Feathered Friend Friday: The Pre-Teens Go Outside!

Welcome to our series "Feathered Friend Friday." Every Friday I write a post with interesting facts, photos, or funny stories about our chickens and guineas. If you need to catch up, you'll find all the Feathered Friend Friday posts here. 

As you may remember, about eight weeks ago we got some new chicks from our local feed store. Since then, our hen Ellie went broody and hatched out five of her own chicks. So we now call the original chicks "pre-teens" and Ellie's babies the "chicks" to avoid confusion!

We moved the pre-teens outdoors to their new coop a few weeks back, and they have recently begun to roost on the perches in the coop at night. Once they begin to act upon their instinct to roost, they will usually return to the coop each night on their own so we figured it was a good time to let them explore the covered secure outdoor run.

We've done this several times, and it's always the same. They are scared at first and unsure of what to do with the pop door open. It takes a little coaxing to get one of them to come over and take a peek outside.

There's usually one chick that is a little bolder than the others (Pearl, in this case) and she will take the lead. Once she braves the strange new territory, the others will eventually follow.

We will let them stay in this coop until they are fully grown, then integrate them into the main flock. For now, they can all see each other since the runs are connected, so when the time comes to integrate them it should go much more smoothly. The chickens don't seem to mind the pre-teens at all and the pre-teens don't seem to care about the chickens, so hopefully they are already getting used to each other!

I can't end this post without reminiscing a bit. Two years ago today we closed on our house and began our homesteading journey. I still remember that day so vividly; full of promise and possibility. When we first moved, there was nothing out here. Just the house and a carport in the back. Over the past two years we have added a vegetable garden, flower garden around the house, and chicken coops with a big run that we have expanded several times. We have added many members to our family including Duchess, our outdoor cats Baby and Sylvester, a flock of guineas (and their two flocks of offspring), more chickens, and tens of thousands of honeybees. I am so very proud of what we have accomplished in such a short time. If we were able to get this much done in two years, I can't wait to see what the next five or ten years hold! Promise and possibility are still as rich and real as ever.

~Tammy

Shared with From The Farm Blog Hop 

How We Homestead: Real Food

Welcome to the third installment of our new five-week series, How We Homestead. Each Wednesday I write a post about a different homesteading topic to shed more light on where we are on our path to self-sufficiency and what homesteading looks like for us.

If you read the first installment in this series, you may remember that the documentary Food, Inc. was the catalyst for us in getting started on our homesteading journey. Since seeing the film, we have been focused on providing real, whole foods for our family. For us, that means growing as much of our own food as possible. I am somewhat of a control freak, so it is right up my alley to have a hand in each step of the gardening process, from seed to harvest.

Row of cucumbers.


This is only our second year gardening out here, so we still are in the planning and organizing phase. Last year was sort of a test run, and we made lots of changes to the garden area this year. The biggest change was defining a large spot for the garden and building raised beds. We are still working on it, but we finally see an end in sight! We just have to add a little more mulch in between the beds (this way we don't have to worry about weeds) and finish the fence to keep all the critters away from our veggies.

Radishes popping up like crazy!

Our first strawberry!

In addition to our large vegetable garden, we also took up beekeeping this year and are eager to harvest our first batch of honey. In the meantime, I buy local raw honey from the head of the beekeeping club in our area. I love to use honey in place of white sugar whenever I can (especially in my homemade granola and ice cream) so we tend to go through quite a bit!

My first time holding a frame full of our bees. I finally did it!

One of our girls foraging on sedum blooms.

Earlier this year, we decided to try tapping our maple trees to make our own syrup. While we found that we didn't feel the process was worth it for the time and effort required, we are so glad that we tried and learned more about how syrup is made.

If you've been reading this blog for a while now, you know that we also have a flock of chickens and guineas to provide us with delicious farm fresh eggs. At first I was only concerned with keeping chickens for their eggs, but along the way I have learned how much fun they are and what great companion animals they can be. I just love my chickens and the gorgeous eggs they provide for my family!

