Videos

Here's a couple of new YouTube videos of the critters

Recycle, Reduce and Reuse

I think you all know I'm a crazy environmentalist. I try my hardest to follow the three Rs as much as I can: Recycle, Reduce and Reuse. I recycle everything possible. I compost. I try to pick products with minimal packaging. I try to limit my shopping and not have piles and piles of "stuff". I dry my clothes on the line. Wash clothes in cold water etc etc etc.

I also try to reuse and repurpose old stuff, so it doesn't go to the landfill. I found a beat up old double stroller in the shed here and instead of throwing it out decided to repurpose it. I took all the baby seat stuff off and found two old bins that fit perfect. I drilled holes in the bottoms of the bins for drainage and then fastened it on the stroller with ties. The whole thing took me about 30 minutes, It works great for moving sticks, stones, leaves, dirt and of course dogs :)

So, here's a pic of my son Travis and Taco and Buddha. It worked great. I used it during the afternoon to move wood and it was perfect. Even went over the grass pretty good. I was planning on buying a wheelbarrow this month, but now I don't think I'll bother :) 

Gardens, Broody Chickens and More

Hi! hope you are all doing fantastic!

We've been busy, busy, busy getting the gardens in ... and we are finally done!

The front garden in this pic is the main garden, it will have tomatoes, peppers. corns, carrots, beets, radishes, onions and turnips. The back garden in the pic is the bean and pea garden.

The garden in this pic is the lettuce garden. It has several different types of lettuce, spinach etc planted. The tires you see in the background are my mound. They are filled with dirt and have cucumbers, watermelons, pumpkins, several different types of squash and cantaloupes.

Hyde, the chicken in the box in the pic below, has been sitting on her eggs almost two weeks now. Only one more week to go till the eggs hatch. I moved her into the house as the other hens were harassing her and it will be much safer for the chicks. However, I did not know about the whole exploding ungodly poop thing. Chicken poop is generally not a big deal, it doesn't have a huge smell and is cleaned up easily. I did not know broody hens were different. As they don't poop while sitting on the eggs, they only poop once a day and when they go, wow! they go! To my surprise she exploded the most smelly disgusting poop everywhere! It was really really really bad! Oh boy! Not fun! I'm not looking forward to cleaning up one a day for the next week!

This pic is of Dirty Girl. She is on day 5 of egg sitting. I'll have to move her into the house in a few days. Guess what that means ... yep, more broody hen poop! Gods help me!These hens better make me some cute chicks! Dirty Girl is also hopefully hatching some duck eggs for me.

This is Dexter looking extremely smog after bringing home a good sized rabbit. I was not too impressed that he decided to eat it on my front porch. Yuck!

One other awesome thing: My "Memoirs of an Exotic Dancer" is now available on Amazon and on Barnes and Nobles! YAY!

The craziness never stops around here! LOL!

Have a great weekend friends!

Hugs and love!

Garden, Eggs and Internet Woes

Hi! Hope you are all doing well! We've been busy, busy, busy around here putting in gardens, getting ready for summer and of course taking care of all our critters.

My internet has been working horribly for the last two weeks. The only times it really works is the middle of the night. I'm extremely frustrated and grumpy about the whole thing. I'm very tired, getting up in the middle of the night to work sucks big time. The internet company, Seaside is suppose to be coming on Tuesday to fix it. Fingers crossed. I can't take much more of this broken sleep and need a proper working internet.

The goose eggs that Mama Muscovy duck was sitting on sadly all died :( Not a single one hatched. Such a disappointment. I have no idea what went wrong. Mama Muscovy is now sitting on 14 Saxony and Indian Runner eggs, and i have a hen sitting on 18 chicken eggs. I'm sure we'll get some babies eventually!

We've been super busy putting in gardens. We have the herb garden, bean/pea garden and lettuce garden already in. We still have the main garden and the mounds to go. The photo below is of the bean/pea garden.

Hugs and love!

Seeds, Broody Hen and Smoochie

I had a wonderful Ontario friend drop in for a visit on the weekend and she very kindly gifted me a box full of seeds! SEEDS! It doesn't get much better than seeds! Seeds are life! They are sacred!

 One of my hens, Hyde, went broody. She is the first hen to go broody this year. It is also the first time I've had a broody hen with fertilized eggs.

Figgy, my Muscovy decided she needed to lay an egg in the same laying box as Hyde ... not sure why, but what do I know? 

I've been wondering where Figgy's eggs have been going, I'm assuming under Hyde's butt!

And then this happened. 

Dirty girl just HAD to lay in the laying box too

In other news, our foster dog Smoochie went off to a new home today. Fingers crossed it works out!

Hugs and love!

Photos of the Day

Some pics I took today :)

Everything is budding and turning green! So vibrant and full of life

A Woodpecker

Figgy enjoying the pond

The new hens checking out the property. They did great free ranging today

Mama Muscovy sitting on her eggs. Still no signs of hatching. Fingers crossed!!

Chickens, Eggs and Painting

Hi Friends! Hope you are all having a great week! I've been busy, busy, busy taking care of all the critters and painting the inside of the house.

Today is day 32 for my goose eggs. Still no sign of them hatching. Today is the day. Goose eggs are suppose to take 28-32 days to hatch. I'm awfully nervous about teh whole thing. I sure hope they hatch. No signs of peeping or anything yet. I'm gonna be awfully disappointed if none of the goslings hatch.

I've been doing really well selling my duck and chicken eggs; however, I have been giving away a pile too. I have now given free eggs to two schools for hatching so far. I gave two dozen duck eggs to one teacher and I have another teacher coming Monday night to pick up 40 chicken eggs. I'm not comfortable charging overworked underfunded teachers for eggs for their classes, so have been donating them. It's nice to do nice things :)

My new hens went outside for the first time today. They seemed to really enjoy it :) So far they haven't been beat up by my old nasty bitches :) My Ontario hens are all 4 years and older, big and ornery.

This week I've also got a couple of new art designs done.

Christmas Holly Gnome T-Shirt
by PugWiggles

Butterfly Heart T-Shirt
by PugWiggles

FUNKY Psychedelic Disco Dancers T-Shirt
by imphavok

Goose Eggs

Two of my goose eggs are about to hatch! If you look at the candled egg pic below, I have two eggs that look like the last picture in the photo set. When I candled them last night, I could actually see movement! The pic below is for chicken eggs, but the development for goose eggs is the same. My goose eggs are at day 30; they take 28-32 days to hatch.

When the little ones hatch I'll let you know! Very exciting!

New Hens and Herb Garden

We got ten new hens for free :) We really weren't planning on getting more hens, but they were free and we've been running short on chicken eggs (as they are selling so well), so it made sense to get them. The two red ones are Rhode Island Reds and the 8 whites are Leghorns.

The hens will stay inside for a couple of days and then they'll spend time outside in a cage, and then they will slowly become part of the greater flock.

We got a herb garden put it. We split it into sections in an attempt to keep all the herbs separate. 

It's suppose to rain most of the week, so I've started painting the inside of teh house. Looking forward to getting it painted!

Night Time on Piskie Point

Zazzle Mugs

Time for some shameless self promotion! Here's my collection of mugs I made on Zazzle :) Just hit on the pic below and it will take you to my whole collection :) Thanks! Hugs and love!

Mugs
by Patricia Cartwright