Let There Be Light...

and there was...and it was good!



Our carriage house is a wonderful place to keep chickens safe, but with the waning daylight hours of the season, it is a decidedly DARK place to keep them! There is no electricity in there, so it can be quite inconvenient when I have to go out there after sunset. Hiring an electrician to wire the structure was completely out of the question, as well as the budget.

Instead, we purchased a portable power device to run a string of LED holiday lights.It is sort of like a marine battery that has outlets on it to allow you to plug in standard appliances. With the help of an inexpensive timer that we already had, the lights come on first thing in the morning to extend the daylight hours for the hens. This should encourage them to lay eggs throughout the winter and keep me from tripping over my own feet no matter what time I choose to chat with my girls!You might be wondering why we chose to use a string of LED holiday lights, rather than an actual lightbulb... The LED's provide a nice amount of light without using a lot of power. This will enable the portable power device to last a long time between re-charging.

The portable power device can also be used to run a few lights and things inside our home in the event of a power outage and can jumpstart a car! It isn't as powerful as a generator, but it feels good to know that we have a bit of a backup to keep us comfortable.Here is a photo of the one that we bought:



Next, we will try to find a solar power trickle charger to charge the portable power device for free. We are making baby steps, but it is all coming together! Now, if these darn chickens would just start to lay some eggs to earn their keep or at least help to pay for this equipment...

Mission Accomplished

This weekend began on Friday for me, since I had the day off. The To Do list was long but I was determined to get as much as possible accomplished. I began by removing all of the old firewood out of the carriage house. Some of that wood had been in there for years. Each summer we would order up new wood which would end up stored on top of the old wood and the cycle continued, year after year.

I removed all of the old wood and stored it on the porch so that we'll actually burn it. Next, I cleaned the carriage house out to accommodate the quail cages for the winter. This was no easy task. The carriage house has a dirt floor and clouds of dust are kicked up whenever you try to move anything. My organizational system was to move everything to the edges of the barn and leave the center, wide open for the cages.

Though I had previously loaded up the chicken pen with plenty of pine shavings, I decided to make use of a free resource...LEAVES! I took them a couple of bags full for them to play in. Though the chooks were scared of them at first. They soon discovered that it was great fun to scratch around in them. I was sorry that my camera has been borrowed by a friend. It was hysterical watching them fly up in the air making the leaves scatter.I may try to put some up for them to have in the winter. It would help to cut down on pine shaving usage.

In an attempt to spread the fun, I also gave the quail some leaves to play in.They dug tunnels through them and peeked out at me.

Then it was back to (real)work...This time gathering up sticks and twigs in the yard and storing them away for quick kindling to get fires started. I went back into the house in an effort to escape the rain that started in the afternoon and made some firestarters. I make them out of leftover paper towel/toilet paper rolls, candle wax, laundry lint, and sometimes a handful or two of that shredded insulation made from paper. We used to spend about $30 per year buying commercial firestarters.Now we just make them from things that we used to throw out. Besides, mine smell better than the commercial ones.This batch smelled like plums...Just in time for the holiday season.

Next undertaking involved putting up plastic on the back porch. I like to hang the laundry there to save on energy(read=save $)Once the clothes are just about dry, I throw them in the dryer to soften them up. It is something that really saves on the electric bill and I'd like to be able to continue it through the winter, if possible. We've already saved a bundle on the gas bill by only heating the house with wood this season. Of course we know that we won't be able to continue that much longer but we are pleased that we've been able to do it this long.

I also drained the water barrels, put away most of the garden tools, stocked up on feed, urea fertilizer(for melting ice) and a couple of bales of straw for the quail.

Last,but not least, is a project I've been trying to accomplish for the past month...putting the gardens to bed. Well, it still isn't completely finished. I have a hard time pulling up plants that are still producing. We are still getting a few green cherry tomatoes. They don't ripen until I bring them in the house, but after not getting tomatoes for most of the summer, we are enjoying their meager bounty. We still have onions in the ground, one more potato plant, a few herbs, turnips and (of all things)several pea plants that are beginning to bloom. I still got some quail manure, straw and leaves into the gardens around the remaining crops. I may not actually till anything until the spring.

Tomorrow, it is back to work. Sitting at a desk sounds pretty good right about now!

Finally...An Update!

