World of Beer

It was delicious. First a chocolate stout, then a fat pretzel, followed by a giant BBQ Bacon Burger and French fries. Then we sampled 4 beers:  midnight stout, Lost Coast Tangerine, and Ace Apple Cider. I forgot the fourth beer. It wasn't my favorite. We finished up then walked across the street to the Rustic Rose. We maneuvered in and out of their isles and laughed at occasion cards with humor victimizing senior citizens. We went back to World of Beer to hear the band and I ordered a blueberry wheat beer. It was the best night ever!

Growth, bantam bunnies, and cages

I added roofing to both sides of the original hutch and hung four new cages from it. Two of the cages are mine and two are friends of mine. (I am bunnysitting his rabbits while he's on vacation.) Eventually I will have 2 of my own cages there for a total of 8 cages. Bunny burgers forever! The six bunnies pictured here are almost ready for harvesting. I will process them at around 11 weeks old, just after the 4th of July.

The silver Sebright bantam are roosters. I will be selling them ASAP.

Bantam growing

These are a few of the bantam I have been raising. They are looking good and running out of room in the chicken tractor.

These are the sketches and final product of my Eggstream chicken tractor. It is made for 3-4 regular chickens or 5-6 Bantams. There are definitely some changes that need to be made. It needs bigger wheels for easier portability. It needs a door that I could get into to catch the chickens if needed. Later I plan on adding a heat lamp for winter. Also, the feeder needs work. The food gets caught up in the elbow of the PVC pipe and all the chicks crowd the first opening. There needs to be some slope or ram rod or something to make it work right. But still I am pleased with the over all design. I am anxious to see the little girls grow into it.

Dinner....one evening.

This silver Sebright seems to be developing a food label. Or a nice sized comb. Whateva you want to call it. I have 6 Sebright and 3 of them are developing these combs way faster than the others. This might be nothing. But then again it might mean, that due to the rules of Gulfport, they are fated to be dinner. There are several other bantam in the coop that will be roosters or chicken tenders...Whateva you want to call'em.

short and sweet.
I...
Miss my mom
love my wife
cherish my daughter
work on the farm
keep up with the teaching
spend too much time on useless things
DON'T SPEND ENOUGH TIME IN THE WORD
can't wait for summer vacation
am going to eat breakfast now.

Big Hairy Deal

The rabbits are growing nicely. Funny Bunny seems to be a great momma. I try to go out and play with the little bunnies at least once a day so they won't be as skittish around people as the adult rabbits are. I know, I know; I'm playing with my food. But I am not so insensitive as to look at them as meat in the freezer. They will be looked after, played with, yes maybe even named, for their short ten or eleven weeks of life. Then they will be canned and eventually sauteed with some butter, salt and pepper. Well all except one...Bucks new wife. Gotta keep the bacon, uh, err, bunny on the table.

rustic pallet heart wall hanging - how-to

I made this short how-to video. Do-it-yourself video, on a pallet wal hanging a coupleof weeks ago. art is easy, getting off the couch is hard!

5th Ave Farm, to date.

From the street, we're a cute green bungalow. Flower beds, bushes and trees frame the house. As you are walking up to the front steps there is a walkway to the south and the north. To the north is the drive way to the south is the side yard where the excitement is. Taking the southern walk around the corner of the house the walk just ends abruptly because the concrete walk way is a project that I never finished. I ran out of money for concrete and the hot summer hit. concrete is hard on the back anytime of year but especially  during the summer heat.

Anyway, if you don't stumble off the end of the walk you see the largest childs play set known to man in a residential back yard. One can pay $1500 for a prefab play kit or spend less on raw materials and build one twice the size. I did the latter.

Beyond the play set is the farm. Its not yet complete. It's an ever work in progress. But in terms of vegetation it consists of; 12 blueberries bushes, 2 plum trees, 36 square feet of asparagus, and then several raised beds of beans, peas, lettuce, squash, okra, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, banana peppers, onions, chard, and strawberries. I am probably leaving something out.

