Three Weeks?

A good shot of most of the starters!  They are growing like weeds!
(I promise they aren't actually weeds though!)

Isn't that about how long it's been since I last got a post up?  I have the pictures to show for it, just ended up not having the time to get the post done (or when I did have the time it was always on a Thursday or something so I would feel like it would be two posts too soon).  That being said, I'm not promising to post every Friday at this point.  It seems as though, even though they were always a slow day for me in the past) Friday has become my new "it" day.  Everything falls on a Friday lately (which has kept me away from updating you all with adorable chicken/garden photos/updates.  Our little chicks have been making some crazy changes!  It's actually really amazing to watch them grow and loose their "fluff".  At four weeks old (geez I can't believe how fast time has been flying) they are full of spunk and their own individual

Coco ready for her picture to be taken 10 days ago!

personalities.  We have one that adores human attention and will do anything she can to perch on fingers or get loved/held, one that wants nothing to do with us unless we have treats (there's always one, isn't there?), and one that is a bit of a ring leader and a camera hog (she is very happy to pose each week).  Everything with the chicks has been easier than we expected (but of course it felt like we found every problem website or discouraging website in our preparation process).  When the chicks hit two weeks old, we did have a problem develop!  One of our chicks (we're still working on names for all but Coco) started to have a toe curve!  We tried everything we could find online to try and help her, but
between her managing to remove any "shoe" we placed on her and her behavior when we finally got one to stay on (she threw a very "life is meaningless" fit and plopped down and refused to move for hours until we removed it) to extensive research and observation, it's going to stay with a curve.  Thankfully, we weren't the first ones to have this problem and we found some amazing answers from the folks at backyardchickens.com and our

The three chicks plotting escape today!

 fears were lessened (but of course we were still worried that she would be one of the chickens that would never learn to walk correctly or perch with it).  As things stand now, she's adapted quite well!  (This is the chicken that loves pets and interaction.)  She was the first one to master the "baby" perch we put in the box to help them learn to perch and she's the first one to successively fly out and perch on the side of the box (they are at that point where they try to escape when I'm tending them/taking pictures and remove the screens over their box).  Originally we had the chicks

One of the baby tomato plants growing!

 downstairs in our basement (it was easier to keep the cats out of there) and our plants in our spare room, but with the addition of a grow light (my father-in-law was kind enough to give us two that he didn't need anymore) we needed the additional space of the basement for the plants!  So, the chicks are now upstairs in the spare room and the plants are chilling downstairs under a huge grow light (we haven't set up the second one yet)!  Moving the chicks and the plants to their new respective homes was not an easy challenge though (there may have been cross words between M and I >.>).  We needed to figure a way out to move the plants in the tray lids (what we had on hand when we started) safely without the "trays" breaking.  In the process of figuring this out, there was a communication error between us and it resulted in some pretty battered tomato plants.  In the long run we used a heavy duty storage bin lid to carry the not so sturdy trays downstairs (we moved the plants first because it was easier to find places to temporarily store them than it would have been to do so with the chickens...with

The rosebush

 cats...and dogs).  Bringing the chicks upstairs was actually a good deal easier than I expected and went smoothly.  I think the chicks prefer it a great deal.  They've learned that if they want attention, they only need to make a big chirping stink now and not only with the dogs go crazy (they are used to defending the big chicks outside) but we'll come running in to see what's going on.  The plants are doing well in the new conditions (well we did have to open a vent down there to add extra heat since the heat bulb went up with the chicks).  It hasn't been a week since we've moved them there, so I guess time will be the true test.  I know the plants were doing well with the fluorescent lights we had them with, so I'm eager to see the difference a true grow bulb will make.    The rose bush really seems to like it!  We've also added a grape vine plant to our little collection, but there isn't any growth on it yet (we just planted it a few days ago to be fair though).  In other news, we've been working with the cottage laws here in Michigan and doing a good amount of selling.  So far, the jams are popular and the breads are well loved!  The eggs are by far the most popular!  This seems like such a small post to catch up on three whole weeks!  It's been the type of busy that keeps you busy but you don't have much to talk about!  I did design a boxer pattern for M, but I'll do a post about that all on it's own right!  We'll see you all at the end of this week or next!

