Spring on the Small House Homestead – Photo Diary

Good morning! Spring is truly busting out all over on the Small House Homestead this month.

A favorite flowering quince bush bursts into bloom at my studio building. 

All of my forsythia shrubs were transplanted or propagated from tiny shrub starts.

Creeping phlox offers a splash of pale lavender and spreads.

Spring and its intense flowering beauty is what we in Michigan live for!

Daffodils and a burning bush in front of the pole barn.

Wild spreading violets in the vegetable garden. They will be transplanted when it rains. 

Our homesteads many flowers, shrubs, fruit trees and bushes are really starting to come alive!

Planted in 2015 , this peach tree replaced a tree that died from our high ground water flooding.

The low growing flowers and shrubs behind the three-season porch.

Our 5-acre homestead garden is a bloom with the fruits of fifteen years of my labor.

The newly planted (2015) silver lace vine on the trellis is putting out leaves.

Masses of wild purple violets bloom in the bird feeding bed under the dogwood tree.

Freckles and Snowball out and about enjoying the sunshine.

The playhouse in the spring; day lilies are growing again and the climbers are too.

Chalk drawings on the sidewalk speaks the language of spring.

I hope you enjoy a view of this week on the homestead and that you bloom where you are planted!

Small House homesteader, Donna

Super Serious about our Predator Safe Chicken Coop

Hubby has finally begun the Rhodies coop addition roof.

We are super serious about building a completely “safe from predators” chicken coop. That’s why coop number two is taking us so long to complete. This is the 4 ft. X 8 ft. permanent coop home for our Rhode Island Red pullets.

Our chickens coop is definitely secure enough for them to sleep in right now but it still needs its corrugated plastic roof, hardware cloth on the bottom for winter dusting, two chicken ladders, window shutters and nest box. We are getting a bit closer every day.

These remaining parts are built and painted but await installation. We are focusing now on getting the roof done next because we have plenty of time before autumn when we will need the window shutters. Likewise we have a few months yet until the pullets begin to lay and we will need the nest box attached.

Our primary focus now is on building the roof truss support and then adding the corrugated white plastic roofing material. We intend to match the roofline of the covered run so this is a detailed endeavor.  After this roof is completed the temporary blue tarp will be removed. The tarp will eventually become just a rainy season cover.

A coop this detailed take a long time to build right.

My husband is not a carpenter just a good guy trying to make his chicken keeper wife happy.

I love using sand as coop litter. It clean up easily and stays cool.

Hardware cloth and screwed-in frames makes these windows safe and secure.

The 2 X 4 wood frame lying on the ground is the east side wall of the new enclosed pen. This will be positioned against the existing fence and a roof truss will be fitted over it. The roof will hang over to make a narrow run area for outside winter activities. It will also funnel the rainwater off it to run into the grassy area and not into the run itself. This gives the pullets an option of their own small run since our Cochins have not taken well to the new pullets yet and continually chase them out of their coop and run area. They no longer peck them but just let them know that they are not welcome to hang out with the big girls.

Hardware cloth on the ceiling of the coop also make for a secure from critter home and adds extra ventilation too. Once the white corrugated roofing material is in place this hardware cloth will allow for upper ventilation. This construction technique really made a huge difference in the coolness of coop one.

In this photograph you can see that this coop can be cleaned out thru its double doors from either side of the coop, north or south. I will be able to access the coop inside from the outside run area during the spring/summer/fall months or from inside the covered run area during the 6-month-long Michigan winter. it is common to have 6 to 8 feet of snow here so we are thinking ahead.

We have learned a few important things from the last time we built a chicken coop and added those ideas to this one. And we are taking the time necessary to build this coop right. More to come!

Small House homesteader and chicken keeper, Donna

P.S. The broody girls are starting to lay eggs again at last. We are now getting on to two eggs a day. it’s a good thing as we have been having to buy them!!

