dragonshiner's Self Sufficient Farmette Log

[dragonshiner]

Misery and excitement all wrapped in to one?

At work one of the boss's brothers is a holistic food and health guru. Self-professed. One day he was extolling the virtues of a garlic foot rub to help cure what ails you. He claims that a band aid smeared with garlic puree and applied to the softest, smoothest part of the underside of your feet will quickly spread it's healing qualities through the whole of your body.
Well, it has been proven that applications made to your feet is the fastest way to introduce something to your system, and garlic is well known for healthful properties. So who knows? Well I'm going to find out.
I woke up this morning expecting to make a day trip in to town but felt bogged down with all the symptoms of your standard head and chest cold. I'm not going anywhere. Yet I'm excited about the prospect of putting garlic on my feet. Go figure.
Anyway, what's the worst that could happen? It could do absolutely nothing and leave me with garlic smushing around in my socks. Not to mention smelly. Fortunately my hunny is working a ten hour shift and I have two days off from work.
So let's try something new. Put our feet up on the couch. Grab a few good books. Listen to NPR, and make the most of an otherwise dismal day.

 

[PamsPride]

I have put garlic in my 9 year olds socks at night before because he had a cough. It has been over a year ago so I can't remember how it worked. Will putting garlic in your socks help with memory?? If so I might try it!! I need all the memory I can help.

 

[lorihadams]

My grandmother swears by putting vicks vapor rub on your feet when you have a cough!

 

[dragonshiner]

Sick though I may be I still had to go out and feed all the birds. To my surprise and excitement I found that the eggs Momma Homer had been sitting on hatched! Well, one hatched and the other was MIA for whatever reason. But there it was, the first birth of 2009 on the farm, all fuzzy and yellow. I had to run back in the house and get the camera. By the time I got back Momma Homer had gotten wise to my plan and rushed back to sit on her baby. Still, great day!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=349613&l=db6bd&id=1031880440

Garlic update- It's been only three hours since applying garlic to my very sensitive feet and I can taste garlic at the back of my throat. My sniffling has reduced though, still have a very scratchy throat. More to come.

 

[dragonshiner]

On a garlic update. It helped alleviate some smaller symptoms and made my feet stink. Still have my scratchy throat. You be the judge.

 

[dragonshiner]

Okay, it was cute at first....


So last week was exciting when I found one pair of my pigeons had hatched a baby. I took it as a sure sign that spring was ready to break and there would be an end to all this cold and snow. Frankly we lost a lot of birds to the cold temps and a bronchial disease this year. So it's a welcome relief to see that they are ready to spring back in numbers.
Now I've never raised pigeons before. We got most of them as unsolicited gifts from my hunny's father and uncle who have special places in their hearts for these birds. They kind of grew on me and I got a pair of large squab for meat production last year. Plus my hunny, sensing my new found interest in these birds, bought a trio of Giant Runts just for novelty purpose. I suppose my love for the pigeons has grown to match my love for ducks. So now it is my intent to train a few homers to fly around the yard freely. I've been reading every book I can get my hands on and started the "hand taming" process yesterday when Mom hopped off the nest for some food.
In seven days since it's hatch this little sucker has grown so quickly! He/she fits my entire palm, twitters and likes to stand up to show how tall it is. It would be adorable if it wasn't so awkwardly.....uncute. LOL. It's features are totally uneven with the rest of it's body and it's feathers are just starting to stick out making it look like a cross between a bird and a hedgehog. I know that it's just a phase that it's growing through but still, yikes.
The excitement is still increasing though. One of my giant runts has laid an egg, which it conceived with a pigeon half it's size, that should be interesting. Then my squabs just laid an egg yesterday. Still no eggs from any of my other birds, but my neighbors tell me that thier pigeons lay long before their chickens do in the spring. SO we'll see.
Now if only the rest of the snow would melt away and the puddles dry up so I can get at my garden.
Okay, not all the puddles, the ducks are having fun in those

 

[dragonshiner]

Came home from work and found two eggs laid in the coop. The ladies are back in action!

 

[dragonshiner]

First Duck Egg of the season!

Today I found the first duck egg of the season from my kids. Well, the first that I'm aware of anyway. Ever since the warmer weather has set in I've been letting all the birds back out to roam the farm and for all I know there is a stash of duck eggs sitting in some secluded spot that I know nothing about. We'll see.
My chickens started laying just a few days ago, thursday, I think. Already I'm up to 4 eggs a day with more to come as a few other hens get the notion in thier heads. Already one of my girls has gone broody and is insisting on setting on the small amount of eggs that have been laid. So, just out of curiosity, I took all the chicken eggs and stashed the lone duck egg underneath her. We'll see what happens.
Technically it's still too cold to let the birds hatch any eggs yet. We're supposed to get another dumping of snow this Saturday. Officially the pigeons have already had a hatch and two others are sitting on more eggs. Last year we let them hatch eggs all the way up to the end and found out that was a bad thing. This year we're only going to let the chickens, ducks, and guineas set on eggs from April to May.
The ground is finally uncovered and ready to be tilled. I've been out in the garden everyday getting ready to plant cold season crops, hopefully by next week at the latest. My hunny keeps telling me it's a bad idea, but I've been doing my research all winter and am going to give it the old college try, without having ever attended college. My biggest problem is going to be keeping the chickens out of the garden until we can fix the fence.