In the far south west corner of the lot is my favorite: In a coop I built are 6 laying chickens Eloise, Ethel, Granny, Tiny Poppy, and Poofy. Thats around 3 or 4 eggs a day. In a chick brooder there are 24 potentially (some might be dinner/roosters) laying bantam chicks only a couple have names. Then there is also 3 meat raising rabbits: Buck, Funny Bunny(Californians) and Salvia (a New Zealand) and 6 baby dinners...err...I mean baby bunnies. Five of them will grow for 10 weeks before being processed. The sixth one will be Bucks third wife. Some of you clever folks reading this probably picked up on the relational problem with that sentence. It's ok. They are rabbits. Rabbits have a tendency to disregard their own family history in favor of getting it on. So I am going to do the same. (I researched the whole thing)

We also have a guard dog.

We have a potters studio, a painters studio, and a woodshop.

God has blessed us richly.

Chickens, rabbits and kids, Oh my!

Updates:
24 healthy bantam chicks including 6 Silver Sebrights.

We get around 3 eggs a day from the adult chickens (layers)

As I said saturday; funny bunny had her first litter. At least 6 babies have been counted. But they are deep in the nest and hard to see.

And as if the farm is not enough to take care of along with a dog and a 7 year old daughter we have been doing foster care training. So we're about to take on another child. Girl. Eva's age.

God has been good to us. We want to give back. Please pray for 5th ave farm.

You know what's going on here?

That's right! Funny Bunny is nesting! She is getting her box just right for....BABY RABBITS. at least I hope that's what she's doing. 29 days ago she mated with Buck. So the timing is right. She should be due anyway now and she was pulling out her dew lap fur for bedding all night. When I got out to the hutch this morning it looked like there were two rabbits.

Aside from this exciting news here something else. I made at least 11 bird houses and 5 feeders out of scrap wood and license plates and a couple of wallhangings for our open studio. 

Why Have I Never Heard This Before?

Genesis 8:21-22

21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse[a] the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”


I read these verses this morning and it answered a long standing question. Why has God not struck us down AGAIN like he did by the flood? I mean I know he had promised not to destroy the world by flood. But I did not realize he had promised not to destroy the world again, period. I know God has plans for us. I know God is at work and there's a second coming etc. which rules out first being another destruction but for some reason I didn't connect the dots. In my mind there has always been a chance God would wipe us out by fire or plague or something, BUT HE PROMISED not to "strike us down". This is big to me because it accounts for a lot of tolerance and patience on Gods part. I don't know about you but for me, wrapping my mind around Gods character means asking, "what would I do in this situation if I were God?" Obviously this has a lot of room for error in the answer to the question but that being said my answer has, a lot of times, been "wipe 'em out". Never-mind patience! That has to run out sometime. Never-mind tolerance! You can not be tolerant of absolute evil. But if you say you're going to do something or not going to do something (and if you are God) you stick by that promise. What a relief.


I believe a lot of peoples unbelief in God is due to not reading the Bible and understanding it. I clear up a lot of issues I have with God through reading it and through real simple straight forward statements in the Bible that either I never read or never noticed.

Pallet chair and chicks a growin'

I made this out door patio chair out of old pallets (and a new 2 x 6) and I love it. I might not even try to sell it at my open studio and garden show on Saturday (April 26th, 9-2, 2917 5th avenue, Gulfport ). I might sit in it drink coffee and chit-chat with friends that come by that day. Then there's the baby chicks. They're not so baby anymore. They are more like middle schoolers. Cute but they now they fight with each other. I saw two of them rearing up at each other and then jumping at each other. Either bumping chests or clawing. I think it was a pecking order kind of thing. Then one pecked the head of the other real hard. Like 10 year old boys fighting over the game controllers. Still, they are cute as can be. Ones got a gimp foot. We checked him out and their doesn't seem to be any signs of injury other than it hops around on one foot more than the other and stays laying down a good bit. I hope it survives the pecking order battle.

2.5 weeks old

It has been a week or so and the chicks are getting bigger. Apparently the Hatchery (www.cacklehatchery.com) read my request when I ordered the "assortment of bantams" that i wanted Silver Sebrights, because it looks like at least 5 of them are Silver Sebrights. they are the ones with white and black feathers.