The Privilege of an Afternoon at the Dentist

The current street view of the Small House Homestead in its summer glory.

My days are beginning to blur….paint the coop, weed and spread bark chips, water fruit trees, cook a meal, and take care of the chickens. This is one of those day that I shake my head and when I remember that….is my l-i-f-e-and I chose it.

Day lilies add beauty to the brick planter. If you don’t like it, hide it is my motto!

I am feeling a sense of urgency now that it is mid-July to get things done and projects wrapped up. Visitors are coming soon, I’ve offered to help a friend pack up her house and load the U-Haul for a long drive to the Northwest, the RIR chickens need to get into their new coop ASAP. I am sick of putting down bark chips and just want to that job to be done. And some days, like today, I feel like I am just spinning my wheels and going nowhere fast.

Yesterday we took the day off to drive to our dentist in a distant city. While the day was almost a loss work-wise, the older I get the more I am grateful for another good dental checkup and cleaning. I’ve had gum disease and gum surgery so any checkup where I get a gold star, is a good one.

We don’t have dental insurance but even so I know that being able to have access to a highly competent dentist is truly a privilege, because all too many people in my own community and in many other countries do not have access to dental care at all.  I know that I am indeed privileged.

I’ve been thinking a lot of privilege lately. Even though I left home at age 17 without any parental support or insurance coverage and have experienced hard times my life has been better than many. Divorced at age 45 and starting over again without any support or alimony I made it through creativity, hard work, German stubbornness and perseverance.  I took in renters, cleaned houses and did what had to be done.

The entrance to our front door.

The fact that I am white, that I live in a safe, dry home that is paid for, have a car to drive, that I have been able to retire, enjoy affordable health insurance, dependable electricity, food to eat and clean water to drink…. all help me to remember every single day I am indeed a privileged person.

Living in a poor, agricultural county I could easily have a landfill or a fracking sit in my backyard…

I have a no more fracking sign in my front garden. I am totally opposed.

I did cook a healthy by scratch meal when we got home from the dentist so I accomplished something good yesterday. I made a baked sausage in fresh pepper meal that was delicious and picked enough greens from our garden to make a tossed salad. I don’t really have a recipe per see, I just make it up depending on experience and what I have on hand.

 The July garden at the Homestead.

Baked Stuffed Red, Orange and Yellow Peppers

1 lb. of Meijer’s mild sausage

3/4 of a medium onion, chopped

3/4 cup spinach, chopped

2 organic eggs

½ to ¾ cup of Italian bread crumbs

Garlic to taste

Ground black pepper to taste

Chopped oregano to taste

I also like to add cooked brown and wild rice to my meat mixture but I got a very late start today so skipped the rice.

Mix the sausage, onions, add the bread crumbs, and stir in the eggs. Mix well.

Cut off the top of the peppers and use a spoon to dig out the inside of the peppers (save the seeds and pulp for the chickens!)

Fill the peppers with the meat mix

Bake at 350 for 40 to 50 minutes until the peppers are cooked thru and browned on top.

I hope you had a productive day and a great dinner as well.

Small House homesteader, Donna

Our Girls Eat Live Green Barley Fodder at Last

I let the girls into the barley fodder “patch” today for the first time.

 The fodder patch before I removed the protective frame.

This fodder I planted is Amish grown and are untreated barley seeds that I bought at our regular feed mill. I tested just 1 pound of seeds to make sure that they would grow well here and that they would be received well and eaten by my Cochin/Phoenix mix chickens. This turned out to not be a problem!

Snowball happily attacks the fresh barley grass fodder.

I planted the seeds right in their smallish open run where I had a nice size patch of sunshine. This worked perfectly.

The seeds have been growing since I planted them on 3-25-15 and the recent rains and warmer weather really brought them on. I let the seeds grow for about three weeks until they were about 4″ to 5 “ in height. The girls were trying to dust between the frame and the fence and I took pity of them.

