For Real... Chickens

Now, I don't like birds.  At all.  That's the first thing you should know.  I despise going in to the aviary at the zoo.  I don't like it when birds fly around me, or near me, or where I can see them.  I'm going to blame it entirely on this one time when I was feeding the birds in Paris and they swarmed me for the breadcrumbs.  Because that makes it sound like a more realistic fear, and not that I'm weird at all.

But I digress.

We wanted chickens.  We wanted fresh eggs, and clucking, and silly birds, and kids going outside to feed/water/clean/gather eggs.  We wanted them to scratch around in our garden and to poop and help things grow.  So when we had moved into the house, and we saw the sign at Ace Hardware that says "We have chicks!" I marched right in, picked out the 4 I would want, and paid for them.  You don't get to bring them home right away, you have to wait for your chicks to be delivered to the store, and then you can pick them up.  So, I had to wait a week.  Which felt like forever. In the meantime, I got their brooder all set up for them
.

Super easy (since we were unpacking and had a TON of boxes around).

Here's what you need (my notes are in parenthesis - these are things I learned after we brought the chicks home from experience):

• box (sometimes you will see suggestions that you use a round brooder, because apparently chicks can get stuck in the corners of the box and suffocate.  I never had a problem with it.)
• Lining for the box - maybe some plastic sheeting or a cookie sheet or something because
• chickens make a mess and it soaks through your box
• they spill their water  and it soaks through your box
• they peck at the bottom of your box and when you pick it up, the bedding falls out of your box and makes a mess on your newly-mopped floor
• Pine shavings - they sell this in a big bale at the store as well.  We buy ours from a local tack & feed shop, because I have to spend the money on it, and I would rather support a local business than a big chain like Wal-Mart, but you can buy it there too.
• Chick feeder (maybe $3 at the store - not a big deal)
• Chick waterer (again, a couple of bucks - but ESSENTIAL!  Chickens are very succeptible to dehydration.  Keep water in there AT ALL TIMES)
• Heat lamp (they will need heat on them 24 hours a day until they are fully feathered.

Ok, so now I have all of supplies... I need chickens,

Ah!  Aren't they adorable??  Lookit!  I got the box, and the guy at Ace Hardware placed the 4 chicks into the box and then I felt like I was just nailed to the floor.  I walked over to the paint counter where J was buying some paint and showed him the chicks.  "That's nice, honey."

Wait.  "That's nice, honey"?!  He wasn't instantly enamored with their sweet little peeps?

"Babe? Why don't you put the box down in the shopping care so you can help me with this paint?"

"I can't."

"Uhm... why?"

"Because if I put them down, how will they know that I love them?"

*huge eye roll*

Guys.  I'm serious.  These chicks were the sweetest things!  After we got them home, I would sit with them on the sofa (on top of a towel, because their poop is disgusting) and just talk with them and watch TV with them.  They fall asleep so fast - its kind of like an infant.  One minute: playing.  The next: sleep.  And they didn't know how to settle down and sit yet, so they literally just fell over and slept.  

This is Cali, by the way - see her cute little black spots?  Couldn't you just squeeze her?  But please don't.

J says "I want a refund.  These aren't chickens.  These are fluffy marshmallows."  And he was right.

This is Claire.  Her full name is Chanteclaire - because J and I are 80's kids, and we couldn't have chickens in our house without a 'Rockadoodle' reference.  She's a black Cochin.  And probably the cutest thing ever.  See those little feathers on her feet? Cochins have feathers on their legs and feet!  It looks like she's wearing a frumpy set of sweats!  I love it.

You know what else I love?  That my kids think these chickens are adorable, too!

G2 is holding Del, who fell asleep.  Because that's the only thing that makes this any cuter.

The only thing more fun than having chickens in the house?  Taking chickens outside to play in their playpen!  They were still too young to just be turned out there, even if I was watching, so I fashioned a play pen out of PVC pipe and bird netting.  Closed on the top and all 4 sides, so you basically plop your chicks down, and then slip the pen over the top of them.

Safe and sound and getting their first taste of being outside.  

This Is For The Birds

Have I mentioned we have chickens?  We have four.  And all of them used to be adorable, and then they stopped being fluffy marshmallows and started getting feathers, and well, now only 3 of them are cute and one of them looks like a demon.

