We’re Official! February 8, 2013

This past week I was on a mission to check some things off my TO DO list including registering our family for homeschooling in NC and registering our family van.  My birthday is right around the corner and I heard something about law enforcement cracking down on improperly registered drivers so I decided to just go ahead and take care of it now before March (my birthday month) even hits.  It feels good to check these tasks off my list!

I’ve procrastinated registering our homeschool for a bit because in NC you need to chose a name for it.  This seems like a simple thing and I am sure most people just go with their last name and then stick “homeschool” on to the end…ie: Smith Homeschool or maybe “academy” if they want the name to pack more clout.  r homeschool we sort of did anyway.  Because we used our upstairs loft as our office/school room and kept all our books and supplies up there, we affectionately referred to our school as The Loft Homeschool.

So funny, but I put off registering here in NC simply because I had to commit to a new name.  A name that apparently you can never change and which will appear on any documentation from the state.  With us being at a new home, in a new place and entering into a new chapter in our lives I wanted to name to be meaningful.

I asked my immediate family for their input but none of them cared too much one way or the other. Brent suggested XYZZY Homeschool, some vague computer-geek reference to an old, old, old school computer game called Colossal Caves Adventure.  Autumn, who is always good at coming up with clever, witty ideas offered that we name it Clowder A-cat-amy, which is a vague language-geek reference to all our cats.  Logan’s input was inappropriate but it is too funny to leave out of the story so prepare yourself if you have a easily-offended constitution.  He said we could be The Ass Crack Slashers and our motto would be “because they have to get there somehow” and he said instead of a school mascot we would all wear school “ass”cots with a proper arse embroidered on each of them.

::sigh::

Once we had our laughs over everyone’s silly ideas, I bumped other more serious ideas around in my head like Nature Nurture Homeschool and Seasons on the Hillside Homeschool but my niece, Jessica and I finally settled on the one we both agreed was best.

May I please present to you… …Earth Heart Homeschool!

We like that earth and heart are anagrams and that one begins with the letter with which the other one ends.  Other than that cool linguistic play, the name of course has meaning.  It means that our hearts here are with the earth.  We aim to live and learn in ways that support and protect our one and only Earth.

Along with all the typical school subjects, our homeschool will also focus on developing homesteading skills that will allow us to live more sustainably with Mother Nature.  We already have our chicken and quail projects on-going.  This spring we plan to restart beehives, revive the orchard of fruiting trees and start gardening with the seasons to produce our own food.  Down the line, as we are able, we’d also like to add in keeping goats for milk!  Stay tuned to hear about our efforts and progress!

Tilling the soil and other benefits January 11, 2012

Lu and his girls are happy to help till my garden soil.

It has been my experience that contrary to what lots of people think, chickens are great for gardens.  They really are.  Sure, chickens are opportunists and given the chance they will happily devour your seedlings, greens and pretty much anything juicy and red (berries,ripe tomatoes, etc.).  and if you wanna see a feeding frenzy, break out some grapes!  …So, I am not suggesting you allow them unsupervised access to your edible beds (hence the bird netting you can see in the photo), but I do think it is important to give credit where credit is due.  There are lots of reasons to keep backyard chickens. Let me tell you about a few of my favorites when it comes to my garden.

Most folks know that chicken manure is great as organic, all-natural fertilizer.  Just be sure to study up on how to properly compost and cure the manure before application so as to not burn your plants or lose valuable nutrients as gases.  A handy thing to realize is that you can compost their manure with their bedding at the same time!  So just scoop the coop and use it all as compost!

In this pic you can see my Rhode Island Red (RIR) rooster, Lu, and his hens happily pecking and scratching away at the soil in one of my raised beds.  In doing so, they skillfully and quickly rid the soil of pests, weeds and weed seeds.  If you click on the pic for a larger view, you will notice they are in there with a few heirloom tomato plants which they don’t bother at all.  See, chickens tend to taste everything but will not continue to eat things that taste bad to them.  Since tomatoes are in the nightshade family, every part of their leaves and stems are poisonous to chickens and humans alike.  What’s really cool, is that typical tomato-eating insects like the hornworm are absolutely scrumptious to the chickens so if any of those suckers show up let’s just say the gals fight over them.  The chickens have keen eyesight and will spot even the tiniest of insect eggs and with the most exact precision they can peck it off a leaf without any damage to the leaf!  So you can consider them organic pest control!  And of course scratching the soil to get at the yummy buried bugs also helps to aerate the soil which will increase oxygen to the roots and loosens the soil to allow the plant to thrive.

I feel so strongly in the basic and sustainability benefits of keeping backyard chickens (even in suburban or urban environments), I jumped on board the local initiative to get the local ordinances changed.  When the spearhead of the movement needed to pass the torch for personal reasons, I guess I was her main active supporter and so she asked me to take up the gauntlet.  This is one reason I have not blogged more regularly this past year.  I have just been too busy!  It’s kind of ironic really, because my city actually allows me to keep chickens since they are for educational purposes (we homeschool and my boys are doing a 4H chicken project).  Other parts of Lee County will not allow it at all on residential lots!  So, you may say this is not really even my battle, but I guess whole-heartedly believing in the benefits of backyard chickens is what keeps me going.  If you want to learn more about my efforts, please visit the website LeeChickens or our Backyard Chickens of Lee County Facebook page.  (A special thank you goes out to my very capable web designer/manager who shall remain nameless (but is nonetheless appreciated) who keeps all the technical BYC stuff in order.)

