Eggs! Glorious Eggs!

So you know I was super duper nerdy excited when my hens finally started laying eggs! And of course I took a ton of pictures of the first dozen! :) We found the first eggs on August 27. Loner Bird must have started laying on August 25, on the floor in the coop, so we didn't find them until that third day. Happened to be sitting by the coop, drinking coffee, watching the chickens do...well do chickeny things. We heard a bunch of weird noises in the corner of the coop including a scratching or tapping noise. Loner was the only bird in the coop. Upon opening the coop this is what we found...

And every day since then...

The girls produce an egg a day! 

A hen will take a day off every now & then, but we usually get 5 or 6 a day.

 Including huge double-yokers like this one from Big Bird! 

 Our eggs are way healthier than store-bought eggs. Our chickens eat a healthy diet - no chemicals, no hormones, no junk food! 

 White egg (from the grocery store) shown for size comparison.

 As you can well imagine, we've been eating lots of eggs lately! Quiche, frittata, breakfast casserole, cakes, breads, and my son's favorite, eggs in a basket! Where you cut out a hole from a thick slice of homemade bread, toast your bread a little on both sides in a buttered pan, then crack an egg into the cutout. Fry until set, flip, cook for a minute until your preferred taste. Voila! 

Pretty Bird and Baby Bird take a little stroll. These two girls are solid layers - rarely taking a day off since they started laying at the end of August.

We love our chickens and it's just so awesome that these beautiful sweet creatures also give us food daily! Best animals in the world! Everybody should consider owning chickens!

Check out all the photos of our chickens here and see the fantastic, super deluxe chicken cottage that my Farmer Chris designed and built right here!

Enjoy your day and remember that if you're in a storm right now, there are always blue skies & sunshine just beyond the clouds!! ~Ramsey

Marigolds

Thousands of marigold seeds! Our marigolds grew like gangbusters next to the pepper plants this year. I harvested the dried flower heads and separated the seeds from the flower. We have more than we need for 2017 planting and to share with our friends! We were also able to save a ton of basil and dill seeds and sand‘andy peas for next year and have enough seed potato to grow a full crop!

I love saving seeds. We brought potato, basil, pepper, mint and a few other seeds with us from North Carolina. We actually dug up potatoes from the ground the day we moved, carried those with us to Georgia, planted those seeds in our first fall garden in Georgia, saved seed from that batch that we planted in 2015 and saved potatoes out of that crop to replant in the spring of 2016. Those are our Ruby Lane Whites and we will plant those same seed descendants in our spring 2017 garden. Not only is it economical to save seeds by not purchasing new seed, but the seeds that came from healthy plants grown in your own garden are custom made to grow and thrive right there in that soil under those same conditions. Those are the things we “brand” as Ramsey Farms produce – the foods that grow from seed that was raised successfully in the previous season.

You can also use dried marigold flowers as a food coloring and light-flavored herb. The marigold flowers we didn’t harvest for seed (as well as the seed pod and dried petals) went to the chickens for a fun snack! They’ll eat up those dry flowers like candy and recycle them into great garden compost. The chickens love marigolds, blackberries, muscadines, strawberries, and pears! Acorns, apples, dried bread, and veggie cuttings are great snacks too, but they sure do love their fruit. 

The Chicken Coop

See the 8x8 sandbox behind Chris in the run?

Farmer Chris sure has been working hard on the chicken coop for our girls. Our five Black Stars hens hatched on April 3, we feel pretty sure that Big Bird, our Red Ranger is older by at least a week. We picked up our birds on April 8 and didn't even have a coop yet! The baby chicks stayed in a brooder box with a heat light in an outbuilding for a couple weeks.

The little coop ordered from California arrived and was set up around April 17. The girls loved playing in their new home, but it was still a tad chilly for baby chicks at night so, in the evenings, we'd gather up the chickens and carry them back to the brooder box until morning. Eventually, the birds feathered up and the heat turned up outside and the little sweet birds moved out of the brooder box on May 1.

Construction on the big chicken coop and run began in May. The 16-foot by 8-foot run or play yard is completed. We placed the small coop inside, built a nice big roost, hung their food, and viola! The hens moved into the big house a few weeks ago. They love it and definitely needed the space - these birds grow so fast that by now the little coop would likely comfortably hold only two hens. They even have their very own sandbox! You should see the screen door Chris built too - amazing!

The coop construction is underway to give them chicks secure housing in which to sleep, hide out from the sun, and to lay eggs. It is four-feet by eight-feet and same as the run, tall enough for people to walk in for cleaning. The coop has a cute little barn door

from the run for the birds and a nice big, screened window for ventilation and so the chickens can look out into their run. They are such curious little creatures! The coop also will have plenty of roosting space and four nesting boxes off the back with a hinged lid for easy egg collecting.

