Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Afternoon Blessing

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I love the way the afternoon sun comes through the french doors in my art room and shines on this grouping of mainly garage -sale treasures!  It makes me smile!  A sweet afternoon blessing!

Monday, September 12, 2011

Our little backyard farm flock


Let me introduce the girls:  Henny Penny, Chub Chubs, Emmy, Bertie and Sassy!  They make up our little backyard farm flock.  The black and white speckled ones are Plymouth Rocks and lay brown eggs.  The reddish three are Americanas and lay beautiful blue-green eggs!  We had the sweetest bantam rooster, but he had to go when he started to crow....a city rule.

Why have chickens especially when you live in the city?  Well....for me one reason is because we do live in the city!  I've always wanted to live on a little farm, but that dream hasn't happen yet. So....I have fun doing all I can (legally of course) to turn our regular old house smack dab in the middle of a city into a cottage farm!  And what's a farm without chickens?

Chickens also eat bugs and give out great fertilizer!  Of course, they also eat any green plant in sight, so that's why you see chicken wire surrounding our raised vegetable beds.  We had designed our vegetable garden to double as our chicken coop area, too.  Whoops!  The girls were feasting on the tender, new plants!  So my clever husband surrounded the beds with about 2 feet of chicken wire and problem solved!

Chickens are also cute, funny and can be cuddly if they want to be!  About once a day, we let them out of the fenced-in area to freely roam the back yard, eating bugs as they go!  My husband and I like to sit on the terrace and watch their antics.




And now for one of the best reasons to have chickens:  FRESH EGGS!  It is so wonderful to have eggs without going to the store.  The hens can lay 3-5 eggs a day.  It's just me and my husband at home now, so the eggs add up quickly.  We can give away eggs and still have lots to enjoy!

Scramble eggs, fried egg sandwhiches on sour dough with ham, avocado and cheese (my personal favorites), fritattas, omelets... lots of yummy, easy meals can be made with eggs.  And all the baking you can do!

And I never have to check the eggs in the cartons at the grocery store!  I don't know why, but I really hated doing this simple thing!

Well, those are a few of my reasons for having a little flock. Thanks for letting me ramble!

Trina