Feeling Broody

I got my first batch of chicks 6 years ago, and ever since then I was hoping to have a broody hen so I wouldn't need to buy chicks. I like the idea of having some self-sufficiency around my mini farm.

Last summer a couple of my Golden Laced Wyandotts went broody. I got fertile eggs from my dads Jersey Giant and from under 2 hens I got 6 chicks. Sadly raccoons found their way in, I lost all the chicks and one of the moms.

In the fall, one of my Dark Cornish went broody. I didn't want chicks during the cold winter so I placed wooden eggs under her, she snuck in a real one when I wasn't looking and we ended up with our Uno.

Here is our Uno today. She is from our Silver Spangled Hamburg roo and a Dark Cornish Hen.

So Unos mom (i call her my baby mama) went broody again in February. I was taking care of my Dads chickens then so I took 4 of those eggs and another 4 from mine. The four from my dads were duds as well as one of mine, an egg eater got 2 so we ended up with one again.

This is Winky today, I believe she is a pure Dark Cornish (and a girl).

Are we destined for one chick at a time?

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I had a few more Dark Cornish (the queens of broody) go broody.

Hoping to hatch out some chickens for meat this year, I left the 2 Dark Cornish roos free to roam with the Dark Cornish, Partrige Rocks and Golden Laced Wyandott hens. They are all dual purpose breeds.

I separated our SSH roo, he's a smaller breed and put him in with our Americaunas. I had read somewhere if you cross a white laying breed Roo with a green laying egg hen, you may get more green egg layers. We shall see if that is true.

So 3 weeks ago, I placed 9 eggs under one of my broodys (7 brown, 2 green) and yesterday morning, I heard the sweet little peep sound coming from under this dedicated mama.

By the time I went to bed, six had hatched and by this morning the other 3 were dry, fuzzy and looking adorable.

This broody hen was in the box next to the first hen and thinks some of them should be hers. The one below is on some eggs too.

I moved the mama and chicks and she keeps trying to get in and claim some as her own. She got in once already and had a little chick under her. She has her own clutch that should be hatching in the next couple of days, if she will stay put.

In the last few days I noticed this Dark Cornish is in the Broody way. She wouldn't even leave when Hoot wanted to lay an egg so she just moved over.

That's not all!

This hen is Broody Too!

My husband found a wild goose egg out in the yard yesterday, do you think I should try putting it under her to see what happens?

That's Crazy!


Dark Cornish are a friendly breed, have tasty meat, not as pretty as some breeds but are wonderful if you are looking for a broody hen.

all work and no (well some) play

I noticed I only had 5 posts on my poor neglected blog this month. With this one its 6, wahoo!
What have I been up to? Well thanks for asking.

I got that job I was shooting for back in January. They originally wanted 10 bags, then 15, now 20! I am thankful they chose me and grateful for the work.

I am also grateful hubby is the bread winner, I'm just the breadcrumb winner but this makes my crumbs a little more substantial.

I also needed to finish a bag for the Circle of Art auction. They need it by Friday so I'm squeaking in just in time.

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It hasn't been all work. On Fridays, the boy has soccer so I dropped him off and went fishing.

I have been chomping at the bit to re-stock our pond. It's worse than we thought, all the little fish are gone too.

I caught this small large mouth. Ok, that sentence makes sense to fishing people.

(hubbys hands, mine aren't that large)

I'm not sure what exactly this one is, it looks like a bluegill but has a very large mouth. Sort of like a rock bass but it doesn't have the red eye. I caught a couple more that were smaller but beggars cant be choosers right?

I had to go back and pick up the boy, so while I was away I let the girl use my pole and tackle.

AND THIS IS WHAT SHE CAUGHT!! The little shit.

A 22 1/2" striped bass. I guess the important thing is that we are slowly stocking the pond back up, not important which one of us does the catching. It sure would have been fun to reel this one in though. She was grinning from ear to ear when I showed back up. That's my girl!

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Speaking of the girl, you all know how she likes to take my camera and surprise me with photos.

Here is just a couple of the dozens she took of her troll doll collection.




Cute little baby troll.

Well thats my quick little update. I'll try to do better next month.

second road trip

I have to admit I was a bit disappointed at the weight of the last tiny egg. I mean it was so small, but at .7 oz it was a giant compared to smaller eggs out there. Imagine my delight when last eve, while gathering eggs, I came across another tiny egg. Even smaller than the now huge .7 oz.

See the difference?

How's about now?

So this morning, I packed up my tiny little jewel,

put it in the car,

my farm helper was thrilled to go,

since it's family, there is no need to dress up,

I held my breath,

Wow, only .4 oz.

