Little house in our backyard

I love cute little knick knacks in our garden and this little bird house was given to me by a special friend... She was really getting rid of it so it wasn't meant to be a gift but it still feels meaningful to me. We hung it at the end of our yard by the pond so the birds would have some privacy and could raise their little family in piece in a little "pond house".

 Only sparrow could fit in the small opening. They even built a comfy nest in there. We like to watch the bird families that move into our backyard!

Here, take a look at the mommy!

Look what I am getting for my porch!

I am always looking forward to decorate my porch in the spring... Couple years ago my husband put up  a bamboo on our sides to make it more cozy but then we had to take it down because the porch was being painted. I had no idea he saved it so last year i didn't mention anything about it. But this year I told him I would like to buy some again and he said we still have it in the shed. You know how fast I chased him up that ladder ;-)

Right now the porch is on a good way to being finished, only few minor touches! How are you decorating your porch or patio? Attach a link to your comment for all of us to see!

We have a new turkey!

We actually have 4 baby turkeys right now but that's only because we are keeping 3 for someone else till next week. We are not sure which one will be ours even though I feel the white one is the best and most friendly. However that one will be going away and we have to keep one of the dark ones. :-(

We had the idea to put them together with the new baby layers, hoping that since they are all babies they will get used to each other faster and there will not be a need for us to build a separate house for the turkey. So far it has not been working out so good. The chickens, especially Brownie, are pecking at the turkeys' backs and when the turkeys hide they actually go as far as looking for them in the corner just to get a peck. Can you see Brownie viciously eyeing the white turkey?

I will be googling what to do but so far we are keeping our fingers crossed that they will get over the introduction and become friends. I feel bad for the turkeys because they look a bit scared. Anyone has experience with this kind of friendship that happens early on? I know that adult hens will not like anyone new in their flock but babies.

Chicken tractor

Now that you know from my previous posts that we have several new baby chicks, here is an update on our broilers. Since they have been growing very fast and started to fill up the box they shared with our tinny layers, we had to take that next step and move them outside. The temperatures started to climb so we felt confident to do that. I will tell you more about their new home that my husband built - the chicken tractor! 

It looks pretty cool, doesn't it? It took him three evenings to complete it but he didn't spend a dime - which we both like ;-)

He found some left over pieces of wood in the chicken shed and used a piece of left over roofing and our left over chicken wire fence from the coop. He figured out the space our 10 chicks will need in the next few weeks to be comfortably growing and have a happy life. 

He followed the Joel Salatin - Polyface farm chicken tractor model. 1.6 sq foot of space per bird. Due to the small size of our yard we decided on a 5ft x 5ft version.  It can hold up to 15 birds.

After looking for hinges for the top gate and not being able to find any around the house he just improvised : )

He got these wheels from our kids old toy cart that we were no longer using. Wheels make it easier to move the tractor around our yard. 

Fun in the sun! The Natural Heat Lamp. 

Replanting some seedlings

In one of my previous posts you learned a bit about planting seeds indoors using green house and some other supplies. Now I am back with some update and new experience. First take a look at some of my pots.

Do you see the difference in the plant size? I will give you little background on these. All the plants are the same age, actually the ones on the left (bigger) are transplants from the ones on the right. I planted 3 seeds per pot just in case something didn't catch and ended up with all of them coming up. i felt sorry to waste perfectly good plants and so I replanted them. They went from the paper pot into plastic pots I got in dollar store. I left for two week vacation and came back to this.

The transplants flourished, grew into beautiful plants while the original in the paper pots stopped growing at some point and actually started loosing leaves.

I wonder why this happened... what was the reason for the plants to stop developing? The only factor that changed was the kind of pot I used. All my plants in the plastic pots or yogurt  cups look great. The ones in the paper are dying. 

I wouldn't use the paper pots anymore. I will stick with the plastic. Not only can you reuse them but they also maintain the plants strong and healthy. I replanted them all so now I have to see if they catch up. Good luck to you!

Planting Fruit Trees

For the past 5 years I have meant to buy cherry trees. Every year I would plan on it but never actually purchased one. Our backyard is not so big and we have two big Maple trees that get in a way of sun light. So I had to be picky about what to get. Thanks to my sister in law, who did some research on the net and found a company who sells good quality trees, we finally ordered. The website is starkbros and the cherry tree I picked is the semi-dwarf Stella Sweet Cherry. 

First I had to soak them in water for few hours. As you see I received them with no soil, only bare roots. They do this to ensure good contact with the new garden soil.