Spring Inside!

Look at how these chives have bounced back with a little care!

Well, I'll warn you now.  This post will be picture heavy (they typically are, aren't they?)!  That being said, compared to last week, this week has been extremely productive!  The weather outside is still...lacking though.  We'll start with the plants first I suppose!  Our experiment is working much better than we

Chamomile, Lemon Balm, Thyme, and Leeks are starting to show their faces!

 expected!  The non-grow light lights (that's a mouthful!) seem to be triggering an amazing response from our plants (just look at those chives!).  In our set up, we have the plants in front of a set of windows with two lights that we turn on mid morning (normally in between 10 and a 11 am) and off when we go to bed (typically around 1 in the morning).

Pumpkins and tomatoes are the exciting additions here!

We wanted to make sure that since they aren't true grow lights that the plants receive plenty of access to the light they provide.  Could we do with a little less time with them on?  Probably, but so far it's working wonders so I'm hesitant to really change much.  I'm really excited by this because we really wanted to use heritage seeds this year (to make our gardening even cheaper next year), but year after year our trials with starting our own plants have failed from lack of light!  What lights am I using?  Well, I'm glad you asked!  Our light set up is pretty simple to be honest.  We have two light clips (we've previously used them to pose photos for different things in the basement) and in them we have a reveal bulb and an incandescent "natural light" (which to me looks like a more cool toned light).  I had read online of some people have good results just using regular (in contrast to buying special grow bulbs) and was skeptical of it 

A baby pumpkin plant!

at first, but I can't argue with the results so far!  I'm both nervous and excited to see what will come of the plants as time goes on.  So far, they seem to be responding really well!  I do have another bulb clip downstairs should I need to give them another bulb later on.  Sometime this weekend or next week, I need to start 

Mystery plant revealed!  Nasturtium Flowers!

dividing the tomato plants that have multiples growing in one container and start my mother-in-laws- starters for her.  I'm excited to do both (although I haven't decided if I'm just going to wait and see how many "multiples" come up before I start a set for her).  M had the great idea that if I end up with too many starters I could sell them or give them away for other people to start their gardens with.  Perhaps I won't worry about it too much then ;).  Each day (to be honest, since they've been responding so well it's been twice a day) it's a mini adventure for me to go and see how their growth has changed!  One could probably say I'm just a silly person, but I'd still be happy with that!  On Tuesday, our little farming efforts grew in size!  Tractor Supply got their baby chicks in!  We split the minimum six (which is kind of a bummer that there's a minimum since we just 

Introducing our little chicks when we first brought them home at 2 days old.

wanted to increase our flock not start one) with our neighbors and we now have three happy little Black 

Australorp chicks in our basement growing up what feels like much too quickly!  We originally had intended to go with Buff Orpingtons (because they look more similar to our ISA browns and they had all the qualities we were concerned 

Chick Shield-Sisters.  Watching each other's backs since days old!

with when choosing a chicken), but it seems like this year (even though all the TSCs had them last year) they weren't on the "chosen" list.  I'm really excited to have these guys though.  There was a good deal of quick research done on them and the more I've learned about them (we didn't just get chicks without knowing what we were getting into, I promise!) the more I love them.  It probably doesn't hurt their cause that they're 

Look at those tiny wing feathers!

adorable!  This coming monday they will be a full week old!  Already there's quite the bit of feather development in their wings and their little personalities (and playfulness) are starting to show!  Now, with chicks, there is the fear that we may have gotten a rooster (even if they say it is highly unlikely).  That being said, we haven't really named any of them (Well, the one with the more yellow beak we've been calling Coco after the bird thing from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends because it's a loud little chick and I've started calling the little black beaked one Parker after the Leverage character because ...well I love Parker.  No names are final until they are older though!).  Only time will tell!  We've been enjoying them thoroughly and they're giving us something to help the last bit of winter pass by a little faster (and we'll have more eggs come summer!)  With that, I'd like to leave you with a video.  It was taken with my camera cell phone (so nothing too fancy) before our neighbor's took their baby chicks home.  While we were trying to get the temperature right downstairs (remember we didn't brood the other chickens...we got adolescent birds!) we put our big coop thermometer sensor (don't worry we cleaned it really well first ;) ) down there.  When it's sending the temperature to the receiver, a little red light turns on.  This kept the baby chicks amused for quite a while!  Have a great weekend and see you all next Friday!