Our ultimate goal is to be able to grow and preserve all the food that we eat here on our homestead. I realize that is a very lofty goal, and we are nowhere near it yet, but it is what we are working towards every day.

Four other awesome bloggers are participating in this series as well, so don't forget to check out their posts to read more about where they are in their homesteading journey. You can find them here -

Staci at Life At Cobble Hill Farm
Meg at Little Homestead
Daisy at Maple Hill 101
Amber at Making A Home

Thanks so much for reading and please do let me know if you have any questions or comments. I'd love to hear from you! Don't forget to check back next Wednesday for the fourth installment in the series where I will be focusing on what a typical day looks like for us out here on the homestead.

~Tammy

Shared with Home Sweet Home, How Does Your Garden Grow  

Strawberries With Graham Crackers

The first strawberries of the season are very exciting for me. I refuse to eat strawberries out of season since they pale in comparison to the real thing, so waiting all winter long adds to the thrill of taking that first juicy bite.

I haven't mastered growing my own strawberries, so I get my fix at the local farmers market. David and I checked it out for the first time this season on Saturday and got some awesome items. I even got to pet some baby goats! It was heaven. And when I saw the big, red, juicy strawberries I knew I had to have them. I ate several of them on the way home along with my chai spiced pretzel from the market and have managed to polish off the whole pint in just a few days. No apologies!

I've had this simple graham cracker strawberry bowl for breakfast the past couple days. All I do is slice the strawberries and sprinkle with a little brown sugar. I stir and let them rest for a minute to get the juices flowing. Then I crumble on a couple graham crackers and have at it. For a little more decadence this morning, I also drizzled on a local honey made from bees foraging at a walnut farm.

For me, this is the perfect way to celebrate the return of strawberry season. What is your favorite way to eat strawberries?

~Tammy

Shared with What I Am Eating, Tweak It Tuesday, From The Farm Blog Hop, Healthy Vegan Friday, Assets And Efforts Linky Party     

Feathered Friend Friday: Ellie's Chicks Hatched!

Three weeks ago I posted about our broody hen, Ellie, and I am overjoyed to say that all her hard work has paid off and she successfully hatched five chicks this week!

Two of them are a mixed light gray color and the other three are black with a few white spots.

It has been very hard to tear myself away from them for the past few days! I have always wanted to see a hen hatch out her own chicks after hearing about how cute they are together. I can say now after experiencing it firsthand, it is nothing short of magical.

"Sis, come out and play!"

~Tammy

Shared with The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Down Home Blog Hop, Rurality Blog Hop   

How We Homestead: Living Simply

Welcome to the second installment of our new five-week series, How We Homestead. Each Wednesday I write a post about a different homesteading topic to shed more light on where we are on our path to self-sufficiency and what homesteading looks like for us.

When we decided to make the move from the city to the country, we didn't realize it at first, but we instantly began to simplify our lives. In the city, we had a house that we absolutely adored, but it was very big. Much too big for what we needed, and it had old leaky windows, so our utility bill was sky high. Our new home is just a few years old and is much smaller and better suited to our needs. Since the structure is newer and shaded by trees, it is highly energy efficient and we spend about half in energy costs compared to what we spent at our old home in the city.

Living in the country, we are kind of forced to eat meals at home. The nearest restaurant is about 35 miles away, so there's no ordering takeout on a night that I don't feel like cooking. This is sort of a blessing in disguise, though, because it is much healthier to eat homemade meals prepared with whole foods rather than a diet heavy on processed ingredients made in a laboratory.

Where our lives are most simplified is what we do in our leisure time for fun. Tending to the garden is one of our favorite ways to spend a weekend and is also a great stress reliever. We love to take walks around our property every evening to note the changes in our flowers and veggies and take hikes in the woods together when we aren't busy with the garden.

We haven't been to a movie in ages; instead we watch chicken TV.