First my husband dug a hole 2x2 so it was double the size of the roots. (Look what else we could plant ;-)

Next he put some peat moss on the bottom of the hole and inserted the tree. Did you notice how I got hubby involved in my gardening tasks? ;-) No, really, I hurt my lower back and was not able to dig anything that weekend.

He covered it half way with the original soil and spread a bit of chicken manure over that. He also put this plastic tube over the tree trunk to protect it from animals... 

... and then he added more soil.

Last step was to cover the soil with mulch and water it a lot. Everyday I water it and watch it closely.. I mean I am kind of obsessed :-) Clearly this bare stick will not have fruit till next year but I am stalking it and monitoring every new leaf that shows up.

And today I ordered two more fruit trees - this time apples... I will make them fit somewhere in the yard, watch me ;-)

Lethargic baby chick

As I mentioned in my post before, we got three pet chickens, that will be half everyone else's size and fancy looking! We are very excited about them and can't wait till the grow up so we can see how they will look. However, one of them wasn't looking too good since day one. Here she is - eyes always closed, sitting in one spot, never eating or drinking, and looking very weak. 

I did some research and found out that besides some chicken vitamins, I can use sugar water to give her some energy and get her started. So I used organic raw sugar and lukewarm water and gave it to her using a dropper. She wasn't opening her beak very well at first but when she got taste of the water, she started drinking it more. I gave her half the dropper and put her back in the box.

At first she was looking around and then all of a sudden she started walking around, she found water and spent lots of time drinking it. She slowly found her way to the feeder and ate some food from the ground. 

It has been over a week now since I treated her with simple sugar water and she is as alive as can be. (the above picture is from the same day I treated her - I will update her photo on the Facebook tomorrow if I get a good shot) She is the smallest of them all but the cutest and the biggest warrior. You should see her trying to fight the crowd to get to the feeder! i am amazed how this simple "medicine" worked. And I am happy we saved her. Now we have to think of her name :-)

Baby chicks video update

Now our baby chicks are eating worms! You can see in my previous post that we got about 1000 earth worms and that we built them a little earth worm farm. With time they started multiplying and now the baby worms are perfect size for these baby chicks to eat as a treat! My husband is having lots of fun with these ladies so take a look at a video he made.

Our new baby chicks arrived!

My husband and I decided to expand our Little Backyard Farm with some new addition - baby chicks! We currently have broilers, layers, and pet chickens. 

First, meet one of our pet chickens - Pingu. This is the first time we actually have pet chickens. We got three - Pingu is black, Brownie is brown, and the last one doesn't have a name yet because we are not sure if she is going to make it. She is acting a bit lethargic and we are trying to fix that. We believe these are Bantam chickens.

Here is one of our 10 Cornish chickens. We chose these to be our broilers. They will be ready in about 8 weeks. We still have to build the chicken tractor that they will move into. 

Here is the Rhode Island Red. We have these and one more breed we think is Americana to be our new layers. I really like my current layers - they are so friendly and calm. I hope these will be just like them.

At this point the new babies reside in our garage and they will stay there for at least the next three weeks. I will post a detailed description of their current home.

They seem to thrive and grow from day to day.

Birds' helpers

Spring is here even though the temperatures haven't really cooperate with the season and I heard our first birds flying by and socializing again. It's their time of the year to build nests and start expanding their families. We thought we would help them a bit! You can too and here is how:

You will need:

left over pieces of yarn

suet bird feeder

This is the easiest thing ever - just cut up some left over yarn and place it into a suet feeder. Hang it up in a secluded location so birds can freely pick their nest material. Kids had fun filling the feeder, it made for fun project.

I can't wait to see some color in the nests around our backyard!

I got this idea from this Juniper Moon Farm blog.

Treasured Thursdays - Beach Time

"Near the sea, 

we forget to count the days..."

DIY All Purpose Cleaner

In winter we eat lots of oranges and so I am left with lots of orange skin. I dry some of it for my immunity tea, but I also use some to make home made all purpose cleaner. And here is how :-)

Peel the orange and stuff the peels into a glass jar. Then pour vinegar over it till it's all covered.

Let it sit for about week and a half (if you leave i longer the skin starts getting brown and icky).

Then pour through a strainer into a spray bottle and use on all kinds of surfaces. I love that it's gentle and smells of oranges. Doesn't vinegar just clean anything? I am a fan! 

Original idea came from: Doityourself

Treasured Thursdays - Party time

Happy birthday to me! My daughter thinks I have birthday just about once a week... but how can you say otherwise, when she prepares such a cute looking party?

