Flour Making Time

Last fall I planted a small patch of wheat, and this summer Danny helped me harvest it and Brian helped me thresh and winnow our first batch of it. This fall I plan to plant more wheat, as well as oats, barley, and rye. All three will be ready for harvest early next summer.
In the meantime, we have our wheat, and in order to turn it into whole wheat flour we invested in this here GrainMaker grain mill. It comes with a handle that attaches to the big flywheel on the back. You dump the grain in the top, start cranking, and flour comes out the front. The big shiny knob on the front allows us to adjust the fineness of the flour.
Our initial attempts at grinding were not good. It's a true test of stamina to turn the crank long enough to produce a usable amount of flour. After Brian and I took turns cranking this beast for an hour we were both worn out and had only made about 3 cups of flour; a combination of whole wheat, brown rice, and oats, to be exact. I decided right then and there that this thing would be motorized.After a brief search on eBay I scored a new 1/2 hp electric motor. A trip to the local farm store provided a 1.5" pulley and a v-belt. After a few weekends in the shop I had a stand for the mill with the motor mounted in the lower part of the stand. Now for the test!
I loaded up the hopper with more of our home-grown wheat, and flipped the switch. What a difference! Flour was now flying out the front, and I had a cup of flour in under a minute. Here's an action photo:Next I tried some brown rice, and then some steel-cut oats, with the same result: 1 cup of flour in about 1 minute. Remember, the same amount of flour by hand took a grueling one hour! Hooray, electricity!
The beauty of the grain mill is that we can make just as much flour as we need when we need it, which means it will always taste fresher. Whole grains stored in the freezer will stay good almost indefinitely. Also, it allows us to make whatever types of flour we want. Even if we buy the grain, it's far less expensive than buying flour. For example, at Costco we buy organic brown rice for $1/lb, which means we can have organic brown rice flour for $1/lb, which is far cheaper than any source I've seen online. Our whole wheat flour (organic, of course!) is basically free, since the wheat seed I planted was leftover from a 50lb sack I bought for chicken feed. Some of this year's wheat harvest will be planted for next year's crop, at a cost of $0 (okay, maybe a buck for gas for the roto-tiller). This year I let some of our sweet corn stay in the garden to mature, and once it's dry I'll try grinding it for corn meal. Normally, sweet corn isn't used for flour, but I read that it works well as long as you make sure it's completely dry before grinding it.
Here's a picture of our breakfast; wheat, oat, and rice pancakes. Yummy!

Fresh, ripe tomatoes

This year we planted all heirloom tomatoes so we weren't sure how our turn out was going to be this year.  We were starting to get concerned because we had tons of green tomatoes that were either staying green for a long time or were being eaten by something.  Low and behold though, our green tomatoes started turning orange then red as if over night.  We're now to the point that we can't eat them fast enough. I'm making tomato/cucumber salad every few days, sending some to work with Dan, etc.  Here is a snapshot of our 'overflow'...

Forager's Harvest

Dan has been reading a book called The Forager's Harvest, which is all about edible wild plants.  Interestingly, it's written by a fella named Samuel Thayer.  Providence perhaps?  Anyway, one particular evening Dan had a hard time reading his book because a certain orange cat felt he needed more attention than the book.

Indoor animals

Most of this blog gives attention to our outdoor animals, but since I had this cute picture, I thought I'd show you Buddy and Ivy too.  Ivy is on the chair in her 'froggy' pose, as we call it.  Buddy is being Buddy.  A second after I snapped this picture, he was jumping at the back of the chair trying to scare Ivy.  That is how their day goes.

Corn on the cob

Last year was our first year growing corn.  It was growing beautifully, but when it was just about time to start picking it, each morning we were devastated to find cobs half eaten.  This year, we planted more corn and put up a fence around it.  It seems to have worked.  We started seeing some damage, but instead of just a single meals worth of corn, we picked corn for lunch and dinner for about a week straight.  Next year, we'll stagger our planting so we have a longer harvest season. 

Here is our corn garden this year...

And here is a close-up of a nice, big cob...