The chickens are nearly 15 weeks now (with Big Bird being at least one week older) so the egg watch begins this weekend. Egg laying has been known to start with the lighter weight Black Stars as early as 15 or 16 weeks. Based on my research, average egg laying time starts around 18 or 20 weeks, whereas larger framed birds like my Big Bird may not start until 22 or 24 weeks. I'm encouraging them, but don't expect any eggs until August.

Farming Ain't Easy

Our girls are so beautiful! I've never been in love with a chicken before, but they are so much fun! They love to hear singing and will gather around at your feet (you'll feel like Snow White, I swear) and they just look at you like you're the best thing on earth! And to them, I probably am!! The chicken antics are fun to watch and we like to feed them green muscadines that have fallen off the vine. The crazy little chicks will chase each other around trying to steal one another's grapes! They love to eat my kitchen veggie scraps - zucchini, squash, and cucumbers chopped up into bird bite size pieces, tomatoes, lettuce, marigold petals, dill stems, even corn on the cob! And they love worms and bugs, beware to any flying bug that enters the run, those birds will chase you down!

"Regard it just as desirable to build a chicken house as it is to build a cathedral."

-Frank Lloyd Wright

Check out our Chickens! photo album on Facebook to see pics of chicks. :)

More Chicken Cottage pics here!

Want to read more about what's going on around the farm? Here's a few other posts you might wanna check out:

• Hard Work
• Can Work
• Team Work

Cacti & Aloe (30 Days & Counting!)

There are only 30 more shopping days until Spring!

During the first week – likely the first day – of Spring, I plan to do a little cactus and aloe repotting and surgeries! There will be a bunch of cacti and aloe babies available come Spring! My cactuses are older cuttings from cacti my mom grew that were cuttings from her mother’s cactuses and she even recalls this same type of cactus in pots at her grandmother’s house (my GREAT grandmother – who would have been 126 years old on February 9!) It thrills me that there is that kind of legacy connected to these plants, isn’t that amazing?! 

My three cacti are all approximately 3 to 4 feet tall and all need some of their extra arms removed for stability – those are the babies! Those cure for 7 days then you plant the arms and voila! Baby cacti. It is a cactus miracle. In addition, I want to get the primary cactuses into larger more permanent pots. In NC and GA these favored plants go outside in the spring and summer and are moved indoors before the first frost. 

Without going to count them all, I think I have 20 pots of aloe vera. (Is that excessive?) I love them. (Is it wrong to love a plant?) They, like the cactuses to which they are related, are like members of my family! Most of my aloes are descendants of my mom’s original aloe collection plus I inherited most of her aloe plants (and super cool pots) when she moved. When we moved from NC to GA, I was saddened to realize we left a slew of plants and pots on the back porch. Some of which I was able to adopt out by cajoling my friends go by the old house and “steal” the forgotten plants from the porch.

All the aloes need attention this spring. The big three plants that I lovingly refer to as the mama,  grandmamma, and big mama plants need to have the older longer stem severed and their younger inner portion of the plant repotted. Most of the aloe pots have several pup plants that grew from the root buds under the soil. These can be gently removed and potted by themselves for a brand new little aloe plant! 

We use aloe straight from the leaf to heal burns, scrapes, minor boo boos. Fillet open a leaf and lay the gel side onto your face under your eyes and you can almost instantly see and feel it tighten up the bags and other skin on your face. It gives you a younger fresher glow! I also peel the leaf (including the yellow layer inside the skin of the leaf – it has a stinky bitter odor and taste and is reported to have laxative qualities. I stay away from that.) Anyway pare the green leaf off the clear gel and run it through the blender to liquefy the aloe gel. We use it in our homemade body wash and soaps for added natural moisturizing and skin healing properties. Read here for more information on aloe vera.

Check out other articles on this blog on aloe:

• DIY Bath & Body Products
• Aloe Surgeries 2014

Are you living your best life? This is YOUR life and the only person in charge of it is YOU. The only person who can make changes to your life is YOU. Take charge of your life today!

Cheers,
Ramsey

This Week at Ramsey Farms 4/6/14

Sunday (March 30)

Homemade Double-Crust Chicken Pot Pie

Today was a sunny, but cold, windy day. Chris constructed a gorgeous, innovative trellis for the sweet peas and nasturtium flowers. He was also able to turn over the soil in row 1 and 2 in preparation for planting. Row 2 is still saturated and soggy. Hopefully the sun and wind from Sunday along with temperatures in the 70s to low 80s this week will dry it out.

