Before you dive into this post, I should clarity where I stand on raising chickens. We've got around 60 chickens on the homestead today. 3 flocks of hens that we've acquired over the past 4 years, plus 4 studious roosters. When you add our seasonal meat birds to that mix, there's close to 300 chickens... Continue Reading →
The answer is no. And yes. Confused yet? Let me explain. There are a lot of myths about raising chickens, shared by well meaning people. I've heard many of them, including the one about needing to have a rooster in order for your hens to lay eggs. This, of course, isn't true. Technically, the only... Continue Reading →
Chickens are weird. When we first started raising egglayers, I remember just sitting in the yard watching how they interacted with each other. They would walk around in little social groups, merrily plucking grubs from the soil and gossiping away like old ladies in a hair salon. The first time I saw one snatch a... Continue Reading →
I'm serious when I ask this. Where did the year go? It's beginning to sound like a cliche, I know. But I'm still scratching my head over how fast it seemed this year went by. Maybe that's why I'm clinging to this time between Christmas and the New Year. This season of rest. Because I... Continue Reading →
Winter is coming. No matter how hard I fight it. That's just the way it is. So begins the annual chore of preparing our animals for what will inevitably come. Iowa can be brutal during the winter months. But with the right preparation and care our animals will thrive even in the heart of our... Continue Reading →
I can remember when our neighbor asked us to watch their chickens while they were out of town. This was about five years ago. About a week into scraping poop off the board they used underneath the roosting area, wrangling the ones who always escaped and chugging through mud to fill buckets of water I... Continue Reading →
It humors me when I look back on our lives. I don't even have to go back that far. I mean, who are those impostors? Those two young kids who agreed to walk down the isle together. They really had no clue what lay ahead of them. The birth of 4 children. Building a life... Continue Reading →
When you're dreaming about farming or homesteading, it's easy to be consumed with the exciting things. Baby chicks. Fresh eggs. Pulling the season's first sun ripened tomato from the vine. Sun drenched fields of green on still summer days with cotton puff clouds softly floating by overhead. You know, the things we usually take pictures... Continue Reading →
Oh winter...we have a love-hate kinda relationship. I love the rest you offer, and the unwinding of busyness you force upon my life. I'm in awe of the picturesque beauty you cast upon our frozen landscape, like the silent purity of falling snow on a Sunday morning. And I appreciate the excuse you give to... Continue Reading →
Ever struggle with not having enough time to do all the things? Yeah, I know how that feels. There are so many things that we want or need to do, fix, grow, build...and there never seems to be enough time to do it all. So projects get pushed out, or simply not done at all.... Continue Reading →