Windows open

This morning during chore time, I was in a short sleeved shirt.  Ahhh, is all I can say.  It feels like Spring out there.  I hope that the weather continues to stay nice.  I am tired of running the heater and feeling all cooped up. 

During chores our horse, Cheyanne was a bit spunky.  I know she knows it is nice out, but her paddock is still a muddy mess due to the snow run off.  Hopefully it will dry out today. Although we are looking at getting some wet weather on Sunday and Monday.  I would let her in the paddock but she rolls.  I was thinking of calling the neighbors and seeing if she could run in their pasture today.  Our plan is to get the fencing up around our pasture within the next two weeks.  Although 4000 feet of fencing is going to wear us out.  I have the count of how many post holes we will be digging and so not looking forward to it.

All the other animals are quite happy about he weather too.  The goat paddock is a bit muddy on one end, but they have a higher spot on the other half of the paddock to compensate.  We have four goats in the paddock and one kid still in the barn, soon it will be just three total.  I am not sure if we will be selling off one of our girls or what.  I do know for sure one of them is our meat goat.  So we just have to decide when to do that.  Not looking forward to it but if we don't do it soon she will start loosing the weight we put on her. 

The chickens have now learned to go outside and have been doing so on a regular basis.  At first only a few would go out but today I put their scratch out in the yard so they would have to go out to eat.  I am still awaiting our first egg, still two more weeks to twenty weeks...but I was hoping someone would lay sooner.  Guess they will do it when they want to.  They are all turning into beautiful birds. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful day as I sit her with my window open, knocking out all the winter stuffiness. 

Book Review: You were made to make a difference by Max Lucado

This book is a teens rendition of the popular Out live your life book by Max Lucado.  It gives real world ideas for teens to grasp the concept that there are bigger things in life than there own little worlds.  I read it and felt that it was a very powerful tool to hand over to my pre-teen.   It shows how to get involved in the community and do one random act of kindess a day by making you actually feel something from doing those things.  It allows teens to realize that they can do something at this point in their lives when many times they feel hopeless to do anything.

Wonderful and flowing structured book with a great therory behind it.

Mandi

Eggs and a surprise CSN GIVEAWAY



Well I am not ready to sell eggs just yet.  My hens have not even started to lay eggs yet.  They are 13 weeks old this week.  They are all quite beautiful.  We have 22 or 23, not sure cause they all move around when we try to count.  My husband and I joked last night that when we open the coop up in the morning, one of us should stand outside the coop and count them.  The other one would herd them out of the coop. 

Last night I took their heat lamp away.  I plan on getting a timer for the lamp, so it shuts off around 9am and turns on around 5am.  I am not an early rising farmer.  All my animals have adjusted to the feed schedule of 8am.  They are healthy and happy so that is good.  I was reading somewhere about people who farmed and had jobs.  It was stated that alot of people do the earlier morning animal tending due to having to do work else where.  Come to think of it, I bet the reason farmers tended to the animals so early was to get out in the fields before it got to warm or so they would have enough daylight to get everything done.  Its easier to tend to animals earlier than it is to drive a tractor around a dark field.  Although, I do remember my dad driving his tractor in the dark field a couple times.  I think bad storms were coming the next day or something.  Anyway point is, I don't get up at 5am for anything any more.  Even the dog has learned to hold it til 6am when the kids get up. 

All that being said, I researched our approximate daily egg collection based on 22 chickens.  We should get 11 to 12 eggs minimum a day.  My husband laughed when I said that.  But the thing is for a family of 6 that is only a few eggs per person a day.  If I choose to bake, make deviled eggs, fry eggs, or any other cool recipes then that is plenty.  Now if we start getting two dozen a day, then I will have to start looking into selling them.  As I said right now we have 22 or 23 chickens, we could get another 25 this spring as layers.  We are also planning on getting 25 meat chickens, to see how we can stock the freezer with chicken.  So at some point I will be selling some eggs.  So I did research on storage and how to sell them.  

