Brooding...

CAUTION!!  Photo heavy post!!  Baby Photos!!  :)

Hello!

Our family has grown... by 52!!?

It has been a plan of ours to have laying chickens here at Schnick Acres.  Our first thought was to purchase 10-12 laying hens, however after some thought we decided that having a full flock (hens and roosters) suited our homesteading goals more.  After searching online, Derek found a poultry breeder that specialized in  heritage birds well suited for our colder Canadian climate.

This is where fate takes its turn.  Derek found a breeder of Chanteclar chickens with her last 'batch' of hatchlings for the season due to hatch within a day or two!  The timing would see us with egg producing birds before the winter snows arrive.

Having originated in Quebec in the early 1900s, the Chanteclars are very tolerant to our cold winters - one of only TWO poultry breeds to have originated here in Canada!  They are a very gentle, friendly bird that is sadly on the US Conservation "critically endangered" list and on Canada's RARE bird list.   We did some reading and decided that this might be the chicken for us.  We also corresponded with JoAnn the poultry breeder via e-mail.  Her answers were so clear and concise with a light hearted humour to them ("you can't get in over your head with chickens - if your flock becomes too much or too big, you can just eat them!")

With the thought of perhaps needing to brood a larger number of chicks, Derek set to building a larger brooder.  This posed a dilemma.  Our temperatures this summer have been fluctuating dramatically and our overnights have been cold making putting baby animals in the barn or the workshop unsuitable options.  Wouldn't it just happen that my craft room would be the perfect size for our brooder box?  And it has ceiling tiles that can be removed to expose floor joists for hanging the heat lamp and a door to keep out our MaineCoon cat, Micro.

With brooder box set, chick feed purchased, our family took a drive to meet 'JoAnn' at CirrusHill farm in Meaford, Ontario on Saturday morning. What an amazing experience.  JoAnn treated our family to a tour of her farm where we were able to see many different types of poultry and ask all of our chicken questions.  Walking her farm, we were greeted by flocks of  turkeys, chickens and guinea hens who were interested in seeing what we were up to.. or if we had a treat or two at least!  There were also some horses to catch Nicole's eye and friendly farm cats for Krista to 'love on'.  We spent a wonderful two and a half hours in Meaford.

It wasn't long into our conversation with JoAnn that we sensed her real admiration for ducks and it wasn't too much longer after that that I sensed Derek's interest in adding ducks to our feathered family.  We brought home ten little Welsh Harlequin ducklings.  Welsh Harlequin ducks are also on the critical endangered list.

In the end, we brought 42 little chicks and 10 little ducklings home with us.

Now as anyone with farm experience will tell you, you need to plan for a premature passing or two.  I feared the worst when we opened up our transport boxes at home and I worried again after their first night in their new home, but I am very pleased to say that we still have 52 little chirping mouths and scurrying feet in our nursery.

And now for the cuteness overload:

Little duckling

Ducklings make good pillows for little chicks.

A whole lot of cuteness and a whole lot of poop.  :)

Jeanette

It's easy to be GREEN

Hey there!

Moving to a farm and taking on more of a homestead approach has led to some great discussions with our girls here.  One such discussion took place yesterday...

Our location does have regular garbage and recycling pick up as well as 'green bin' pick up.  The girls were familiar with the process from our last home as well as from school etc.  However they were very curious about what actually happens to the green waste and how the same could happen here in the large green "earth machine" composter I had found hidden away under some pine trees.

I had spotted it back in the spring when we had come to look at the house and had thought 'cool, they have a compost set up'.  Upon closer inspection yesterday, I came to the conclusion that sadly it had never been used.  So, I dragged it out from under the trees, scoped out a location that made sense to me (behind the garage along the path to the barn and one day veggie patch) and rallied my troops.

I explained that we could set up the earth machine composter, allow the worms and microbes to eat our kitchen scraps and make lovely dark soil for our gardens!  Of course, the big question was HOW this was going to happen?!  With some discussion, the older two girls and I summed it up for the littles as "the earthworms will eat our leftovers and POOP out dirt.  The explanation worked... a lot better than our 'where do babies come from' conversation.  :)

The first thing we did was dig a few inches into the soil where we planned on putting the composter.  We turned this over to allow worms, microbes and moisture to get to work immediately.  Next, we set the composter in place, screwed bottom into the ground and we were ready to go!

I had read over the earth machine website and began with layers of green and brown (old leaves, clippings) as well as our kitchen compost.  We then added a little soil on top and used a pitch fork to mix it all together!

Though I was sure there were earthworms already present and ready to work, Sammy took it upon herself to collect some to add to our compost.