My kitchen was delighted to receive five large food-grade buckets from my grocer's bakery department! Twenty-five pounds of sugar filled a three-gallon container plus my pantry tub I've always had. A five-gallon former icing bucket is now (cleaned & sanitized &) filled with just under 25 pounds of bread flour. Thank you to Lisa at the bakery for giving me these treasures! :)

Monday
It's the last day of March!!! :) April is always a beautiful month with spring popping out all over in full bloom. Today I finally purchased my tomato and sunflower seeds and in my search for stevia and soybeans, I stopped in a little feed & seed store.

I love buying local and would prefer to pay a little bit more money to my mom & pop stores than to save a few dimes at the big box stores. This seed/feed store sells fresh, local eggs!!! I have been searching for a local fresh egg provider for some time now and am so excited to find them so close and at a good price, too. (Yearning for the day I can have my own hens!)

I bought a dozen mint green Americana eggs and a dozen beautiful speckled and swirled brown / pink eggs. I could not even wait - made myself a scrambled (green shell) egg with a slice of toasted homemade bread with some of last year's homemade strawberry preserves on it for my lunch.

Baked several loaves of Golden Sweet White bread Monday afternoon just so I could use a couple of these new freshly laid eggs! My Chief Farmhand informed me that this recipe is now his favorite bread! lol

I got the soil turned over again in row 2 and the back 40. Looks like it is finally drying out pretty well so we hope to do some planting this week. (Remember, you can see pictures of our 2014 garden by clicking HERE.) We ended our day with homemade chili that had been simmering on the stove tempting me all day, baked potatoes, and of course, homemade bread.

Tuesday
HAPPY APRIL! 
We have aloe babies! :) I successfully propagated five or six "babies" from the aloe plants, repotted one medium size aloe, and doctoring on two of the larger ones by removing the woody, overgrown stem with a sharp knife. The remaining part of the healthy plant and smaller cuttings for rooting are all drying for the next week so those can be planted. The two "huge" aloe plants may make it in for their long awaited surgeries this week.

Farmhand Chris got out the tiller when he got here from his day job. He spent about 2 or 3 hours tilling the unplanted portion of the back 40 and row 2 in the hot late afternoon. Hopefully one more day of 80 degrees and sunshine will dry those out completely and we'll be able to plant lettuce and radishes before the rains come in Friday.

The lavender, chamomile, and cilantro were all uncovered on April 1. I decided to reseed the chamomile and lavender to ensure a new plant or two. The nasturtium seeds were planted and  plastic cloches placed over them for two weeks. The high on Tuesday reached 84 degrees - a perfect Carolina spring day!

Spoke to a super nice Realtor in Georgia today and he is getting me some details on two properties and on the hunt for others in his area that fit my parameters. One of the homes he checked out today we already removed from our list - so nice to save a twenty-hour round trip drive for the properties that will really be right for our family.

Wednesday
Another gorgeous Carolina Blue Sky day, sunshine, and highs in the mid-80s! My shovel and I turned over the areas in row 2 and the "back 40" again - the soil is still so wet it's like pebbles or rabbit pellets, nothing you can plant in very well. I reseeded celery in the cold frame and lettuce in row 1.

The Ramsey Farms Bakery sold a few loaves of bread today. Some days I feel compelled to bake bread, so it's exciting to bake for others! I am thankful for the encouragement and support.

Thursday
Sixty-degrees before it was 9 AM today and I was outside in shorts, a tee-shirt, and flip flops watering my seeds! Birds were chirping and singing and foraging, all the trees are budding or blooming, the scent of pollen and life was in the air, and being out in the garden with my coffee and talking to my mom and my sister - life is perfect!

Friday & Saturday
The Ramsey Farms Bakery was busy baking bread on Friday for ourselves and a few customers, too! My friend, Julie and her daughter, Natalie came over for a long overdue visit. We were so pleased to give them a farm tour, talk about gardening  and send them home with a chocolate mint plant!

Saturday morning, I ventured out and found my Stevia plants at my new favorite feed-n-seed store. Also picked up some Dr. Bronner's bar soaps for making laundry detergent, hand soap, body washes, and maybe even shampoos and some delicious (salt-free, sugar-free) all  natural peanut butter at the organic health food shop.

trellis for sweat peas

I wish I had been timing how many hours Chief Farmhand, Chris has been on the tiller this year. That is a very tough, physically demanding chore and I'm super lucky he handles that for me. Maybe one of these days he'll have a big ol' ride-on tractor/tiller/plow to work the ground at the Big Farm! ;)  He did finish tilling row 2 and the Back 40 Saturday!! Only rows 3 and 4 to go.

