hanging out and waiting for me...

No, life is never dull around here. It seems like things are finally quieting down around here for the night, so I am thinking one more check outside and of the babies, then I get to sleep for a little while. 

Any silly antics going on at your house?