And here is Dan in the corn patch...

Egg count

This week has been a sad, sad week for egg laying.  Each week for the past 3 weeks has been getting progressively worse.  One of our ladies died this week of unknown causes.  The only thing we can think of is heat stroke.  That is also the only reason we can think of for the decrease in eggs.  I just hope this 110 degree heat index weather passes very soon.  For the animals sake and mine!

large: 15, small 75 = 90 eggs.

Weaning bunnies

Today we started weaning baby bunnies from momma D1.  Late in the afternoon, I took 2 of the 8 bunnies from momma and put them in their own cage.  I don't think they've been nursing much, although I'm not there at night to see what they're doing.  Momma didn't seem to care that I was taking them out... maybe she's thinking "it's about time!".  The two bunnies were curious about their new home, even though it looks exactly like their old home and is right by momma.  I plan to wean 2 bunnies per day for the next 4 days to help momma's milk dry up gradually.  After this, it will be just a few weeks until time to butcher the bunnies. 

Hornworms, again!

We have blasted horn worms on our tomato plants again this year. They appear magically, damage the plant, eat the tomatoes, then move on. Annoying little buggers! The two little grenades in this pic are horn worm poo. Eww!!! The great news is that the turkeys LOVE to eat hornworms, so we've been tossing every one we find to the turkeys. You just haven't lived until you've seen a turkey with a 4-inch hornworm dangling from it's beak being chased by 8 other turkeys who want a piece of that worm!

Sunday Brunch

Ham from our own pigs smoked on the charcoal grill:

Homemade potato salad:

Corn picked from our garden just a few minutes prior to eating:

Angel food cake and a Thayer original... homemade gingerbread gelato (YUM!):

Stretchhhh.........

There's nothing like a good stretch!!!

A little behind...

Sorry all, I've gotten a little behind in my blogging the past two weeks.  I posted several pics today, backdating them to when I took the pictures, so be sure to look back a week or two to get caught up.  I'll try to do better staying on top of the pics.  :)

Egg count / MTD-YTD egg count

This week: Large 18, small 98 = 116.  Down quite a bit from the past two weeks.  Not sure if some of the ladies have stopped laying or if they're just laying somewhere other than the coop.  We'll have to investigate.

MTD = 538 eggs

YTD = 1430

Front walkway...

It's been so hot lately that Dan has had very little time to work on the front walkway when it's not blazing hot out.  Not to mention he discovered the front yard is nearly all rock - in fact, we're not sure how grass even grows there.  It's been back-breaking work, so today he had the tractor out to assist with the digging...

Turkeys

The turkeys are getting big.  They're about 14-weeks old now, so they only have about 2 weeks to go until time to butcher.  Here they are foraging around the yard...

Tractor or me?

Every few weeks Dan takes a picture of my progressing big belly.  Today I asked him to take a new picture of me and he says "Only if I can take it in front of the tractor".  What?  What does the tractor have to do with pregnancy pictures?  Oh, well, I gave in.  So here is a pic of me at 32-weeks standing in front of the tractor.  I'm not exactly sure which you're supposed to be looking at though.  :)

Egg count

17 large eggs, 107 small eggs = 124

Egg count

This week: large: 27, small: 106 = 133 eggs this week!  Now if we can only get the new girls to double the size of their eggs, we'd be set!

Pigs 'n eggs

Just so you know... piggies LOVE eggs!  And I do mean LOVE!

Founds eggs

Today while getting into the bunnies food bin, something caught my eye.  A secret nest.  One of our Ameraucana's has found a private hidey hole and has been laying her eggs there.  Eight perfect little blue eggs.  So they don't go to waste, I'm going to cook them up and feed them to the pigs.  Our new piggies haven't had eggs before, so I'm looking forward to see how they react.

