Schnick Snow Days

Good morning!

I was reading through Twitter this morning and came across some heated 'back and forth' between parents and area school boards that have decided to cancel all school transportation but keep schools open.  Because I have been faced with the decision of whether or not to drive TWO Wednesdays in a row due to inclement weather, I wanted to share my position.

First, to all the wonderful teachers I am blessed to know who have most likely made that drive into school today... thank you.

I do worry about my girls getting behind or missing key lessons and my first instinct is to pile us in the van and drive the 9km on the side roads.  However, what stops me is my safety concerns.  Poor weather conditions do not need one more mom in a minivan.  (NO, I am NOT trying to say us moms cannot drive safely...)

My biggest pet peeve when living in the subdivision was the number of parent drivers!!  Our school boundary encompassed an area under 2km square, and yet even on the sunniest of mornings, there was the perpetual line up of vehicles waiting their turn to 'kiss and ride' at the school.  This in turn had vehicles stopped on sidewalk crossings and sometimes causing drivers to make poor decisions such as passing stopped school buses!  One of the biggest advantages to city living is the ability to walk to where you want to go!

There were some working parents, but there were a lot that would whip back home again for that quiet morning coffee - after 12 years of living there, I sadly realized this was the majority of the 'regular'  morning drivers.

Right now I am in a very blessed situation.  I do not work outside of the home; I can spend the day with my children and work on Girl Guide badges, play in the snow and yes Sammy - study for that upcoming fractions quiz!

And I know there will be times when the drive to school will be necessary - late arrivals, project transportation; but for today, if the school buses aren't driving, neither am I.

Enjoy your day - and to my friends on Twitter... be kind to one another.  xo
Jeanette

February Developments

Happy Leap Year!

It is hard to believe that today is the last day of February!  While we humans spent more days sick (colds and flu) than in any month I can remember, we had magic happening in our nursery.

Remember my craft room turned poultry brooder last summer?  It has once again been made into a baby bird nursery though on a smaller scale for now.

Last November, Derek met the father in law of a friend who aside from being just a real neat guy, happened to have an older style, large scale incubator he was willing to sell.  Though a little older, the  technology is the same and the wooden panelled unit was in phenomenal condition!

So, in the last days of January, Derek and Nicole moved the incubator into the craft room and Derek set to tinkering and  calibrating and on January 31 we set our first five duck eggs into the incubator.

What  a learning curve... learning to candle the eggs to ensure they were indeed fertilized and growing,  reading the humidity and temperature and adjusting as needed and finally, learning to recognize distress in hatching.

By day five we could see that we indeed had four growing embryos and one unfertilized egg.

Day five

And once those blood vessels stretched out, the embryo seemed to grow so fast!  For videos, be sure to check us out on instagram!

Day six

Day ten

Day sixteen

Day twenty-five

Newborn "Acadia" Day twenty-seven

Learning on a farm is not always easy and our girls are handling the ups and downs phenomenally.  Our first egg 'pipped' the outer shell almost 24 hours earlier than the others and knowing it can take a day for the duckling to emerge we did not panic.  Unfortunately, the little duckling passed while trying to hatch.  :(

Our little duckling Acadia emerged on her own moments after we sadly realized the passing of the first.

Worried about the progress on the final two ducklings and seeing similarities in the 'unzipping' progress we attempted to assist.  Knowing that the umbilical is attached until the very end we were very careful to assist only with some of the shell along the air pocket.  Sadly one little duckling perished shortly after getting its little body most of the way out of the egg and our final little duckling was quite weak from the hatching process.

We set this final little duckling into the brooder under the heat lamp to dry and keep warm and would you believe, little Acadia would not leave his side?  As we checked in throughout the night, Acadia had moved the little duckling away from the heat and helped him roll.  

By morning, the little duckling was up and exploring!

Nosy little duckling.  :)

The hatching process can be influenced by many factors - humidity being a big one.  As the incubator was reset, Derek spent the day reading up on the different situations that can arise and tweaking our original thermometer calibrations.  Our girls spent the day loving our new little family members.

 "Taylor (left)  and Acadia (right)"

Our next trays are in the incubator and include chicken eggs for me, the crazy chicken lady and ducklings for a neighbour down the road as well as some duck eggs for Krista's kindergarten class who would like to welcome them into the classroom for some learning adventures (can I say again how much I LOVE our small town? How cool are classroom ducklings??)  

New babies... all just in time for the Easter weekend.  :)

Jeanette

{{WORDless Wednesday}} February 10, 2016.. BEST FRIEND CHICKEN

We are half way through the week and on our way to MINUS CRAZY temperatures.  Here is a photo that is getting a lot of love on our instagram page.  Last weekend's lovely weather had us out in the wagon... Krista took lots of time to love and cuddle her favourite hen... A hen she calls "best friend Chicken".

Happy Wednesday!!

Jeanette

I am a homesteader. Because we all need a label.

Wow.. Okay, so I need to get better at carving out time to sit here at the blog... I've got tons to get written down...

Rewind to the Christmas holidays.

A family member was inquiring about our move and our property and asked me "is it a hobby farm or a working farm?"

The question stopped me in my tracks and my answer was disjointed.  Ummm... well its not our main source of income but we are selling produce but that goes back into helping pay for the pleasure animals - horses...  what am I???

I chewed over this for about a month.  And then I took a look at our goals here at SchnickAcres:

Its really only one goal:

To be as self sufficient as we can be.  In our food, household supplies and one day energy production.  (renewable wind and solar..  just in case you pictured us erecting a nuclear power plant in the back 40.)