To sell them the easiest thing to do is put a sign out front and talk to people.  As far as storing them, eggs can keep up to one month in the fridge.  When collecting the eggs we would just put a date on the carton. So for now I am currently saving up cartons.  Although I buy 18 pack cartons of eggs right now, I will switch to a dozen egg carton soon.  I do know of some neighbors that are willing to save their egg cartons and I plan on sharing some eggs with them.  

So now, its just sit and wait.  The hens are currently 13 weeks old.  They will start laying anywhere from 17 weeks to 22 weeks old.  Hopefully closer to 17 weeks.  As you saw in my previous post, I feel that they need to start earning their keep.  

 NOW, for our surprise giveaway. CSN Stores.com has everything from books, furniture, appliances, to swingsets.  Check out this link http://www.swingsetsandmore.com/ and you can gain an extra entry by commenting on what you would love to have from the site linked above.  The winner will recieve a $15 Gift Certificate.

Must live US & Canada. (CSN ships to those countries.)

Does not cover any shipping costs but you can use it on ANY product from ANY one of their sites.

All entries must be made by 2/28/2011 and winners will be announced 3/1/2011


Have a great day.
.

  WINNER LIZ



Check out this Giveaway on Pioneer Harvest Women

At the risk of more people being able to get in on this, I am posting this giveaway.  This is a beautiful custom kitchen aid mixer that I am drooling over this morning.  I have been reading Pioneer Harvest Woman's blog for about 6 months now.  She is in Oklahoma, so that makes us neighbors right?  I find her blog very interesting.  She was from New York, met a cowboy and the rest is in her book...Black Heels to Tractor Wheels.   I saw the book the other day at the store also and thought of getting it and probably will sometime in the next two weeks or so.
Here is the link, go ahead and enter to win, its easy:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/02/special-edition/

Fence, fence and more fence

So I marked out the fence area this morning.  So far, I have learned that I am out of shape.  I trasped through 4000 feet of snow.  Snow is worse than sand and I got my monthly work out marking off the fence.  Next we need 4000 feet of fence for this project.  I am hoping that this is good enough for 3 goats and 1 horse.  We will still leave the current two paddocks that are already set up, so we can feed the goats and horses seperate.  This will also allow us a pen for the billy goat once he is older.  This also will allow us to use the square footage in the back of the barn for shelter instead of our current 3 sided shelter set up.  Im sure this will make the goats happy during the winter and even once its hot in the spring.  It will also make it a bit easier for me to feed all around in the winter time cause I will not have to go out in the snow to feed and water.  I will have the hose set up to reach both the horse and the goats water inside with just a change in the hoses. 

As far as the pricing of the fence here it goes:

Goat field fence                 $240 a 660 ft roll, need 6 rolls                                       Total  $1440
Fence Post                       Treated 8ft landscape timbers $3 267 post                     Total    $801
Line Insulators for 2 strands of hotwire                                                                   Total   $150
Corner post                     3 per corner,  36 post (for gate too)                                Total $288
One 16 ft gate                                                                                                       Total $70
One 4 Ft Gate                                                                                                       Total $50

We have poly rope for the hot wire.  We will need horseshoe nails also and I don't have the price on those.

                                                                              Total Project estimate    $2800

That should be the end of the fence ordeal once we get it put in.  We may also buy a auger to put the post in.  We will be putting other wooden fence around the house for the kids to have fence.  It will be more decorative.  The plan is to make a wood plank 4 ft fence around the house. 

The fence will be unpainted wood but set up like this.  We may also put some rabbit fence on the back side of it.  We have a problem with neighborhood dogs coming into the yard.  We have a dog also and although I seriously doubt the 110 lb Malamute/Husky mix will get through the plank setup, I still would like to keep the littler neighborhood dogs out.   To build this fence (at a later date) we would need the following:

8ftx1inx4in planks

Landscape timber post

Driveway gate x2