Negative 1

Holy cow!  Just when I thought our crazy bunny weekend was over, it just keeps getting worse.  Tonight after we got home from running errands and found our last baby bunny dead, I thought all was over.  Then, Dan went to check on all the rabbits and D4 had ANOTHER baby... 4 days after she birthed the others.  This time though, she wanted to make it abundantly clear that she doesn't want babies because this poor little thing was half cannibalized.  Dan, bless his soul, only told me about it after he disposed of the baby and didn't show me.  I don't think I could take any more bunny madness tonight. 

We've decided to stop breeding bunnies, at least for the time being.  For starters, they are a lot more work then raising chickens, turkeys and pigs.  We're also not sure how we feel about raising animals in cages without access to unlimited fresh grass.  The rest of our animals seem so happy.  The rabbits however seem, well, unhappy.  Until we can find a way to raise them in an unconfined way, we'll hold off.  If we can't do it according to our values, we won't do it at all.

Down to zero

This morning I got up to feed my remaining baby bunny and now he wasn't eating well.  Acting very similar to the listless bunny yesterday, he managed to get a little milk down, but definitely not enough to sustain him.  Doing the best I could I put him back in his makeshift home.  We had errands to run all day today, but as soon as got home, Dan checked on him to find him dead.  Poor little thing!  I'm so sad to have lost all of D4's bunnies - especially the two I tried to save, but at least I can say I tried, right?  I supposed this is something I'll have to get used to with breeding and raising animals.  At the moment though, I don't have to like it.

Down to 1

This morning one of the baby bunnies at well, but the other didn't and seemed listless.  I tried feeding her again around 1pm, but didn't have much luck.  I went back in the evening to feed them both again, to find my listless bunny dead.  Sigh. 

It wasn't a surprise, but dang, that didn't take very long.  At least I feel a little better knowing she had a more peaceful death than if she had remained with D4.

Egg count

Eggs this week... large: 30, small 88 = 118

More bunny drama

This morning we woke up to only 2 bunnies.  Sometime during the night another disappeared.  By this point, we can only assume that D4 is rejecting some or all of the bunnies and taking them out of the nest box.  Baby bunnies by nature crawl aimlessly (not a surprise since they're born blind and deaf), so we can only assume it crawled out of momma's cage and fell onto the ground.  From there it's only a matter of time until a critter carries it off for dinner.  So anyway, we're down to 2.  Later I go back out and find a baby not only out of the box again, dangling 3/4 of the way out of the cage.  It's only saving grace was that it was wedged between the hutch fan and the wall.  I freed it and tried putting it back with momma.  At this, she immediately started clawing at the two bunnies.  I figured they had no chance with her, so I quickly yanked them out, made a home for them in a tub and went inside to do some quick research on how to care for orphaned baby bunnies.

After doing some research, I fed the babies some milk with a dropper.  Everything I read said the babies had little to no chance of survival, but at least they won't be clawed to death or eaten by a wild animal.

Again, we shall see.....

D4 - Not a good momma

This morning bunny doe D4 had a baby in her nest box.  Just one though; quite strange for a rabbit.  I went back out a few hours later and there was another.  A few hours later, another.  And again, a few hours later another.  This time though one of the babies was out of the nest box.  There is no earthly way the baby could have gotten out on it's own, so momma had to have taken it out.  I put the baby back in and headed back inside.  A few hours later I came back out, but there was only 3 bunnies!  What in the world happened to the fourth?  I searched the ground, but found nothing.  A little while later, I found a baby outside the nest box again.  Still confused, we went to bed with only 3 bunnies accounted for.

We will wait and see...

Egg count

Egg count for the first 3 days of July... large: 10, small: 37 = 47

Busy day for birds

We received our latest batch of broilers today.  I'm amazed each time we get baby chicks in as to how small they start out and how quickly they grow.  We'll have another butchering day about 8 weeks from now.

The chicks arrival also means it's time for the turkeys to come out of the brooder.  We clipped their wings so they can't fly as high - hopefully this will keep them on our property.  We opened the brooder and figured we would let them discover how to to get out on their own.  Several hours later, only a few figured it out.  If by tomorrow morning, they all aren't out, we'll give them a helping hand so we can clean up and move the chicks and the hover in.  Should make for a busy day.