Endless Winter

Dreary looking, isn't it?  I don't know a single
person who isn't ready for spring at this point!

Well, it's starting to hit that point where the snow looks less and less appealing and more and more dreadful.  I'll admit it.  At the beginning (and even well into) of winter I love snow and can't wait to see it!  It's so fluffy and white and makes everything look so peaceful.  This is the point I start to hate though.  Here in Michigan, we've reached the never ending slush stage.  Partially melted grey mush.  Ick!  

Mystery seedling!

I've heard that it's going to refreeze and snow again soon, but at least I know that this initial slush means we're closer to spring!  This week has been both busy and slow at the same time.  It's been busy with tasks like meal planning (I'll get to that in a later post :) I found a neat website to share!), grocery shopping, and just general around the house stuff.  The starters seem to be doing well!  We had our first bits of green pop up!

Chamomile baby plants!

  One of the plants is labeled a mystery in our house at the moment though!  I started six starters originally to test making the news paper pots and to see if they would start up before we planted the rest of our nicer seeds.  In them I planted a kale, some heirloom pumpkin seeds, and a flower.  I'm guessing this guy is either the flower getting started or the pumpkin, but time will tell!  Our next bit of 

green came in the form of our chamomile starting to sprout!  These little guys aren't nearly as large as the other one, but we were really excited to discover them none the less!  I guess there really isn't much else to say for this week other than that our car decided that the snow is too much for it to handle and has deemed it a good time to force a vacation on us!  We do have a second car and I guess if it had to choose a time to go poorly (something is wrong with one of the wheels) now isn't the absolute worst time possible, but I still wish it would have waited :P.  Have a great week everyone and we'll be back with more updates next week!

Naming Ourselves

The Crowned Anvil Homestead

So I guess really, I should start with an explanation.  I mean, we didn't even make it through the entire growing season before we disappeared?!  That's a new low even for us, right?  Well, to be honest, our little world that we share with you all, exploded a bit this last summer.  Mike started having some medical problems that escalated quickly and deeply.  The better part of our summer and fall was spent in and out of the hospital and medical offices.  The end result was him being diagnosed with Achalasia, but the recovery and treatment weren't as smooth sailing as we would have hoped.  At some point, I'm sure he'll address and share, but I'm doing today's post!  It should suffice to say that due to his illness, most of the garden and everything else in our lives was left

Some of the plants in my kitchen window!

almost solely in my care since he was too ill to help much.  (I could get deeper into it, but let's just say that averaging 500 calories a day doesn't leave much energy to do anything.)  Combine this with learning to care for our chickens and I was just swamped!  Thankfully, he is doing better now.  Things in our life may never be the same as they were before, but we're tackling those obstacles as they jump in front of us.

That being said, through this process of dealing with so serious an illness so close to home, the reality of how short life is finally hit us.  We've had these dreams and goals that we kept putting off for "someday when life

Grass I grow inside for the chickens.

is easier".  A good deal of it was being stopped by our credit.  We've had some really rough patches in our lives together that some days it still feels like we barely made it through.  As great as these situations were to help us to grow together, they left a deep scar on our credit history that we haven't been brave enough to face.  Well, since Mike started getting better, we started making time to sit down and talk about our dreams for the future.  We started talking about what matters to us and what doesn't.  The more we talked, the more the dream of having our own land to grow and raise some animals on kept coming up.  It's an idea that has been growing in our heads for quite some time and it's made it's way to a full fledged dream.  At first, we thought it was impossible that we would ever be able to have something like that of our own.  It's an intimidating idea, isn't it?  To work from a rental where you're allowed a handful of chickens to one day property and other livestock.  Well, we've decided to be crazy and to go for it.  And so, I am happy to

present the name of our homestead going forward:

The Crowned Anvil Homestead.