Well... It has been a long time since I have posted any updates to this blog. The summer has been very busy and has somehow gotten away from me. I have been taking online classes again which ate up far more of my time than I expected it to. I hurt my back twice, making it difficult to do the chores, I have been working on a novel that I've been meaning to write for the past three years. I've continued to work my part-time-work-from-home jobs. Let's see...Where do I start?

Our garden was pitiful this year...We just didn't get enough sunshine and warmth. The squirrels have been running around with all of my cherry tomatoes in their mouths and have actually broken some of the plants in half.

The chickens are doing well and have gotten really big. I lost one of my Marans roosters to an impacted crop. He was a sweetheart and didn't crow very much. Luckily, we have three more roos at my friends farm as spares. We probably won't be bringing a spare here until spring, when we will begin to sell the hatching eggs. Our hens should be laying eggs in the next few weeks, I think.

The quail have been doing their part to pay for their own feed by laying eggs. Selling their eggs for eating has actually been providing enough income to support the chickens' addiction to scratch grains. Yep...it is just like crack to them! We still haven't eaten any of our quail...It's kind of hard when several of them have names. The neighborhood stray cats are still quite interested in putting them on the menu and spent a great deal of time watching through their cages. I am so glad that the cages seem to be kitty-proof.

While the beginning of the summer was rainy and cool, the month of August was fairly dry. My two water barrels are very low as I've had to rely on their contents to water the gardens. Although I had been wishing for an abundance of bees to assist with plant pollination, the reality was that we had way too many yellow jackets. They were everyplace that we turned. Finally a very kind skunk (we think) dug up their nest and many of them went away. Now that's what I call natural pest control!

I will update the egg and money counter a bit later.

Mission Update:

We spent the past 2 weeks working in the yard and trying to get some more veggies planted. We built another raised bed and added more soil and manure around the plants that are growing in the beds that we planted over the past several weeks. We've had a lot of rain lately, so the water barrels are overflowing.

I was happy to see that the mulberry tree is loaded with fruit this year. The berries at the top of the tree are already turning a reddish color while the fruit that is within my reach is still a whitish green. Last year was the first year that I was able to harvest any mulberries. I tend to forget that the tree is there and the birds always seem to beat me to them. At the grocery store, I made sure to purchase some Sure-Gel. I am dying to do something with those berries when they ripen!

We started cleaning out the carriage house to prepare to build the indoor chicken pen. The each end of the carriage house was already equipped with hardware cloth/welded wire. It was in pretty good condition so we just tightened it up a bit with a few more nails. Next we shored up the plywood that covers some of the other windows. Predator proofing is a priority for us since there are raccoons, skunks, dogs, feral cats and a myriad of other hazards in the city.The next step is to frame the area that will be used by the birds.

We also said goodbye to the remaining Rhode Island Red chicks and one Ameracauna. The Ameracauna had a crossed beak which sometimes can make it difficult for the bird to eat. This bird managed to eat anything that wasn't nailed down. His absence alone should save us a bundle in chicken feed. They went to a very nice family with a five acre mini-farm. I had grown awfully fond of the Rhodies (as we call them) and added their breed to my ever-growing list of critters that I want to have when we move to a rural area. Although they could be boisterous at meal times, they were extremely quiet at all other times...

Life on a Southern Farm: Chicken Nest Box Giveaway.

There will soon be chickens running around at Mission-2-Mars! I am expecting a shipment of hatching eggs this week and I will also set some Rhode Island Red eggs for chick sales to help to pay for the incubator. I figured that I can't be the only one trying to farm on a budget, so I decided to share this contest with all of you.

I absolutely love the Life on a Southern Farm Blog and this week, they are rewarding their readers with a chance to win one of their chicken nest boxes. This isn't just any chicken nest box, but a handcrafted beauty that any hen would be proud to lay an egg in. You can learn more about the contest here:

Life on a Southern Farm: Chicken Nest Box Giveaway.

Did I Really Just Blow The Budget?

I have spent the past couple of days trying to justify a couple of purchases for the urban farmstead. I finally decided to post what I have done here and let the inhabitants of Earth judge the Martian:

First Scenario: I had completed a list of the various fruits that I would like to be grown on our property. Right now, we only have an old mulberry tree that produces fruit. Anyway, when I tallied up the strawberries, blackberries, grapes, vine peaches, blueberries, etc. The total was $68. I thought long and hard about this and then looked in my cabinets, deep freezer and two refrigerators. I decided to skip grocery shopping for the week. We probably would have spent around that amount buying food at the grocery store. We actually don't have to grocery shop too often because we are really stocked up. Given the uncertainty in the economy and the job market, we try to have food stored so that we won't have to buy much in the event of a layoff at TheMartianMan's place of employment. So, should I add the cost of the fruit plants in to the farm budget or is it really about the same as buying groceries? After all, these groceries will be on the table during the summer and fall!

