Chicken and Greenhouse Update, Plus Seed Troubles

I haven't updated on the general progress of things around here in quite a while, and boy do I have a lot to talk about...

We built this outside yard for the chickens from various chain-link fence parts from fence Darran took out for someone, plus some chicken wire we found in a junk pile. 

In the video I said 32 chickens, um, duh it's 41. I figured it out by adding how many we ordered with how many we had before. Seriously, they're too hard to count...There'll be a couple in the henhouse, a couple in the scratching shed and the rest outside, just when you get the ones inside counted a few slip outside... 

The greenhouse is coming along nicely. It still looks pretty rough, but it should be functional soon. We've managed to make it entirely out of reclaimed materials, or materials we had already. Score.

Dancer says Hi.

The seeds are passing 2 weeks since I planted them...and...NOTHING. Beginning to get worried!

We're working on building several chicken tractors (aka mobile chicken pens) so that the chickens will be pastured for the summer. Again with reclaimed materials and things we already had. Every time I hear "chicken tractor" I imagine a chicken wildly driving off in a tractor. Don't you?

What I'm reading right now. (No matter what I do I can't get this pic right side up!)

Last week was our homeschool spring break. It was a good week. This is my 6 year old, 8 year old, and Koneko. 

Darran didn't do any outside work last week for spring break. He did however build a 10 x 14 deck on the back of the house. He used more of the reclaimed boards from the building he tore down for someone in Denver and some decking material he traded for.

Overall, life is good!

How To Make Homemade Laundry Soap

If you would have told me ten years ago that I'd now be making my own laundry detergent on a Saturday afternoon for a good time...well, I'd have thought you were full on crazy. Funny how we change. But that's exactly what Darran and I were doing a couple of Saturdays ago...making homemade laundry soap. Happily.

What I used:
1 bar Fels-Naptha
2 cups washing soda
1 cup Borax
4 cups warm water
3 1/12 gallons warm water to add at the end
1 turkey brining bucket. It's a clean Home Depot bucket with a lid that I had. It's what I use to brine my turkey in at Thanksgiving...come on, everyone has a turkey brining bucket, right? Although, I'm not sure what I will do at Thanksgiving next year...OK, use any container with a lid, but be aware that this will be very thick and needs scooped out, not poured out.
1 scoop. I used an old Oh Yeah! Protein powder scoop I had saved, it's exactly half a cup. An old measuring cup, old laundry soap scoop, anything will work.

Add the 4 cups water to a large pot on medium heat.

Grate the Fels-Naptha into the water. Stir until liquefied. 

Add the washing soda. Stir.

Add the Borax. Stir.

Dump mixture and the 3 1/12 gallons of water into bucket or other container and stir.

Let sit, it will turn to a cool gel consistency.

I use 1/2 to 1 cup (which is 1 to 2 scoops) per load depending on what I'm washing. So far I'm extremely pleased with it, it works great! Comparing the cost of this to normal laundry soap, this is what I'll be sticking with.

Have you ever made your own laundry soap? Do you have a favorite recipe for it? Am I really the only one with a turkey brining bucket?

Hooray!

We have 11 original chickens that are 3 years old. Their egg production went down to basically nothing this winter. Lately it's picked back up to 3 to 7 eggs per day. 


We also ordered about 30 new baby chicks last October, and..


Yesterday we got our first egg from the new chicks we got last fall. I'm ridiculously excited. We should be swimming in eggs by Easter. We plan to pasture all of our chickens as soon as the grass greens up around here. Yay for swimming in super nutritious eggs ;)

Such a cute little egg!

Oh yes, and we also discovered that we have 3 roosters...we ordered 1. Yay?!

Spring Planning

Most years around here we don't have much of a spring to speak of. It's more like: winter, the sequel. A muddied version of the original. Maybe a little greener, some rain, but it's not uncommon for us to have a little snow clear through until the first week of June.

Nonetheless, our preparations for spring and summer have begun. We have big plans for this year. It's going to be quite the adventure for our little family! An adventure in seeing just how sustainable we can live on 4 acres of ground at 7,000 ft above sea level in Colorado. An adventure in becoming connected with where exactly our food comes from (of course our hope is it will mostly come from our little farm) and how exactly it is produced. And most of all, an adventure in living our priorities.


Now, I grew up on a small farm and have experience with a lot of the things we have planned, but I'm still a planner and I'm still all about the research. My current reading list:

How about you, read any good books lately? Any suggestions on good gardening or homesteading books I should read?

