A bit of disappointment

We had the vet out yesterday to check on Bessy. Come to find out she isn't pregnant after all. This is such a disappointment to us. We can't have her bred for another month or so as we wouldn't want her to calve during the flood season. So it will be almost a year before we get any milk. In the mean time I am going to keep an eye out for a cow already in milk to buy. Bessy would love some company anyway.

In other news my pepper starts are coming up. Also the tomatoes are doing good, the parsley is great and the basil and my walla walla onions are popping up. I need to get some more things started this week as well.

The weather is supposed to start warming up and becoming dry. I am looking forward to some spring weather!

Ed's new bees are doing great. He went out to check on them yesterday and they are making comb already. Soon they will have little cells of baby bees.

There you have the latest breaking news from Bountiful Acres Homestead. Have a blessed day!

Happy Resurrection Day!

I am so thankful that the Son of God became a man and took my place on Calvary. I am so thankful that God loved us enough to send his only Son to die for our sins. What a wonderful thing it must have been to be there at the tomb that first Easter morning!

Each year we read stories and the Bible and remind our girls what Easter is about. They watched the story of Easter on the christian station this year. They both know it well now. We do get them each a surprise. We tell them it is to remind them of the surprise Mary and the others got when they found out Jesus had rose from the dead.

May the Lord bless you and may you know His love for you.

Barns and Bees and Such!

I have some more pictures to share today. First off we have a photo of the new barn being built by Ed and Ed alone. Well the girls have helped hold a few boards for him. And of course they are right on the site to help with advice and such! :) The barn would be finished by now if the weather would co-operate. It still is raining most of the time.

The next big news is our bees have arrived! We were expecting them today, but they came yesterday. This is the box that the bees come in. There are a few on the outside of the box, but the inside is just packed with them! Ed ordered the 3 pound package. Did you know that there are over 10,000 bees in three pounds? And a queen.

This is a closer shot of the box of bees.

Here he is shaking the bees into the hive.

Still shaking them into the hive.

Shaking some more...........

And finally putting the food in and the lid on.

Now this is the fun part. He comes walking over to me, covered in bees, especially on his back and hands me the brush to brush them off him! Hello?????? I don't have a bee suit on! Thankfully neither of us got stung. They were pretty calm bees. I only screamed once. That was when a bee was trying to go in my ear!

The orchard is just starting to bloom. Great timing for the bees to arrive. They will use the nectar from the orchard to feed themselves. Then the nectar they will gather for making our honey will be from the blackberries. So we will have blackberry honey. It is very very good!

We are moving right along in our plans for this year. The Lord is good and has blessed us so much. And to think, a couple of years ago I so wanted to move away from here. Amazing what the Lord can work in a persons heart.

Melody in Motion

I would like to introduce you all to my friend Val's, Melody in Motion website. Here you can purchase wonderful porcelain figurines combining animation and music. These are darling collect ables whose value continues to grow from generation to generation.

Please visit the link to the right and enjoy shopping for something very unique and charming.

If you have any questions you can email her and she will be happy to help you with anything you would like to know.

April is here already

Happy April to everyone! This year is zipping by at light speed isn't it? There are lots of things going on at Bountiful Acres during this time of year. I have lots of pictures to share.

We have our new chicks that are 10 days old today. They have gotten their little wing feathers and are getting tail feathers now. Soon they will be all feathered out and we will be able to tell the Dark Cornish from the Speckled Sussex and the Araucanas. Oddly enough we are raising some for one of our egg customers. Although we will be losing an egg customer this summer, we won't have a problem selling extra eggs. We haven't even put up a sign yet. : )

The turkeys got back ordered and we won't be getting them until the last week of this month. Hopefully we will have some good weather and Ed will be able to finish up the new poultry barn. That is where the turkeys will live along with the Dark Cornish chickens. Each of them will have their own space in the barn with a center section for storing feed and supplies. Each will have their own area fenced in outside for eating bugs and other tastie bird tidbits. We would let them roam free with the other chickens and ducks, but we don't want our meat chickens crossing with our laying hens, so they must be kept separate. We don't want the turkeys and chickens going in and out of each others barn either. We already have that problem with the ducks going in the hen house.

Speaking of ducks in the hen house.............We have two ducks that have set themselves up a nest and are setting on eggs in the hen house right now. We also have one Buff Orpington hen that is setting. Since we don't have a rooster at this time, I took pity on her and gave her two duck eggs to hatch out. Hopefully the ducklings if they hatch won't have an identity problem having a hen for a mother! ; )

The pigs we are going to get are still in the mama pigs belly. She should be having them this month sometime. We won't be getting them until they are weaned and that might be the end of May or even into June. That is okay as it gives us time to build their shelter and put up fencing.

Ed has most of his bee keeping equipment that he needs. His bees will be here in another week or so. Just in time as the trees in the orchard are beginning to bloom. So they will have some nectar available as soon as they get here. If I remember correctly they get fed for a period of time before they go out foraging for themselves. In which time they are building brood. Now Ed is the one who is studying the bees. He could explain this much better.