My grandma's bunt cake

My grandma's favorite recipe for a real Czech bunt cake. It is very easy to prepare. Enjoy!

What you will need:

2 cups of all purpose flour

1 cup of granulated sugar

1 cup of milk

1/2 cup of vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 vanilla sugar

4 teaspoons of baking powder

1 tablespoon of cocoa 

Preheat oven for 350 degrees. Mix all the ingredients except for the cocoa.

Grease and flour your bunt cake pan (I use butter and wheat flour).

Pour most of the batter into the greased pan.

Put the cocoa into the rest of the batter and mix it. Pour it into the pan over the yellow batter.

Now place it into the oven for 45 minutes but check after 35 minutes just in case your oven is working harder than mine :-) And voila!

Bon Apetit!

Starting seeds indoors - the progress

What has been happening in my grow house for the past two weeks? Here is an update. 

The seeds sprouted nicely. I usually place 2 seeds per hole just in case one doesn't sprout and that sometimes actually happens. Here you can see my tomatoes. It is time to take one of them out.

Some people use scissors and cut one of the seedlings, so they don't damage the roots of the one they are keeping in. But because I plant in a very loose soil I didn't find it a problem to pull them out without any struggle. This a photo after.

How do I choose which one to eliminate? It is not necessarily the smaller looking one. If you take  a look at your plants, choose the one that looks stronger to you, the one that is almost developing second leaves, not the one that is taller. Taller is not necessarily better. You can use your motherly instinct and you won't mess up.

These are broccoli and brussel sprout plants. You might think that they look good but actually they are becoming a bit leggy and I don't like that. See, your seedlings are suppose to be short, grow their stems wide, and develop new sets of leaves. What is happening here is that the seedlings are looking for more light and are trying to reach it. In that case they are not developing the right way. Rather they are growing their stems long and thin. What I have to do is raise my boxes closer to the light. I will do that and include a separate post about what happened. Hope it helps!

Broken refrigerator

How do you like my new fridge? I had to live like this for the past two days... I was sure the food would be eaten overnight by some neighborhood animal... All I have to say is thank God that it is still cold outside and most of all thank God for my skillful husband! This post is really dedicated to him. He is such a money savior when it comes to our household. If something breaks, he takes it apart and actually knows how to put it back together ;-) And in the middle of all that work he manages to fix absolutely everything! This time it was our 10 year old fridge that broke and I was sure that we will need to buy a new one. But not on his watch! He figured it out, ordered $8 part and that thing is running better than ever. So thank you, honey, for all that you do around here and for all the money we don't have to spend extra!

And today the heating broke :-( Can't wait for my handy husband to get back home from work, till then it's sweaters and jackets.

Treasured Thursdays - kitchen memories

I love when my kids help me in the kitchen. It causes a great mess but even greater memories! Today my daughter helped me bread chicken breast and we made chicken nuggets from scratch for dinner. And the bonus is when they make something, they can't wait to eat it!

Starting seeds indoors - sowing the seeds

In my previous posts, you found out what supplies I use and what plants to start inside and which ones would be just fine to start outside. Now let's take a look at the process of sowing the seeds.

First of all you need to wet your organic soil mixture. I put it in the bucket, pour lukewarm water over it, and mix it with my hand. Don't soak it completely, you just want a moist soil to start your seeds in. Then fill up your pots with the soil but do not press it in tightly. This will assure a good air and water flow for the roots, which will have easier time traveling through the soil as they grow. Make two inch deep holes in each pot using your finger, each on the opposite side of the pot and place the seeds in.

It is very handy to have helpers that will label the pots for you. I have two of those so it's easy to get that task done ;-) We use popsicle sticks for the bigger pots and I write directly on the yogurt cups with sharpie marker. (oops sorry for the blurry picture I didn't notice...)

It's time to cover the seeds with a little bit of soil and mist them with water using clean spray bottle. This is very gentle on your seeds and they will not float to the surface. Use this spray bottle on a mist setting anytime you would like to water your seed.

Cover the bins and place them in your green house. I place my green house by the back porch door so the seeds get some extra light and warmth (the door is facing east so the light hits it for most of the morning).

The first year we started our seeds inside, we used this seed starting kit but I found it to be way too small for the roots. they didn't have enough space to grow and get strong enough to be replanted. they took a long time to adjust to the garden and some of them didn't even make it.

And as you see in the picture (from 2 years ago) I would start cucumbers as well as squash inside. From my previous post you know that that is waste of your time and space. I am glad I made those mistakes for you and now you can learn from me and do it right the first time ;-)