MTD/YTD Egg Count

MTD egg count is 273.  YTD, that puts us at 892 eggs!

Re-breeding D2

D2 is our rabbit doe #2.  We bred her a month ago and patiently awaited bunnies, but none came.  So, we re-bred her in hopes that she'll take this time and isn't sterile.  Now we wait 30 days to see.

Egg count

The girls production is really starting to pick up!  23 large eggs and 61 smaller eggs = 84 this week! 

Bunnies - 1 week old

Here are the bunnies at one week old.  All 8 survived and seem to be growing nicely.  They like to sleep a lot and their eyes should start opening in a few days..

Here is a close up of one bunny sleeping.  As soon as I picked him up, Momma came over to inspect the others to see what I was doing!...

The ole swimmin' hole

Yesterday was blazing hot.  I checked on the pigs a few times and noticed they were intentionally splashing water out of their waterer and laying in it.  I suggested to Dan that we dig a hole and fill it with water for them to splash around in.  Last night he did just that and they seemed to enjoy themselves. 

Today the swimming hole was dry so I filled it up with water again.  The piglets came running when they saw what I was doing.  I lightened up the stream from the hose so it was more of a mist and the piggies loved it!  Picture kids running through a sprinkler in the summer.  All 5 pigs ran through the mist and once they were all to the other side, they ran back though again.  Over and over and over.  It was pretty darn cute!  Then they decided to check out the recently filled swimming hole and got themselves covered in mud!  The Chester White pigs, which started out mostly white, were two-toned white and brown by the end.  But they're happy and enjoyed their day and that's what matters.

Piglets

We finally located a livestock auction that sells feeder meat pigs.  I had no idea this would be so difficult in the area we live.  Growing up just 40 minutes south of where we currently live, everyone had pigs.  There were a few commercial pig farms too.  Now that we want some of our own, you'd think we were trying to purchase something illegal.

But lo and behold, we found them.  The auction house sell pigs on the 4th Tuesday of each month.  So in preparation for the bid day, Dan built a frame to go around his pickup bed to contain the pigs for the journey home.  Of all days, I had to go into the office on auction day, so Danny went with Dan to make the purchase.  They headed out around 9am to make the hour and fifteen minute trek south.  After getting setup with his number at the auction house, they proceeded in for the showing.  They watched a few sales trying to figure out how the process worked then they brought out a lot of 5 pigs - 4 gilts and 1 barrow.  The auction started and after a little bit of no bids the auctioneer lowered the price.  Again, no bids so the auctioneer lowered the price again.  Dan decided to bid.  Within seconds, the auctioneer deemed Dan the winner.  We had our pigs!  They drove to the back of the building, loaded up the pigs and started making their way back home. 

Dan and Danny arrived home around 1pm.  They setup the electric fencing, got feed and water setup and started unloading the piglets.  When Dan set them down they appeared to have never seen the green stuff they were on.  After a just a little bit they realized the green stuff (aka grass, weeds, etc) was edible.  We can only guess that the first few weeks of their lives were on a commercial farm and were fed from a feed lot.  It's such a good feeling knowing that we took them from that and brought them to an environment where they can run and play, eat greens and whatever else their snouts find.  They immediately seemed happy and very sociable.  They come up to us to be scratched, eat out of our hands and romp around us.

Here are a few picture shortly after their arrival...

And here is Dan watching the piglets and you can see the enclosure he made for the truck...

Sliced meats

More than once the words "I wish we had a meat slicer" have been muttered by Dan. We long ago stopped buying grocery store lunch meat since most of it is some type of 'loaf' and chock-full of nitrates, chemicals and other artificial additives, and way too much salt. Unfortunately, we both really love meat sandwiches. Now that we're raising broilers and pigs it seemed to make sense to go ahead and purchase a slicer. Dan set out to find the perfect one. We didn't want a home-grade kitchen slicer as none of the reviews make them out to be quality appliances. We (Dan especially) does not purchase items made in China for a variety of reasons. This drastically reduced our options. After much research, Dan decided on a restaurant-grade Bertel brand made in Italy. The downside is that Bertel's run about $1400 new. So, he's been watching eBay for a used model and lo and behold, a Bertel finally appeared. On the last day there were still no bids. He waited until the last few minutes (yes, he's a sniper!) and placed his bid. The slicer was ours for a fraction of the cost of a new one!