This corner is a favorite outside dusting area. Looks like I crowded them!

I’ve read that grasses any longer than 4”to 5” are too long, can get caught in the chickens crop and cause sour crop so I decided to let the girls eat them while the grass was still reasonably short in length.

Freckles look over the grass this morning just before I removed the frame.

They had been standing on the frame and pecking at the grass growing under it, taking off tiny pieces with their beaks.

Once I made my decision, I removed the frame and they took to the grass immediately. The best things about this feed is that it is untreated seeds so there are no chemicals involved and it is a live green food – the absolute best for chickens.

Snowball in the nest box laying her egg.

The moral of his story is that…Happy, well-fed chickens lay healthy great tasting eggs!

Small House Homesteader and chicken keeper, Donna

 

Our Weekend in Photography

Brown Cochin eggs from our four chickens.

On Saturday Gene worked on the raspberry bed fence project and put up a second gate.

Gene stapling the chicken fencing to the bottom of the post.

I experimented with photographing some of our brown Cochin eggs in an antique bowl. I used a piece of fabric I bought at the thrift store when I thought might make a nice seat cover. I feel like I am a bit rusty with my “product photography” and it felt good to practice it again.

Double fencing on the south end of garden allows for two entry points; one in the vegetable garden and one in the raspberry patch. 

Then our adult daughter Lisa arrived from North Carolina in the afternoon. She is a special education teacher and works in the high school near Charlotte, NC. It is her spring break so she took advantage of that time off of work to come back home to Michigan. We spent our day watching the chickens scratch and peck and chatting and catching up.

On Sunday we did our usual every two weeks trip to the recycle station and then ran Sassy at the SW Michigan’s land Conservancy’s Wau-kee-nau north. We keep a small recycle bin set up in our pole barn and take our recyclable papers, cans, glass to the townships recycle station about every two to three weeks.

Sassy overlooks gray and ice filled Lake Michigan.

Lake Michigan is still partially frozen and dark gray in color. We did see a large flock of Goldeneye ducks in the water  – these birds are very hardy and on their migration south for breeding. This is always a thrill for my husband the waterfowl hunter.

The three sisters, birch trees in a meadow.

It’s still pretty cold here in SW Michigan, some nights have been 10 some 30 degrees and day around 40 degrees. During the day we let the chickens out to free range in the almost completed raspberry bed. We are still supervising them as one end remains to be completed.

A wooden bench for resting overlooking the Lake Michigan.

I’ve also been working on and off on stick picking up and lawn raking. I’ve already raked up much of the pine cones from our pine trees. I am just getting a tiny head start on our massive spring clean-up work on the days the weather cooperates.

I’ve been reading a fun new book this week, Chickens in the Garden. I am really enjoying this book not only for its chicken information and its amazing photographs. I know how hard it is to get high quality photographs of moving objects.

Small House Homesteader and chicken keeper, Donna

Unwrapping the Arborvitae

 

Today my big outdoor project was to remove the burlap from the arborvitae. We put in these three evergreens last fall as part of our ongoing attempt to replace the 100-year-old White Oak Trees that had to come down as part of the flood extension ditch digging project.

The giant roll of burlap drying on the garden fence.

I’m always trying to find a way to gain more privacy in front of our home and to create more of a sound barrier from the traffic that flies by in the summer months. Beauty wind break come into play here as well. Trees and evergreen are one way to do just that.

We planted them 8 to 10 feet apart because the plan is to eventually build a lattice type panel to fit in between each of the evergreens to create even more privacy.

Arborvitae at the Small House Homestead on a cold March day.

The nursery we bought them from recommended that we wrap them in burlap for the winter months because we can at times get quite a bit of wind roaring down 109th right off of Lake Michigan. So between the heavy snow fall here, deer and the winds, we decided to protect our investment by wrapping them.

Looking a little like ghosts the evergreens wrapped in burlap.