Makes me appreciate how tiny a .2 oz would be.

OK chickens, keep up the good work and give me more tiny eggs, this is fun!

Peer Pressure

A couple of weeks ago one of our hens gifted us with a tiny egg. I guess it has been going around.

Ceecee left me a comment about hers and asked if mine had a yolk. And Danni who weighs her eggs requested I weigh mine.

Great, I don't have a scale, I could take it to the Post Office but I go there regularly and don't want to be known as the weird lady who asks you to weigh tiny eggs, so what was I to do.

After putting some serious thought and a couple of naps it came to me, my stepmom has every gadget known to man, I bet she has a digital scale.

I called, she did, road trip!

I packed up my little egg and drove the 2 miles.

We weighed it.

See. Danni won, hers was only .4 oz.

I didn't want to crack the shell so I poked a couple of holes,

and blew. (Sorry no pics of that one, who knows what sort of people that would attract)

It was mostly egg white, a strange little yolk and some alien like substance hovering around.

Well ladies, there you have it.

Spring Break fun

We had a good week, a break from school and hubby had the week off too!

We did go to the .50 movie and had cousins over to play.

The snow melted by Wednesday.

We got a tiny egg.

(sorry ladies, no weight taken)

We went to the UMMA.

This is the model of the museum.

It was great.

We saw Tiffany glass,

and Picasso,

I love Picasso, but according to the literature, he was quite the perv.

The UMMA had a great mix of old and new.

But the best part of our Museum visit was...

WHERE I LUCKED OUT PARKING!!!

Ann Arbor is not the easiest town to find a place to park, so imagine how thrilled I was to find an open meter right out front! And I was driving the Neon! Parallel parking was a breeze!

Here is my car from the front door.

I'm a cheap thrills kind of gal.

We colored eggs.

Some think you cant dye brown eggs, not true.

We went to 2 Easter Parties, one was a bonfire/egg hunt.

The other was a egg hunt/kite flying day.


Just enough breeze.






Kites and cousins in a corn field.


I didn't get any quilting done but I did pull tons of nails from some slightly used free lumber.
We have a couple of building projects in the near future and this is going to save us $$$.

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I am STILL SICK! I was hoping to be better by now, at least I'm not bed ridden and I'm hoping the end is near. I'm longing for the day that i can breath properly from my nostrils and not have the cough that brings up things from the deep. At least it has been a few days without a fever.

Other than that it was a great week.

How was yours?

We now are starting tennis (the girl) and Drivers Ed (the boy). Yikes!

Spring Break

View from my front door this morning.

It's how we do spring in Michigan.

Same as last year.

We are on Spring Break now so I wont be around much. We plan on...

1. hitting the dollar movies on .50 day

2. having friends over

3. quilting

4. fixing the furnace (we did cut some wood)

5. visiting at least 1 museum

6. getting rid of this lingering bug

7. celebrating Easter with family

8. having some lazy moments

Oh we watched this great movie I borrowed from the library

called "Lars and the Real Girl". Its a good one.

See ya next week!

I need a break!

I have had the respiratory bug that has been going around for the past week. Sore throat, nasty cough, off and on fever.

Yesterday our furnace went out. We are out of firewood. Luckily the weather isn't so bad and I have a little space heater that has been keeping us close to 60*. I also have a man, you know I married him for his looks, but he is handy too and thinks he can fix it with a $56 part. I love him! We just have to wait it out for the part to arrive. A good excuse to bake and keep that oven on.

Speaking of baking, I usually bake bread with the easy bread recipe, but today I figured I could use a hand and got out the old bread machine.

So after hours of hearing it whirring, then smelling fresh bread baking, it beeped!

This is what it looks like when you forget to add the yeast.

This is what it looks like after you spend 10 minutes scraping it out of the pan.

Oh what the hell, I spread on the butter and ate some anyway.

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Oh and my helpful farm dog rolled in something. Nice.

I have been in a sewing funk lately, but have been plugging away. Last week I finished the other slipcover for the chairs in my den.

Yesterday I made some more dog food bag bags.

In different sizes.

Today I was feeling slightly better or less puny so I whipped on my garden gloves...

...and got sewing.

(when you free motion quilt, they help make guiding the fabric easier)

I made these two little pillows. Can you tell which one doesn't have the bottom stitched up yet?



Of all the pillows I've made and sold guess how many I have? ZERO. I am keeping one of these, they are just making me so happy!

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Last week I went on a road trip with my Mom, Step dad and Sister down to Toledo. On the way back, my sis and I were in the back of their little PT Cruiser, my Step dad makes a U-Turn to show us this sign he caught out of the corner of his eye.

What the???

I have nothing more to say.