Oh, and I have not forgotten that I promised that my next post would be AFTER pics of my backyard.  Today was sort of gloomy and would not have made the best pics, so just trust I will post them sometime soon!

Sunshine causes a ruckus August 3, 2011

Sunshine seen brooding over a few marked eggs.

Sunshine and her peep

Some of you already know this, but my buff cochin bantam hen had gone broody a few weeks ago.  Well, it must have been a good 3 weeks (21 days) ago now because when Brent went to put up the chickens last night and collect eggs, he heard a distinct peeping!  First we found Sunshine tucked in the far right back corner of the  coop where she was determinedly nestled down in the fine nest she had made for herself.  Upon further investigation, we found one little darling peep bouncing around her mama! What a good mama she seems to be, too!  She is still diligently sitting on two more eggs so we will wait a couple more days to see if anyone else emerges!

Pipsqueak (silver Sebright hen) is in the foreground, Zooxanthellae (brown leghorn hen) in the background

Actually, I think it was our other bantam silver Sebright hen, Pipsqueak, who originally carved out that corner for a nest and tried to sit broody over some eggs.  Brent kept fetching them from her every day and so she eventually gave up.  When Sunshine next went broody, Brent took pity on her and let her keep three of her own eggs as an experiment to see what would happen.  I mean, of course it seems obvious what would happen but it is really seems like such a miraculous thing to just sort of happen on its own without us big important (meddling) humans helping things along!

The popularity of this nest for laying makes it difficult for us to determine whose eggs she is sitting on because many of our chickens like to come along and shove Sunshine out of the way to lay their own eggs each day.  Because of their size and color, we know for sure they are either hers or our other bantam cochin, Cinnamon’s.  Each day we would collect all the other eggs and leave only the three cochin eggs that were marked.  This made it easy not confuse the newly laid cochin eggs with the ones she had already begun incubating.

We were not sure whether to leave her and her peep in the coop among the other hens overnight or not because we were afraid they may injury or kill the new little one.  We figured we had three options.  1. We could leave them put and hope for the best.  Since chickens are well known for pecking order disputes in which the weakest get creamed, the risks of this choice are obvious.  2.  We could remove Sunshine, the peep, the nest and the rest of the eggs and put them in the large dog kennel set up to be a coop of their own.  The problems with this choice were, where to put the kennel and how hard would it be to reintegrate Sunshine and her peeps with the rest of the flock in a couple weeks?  3. Finally, we could try to fashion a coop within the main coop so that they could have protection but still be in close proximity to the rest of the flock to ease estrangement issues.  We were losing light and the mosquitoes were biting so we settled on option 1.  Afterall, after dark our chickens seem to do little more than sleep anyways so we figured they would be safe until morning …and they were!

The girls gather to complain.

An irritated Eyebrows

This morning we left the other hens out to free-range as per usual and we let Sunshine stay on her nest with her new peep beside her.  This worked out fine until we let the roosters out.  Seems they have gotten in the habit of paying Sunshine repeated visits as she is helpless to fight them off in her current state.  We managed to chase all but one of them off.  Mr. Frizzle,  one of our white silkie roos seems to have taken it upon himself to hang around and keep Sunshine company.  Perhaps he’s the dad?

The next problem arose when it was time for the hens to lay for the day.   Those that usually like to share Sunshine’s nest were persistent at doing so again today.  We did not want them back there in case they would accidentally or purposely hurt the peep.

The make-shift partition.

Brent had to erect a make-shift chicken wire fence to portion off the back end of the coop to try to provide the new little family with some privacy.  Eyebrows, our Ameraucana was not at all pleased and tried repeatedly to force her way past the fencing in order to make it to her usual nesting spot.  You’ll notice in the picture that we set her up with her own feed and water station.  We were poorly prepared for this hatch and therefore did not have any chick starter mash on hand.  Egg layer is only good for laying birds so we mashed up some game bird feed (high protein) and filled the feeder with that.  Brent was lucky enough to observe Sunshine showing her peep how to use the feeders!  She seemed to catch on pretty quickly, too!  The nice thing about this set-up is that it allows Sunshine and the peep to be exposed to the rest of the flock day and night in a way that everyone can become accustomed to the sight and sound of the new addition so that when Sunshine is ready to venture out to free-range with her clutch, there will be less likelihood of integration issues.

Seeing as I live in a suburban setting and already have my hands (and coop) full of 9 assorted hens and 5 assorted roosters, some people have asked why on the good green Earth would we even entertain the idea of raising up more peeps?!  I guess it really comes down to sustainability again.  Chickens don’t lay eggs forever.  In fact, the best laying years for chickens occur until they are about 3 depending on breed and after that their egg production begins to drop off noticeably.  So if you want to guarantee a constant supply of eggs, you have to plan to replace your flock every couple few years.  And of course in order to replace your flock you can either buy peeps from suppliers or you can let your chickens raise their own.  This time around we did not need to raise up more to replace our current flock yet but we wanted to experiment to see just how easy it would be.  As you can see, there are some logistics to be worked out, but otherwise the process seems to largely take care of itself!

