Monday, January 4, 2010

Spiral Scouts

Well the kids went to their first Spiral Scout meeting yesterday which turned out to be tons of fun. For those who do not know what Spiral Scouts are click here to find out more http://www.spiralscouts.org/

Yesterdays meeting was all about Fire Safety, covering every aspect of fires and safety in a group environment with children ranging from 4 to 13. The kids had so much fun they decided they definatly wanted to join so that is what we did and we will get together once a month for Spiral Scout activities for them to earn a variety of badges. The kids are really excited about being able to participate with this group and it is fairly close to home so it will be easy to stay involved with them.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Beginner Beekeeping classes

Well hubby is really wanting bees this year................lovely..........me and bees just do not mix, I get real tired of people saying just leave them alone and they will leave you alone......quit running blah blah blah. I am ALWAYS minding my own business where they will come and just sting me on my face.

In any case I love making candles therefore love bees wax and I love honey and really would love to try my hand at making some mead.

So I signed hubby up for a 10 week course on beginning beekeeping! He is really excited and will start January 12. It is a great way to show kids you are always learning no matter what age you are and eases my mind hubby may actually know a little of what to do when I order the beekeeping supplies and hives!

Strictly Unschooling Blog

While this blog is my General Blog where I post pretty much about anything from unschooling to homesteading, or what ever is on my mind  I have another blog that is dedicated only to our unschooling. Come Check us out at http://rainbowrivers.wordpress.com/

In the meantime this blog will continue on as always...............

Thursday, December 31, 2009

New years resolutions

well it is that time of year, where we reflect on the year just past and think about what we would like to do  better for the  new year!

So here it is.

For 2010 I will resolve to...........

1.) Live every moment in joy

2.) Challenge myself to be as frugal as I can to achieve the goals that really matter to me

3.) Lead a healthier lifestyle working on eating healthier, losing a little weight, becoming fit, quitting smoking and going caffiene free

4.) Love more, laugh more, live more

5.) To get and stay organized

6.) To raise quail, chickens, rabbits, turkey, goats,pigs and a couple of llamas or alpacas

7.) To reduce waste

8.) To live in the moment

9.) To work on home-based income avenues

10.) To improve on our unschooling journey

11.) To learn new survival and homesteading skills

12.) To travel to a few interesting places

13.) To get a kennel built for our dogs

14.) To treat our neighbors as a community

15.) To make our home an interesting learning envirnoment

16.) To read more for pleasure

17.) To  apply the laws of attraction to my daily living

18.) To stay in a positive frame of mind

19.) To be more giving and forgiving

20.) To remember to show and give gratitude for the blessings I have

21.) to eat what we grow and grow what we eat

22.) To start scrapbooking as a way of record keeping for our year for each family member

23.) To learn a style of dance

24.) To listen to more music

25.) To stay more in touch with family

26.) To be more supportive of my family members dreams, needs and interests

27.) To trust the process of unschooling

28.) To hone basic survival skills, and live off the land

29.) To take pleasure in simple things

30.) To live a abundant and prosperous life.



Happy New Year everyone may you have a year full of health, wealth and love this year!

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Learning Together



The neighbors had brought us some squirrels so hubby set out to learn how to skin and dress them out with our daughter interested in learning how as well. I watched for awhile as he struggled with the skinning and it was taking FOREVER so I checked out youtube videos and found this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66AVwthXgMA

This video helped a great deal although it still took him a little while but after a few attempts he now is skinning and dressing them out with no problems. The funny thing is a few days later the neighbors came down and asked hubby to show them how. These guys hunt and even showed me and hubby how to do deer but apparantly they had never done squirrel. In any case there was a whole lot of learning from young to old alike and a little meat added to the freezer.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Chicken Tractors and Garden Beds.


















December 24th was a beautiful sunny 50 degree day here so it was a great day for some yard work. The Chicken tractors had been in place for about 4 weeks and was about time to move them. A chicken tractor is a portable pen that is a way to free range chickens in a safe environment as well as letting them work the soil for you as they scratch the ground and forage as well as fertilize it with their droppings. It is an extremely healthy way to raise chickens as you can move them freely around your yard for pasture grazing, they do not reduce the ground to dirt and piled up droppings as they would in a stationary coop and frees you from having to clean out the coop. I use mine where I want my garden beds and am using the deep mulch system which means I keep the pen in place for a month or so as I pile in a fresh bedding of leaves once or twice a week. The more chickens you have, the more frequent you will have to place fresh bedding in. After moving the chicken tractor to fresh pasture, I let them forage and scratch in the fresh grass a few days before I add the first layer of leaves. I also now have my first two garden beds with a high pile of leaves as mulch.......no tilling or spading up the ground is required with this method.