Second Scenario: As you probably know, we really want some chickens. Our desire was to actually breed some unusual breeds. Now that I have a friend who is willing to hold a rooster or 2 for me at his farm, I actually have the opportunity to be able to breed 1 unusual breed. The problem is that for the breed that I want, I cannot seem to find chicks ANYWHERE!! So I must hatch eggs if I am to get these birds.

So I browsed around on Ebay and saw a used top quality, almost foolproof incubator. It works kind of like the rotisserie that they advertise on tv during the holiday season: Set it and Forget it! Though I bid and bid and bid...someone else won the item. Then a miracle happened! I remembered that I had a stash of American Express gift cards. They were left over from a vacation that we took last May. The cards were free to us since we cashed in reward points to get them. There was a grand total of $325. So, I used them to buy the brand new version of the top quality incubator. Since I bought it with free money, should it count against my budget?

Before you answer, I also have three plans for recouping the money that I spent for the incubator. The first plan is to hatch out some specialty breed eggs for others and sell them to people like me who cannot find them anywhere. This would help me to recoup some, if not all of the money over time. The second plan involves possibly ordering up some quail and selling quail eggs and or birds locally. I believe that there is a market for it. The third plan is to sell the incubator on Ebay when it has paid for itself. The auction that I was bidding on taught me that this particular model of incubator holds its value and that people are willing to pay an awful lot of money for it, even when it is used. I can also do a combination of any of these three plans and probably MAKE money on the deal. So, given all of this rationalization (fooling myself) that I have done, should the incubator count against the farm budget?

In the Mood to Brood...

Realizing yesterday morning that I had made no arrangements for brooding my baby chicks when they (eventually) arrive, I set out to rectify the situation. With my mantra of Re-think, Re-use, Re-purpose reverberating in my skull, I quickly settled on a long cardboard box with a lid.

I had originally considered using a Rubbermaid tote that had been purchased it at WalMart about a year ago( shortly before I decided to boycott the retail chain).

The plastic tote measured only about 4x2 feet. I wanted to install a window in the side of the tote, but decided against it. While I am sure that the chicks would have appreciated a room with a view, I didn't want to do anything to a tote that would interfere with it being reused again for something else.

So, I moved on to converting a fabulous, lidded corrugated box. The box would provide more floor space for the birds than the tote would have anyway. Since I can only have a few chickens in the city, it is unlikely that I will need a brooder of this size again, so I have no plans to recycle it when we are through with it. Since it is made of cardboard it will be contaminated from chicken poo and incapable of being cleaned.All bedding materials will of course be turned out into the compost pile.

Anyway...I wanted the brooder to be large enough to accommodate 6 chicks, so I devised something that they could grow into. The floor of the box is waterproofed with leftover linoleum from some of the rental apartments that we own. Martha Stewart probably wouldn't approve of my taste in decorating, but the flooring will be covered in pine shavings, so the chicks won't really be embarrassed by it anyway.I found a roll of screen in my basement and will probably use that to cover the top. However, I am toying with the idea of using an old sheer curtain instead...Hmmm... The birds will only occupy one portion of the box initially. When they need more room, I will bring out the other half of the box(the lid)and put the two parts together, instantly doubling their space.(What you see in the photo is the expanded version which measures 4x5 feet.) Even more convenient is the fact that the two parts of the box actually "nest" together for storage until we actually need to expand it. This project was accomplished entirely with things that we had lying around the house and took about an hour to complete.

Yes, there are mealworms on Mars...

I was so excited to receive a box of mealworms as we head into the Valentines Day season. I know that many of you are probably thinking that my hubby, TheMartianMan will be sleeping in the car for all of eternity with no hope of a reprieve due to an un-Cupid-like gesture. In actuality, I ordered 1000 mealworms from www.nyworms.com

After doing some more reading, I discovered that mealworms don't always reproduce quickly. I decided that it would be prudent to purchase worms now, so that I would not be in danger of feeding all of my mealies to my baby chicks about ten minutes after their fluffy butts arrive. (Everyone knows that baby chicks are awfully cute when they beg for food. How can you possibly refuse something so cute?)