My daughter and I baked bread together (she started it, I finished it) and her bread turned out very tasty! She doesn't love working in the garden so she helps by doing many of the inside chores while we're outdoors, which is ultimately very helpful in keeping everything running smoothly. The teenager did finally venture out of doors as everyone picked up sticks so Chris could mow the grass. (Being the Chief Farmhand at Ramsey Farms is a never-ending, hard job.)

In the garden Saturday, I reseeded carrots in row 1 and happily got the crisphead lettuce and scarlet globe radish seeds planted in row 2! In the Back 40, I seeded cherry belle radishes.

All this hard work makes a body sleep very soundly at night (and go to bed very early). I got up this Sunday (April 6) morning refreshed and excited for the day to watch the sunrise and water the garden...I hope you all have a fabulous and exciting day ahead of you too!!!

My final note this week. If you don't like something - change it. Don't love your life? Then change it - build the life you want and need and that makes your spirit thrive! Put yourself in a place that you love, doing the things you love, and around people that make you shine & sparkle! Love yourself. Love, Ramsey

Happy April! * March blog recap
So in March, more than 250 people visited my little blogsite! Thanks for dropping by! Most readers are in the US but apparently somebody in Argentina is a fan as we get a lot of views from that country?! (Weird, but very cool - thanks!) The Cold Frame page is still the most-visited article on this site and the most-viewed post in March was the March 16 This Week at Ramsey Farms! The 40 Minute Hamburger Buns recipe got a lot of hits last  month too, so if you missed any of those articles click the links to check them out!

~

This post ranked #5 in the 2014 top 5 blog articles.

This Week at Ramsey Farms

Seed - from which all life comes - are wondrous tiny little things!!  

Sunday morning I took some time separating the seed from the leaves and stems of lettuce flowers I'd been drying for a few weeks and finally made time to glean the sweet & cinnamon basil seeds from their dried stalks.  It continually amazes me that food can be grown simply by putting these minuscule objects into some soil and providing a little sun & water!  It also smelled so nice and Christmas-like too as the cinnamon basil is so deliciously aromatic! My hands, my clothes, and the entire kitchen was filled with a warm cinnamony scent.

In order to become more self-sustaining as a "farm", we gather, dry, save, and use seeds from our best produce each year.  I have also collected seed from other local farms and growers as well.  Next spring, I hope to be able to give away and sell lots of aromatic basil and lemon thyme plants to friends, neighbors, family members, and herb lovers!   Seed is much cheaper than buying seedlings so our goal for the spring garden in 2014 is a minimum of 50% seed growth with the idea to continue to increase that each season to nearly 100%.

Aloe Babies

The massive aloe plants I so luckily inherited from my mom when she moved, are all doing well indoors for the winter and in fact have so many "aloe babies" (or pups) popping up in their pots and even from their long, old stem that I've decided to have a baby aloe sale in early spring!! (My mind continuously wanders to the spring!)  So far I've counted about 20 aloe pups so I'm quite thrilled about that.  I am so fascinated by reproduction this week - that's weird. I have no idea how the first aloe was born and if aloe has seeds, I've never seen them.  The only way I am aware that the aloe can reproduce is by sprouting little aloe pups from stems that come off the main plant or by cutting a leaf and rooting it.  It's always a proud moment when I find a new aloe baby has near-magically appeared alongside the mother plant!!

I use aloe in many of my homemade bath & beauty products including bar soap, body wash, liquid hand soap, body lotion, and deodorant - which I am now referring to as "underarm conditioner" which is a whole 'nother story for another day. :)

Great Outdoor Playground

We took our four year old son on a four-hour hike up the mountain Sunday. The weather was perfect for it - sunny with deep blue skies and no breeze and cool.  He loved it and stood on top of the pinnacle with his arms in the air yelling, "I'm the king of the mountain!"  I think it's more important for all of us to be outside than play with any toy they have available on the market.

Other News from the Field

Just a side note - Monday's high temp in my backyard was 60 degrees! Last week we had frost and freezing temps down to 20 and by Friday it's supposed to be 76.  North Carolina weather has got to be the most fickle in the world! Based on the forecast, I don't have to worry about covering the garden at all for the next ten days!!

This week I spoke with the president of my local farmer's market association.  I'm excited to learn more on this farm journey and he is full of knowledge.  I will be doing more research for kitchen inspection and permits to produce and sell my homemade jams, jellies, and preserves as well as my line of personal bath and beauty items.  One big highlight - February 18, I will be attending the farmer's market association board meeting!

Oh my gosh, have you ever tried garden planning software?! I know I am such a nerd, I stayed up until 1:30 Tuesday morning playing with the software I found online.  I do have my 2014 garden all planned out and ready to go though!!  Very exciting stuff!