Rain Barrels

We have been pretty busy the last few days, sorry for the lack of posts. I have been working on some rain barrels. Now we just need to get them situated in places that receive the most rain. We have had one that has worked for us, but we put in a place that really doesn't get that much rain and is not located in a convenient place. I am going to put one next to out little shed and put up some gutters up and put one at the corner of our house at the other rain gutter. Here are some pictures.

The barrel has 2 brass spigots, the top one for the overflow. I put 9 holes into the top in case of anything trying to get into the barrel, the screening would have some support. The screening is just to keep out debris and mosquitoes.

Baby Birds

Well we have pictures of the three newborn baby birds. The fourth has not hatched out yet. I have not actually seen them yet, the wife took the pictures, Momma bird has always been in the nest. In other news.

We now are getting four eggs a day. 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. This is great, hopefully they will keep this up. We are still planning on getting 2 more chickens.

2 more Hens

Yesterday we picked up 2 more hens. They are brown and a little smaller than our other two hens. They are fitting in real good and hopefully when they settled they will produce some eggs. The wife still wants to get 4 more hens, I am hoping that we can fit them into our chicken coop. The first four do not like to go into the coop at night, of course not having any roosts inside was probably the reason. They were just put in, so I will see tonight if they stay in the coop. We have also been researching goats. We are looking into milk production so the choices are Nubian's or Dwarf Nigerians. I personally like the Dwarf's for their small stature and quantity/quality of milk production. But the Nubian's are good milkers and can be used for meat. The wife and I will have to make a decision about this in the near future.

Well today not much happening on the farm. Chickens and rabbits are doing great. Our one hen is laying an egg a day. Hopefully soon our other hen will begin laying so we can have 2 eggs a day. This weekend we are hoping to pick up some more hens from a farm just outside of town. Fresh eggs are so much better than store bought. Will definitely have to start making up some recipe's for eggs. So if any one has a good recipe's with eggs, please leave a comment and thank you.

New Zealand Rabbits

Well we have had our rabbits for a while and they are doing great. They are getting bigger and eating up a storm of food. We are looking for some other New Zealands or Californians to breed. They make a wonderful meat rabbit, and I don't think they partically taste like chicken. Rabbit poo also makes the best fertilizer for you plants and vegatables. We have used some the last two years and the plants grow crazy. It is amazing with the leaves, vegatable scraps, shredded paper, and poo do for your plants. The worms go crazy and put out a great composted material. And since the compost is just on the other side of the chicken pen, when I turn the piles, the chickens get a few treats.

Bio-degradable Bags

Well after surfing the net for a while, I have found out that bio-degradable bags are not what they seem to be. It seems that they need oxygen to degrade and in the landfill that is taken out of the equation since dirt is covered over them. This then lends me to believe that the enviromentalist have messed up again. Does any one remember the paper bag issue? The paper bag could be used for arts and crafts, book protectors, recyclable, and decomposed in a compost pile like nothing else could. We are definately coming full circle I believe, the question is, can the people of the world be made to believe that paper is the best answer? Paper is recyclable.