How To Naturally Make Your House Smell Wonderful For The Holidays

Source

I love doing this for the holidays. It makes my house smell festive and fantastic! (Without having to worry what scary things I might be subjecting my family to). You can play with this, change up the recipe, but this is what I use:


Fill a small pan about a fourth of the way with water. 
Add:
1 tsp cinnamon (or a piece of whole cinnamon)
1 or 2 bay leaves
1 tsp cloves (or some whole cloves if you have them)


Then simply simmer on your stove or fireplace. Be sure to check the water level often and add more water as needed. 


No ingredients you can't pronounce, and your whole house will smell amazing!


Merry Christmas to all my bloggy friends.

Sometimes You Just Have To Jump

I've been meaning to sit down and write this post for over a week now. But I just haven't had the right words. I've been mulling it over in my head. Turning it this way and that, trying to figure out how to put my heart in a blog post. Tall order. 


I'm thankful that my online presence has been missed! Friends have been missing me on Twitter and Facebook. Noticing I haven't posted much over at my fitness blog. So, where have I been? You might want to sit down for this.


Several months ago my husband and I sat down and took a hard look at our lives. Instead of just letting life bump us along we wanted to live more deliberately. Darran has been working very long hours at a job that would not provide any long-term financial security for us. While he was away at said job our boys were growing up. He deeply wanted to be more present, more involved. We missed him. What we decided was that we wanted to live our lives differently. We truly wanted our family to be the center of our priorities. 


Around the same time we began devouring Joel Salatin's books. We watched Food Inc together and I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. These things called to us, brought back memories of childhood, and stirred something inside. We began having a strong urge to make different food choices. Choices so different that they would change our lifestyle, not just our grocery shopping. Since then I've scoured the library and internet for material on sustainable living, homesteading, gardening, simple living, and the like. 


We both grew up in rural areas. In farming and ranching communities. Our long term plan has always been to have land and return to that lifestyle with our children. But why not start now? With what we have? Why not live our lives the way we want?


We made a plan to begin our adventure in March. What is the saying? How do you make God laugh....tell him your plans. The situation at Darran's job changed in such a way that it became clear he could no longer work there much longer. 


We changed our plan.


While I'd hoped to have 6 months expenses saved up before we began, I have roughly 3. The last week or so has been rough on me. I'm a huge planner. Huge. Having to adjust my plan has been tough, but I'm over that hump and now I'm downright excited! 


Back to where I've been since I've fallen off the internets. We've been finishing our greenhouse (that has been housing the baby chicks we ordered in October). We expanded the chicken coop to hold our existing chickens and the baby chicks. Instead of occupying only a portion of the building they now have run of the whole thing. We made a scratching shed on the side and improvements to their outdoor yard for the long cold Colorado winter. (More on all of that in another post). I've been hanging laundry on the clothesline to save money on the electric bill. We've been homeschooling our boys as well as teaching them things about compost and chickens and growing vegetables that they won't learn in school books. Hubby has been cleaning out the workshop that was his great grandfathers. We've been researching things like worm beds and compost piles. We're planning our raised bed garden for spring.... The list of activities is long. The work days have been long. And I am happy. Blissfully so.


The plan is for hubby to pick up side jobs enough to pay the bills and spend the rest of his time with us. Raising chickens and cows and whatever other critters we take the notion to raise. Gardening and growing as much of our food as possible (at just above 7,000 feet in Colorado this is no easy task). Figuring out how to live on less. Raising our boys to be good men. And me? I'll be doing all that as well as my writing and blogging. 


We've taken a huge leap of faith. Believing fully that this is where we are supposed to be. Worst case scenario we fail miserably and Darran has to go get a 'real' job. Best case, we get to live life the way we want. Doing the things we think are important. Enjoying every part of it. 


Sometimes you just have to jump.


I hope you'll come along on our little adventure through this blog.

And It Begins!

I am so proud of my husband today. 


He is a good man in a way that most people can't even understand. He's just deep down to his soul, good. 


Today he is choosing to do what is right while knee deep in people that most definitely are not doing the same. 


I'm proud of him...oh, did I already say that?


In other news...he will likely be unemployed soon. 


I say bring it! I'm ready for the adventure to begin.


Life is good. Ya know?


It is better to risk starving to death than surrender. If you give up on your dreams, what’s left? – Jim Carrey