More chicks?!

Hi all. Ok, I'm big enough to admit it when I have a problem. I have chick fever.  I love raising the ones I've got so much, when I heard that TSC was desperate to get rid of chicks from chick days, I had to check it out! Yes, say it, even I'm thinking it. I'M A SUCKER FOR PEEPING!

So, as you may have figured out, we bought more babies. I bought 3 white leghorns at the price of $1 each! We got 4 ducks for $2 each. We bought 4 bantams, 2 ducks, and 2 golden laced wyandottes at regular price. They had a lot of picked and wounded chickens and I managed to get 8 white leghorns for free. If you're good at chicken math, you've figured out that we brought home 23 chicks.

They're all thriving and happy! I decided it's good since they will take places of our meaties we just butchered and the ones we intend to butcher in the next month or 2.

Thanks for reading!

I'm Spring-ing Forward...How About You?

Hi all! We had a beautiful weekend here in Southern Ohio and we changed the clocks for Daylight Savings Time.  I can't even begin to tell you how giddy it makes me to know that spring is knocking on our door!  There is so much to do, but I'm so excited!

I decided to share some of the things we had going on during the lovely weekend. I had to work all weekend,  but Mitch and Toby enjoyed the weather for me. They had plenty of 4 wheeler riding, we grilled out and ate outside.  Mitch also managed to do some productive things for me. He made our chickens their first set of nest boxes out of some scrap lumber. I just love how rustic they look.  Take a peek:

He also got my early veggie garden tilled up so we can plant soon. We put this one up close to the house since our big back garden was too soggy and sloppy to work yet. I am hoping for a nice calm day so I can plant some seeds. My transplants aren't big enough yet, as they are just now beginning to get their first true leaves. We have begun to get a few peppers and tomatoes to sprout, but they won't be ready to go out until sometime in April! Here is the garden pre-planting:

We have some daffodils (at least that's what I think they are) popping up all over our yard. I've never seen daffodils in such odd ball places, but we've got them here. They are getting little buds all over them, which means....we'll have pretty little yellow flowers very soon!

Tractor Supply has got their chick days and garden event going on right now. We walked in there and I was in heaven! If you'd like to see or show your kids some cute little chicks and ducklings, they've got them there.  Cheap entertainment!  And, if you needed another reason to plant SOMETHING this year (as if) they've got some good prices and great stuff...just sayin'.

And finally, I would like to close with a link to my friend's blog Homegrown on the Hill. She has a post about how It's not too late! to still get a start on spring growing!

Thanks for reading! Come back soon for some ideas on small gardens and container gardening.

New Greenhouse and Homemade Seed Trays

We decided to splurge a bit on a greenhouse so I can use it on the occasional warm day now, and then everyday when it warms up a lot. In fact, we had a nice day in the beginning of the week and I got to use it to provide my seedlings with more light. It only took about 10 minutes to put together! We got it at TSC for $30, though it looks like it might be on sale now for only $20 (go figure!) So far I really like it. If you're thinking of starting seeds this year, this is a really affordable and useful option.  Check it out here.

Since I'm using my own pots this year I had to have some trays to put them in. I've been using a recylced cat box to start a few seeds in, but if we're going to grow enough stuff to freeze, can, and/or dry the food, we need to grow more. I was going to buy some disposable cake or lasagna pans, but we haven't made it to the store yet. So, we just built a few trays out of scrap wood. So far we have 3 of them but are making more soon. I also used a tin cake pan. Anyway, enough blabbing. Here's a picture for your viewing pleasure. I present a homemade tray full of cute little brassica sprouts!

I'm pretty proud of these guys. I can't wait until spring! (Are you sick of me saying that yet?)

Thanks for reading!