Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop #108

SATURDAY EVENING POST

Extra! Extra!

Things have been RATTLING around here this week.  

Can you spot the rattlesnake???

While cleaning the chicken coop a few days ago, I spied a large rattlesnake nestled under an old milk crate that I use to prop open the door from the coop to the run.  

Here he is, minus most of his face... post shotgun blast!

Yikes!  I am so glad I was out there doing chores or I'd probably have lost a few hens that day.  This is our third rattler in just two weeks.  The biggest so far.  It measured 49 inches long and had 6 buttons on the rattle.  Sheesh. 

Jerry holding up the rattler.

Jerry bought me a new wheeled weed trimmer this week, and that day I had whacked down weeds in the area behind the coop so maybe my noise/movement coaxed him out into the open and into my chicken run?  Needless to say I am being very careful outside.  

Snake chaps

A family member gave me some snake chaps and I am wearing them every trip out to trim weeds.  I am very thankful for them.  

This area will soon be my main goat compound. It's already seeded with a good forage pasture mix.

Today I think I mowed down about a half acre of weeds and did not see a single snake.   Thankfully.  This area in the picture above will be fenced within the next two weeks and a small 8x10 goat barn will go up for my babies; just in time to bring home Lily of the Valley.  Hooray!

Your Farmgirl Friday Hostesses~  

Deb of Deborah Jean's Dandelion House and founder of our little Farmgirl Friday blog hop. 

Dolly of Hibiscus House and Dolly is Cooking, and me of course!

 Now, it's your turn to link up for your weekly dose of farmgirl soul food!

Here are the rules for the Farmgirl/guy Blog Hop! 

1.) Write a post about your farmgirl lifestyle and brag a little about your farmgirl talents while your at it! Share what being a farmgirl means to you. Include lots of photos of your farm, crafts, animals,  quilts, home decor projects and thrifty make overs, your backyard garden, chicken coop, recipes, studio or workshop. You get the idea!

2). Leave your entry in the  Linky tools space to your  Farmgirl Friday post.

3). Please include the Farmgirl Friday button ( or link back here ) in your post and remember to share this hop with all of your blogging friends!

4.) Enter up to three entries per hop! 

 DON'T BE SHY~  

Be sure to leave a note if you're new to the hop! If you haven't clicked that follow button yet, please join us and be sure to stop by our FACEBOOK page and like us there too! 
As always, thank you for your continued participation and welcome new friends and followers!

Don't forget to grab your FEATURED FARMGIRL BUTTON if you've been featured!

Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop #107

Howdy Farmgirls!

Hope your week has been full of love and happiness, even if there was a lot of work to be done... We've been busy on our little farm this week planning for more dairy goats and capturing a feral honeybee swarm.

A photo from my italian hive last summer.  Can you see the Queen?

Our bottle baby dairy goat kids are growing fast as are our 15 baby chicks.  The garden is continuing to grow though slowly, it's been in the 90's again here all week.  We are expecting it to cool down next week and I hope to be able to continue planting then.  I still need to get a few things into the ground ie: watermelons, squashes, peppers.  

I have killed more than a dozen pocket gophers this week, and noticed new terrors, moles and squirrels.  I am beginning to think that I will be doomed to grow my tomatoes in wire cages like the fruit trees soon. Lol.  Oh well, I will eventually get a handle on the situation, it just may not be in time for this season's harvest. 

Jerry almost has my new chicken coop finished so I can bring out all the babies... and he is preparing to install his totem pole.  He carved it himself a few years ago, and it was in the ground at our old home.  He had to bring it with us and I think it's going to look very handsome in the front yard here.

 Farmgirls love anything to do with homesteading, keeping chicken's, embroidering, sewing, knitting, spinning, quilting, natural home remedies for health care and cleaning, horses, goats, cows, organic gardening and cooking, caring for their loved ones and friends and are community minded. Re-purposing and UP-cycling are high on their list of " fun things to do too! Our resident "FARM-BOYS ' ( Clint the Redeemed Gardner and Rob of Bepa's Garden ) bring wheelbarrow's full of good organic gardening tips to this hop and we are honored to have them join in the fun each week!   