As with many aspects of life on the farm... now we WAIT and hopefully HARVEST.

Jeanette

Never-ending Granny...

Good morning!

We had a very wet and rainy afternoon here yesterday so as the littles snuggled up to watch a movie on the back deck, I took to some HOOKing; it had been a couple of weeks. ( I'm talking crochet here.  :)  )  And with the rain coming down in sheets I didn't feel too guilty about indulging in some yarn time.

On my Granny love Pinterest board I had pinned a free e-book from the crochet crowd for a never ending Granny square afghan.  I thought I'd start with a three strand version...

After some re-reading and re-doing and multiple trips for snacks for the littles, I had a handle on it and a pretty good start to it.  Perfect timing for a WIP Wednesday (work in progress).

If you love yourself some "Fibre", be sure to connect with me on Pinterest.

Jeanette

Make hay... while the sun is shining

Howdy!

We have been blessed with a week of gorgeous weather here this past week.  We made good use of it and began working on our barn.

Structurally the barn is sound and sturdy.  Its just not pretty... yet.  The barn board needs a good cleaning, the steel roof is beginning to rust and the eaves have fallen off in places.  It has been many years since the barn has seen animals in it.  The last owners had teenage sons that had converted half the barn to a games room.  Pretty cool for teenage boys I have to admit... however I am pretty sure that chickens, ducks and horses wouldn't appreciate the laminate wood flooring, the massive games table or the pin up girls.  :)

Renting a disposal bin we began going through the barn - keeping what was still useable to us while purging the items that were not (including an aged treadmill).  As we were not sure what we might find, the littles were kept busy elsewhere as Derek and Nicole worked away on the barn.

Kubota 1 : treadmill 0

With the interior back to bare, it was time for a wash.  Using his new gas powered power washer Derek and Nicole cleared away years of age from the barn exterior and inches of grime from the flooring inside the barn.

I should note that we had a couple of pleasant surprises!  The original wood barn flooring was intact under the laminate and looked great with a wash, and all the barn boards for the original horse stalls are present and easily slid back into place!

We now have two box stalls with packed dirt floor and a smaller area for chickens!  Our Chantecler chick order has been placed and are ready for pick up very soon... but that is a whole other blog post!

Jeanette

Northern Flicker...aka burnt dinner

Dear Family,

My apologies for the late, over cooked meal this evening.  As I was preparing to cook for you, I wistfully looked out the kitchen window.  The view is always so mesmerizing.

 I watched as our little chipmunk friend washed his face in the bird pond and scampered home for his dinner.  

I watched as the chickadees and the sparrows shared a meal at the bird feeder and the grey squirrel made an evening meal from the dropped bits of bird seed under the feeder.

And then a flicker of red caught my eye.  Red and black and white spots?

Binoculars in hand, a zoom lens for the camera procured from the camera bag and myself propped up on the countertop called a halt to our dinner in the works as I struggled to identify our front yard visitors.

It seemed as though we had some Northern Flickers visiting!  These woodpeckers use their beaks to dig up ants and beetles from the ground spending less time in trees than other woodpeckers.  They come north during the summer to mate.  It was the first time that I had seen these fascinating birds - and I think my excitement made up for the overcooked dinner. 

Here's hoping this pair stop by our place for dinner again sometime soon!

Jeanette

A bit like JUMANGI

Parts of SchnickAcres have become overgrown and are in need of a little TLC.               

Though I do not profess to have a 'green thumb', I can usually tell the weeds from the flowers.  I also have open mornings with lots of help, so I've taken to working away at some of the 'gardens'.  Sammy has adopted the front pond feature as her garden and began decorating it with garden decor while I pulled vines and cut back invasive growth.

Under some of the thick foliage we found wild strawberries!  Both Sammy and Krista thought it was such a treat to nibble away on these while we continued our work!

Along the curve in the driveway are some large boulders (we are on the escarpement after all), and it is here that I can picture adding colour with some beautiful daisies or black eyed susans.  As the girls and I cleared out some old grasses, Krista called out that she saw a SNAKE!  

From my college vet-tech days I remembered that Ontario only has one poisonous worrisome snake in this area - the eastern Massassauga rattlesnake.  This little guy was nowhere near looking like a threat, but a quick read on my phone (gotta love technology) and I affirmed that our little snake was a harmless garter snake.  My little ladybugs were so excited to check him out!

With the strawberries eaten and the snake set free it was time to wash up for some lunch.  I wonder what adventures our afternoon will bring?

Jeanette

Wordless Wednesday - July 1, 2015

View from my morning coffee.

Jeanette