J and I have wanted chickens for a couple of years, and by law we are allowed to keep up to 20 of them (no roosters) in our yard in the city.  20 chickens sounded a bit excessive to me, but now, I get it.  They're like the gateway farm animal.  Also, adorable, as I mentioned.  Our previous landlord wouldn't let us have chickens at the rental, so as soon as we moved into the house we bought - bam! Chickens.  I have an 8' x 10' garden shed in the back yard that has an awning off the side and some shelving under the awning.  I enclosed that with chicken wire, and built a roost and nesting boxes out of pallet wood (yay for pallet projects that actually worked!).  We are going to continue adding on to it and shoring it up, but for now it keeps chickens in and predators (namely our dog) out.  Perfect.

Well, today I decided to turn the chickens out into the garden.  You know, let them be chickens.  In my mind's eye, I saw them  happily clucking and pecking.  Fertilizing my garden, eating weeds, and my children would sit on the garden fence with this expression of awestruck wonder while they watched nature in action.

And of course that isn't what happened.  We started to let the chickens out, and realized my oldest, G1, isn't a fan of the birds.  He had been kinda sneaky about it - he would pet them if you were holding them, and was always suspiciously absent when it was time to go IN to the coop.  So, he was no help in getting the birds out of the coop.  The younger one, G2, was all for this project.  He was chasing chickens all over the place, catching them, and ever-so-not-gently tossing them into the garden.  Did you know that chickens are social animals?  You have to get the one who literally "rules the roost" where you want her, before the others will be content to be in a new place.  This chicken, for us, is Rose.  Oh, Rose.  I have to say, I won't be sorry when it is time to eat her.  She's just MEAN!  And since her feathers haven't come in all the way yet, she looks like Death.  Well, we finally caught Rose and got her into the garden, and then we got the others - Cali, Del, and Claire - and finally everyone settled in to do their chicken thang.

Rose is the Rhode Island Red (brown chicken) - I'm 99% sure she is a chicken/monster cross breed.  Wonder what her eggs will look like...

Cali is the white chicken with black tail feathers (a California White)

Del is the smaller white chicken (a Delaware)

Claire is the small, black, adorable chicken (a Cochin) - guess who is my favorite?

"You girls better not eat my corn or peas!"

See? Always together.

They got to be free-range chickens for about an hour before the kids and I got bored of scanning the sky for hawks.  I figure we'll take them out each day and let them get some rec time, kinda like in a maximum security prison, right?  And since we are completely new at this, we didn't know how to teach them to go back into the coop, so we grabbed the leader and said "Go inside" and put her in the coop.  Then repeat with the other 3.  Maybe after a couple of days they will learn what we want when we say "Go inside".  Or maybe I'll just be replaying the scene from Rocky II where he has to chase the chicken for the rest of my life.  Time will tell.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

When we first saw the garden during the walkthrough on this house - we fell in love!  10 feet wide, 88 feet long, 3 feet deep!  Filled with and organic compost/soil mixture.  PERFECT!  Oh yeah, and also full of weeds.



At first I thought "maybe geraniums?" Nope. Weeds.



Seriously.  So. Full.

Well, at least SOMETHING will grow here!

It took me a solid week of soaking the ground (yep, I had to water the weeds to get them to come out!) and pulling each weed by hand (and/or shovel) to get this thing cleared out.

THEN I got to till it by hand.  Boy.  That was a blast and half!

I was in a big hurry, because our weather was turning warm quickly, and I wanted to hurry up and get our seeds planted.

So, after two long weeks of weeding, pulling, shoveling, digging, and tilling, I got it done :)





After a few weeks - here we are!  Measurable growth!!

Here are some peas:



And now some corn

Dairy Free Peach Pie

This is a great recipe from my Aunt Sue. I modified it of course, to be dairy-free.

Dairy-Free Peach Pie

1 cup soy milk (or almond, rice, whatever you use)
1 cup self-rising flour
1 cup sugar
2-29 oz cans of sliced peaches*
cinnamon to taste, if desired
1/2 cup dairy-free butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter in a 13x9" pan. In a bowl, combine sugar, flour, and milk. Pour over melted butter. Sprinkle peaches with cinnamon, and pour peaches in the pan with the rest of the ingredients. Bake for 1 hour.

We serve this with dairy-free vanilla ice cream.