Your Farmgirl Friday Hostesses~  

Deb of Deborah Jean's Dandelion House and founder of our little Farmgirl Friday blog hop. 
Dolly of Hibiscus House and Dolly is Cooking, and me of course!

 Now, it's your turn to link up for your weekly dose of farmgirl soul food!
 Here are the rules for the Farmgirl/guy Blog Hop! 

1.) Write a post about your farmgirl lifestyle and brag a little about your farmgirl talents while your at it! Share what being a farmgirl means to you. Include lots of photos of your farm, crafts, animals,  quilts, home decor projects and thrifty make overs, your backyard garden, chicken coop, recipes, studio or workshop. You get the idea!

2). Leave your entry in the  Linky tools space to your  Farmgirl Friday post.

3). Please include the Farmgirl Friday button ( or link back here ) in your post and remember to share this hop with all of your blogging friends!

4.) Enter up to three entries per hop! 

 DON'T BE SHY~  

Be sure to leave a note if you're new to the hop! If you haven't clicked that follow button yet, please join us and be sure to stop by our FACEBOOK page and like us there too! 
As always, thank you for your continued participation and welcome new friends and followers!

Don't forget to grab your FEATURED FARMGIRL BUTTON if you've been featured!

A Tough Lesson...

This week I learned a tough lesson... I finally got around to removing the feral bee swarm from my house wall. It was a bad idea to wait.  I should have removed them the evening I first spotted them; before they could establish themselves.  I didn't.

See that strange pipe.  The gap around it was the access point.

I have a million excuses... It was hot, we had a visitor coming that's allergic to bees, etc., etc..  Because I waited, the bees had time to move up into the floor joists of the 2nd story of our home.

 It was tricky to pull down siding without damaging vents.

They were no longer clustered at the entrance point.  Thus, it took a LOT more work to remove them.

There were dozens of bees flying around in this room when I shot this picture...

My hubby had to dig around on the ceiling of our laundry room and under the bathtub upstairs to find them.

Sadly, once the holes exposed them to me, hundreds flew into the house via these holes and though we worked hard to swipe them into a hive net and take them back outside repeatedly, and we removed window screens so they could exit for two days in a row, we still lost many bees.  It was heartbreaking.  

Every window sill in the house looked like this after the end of Day #2

I eventually got them out and did my best to affix their brood laden comb into frames in a spare hive box.  

I did a lot of damage to the comb trying to remove it through small holes, but I am hopeful they'll salvage enough brood to hang on and make a new queen, if need be.  I never did see the queen, though there is lots of young brood intact.  I hope there are enough nurse bees to keep feeding them all.  I may just get lucky... time will tell I guess.

The important thing I hope to glean from this exercise is that I will NOT wait the next time I see bees congregating on the wall of my house.  I will remove them immediately, no matter how inconvenient it may seem.  I have captured a few feral swarms before and a few of my own hive swarms and I know from those experiences that it is easy to identify and "transplant" a queen and her swarm during swarm collection.

Allowing the bees to establish themselves; as I did here, can make it nearly impossible to collect the comb/brood without damaging it, and if the access holes are small (as mine were in this case) I was unable to identify the queen.  I likely accidentally killed her while swiping up bees to remove them from their hole.

A tough lesson learned.

Heidi

Have a BEEautiful Weekend!

The Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop #106

Happy Friday

Welcome back for another week loaded with great ideas.  Simply follow the links below to learn how to do just about anything farmgirl related.  It would be even better if YOU link up and share your knowledge and adventures here as well.  There's always room for more.  

I am mid way through week number two with my new baby dairy goats Adelaide and Moonbeam.  They're four and five week old bottle babies and taking care of them has been a great blessing to me.  I love to nurture and mother things.  Thankfully, these two enjoy it.  So far so good.  No signs of distress or illness, but there's much more to learn I know.  