For us, simple pleasures is what life is all about. There's nothing like watching a mama hen with her new baby chick (something we witnessed for the very first time yesterday, more on that later!) or seeing the woods come back to life after a long, cold winter. Give me nature and I am one happy girl!



Four other awesome bloggers are participating in this series as well, so don't forget to check out their posts to read more about where they are in their homesteading journey. You can find them here -

Staci at Life At Cobble Hill Farm
Meg at Little Homestead
Daisy at Maple Hill 101
Amber at Making A Home

Thanks so much for reading and please do let me know if you have any questions or comments. I'd love to hear from you! Don't forget to check back next Wednesday for the third installment in the series where I will be focusing on real foods and how we grow and incorporate them into our diet.

~Tammy

Keeping Your Brain Sharp With Music

I started playing the clarinet in seventh grade and played in school until I graduated. For a couple summers in high school, I also played in the city's municipal band that performed each week at a local park. Music has been a huge part of my life, and one that is especially dear to me since David and I met through band! David is even a music teacher, so he has continued his love of music into his career. I occasionally play my clarinet with him and some of his students in small ensembles, but don't play nearly as much as I used to.

A while back I told David I wanted to play my clarinet more, so he suggested that we play together every once in a while. He can play just about every instrument there is, and even though he is more of a brass guy, he can definitely rock out on the clarinet. It's so fun to play together and I've found that it is a really good way for me to keep my brain sharp and give it a good workout. Playing my clarinet is like riding a bike; I don't think I'll ever forget how to do it. Reading music is another story.

David brought home a book of music for us to play together, and I realized how rusty I was at sight reading. It really did require my constant thought and attention to play each note while keeping the beat by tapping my big toe in my shoe (a habit my teacher taught me as a seventh grader and one I still practice today). When reading music while playing an instrument, there are several different things you have to keep in mind all at once and it really does give your brain a workout. Especially if you aren't in practice every day. And I better keep in practice because David wants to start a family band one day when we have kids! :)

Do you play an instrument? If you used to play in school, do you still play today?

~Tammy

Shared with Tuesday Muse 

Feathered Friend Friday: Baby Birds

Welcome to our series "Feathered Friend Friday." Every Friday I write a post with interesting facts, photos, or funny stories about our chickens and guineas. If you need to catch up, you'll find all the Feathered Friend Friday posts here. 

For today's Feathered Friend Friday, I thought I would post something a little different. Normally I write about chickens or guineas, but I recently saw something too cute not to share.

This is the second year that a bird has returned to this nest by our garage to lay her eggs. I always enjoy watching the mom tend to the nest as I wait impatiently for the babies to hatch. I was so excited earlier this week when I saw these five tiny birds in the nest! After I snapped the above photo, the mama bird was getting very angry with me, so I left her babies alone for a while. It was hard to do!

A couple days later, I noticed the birds standing up in the nest looking like they were ready to fly away. I remembered last year how they jumped out of the nest but stayed close by for a while, so I was wondering when I would see them walking around the porch. Soon after I saw this little guy hanging out on our bench.

He was so precious and let me get pretty close to get this shot. I really enjoyed seeing him out there whenever I would walk by. A couple more days later, I saw that one of his siblings had left the nest to join him on the bench.

I really wanted to pet and hold them (I swear I'm like a giggly little girl when I see baby animals), but I figured it's probably best not to interfere with nature and decided to just let them be. Today the nest is empty and there is no sign of the birds, so hopefully they found their wings and flew off to bigger and better things. Maybe next year one of them will return to the same nest to hatch her own eggs!

~Tammy

PS - Does anyone know what type of bird this is? I am not good at identification so I don't have a clue!

Shared with Farmgirl Friday 

How We Homestead: How It All Began

Welcome to the first installment of our new five-week series, How We Homestead. Each Wednesday I will write a post about a different homesteading topic to shed more light on where we are on our path to self-sufficiency and what homesteading looks like for us.