*when peaches are in season and at a good price, I will use fresh peaches. Usually it takes about 8, but you're just looking for enough to equal 4 cups. This is great 'mindless' work for the kitchen: slicing, pitting, and peeling the peaches.

Let them eat (dairy free) cake!

Let them eat (dairy-free) chocolate cake!

Graham loves chocolate - almost to a fanatic extent.  If he hears someone say the word 'chocolate' he'll be right at their side saying "have some?".  It is so sad to have to look at his chubby little face and say "No, baby, you can't.  It has dairy in it."  Enter the dairy-free chocolate cake!  I baked it while he was taking his nap, and when he got up he smelled it, came into the kitchen, and without even looking too excited about it asked "have some?".  I could tell he wasn't expecting to be able to eat it, his little shoulders were slumped and he was looking at the floor.  So I knelt down next to him, put my hands on his shoulders and said "Yes, you can, sweetheart!"  The gigantic smile that lit up his face at that moment was almost as sweet as the one at the table when it was covered in frosting.  I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as he did.  I have the feeling we'll be making it with some frequency around here :)

Crazy Dairy-Free Chocolate Cake
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons white vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups cold water

Spray a 13x9 baking pan with nonstick spray.  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour,s ugar, salt, baking soda, and cocoa powder.  Make three wells.  In one well, pour the vegetable oil, in the second pour the vinegar, and in the third the vanilla.  Pour cold water over all, mix well using a whisk.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.  Frost with your favorite (dairy-free!) frosting.

Orange Julius

Orange Julius!!

My Orange Julius:

1 8 oz. can of orange juice concentrate
1 cup of your milk (I've only used soy and coconut so far)
1 tsp. vanilla
about 8 ice cubes or so

Toss in the blender and let 'er rip! 

This makes a pretty large drink, so I halved the recipe and then split it between each of my kids.  Just enough for a treat.

Apple-Blueberry Crisp

Apple-Blueberry Crisp

So yummy!  My kids couldn't wait for this to come out of the oven - they just sat in front of it and watched it bake!  I had my youngest help put the fruit in the pan, and my oldest measured out the other ingredients for me.  :)

Apple-Blueberry Crisp
4 medium apples, cored and chopped
2 cups frozen blueberries
1 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 Tablespoons canola oil

Preheat oven to 350.
Spray a 9x9 pan with nonstick cooking spray.
Add apples and blueberries to pan and stir to mix.
In a medium bowl, combine remaining ingredients, stirring to mix until crumbly.
Spread mixture evenly over top of fruit.
Bake 40 minutes.
Serve warm.

Homemade Bread Recipe

Homemade Bread

There is nothing as comforting as coming home to some fresh-baked bread! And this one is in the bread machine!

Dairy-free, Soy-free bread

1 cup warm water
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 package fast-acting yeast (or 2 1/4 teaspoons fast-acting yeast)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups bread flour

Add sugar and yeast to warm water in the bread machine pan, let yeast dissolve and foam for 10 minutes. Add oil, flour, and salt. Select your bread setting - I usually just select "dough" so that I can turn it out and bake it in a traditional loaf pan. I love that the machine does all the kneading for you! If you do decide to turn it out and bake it yourself, bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes and let cool for about 10 minutes before you remove it from the pan.

This is the base recipe for a lot of the bread recipes that I use, and also the only bread that Graham eats. I'll include variations of the recipe for things like rolls, etc.

In the beginning...

We've tried this time and again.  Once upon a time, I had a blog about recipes I used (both regular, and our allergy-free versions). Then I had one about being a SAHM. Then I had one about being a working mom (because hey, things change). Then J and I started one together about trying to live a little less on-the-grid.  Fast-forward 2 more years, and I can't even remember the NAME of that last blog. But our lives have really started to take shape, and we have so many entertaining and interesting experiences, and our friends and family have said "You really need to write this down!" So, we've tossed around the idea of starting one, final blog.  One where I could compile all of my yummy recipes, organization tips, housecleaning tips, and our urban homesteading notes.  One blog to rule them all, if you will.  This. Is. That. Blog.
OK.  You don't have to have goosebumps or anything like that, but hey, I'm excited!  So, stay tuned as I start to compile our stories, anecdotes, misadventures, and recipes for your enjoyment :)