My shih tzu are loving the new babies too.  My two boys Chocolate and Coco are convinced that the goats need protection and they seem to think they're their guardians...  

Here Coco is taking his job seriously. Hiding under the hay bale watching the goats from outside their fence...

It's comical to think since they're on the menu for wildlife here too.  We generally must keep everyone indoors or confined to kennels with roofs around here, unless we're outside with them.  Here's a shot of the whole brood playing yesterday under my supervison.

Our homegrown chicks and growing FAST.  The first batch of five girls were moved into a 5x10 dog kennel inside the chicken run to get acclimated to the other birds before they're eventually added to the flock.  They go into a portable kennel inside the coop at night.  

The little gal above is so pretty I think.  The others all resemble their daddy.  He's a plymouth barred rock rooster.  She looks a little more unique.  Can you see her Easter Egger legs?  They're green like her Mama. I hope she lays the green eggs too eventually.    

This batch (three weeks old) are much harder to take pictures of.  Their mama does not like anyone getting near them...

I'll try to get a few better shots before next week's hop.  

I have been working in the garden some.  It's been in the 90s this week every day. I am NOT used to this kind of heat. My body has been fighting me every step of the way.  I did manage to transplant bush beans and peas, a few hundred onion starts, potatoes, more strawberries, japanese and pickling cucumbers, basil, and some summer squash this week.  

I also completed the last of two cutting flower raised beds.  They're full of giant dahlias in all sorts of bright colors.  (You can thank Deborah Jean for that one, she got me addicted to dahlias via her own garden images last summer. Thank you Deb!)

That's what I've been working on this week.  What about YOU?  

Wishing you all a great weekend doin' what you love,what needs doin' or BOTH!

 Farmgirls love anything to do with homesteading, keeping chicken's, embroidering, sewing, knitting, spinning, quilting, natural home remedies for health care and cleaning, horses, goats, cows, organic gardening and cooking, caring for their loved ones and friends and are community minded. Re-purposing and UP-cycling are high on their list of " fun things to do too! Our resident "FARM-BOYS ' ( Clint the Redeemed Gardner and Rob of Bepa's Garden ) bring wheelbarrow's full of good organic gardening tips to this hop and we are honored to have them join in the fun each week!   

Your Farmgirl Friday Hostesses~ 

 Deb of Deborah Jean's Dandelion House, she's also the founder of our little blog party. Dolly of Hibiscus House and Dolly is Cooking, and me of course!

 Now, it's your turn to link up for your weekly dose of farmgirl soul food!
 Here are the rules for the Farmgirl/guy Blog Hop! 

1.) Write a post about your farmgirl lifestyle and brag a little about your farmgirl talents while your at it! Share what being a farmgirl means to you. Include lots of photos of your farm, crafts, animals,  quilts, home decor projects and thrifty make overs, your backyard garden, chicken coop, recipes, studio or workshop. You get the idea!

2). Leave your entry in the  Linky tools space to your  Farmgirl Friday post.

3). Please include the Farmgirl Friday button ( or link back here ) in your post and remember to share this hop with all of your blogging friends!

4.) Enter up to three entries per hop! 
 DON'T BE SHY~  

Be sure to leave a note if you're new to the hop! If you haven't clicked that follow button yet, please join us and be sure to stop by our FACEBOOK page and like us there too! 
As always, thank you for your continued participation and welcome new friends and followers!

Don't forget to grab your FEATURED FARMGIRL BUTTON if you've been featured!

Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop #105

Got Goats???  

After more than a year of waiting, we finally brought home our first two baby nigerian dwarf dairy goats last weekend.  They are very young, bottle babies in fact.  I am enjoying them and learning so much every day.

Their names are Moonbeam and Adelaide.  Adelaide (chocolate brown and white colored) will someday be my little milker.  I will be taking her to her first dairy goat show next month in Chino.  Moonbeam (black, white, and fawn colored) is my little wether/companion for Addy.  He is such a sweet little guy.

