Thinking Local

Hi there!  Since spring has only started in the way that makes March weather completely unpredictable (including snow, hail, rain wind & sun in the same day) - I have done some more winter reading instead of the gardening I am dying to do!  I recently read two books about eating locally and living with less Year of Plenty and Plenty.  They have me pondering just how ridiculously complex our system is for the process of securing food for our family and farm animals such as chickens. 

Today I looked into making chicken feed from scratch to supplement our mostly free-ranging chickens diet.  They are full of ingredients that I don't even know how to get and many are certainly not local.  The whole idea of eating locally requires that we eat more whole foods, know where they come from and live without many modern conveniences (such as premixed, ground and bagged feed).  It would also require eating seasonally which is very uncommon and not so easily done!

I ran into a similar problem with making soap.  While it can be made with tallow from the local butcher and lye (you still have to order lye from somewhere else unless you want to get REALLY adventurous) and the end product is considered inferior by some and offensive to others (because it isn't vegetarian).   So many handmade soaps by local artisans are made with items shipped all over the place before they meet up and are made to saponify into a lovely soap product.  This is where the romantic in me idealizes that thoughts of going back to the olden days!  So in many ways simplifying isn't so.... simple. 

The reasons I am contemplating all of these ideas are many.  I desire to spend less money, live more simply, become a better steward of the resources we have, support local farms so they don't disappear, care lovingly for the creation all around me and become more self-sufficient.  Another big reason is I want to eat and feed my family real food.  Most of the food in the stores and even in our own cupboard has a long list of ingredients that I don't know and don't believe to be real food.  Then we attempt to eat more healthfully and have chickens that then require bags of food with ingredients I again don't recognize.... so it is a process of learning how far to go with these ideas.  We actually began eating many organic, whole grain and homegrown food years ago so it has been a process we've been at for awhile.  Still,there is much more to consider! 

Any thoughts on this subject would be welcomed! 

Blessings,

Olivia

October, I can't believe you're here so soon!

welcome!

this is my new chicken scraps bucket, cute huh!  just had to share! 

my husband just completed our porch makeover and we've almost completed our trim painting & house paint touching up!  

here is the before:

this is when we bought our house 5 years ago ~ I always envisioned white trim!  Can you believe they hid our beautiful leaded glass windows behind all the trees!  Major improvements we've made ~ ideas mine of course, workmanship mostly my husbands!  thank you, thank you hun!

 i never could have orange pumpkins with that other combo so i went all out and opted for fallish mums too - it's A LOT of color for me - i'm warning you it's not likely to last long in my faded blue & grey world!  (but it's fun for once!) 

blessings!

Searching for Inspiration

Do you ever have those times where you're waiting... and you don't know what for? 

I tend to go through phases and their quite amusing to look back on!  In recent history there was my "homesteading phase" where I was reading about and delving into all things "farmgirl" (this one has been off and on for the past 5 years but turned into "homesteading" as soon as I found a name for it!).  Now you know the real reason for the chickens! 

Then there was my Beatrix Potter - drawing & painting phase inspired by the movie "Miss Potter".  For some reason this phase inspired me to want a bunny! 

When I read Anne of Ingleside and found one of my favorite quotes "some folks think babies a luxury, but here at Ingleside we think their a necessity!" I of course was in a baby phase (wanting #4!). 

I've also had a music phase - piano lessons for 2 years (so we now have a piano!).  A blogging phase...a photography phase...a secret garden phase...  And all throughout each of these times I seem to be more inspired in every sense of the word. 

Well, what do you do when you just don't feel inspired?  It must be time for a good book or a great movie!  Have any suggestions!?  I better be careful what I wish for though because once it becomes a phase we usually end up with long lasting results! 

The Chicken Fiasco

The Chicken Fiasco actually started about 4 years ago!  We had found our "cottage in the country" one year before with two seperately fenced acres.  Right away we got to work building a horse shelter so I could buy a pretty Palomino Paint named Lily, but I am already getting off-subject! There is a funny story to tell about our dabbling in farm life and that actually may take awhile to explain! 

Anyway about the chickens!  At the time of my first brilliant attempt at chickens let me just set the scene:  (keep in mind I was raised in the suburbs) We had a horse, 3 goats (my husband surprised me with these), a dog, a cat and YES even a bull calf rescued and being bottle fed from the feed store!  Lest you think that was all, let me say there were also 3 children - two of them potty training boys!  At the point we rescue the calf, I had been rotating chicken eggs for several weeks until 4 hatched.  Quickly the chicks grew and quickly the calf grew and while everyone was growing like weeds the amount of pottying going on around me and needing to be dealt with daily or should I say hourly was getting overwhelming to say the least!  The first chicken fiasco soon had to come to an end.  One can only deal with so much pottying at a time.  The 4 chicks were given back to the nice lady who had lent me the incubator (2 ended up being roosters & sold at auction) and the calf went to a nice home. 

Now fast forward to Spring 2010.  We decide it would be nice to have chickens to feed our large family fresh and healthy eggs.  We plan to fill our already built chicken coop with chickens that my dear friend agrees to raise so I don't have to do that part again!  We spend hours researching finding an interesting mix of chicks to order online (to have a variety, and make sure to get hens) and place an order with My Pet Chicken to be delivered in May. 

Then, the chicks start arriving at local feed stores (February) and Leah goes crazy (she is now a crazy chicken lady and I mean that as a compliment) and comes home week after week with more than enough chicks for both of us.  Soooo, I cancel our online order....and then in May she calls me & says "why do you think the Post Office called me this morning?"  Uh oh.  They delivered 13 more chickens!  To add to this excitement, she is unable to raise anymore chicks and must deliver them to me at 1 week old!  So I am a chicken mama once again.  Did I mention we were also given 5 Rhode Island Reds who are already laying.  So I raised the new chickens in my basement, quite a smelly ordeal until they could go outside and then we had to move the older chickens to the horse stall.  Now we have 17 chickens! 

We meant to start out slow.  We thought we would have maybe 6 or 8.  Hmmm....the chicken thing is out of hand entirely, again.  But this time, we were more prepared and have a handful of solutions - we'll eat some, we'll talk our neighbor into some and we'll trade some because that's what life in the country is all about!  So if you're wondering what kind of chickens we have:  5 Rhode Island Reds (lay brown eggs), 4 Easter Eggers (lay blue/green eggs), 3 faverolles (cream eggs), 2 Silver Wyandottes, 2 White Plymouth Rocks, 1 Barred Rock and 1 Golden Wyandotte (all brown eggs).  We are having fun watching them grow, naming them cute names like Henny Penny, Puff Puff, and Speckles, looking for eggs and even taking out loads of chicken scraps.  Has it been a fiasco - absolutely!! But we have learned so much and enjoyed the process (for the most part!)  Soon, we'll have enough eggs to share or sell! 

And that's one of my favorite parts of country life too!

Casey with the Chickens

Here is Casey my youngest little boy. He is a charmer first and foremost! This little one who I refer to as my beach boy has a surfer easy going style. He is sunny and has a warm smile most of the time. Here he is with our newest adventure, Rhode Island Red Hens! Every day he runs out to check for eggs with much enthusiasm, which we get between 3 and 5 a day out of these ladies! I cannot believe how rewarding having chickens has been! So far we have 5 who were already started layers, but my good friend is raising some chicks for me to add into the bunch. I will probably be adding in an Americauna, an Orpington, and a Brahma but I'm not sure yet! It will be so fun to get multi-colored eggs in addition to the brown ones!