Here is a picture of the mealies in their new home:

The Incredible, Edible Eggshell?

We used to be really good at "making do" with what we happened to have at hand. Of course TheMartianMidgets were toddlers then and we were frugal out of necessity, not because we really preferred to be. This urban farmstead project is really forcing us to take a hard look at ways to pull things together on a shoestring budget.

As I go through the planning stages, I am constantly tempted to just buy certain things that we'll need.Instead, I have to rein myself in and Re-think, Re-use and Re-Purpose ordinary items that we happen to have around the house.Today, I decided to begin saving eggshells for our future flock of chickens. Eggshells can be washed, dried, crushed and fed to laying hens to provide calcium. The mineral is critical to ensuring that eggs laid will have strong shells. I could purchase calcium for poultry (also known as oyster shell), but that is an additional cost, albeit a small one at around $5. However, I do have about nine months before our chickens will begin to lay. (This is an extreme version of counting your chickens before they hatch, since the chicks that we will get in the Spring haven't actually hatched yet!) Hopefully, all of these small savings will add up and enable us to meet our farm-building budget of $1000.

Our Own Mealworm Farm...

Remember the ant farms that kids used to have? I haven't seen one of those since the 1990's. There were a lot of lessons to be learned from an ant farm. The biggest eye-opener for me was learning that the ants didn't actually come in the farm kit and had to be mail ordered from the manufacturer. Today's project is similar to an ant farm but it centers around being able to provide chicken feed that actually costs, well...CHICKEN FEED! Poultry can be a wonderful addition to any farm, but when you are only allowed to have a small number of birds due to zoning restrictions, costs can outweigh the monetary savings of buying fresh eggs at the farmer's market. We are going to try to minimize our costs by growing much of the supplemental foods for the chickens ourselves. We already have seeds for sunflowers, broomcorn, amaranth and a variety of garden veggies. Now, we need to grow some protein of the insect variety for our birds.

We selected mealworms for the simple reason that when we go to the local pet store, we NEVER see mealworms scampering around the store enjoying their newfound freedom. Crickets? Well that's another story! Crickets are just too darn fast once they escape. They have a remarkable ability to disappear from view and then will proceed to serenade you when you are trying to sleep. Nope! We can't have crickets keeping us up. We have to get up too early in the morning to go to work.

So,on to the mealworms...

We will be using an old plastic aquarium with a lid as our mealworm farm. The worms eventually turn into beetles so a container with a well-aerated lid is essential to ensuring that the cycle of life continues inside the aquarium as opposed to outside of it. We will add several cups of organic bran and organic oatmeal into the aquarium and cut up a few chunks of home grown potato to provide moisture for the worms. Meal worms can be purchased from your local pet store, but for best results, we will order some online to ensure that they are in the best of health. After all, when starting a farm, you really want to get the best quality livestock that you can find! The mealworms should grow fat and happy in there. We will just scoop out some worms whenever we need them as chicken feed. *PLEASE NOTE* If you don't see anything in the aquarium, you do not have a vision problem. We won't set this project up for another month or so. Because we don't have chickens yet, we don't have a use for too many mealies. We do have a turtle named Jake who will eat them but due to the cold winter weather, he isn't very interested in eating much of anything!

Quick Homesteading Project

Today was a beautiful day. The sun was out in full force, though we have received about 8 or 9 inches of snow over the past few days. Maybe the sunshine went to my head, but I was in the mood for a homesteading project. With the cold temperatures outside, any project that I was going to undertake needed to be completed indoors.

I decided to put together a heated base to keep a chicken waterer from freezing during the winter. A galvanized poultry waterer would be placed on top of the heated base to keep the water temperature above freezing. I used the heating element from a potpourri simmerer. The element was already pre-wired to a plug in cord. I inserted it into an old cookie or candy tin and used tin snips to make a hole in the tin. Once it was assembled, I caulked around the hole to prevent water or other foreign materials from getting inside. That was it! The entire project took about 25 minutes and most of that was spent looking for the tin snips! This project could also be completed with the parts to construct a small lamp. In that case, a low watt lightbulb (rather than a heating element) would provide the heat to keep a metal waterer from freezing. Now, I just need to get a galvanized waterer and some chickens!