Today we cooked two broilers on the rotisserie of our grill. One for dinner and one to slice for sandwiches. As for dinner, we all agreed it was the best chicken we've ever eaten. Ever. Period. After dinner he brought out the new toy, er I mean slicer. He started slicing beautiful pieces of chicken breast. Next he scoured the fridge for a block of cheese to slice. It sliced up beautifully as well. I foresee lots of sandwiches this coming week.

Here is our behemoth slicer in action....

Egg count

28 large eggs and 31 smaller eggs = 59

Baby bunnies!!!

We've been expecting doe #1 to kindle her babies any day now.  Yesterday she started pulling fur in preparation of her delivery.  However, this morning we still had no babies.  I went back out to check around 9:30 and we had little, pink, fuzzy balls in the nest box. 

I ran back in the house and grabbed my Storey's Guide to Raising Rabbits book to see if there was anything I needed to do.  The book said now is the time to give momma a treat.  I ran inside and grabbed a carrot and gave it to her.  She immediately started munching.  The book says while momma is preoccupied with her snack, you can move the box to see how many babies you have (but don't touch them with your fingers so you don't leave your scent on them).  I nudged around and counted 8 babies, which is perfect because that's how many teats momma has.  Then the book said if momma didn't cover the babies with the fur she pulled to do it for her so the babies stay warm. She didn't very well, so I covered them up. Lastly, it says momma needs lots of peace and quiet, so I'm trying to stay away to give them some privacy.  I've checked on them a few times today and each time momma is laying outside the box.  I'm afraid she hasn't nursed them, or isn't sure what to do.  The little babies are active though.  Eyes closed, they are crawling over each other.  It's nearly 100 degrees heat index outside, so Dan thinks momma might be staying out to keep them from getting too hot.  We'll just have to let nature take it's course.

Momma preoccupied with her carrot...

Close-up of babies...

Mmm... blueberries

Last year we planted a few blueberry bushes.  Most have withered away, but this one is not only healthy, but is producing fruit for us this year.  Now, if we only had about 20 more plants like this!

Chicken processing day

Today we processed 18 Cornish Crosses we started raising just 7 weeks ago. Cornish Crosses are your typical American chicken you find in the grocery store. I'm truly amazed at how fast these birds grow. With that said, I don't think we're going to raise them again. We had no issue with the birds, only an internal struggle as to how humane it is to raise them. These birds are bred to put on weight quickly. Which they do. But, by about 4-5 weeks we noticed they had a hard time walking. It's because their bodies are growing at a faster rate than their legs, muscles, heart, etc. can keep up with. It's really kind of sad that the desire to free range has been bred out of them in order to give us those beautiful big breasts and legs we desire. We've found another breed that grows at a slower, more natural rate. We're looking forward to experimenting with this breed next.

However, these birds are raised and we are quite sure they will indeed be tasty! The last time on butchering day, we went to the coop and grabbed two birds at a time, which put stress on the birds not being processed and wasted time. So, Dan built some transport crates to load up all the birds at once and carry them over to the processing site. This worked really well:

I should also mention that we processed one turkey that had leg issues. He was healthy as could be, but he was born with splayed legs (they grow out instead of down) and we just couldn't bear to watch him grow like that. And the other turkeys were starting to peck at him. Poor little fella!

We also processed our rooster, Big Boy. After deciding to keep one of the Barred Rock cockerels, we read they can be very aggressive. And indeed he was! The Ladies particularly didn't like him and the Girls that were raised with him only tolerated him. We decided to process him while he was still fairly young. We're going to replace him with a more docile breed that will be raised amongst all the hens, so hopefully they will all get along.

