A Peak Inside

I know I haven't been writing anything but puppy news, that's because my life took a very different turn a few years ago and my writing followed. My main blog is now Our Bit of Dirt.
After years of thinking all I wanted was a small garden, I came to realize what I truly love.

Homesteading.

For those that liked my writing, family or hilarity; feel free to drop by the new blog.

From new eggs to meeting our new hens.

To the amazing finds I've been able to snag this Spring!
Free tomatoes to a driveway full of bricks!

My life is full of new fruit trees, berries, grapes, potatoes and so much more!
I've met some truly amazing people along the way.
Learned more than I thought I would in a short span of time and have continued to find new loves!
Jams, jellies, wine and pies are in our fresh future!

Last winter I started repairing two of my quilts that are getting thread bare and have started to repair them.
We continue to build, add and grow new things.

In the last two years our lives have changed so very much - feel free to watch the crazy ride!

Moving Homestead!

Ever since we bought our home five in a half years ago we have been working on adding to it! Changing the weed choked over grown back yard into a multi use space.
As you can see from my first two blogs on our house to be back in 2010 House & House part 2 we have worked hard to create a viable space, one for us, our kids and our mini farm.

Over time this blog has been filled with all my drama! Family, friends, kids, outings, camping, trips, pets, projects, rants, movies, books, recipes and other nonsensical tidbits.
Trying to get any type of sense, or reason for my mash up was impossible. Good news for all, I am moving the main bulk of what I've focused on for the last few years - our growing urban homestead.
My gardens, chickens and rabbits - plus all my future homestead projects to a more focused blog.

So if growing things - animals or plants, composting, green houses, building the items your self or doing it all on a small bit of land on a very tight budget is something you are interested in please follow my new blog over at Our Bit of Dirt.

This blog, Blessed Rain, will focus on family and friends - I will warn you that I won't be posting here as often but its not going completely dormant.
You have been the best and the most amazing people! Thank you so much for your friendship and support over the years.

When we first moved into our home I couldn't imagine raising chickens or rabbits but couldn't wait to get my fingers into the dirt!
Now I can't imagine my life without them! We hope to add many new things to both our yard and our lives - bee keeping, aquaponics, a green house, rain barrels and fingers crossed learning how to distill oils!
See you there!

Our Urban Farm

We have the very large back garden where we grow the large things, zucchini, squash, cucumbers, pumpkins, corn, peas ect. (The list is varied and changes yearly but those are the basics)

The upper photo of the lettuce is my wonderful and amazing grow box, showing only one of four sections. Its growing fabulous this year and I can't wait until I can start to harvest it sometime next month. We start it in March, replant it in summer and enjoy lettuce until late fall.

The lower large photo is my kitchen garden. The blog to how we made it is here. Last year we planted carrots, onions, dill, radishes and cilantro in it.
This year we've planted two large sections of carrots (raising rabbits has increased my desire for lots of carrots). We moved the garlic from the upper garden into the middle sections and they are growing amazingly!
Last years dill is coming up around the garlic and they seem to be growing well together! By the time the dill needs more room the garlic will be ready to be harvested (normally mid-July). So we will see how well it does when I pull them out.
The lower photo of the plants came as a surprise, this year when tilling our back garden we found wild scallions growing!
I've already chopped up a handful and cooked them up with pork chops! Very yummy!

As I blogged before (here) we have added meat rabbits to our family. These are the breeders so they have been named and will continue to be doted on. The kids have permission to fall in love with them (as we hope and pray they all turn out to be good breeders)
Hubby designed and built the hutch all on his own from mostly reclaimed wood we were given for free!
On top we built a grow box and are currently growing wheat grass for the rabbits! Up next we will be building the grow out boxes for the babies we hope to have later on this year when these four are old enough.
Fun facts about rabbits - the males are the sweet ones! With many species the males are dominant and aggressive - not so with rabbits! If you are looking for a pet rabbit, choose a male! They are the sweetest things ever, I ADORE Zorro! Such a love!

