As usual the weekend passes and I'm sitting here writing an update about the details of our weekend life, homesteading. We were busy again planting stuff, watching stuff, fixing stuff, and playing around with stuff. That's just what we do.
The post title might lead you to believe we've been cooking eggs, well, not like on a stove but more like how a mother hen would brood her nest getting those chicks 'slow cooked' to hatching perfection. Theresa ordered a dozen hatching eggs from a show quality breeder a few weeks ago and they've been 'cookin' in the incubator the past couple of weeks. She's hatching a batch of Rhode Island Reds, and the last time she hatched chicks from this breeder one of our hens won Grand Champion at the Benton County Fair. Theresa has been candling the eggs and monitoring their progress, they're doing really well and on their way to zipping those shells on the 10th (21 days). In preparation for the new chicks I built a brooder to keep the chicks warm. Theresa likes to use shelf liner for the brooder floor which provides good traction for those chicks to strengthen their legs. A lot of people use sawdust shavings thinking it's easier to clean, but actually it's bad because chicks will often eat the shaving and become "blocked". The lack of traction the sawdust provides can also lead to curled toes or bent legs, both will lead to lack of ability to thrive.
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| Hatching Eggs in the Incubator |
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| Brooder Setup & Ready |
Besides playing mother hen, we were busy planting blueberries and raspberries this weekend. Theresa and I did that while the kids painted the pump house. We picked up our plants from Roger's Garden Center off 42nd Street. If you live local, this place is where you want to get your plants. Small local business and Roger is just a nice guy. He'll offer lots of help and information about planting and taking care your plants. We got a dozen random variety of blueberries, for cross pollination purposes and early to late producers to lengthen the harvest season. Similarly we chose a variety of raspberries, but more for lengthening the production season as raspberries are self pollinators.
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| A Dozen Blueberry Bushes Planted |
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| Tori & Zach Painting Pump House |
Besides painting the barn we also hung our farm sign that we got for Christmas, well, actually it wasn't delivered until yesterday but it was our Christmas present from Theresa's dad. We were planning on having a sign made by a local artist that specializes cutting custom signs, but his work isn't cheap so this will give us time to save some money, besides it's a cute little sign for the gate that adds a nice accent to the farm. A thoughtful gift.
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| New Farm Sign |
Oh, and as usual we did more than I could ever blog about, like pruning the apple trees, cleaning up, and all the other normal stuff... Other stuff would be like watching another season of SOA and taking the motorcycle out for a ride. We rode through Old Marcolla Rd and McKenzie View, stopped to eat a quick bite at Applebee's, then hit a motorcycle shop to pick up a new tube for one of the dirt bikes. After getting home and replacing the tube on the bike, Zach and I had fun riding the dirt bikes around the pasture, splashing through ditches and slipping through the bog. Tori had a turn on the dirt bike as well and took a mud bath, just having fun. We took advantage of the spring like weather in February and enjoyed ourselves. Now it's back to the grind for a week and the only farming we get is feeding the cows and chickens in the morning and evenings, before and after work...
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