Growing Strong

All of our spring additions seem to be growing and going strong.  Our little Bay Laurel tree has never looked better!  It's got tons of new growth, and this weekend I was able to pluck a couple of leaves to use in a marinade for some of our grass-fed lamb chops...

Along with the Bay leaves we plucked some fresh mint to use...

And some German Thyme...

We have harvested a LOT of lettuce, especially considering we had only 6 plants that took off.  We've made salads, sandwiches (this is the BEST sandwich lettuce), given it away, and fed some to the goats (just as treats).  I was convinced that this plant was 'done' and cut the top off...and made plans to pull it out today.  Then this morning I noticed that it is getting tiny leaves in on the sides...maybe we will have lettuce for a few more weeks from this one!!

The small herb garden is coming along very well. The cucumbers are coming up and hopefully will make a shade curtain on the fence. We had a problem with white mealy bugs this week, but I found out the best way to kill them is a shot of rubbing alcohol from a squirt bottle. It worked great and things seem to be going well...

We have been harvesting and drying chamomile from these 4 plants once or twice a week for over a month...I can't wait for cool weather and a warm cup of chamomile tea!

Last on the herb update is the Fennel.  These grew after we harvested fennel last year and left some to go to seed.  Fennel seed is great for making sausage....and if you have cool enough weather to get a nice big stalk you can cut it up like celery and make wonderful roasted veggies...potatoes, garlic, onions, baby carrots, fennel chunks all roasted in butter.

The raspberries are all in the ground.  Counting the new ones, and what we planted at mom's house; there are 11 plants.  If all goes well we should have a nice crop next year...

Speaking of berries....the Blueberries are not yet ripe but they are getting close!

We picked our first 2 cherry tomatoes this weekend...the 4 plants are packed full of green fruit...

And we have tiny little bell peppers starting to develop...

And the potatoes are getting taller every day...

Jumping out of the garden and looking at critters, Phineus (our bronze turkey tom) has done his job well watching after his hens....and we've had 3 eggs hatch.

The piggies are growing well....devouring everything we give them...

And last but not least....our second in command LGD is getting bigger every day....

Does ANYONE remember this song?!?!

How is it that we, the people of this great nation have forgotten why we are here?

Pressing on with poultry....

We're still recovering from losing our entire flock of meat turkey poults, and still cleaning up brooders and buildings to eliminate the spread of disease.  As of today we still have 1 survivor; although I'm not holding my breath.  We lost 23 out of 24 BB bronze and BB white turkeys that were meant to be holiday gifts and meals.  Maybe this one will be a hen and we'll be able to cross her with our big tom. 

Our flocks are in God's hands and we don't always understand why things happen.  We just have to accept them and press on.

Out in the kid stall is a batch of RIR chicks that we're raising as replacement layers.  We had a RIR hen sneak under the bank of nest boxes and hatch them out, so we're planning to raise the pullets to keep, the roos will make good dumplings or will be canned.  In with them is a half dozen meat birds, our "Generation B" meat chixperiment that has been successful.  We have not had to buy chicken from the grocery store since Nov '09 other than for dog food.

In our big brooder we have 8 meat birds.  These are more "Generation B" birds that will provide us with chicken meat for July.  Yes that is a wild bird type feeder we're using.  The boys had used it as target practice, the wind blew it over and broke part of it...but instead of throwing it away we use it in the brooder as a chick feeder.  It works fine for the purpose.

 

In the next brooder we have a combination of 2 unidentified bantam chicks....that my daughter talked me into buying.  *Sigh* They are the big ones with feathers.  The other chicks are 1-3 day old meat chicks that we've hatched.  Since our original roo for the chixperiment was Angus (Americana X RIR cross), we still get color in the generation B birds.  I kind of like the surprise when the eggs hatch.  These will be our chicken meat supply for August.  We are 10 months into this "chixperiment", and been feeding our family for a solid 5 months.  What a blessing!  No mystery meat in these birds, no meds, antibiotics, steroids....and every step of their life has been humane, including when it comes to butcher time.

Now for the most exciting news of the day.......We had our very first ever turkey hatch!!!  Despite the recent problems with the BB turkey poults, our adult birds (a trio of bronze and a Royal Palm hen) have been doing very well.  Our Bronze tom has been mating with the Royal Palm hen and I've been scooping up the eggs and putting them in the incubator. (well, until she hid the nest from me..).  Well we had our first turkey egg hatch overnight!!!

He/she sure is an interesting looking poult!  I can't wait to see how many other eggs hatch (11 left).

Workin and Jammin

We're steadily working on the garden, and the garden is steadily growing weeds!  Hopefully we'll be able to procure some mulch before next week so that our weeding chores will be minimized.  Until then, everything is growing well and coming along nicely.  Our little Beefsteak Tomato seedings are nearly ready to set out...

The Homestead Tomatoes have been out for a few weeks and are starting to grow...

The Bell Peppers are finally starting to grow...they don't appreciate these lovely cool evenings we've had lately...

We need to do some thinning on the carrots soon...

And we've been steadily harvesting lettuce for a couple of weeks....YUM!

A few of our older plants are looking good, in fact I've had this poor Bay tree for years and this is the best it has ever looked!

And our Sage is blooming for the first time.....

Speaking of blooms...here is one of the newer blooms on our Joseph's Coat rose...isn't it beautiful?

And another first for us is the blooms on our water Iris...they are 2 years old now and these are first flowers...

Over the weekend we stumbled across a sale table at Lowes....we bought 16 golden Raspberries...

and 10 Concord Grapes....all gallon pots....for $1 each!

Also this weekend we were able to bring home our new Anatolian Shepherd, "Koruma".  She is our pick of Aegis' litter.

We finished up the month of April with butchering a few very nice meat chickens...

And we were blessed by a gift of some of the prettiest, tastiest East Texas grown Strawberries we've ever seen!  Rebekah and I worked this afternoon to turn them into strawberry shortcake with white chocolate cream....

and of course a  few pints of Strawberry Jam...

After a rough couple of weeks, we are wallowing in blessings!  Thank you, Lord! 

And now back to work!

Turkey Tragedy

Well, it's official.  We have the dreaded turkey disease called Blackhead here (confirmed by gross necropsy).  I don't know if it was in our soil or if it came in with some new chickens....but one thing is for sure, we will be doing our best to get rid of it ASAP.  Our adult turkeys so far are unaffected, but the losses to our poults has been catastrophic.  We have 3 left out of the original 24, and I'm not holding much hope for the remaining animals.  We currently have 12 turkey eggs in the incubator and will be doing the following to eliminate the contamination and spread of the disease immediately so that the new poults will not be infected. 

1. All dead birds will be burned.
2. The incubators will be dismantled and sanitized.
3. The henhouse will be cleaned out...new roosts built, nestboxes sanitized, and the interior walls whitewashed and the ground limed.
4. The chicken pens will all be limed.
5. The chickens will be treated with colloidal silver for 3 days, 3 treatments 10 days apart
6. All feeders and waterers will be sanitized
7. The brooder house will be whitewashed, the floor scraped and limed, and the brooder pen will be tilled and limed.
8. Any bird showing suspected illness will be quarrantined.
9. Turkey poults will be kept in a chicken-free area.
10. We'll be buying more poults in a few weeks, as well as incubating any eggs we can from the adult birds.

This is a huge setback for our production of turkey meat for the year; but we will press on.