I am over the moon with joy.  It has been a long wait with a few heartbreaks along the way, but I can see a bright future ahead.  Jerry is building a larger compound for them, but for now (since they're so young) they spend their days in the sunshine in this lucky dog kennel with a chain link roof, and their morning and nights indoors with us.

What's been going on at your farm lately???

Your Farmgirl Friday Hostesses are-

Deb of Deborah Jean's Dandelion House, she's also the founder of our little blog party. Dolly of Hibiscus House and Dolly is Cooking, and me of course!

Farmgirls love anything to do with homesteading, keeping chicken's, embroidering, sewing, knitting, spinning, quilting, natural home remedies for health care and cleaning, horses, goats, cows, organic gardening and cooking, caring for their loved ones and friends and are community minded. Re-purposing and UP-cycling are high on their list of " fun things to do too! Our resident "FARM-BOYS" ( Clint the Redeemed Gardener and Rob of Bepa's Garden ) bring wheelbarrow's full of good organic gardening tips to this hop and we are honored to have them join in the fun each week! 

Now, it's your turn to link up for your weekly dose of farmgirl soul food!

Here are the rules for the Farmgirl/guy Blog Hop! 1.) Write a post about your farmgirl lifestyle and brag a little about your farmgirl talents while your at it! Share what being a farmgirl means to you. Include lots of photos of your farm, crafts, animals, quilts, home decor projects and thrifty make overs, your backyard garden, chicken coop, recipes, studio or workshop. You get the idea!
2). Leave your entry in the Linky tools space to your Farmgirl Friday post.
3). Please include the Farmgirl Friday button ( or link back here ) in your post and remember to share this hop with all of your blogging friends!
4.) Enter up to three entries per hop! 

DON'T BE SHY~ Be sure to leave a note if you're new to the hop! If you haven't clicked that follow button yet, please join us and be sure to stop by our FACEBOOK  page and like us there too! 

As always, thank you for your continued participation and welcome new friends and followers!

Don't forget to grab your FEATURED FARMGIRL BUTTON if you've been featured!

Let's get HOPPING!

The Country Homemaker Hop #60

It's been a few weeks since I last hosted this hop (my apologies) and I am happy to be getting back on track again.  It's been hectic over here lately.  I have been struggling to keep up.

Garden soil tests indicated that we had pH issues.  I've had to treat with elemental sulphur twice now to bring it down.  As a result, my transplants are just now making their way into the ground.  Because I knew my soil needed work, I planted my dinner plate dahlia tubers (about 50 of them) into 1/2 gallon pots about 6 weeks ago.  This week I have been busy transferring them into my raised garden beds.  They're looking good so far.

Excitement abounds since our two broody little salmon faverolle hens hatched a total of 15 happy, healthy babies.  Most of whom look just like Daddy, our gorgeous Plymouth Barred Rock rooster.  These are the first babies born on our new little farm.  They've been a blessing and a inspiration.  Meanwhile the front yard fence is slowly coming together so I can allow all of my animals to free range on about an acre of our property when I am outside with them.  Though we live in the foothills, neighborhood dogs have been our biggest challenge so far, not the wildlife.  I am sure that will change after we get the fence up and we will focus on them next.

My hubby finished laying the hardwood floor in the kitchen and dining room.  Last week his BFF Roy came for a visit and the two of them completed so many tasks around here.  They cleaned up much of our overgrown yard, moved some of my heaviest dining room furniture into the house, and organized the garage/workshop so Jerry can fix and build things without tripping over boxes.  They also cleaned the little pool that came with this house and have been slowly working on getting it filled.

This is my Addy

I am happy to announce that I will finally be bringing home my first two baby dairy goats this weekend.  I am overjoyed.  I admit, I have been in prayer over this since the weekend.  These babies are very young and will need to be bottle fed for a while.  I am a little nervous.  I sure don't want to do anything that injures these precious little ones.  I hope that this is the beginning of my eventual milk supply.

