Tag: Chickens
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Size Matters
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself. Elanore Roosevelt Consider this a public service announcement. Not all chickens are the same. When we first began our chicken journey we started our small. Just a few chickens. Except that the few chickens became 17 chickens. Chicken math.…
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Worth a Thousand Words
One picture is worth a thousand words. Fred R. Barnard I have a confession. Some days I have no idea what to write about. This is especially true this time of year. We’ve got so much going on around the homestead that oftentimes I realize it is Tuesday and I haven’t even given a thought…
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When There’s Too Much Drama in the Coop
Many of us who aren’t farmers or gardeners still have some element of farm nostalgia in our family past, real or imagined: a secret longing for some connetion to a life where a rooster crows in the yard. Barbara Kingsolver Chickens. They’re like the gateway animal to homesteading and farming. At first you’re just a…
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Taking Inventory
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. Cicero We didn’t start out with a farm. In fact, when we first bought our land there wasn’t even a garden on site. Lake Township’s zoning classifies our property residential. There is no separate zoning classification for agriculture. In a historically rural…
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Springing Ahead
Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm. – John Muir Did you know that you’re more likely to have a heart attack, stroke, or automobile accident on the first Monday following the spring time change? It’s true! Apparently we have a hard time adapting to that artificially influenced change in our schedule. It severely…
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Bloom Where You Are Planted
We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men. Herman Melville We often open these posts with an update on the weather. It’s sort of a thing. Maybe that’s because Ohio cannot seem to figure out which season it wants to be in at the moment (even more so…
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Protecting Our Investment (and a Snowy Day)
An egg today is better than a hen to-morrow. Benjamin Franklin Seasonal weather for NE Ohio returned this week with an unexpected snow storm on Sunday morning. While we only received 2- to 3-inches of snowfall during the event, the initial rate at which it came down surprised a lot of NE Ohioans. Winter storm…
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The Unlikely Farmdog
All his life he tried to be a good person. Many times, however, he failed. For after all, he was only human. He wasn’t a dog. Charles M. Schulz This afternoon we came home to a bonus chicken. You read that right. Where we should have 17 chickens, our usual 14 hens and 3 roosters,…
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Winter Weeding? (and More from the Homestead)
People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy. Anton Chekhov This week I found myself doing a task I normally wouldn’t expect for the second week of January, 2023. Weeding the garden. That’s right. I spent an hour or so this week on my hands and knees pulling weeds from our garden…
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Looking Back on Our Future
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. Seneca Happy New Year! It’s hard to believe that it is 2023. When we were younger time seemed to move so much slower. We waited for time to pass, wanting for things in our future to come to us quicker. But as we’ve aged it seems…
Headwaters Homestead 