Then come my ladies! I adore my hens! All 9 are well, we are getting 7-9 eggs daily now that its warmed up. We've been getting so many eggs I've started to sell them, 1-2 dozen a week!
Also I've added Mukluks, the latest in Chicken Couture - in spring and fall when the rain pours down (as it did ALL week this week) these are a must! 

My girls are the sweetest, fluffiest nutters! When hubs wanted chickens a few years ago I couldn't fathom raising them (he hadn't even mentioned rabbits!). Gardening, I was good with. I love playing in the dirt! 

Love the feel of earth, love fresh lettuce, carrots and our first harvest of garlic last year might actually last us until we can harvest in July - but I've been milking them along! We love garlic!

Raising chickens scared me! I was worried about the amount of care, time and health of taking care of them in such a mixed climate as Northern Utah has - bitter raging cold in winter and fiery hot summers.

They have been a joy!

I can't even believe it took me so long to get them! I don't know why more people don't have chickens in places its legal to raise them!

Next year (or the year after, life always throws odd things at us) we hope to add honey bees. We are also working on converting our small shed or even building a green house for an aquaponics system. Hopefully in the future we will have lettuce all year round, along with duck weed and fish.

So we have a bit of land, not much at all really, but manage to have a small homestead set up. The key is to take it one step at a time. I'm not overwhelmed with everything because we've slowly added one thing at a time.

Until next time ;) stay safe and healthy!

Hens, Eggs and Windows

Going outside today hoping to sneak one or two photos of eggs in the laying boxes I found a gold mine - or rather an egg mine!
The lighting outside doesn't do their color justice. Those aren't white eggs, they are lovely blue! My Easter Eggers lay some truly stunning colors!
The brown are from the Rhode Island reds - who even though there are only four of them rule the entire chicken yard!
They take the "best" laying nests, hog the food and scold the rest.

Yesterday for the first day we received 9 beautiful eggs from our 9 laying ladies! Its the first day we've had all 9 lay all on the same day. The Rhode Island reds seem better at producing at almost an egg a day. The Easter Eggers are averaging five eggs to every seven days.
Both numbers place them toward the top of the layer chain. Some more ornamental chickens lay one egg a week (or less). So I have some hard working ladies on my hands!

The two laying boxes closest to the house have been taken over as Rhode Island Red boxes.
The two farther away from the house are now used solely by the Easter Eggers. When I started chicken care I had no idea we'd have a mini west side story going on in the coop! However they are happy, healthy and get along fine in the yard.

Now not to brag (BRAGGING happening now a-hem) but I have the best husband and friends in the world.
Hubby's bestie Shayne gave us a window (a while ago) and my darling (finally) put it in.

Measure, marking, cutting and install took just over an hour.

I know, I brag on my man, but seriously I'm blessed beyond belief. Not only has he endured 13 years of me (which says a lot about his patience) but he continues to spoil me with home projects.
Last week he also fixed our fridge which had stopped cooling properly and wired his shed for power and light so he can continue doing projects during the winter months!

Thank you both to Shayne and to my darling - you guys ROCK!

Nesting Box Curtains

After a ton of Chicken Coop research - see my Chicken Board on Pinterest here, I realized that the pretty curtains I'd seen in other photos of coops were more than just decoration.

Here are links to my favorite articles on them:

7 Reasons to Hang Curtains
Chicken Coop Curtains 
&
Breaking the Broody

Now I put up the left side first since that where the majority of our chickens like to lay their eggs. It wasn't until the day after I had put the first set of curtains up that we had any of the stated issues.
One minor pecked at egg - the inner film was still intact so it was edible.
In the week following both sets of curtains being up, we haven't had any issues and I'm praying that continues.

The girls seem to enjoy them and they were a snap to put up!

Materials:
One torn old bed sheet
Staple gun
Staples
Scissors

Time: 5 minutes a side.

I took the material out, measured it by hand, cut, stapled, cut up the center and tied off the sides. Seriously that simple.

Now there are different ways to hang curtains, if you click on my board or even search using the words nesting box curtains you will see a variety of styles.
From what I've read I most likely will need to rehang a new set every spring. Time will tell. So far the girls leave them alone.

I will continue to save old sheets and clothing for random projects such as these!