  I've been enjoying so many little projects indoors too.  I've made cheese and butter from fresh cream and milk given to me by a really kind neighbor.  I have made a few pies and cookies too.  It's been so much fun baking with the old stove.

Well, that's what we've been working on lately, what have YOU been doing?

Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop #103

Howdy Farmgirls and Farmguys! 

It's been an exciting week here on the farm.  We've added another ten hatchlings to the hen house.  We have two broody hens taking care of a total of 15 baby chicks.  Eight were hatched just yesterday.  I love Spring babies!  This is our first homegrown brood so we're real proud of them, and we hope they all make it to maturity.

My hubby's best friend has been visiting this week and he's been helping my husband complete some really important tasks.  They're taken down the last remnants of the tall, icky fence that the previous owners had constructed to hide their illegal plants from sight (marijuana).  The lumber is all neatly stacked and almost new dog eared cedar fence posts.  Jerry plans to use it all to cover a few outbuildings with. 

Yesterday, they strung some fencing for me to keep neighborhood dogs out of my front yard.  My hens have been miserable cooped up in a run since we moved.  They were used to having free reign of our entire property before that.  Soon they'll be out and about again safely.  They also moved my small dog run into a nice level spot in the shade.

I managed to complete one more soil test to satisfy my curiosity, and be sure that the elemental sulphur did it's job and brought down the pH enough to begin planting tomatoes.  Thankfully, I am satisfied and began planting directly into the ground.  

This is my first year in the new place so I expect there to be bumps in the road until I get this new climate, soil, and wildlife figured out.  It's enough for me just to be rooting around in the soil, getting dirt under my nails and being outside enjoying this beautiful foothill wilderness.  

In the kitchen this week I am again making homemade butter and cheese from fresh jersey milk given to me by my awesome neighbor.  Her cow is the prettiest jersey around and her milk is divine!  

I will be bringing home my first two nigerian dwarf dairy goats next weekend.  A doeling and her brother, a wether.  I am expecting atleast two more does within the next few months too.  I am still working on Jerry.  If I can convince him to drink and eat goat milk products I can avoid a dairy cow and opt instead for beef cows alone on the back 5 acres of pasture.  After watching how much milk my friend is collecting each day from one cow, I am certain I will be overwhelmed without calves to take most of the milk each day.  Wish me luck, though I doubt it will work.  Either way, it will be loads of fun and work.

That's all from Fifteen chick farm for now. Lol.  Now, it's YOUR turn to link up and share what YOU'VE been doing around your homestead.  Thanks!

Farmgirls love anything to do with homesteading, keeping chicken's, embroidering, sewing, knitting, spinning, quilting, natural home remedies for health care and cleaning, horses, goats, cows, organic gardening and cooking, caring for their loved ones and friends and are community minded. Re-purposing and UP-cycling are high on their list of " fun things to do too! Our resident "FARM-BOYS ' ( Clint the Redeemed Gardner and Rob of Bepa's Garden ) bring wheelbarrow's full of good organic gardening tips to this hop and we are honored to have them join in the fun each week!   

Your Farmgirl Friday Hostesses~  

Deb of Deborah Jean's Dandelion House and founder of our little Farmgirl Friday blog hop. 
Dolly of Hibiscus House and Dolly is Cooking, and me of course!

 Now, it's your turn to link up for your weekly dose of farmgirl soul food!
 Here are the rules for the Farmgirl/guy Blog Hop! 

1.) Write a post about your farmgirl lifestyle and brag a little about your farmgirl talents while your at it! Share what being a farmgirl means to you. Include lots of photos of your farm, crafts, animals,  quilts, home decor projects and thrifty make overs, your backyard garden, chicken coop, recipes, studio or workshop. You get the idea!

2). Leave your entry in the  Linky tools space to your  Farmgirl Friday post.

3). Please include the Farmgirl Friday button ( or link back here ) in your post and remember to share this hop with all of your blogging friends!

4.) Enter up to three entries per hop! 