In case you are not familiar with arborvitae, they are a North American and eastern Asian evergreen coniferous tree of the cypress family. They are native to the northeastern United States and eastern Canada. They are hardy, require little maintenance, prefer a cool climate and alkaline soil.

An evergreen with scale-like leaves, arborvitae (Thuja) is a popular choice for hedges because of its tall, narrow growth habit. It can also be used as a focal point in a mixed border of shrubs and flowers and is frequently used in foundation plantings. They can range as high as 20 to 30 ft. tall and have a 12 ft. spread depending on the species.

Unwrapped and ready to face the spring.

I did my standard soil prep two years in advance using 6″ to 8″ of bark chips to break down the sod and to begin to amend the soil. I’ll dog out any weeds that may have come back and add more bark chips this June as well.

I actually preferred planting the larger White Pines which will get very large in size and provide an even great screening from the roadway but I have to be careful about planting easy-to-catch fire plants too close to my home. So this was a compromise.

Stored in soccer mom Ziplock bags for the summer.

Today while Gene worked on the fencing project, I unwrapped the evergreens, dried the burlap on the fence and then rolled the burlap up for summer storage. I used two of a giant-size Ziplock bag meant to use with my large handmade paper canvas artwork because the size was just right. I think they were meant for soccer moms to hold balls in the back of the trunk of the minivan but they work great for large canvas’ of artwork too.

One more project checked off the busy spring to do list!

Small House Homestead and native gardener, Donna

Easy to Make High Protein Chicken Feed Medley

I believe that healthy food is our best medicine and in using garden herbs for chicken health. So when I discovered this easy to make infused oil mixture for extra winter protein and nutrition for my chickens, I was thrilled.

A healthy and happy chicken has bright eyes, glossy feathers and ample energy.

While I can’t grow everything in my garden I do have a number of herbs that I grow and feed directly to our chickens. But winter feeding of herbs is so much harder.

Lots of fresh water daily is also important to a chickens good health.

PLEASE NOTE: The credit for this original infused oil mixture goes solely to Susan Burek of Mile High Herbs, This came as a result of a post she made on the Poultry natural Living found on Facebook. This is my favorite chicken group of all time. https://www.facebook.com/groups/herbalpoultrycare/

Mid afternoon snuggle down time.

While some of you are in states that are getting warmer, some of us “lucky ones” in the Midwest still have 3 to 5 ft. of snow on the ground!! And while our 10 degree below temperature have waned, it is running around 30 degrees at night. I’ve discovered that our woods holds in the snow and cold longer after it is melted in other more open spaces.

Snow on the coop and covered run.

 So this means we are still feeding our chickens high caloric and protein feed for a few more weeks to help to keep them warm at night. I’ve tried all kind of feed type and combinations and this is the one I have the best luck with. It is versatile and can be adapted in many ways. I make the infused oil up ahead of time and then add that oil to whatever I am feeding that day.

This is Freckles, a Phoenix/Cochin mix and the top bird of our group.

This also kills two birds with one stone (likely a BAD analogy for chicken lovers!) but it gets the oils of the crushed garlic into the chicken as well as giving them the fuel that they need for cold nights. I feed garlic as a preventative measure to keep my birds as healthy as possible and basil for mucus membrane health and for its antibacterial properties.

Cloves of fresh garlic goes into my chickens food and their water. Some times they ignore it but some of them, like Freckles picks it out tosses it on the ground and then eats it. Freckles is the top chicken in our small flock.

Our girls heading outdoors for a little bit of sunbathing!

STEP 1: Garlic Infused Oil:

1. Pour about 1 cup to cup and a half of a high-grade of virgin olive oil into clean a canning jar.
2. Peel, crush and chop up 7 garlic cloves and add the garlic to the jar of oil
3. I like to add dried oregano leaves but you can add almost any of your chicken healthy herbs that you might have on hand.
4. Cover with lid and let this mix infuse several days to a week before using. The longer it infused the more it smells of the wonderful wholesome and healthy garlic.