Chicken Roof

We brought home our baby chickens in February. They were small tiny balls of fluff. They stunk up the house, caused me sleepless nights and in general drove me crazy - especially when they started hoping out of their box and attempted to either join me on the treadmill or get killed by the treadmill.

Thankfully, before any of them were hurt by my workouts it had warmed up enough (long, warm, crazy spring this year) for us to build the coop and take them outside.
While they were adjusting to life outside and they were still small enough to roam the mini night yard, we worked to build them a larger yard, a fenced safe area for them to spend the majority of their days. (We do still let them range free in the main yard as well)

What we were missing, a vital part to wintering our chickens here in Northern Utah was a good roof.
Now, there are a few (very few) homes here in Utah with flat roofs, I will let you in on a secret if you ever decide to move here - don't buy a house with a flat roof.
Its not every year that Utah gets massive amounts of heavy wet snow that never melts, but the one in every few years that we do - its serious.
With the new roof we also hid the heat lamp inside of it, using the staple gun to tack the cord to the wall holding it still.
In the winter we will have a hot rock to keep their water from freezing and the heat lamp on to keep them warm and toasty.
Now all we need to do is run a power cord from the house to the coop!

For those that are paying attention yes that is the same wood as the fence both behind and around the coop, yes its still apart of the original wood we snagged for $26.00 last year - we also finished the garden fence with it as well - but that's tomorrows post!

Uber busy!

I have been crazy busy the past few weeks. I've made a footstool, roofed the chicken coop for winter, built a fence and a feeder with the husband. Gone to Friday nights music & movie in the park with friends. Enjoyed rain and sunshine.
I've taken a myriad of photos. So what I plan to do is break them all up into small mini blogs.
This is the teaser.
I'm scheduling them so hopefully one a day will post for the next full week.

If you click on today's picture you can see the girls (chickens)  having a ton of fun.
We are now averaging 5-7 eggs daily and they are growing in size as well.
Each hen is starting to show their unique personality.
I did have to change one name. Instead of having both an Anne and an Annabeth, I switched Anne to Lizzie.
One day when we get new hens I will use the name Anne, but for now we want to uncomplicate things.

Tomorrow we are watching Box Trolls in the park with our friends Shayne & Sara as well as Lori & Neil. I love spending time with everyone!
Saturday my bestie and I are going to see Pentatonix and Kelly Clarkson - hopefully the storm that is supposed to blow in this weekend will have moved on - especially since its an outdoor concert!!!

The kids are determined to enjoy the last few days before school starts on the 24th and I am working on getting the house set up for another round of online schooling.
Sorry I haven't been updating as much as I used to but for some odd reason it feels like life has just taken off lately and I'm rushing behind it trying to catch up.
With that said - stay tuned!

Eggs, Girls and Life

I know its been ages since I've blogged (again) summer here has been HOT. Our garden is hanging on by a thread. Parts are growing well, while others are withering and dying.

The kids are having the time of their lives even as their school supplies have started arriving. To keep them on track they have been doing very light summer school and reading each day.

On to the fun and insane topic that I really, really find funny. Our chickens! First off a few of them are laying already - cute tiny half sized eggs. We just ordered their legs bands so I can finally start naming all of them - instead of the two names I had because they were the only ones I could tell apart from the rest.

Tiny egg next to a golf ball

Also side note - out of the 12 babies we bought 9 survived to adulthood. ALL 9 seem to be female. What are the odds of buying unsexed babies and finding they're ALL girls!?!
Hubby added another set of laying boxes since we ended up with more girls than we thought we would.

Now back to naming the ladies. Drumroll....

1. Lemony Snicket (yes male name but since my beautiful Americana looks like lemon pepper seasoning it works. Lemony Snicket pen name for Daniel Handler)
2. Henrietta (You can't have a flock of hens without this name. Don't argue with me, I'm convinced this is a must.)
3. Clary (Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare)
4. Hermione (Harry Potter by J.K Rowling)
5. Anne (Jane Austen's Persuasion)
Anne has been changed to Lizzie from Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice having both an Anne and an Annabeth was too confusing for the kids. Later on down the road when the flock changes we will have an Anne again.
6. Polgara (The Belgariad & The Mallorean by David Eddings)
7. Vin (Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson)
8. Kahlan (Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind)
9. Annabeth (Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan)

I don't know if you can tell but I LOVE reading. There were a few names that we cut out because we knew they would be uber popular and/or no one would know they were from books.
Cut names were Arya (both from Eragon and Game of Thrones), Esther (Dickens Bleak House), Tris  (Divergent), Rose (Vampire Academy) & Poppet (Night Circus).

