Spring Means Work, Work, Work

 

 Spring Means Work, Work, Work

With the warming weather comes a whole bunch of things! Spring flowers, spring showers, allergies, colds (three for me but who's counting), and a whooooollllleeee lot of work. 

Sam and I have been working extra hard to get back into the farm as quickly as possible (let's just say that caring for a farm from 30 minutes down the road is a little difficult). That means we've been working on the plumbing as often as we can! Sam even goes to the farm after work somedays and works until sun down. 

 

Working off of Sam's plumbing designs, we've been cutting, gluing, and laying pipe all over the house and using sand to make sure the pipes are at the correct slope needed for us to pass the plumbing inspection (and needed so that poop doesn't get stuck in the pipes down the road). 

We did find some pretty interesting vintage wallpaper in the process!

One of the planned projects on the farm side of things was to build a hoop coop for breeding chickens. With Sam busy on the plumbing, it took me forever to put this thing together (thank you for the many people who stopped by to offer assistance when they could). But, we finally got it built just in time!

It's a pen with two separate sides so that we can have two breeding pens. Each pen comes with three nesting boxes, a roosting bar, and food and water, of course. 

Our first bred batch was Buff Orpingtons, Gold-Laced Wyandottes, and Splash Ameraucana (we used the Cuddle Coop for a third breeding pen). We've had A LOT of problems with the hatch, though. We don't think the last two days we collected eggs were fertilized, the incubator's humidity meter broke, and then the heater broke, then the temp monitor, the counter, and lastly the egg turner. So basically, it's a box with a fan right now. We are controlling everything else by hand. We candled the eggs yesterday, and 23/33 of them seem to have moving chicks, so we are crossing our fingers at this point. Today is day 18....the start of LOCK DOWN. After I get the humidity to lower, no more opening the box or moving the eggs. The chicks should hatch sometime over the next 3-6 days. 

In case you are curious how you can tell if an egg is fertilized, here you go....

It's kind of hard to see, but the top egg (fertilized) has a more target/bullseye look to it with a solid white spot in the middle and more opaque ring around. The bottom egg (unfertilized) is more of a white blob.

Now for the unplanned projects (remember, we were trying to focus on plumbing)...While dealing with the chickens, we had a bit of an incident come up. We knew we had a lot of roosters, but we didn't realize that they really go crazy in the spring! Our poor hens were being over-bred. With one of the breeding pens free during the isolation of the next hens (you have to isolate them for at least two weeks to weed out the unwanted rooster additions), we stuck 7 roosters in one pen to give the girls a break. We had until the next breeding round (about a week and a half) to get them a more permanent living situation. 

Sam and I worked hard to predator proof the stall next to the chicken coop to put the roosters in for now. We want to built them individual breeding pens, but for now this will suffice. We did learn that you can only put the top dog roosters together or they will pick on the other roosters to the point of bleeding. So we still have four roosters out and about with the hen flock to help with protection from predators.

And of course it snowed on us (in the middle of April, sheesh) while we were trying to work. 

Then, our contractor friend called and said they had a swarm of bees show up at their house.

The swarm decided to make their hive in the brick of their garage before any of us could get to them. Twenty-four hours later we had a whole new hive ($70 for a top, base, three supers, and 30 frames. Heck yeah for used hives on sale!) and a game plan. We but the hive right beside the swarm, dabbed the entrance with lemon balm, and now we are waiting to see if they will move. Everything we read said it can take up to two weeks. Now, we just wait and see.  

Lent and Easter came and went! I tried to make it an extra special season for Rylee, so I did a few crafts along the way for her. 

Before Ash Wednesday, we collected ashes from the fireplace and drew crosses on on her baby doll's heads. 

We made cross pancakes. 

And we did lots of cross crafts! I tried to do a different cross every time. 

We waited until Good Friday (the veneration of the cross happens at church) to hang them up. We hung them up before church to get Rylee excited about going to see the cross. 

On Holy Thursday, Rylee washed her baby dolls' feet in preparation for mass. We told her that Jesus washed his friend's feet and now he wants us to wash our friend's feet to show them that we love them and want to take care of them. 

Will Will washed their feet with his slobber, silly boy. 

And although we couldn't make it to the Easter Vigil mass, we made our very own Paschal candles at home. Praying over a candle is a great way to keep a toddler's attention and help them say prayers (because they get really excited when it's their turn to blow the candle out)! During Lent we practiced "Jesus, I trust in you." and "Hail Mary, full of grace."

Now for the random things that happened: 

William's first time in a swing! He liked it (don't let his face fool you).

Remember the ice storm we got back in February/March? Well, our pond froze over, and Sam and I had a bit of fun. 

St. Patrick's Day (or "Happy Pap Pap" day as Rylee called it...it was Pap Pap's birthday) 

William turned eight months old!

I made an onion tart (on left) for the first time. It was AMAZING! 

I also made homemade poptarts with my sourdough discard. They were equally AMAZING!

Rylee stacked a bunch of blocks (the picture isn't where she stopped....)

We got to be there with Mama Betsy while she gave birth to her piglets. 

And the kids got to play on the deck with a bunny bubble machine that their Pippa bought for them!

Pax Domini cum spirito tuo temper sit,

Torey, Sam, Rylee & William

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