I have all my garden seeds either in my possession or they have been ordered. I was glad I got my seed potatoes and the varieties that I wanted. This year we are growing Burbank Russets for our white keeping all purpose potato. Red Lasoda for the red potatoes that will keep well. And German Butterball for our yellow potato. We will be planting 22 pounds of seed. I am not exactly sure how much that will produce, but the way potatoes grow here it should be quite a lot.

We will be growing Early Golden Bantam corn. I am praying for a good corn harvest this year. Last year we had such strange weather we never got any ripe corn at all.

As you can see from the current photo of our garden spot, my celery overwintered and is doing well. I am thinking of digging it up and moving it to a permanent bed, like maybe into one of the water troughs we are using for planters. The celery is the big green row in the front of the picture.

The big brush pile out there is from the orchard pruning. Ed is going to burn that along with the cardboard we had in the garden keeping the weeds down. That doesn't work when you live where it floods every year. The river washed away some of the cardboard and then gouged a big hole in the garden which we will have to fill with some more soil. And as you can see the weeds and grass have had a good time growing all winter. This year we will be planting a cover crop of some kind.

I took a photo standing in the orchard looking at our deck and back of the house and shop. There is a photo of the beginnings of the new poultry barn. A picture of our dog Duke. Who won't be a year old until the end of May. He is getting to be such a good dog. He is calming down some and barks to let us know when strangers are here or stray cats or other critters are out there at night. We haven't had the deer on our place since getting Duke either. We have been fighting the deer every year since our old dog Pepper died. The deer would eat off everything in site, they ate the garden, the trees in the orchard, our berry plants and my roses!!!!!! So at least we don't have to deal with them anymore. Now we have to fence the garden to keep our big footed huge puppy out of it! Oh well the trade off is a good one.

We had some not so good news about our new tractor. Ed took the new tire and the old wheel with the tire on it to the tire shop to get it put on and found out the rims are not any good and need to be replaced. Well those are not cheap. The best price for some are up by Portland. So when Ed decides what he will do we might be making a drive up there.

We have house sparrows making their nests in the same places on our eaves as they did last year. One off the kitchen and one in the front of the house. They sure are noisy little creatures during the Springtime!

I should explain the other photos. A couple of them are of our new baby chicks out in the barn. One is of the Gazebo and the field with some of our laying hens and the drake duck. He is the brown one. Another is a picture of our neighbors field next to us that is planted in peas, mustard and I think oats. They grow it for a silage feed for their dairy cows. It is pretty when the sun is shining and looks so much brighter then. The scent is so sweet from the mustard blossoms too.

Then there are some photos of Bessy our cow. I have taken a couple of photos of the ducks and chickens in their nest boxes setting. And one photo of the duck nest when she got off to get a bite to eat and a drink.

Back to the subject of gardening.............I have started my tomatoes, peppers, okra, onions and some herbs in seed flats in the house. I believe that I have 72 tomatoes started. We will have plenty for sharing and selling some and canning lots of tomatoes, making sauce, and salsa and just canned tomatoes. Of course there is nothing like a fresh tomato sandwich made from home grown tomatoes, homemade bread from freshly ground wheat, and some homemade mayo! Now that is a good lunch!

Daylight is here now, so I need to get out to the barn and do my chores this morning. Hope you all have a blessed day!

March Musings

First of all let me say, this picture of our garden was taken at the end of April 2006. I just posted it because it brings a smile to my face and joy to my heart thinking that is how it will look in another month when I look out my french doors in the kitchen. All the orchard will be in bloom. It is such a pretty time of year.



The second photo is of my husband and his "new" tractor.


March has definitely come in like a lion, in our neck of the woods. We almost had another flood from all the heavy rains we had. I am looking forward to some nice warm and sunny spring weather.

The daffodils have been blooming for a couple of weeks now. They are a sure sign that spring is coming. They are one of my favorite flowers. Another harbinger of Spring is the swallows are back. I need to get out on my front porch and put some foil up over the door casing to keep them from building a nest right over the door. That is one mess you don't want on your front porch.

Our little peach tree is blooming. There is something wrong with the tree, as every year it blooms beautifully, and will make about 12-15 peaches, but the leaves die off then the peaches fall off. We aren't sure what the problem is, but if it requires spraying with some toxic chemical to cure it, the poor thing will never be well. When you keep bees, you can't be using toxic chemicals and insecticides.


Speaking of bees, Ed is getting his new bees in a couple of weeks. Yesterday he ordered his bee suit and other beekeeping equipment that he needs. Tonight is his monthly bee meeting at the County Extension office. We have also been watching a show on RFD TV about a year in beekeeping. It has proven very interesting and helpful to actually see someone doing the things that you read about in the books.

I am going to be planting some vegetable starts this month. I need my tomatoes, peppers, leeks, and herbs started. I will also be starting some eggplants and okra this year. I think I will start my cantaloupe also. Give it a head start so to speak. The other thing I do in the garden dept. this time of year, is plot my gardens. I rotate my crops every year to prevent disease and insect problems from building up that plague certain plants. Besides different plants use up different minerals and different amounts of nitrogen.