 DON'T BE SHY~  

Be sure to leave a note if you're new to the hop! If you haven't clicked that follow button yet, please join us and be sure to stop by our FACEBOOK page and like us there too! 
As always, thank you for your continued participation and welcome new friends and followers!

Don't forget to grab your FEATURED FARMGIRL BUTTON if you've been featured!

DIY Egg Candler

Image from UC Davis animalscience.ucdavis.edu

I was in a fix a few weeks back. I needed an egg candler pretty bad, but I had no idea where to go locally to buy one.  I spent a few hours online and came up with this...   It works great!

All you need to make your own egg candler is some sort of light ie: my quilting Ott Lite, a piece of cardboard, scissors to cut the cardboard with, a marker, some blue painter's tape, and eggs you think are fertile too, of course..

1. Using a marking pen, measure and draw the circumference of your light's shield on the cardboard. Mine was a 10 inch circle.  Cut it out.  Then, draw an oval in the center of your circle to lay your egg into.  You'll want it to be a little smaller than your eggs so you can hold the eggs over the hole without letting light escape on the sides blinding you.  My hubby says that adding a small piece of foam weatherstripping around the perimeter of your oval would be a good idea because it can hide any gaps or uneven cuts.  Though I haven't done that yet.  

2.  Tape the circle onto your light.

Voila! you have a quick DIY egg candler.

Please note-  With the cardboard egg candling mask covering the light, it's not a good idea to leave this light on for more than a minute or two at a a time, as this can lead to fire; and it should never be left turned on and unattended.  I turn mine on to look at an egg, and turn it off in between eggs. I do not let it get warm to the touch.  When I'm done candling eggs I simply remove the cardboard and painter's tape and my Ott light is ready for sewing action.  

I am linking up this post to my favorite crafting blog hop, Dolly's Creative Blog Hop HERE!

Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop #102 & Easter!

Guest Post by Deb of Deborah Jean's Dandelion House and MaryJanesFarm Beach Farmgirl blog.

 

Welcome friends to Farmgirl Friday # 102! Happy Easter!

Thanks so much for all of the inspiring posts everyone shared last week! Cream of the crop as always! 

 This week, Gladys and I are looking for signs of spring and I'm sharing our family Easter traditions over at the 

MJF Beach farmgirl Blog! 

 Come on by and say howdy!

 

  Farmgirls love anything to do with homesteading, keeping chicken's, embroidering, sewing, knitting, spinning, quilting, natural home remedies for health care and cleaning, horses, goats, cows, organic gardening and cooking, caring for their loved ones and friends and are community minded. Re-purposing and UP-cycling are high on their list of " fun things to do too! Our resident "FARM-BOYS ' ( Clint the Redeemed Gardner and Rob of Bepa's Garden ) bring wheelbarrow's full of good organic gardening tips to this hop and we are honored to have them join in the fun each week!   

Your Farmgirl Friday Hostesses~  

Heidi of My Simple Country Living  
and White Wolf Summit Farmgirl Blog
Dolly of Hibiscus House and Dolly is Cooking and me of course!

 Now, it's your turn to link up for your weekly dose of farmgirl soul food!
 Here are the rules for the Farmgirl/guy Blog Hop! 

1.) Write a post about your farmgirl lifestyle and brag a little about your farmgirl talents while your at it! Share what being a farmgirl means to you. Include lots of photos of your farm, crafts, animals,  quilts, home decor projects and thrifty make overs, your backyard garden, chicken coop, recipes, studio or workshop. You get the idea!

2). Leave your entry in the  Linky tools space to your  Farmgirl Friday post.

3). Please include the Farmgirl Friday button ( or link back here ) in your post and remember to share this hop with all of your blogging friends!

4.) Enter up to three entries per hop! 

 DON'T BE SHY~  

Be sure to leave a note if you're new to the hop! If you haven't clicked that follow button yet, please join us and be sure to stop by our FACEBOOK page and like us there too! 
As always, thank you for your continued participation and welcome new friends and followers!

Don't forget to grab your FEATURED FARMGIRL BUTTON if you've been featured!