Adventures of an urban homesteader growing greens, preserving the harvest and tending a backyard barnyard
I crept into our kitchen this morning to greet our five little Easter gifts: baby chicks! I know, I know. I already have my three urban chickens clucking away outside in my coop. The plan with these new additions is to raise them until they are old enough to move outside, and then adopt them out to a good urban chicken home. I get “chick
It’s about 7:30 pm and the light is still fading. When I got home from work, the sun was still bright enough for a stroll through the garden. I checked the chicken coop and Winnie laid her first egg (the pink one). Now all three girls are laying and it was the first three egg day of the season! Spring has arrived and we are
When it’s sunny in Portland, it reminds all of us why we endure the 60-some consecutive days of rain in the winter. A sunny, warm day makes it all worth it to live here. The cherry blossoms are blooming around town and we left the windows open all day long. I got so hot working outside that I actually had to come in and change
There has been a lot going on this past weekend, so very little garden work was done. Honestly, that was okay. A friend pointed out to me that I am the only one he knows who is outside working the soil in Portland right now. I think I deserve a little break. The good thing is that the garden continues to develop without my hand
The first egg of the season arrived this weekend! Surely Spring can’t be far behind. I assume the little green egg was from Hazel, since she is the most consistent layer of all the girls. Pearl and Winnie gave up their egg-laying duties around Labor Day, but Hazel kept up through about mid-October. It kills me to buy commercial eggs from the store when I
Growing Gardens, a local non-profit here in Portland, is hosting their 5th Annual Tour de Coops this summer on July 26th. I am on their email list and they sent out the following asking for local urban chicken-keepers to consider opening up their backyard for the tour (click the image for closer detail): This was a really helpful event back when I was pondering whether
Ah.. ten days off work and I decided to take a little hiatus. Lovely holiday, merriment was had. Back to the ebb and flow of things. Christmas morning I made a delicious apple pie, which I enjoyed for breakfast many mornings after. I had two dogs (one borrowed) and a cat keeping me company in our toasty house. And I just kept thinking about the
Yesterday I was out doing my weekly cleaning of the chicken coop when I found a little surprise. As I was sweeping out the hen house, out popped a little field mouse from one of the nesting boxes! It startled me, but I didn’t jump up and down shrieking or anything. A little pat on the back for that one… I went along cleaning and
I stumbled upon this picture this evening as I was rummaging through some old photos. It’s me feeding my little chick Mabel with an eye dropped. She didn’t make it in the end, but I certainly tried everything to keep her around. Pearl, Hazel, and Winnie are all doing well. A little bored I think with the weather so chilly. I started feeding them some