In spring 2009, I began to hear a lot of buzz around a new documentary called Food, Inc. It promised to give viewers an honest look at the current food industry in the US and reveal how it is controlled by several large corporations. I hadn't been too interested in where my food came from for most of my life, but when I found out about the film something inside me was provoked and I felt that I had to see the movie.

We weren't aware of it at the time, but Food, Inc. proved to be the catalyst for making big changes in our lives and inspiring our homesteading journey. The documentary opened our eyes and we were totally appalled at what we learned, so we vowed to take more control over our food supply. My first thought was that we had to start a vegetable garden; David was immediately talking chickens.

One of our first ever tomatoes.



Some of our first eggs.


We still lived in the city at this point, but were beginning to have big homesteading dreams and goals that would require more land than what we had on our tiny lot. We absolutely adored our home in the city, a very charming 1914 bungalow, but felt that as much as we loved our home, we wanted land more. So on St. Patrick's Day in 2010 (I remember it vividly because we lost our first hen, Raven, that morning) we met with a realtor and listed our home for sale.

The next year was an emotional rollercoaster. We eventually took our home off the market due to not receiving a single offer in nine months. We were crushed and figured our dream would just have to be put on hold until the housing market rebounded. After some serious and passionate conversations, we realized we were not willing to stay put and keep shoving our dreams aside, so we decided to relist with a different realtor and drastically reduce the price of our house for a quick sale. And guess what? We got it! Our home sold this time in just one week!

After accepting an offer, we kicked into high gear to find the perfect homestead. After a couple disappointments, we finally found a place with 20 wooded acres about 35 miles outside town. It wasn't totally perfect, but we vowed to turn it into our dream home; something we are still working on today.

The day our journey began.


Four other awesome bloggers are participating in this series as well, so don't forget to check out their posts to read more about where they are in their homesteading journey. You can find them here -

Staci at Life At Cobble Hill Farm
Meg at Little Homestead
Daisy at Maple Hill 101
Amber at Making A Home

Thanks so much for reading and please do let me know if you have any questions or comments. I'd love to hear from you! Don't forget to check back next Wednesday for the second installment in the series where I will be focusing on how we have begun to embrace simple living.

~Tammy

Shared with The Backyard Farming Connection Hop 

Mushroom & Radish Sprout Salad

This year we decided to plant several new vegetables that we had never tried growing before. One of the new crops we are giving a go this season is radishes. We planted our radish seeds a couple weeks ago and they have been shooting up like crazy! Radish seedlings need to be thinned out to allow enough space underground to grow, so over the weekend I removed a big handful of sprouts to make room. I was heading down to the chicken coop to let my feathered friends enjoy the bounty, until I had a serendipitous thought.

I needed to make a salad for my family's Mother's Day get together on Sunday, so I decided to take the sprouts to the kitchen instead and brainstorm a way to use them in my salad. I had some mushrooms in the fridge that I knew I would use for my dish, so I just sliced them thinly and tossed with the radish sprouts and some hemp seeds for crunch, then drizzled on a simple dressing of lemon juice, olive oil, and salt & pepper.

The salad was a hit! I got so many compliments and questions about what was in the dish. I was so proud of the fact that the sprouts came from my own garden and loved telling everyone about my secret ingredient. I know the chickens would have loved the sprouts, but I'm glad I saved them for the humans!

~Tammy

Shared with Tasty Tuesdays, Healthy Vegan Friday, What I Am Eating, Raw Food Thursdays   

New Blog Series: How We Homestead

I just wanted to pop in to let you guys know about a new five-week blog series I will be taking part in. Staci from Life At Cobble Hill Farm had the great idea of starting a series to highlight homesteaders all at different stages in their journey and asked me to participate!

I will be joined by Staci, Meg from Little Homestead, Daisy from Maple Hill 101, and Amber from Making A Home. We will be posting each Wednesday for five weeks starting May 15th about different homesteading topics including what led us to the path we are on now and what we envision for our future.

