Incubator Time!

Well I'm totally excited to say the least! Just got our Hova bator incubator today! It came with the egg turner and flashlight to candle the eggs when ready. I have to say it's so simple to use! You just add the water (which needs to be topped off a couple times a week maybe), plug it in, and voila! It does everything on it's own! It has the digital display which is nice, simple to read and it keeps the temp and humidity where it should be! I added 4 Ameraucana eggs and 3 brown eggs tonight. So we'll see in about a week if anything is actually going to grow!
I just have to keep Reid's hands off the incubator though. I have it in our living room, the only place we can really keep it, and already Reid has opened it up and taken out the eggs and laid them out on the table. Grrr. I can see this as being the only challenge in hatching chicks.

Coop Scoop...In the Beginning Stages

Well I said I would post some pics...so here we go.
Darren's dad used to have pigs on the farm here, but he has quit that now. Just no money in it anymore which is sad. The barns have stood empty for about 5 or more years now. (Can't remember. I have a terrible memory) When we decided to take on chickens Darren turned a corner of one of the barns into a coop.

 

 He took out a row of stalls, pressure washed the floor and walls, then started building!

He also installed a south facing window for some natural lighting.

The kids were pretty excited for what was done so far! Reid was ready to help with his hammer in hand! : )

 This is the first six and rooster we got from our friends.

 

And here is the second set of six we got from our friends again! Mr. Rooster didn't know what to do with himself! So many ladies all for him! lol He is the rooster I talked about in my previous post, the one that I had to let out of the coop and he disappeared. I miss that guy.

 

Coop Scoop

Again, time has slipped through my fingers. I haven't posted all spring/summer. My bad! Anyways, back in March I decided to take on chickens. Yes you heard right, chickens! I have always wanted to do some kind of hobby farming, goats was going to be my first venture, but decided on chickens. I just wanted to have them for the eggs, not for meat. Raising them for meat just makes no sense to me, not worth the money in my opinion. Unless I was going to do the butchering myself, then I could see it being worth while, but I REALLY have no interest right now for that.
So Darren cleaned up a corner in the old pig barn and made it into a room for a coop! He did awesome! We got our first batch of chickens from friends of ours, six leghorns and a roo. I was pretty excited! We then got another batch from the same friends, six ISA Browns! So much nicer looking than the leghorns!
So time went by, egg production was okay. I was selling eggs to a few people for $2 a dozen. Then the chickens started dying, not sure if from old age or something else. Egg production slowed down of course so we need more chickens.
Went to the Odd and Unusual sale in Thorsby in the spring looking for Americaunas. They lay the blue/green eggs! Saw a couple there I wanted but they went for over $20 a chicken! Way too expensive.
Then a friend told me about a woman selling chickens for $7 each. So we went to her place and picked up a mix of 7 chickens and another roo (half Americauna!!) There were a few Americauna hens in the mix too! (future plan is to hatch these eggs and sell chickens at auction)
The original rooster I had didn't like the new one we got, he bullied him hard! lol He wasn't letting him eat or drink. The new one was getting pretty weak and could barely walk, so we decided to kick the old rooster out of the coop. He lasted a couple days before he disappeared. I was a little upset about that. I loved his personality and his pretty colors. Oh well. There will be others I guess.
So I had a pretty good flock! Summer flew by and I was getting about 9 eggs a day. A few more chickens died late summer. I picked up a couple more customers!
Then this fall with the less daytime light egg production dropped to only 2 or 3 eggs a day. More chickens were needed!
Found a lady selling 8 Rhode Island Reds for only $1 each!! We picked them up on friday. I was so excited! They are beautiful birds!! And so friendly. Everytime I go in the coop two of them hang around me the whole time and peck at me a bit. It's too funny. So we were at 19 hens and the roo.
Then we found more ( yes more!lol) just on the next road from us! Just some white leghorns. I was kind of shocked when we went to pick them up. It was a little room with about 300 chickens in cages, 3 to each cage. They have no neck feathers because of them reaching through the cages to eat their food. We bought 15 for only $10! Brought them home and incorporated them into the coop with the others. Well, these leghorns have never been out of their cages so they all just huddle together in a corner. They don't know how to use nesting boxes so they just lay eggs wherever they are standing. Some have gotten squashed and eaten by the other chickens. Not sure if they will learn the nesting box behavior or not. I'm hoping so! The roo is picking on them quite a bit, but I'm sure he will simmer down soon. So now we have 34 hens and a roo! Yesterday 13 eggs!
So there is a quick overview of the coop. Pictures will come soon!
Chow for now! Gotta go gather some eggs! : )

