What We've Been Waiting For!

At last! My Welsummer hens have started laying. We got our first egg from them on Tuesday, December 14th. They aren't the dark "chocolate" color I was expecting, but they are very, very pretty with their freckles and dusky color. I took WAY too many pictures of them, and of course, had to share them with you. Who else would appreciate egg pictures?!

There are four Welsummer eggs in the basket. The bigger, lighter brown egg is from my Brahma hen, and the white eggs are from the game hens that were supposed to be Americaunas.

I just love my colorful egg basket! I'm so glad I don't have all one breed of chicken. Now that I have this assortment, I never want to go back to all one color.

Eggs!

This spring I bought 8 Welsummers because I wanted their beautiful chocolate brown eggs. They are now 9 months old and have yet to lay a single egg. On top of that, my three mature hens started to molt in August, and were laying sporadically. Then they quit. We haven't had a single egg since September first. Last night when I went out, there were three beautiful eggs waiting for me! After a three month long wait, we finally have eggs!

The chickens spent the summer in our chicken tractors so they could "free range" without danger of predation, or at least to minimize that danger. When they hadn't laid in 8 weeks, I remodeled the bachelor pad and moved them there, to a more traditional chicken house with a yard. I increased their feed from a 16% protein feed to a 20% one. I am also using a heat lamp on the nights that the temperature dips below the freezing mark. Which of these factors broke the strike? I don't know, but I sure am glad about it!

Soap

Making homemade soap is one of my favorite things to do. I took these pictures a while back, and kept thinking I would make a small, plain batch and do a tutorial of how to make soap, but it hasn't happened. The top bar is patchouli, the next one is cornmeal tangerine for at the kitchen sink, the next one is my deer camp blend. It has cedar wood oil, coffee, and cocoa in it. The next bar is fragrance free, and the bottom bar is another patchouli that shows the staining that occurs as a result of the soap being in contact with my wooden mold.

Plenty

He who tills his land will have plenty of food, But he who follows empty pursuits will have poverty in plenty. ~Proverbs 28:19


This is my great grandmother. She passed away when I was very young, but I do remember her. When we would go to visit her, she was nearly always either working in the garden or her flowers. What a blessing it is to have a heritage of love for the land and for the plants God blessed us with!

Beautiful 'Boocha!

I started making kombucha a couple years ago. It's always just been okay, nothing to write home about. But this batch... this is the best EVER!!! Here it is still in the half gallon jar, waiting to be harvested:

And here is the brand new scoby all ready to begin life in a new batch. Isn't it beautiful?! I've never made one so pristine before. :D

And here is the new batch, ready to start brewing. I moved the scobies to a new gallon jar, and spiked it with plenty of fully ripe 'bucha to give it a jump start.