Egg count

Ladies: 24
Girls: 16
Total this week: 40

Green eggs and ham

Well, not really the ham part, but we do have a green egg!  We recently got our first egg from one of our new Ameraucana layers.  They are nicknamed an Easter Egg chicken because they naturally lay eggs with a green and/or blue hue.  I'm not entirely sure how nature does it, but it's pretty amazing looking.  Here are three little eggs from our new layers, all with distinctive hues.

Our first harvest

Here is our first harvest from the garden this year...

Egg count

Our new girls started laying this week.  The eggs are little bitty, so I can tell who is laying what.  Of course the Ameraucana's are blue and green, so we'll always know who is laying those.  As long as I can tell the difference, I'll log them here seperately.  I'll get a picture up soon to show you.

Ladies: 22
Girls: 3
Total this week: 25

Mmm... yogurt!

A little while back you may recall I made a huge batch of yogurt.  Considerably more than two people can eat.  Fortunately, chickens LOVE yogurt and the bacteria in it is really good for them.  As it started to get a bit sour, we decided to give the new layers their first taste of yogurt.  It didn't take them long to discover they couldn't get enough of it...

Of course, I didn't want the Ladies to be jealous, so they got a little yogurt too.  Check out the milk-moustache they're sporting...

Small vs. Large

Here is a tiny egg from our new layers next to one of the Ladies eggs.  We can't wait until the new layers are laying full steam ahead.

Nest boxes

In preparation for our newest batch of layers, Dan is building a new set nest boxes.  And the timing is perfect because I found a tiny brown egg on the coop floor today!  We thought we were going to have it ready in plenty of time since the layers are only 19 weeks old.  We figured we had at least another week or two, but like with most of our animals, we're continually amazed.

Finally, some rain

After nearly two weeks of weather forecasts saying we should get some rain, I think we finally have some on the way.

Completed brooder

It's a thing of beauty!  And the turkeys seem to love it.  I love being able to lift the roof to feed and water them.  It's the simple things in life that make me happy.

YTD Egg Stats

Total eggs in May: 149

Total eggs YTD: 619.  Divide by 12 = 51.5 dozen

51 dozen multiplied by an average grocery store cost of $3 = $153 retail value

Not too shabby for 5 hens!  I can't wait until the other 20 (yes, twenty!) hens start laying in June!

Bunnies!!!

The past few weeks, we've been breeding bunnies.  We have 4 does and so far we've bred:
Bunny #1 on 5/16
Bunny #2 on 5/23
Bunny #3 on 5/30

We will breed Bunny # 4 on 6/6. 

Bunnies have a 30-day gestation, so Bunny #1 should have babies on or around 6/15 and the next three weeks, we should have a litter from the others.  An average size litter is 6-10 kits.  Over the next 1 1/2 months, we'll potentially have around 40 more bunnies to raise, which will be for meat.  We've both only had rabbit in restaurants - we've never had it fresh, nor have we ever cooked it ourselves, so I'm anticipating some experimenting will need to be done.  Hope we like rabbit!

Egg count

30 eggs this week.

Building a brooder

We are currently in the process of building a permanent brooder for small poultry.  Our immediate need is for 10 turkeys we have in a temporary brooder in the garage.  The brooder will be large enough to have the heat lamp in it for warmth and also enough room for the birds to roam around.  Additionally, it will be slightly over 6-foot tall so Dan can walk around in it without stooping.  Here are Dan and Brian mid-project....

Gang #2

We decided that chicken gang #2 are old enough to go out foraging with the ladies.  We were curious to see how they would interact with each other.  And more importantly, how the rooster would interact with the ladies.  We decided to wait until it was late in the day to let them out, just to give them a taste, then at dark they went back into the coop.  We really didn't even expect them to leave the chicken run.  When the ladies were their age, it took them a couple of days to get the courage to go out.  Not so with this gang.  The door to the run was only open about 20 minutes before they started venturing out.  And they ventured much further, sooner than the ladies.  Here is their maiden voyage...

Egg count

26 eggs this week.

Chicken Tractor

This is a chicken tractor...