STEP 2: Add Oil Mixture to Your Feed of Choice

I’ve been experimenting with many different combinations this winter but the one my chickens seem to like the best and the one they leave the least amount of waste behind.

Making the Oil and Protein Medley:

1. I toss two handfuls of black oiled sunflower seeds in an ice cream bucket.
2. Toss in a half a handful of dried meal worms.
3. I add a large scoop of fermented organic chicken grower feed
4. Add a chunk of cut up wheat grass
5. A splash of apple cider vinegar
6. Stir and feed

Add this mixture in your feeding bowl or pie plate and watch your girls rush in, cluck, cluck, and go to town!

Sitting pretty!  The girls today on their roost in the covered run.

You would never know today that these chickens were rescued chickens from a flock that was fed nothing but cracked corn. It’s taken me 7 to 8 months of providing fresh water and carefully selected food but they are now 8 months old and beginning to lay the mostly beautiful brown eggs.

The results of my feeding regime? Happy, healthy and well fed chickens. It is worth the effort!

Small House Chicken Keeper, Donna

March Madness Chicken Chalet Litter Cleaned Out

 It’s March 24^th and we have been having an unusually dry spring in Michigan this year. Normally we have a lot of spring rain by now and rain is what is predicted for the rest of this week. Today it is now or never for the coop litter refresh!

The litter situation “before.”

I did what I call a “lick and a dab” clean out of the deep litter in our chicken coop. This litter has been building up layer by layer throughout the winter and consists of sand, pine shavings, leaves, chicken food and small bits of poop.  I do scoop it out everyday to keep it as poop free as possible, but with teenage poultry there are always small bits left. The deep litter method is one way to help keep the coop a bit warmer during the coldest and snowiest months of a rural SW Michigan winter.

A few easy scoops out followed by a whisk broom clean out.

The litter situation after the clean out; fresh and clean.

Early this morning I scooped out the coop using a small camping shovel and then I brushed it carefully out. I let it air out for several hours and then replaced the soiled sand with clean sand. I still plan to do a very thorough clean out this summer when it is warm enough that I can really hose the coop out top to bottom and spray and scrub using the natural orange cleaner I made this winter.

But it was still below zero this morning then I did this project and not only are our outside pumps not turned on yet, I did not want to risk washing out a coop that might not have time to thoroughly dry. Rain is predicted tomorrow and throughout the rest of this week so putting the chickens back into a damp coop was certainly not a good idea.

Our pile of chicken coop sand after the winter. Covered up it stayed fairly dry.

 

I tossed the old litter into the end of the vegetable garden where the grass and weeds live and where I want the chickens to dig up and aerate the soil.

Now that I have fresh sand as litter again in the “Chicken Chalet” I will go back to using the daily plastic, kitty litter scoop clean out process each morning. And all will be well until the weather turns warm enough for a hose and a scrub.

Small House Homestead, chicken keeper, Donna

P.S. When I put them to bed for the night they freaked. They do not like the sand only/all one color tone coop bottom. I think that maybe the all one color sand looks likes like a bottomless coop and they were definitely afraid to jump in. I had to put some leaves back in to give them the confidence that all was well. Chickens do not like change!

 

Saturday Projects on the Homestead

This morning Gene and I cleaned the house and then headed outdoors to work.

Rolling up the plastic tarp that we use to solarize the weeds in the garden bed.

And while we were cleaning I washed the various parts of Sassy’s dog bed. Normally I dismantle and wash this bed at lese once a month but it’s a lot harder in the winter so I have been behind.

This is Sassy’s dog bed parts dismantled minus the solid base cushion that is already in the dryer.

By the time spring arrives the dog bed is shall we say rather aromatic! It’s a very cushy and comfortable Orvis dog bed that has been through two dogs thus far and has a lifetime guarantee. But it’s a big, big chore to wash it since it has so many large parts and requires five wash loads one right after another even in our commercial size washing machine.