Re-inspired by Swiss Chard May 20, 2011

Miss me?  I haven’t posted lately for various reasons. First, I ran in to some typical obstacles of getting online and having time to write…some hectic holidays, visit by out-of-state family, an ill child and an unexpected road trip among other things.  But by far, the biggest reason I haven’t posted is that I sort of lost my groove, my motivation.  I began to doubt my ability to pull off this personal sustainability stuff.  I began to question, “What good am I really doing?  Could I, in fact, just be making things difficult for myself and my family?”  I began to get tripped up in what-if thinking, “What if I am not the right kind of person to be successful at this?  What if really, truly living in a personally sustainable way is not actually possible nowadays?”  When friends asked about the reason for the break in my blog posts I would just tell them that I would eventually post again, hopefully soon, just as soon as I felt re-inspired.

A small, gentle wave of inspiration set in this evening as I went out back to have a bit of “chicken time” before nightfall.  Chicken time is the time I spend out communing with my flock who’ve been out free-ranging all day and are now beginning to congregate around the coop, looking for a tasty hand-out before retiring for the evening.  As Brent sat distributing handfuls of scratch (cracked corn or “chicken candy”), I decided to water my various container gardens.  I moved from one pot to the next and finally ended up back at the raised bed that took a beating after the last storm.  The heavy rains knocked 8 mangoes off the tree and pummeled the plants in the garden to a small degree, but the bulk of the damage to the plants occurred because the bird netting came loose in the wind and at least one chicken found its way into everything!  Let me tell you, I am learning, all it takes is one hungry chicken in a 4×4 raised bed for about an hour to destroy most everything in there.  Fortunately for me, hubby noticed the damage and loose netting quickly enough to salvage most of what is out there.  Not checking the security of the bird netting after this last storm cost me 2 red cabbage, 2 romaine, 2 broccoli and various other leaves.  Lesson learned.

Well, when I went back to water the raised bed tonight I was greeted by some lovely things…all 4 marigolds in bright orange and yellow bloom, watermelon vine sprawling in every direction including up the fencing, okra pods forming on both plants, the last of my romaine and a wonderful assortment of large, fresh Swiss chard leaves!  You know what?  Seeing all this, I could begin to feel my spirit lift and I could feel that slow spread of inspiration hit me and gradually build back again.  If my lovely pretties out there did not give in to the force of the last storm, the pressure of the summer heat and sun or the uninvited chicken guest, then why should I give in to the things that try my resolve?  I watered and weeded and tended that bed with all the love I could fit into the last 15 minutes of sunlight.  I now feel a new hope for my efforts.  If all I accomplish is this much, I am happy.  Even just this much is a wonderful success!  At dinner tonight I will be thankful for the fresh romaine leaves on our burgers, the delicious and nutrient-rich side-dish of sauteed Swiss Chard and the chance to have been reminded of how “good” and worthwhile it all is by my garden itself!

Meet Burnt Toast April 17, 2011

This is Burnt Toast our Golden Sebright cockerel.  Sebrights are true bantams meaning they are miniature chickens that have no full-sized counterpart.  He is a Golden Sebright because of his lovely reddish brown,  black laced feathers.  When we got him, we did not know he was a him.  I was under the impression the bantams I got all on that day would be females.  Apparently he had other ideas.  We realized something was off when his comb and wattles were growing larger in size than that of the silver Sebright we got at the same time.  Next came the crowing… a few practice “cocka”  “cocka” and we knew it would not be too long before they would become full blown cockadoodledos!  He is inquisitive and very sweet and friendly to us humans.  He is a born leader who is very protective over his gals.  In fact, the only time he crows right now is when he hears us first stirring in the morning and he wants us to let him out of the coop, or at any point in the day when he loses track of some of his women.

See the little guy peeking at you from the peep pile?  This is him as a day-old peep back in December 2010.  You can see his reddish brown down with black patches here and there.  At the time, we had no idea what kind of chicken this was or what it would grow up to look like.  Autumn thought it looked like a bit of burnt toast, hence his name sake.

Snuggle Boxes April 14, 2011

These are our girls.  Well, girls and boy.  Well, girls and boys, perhaps….but let’s not go into that right now…  I snapped this picture to illustrate a phenomenon that goes on in our coop nightly since Brent build and added some nesting boxes.  He wanted to be sure to have them in place in time for them to to get used to before laying their first eggs, which has not happened yet and will likely be towards the beginning of May.  Well, as you can see, every night they ALL squish themselves in together in or on top of the nesting boxes, inserting themselves into the mix and what we end up with is one big snugglefest!  I am not sure if this is normal evening behavior for a close-knit flock or not, but they have been doing this since the installation of the boxes a month or so back.  At first we thought it was curiosity on their part to check out the latest home improvement.  But it now seems to be a regular thing for them.  Prior to this addition, they always used to roost on the various perches available.