Today is moving day for our broiler chickens to their new home.  Dan constructed an 8x8x2 chicken tractor where they'll live out the rest of their lives.  Prior to today, they've been living in a brooder (a small enclosed area with heat lamps to keep them very warm).  However, part of the point of raising our own chicks is so that they can forage to eat fresh grass and bugs.  Factory chickens never have this basic opportunity.  Here are our 20 Cornish Cross broiler chicks going into the tractor...

The beauty of a chicken tractor is that it's fairly lightweight, so it can be moved by hand.  (No tractor involved, dispite the name.)  Half of the the tractor is chicken wire to allow for ventilation and the back half is covered to provide shade and refuge from rain.  The lid opens up so we can get in and out.  Each day or two, after the chicks have had time to dine on everything available in their 8x8 area, the tractor is dragged down 8 feet, where the chicks will dine on fresh grass and new bugs for a day or two, so on and so forth.  Hopefully the chicks will have a happy, healthy life and we'll have a tasty dinner.

Moving day... Saturday

We can see the Cornish Cross' growing each day.  They're getting bigger and rounder (is that a word?).  This weekend is supposed to be sunny and warm, which is the perfect weather to move them to their new home.

Crazy birds!

Our Cornish Cross' are getting big.  When they say these birds are bred to quickly produce meat, it's no joke!  We have their chicken tractor ready... we just need a few rain-free, warm days to put them out on the pasture so they can get acclimated.  About 5 more weeks until butcher time...

Egg count

28 eggs this week.

Turtle!

Just...

                 passin'.....

                                          through.........

From the dining room window, I spotted this large thing moving across the front yard.  I thought it looked like a turtle, but I wasn't sure because it was so darn big.  Normally turtles around here are about the size of your palm.  I grabbed my camera and ran outside.  Sure enough, it was a big 'ole turtle.  Here is my hand over it's shell to show the size of it....

Mmm... yogurt

Homemade yogurt, in fact.  It may not look quite as pretty as store-bought, but it sure tastes better!  This is  1 1/4 gallons of yogurt, which we'll probably have to share with the chickens because I don't know that two people can eat a gallon of yogurt before it will go bad.  I'm always amazed how easy and cheap it is to make homemade yogurt.  Here's the breakdown...

1 gallon whole milk - $2.25
2 cups dry milk - $ .50
Yogurt starter - Free if you saved a bit from your previous yogurt batch.  Otherwise, $.50 for a plain yogurt.

That's it!  The only other thing you need is a Tupperware container large enough to hold your milk, a heating pad and about 12 hours for it to sit.

TOTAL: $2.75 / 26 - 6oz servings = 10 cents per serving.

Sneaky!!!

One of my hummingbird feeders has been drained twice since we hung them not quite two weeks ago.  At first, I thought it had a leak.  I checked it out and no leak.  I chocked it up to very thirsty hummingbirds.  Yesterday afternoon I looked out the window and it was full.  I looked out again about 30 minutes later and it was half empty!  What the heck is going on!?!  I stood there watching it and discovered why it's emptying so quickly...  apparently we have very thirsty SQUIRRELS!!!

Signs of summer

Revamped corner planting bed contains Sedum, Minor Black Weigela and Petunias.  I can't wait until they all start to bloom and grow.  I also added rock this year instead of mulch to keep the rototillers (aka chickens) out.  It seems to be working great so far!

New bunny hutches

After we built bunny hutches several months ago, we realized they weren't quite right.  We had all of the girl bunnies together in one large hutch, which is not ideal when they're pregnant and after they give birth.  We also had a partial wood bottom, which isn't ideal as it requires a lot of work for sanitary reasons. 

This past week we've been building new wire cages for the bunnies that hang on the back of the chicken coop.  This also gives us another benefit.  Rabbits produce a lot of waste and if it just sits it creates ammonia.  Having the cages hanging up high allows the chickens to go in under them and mix up the waste while they look for worms, grubs, etc.  So the chickens are happy foraging, the rabbit waste gets mixed up naturally and we get some of the best compost available!  Win-win situation for all!

Here are the bunnies new home...