I am really excited for this series and can't wait to share more of our story with you. I hope you will check out my post each Wednesday and also all the other bloggers' posts to get an idea of what homesteading looks like at different stages on the path to self-sufficiency.

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great Mother's Day weekend!

~Tammy

Feathered Friend Friday: The Chicks' New Digs

The chicks are nearly five weeks old now (how did that happen?!) and getting bigger everyday. I have raised several flocks of chicks but I am always amazed each time at how fast they grow, and how stinky they get! We originally had the chicks in a small wash basin of sorts in the guest room. When they outgrew that we moved them into a bigger tub in the garage. When they outgrew that, we moved them into the shower in the guest bathroom. And now, they've outgrown that! So outside to the coop they go.

Our other chickens sleep in a different coop close by, so the chicks have this one all to themselves until they are big enough to mix in with the flock. I hooked up the heat lamp just in case they need it because they aren't quite fully feathered yet and it still gets a little chilly at night here. But so far they haven't seemed to need any extra warmth.

In a few more weeks, after they are used to the coop, we will let them outside to roam around a small enclosed area. There is a little run attached to this coop that is separate from the main chicken run, but they will all be able to see each other. This is a very important step in integrating flocks - letting them get used to each other for a while through a fence before you put them all together.

They are still quite a ways away from being integrated with the main flock, but for now, they are at least hearing the other chickens and getting used to the sound of roosters and guineas! This will definitely help to make their transition into the main flock as seamless as can be.

~Tammy

Clearing The Camera

Here are some recent photos that I'd like to share. To see more photo posts, click here.

Evening walk through the woods.



Jasper loves to sit on the organ bench.



Goldie making it hard to use the computer.



David at his day job. Directing the band for the movie themed spring concert!



Found our first guinea nest of the season! Guinea toast here we come.



Just before her shave. Sheep or dog? I guess that's the point :)



David's birthday cake - extra tall dark chocolate cake. It was so good!



In my element. For me, it doesn't get any better than this.


Hope you've enjoyed a slice of our homestead.

~Tammy

Shared with Rurality Blog Hop, Tuesday Muse  

Hive Inspection

Over the weekend, we had a chance to open up our beehive again and we were very happy to see that things are progressing nicely! We observed a good pattern of healthy, capped brood and lots of multi-colored pollen. We weren't able to locate the queen, but the presence of capped brood is a good sign that she is laying and doing her job well. The bees had drawn out comb on seven of the ten frames, so it was already time to put on a second deep hive body to give them more room to expand.

After taking off the outer cover and hive top feeder, we saw there was quite a bit of burr comb on top of the frames, so David scraped the excess comb off using the hive tool so that he could get to the frames more easily. We are saving all of the bits of comb that we scrape off along the way so that we can melt it down to render the wax for all sorts of things like candles and lip balm!

The first time we opened up the hive the bees seemed more than a little agitated at our interruption. I was really scared to be honest, so I stayed back while David did all the work. This visit went much more smoothly, and I actually got up close and checked out the frames. I was the designated smoker while David pulled out each frame for us to examine. The bees were definitely more calm this time around, probably because they have had time to get used to their new environment and also because we used more smoke. All in all, we were pleased and felt really good after this inspection!

After everything was closed up, I had a chance to reflect on the visit to the hive and make an entry in our bee book.

We thought it would be a good idea to keep a bee journal and write down our observations from each visit to the hive. As beginning beekeepers, I think this will really help us to understand our hive more and it will serve us for years to come. It will be a great resource to look back on and help us plan for future years of beekeeping.

After this successful inspection, I can't wait to get into the hive again and take a closer look. Maybe I'll even do some of the heavy lifting next time around and let David be the smoker!

~Tammy

PS - My friend Cindy over at Old Time Farmhouse has featured our homestead today on this month's Farm Fresh Feature! I am was so excited to have this opportunity and I think the post turned out really well. I'd appreciate it if you would hop over to Cindy's blog and check it out. You can view the post by clicking here. Thanks so much for your support!

Shared with From The Farm Blog Hop