Two Sick Chicks

I have 2 chicks that are sort of sickly. One has a pasty butt the other has a bad eye.  The thought process of the mother hen (that's me) is funny. I thought, "maybe I should put some Vaseline on it." After all my mom put Vaseline on all my ailments, either that or Vick's Vapor Rub. But then my next thought was "No. It might peck at it, get petroleum jelly in its mouth and throat and die." Then I thought,"I can put one of those cones around its neck (you know like one of those dog neck cones to keep it from licking its stitches) Then I thought of the humiliation and the poor chick saying, "Oh!! The humiliation of it all." I shared these thoughts with Yvonne. She said, "No, cause the other chick has a bad eye."

I separated them from the rest of the chicks and they slept in my room in a rubber maid container with their own heat lamp and food and water. At one point they chirped so loud Yvonne could hear them on the other end of the house through closed doors. Soon they calmed down and tired out and slept through most of the night. Mother hen (me) kept waking up in the middle of the night worried for them. I will be getting antibiotic feed for them this morning.

The black on has pasty butt the yellow one has a gimp eye. They are a pair.

the heat lamp is not on in the photo because it makes the picture look terribly red.

Survival

The chicks made it through the weekend. Technically they are 5 days old, now. I opened the windows for them to give them some sunlight and ventilation. I am questioning this decision, but God willing they'll be fine. On the flipside, I sold five of them to a friend, and unfortunately all five of them died. I feel horrible about this. But apparently she was not a good "mother hen".

Why I Have Chickens

So I don't have to go to Wal-Mart as often. So I know where my eggs are coming from. Because the eggs are fresh. They aren't any trouble. Not any more than any other pet. You can let them" free range" or put up a easy coop from Sam's or build your own from recycled materials. Using the Deep Litter Method (DLM) you only have to clean the coop 3 times a year. You throw some food at them everyday (just like you would a dog) and you get a dozen eggs a week from 2 or 3 chickens. If you breed and raise them, then roosters make great fried chicken. If everyone had their own we could potentially put the chicken factories out of business. Not to mention the educational possibilities for my daughter (and all children). Consider getting your own.

Cowboy Comb

My wife ordered a Cowboy Comb Kit for me. I love it. I immediately used the department beard wash to wash out the old wax, which Yvonne didn't like because of the smell. The department smelled great but did not linger afterwards in my mustache. Then I tried the Cowboy Comb Wax. It is softer than my previous waxes so I was afraid it wouldn't work. But it worked great. I used the cowboy comb to brush it through my mustache, and then shaped it. It held the wiry thing together and gave it a perfect curl on the ends. I got several comments on how nice it looked afterwards. Cowboy Comb products are now part of my everyday carry!

33 chicks

33 chicks, in their new home. Brooder.

Believe it or not...

This small boxes filled with 33 chicks.

Chilling with Shadow

Took the day off to help Yvonne with house stuff. I had to take a break. I am drinking a homemade strawberry smoothie and sitting in a rocking chair on the porch on this beautiful day the Lord has made. Shadow is sitting with me. So is Yvonne. And now Eva. Pictures of the work done to be shown soon.

This is the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

I keep them fed; they keep me fed. Satuday, the 4 of 6 chickens laid 4 eggs together. They took a Sabbath then on Monday laid 4 more. If they lay four more today and tomorrow another four I am gonna invest in an egg basket. Espcially since I got a phone call yesterday from cacklehatchery.com, the shipment of 25 chicks should be here on Friday. Woot woot.

Hi! My name is Chad and I am addicted to chickens.

I bought 25 chickens. No guarantee that they will be hens, no guarantee the eggs will even be large enough to bother cracking open. They are called" bantam" and best I can tell so far they are just meant to look purdy. But I ordered them so they are coming. So I built a brooder into the coop. You can see it in the pictures. It is 33 x 26 inches by 14 inches tall. I built it with a hole for the heat lamp and two windows for peeking and ventilation.  I hope the other hens like them.  Any way. That's what I did today. Oh, and by the way, if it crows it be comes that evenings dinner.