Another Friend Gone

It's been two weeks now since our dog Scamp got hit by a car and killed. Darren and I were pretty upset. Scamp was a super dog, so smart, and just so good! He was only 2 years old. We will sure miss him. The day after he passed away I was pretty upset and couldn't imagine going outside and not having a dog there beside me. I've NEVER really liked dogs, cats were my thing. Scamp really changed my view of farm dogs. Anyways, the day after he passed I checked out Kijiji just for the hell of it and looked up Border Collies for sale, because that's what Scamp was, and sure enough there they were! A litter of two month old pups who were just a few miles from us! I wasn't sure if getting another dog so soon after Scamp's death would be a good idea but the timing was right season wise. I thought if we get another dog now he will be bigger by next winter and we won't have to worry too much about him. So we ended up getting another pup. I felt a little guilty. It wasn't to replace Scamp at all, but to fill a void that he left behind. If that makes any sense. The presence of a dog out here comforts me.
So his name is Rio and he's been pretty good. It sucks to start all over training a puppy again. He's in a biting stage right now and jumps up on the kids, but I know it won't take long before he stops doing that. It'll take a little work.

Above here is a picture of Scamp. We will miss him dearly. : (

And here is our little Rio! He's pretty sweet. Who wouldn't love a face like that?! He just went for his first round of shots yesterday and he was so well behaved! Let's hope the next two more times goes as well!

    



So just when I make the decision to cool it with Facebook games because they are addicting, here comes something entirely new! Pinterest is the name, pinning is the game. Here we go again with another social website to suck up all our spare time! Can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I heard about it from a friend of mine a couple weeks ago. She was really excited about it. So after those two weeks of thinking about it, I decided to join today.

Not really sure what to think about it, I mean who really cares about stuff that interests ME. I guess the point is to try to find people out there with similar interests? Well I'm going to give it a shot and see where it takes me. Who knows! It just might be inspiring!

Pictures of first time skating

First Skate

Well the girls did fantastic with their first time skating! I gave them each a chair to hold onto and to skate around with which worked awesome! Erika zipped around the ice like crazy! She has always been the more adventurous out of the two. Annika was a bit nervous, but after a few minutes she relaxed and started to have fun. Until their little fingers started getting cold, then that ended that.
They are so excited to go out again afterschool today! I am so glad they like it. Those two never want to try any new extracurricular activity. We have offered so many times to do so many different things but all we get is "no". They actually didn't want us to buy them skates so we pretty much forced them to do this and I am so happy they loved it! Pictures to come!

Where does the time go?

Where does the time go I ask? Facebook, that's where! I used to blog quite frequently before Facebook came along and I really enjoyed it. (I can't believe how long it's been since my last post.) The girls are already half way through grade 2, Reid is turning 2 in a couple months, Darren has a new job.
Nothing really new with me persay, just been busy with Reid.
But over all this time, any spare minute I could scrounge up was spent on Facebook, playing stupid, pointless games, namely Farmville, Pioneerville, Castleville....I admit I was hooked! (I'm not proud of that.) Sending request after request to people for parts to build this and ingredients to make that got so sickening! And worring about crops withering if I didn't harvest them in time.
My new year's resolution is to quit all that, and so I have. And it feels great! I have taken up reading again, partly because I got a new Kobo for Christmas, which I love! Thank you honey for that! And housework isn't put on the backburner anymore, which everyone in the household should appreciate. lol
So I am turning a new leaf and focusing on things that really matter in life!
Speaking of things that matter, the girls just got home from school and I'm taking them outside to our rink Darren built, and they are going to try skating for the first time! That should make for an interesting new post. Chow for now!