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Irregular Update......
Mar. 24th, 2011 05:54 pmI'm finding it more and more inconvenient to get onto Livejournal these days. When I do, I just read to catch up - rarely posting. Will have to remedy that somehow. Maybe I'll make a weekly appointment or something.
What's new.......
The baby chicks are over 3 weeks old now, and we recently moved them to the "halfway coop". They will stay there a month or more then go to the big coop. We have a couple more of the old flock to put in the pot before this happens. Five of our hens are still laying - they will stay after the new flock moves in.
Last week Marcel ordered me a Grain Mill. I've been wanting to grind my own grains for a long time now. We did alot of reseach, and we decided The Family Grain Mill was best for us because..... 1 - made in Germany 2 - with the setup we purchased we can grind by hand and also with the Kitchenaid mixer. 3. there are many add ons you can purchase including a motor, roller/flaker, meat grinder, shredder. We shopped around for the best price and found what we wanted for $149.99 with free shipping from Millersgrainhouse.com. It arrived today (so FedEx says......I'm here at work).
With the new mill I can make flour and cracked grain for the chickens (and cooked cereals). Now we need whole grains to mill. We bought 25# of rye and a couple pounds of wheat locally, but it is a little pricey. We researched and found that there is a Co-Op that orders twice a year from Waltonfeed.com. Doing it with others saves a bundle on shipping. This is the best pricing we could find - but we're still looking.
The cool season garden is tapering off to nothing as summer approaches. Still have lettuce and chard though - and the onions/garlic won't harvest until mid June. I'm not entirely satisfied with what we produced with this planting. While nature had something to do with it (like that weeklong deep freeze...) I probably could have started earlier and protected the garden better overall. Next cool season I will be protecting with hoop row covers all season long. It doesn't look as nice, but maybe I can use my imagination and come up with something not entirely hideous. We did produce a decent amount - and, more importantly we learned some valuable lessons.
I am already started with the warm seaon garden though - tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, okra, beans, and cucumbers, and summer squash are all in the ground. This weekend I'll be planting some cover crop (buckwheat), planing a bed of butternut squash as well as re-planting basil (first planting were some old seeds I was hoping were still good - didn't pan out). I'm determined to get a good crop - and I'll be sticking close to the garden this season nurturing it along.
I'm going to post a photo slideshow this weekend - yep, promise
What's new.......
The baby chicks are over 3 weeks old now, and we recently moved them to the "halfway coop". They will stay there a month or more then go to the big coop. We have a couple more of the old flock to put in the pot before this happens. Five of our hens are still laying - they will stay after the new flock moves in.
Last week Marcel ordered me a Grain Mill. I've been wanting to grind my own grains for a long time now. We did alot of reseach, and we decided The Family Grain Mill was best for us because..... 1 - made in Germany 2 - with the setup we purchased we can grind by hand and also with the Kitchenaid mixer. 3. there are many add ons you can purchase including a motor, roller/flaker, meat grinder, shredder. We shopped around for the best price and found what we wanted for $149.99 with free shipping from Millersgrainhouse.com. It arrived today (so FedEx says......I'm here at work).
With the new mill I can make flour and cracked grain for the chickens (and cooked cereals). Now we need whole grains to mill. We bought 25# of rye and a couple pounds of wheat locally, but it is a little pricey. We researched and found that there is a Co-Op that orders twice a year from Waltonfeed.com. Doing it with others saves a bundle on shipping. This is the best pricing we could find - but we're still looking.
The cool season garden is tapering off to nothing as summer approaches. Still have lettuce and chard though - and the onions/garlic won't harvest until mid June. I'm not entirely satisfied with what we produced with this planting. While nature had something to do with it (like that weeklong deep freeze...) I probably could have started earlier and protected the garden better overall. Next cool season I will be protecting with hoop row covers all season long. It doesn't look as nice, but maybe I can use my imagination and come up with something not entirely hideous. We did produce a decent amount - and, more importantly we learned some valuable lessons.
I am already started with the warm seaon garden though - tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, okra, beans, and cucumbers, and summer squash are all in the ground. This weekend I'll be planting some cover crop (buckwheat), planing a bed of butternut squash as well as re-planting basil (first planting were some old seeds I was hoping were still good - didn't pan out). I'm determined to get a good crop - and I'll be sticking close to the garden this season nurturing it along.
I'm going to post a photo slideshow this weekend - yep, promise
