Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

Britesea

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Getting lots done since we are shut-ins now (not required, but I'm 67 and diabetic, so...)
The Deep Pantry is almost completely done! :weee It's a 10x20 room (ex-garage that we insulated and finished to make me a studio when I was making jewelry). 1/2 is now all my heavy duty utility shelves holding foodstuffs and bolted to the wall. The other half holds the freeze dryer, a seed starting station, and my sewing machine- on the 3 different walls. I still need to fashion some sort of light-blocking system for the food shelves, it's dim on that side of the building because I blacked out the two windows there, but it still gets light from the other half. I was thinking of just making kind of curtains using cut open contractor trash bags for now. All that's left to do is go through 2 more boxes of "stuff" and then I can break down the cardboard boxes I won't be using to hold my canning jars at the end of the shelves.

I finished planting all the seeds in peat pots- just about 100 plants, assorted tomatoes, peppers, chilis, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, chard, and collards, cucumbers, melons, winter and summer squash, and a few lettuces. It won't quite feed us for a whole year, but it will come close if we have a good growing season. It was peaceful setting them up with their labels and all, while watching the snow falling outside.

Then I cut up a bunch of celery and started them in the freeze dryer. Now I need to mix up some lime water to preserve some of the extra eggs now that the hens are finally laying.

DH cleaned out the refrigerator, and we've been doing well- there was hardly anything that needed to be tossed, but he did dig out all the leftovers and that's what we did for dinner.

The eggs in the incubator go into lockdown on Friday, although I'm not sure anything is growing. We haven't candled since that first time. Maybe we'll be lucky. And even if we aren't, we have 17 chicks coming next Tuesday.

Heard a rumor that we have at least one new C-virus case, but nothing in the paper about it. Perhaps they are waiting for the official confirmation.
 

Britesea

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As I've said in other threads here, we have another confirmed C-19 case- this one community spread.
I ended up having to break quarantine because I got a call from the Klamath Falls Post Office at 11:30- my chicks had arrived there after it was too late to send them on to our post office, and the guy was worried about them sitting there until tomorrow. So I had to drive in and pick them up. Since I was already there, I called and asked if I could pick up our laptop instead of waiting till the end of the week like we had planned. Then DH wanted me to pick up another heat lamp for the brooder since the one we had was leftover from the last time we had chicks. It was a good thing I picked some up, because the old one burned out less than a minute after we turned it on. All but one of the chicks is fine-- one of the Dorkings died as DH was trying to get it to drink some water. I had asked for Grogel for the chicks, but instead of mixing it up and having it available for them during shipment, I found the envelope of powder tucked in between the box and the insulating liner... so they didn't have any water or food available for the two days they were in transit. I know they're supposed to be able to survive without for a couple days, but I've always felt that the stress of being transported negates that to a large degree.
I did a bit of shopping as well, but didn't buy eggs or cheese like I wanted because today is when people on WIC get their checks and I didn't want to contribute to empty shelves for them.

A lot of my seedlings have sprouted- most of the brassicas and lettuces, and today I found some tomatoes too. I moved them over to the second set of flats, with LED grow lights on them.

Obviously still to early to do anything in the garden though... it started "groppling" on the way home.

Tonight's dinner was a Sweet Spicy treatment of pork belly, with steamed asparagus (wish I could say it came from our garden, but no spears popping up yet).
 

Britesea

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Lost 2 more in the night, one of the Welsummers and one Dorking. The rest of the Dorkings are acting listless as well. The Australorps are all fine. I've got a call in to the hatchery and they said to let them know tomorrow what the final numbers are and they will replace the dead ones.
 

Britesea

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Well, I lost EVERY ONE of the Dorking chicks 😭 The hatchery issued a refund on my credit card, I don't think I'll go with Dorkings anymore-- I found some info that said they seem to be a bit frailer than other breeds and the chicks don't travel well. I know they were a lot smaller than everyone else too. No wonder they're considered a rare breed.
I think we will wait at least 4 weeks before getting some more chicks- By then, the first group will be outside in the brooding house (which is fine when the weather isn't as cold as it's been lately). Then I can order something else. I'm kinda leaning toward Brahmas right now. Anyone have any experiences, good or bad, with them?
 

baymule

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Aw, that's too bad about the chicks. I have never had Brahmas before. I have always heard good things about them, but have no personal experience.
 

Britesea

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Day 23 of quarantine. After doing dishes and laundry, checked up on the chicks (the remaining 8 chicks are still hanging in there) and checked up on the carrots in the freeze dryer (still drying). Checked on my seedlings; kale, collards and chard are up, also some of the lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage, and about half of the tomatoes have reared their heads. Read a little, knitted a little. Now I'm binge-watching emilymadeinjapan on youtube. I didn't realize she's been doing videos for 9 years! Some of the japanese candies she's been reviewing are really weird; others I can't see being allowed in the states, like the candy beer.

We had snow again today, changing to hail. It's mostly melted off now.

Dinner was a 3 pound turkey thigh from one of the Toms we raised last summer. I cooked it for 90 minutes in the instant pot and it was nice and tender. We shredded it and made bbq pulled turkey and sprouts wraps; looks like there's enough for tomorrow night too.
 

Mini Horses

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Snow? It's APRIL!! o_O

Turkey & spouts wraps sound good. Maybe a peppery radish for me. LOL

Do you use mullein? Reading good for lungs/bronchials. And some amount of antiviral.... I have a LOT of it, year one for most, so no flower stems yet. Will have some later in summer. So, if you do use -- how and feedback on results. I'm thinking tincture.
 

BarredBuff

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Turkey sounds wonderful.

I have never raised Brahmas, Dorkings or Welsummers. I have kept Australorps for years though.
 

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