In the first photo and second photo at top you will see the finished results, we have more slate in our wooded part of our property than we could ever use so this is what we lined the beds with to hold in the leaves and to raise the beds. At planting time an inch or two of soil will go on top of this to plant. I also added leaves and composting materials from the compost pile to the raised beds to fill them in a little more and even it out some. The rabbits droppings were also added into these beds from our rabbits.

The third and last photos are of the chicken tractor itself that me and my 8 year old daughter built. It is a simple rectangular design with a hinged door on top as you can see in the 8th photo that opens from the top for easy access to water, feed and collect eggs from. The door rests above and on the top of the frame, the pen is then wrapped on top and all sides with one-inch chicken wire, you want one-inch because anything larger than this will allow weasels and other rodents into the pens. We stapled the chicken wire to the 2 x 4rs which the whole pen took 10 planks of untreated 2 x 4 in 8 foot lengths. The pens themselves are 4 feet by 8 feet and we chose 3 feet in height because that is the height the chicken wire came in. Hubby built little wooden houses to protect them for the colder seasons that we placed inside the pens, but these will be removed in warm seasons.  Laying chickens like to roost so I put roosting stickes through the wire that I cut from our woods. Also the pens are protected from rain , sun and wind by covering half the top with tarps as well as the end and two sides, all about half way on the pen, the other end is totally open for sunshine and light. These pens are placed very close to where the compost bin is for ease of gardening, eventually rain barrels will be placed in this area as well for watering the chickens and gardens.

One photo is of hubby collecting all my slate rocks to line the garden beds with.  The rocks are placed beyond where the bottom boards go of the chicken pens so that when we move the pens back to this exact location, it will fit easily inside of the rocks. The 7th photo is of our 5 Dominique chickens, they are a heritage breed that later the barred rocks came from. They are still young but will start laying come spring. These are a dual purpose chicken that is used for eggs, they lay brown eggs and are also used for meat. We keep no other kind of chicken in this pen as we want to keep their heritage line pure and true to it's breed.
The 9th photo is of our Bantam trio, I believe they are wyndotte bantams but not sure. Bantams are a very small breed of chicken and you can get bantams in almost any breed of chicken. We temporarily are keeping ours in a large metal dog kennel but will get a pen built soon for them. The trio consists of a rooster and two hens. We will be using these to sell their young and of course they also prepare garden beds for me.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Our Rabbits

One feeder serves both cages cutting the wire to make it fit for both units























Here are our rabbits we are starting with for now. The first photo at top shows that one feeder serves for both cage units just by cutting the wire to fit. The second photo shows the latches we use so racoons can not get into the cages, or other possible critters. The each door has these to keep our bunnies safe.

The third picture shows the whole rabbit hutch that was refurbished after salvaging it from an abandoned property.  It was one unit and I asked hubby to put it into two units that still allow plenty of room for the rabbits. He put two doors on the front to access each cage after he divided it and replaced any rotten wood with good lumber, then added a flat roof to it, along with an overhang over the feeder so the feed does not get wet. Food and water are all accessable from the outside of the hutch and at some point I will build some hay feeders to go into the hutches for feeding their hay to.

The next photo shows hubbys dwarf netherland doe he named silver dollar. They only get 3 or so pounds so they stay really small with cute short little ears and very affectionate personalities. Our dwarf netherland babies will be sold for pets and their manure will go to the garden as it makes a wonderful fertilizer for gardens and flowers.

The next photo is of our French Angora Buck, We are looking for females for him right now! He is just gorgeous and after we get a couple of does we will be selling their angora wool.......eventually I plan on spinning it myself and selling the yarn and other products from their fiber. His name is Fabio!

The next photo is of our Himalayan dwarf netherland buck our daughter named Patrick. He will be bred with silver dollar. Of course all the rabbit droppings go to the garden!

The last photo is of our angora Fabio again, he is just too handsome!

We plan on getting a few meat variety rabbits as well but that will be a little later down the road as we need to build a few more hutches and nest boxes!

More pics from Michigan Visit

What happens to single lights when taking pic from moving vehicle


My Nephew above and my Dad below

Silly daughter above and wonderful childhood friend below ( friends since 9 years old)

Hubbys uncle above and his aunt below


Our son above  and my step mom below





Oh no please don't beat me with that wooden spoon!

( Ha ha I don't know who snuck this photo in but she really was not gonna beat me.........honest!)

Pics from Michigan Visit





My dad, hubby and daughter
my Aunt Dee where we spent thanksgiving



My daughter dressed for thanksgiving
My sis



My Mom







Hubby being goofy

















Of course me

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

100 kinds of cute