Snow Day!

Snow! Again! Yes, I know it's March and yes, I know snow is common in early March in Virginia. What is NOT common are 65 degree days, daffodils blooming, and late spring weather. My husband is out plowing, where last week we were working on the cold frame and transplanting berry plants. The grandchildren and dogs are delighted. The hens, well, not so much - they haven't come out of their house yet this morning - unusual for them at 9:30 a.m., but really, who can blame them!
And yes, these disgruntled but productive hens are the adorable baby chicks shows in the post below.

One of my favorite homesteading sites, Harvey Ussery's The Modern Homestead used to make mention that they don't do much updating during the nice weather - too busy farming! I should make such a mention here, since I don't do too much either unless I am trapped by snow or some other thing that prevents outdoor movement. Between the family, the dogs, the farm and - oh, did I mention my husband and our church? - I don't get much time to do a lot of writing & photography any more. Perhaps this year will be different and we'll be able to stay in touch more. I love writing to you all!

Since I had some time this morning, I read some great posts this morning on the Survival Mom website....learned quite a few little details that I didn't know, which is always fun. Here's one of them:
"Bleach has a shelf life of just about a year, so also stock up on calcium hypochlorite, which is pool shock. Buy the stuff without any additives — calcium hypochlorite being the only active ingredient. Use this to make homemade bleach by mixing 1 heaping teaspoon with 2 gallons/8 liters of water. You now have bleach. For water purification purposes, add 1 part bleach to 100 parts water."

Just goes to show you that you should ALWAYS read through the comments section!

Baby Chicks - Again!

Last year, shortly after my heart surgery, I gave away (yes, gave away) all of our livestock. All the chickens, feeders, nesting boxes, lights, incubator and all the goats and their accessories. For those of you who have never had the mixed blessing of heart valve replacement, let me tell you in advance that it does strange things to your head and heart - not just in a physiological way. Anyway, I thought I wouldn't be able to care for them all properly, my husband was beginning to have his own heart issues so I just gave them all away to good homes.

Fast forward eight months. My heart surgery scars and new valve have healed. I feel wonderful - better than I have in years. My friends say I look more alive, more vibrant, ten years younger! It's spring! I can have a nice garden this year and I will have the health, energy and strength to plant and maintain it. So, much to my poor husband's amazement, I bought 8 baby chicks a couple of months ago. Six would have been enough, but I bought two extra "just in case". We had no problems or incidents with them at all, so "just in case" never happened and I now have eight beautiful young ladies, who I believe are Rhode Island Reds. Tractor Supply called the "red hens" and they should lay brown eggs.

Six, or rather eight, seemed like a good number. There are only the two of us. I am not planning to go into the egg business. These are eggs for our own personal supply, with maybe enough extra to put in the freezer. The goal is to be able to have nice, fresh, wholesome, healthy eggs and provide their food from here on our little farm, without buying feed. I used chick starter to get them going, but after that it has just been weeds from the garden and table scraps. They are thriving and happy.

My poor suffering husband has been busy in the last couple of days, building a chicken tractor that is big enough for the girls to be happy, and small enough for me to move around when the weather is nice. When it gets cold, the house will cozy up to my new kennel building, where I can just take 2-3 steps through my picket gate to care for them in the winter. I am pretty excited about this!

Watch over the next few days for pictures of the new chicken tractor!

A Penny Saved...

Back in the day, people then known as survivalists used to talk about the things that were critical to survival. "God, gold & guns" was the motto. I never considered myself a survivalist, and I still don't. I thought of myself as a "homesteader", someone looking for a rural, self-sufficient lifestyle. We always had goats and chickens, sometimes pigs and other livestock. There are many folks - survivalists, homesteaders, and those who are now called "preppers" - who maintain this lifestyle and love it. We loved it - it's a good life. But it's also hard work, and when there are no children to share the load, it is sometimes grueling work. Neither my husband nor I have the strength or vitality that we did 20 years ago, and last year, we let all the livestock go. But still we keep a pantry. We don't do it out of fear. We do it out of love for our families. We do it so that if things get bad for whatever reason, food, warmth and shelter will be available for those we care about.

For us, and for most people in our families, buying gold is just not an option. But we can create a hedge around us by storing food, essential items that make life easier or more pleasant and some forms of precious metals (PMs). We like silver - junk coins and 1 oz rounds - because it is more affordable. Today, we saw a great video on something even more plausible for the average family - copper pennies and regular nickels.

Though it is illegal to melt down U.S. coins at this time, the value of copper in each penny is 3¢. That means every penny made between 1909 and 1982 is worth 3 times it's face value in copper. This makes having pennies with those dates a very inexpensive and "do-able" hedge against hyperinflation or dollar devaluation. Who among us doesn't have a penny jar?

The Self-Sufficient Gardener blog

Don't we gardeners just love to dream about spring? I know I do, especially when there's snow on the ground! We didn't get as much snow as part of Virginia even 15 miles north of us, but we got enough to remind us that it is, really winter!

I found this great website this morning, full of good articles and helpful links. I especially liked the "Planting Calendar/Calculator. This neat little tool gives you all the dates to start indoor and outdoor planting according to your last frost date. Very handy! I am forever forgetting what to plant when - maybe this will help!

There is also a nice set of plans on this site for a fluorescent light rack for starting plants. We set outs on a table, which uses a lot of space. Maybe I have (yet another) project to keep my poor husband occupied over the winter!

Are you wondering how much to plant? If you are trying to grow a garden just for fun, it's not too important a question. But if you are trying to offset food costs or become more self-sufficient, how much to plant becomes a very important question. Lauren Ware, over at smallfarm.about.com has a great atricle to get you started, along with links to planning charts, gardening articles and more.

Have fun planning on this wintry day and stay warm!