Adventures of an urban homesteader growing greens, preserving the harvest and tending a backyard barnyard
We had our first “storm” of the season a couple nights ago involving some chilling overnight temperatures, hard rain and strong winds whipping trees around. The next morning was cold and still, but branches and such were left along sidewalks as a memory of the night before. The first thing I think of when the forecast talks of stormy nights are my little flocks of
I love having a new little flock of mini, bantam chickens, but sadly they are moving to a friend’s house in the next couple of weeks. My landlord is uneasy with me being over the city limit of chickens and my attempts to persuade her otherwise have failed. Although I am not naming the little girls, I wanted you to still meet them before they
We have some new, temporary residents on our little urban homestead: bantam chickens! Bantams are nicknamed “banties” for short and they are most certainly the cutest chickens I have ever seen. Just like standard chickens, there is a large variety of bantam chicken breeds. Bantams are typically about half the size of standard chickens and lay eggs about half the size as well. Due to
***Warning: This is a pretty graphic post about how to butcher a chicken, complete with pictures and lots of description. My intent is to help people who are preparing to butcher their first bird.*** On a recent Sunday morning, a local Eugene friend invited people over to learn how to properly kill and butcher chickens. She raises broilers every summer in her urban backyard, feeding
Our move to Eugene was a bit more frantic than moves from the past. It was challenging to juggle moving boxes and unpacking with the strong desire to plant seeds in this new patch of dirt. The most pressing piece of business, above all of these other pressing tasks, was building a temporary chicken coop for the girls. The chicken coop in Portland has been
I truly despise renting, which is part of the reason I have been so stressed about housing the last few weeks leading up to my move to Eugene and return to graduate school. My motivation for buying a house was driven in a large part by my desire to paint the walls whatever color I wanted, grow my garden however I determined, and keep a
First off, everyone is now safe and alive. But we have our first brush with death here on the urban homestead with our flock of chickens. It wasn’t a raccoon or a possum. It was a much friendlier and surprising culprit. We have a gentle greyhound, Howard, who is a retired racer and leaves the chickens alone completely. We decided to dog-sit for another greyhound
Today is the first day of Spring, and there are signs of it all over our urban homestead. We are back in full egg production! Maude and Florence have been laying steadily for a couple months now. But even our old biddy Pearl decided to hop on the egg band wagon! We estimate Pearl is about 4-5 years old and she stopped laying altogether last
One giant compromise of letting the chickens free-range in our backyard is allowing them to ravage our vegetable beds from time to time. They scratch up seeds, eat young shoots, and sometimes decide a newly planted bed is a terrific place for a dust bath. Every year I get a little smarter with how to protect my loved green things from the girls, and this
