My little farm girl found a mink this morning… a live one in our chicken coop.
Category: Urban Homesteading
What Sam the lamb taught me…
Somewhere along the line I became convinced that information you needed to know could be found if you looked hard enough. I value the infinite resource that is the internet. I’ll wade through personal opinion posts on forums, I’ll read blog posts and articles to find the info I seek…
We’re leaving the suburbs for farm life next week!
We are just counting down the days until moving day. I’m both excited and a bit shocked that moving day is just a few days away. The walls are literally lined with packed boxes, all the obvious things are packed… now we have all the hidden spaces to pack up (the garage, the attic, the […]
Tales from the backyard flock: Are they cooked or do they have chicks in them?
For the last week, maybe two, we have had significantly fewer eggs each day from our six laying hens. Initially I thought that the hens that were not laying had nutritional imbalances since they’ve been eating chicks starter food (against our wishes). We’ve recently integrated our baby chicks to our adult flock, our Rhode Island Reds […]
Updates on the massive poultry flock in the tiny suburban backyard.
Before I became a turkey owner: I wasn’t prepared for how social they’d be towards people. I didn’t believe that they were truly NOT smart creatures. I hadn’t realized that they fight, like roosters do. I didn’t expect to be treating the wounds and checking on them as vigilantly as I do with my kids. […]
When your backyard flock grows. From chicken rearing to turkeys!
We were out of chick starter so a trip to the local farm supply store was on the agenda for the day. When visiting the farm supply store we have to visit the baby chick area if the kids are with us because kids LOVE to see baby birds and rabbits (even though the backyard […]
Butter, oh butter
Making butter is quite easy but for some reason I’ve always viewed it as wasteful and unpractical. I guess I just assumed making butter requires you to use raw milk in it’s entirety (and raw milk is quite the commodity!). Plus, only a small portion of butter results from the whole gallon of milk and […]
Big changes are in the works for this homestead!
Over the weekend we got a TON of outside work done here on the half-acre homestead because we just put our house on the market! That’s right, we can’t put it off any longer. Our house is in less that perfect showing condition and is VERY lived in with the five of us crammed in […]
How does anyone with an actual job have time to do all of these crunchy things?!
A while back I was the target of some crunchy flaming, as some of you know. Apparently people don’t believe I actually do all the crunchy things I’ve written about and shared here on the blog and it became this debate/ venting session for all of them. Anyway, one of the comments made was… Does […]
Garden murder and more…
As avid organic gardeners, our days are spent waging war on garden enemies. Typically it’s silly stuff like picking cabbage worms or squash beetles (or similar) off our plants and then feeding them to the chickens. The girls are my little gaarden warriors, they assist me in collecting bugs in a bucket…
Reuse and repurposing: Our goal- Throwing less into dumps
There are many ways to recycle, reuse and conserve from day to day. You just have to look at things differently. As I become more and more earth friendly I discover new ways to reporpose, reuse and recycle. For me, a focus on repourposing and reuse has been what we’ve continued to expand on. Can […]
Keeping chickens & eating them: Thoughts on our first experience processing
It’s a cold and gloomy day here, we are in the upper 50’s this afternoon and the vibe is very lazy. Everly has been watching childrens movies on the couch today, specifically snow related holiday ones. She knows the seasons are changing and is excitedly dreaming of lots of snow this winter. I’ve been spending some much […]
A peek inside the Ryder Homestead – 2012
Here is how the growing season shaped up in 2012: Got something you’d love to see us blog about in detail when it comes to the garden? Let us know:
Brewing Homemade Kombucha: A DIY Healthful, Homesteading Adventure Shared
I am pleased to share the next step in our homemade kombucha adventure and our recipe. If you are wondering what got us started on the kombucha and fermented foods craze you can find out more here or why kombucha is known as the miracle health elixir read more here. As I wrote about previously, […]