I know I said I was done...
...but I just don't write anything down as a journal.
I really want to keep a journal.
So I am back. With limits.
This will be just for me.
It will be a journal of sorts for me to record whatever I want, whenever I want, with whatever photos, recipes, lists, etc. I want.
It may not make any sense. It may be a ramble. It may only be once a month, or four times a day...
...but it will be just stuff I want to remember.
If you want to follow along on that journey, I would love to have you, but be forewarned...I am weird and my mind takes dangerous turns! :) (and I probably will put emoticons once in a while as well!)
So on we go...
This is the first of many "brain dumps" as my friend Carrie calls it.
My sister is my supplier. She knows I am in love with the lip balm/gloss at Bath and Body Works. When it goes on sale I snap it up. I don't wear lipstick so something like this goes everywhere with me. I have one in every vehicular, coat, purse, room and place I visit. Truly.
Anyway, the last time she picked me some up, she grabbed me this one. It is beautiful. Nice and thick it stays on all night but soaks in and doesn't leave it all gummy feeling in the morning.
I even wear it in the day time sometimes! *gasp*
The other day I had my plastic packing wrap out to wrap our tiny little Christmas tree up for storage. My oldest likes to taunt me, so I told him I was going to wrap him as well.
He sometimes thinks I am joking.
I am not!
So I gave him a mermaid tail (yes, a merMAID) and told him to escape. He sat like this for a while figuring out how to do it until my Mom took pity on him and helped him start.
I would have let him stew until he had to pee! (she is a good woman!)
Driving through Medicine Hat the last time we were there, I saw this sign. It is so true. And now we are penniless. Canada no longer has the penny as of yesterday.
Crazy to think.
A couple weeks ago we got some ducks.
Being a list maker and planner, this was kind of hard for me as this was not on my list.
They are so awesome though.
These are Muscovy's. They are primarily for meat as they only lay 50-150 eggs per year. They are supposed to taste similar to veal in texture and taste. Apparently good for making sausage, I am excited to see what happens with them this year. I plan on hatching as many as they will lay and hatch for me.
When you get animals though, you need some stylin farmer boots.
Rubber in particular.
So, we all traveled into the city to buy some. These are mine.
I think they might even be nice enough to wear to church... :)
We get some spectacular sunsets (and sunrises) off our own back deck. I am constantly amazed at the beauty our Father in Heaven gives us through these little things I often overlook.
A couple weekends ago DH got to meet up with his sibs and his Dad. I think it is so fun to watch them together because they are all so very similar. You watch them do and say things and think it is just so funny that they all do it the same way!
I really am blessed to have married into this family though. I have gained some really good friends as well as family members when that happened over 15 years ago.
Last week I went to Medicine Hat to pick up some chickens. A friend was giving his away and my neighbour and I were going to split his flock. (There are rules here about how many animals you can have, so I thought I better obey them! :D)
These are some of the ones I picked up.
They are Americana's and are great little layers. I am hoping to get some chicks from them as well so we can cull this flock. These ones are just over 3 years old so I want to gather some younger ones to keep it going.
The next day, I got an egg!
I was so excited I took a photo! (or more...)
Then that afternoon we got 4 more!
I thought they were so happy with their new home.
Then I talked to a friend and she said that chickens lay all the eggs that were forming inside then they have a period of no laying (up to 3 weeks) and start up again. Then I thought, Hey - how many am I going to get?
So, did you know that a chicken has 8-10 eggs forming at any given time?!
So, I am still getting about 5-8 eggs per day, but I expect that will be done at the end of this week or so. I hope that it will only be a week or so of non egg laying, but I will prepare myself for more.
They eat TONNES of food though and cluck with glee when I feed them "treats" like oatmeal and sprouted wheat grass.
When I picked up the chickens, we also got a dog.
She was a surprise.
My friend is getting ready to sell his house and needed to get all his "critters" gone for that. He had this puppy and she was lonely. She used to have 6 kids to keep her busy and entertained, but then she didn't so she was alone almost all day. He offered her to me.
DH had just been looking at dogs on Kijiji and was really leaning towards these Blue Heeler/Lab crosses he had found. When I asked our friend what his dog was, he said she was one of those! That is when I knew I had to bring her home too.
Unexpected and kind of awesome.
She is a good dog, but holy smokes is she ever crazy! I am hoping that she will calm down as she stays a while longer and gets a bit older.
On Friday night for date night, DH and I went out to the barn and built enclosures.
I know, super romantic right?!
So, we were building the outsides (the part you see in the background of the photo) when one of the Muscovy's decided she wanted to roost on the 5 foot tall wall. That was not OK, as the chickens were going in next door, so we added 5 feet more of the fence.
She roosted on that as well!
We added a piece of wood to the very top so it touched the roof and she was MAD. So we had to add another roost in her pen. Since then she doesn't roost anymore!
Ducks!
We got the pens all made though, and now our barn is starting to look more like a barn. We now have three pens ready for fowl.
Just in time too because on Saturday night we picked up some Welsh Harlequin ducks.
These little babies are egg layers and will supplement the eggs the chickens give us. Right now we are getting about 2 eggs a day.
The eggs are a bit different in taste and texture than chicken eggs and are interesting as we try them out in our cooking and eating.
So all my birds out in my barn need things to eat. While I want to free-range them, right now it is full of snow and there is no place to pasture them on nice days, so I am sprouting things for them to eat.
So far their favorite is a wheat/flax seed mixture. I have tried a couple different things, but that is by far their favorite.
I have a couple trays of their scratch coming up though so I will see what is the best after that.
For breakfast we had french toast with 100% our eggs!
It was an even for sure!
The eggs are different color, the texture is better and to be perfectly honest, I love that I didn't spend any $$ on buying them! I know feed costs money, but I am so thrilled to be getting eggs from them that the cost is almost negligible for me.
I am super excited to keep this little farm adventure going and am looking forward to more excitement.
Cheers