We are adding a potato, corn and vining squash garden area this year. Those things take up a lot of space in the garden. So now I will have so much more space to grow more of certain things. I have found that I need to plant lots more carrots, onions, peppers and garlic. We have almost used up all that we have canned and frozen of these. Well I didn't have but a tiny bit of garlic last year.

One of my great successes last year was growing paprika peppers, drying them and grinding them into my own paprika powder. Oh there is nothing like the taste of fresh made paprika powder! We love it sprinkled on our popcorn. And it is good in everything. I will be planting lots of those paprika peppers this year.

We also have some old water troughs our neighbor gave us that I will be planting in garlic and walking onions and one in strawberries.

We should get a good crop of raspberries this year. We have replanted twice, thanks to the deer eating them off. Now that we have our dog Duke, we don't have deer come on the place anymore. They don't like the scent of dogs and he is a big smelly dog! : ) Well when he gets wet anyway.

Our new baby chicks will be here on Wednesday. We are getting our Speckled Sussex, Aracaunas, and Dark Cornish breeds. The Sussex and Aracaunas are egg layers and the Dark Cornish are a meat breed.

On Thursday our baby turkey poults should arrive. We are raising a heritage breed that will reproduce and keep us in good turkey meat each year.

The Muscovy ducks are laying lots of eggs, but the hens haven't taken up nesting yet. We still have two extra males that we need to butcher. They are beginning to fight with each other something terrible. Too many males and only 4 females doesn't make for a happy duck flock.

Bessy is doing well. We are going to be taking her to the vet to have her checked to see if she is actually pregnant. She also needs her hooves trimmed and they can only do that by putting her on a tilt table.

We gave away Toffee the rabbit. She wasn't a breed we wanted to keep for breeding purposes, so there wasn't any point in keeping her and feeding her. We gave her to some folks who raise rabbits for pets. She was a very cute rabbit and would make sweet babies for that purpose. We will get some New Zealand whites or Rex rabbits when we are ready to have rabbits.

The laying hens are doing a good job of giving us lovely eggs. We sell about 6 dozen a week, and still have plenty for our own use.

Tomorrow we will be making a trip to Roseburg. They have both Home Depot and Lowe's. I will be purchasing myself a new stove while we are there. My brain on my oven quit working on my stove. So I haven't been baking bread for several months. We sure do miss it. The girls complain regularly about "store bought" bread. : ) Yes, we have gotten spoiled!

Ed recently purchased himself a 1952 8N Ford tractor. He took the rear tire in to get changed out and found out his rims are bad. So now we have the chore of trying to find new rims for an old tractor. Not to mention the expense of them. Anyone have some extra rims lying around they want to sell cheap???? LOL!

In our Homeschool this week we are learning how rain is formed. You ought to have seen the girls eyes light up when they were telling their Daddy how water drops so tiny that you can't see them (as they put it 'as tiny as germs') go up in the air from the oceans, lakes and rivers and then bump together and get big and make clouds, and then drop back down on the earth. And it does it over and over and over, and that is how God waters His trees and all the plants on earth.

To illustrate this, we are going to be making a couple of terrariums. Then they will observe how the water in the soil forms on the roof of the terrarium and then drops back down to water the plants. How exciting! Don't you wish you were a child again to experience such fun things?

Ed has the foundation of the new poultry barn done and the floor joists in. Rain has been hampering his efforts to work on it. Soon as we have some dry weather it will go up much faster.

I am off here to get ready for my great neices 1st birthday party. Happy birthday little Lily!

I hope to be posting and updating more often than I have been. There are always so many things happening around the farm in the Spring and Summer months. May your day be blessed!

February Plans

Here we are in our second month of the new year already. There is so much to look forward to this year. We have so many plans for our little farm, all Lord willling of course.

This month we plan to build our new poultry barn for the turkeys and the Dark Cornish chickens we will order soon. We are planning on putting in a raised shelter for Bessy and her calf when it is born. A place high and dry from the flood.

The seed catalogs are coming in the mail now. Time to start planning what we want to grow this coming season. Figuring out what needs to be started inside early. Speaking of, Ed is planning on building the greenhouse this year also. That will be nice to have all my starts in the greenhouse instead of the kitchen.

We would love to get some dwarf citrus fruit trees to put in the greenhouse. I could actually use the citrus peel without having to worry about sprays and waxes on it.

This is the Spring we are going to order more laying hens and get us a nice rooster. I have done some research on the best tempered roosters and have found that the Speckled Sussex is reportedly the nicest. After the ornery ones we had before we are very choosy about what roosters to have around.

Ed has ordered a new queen for his beehive. This one is supposed to be able to keep itself free from mites and such without using medication. It will teach the other bees in the hive to do the same.

Ed is beginning to prune the orchard. He has one tree done so far. I hope this will help the trees put out some nicer fruit.