Not all of the girls but most of them

Summer seems to be flying past! Highlights so far include my amazing B-day weekend, 4th of July party at Shayne's, lazy pool days with the kiddos and my sister scoring an amazing job!
Hope everyone else is having an amazing summer!

Chicken Haven Complete

I'm sore and tired, but extremely happy that one major summer project is finally complete.
Sure we may tweek the top of the coop come fall, we may add another set of laying boxes to the other side of the coop, but for now at least, its done.

We lined the insides of the fence with chicken wire as well to keep them in and Patch out. He LOVES the chickens but wants to play, bite their necks, so he has to stay on the outside of the fence.

Update 8/8/15: Patch actually LOVES the chickens (not in a bad way) when they are together in the same yard the most he does to them is to try to gently herd them back into their smaller yard and out of his yard. We still have to keep them separate though due to his LOVE and OBSESSION with rolling in their wet poop!
Now they share the yard, he gets it in the morning to mid-afternoon and they get afternoon into evening. Thankfully this has been working for them all.

We really did a lot of work to get the entire area completed. Not to mention I ran out to have lunch with my bestie. I was trying to get to the ER before she was discharged but I didn't make it. On a good note - she's fine. Her arm is in a splint for a few days but she is recovering.

The chickens seem to love having some room to run around. They chased each other around for a while before settling into the happy task of eating all the ants that had been biting my hubby for digging a hole into their home.
My hubby was childishly delighted that the chickens were eating the ants - every time he looked over at them scratching the nest he would beam.

I can't wait for them to start laying eggs! Hubby wants to make custard, I want flan and everyone in the house adores breakfast for dinner!

Each year we have continued to work on more projects. Already we have this years garden half way started! The kids will get the last of the fencing wood to add to their playground - so even though the season for yard work has just started, we are well on our way!
To the outer chicken yard we will be adding a dirt bath area, a chicken swing, possibly a few perch poles and a small mini salad buffet. (That's a lettuce grow box with chicken wire over it so they can't get at the roots.)

So for a fence that cost us 26.00 dollars (1 penny per piece of wood) I think we got quite the deal! I adore the cull section of Lowes!
Next project is the kids playground, planting the rest of the garden and then dismantling our fireplace chimney - but that's another story!

Chickens, Coop and Fencing

Last week we got half of the fence done. Tomorrow should see the end of the battle! We really need to get the outer day area fence done - our little chickies are almost full grown! They need the room to run around! Hubby and I are excited for the weather forecast, tomorrow is supposed to be 70 deg and sunny! A good day for the amount of work we need to get done.
We also need to plant the corn that hubby started indoors and is now several inches already!

Also my lettuce is coming up and I am very excited! Home grown lettuce is much yummier and sweeter tasting than what you buy in the store!

The small painted pink boards are for the coop, to panel around the edges, tucking in the chicken wire and will hopefully give it a finished look.

Today we took a rare break from school work for a quick play date at my bestie's house. 

The kids swung on swings, jumped on the trampoline, played with Patch and then after they had run themselves ragged they crashed and watched half of Wall-e. 

I love having some time with my BFF. We don't get enough time to spend together and just talk about random things.
She is 100%, one of my favorite people in the entire world! There isn't anyone I would rather spend time with, chat with, shop with, tell secrets with or sing with. Joy, pain, love, sorrow, we've been together through thick and thin.
I don't normally gush so much, but today we crossed yet another TMI threshold that we hadn't crossed before (which for two very blunt spoken women is saying something).
So here's to TMI, friendship and a future that we can't even begin to imagine!.


Also I am down to 205 pds Yay!

Easter Egging!

Last night when we went to lock up the house for the night, we found two buckets and two kites on our front porch. They had notes addressed to Prissy and to G'man! Indicating eggs had already been laid down and were waiting for the kids!