The tarp dries on the fence before storing.

And thank goodness for the blessing of our commercial size front loading washing machine. Before I owned this washing machine, I used to have to drive 20 miles into town every month for a laundromat size washer and spent $10.00 in quarters to wash this, plus dryer costs. Once when I was crunching the numbers over “should I get the regular size or the commercial size washer” I realized I paid for the extra difference/cost in size in just one year’s laundromat costs. In ten years of use the difference paid for the entire washing machine. That was a no brainer!

 We put the galvanizes waterer in the garden for chicken thirst.

 Because Sassy is a canine athlete; a hunting retriever that runs every day in the woods and marshes AND sleeps in our bed, she gets a shower once every two weeks at a minimum. And I wash her bed out once a month at home and hang the parts out to dry on the clothesline. She is a sweet, sweet companion and I love her but I really don’t’ like dog stink in my home!

Our granddaughter playing in Sassy’s dog bed a few years ago.

It is always satisfying for me to hang clothes out on the clothesline as I know I am saving on electricity and sending fewer negative carbons into the Earth’s atmosphere while harnessing the power of the sun and the wind.

We also look at the chickens sand pile in the hope the sand was dry enough to change out the coops litter but it was too wet for my liking. It likely needs another month or so of spring winds to dry that big pile out, I guess.  So instead we removed the large piece of black plastic we had on the garden bed solarizing the weeds that came as a result of the big flood of 2009-2012. We removed and dried the plastic and then directed the chicken into the area so they could scratch up the remaining grass and weeds and turn the soil. They will be working on this spot the net month or so until I can actually plant that area.

And we staked out the large triangle bed that will eventually hold our newly grafted apple and pear trees that will be planting later on this spring. These trees will replace those we lost in the big flooding several years ago.

This will be the large triangle bed where we plant the apple and pear trees.

I also picked some leaves out of the stone landscaping beds near our house. With 47 White Oak trees this is just the beginning of a very long project that I will be working on all spring and perhaps into the summer months.

Another fun day on the homestead for sure!

Small House Homesteader, Donna

Ready Now for Gardening and Chicks

It’s a rare day that we go to town and actually buy consumer goods. For us it’s mostly perusing Goodwill and resale stores for function clothing. But today we went to town and it was like Christmas in March!

Flower Power!

We picked up a few minor necessities we need for the soon to be arriving chicks; a metal feeder base, a thermometer for the brooder box as well as an extra package of electrolytes for travel-worn chicks.

But the really special acquisition today was some new gardening shoes.  I’ve usually gardened in worn out leather shoes or solid green muck boots but this year I splurged on a 1970’s “Flower Power” pattern of slip on Muck boots which will keep my feet dry and warm. I prefer the easy to slip on and off moccasin on style because I am in and out of the house on and off all day long and I need to get them on and off quickly.

Tools for the new chicks arriving in April.

I’m also testing some rye grass seeds to use as chicken green fodder. We stooped at our regular feed store to get dog food and organic layer pellets and I picked up a pound of fodder seeds to test out for chicken greens. At just 65 cents a pound, I’ll be planting these this week IF the ground warms up enough.

Oh, and I did pick up three pairs of $3.99 jeans for gardening and a couple of fleece tops. Now I can actually throw away the jeans that are so full of holes, they as my husband says, made going outside in public quite indecent. The news jeans made him happy and should make the neighbors happy too!

Now if the weather would just warm up enough to warm up the soil!

Small House Homestead and gardener, Donna

P.S. Just to set the record straight…I coined the term “Flower Power” for the boot pattern because I am old enough to remember the slogan from the Flower Children era in the 1970’s when I was in college at the time.  So many people on Facebook asked for the real data…here it is: BRAND: Muck Boots, PATTERN NAME: Breezy Low, bought at Family Farm & Home in Holland, Michigan.