Vegetable garden mapped out under manure

Okay so where does this fit in with the farming definition?  The more I thought about it, the clearer it became to me.  We enjoy doing for ourselves and receive great satisfaction in our successes - such as enough extra eggs to share with friends and neighbours.  We are not survivalists but feel assured that we can process our own poultry and eat should we need to.  The growth we talk about, whether it be a vegetable garden, a wind turbine or a dairy goat and a few sheep all comes back to goals of providing for ourselves.

What can we build/make ourselves today that will sustain our family tomorrow?  Basically we enjoy living a pioneer life... but with electricity, high speed internet (which is coming) and NETFLIX.

Haha... seriously though.  I really feel that the label (because we all need an important title) of homesteader fits us best.

Thanks for catching up with us,
Jeanette

Smells Cozy... {{WORDless Wednesday, January 27 2016}}

Nothing makes the house smell or feel as cozy as bread baking in the oven...

I finally found a recipe here that works for me and a warm - critter proof place in the house for the bread to sit and rise...

Even my girls that tell me they don't like crust enjoy this bread.  :)

Jeanette

Chicken Care... vent prolapse

Hello to you!

I'd like to share my first experience with chicken home care... WARNING - my post contains one graphic photo and some icky-butt talk.  But for my vet-tech and nursing friends, fellow chicken keepers or solid stomached friends.. read on!

Saturday before last as I went about my morning barn routine, I noticed one of our hens with what looked like a 'messy bum'.

Much like parents that do a 'diaper wiff test' on their little ones (come on, admit it, we have all picked up our child and did a sniff of the bottom to gauge the severity of the diaper contents) I do peek under my girls' tails from time to time to ensure that everything looks good.

Upon closer inspection, I noticed a soft shell egg attached and her very red vent turning outwards.  Though I had never worked with chickens in my 'veterinary technology' days, I had a pretty good assumption that I was seeing a case of vent prolapse.

Scooping up my little hen and placing her in our 'isolation crate' I came indoors to google vent prolapse.  There are so many great chicken sites out there and each one that I read confirmed what I was seeing was vent prolapse.  Thankfully the soft shell egg came out in one piece and it was just the vent that needed attention.

Taking a quick drive into town for a few supplies gave me the immature pleasure at Derek and I leaving the clerk blushing  as she rang in our Saturday night purchases...

Back at home, I bathed our little hen in warm water to loosen off stool and  any egg remnants before gently easing her vent back inside with a gloved finger.  Patting the area dry, I then soaked a napkin in witch hazel and held it in place to help bring down the inflammation.

A warm straw nest was made in the crate and after a generous dollop of hemorrhoid cream on her bottom she was settled in for the night.

To give her body a rest from egg making and laying, it was suggested to withhold food and to limit the amount of time in light for a day.  We settled her crate in my craft room where the other animals would not be able to bother her and where it could be kept dim.

The next morning she laid another soft shelled egg with a skim of calcium on it and thankfully with no trauma to her vent.  Over the next day we steadily increased her feed again but kept her secluded and quiet with applications of the hemorrhoid cream twice daily.

By day four, with the name "Ultra Violet" given to her by the girls and some much needed rest, she was perky and bright eyed and ready to rejoin her coopmates!

Thankfully it was a mild and sunny morning, so I was able to reintroduce her as the others were venturing outdoors.  This was to hopefully minimize any hen pecking that might occur.

Everyone welcomed Ultra Violet back with no issues and she seems back to normal.

It is disconcerting to read that hens with prolapse can often have it recur.  Fingers crossed that we won't see this again, however, I will continue to look at chicken butts regularly.. just in case.

Thanks for reading,
Jeanette

DUCK eggs.. the secret ingredient!

Howdy all,

I have an admission.
I am no Martha in the kitchen.
I can't even say I try hard.  Recipes are read like a guideline and ingredients are rarely measured; more often than not, just eyeballed.

But over Christmas I had beautiful pastry, tasty pie filling and decadent cakes... all from scratch.. and all with one secret ingredient.


DUCK EGGS.

Say WHAT???

True story.  Prior to Derek adopting ducks, I had no idea that you could eat duck eggs or how tasty they are!  They are bigger, thicker and creamier than chicken eggs and have made all the difference in my home baking.

We are gradually spreading the word on our EGGcellent duck eggs but last week I found myself with an abundance of duck eggs... and one pineapple left over from the holidays.  I decided my family needed a pineapple upside down cake.  I went to my 'go-to' baking guide, a dated, well loved "Five Roses Cookbook" circa 1967.  An easy recipe that even a person as backward as I am in the kitchen can succeed at.

 And so I got to beating my butter and duck eggs and I noticed right away the creamy perfection!!

I burnt my hand twice melting butter and brown sugar in the bottom of the pan because for some reason I just forgot to grab the oven mitt.  ??  (wearing oven mitts was NOT in the recipe I need to add.  ;)  )

However I did not sustain ANY injuries while working with the pineapple.  As we do not have a coring knife, my cake will not have pretty rings of pineapple... just boring slices.

Brown sugar and butter with pineapple slices ready for the cake batter and then into the oven.

Thirty five minutes later... no smoke alarm and a beautiful golden cake.

A dollop of whipped cream and we had dessert.  Of course the girls picked off the pineapple pieces before devouring the rest, but at least the 'duck egg cake' portion was pleasing to their palates.

And with a full pineapple being just a bit too much for one cake, you know who I shared the leftover pineapple with, don't you?  :)

So the proof is in the puddin'... or cake if you prefer.  Duck eggs are wonderful in baking.

Jeanette