We'd been Eastered! A surprise Easter Egging!

Now before you wonder - yes I am that lucky, and yes I have some very amazing loving people in my life, as well as in my kids lives!

This morning while the kids hunted eggs, mama and papa hunted the givers! Our very good friends Shayne and Sara played Easter bunny and gave our kids much more than just candy! They have been smiling and feeling so very extra special today!

Also we finished painting the chicken coop and worked more on the outside fence. They are getting so large they will need to be able to run around the day coop soon!

Yesterday and today we worked on backyard projects. Hubby tilled the entire back garden. We fixed the tiller and ran into my besties sister - which is a whole other story.
Due to the amount of spring work we've been trying to get done, we had a very simple quite Easter dinner.
Here is the recipe and photo of dinner!

Whether you celebrate Easter or Passover I pray today was blessed and full of love.

Tears, Friends and Projects.

Saturday morning I attended a funeral for Louis Damolaris.
You may not know this about me, but I suck at lying, bright cheery words and false hope. A very good friend of mine chose to let me spend this time with her, knowing full well that I'm not the best at cheering anyone up.
You see both her and I, have buried people before. Early deaths, shocking deaths, painful deaths. She and I both know that tender sympathy and kind words are hollow.
Instead I sat next to her and cried.

Afterwards we went up to one of her favorite places and had waffles.

In typical, lets be a brat moment, I had the staff call out for Hot Stuff when our food was up. Her daughter is now embarrassed to be seen with me. (Love you Megan!)

We spent the rest of the day together with my best friend Margie. We ate, chatted, laughed, made fun of people and each other, yelled at traffic and watched Insurgent.
We didn't try to forget or avoid sensitive topics, we didn't try to paint pretty pictures of the future, we just spent the day together.

Sunday started off with a... broken window that we are positive the Wa-Um must have broken. The Wa-Um is our son's imaginary friend/monster. The Wa-Um has been blamed for everything since my son was two years old. Since NO ONE told us that it broke or how, it MUST be the Wa-Um again.
Dang! I really hoped that when we moved, we'd left him behind.

Our chickens are growing quickly and are adorable. So far they are very quiet and well behaved.
My bestie though has taken to calling me the Chicken Epi Lady. While I adore her, I am thinking up future pay backs for this one.

The Kitchen garden is done! We've filled in the dirt, separated the sections, and I finished planting it today! Now all I have to do is weed, water and wait. 

I hate wait.

I have to go now, hubby is calling me to help fix the window and he really, REALLY wants me off the computer! 

Chicken Coop and Fun

It will be after 8 pm when I'm done writing this post - and I've finally sat down for the first time since 10 am!
If I hadn't been working out for the past two months there is NO WAY I would've made it through today!

Last night my daughter had a sleep over, at which of course no one slept. This morning we hit the ground running!
Thankfully I made a filling breakfast of scrambled eggs, turkey bacon and toast. Oh and COFFEE!!! Massive amounts of yummy Cherry Chocolate Coffee!

First off we finished adding the chicken wire to the chicken coop, made their ramp and then brought the little buggers out of the house and outside for the first time!
After that we ran off to Lowes for more supplies. At this point they should just give me stock in their company.

We aren't fully done with it, but its fine for spring/summer. We may add a second set of laying boxes on the other side and we will be adding windows to it tomorrow.

A few months ago Hubby and I found the most amazing cull lumber at Lowes (returned or damaged items for WAY cheap). We were able to buy two massive cart loads of cedar 6 ft. fencing for 22.00!
Now we are building the outer fence for the chickens with it! We have two sections up today and will finish one wall tomorrow.
This way they will have a day area for them to range, play, and eat in, as well as, an inner safer area for nighttime.
I never ever thought I would be a chicken lady, but hey life's an adventure right?

Not mine, not mine, not mine, not mine, mine and mine - top large ;)

At least these guys think so! 

They had a ball playing together today! The girls decided to use chalk to make them... something.

One girl wanted to look fierce, another pretty, colorful, hilarious... each to their own.

They were together, they were playing and they were enjoying life! What else needs to be said?