Rotary Botanical Garden in Janesville, Wisconsin This is the kind of place I like to visit! You can bask in the glory of beautifully kept gardens…without pulling a singe weed. The Rotary Botanical Gardens in Janesville, Wisconsin offers trails through a variety of gardens with endless possibilities for photos. The Asiatic…
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Hatching Heritage Turkey Poults
You might also like my posts How to Hatch Chicken Eggs in an Incubator and Top 5 Reasons for a Poor Hatch Rate. Hatching Baby Turkeys My heritage turkey hens have provided me with quite a few eggs over the last month or so. I put some eggs in the incubator in…
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My Garden – A Work In Progress
A Work In Progress Gardens, by their very nature, are constantly changing and growing. Weeds fill in between rows and plants. Seeds germinate. Seedlings grow and begin to produce flowers and food for the gardener. In my area spring is a short season and is overwhelmed by heat and…
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Alpaca Shearing Day
Alpaca Shearing Day My friend Brandi asked if I could help out on shearing day at her Mom’s alpaca farm. Well, how could I possibly say no to such a cool experience?! I pulled into the driveway and wandered down to the barn. The alpacas are so stinking cute! I…
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Foraging for Free Food
Ethical Foraging – Food for Free I’ve been interested in foraging for wild foods since I was a kid. Dandelions, plantain, cattails, wild berries and apples all made their way into a bag or basket as I hiked through the woods and fields, or scavenged through the weeds in our…
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How to Use Rhubarb
Using Fresh Rhubarb I made a Rhubarb Cake with Rhubarb Sauce this week…the first one of the season. It’s rewarding to pick fresh food from our garden, and turn it into a yummy treat! This post contains affiliate links or advertisements. You won’t pay extra but I may earn a small…
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The Cheapskate’s ‘Straw Bale’ Garden
Straw Bale Garden? I really like the idea of setting up a straw bale garden. It would reduce the amount of weeding and watering needed to keep our garden productive. But straw runs around $3 – $5 dollars a bale around here and it would take at least 100 bales to…
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A Gang of Wild Turkeys
A ‘Gang’ of Wild Turkeys Maybe 3 doesn’t really consitute a gang. We have a lot of wild turkeys in the area, and I often hear them calling to my little flock. The turkey hens have shown great interest in the calls, especially since they didn’t have a tom.…
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Bottle Feeding Baby Goats
But Not My Baby Goats… I don’t have goats anymore. But my friends from Trogg’s Hollow CSA have goats. They have the cutest little baby goats! My photos don’t do them justice, seriously. But I was a little preoccupied trying to give them bottles or to latch…
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Scruffy Chicks, Sprouting Seeds, & Turkey Troubles
Scruffy Chicks Our 23 mixed breed chicks hatched 3 weeks ago and they’re at that in-between stage…past being cute fluffballs but their feathers aren’t completely grown in. So they look pretty scruffy and comical now. They’ve been happily exploring their brooder room, along with our 6 ducklings. I’m keeping my fingers…
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Spring Weather, Early Crops, & Ducklings!
My Raised Beds Are Ready! It seems too early for planting in my area. Normally I wouldn’t be able to work the soil until later in March, but we’re having some unusually warm weather this week. Most of my garden beds are still too cold and damp to work. However, I…
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My Redneck Brooder Box
My Redneck Brooder Box It feels a lot like spring on my homestead today. The sun is shining, temps in the 50s, and a whole bunch of chicks are peeping in the incubator in my dining room. Two incubators are humming away on my Grandma’s buffet. One has ducklings due…
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Harvesting from My December Garden
Harvesting Roots & Greens in December If you live further south than I do, this might not seem like such a big deal…you probably harvest from your garden well into the winter! In Northern Illinois, harvesting roots and greens in the middle of December isn’t typical. However, our weather has…
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Apparently, I’m a big fat turkey…
If Turkeys Could Talk… I’m guessing it wouldn’t very a very exciting conversation. Perhaps you’ve had enough turkey talk to last you until next Thanksgiving. To be honest, I fully expected that I would have all of my turkeys in the freezer or my tummy by now. But my plans have…
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The Best Way to Cook Stewing Hens
What’s The Best Way To Prepare Stewing Hens? Old stewing hens are pretty tough birds. I have found that the following methods are the best ways to prepare them: pressure cooking pressure canning in broth boning and grinding the meat (raw or cooked) These methods work very well for making old chickens…
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Why Do Chickens Molt?
Why Do Chickens Molt & What Can I Do About It? Chickens molt to replace their worn out feathers with new ones. Old feathers don’t insulate and protect a bird from cold, wet weather as well as a set of glossy new ones. All birds go through this process, just as other…