High Adventure

Grace has been training all summer for a young women high adventure bike trip.  We bought her a new bike for the big event!  They cycled 66 miles to Turkey Run State Park.  She stayed on her bike the whole time!  We are so proud of her. 

Quilt complete!!!

Grace finished her personal progress goal of making a quilt!  It took a whole year to finish this project.  Not because it was that time consuming but because she would work on it in spurts and then not work on it for a while.  We set a goal that she would get it done this summer before the baby arrived!  She did it!!!

Laying Boxes

Time for our chickens to have a place to lay their eggs!

End of our eight week chicken project

Well I can officially say we just finished the HUGE project of raising 100 broilers.  Ben will admit that perhaps 100 was biting off a little bit more than we could handle but in the end we did it!  Now we have a freezer full of roasters!  The butchering process took us much longer than we had anticipated.  We worked all day Friday, all day Saturday, and Monday evening.  We had help from some friends on Saturday.  We couldn't have done it without them.  Our kids were troopers and stuck by us the whole time.  It was a great experience for all of us and by Monday night we had gotten to be pretty good at the whole process!

 A few numbers for those who like numbers . . .

100 broilers; 57 cockerels (males), 43 pullets (females)

Average live weight of cockerels:  9.36 lbs. 

Average live weight of pullets:  7.92 lbs.

Average dressed weight: 6.39 lbs.

Total live weight: 874 lbs.

Total meat harvested:  639 lbs.

Overall dresssing percentage:  73%

Sold: 35

Gifted (to our amazing friends who helped): 10

Froze 32 whole roasters

Remaining 23 roasters we cut into parts and froze.

Final photo of the broilers.

Seth and I.

We processed them in our basement where we have a sink and no flies!  Ben is working on plucking leftover feathers.

Plucking.

Zeddie joined in on the fun too but insisted on wearing gloves :).

We decided it might be appropriate to save our largest roaster for Thanksgiving! 

Our freezer is full!

Will we do it again?  Ask me in a few months! 

Broiler update

It has been a rough few weeks for the broiler chicks.  We are learning a lot about caring for broilers and what we will do differently if we do this project again.  The first thing we learned is that it is probably best to keep them in the barn for their first two weeks of life.  We had a very wet spring and it got so bad that we had to individually transport all 100 chicks and their house into the barn on a very rainy evening.  It was quite the project and it required all of us to help, even Zeddie was a part of the adventure.  But finally things have begun to dry up and the broilers are getting bigger and were ready to be outside again. 

Home for the ducks

There was a dog house left here on the property that we were not using so Ben decided to make it work as a duck house.  The boys put a door on it and Zeddie tried it out. 

Broilers Arrive

Ben decided we all needed a project this spring because expanding our garden, raising laying hens and ducks, and expecting a baby were not enough!  So he researched and planned and planned some more;  then he ordered 100 broiler chickens for us to raise.

Broiler house

Today we built the broiler house.  Our broilers should arrive any day so we had to get their house ready.  They will head straight into this house and live there the full eight weeks of their lives. 

Asparagus

Today we (well Ben and the boys) dug three rows of trenches for our asparagus.  I did not have any idea as to the extent of this project.  It took them six hours!  Then the girls and I helped plant.  Ben kept reminding us that we would probably never have to plant asparagus again.  We won't really see the fruits of our labors for two more years!

Tree work

We have continued working on the apple orchard in between gardening and taking care of the chickens and ducks.  It is going to be an ongoing project for quite some time.  Ben has cut down quite a few mulberry trees that have been blocking the sun from the apple trees.  All of the apple trees need to be pruned.  There will be need for some huge brush fires in the future.  Always work to be done on our little farm.

Everyone helps even down to our little man Zeddie!

Bathroom complete . . . for now

What we did . . .

Put a fresh coat of white paint on walls and ceiling.
Painted the wood trim on the floor edge white.
Painted all the cupboards white.
New gray shower curtain and bath rug.
New gray hand towel and wash cloths.

What else I would like to do . . . 

Paint window trim white.  But this will have to wait until we make a final decision on our new windows.
Paint door trim white and replace the old door with a white six panel door.  But this will also have to wait until we make a final decision about painting all the trim in the house.
Replace leaking faucet.  Maybe we can at least fix the leaking faucet.  :)
Replace the 29 greenish tiles in shower with gray tiles.  We researched how to do this but haven't done more than that.

But for now I am pleased and content.  It feels fresh and clean and I love the daytime sunlight that comes into the bathroom.  My goal is to enjoy my home and I do.  There are many possibilities to improve it but it works just as it is and what matters most to me is the people inside and the joy that they all bring me. 
 

 AFTER

Cupboards above toilet are now white.

We decided to go with gray for the rug and shower curtain since the linoleum is actually gray and we are not redoing floors right now.

We painted the ugly brown trim white. 

Cupboards and laundry chute are now white.  The laundry chute door is fixed too.

Bathroom project

Our home only has one bathroom.  Yup all seven of us share one bathroom.  Growing up I only had one bathroom to share with a family of seven and so did Ben.  You manage right?  It really hasn't been so bad.  We make it work.

I needed a project to help me get through this very cold January and so Grace and I decided to spruce up the bathroom a bit.  A total renovation of our home is in the future so we didn't do anything too drastic.  We basically put a fresh coat of paint on the walls and ceiling along with painting the brown cupboards white.  The linoleum is in pretty good shape and we decided to bring out the gray in the floor and bought a new shower curtain, rug and hand towels.  I would love to paint the trim of the window and trim of the door white too but we will wait until we get new windows to make the decision about what to do with the trim . . . leave it brown or paint it white.  I am leaning towards white as it just seems so much brighter and cleaner.

Grace, my photographer took some before photos so we could remember what it looked like.  Now remember our home was built in 1955 and I think everything is pretty much original except the linoleum and wrap around shower.  The tub is stainless steel which I prefer so much over what is in most homes these days.  It could use a reglazing. 

BEFORE

You can see the wood trim around the window, floor and door. 

Our sink with a lovely hard water stain!  I think the faucet needs a new washer so that it won't have a slow drip causing the lovely yellow stain.  We try to stay on top of it but it looks like the person on bathroom duty hasn't scrubbed the sink in a while!

The laundry chute.  Which is a novelty to our kids and to all kids who come over.  I grew up with one so it isn't that big of a deal to me although it does help eliminate dirty clothes all over the house.

 

Brown everywhere.  It just seems drab to me especially since it is all pretty worn out.  I do love the wood floors in the rest of the house though.

Planning for summer

Ben has been spending a lot of time planning for our garden this summer.  It will be two times the size of our garden last year.  We already ordered the seeds.  I will admit seeing all of these seeds kind of gets me excited too.  We ordered from Seed Savers Exchange, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and Johnny's Selected Seeds.  There are a few from Home Depot too. What I would give to bite into an heirloom tomato right now!

Yesterday Ben and the boys built a seed starter shelf which is sure to hold more than we can possibly grow!  Seth stuck by Ben all day and helped build it.  Gabe and Zeddie assisted along the way too.  It is big isn't it?  Good thing we have a pretty good size unfinished basement to house such a project as this one!

Seth is our cowboy and he pretty much wears his hat all of the time!