Thursday, April 24, 2008

Chicky Ladies






We got chickens last week, Laying hens, and 2 turkeys. We wanted to start raising our own eggs again. Eggs here are $4 a dozen for junky store eggs, and we can raise our own good eggs for a lot less than that. So, that's what we're going to do. We actually ordered them from the Homer feed store a couple of weeks ago, but then we decided to check out the other feed store in Soldotna. They carry different types, so we got 20 chickens up there last week. Monday the Homer store called and said that the 20 we reserved with them were in, if we wanted to come and get them still. So we talked about it for a couple days and decided to get them too. So actually we have 40 hens now. Its a lot of hens, but we wanted to have lots of eggs, and we will. We'll sell the extra eggs to pay for the feed, and it will be great. We can sell them for $3 a dozen or so. Should be fun. Oh, and I included pics of our plants in our new greenhouse too. :)

Monday, April 14, 2008

Our new greenhouse

Mya's contributions were her stuffed alien, a lot of tail wagging, standing around in the way, and whining if she couldn't be in touching distance of Justin. :) Oh, and biting any sticks or wood bits that happened to hit the ground.
Ok, I'm pretty sure this next picture is some kind of OSHA violation - can a stuffed alien really be the ladder holder? It just seems they don't have the upper body strength........









My wonderful husband built me (well all of us really) a greenhouse this past weekend. We've been growing our little plants on our desk downstairs, but as they've gotten bigger we needed a more permanent solution. Plus its so hard to get good vegetables up here, that we have needed to do something for a years now. Just we didn't ever get to it, but now Justin's done it! Its an 8x8 greenhouse, with 3 shelf areas, up on the deck, hooked to the side of the house. Should be great. We've got corn, beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, jalapenos, flowers, and will soon have lettuce, dill, basil, maybe carrots. We also have planted pumpkins, alaska muskmelons, and acorn squash, oh and zucchini. Most of the squash/pumpkin family is still downstairs. They are waiting for cold frames in the garden when it thaws more. For now though we've got a great start! Fun stuff. Today we moved the plants (most of them) upstairs, and put in some brick pavers to use as insulation, or to hold heat rather, so that it will stay warmer at night. Pretty cool stuff!