Our egg labels I designed

We had originally planned on waiting to name ourselves until we actually had property of our own, but since we've been selling eggs as fast as our chickens can lay them, it became an issue sooner than later.  Coming up with the name wasn't easy.  We wanted it to be easier to say than our last name (which no one ever says right the first time!) and we wanted it to be memorable!  We ended up looking at our family linage.  Mike's family stems from the Patterson's of old (a line of blacksmiths) so his representation is the anvil.  My family has some very distant royalty linage (thus the crown).  We are very proud of the name and we're ridiculously excited to see where it will go in the coming future!  That being said, we've been busy lately.  The best way to fight winter blues for the winter that feels like it will never end is to keep working towards spring!  I have to admit, though, that this is the most snow I've ever seen in my life!  That being said, back to what has been keeping us busy!  All of our little chickens are laying an egg a day (by in large).  

My kitchen window basil plant

While Mike was sick, I put together a better coop for them and with the help of his dad, put a run on for them.  Actually, the need for the run has a funny story behind it.  Our chickens up until this point hadn't tried to leave our backyard when we let them free range.  They seemed content with what was theirs.  Well, as fall came upon us and the grass and bugs began to die off, they lost that contentedness.  Across the fence was our neighbor's yummy looking garden (which still had nice red tomatoes on the plants at this point).  They decided to start jumping the fence and demanding treats from our poor compassionate neighbor (thankfully they have chickens too and she didn't mind too much!).  So, since I'm too much of a soft heart when it comes to treating the chickens with kindness, the need for a run moved up higher in our priorities.  When Mike's dad helped us add the run on, he made sure that there was enough shelter in it for the chickens to be able to still go out and enjoy the dirt and outside on all but the coldest days (oh boy have we had a few of those!).  This helped immensely with keeping the chickens happy this winter!  Now that I've talked the chickens to death (for now), more recently we've been trying to plan our garden.  This year, we're going to be working with heirloom seeds from Botanical Interests.  I'm nervous about the concept of trying to seed save as well as excited by it.  We're growing all sorts of strange things (because why not?).  As a matter of fact, earlier today, we just got a good chunk of our seed starters started!  To battle the lack of light anywhere in our 

 

Seed starters!

rental house, we're experimenting with different light alternatives for the seedlings.  We ended up putting in another compost (we ran out of room in the garbage can one...plus it was going so well!) bin using pallets.  This year for the garden, we're planning on playing a bit more with the concept of vertical gardening.  Most of the variations of things we're growing will be vine plants so they can grow up over a trellis we are planning on putting together as soon as the weather turns nice enough for us to.  We've also been playing with our dehydrator more.  Where we live, there are some amazing cottage laws for selling goods, and where as I've been selling jams and jellies for years under them, we're ready to expand our market!  I have a wonderful buying crowd that are all about supporting us and the more I can offer them, the better!  

Fruit leather I made recently.

Mike and I are also working on getting an etsy set up to sell some of the goods we make that aren't food related on.  This is all a part of us deciding to dive in to this dream and do anything we can to make it happen.  We're really working hard on tying all the names of our stuff together (so it's easier for us to be found by our supporters!).  

On a more random, completely unrelated note, I've recently been working on my horrible drawing (it's amazing stress relief) and have started a web comic that I update twice weekly.  It originally had a different name, but due to the changing nature of the story line, we've decided to tie it's name in with our blog name!  So, feel free to check out my webcomic!  It is under consideration that the updates would also be posted here regularly, so feel free to email us and let

Dehydrated cabbage...you'd be surprised at just
how nummy it is!

us know what you think!  All in all, we've made some big decisions and are getting back into the game of stuff!  I've been doing some quilting and designing some custom quilt patterns.  I'm sure I'll share photos at some point!  Well...I don't want to ramble anymore, but I do promise posts will be more regularly!  Don't give up on us yet!