Comments and Housekeeping

The comments issue should be corrected. I have removed Google Plus and now you should be able to comment however you like(if you so choose) without having a Google Plus account. I had no idea that it was doing that.

Bonus Bug Dog. Have you ever had a 50lb cattle dog "work" traffic hard in the back of your SUV? It's definitely fun. :P

2016 Homestead Goals!!!

Finally we have our goals down and edited. Of course the first time we wrote them out we realized that we were a little too ambitious. Not saying we couldn't succeed. With enough time, energy, and money(oh yeah plenty of that stuff) we can force a square peg through a triangle hole. However, we decided that maybe a less ambitious and more realistic approach would be just the ticket. Some of these goals have "Sub-goals". I just didn't really feel that each thing would merit it's own heading(by the end of this year I may have changed my mind ha-ha). So here is our reasonable list of goals for the upcoming year.

Meet and Greet Part Deux

Now for the rest of the Homestead. 

The new laying flock. They are about 7 weeks old in this picture. That was about 2 weeks ago. There are 7 Black Australorp Pullets(hens). The Black Australorps will be excellent layers of large brown eggs. Also there are 7 Easter Egger Pullets. They are reported by the hatchery to be very good layers of blue or greenish eggs. Then there is the rooster who is also an Easter Egger. 

Meet and Greet

So... I've been thinking about it and you haven't actually met the members of our Homestead. I will commence work remedying that situation now. :)

The Usual Suspects:

Left to Right: Zoey (Yorkshire Terrier and Official Boss of the world/Cat Herder), Bug(Blue Heeler/Border Collie and The Keeper of Animals and Grounds at Hogwarts the Homestead. Ahem... and last but certainly not least, Rats(Chorkie and Keeper of the dirty socks.) I am aware that Rats is a blindingly clever and original name. I assure it's nothing but love for this Rat Fink TM.

The Farm Must Go On.

Well you will have read all about the losses of our layer flock by now. I've read those posts a hundred times before they were published. Until you're farmer, you can't begin to understand how it irks me (maybe me a little more than others in a psychotic OCD sort of way) when I fail. When you fail on a farm that means loss of real food for your family or worse loss of a life(or 10). When your making an effort to do this for real and it crosses the threshold from hobby to this manure just got real, things get serious serious quick. 

2 out of 12. Not too good.

Well honestly things haven't worked so well with our poor backyard chickens. We were pillaged by a red fox.  Ol' Red got 2 out of 4 of our remaining chickens. My two favorite chickens. Miss Henrietta Featherbottom and Miss Minerva Louise McGonagall. They started laying much earlier than the others and their eggs were big and brown with nice dark orange yolks. Oh and they would come when called and ate out of my hand. So of course the fox went for those.

Red Tomato Jam or Swanky Ketchup...

Ya know, whenever I get a hundred pounds of tomatoes to can, I often wonder if I should seek immediate medical attention. I have to be nuts to do it. It's a mess. It takes forever. Blah blah blah. When I'm done with them though, I am always glad I did. So I call for another 50 or so pounds haha. The produce lady has my number though and suckers me into another fifty pounds everytime. She knows I'm cheap. Frugal. Whatever. She knows that I hate spending money. Passionately. I sweat in check out lines. If I'm in a checkout line this immediately implies two of my most disliked things. Close quarters with people and letting go of the green stuff. So she knows when she says I can have 50 pounds of tomatoes for $10 bucks I can't say no.