One Step At A Time

We started small, buying a house in 2007 with a backyard of open grass and possibilities. We have added (and are still adding) raised beds for vegetables, a hoop house (diy-car-shelter-style), dwarf fruit trees, berry bushes, potted divisions and cuttings, permanent perennial vegetables, herbs and flowering plants. A second, larger hoop house went up, then collapsed in the weight of our first (and only real) snowstorm this past winter.

The first major addition came with our chickens - our first three girls were Isa Reds (de-beaked, hybrid, pullets from the feed store) called Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner (the husband has dibs on naming and does it so well). We built them a chicken tractor which stays on grass for most of the year, and replaces our tomato plants in the hoop house for additional warmth - and added fertility - in the cold months. We've bid adieu to some of the girls, and added new, heritage breeds to our flock, raising three from day-old balls of peeping fluff in our second bathroom.

Currently digging up the yard are Nugget, Pilgrim and Celine Dion. Once the chickens seemed to have become just one more familiar item on the chore list, we added Florida White meat rabbits to the mix. We've bred several litters of kits over the past year, sending them to freezer camp and learning to cook with home-grown meat fed on gleanings from the garden, dehydrated fruit slices, dry orchard grass, alfalfa pellets and the occasional winter-time treat of grains.

This year - specifically yesterday - the bees came. We built a top-bar hive after much research and thought, and so will be working a tad outside the norm for beekeepers in our area. I hived them yesterday, after a demonstration and an assist at another bee yard (in a Langstroth hive), and am waiting for them to settle in and release their queen. When I went out this morning and heard absolutely nothing from the hive, I (panicked) cheated and peeked - and they're still here, just adjusting to the new digs and needing to free their queen before they really get down to business.

Jen, in full beekeeper regalia demonstrating for the newbies:

Also this year, I'm getting some hands-on work with larger livestock - sheep, goats, and a friendly, well-trained horse who is likely to spoil me for horse-handling (but the husband is allergic, so that likely isn't in our future). My friend Jen over at Horse Drawn Farms is teaching me the ropes as I take yet another step - this time to one day having a few dairy goats of my own.