Prop 2 Passed!!!

Election Day has come and gone and I am so happy that Prop 2 passed. Hopefully this trend will spread throughout our nation. It is time to say no to factory farms and they horrible practices. Here is a blurb from the Humane Society of The United States.

The People Have Spoken: YES! on Prop 2

Friends, take a bow. Open the window and give out a whoop. Don’t hold back. Let fly the corks.

In big, bold, indelible letters, you just wrote history. Proposition 2 passed with an overwhelming majority (now more than 62 percent, with 40 percent of the vote in), despite a massive, multi-million dollar campaign by the opponents.

© iStockphoto

Life is going to get better for millions of farm animals.

And that’s thanks to so very many of you—those of you who voted for California’s Prop 2, those of you who donated time and money and support in the campaign, as well as the countless others of you who cheered from other states. This is the most ambitious ballot measure for animals ever undertaken. The energy that propelled us to victory was incredible—and that’s not overstatement. From the thousands of people who helped gather the petition signatures to put Prop 2 on the ballot to those who staffed the phone banks and knocked on doors to get out the vote, this was a show of grassroots might.

As a result, you’ve brought forth a new, more compassionate age.

Giving farm animals a little extra room to stretch their limbs, to move like animals should, is a small matter for us humans. But it’s a very big thing for a hen who would otherwise be confined with a half-dozen other birds in a cage about as big as a filing cabinet for her whole life. It’s a really big thing for a sow who would otherwise be stuck in a crate so small she couldn’t turn around. It’s a way big thing for a calf who would spend life chained inside a miserably tiny crate.

© Tony Chang
With hundreds of Prop 2 supporters gathered in Los Angeles.

Prop 2 will phase out those inexcusable confinement systems and usher in a new era. No state in the U.S. and no Agribusiness titan anywhere in the nation can overlook this mandate: people do not want their farm animals treated with wanton cruelty.

Now we also need to move on to changing local ordinances to allow animal keeping. We need to follow the lead of cities like Seattle WA, which allows chickens and miniature goats within the city limits and Madison WI, which allows chickens and is home to the group Mad City Chickens. While they only allow 4 chickens, (which in my opinion isn’t nearly enough to supply a family with eggs, especially in the winter) it is a start. How about Albuquerque NM? City planning regulations there say barnyard animals, such as horses, cows and chickens, are allowed in most single-family residential zones. Lots of one-half acre are required and must provide sufficient space for each animal. Yeah Albuquerque!!!!!

We need to start demanding that we be allowed to go back to some of the old ways which include vegetable gardens and livestock in our yards. Keeping chickens is easy and fun and doesn’t take up a lot of your time. The eggs are so incredibly wonderful and so much better than anything you are going to get from a factory farm that keeps battery chickens. Edible landscaping is beautiful and much more productive than grass. The satisfaction of eating eggs from chickens you raise, drinking milk from your goats or cow and eating fruits and vegetables that you grew is like nothing else. I would encourage everyone to grow something.

So let’s not stop with Prop 2. Let’s keep fighting for the rights of animals and for the rights of humans to keep them. No animal deserves to be abused by humans for any reason. Even animals being raised for food deserve to live happy, healthy lives while they are here on this earth with us. It is our duty to properly and lovingly care for the animals we have custody over.

With the price of land now a days, buying a couple acres is out of reach for most. So allowing people to raise chickens, goats and yes even a cow on their small holding (as long as they provide adequate space for the selected animal) is the way to go. If I want my front yard to be a vegetable garden, that should be my business and not the concern of my neighbor. If we all go back to some of the old ways, we will all be happier and healthier for it. I share the fruits of my labors with my neighbors and they love it. We can all work together and make our lives and the lives of animals richer and more fulfilling and healthier as well.

Re-purposing

I love finding new uses for old things or things that I no longer have a use for. For example, in my kitchen I hung and old wooden ladder above my stove that I hang my pots and pans from. My daughter’s small 3 drawer dresser that she out grew is now in my kitchen and holds dish towels, all my teas and other items. It also gives me extra work space. I put my knife block on it and found a cutting board that fits on there perfectly, so I now have a space to work when I am at the stove. Pine paneling from an old cabin has been turned into dining room benches by my husband and a pie cupboard from my larger kitchen now does duty in the laundry room as a cupboard for supplies.

So now I have been faced with the challenge of what to do with my daughters big, wooden swing set/play house/ slide. You know the ones. They sell them at the home stores and they are big and heavy. But at 13, she has grown to big to fit in the play house and has little desire to use the swing set. Since we have grandchildren now as well, we are hesitant to get rid of it as they enjoy it, but it is showing it’s age and we are afraid of it becoming unsafe. It currently sits on a narrow piece of land which is really an easement and that space is not large enough to have room to swing and to attach the slide. So what to do with the monstrosity.

It hit me the other day. We are going to take the swing side off. We have been wanting to put up one big wooden swing for the kids, but didn’t know where. So if we take the swing side off, all hubby has to do is build legs for the side that is currently attached to the play house. He will move it to our front yard and cut it down to fit between two very big pine trees we have there. He will remove all the plastic, icky looking play stuff and make one or two really nice big wooden swings. He will also clean it up and re-stain it. So that solves the swinging problem.

With the swing part removed, we can then turn the play house part side ways and move it down between some trees, which will make it seem like a tree house and we will have the room to attach the slide. Under the play house we used to have a sand box and we can re-do that as well. We will clean it up and re-stain or re-paint it and it will be grandchild ready. I really want the kids to enjoy coming to grammy and grandpas house in the mountains. I am going to see if we can at least get to the slide part this weekend. It might not get re-painted, but perhaps we can get things shifted around and make a start so come spring all we will have to do is paint or stain them. I just love it when I can think of a new use for something.

Chicken Coops

Ok, it is the end of Oct and the cold weather hasn’t even hit yet. And what am I doing? Planning projects for next spring! I haven’t even accomplished the projects I wanted to accomplish for 2008. I still need to get one of those outdoor storage closets for the back deck and a new shed for hubby so I can turn his man cave into my pantry. The money hasn’t been flowing lately and so several projects are still waiting to be done. Inside I still need new shoe racks for the laundry room and pillows for the new dining room banquet we built this summer. With the summer garden now behind us, it is time to look at outdoor projects that usually include some sort of building or hard, physical labor.

When we moved into this house, my husband literally threw up a barn and coop for the goats and chickens. It does the trick, but it is on the ugly side. With only a 1/5 acre lot and being very visible from the street, our animal keeping habits are closely scrutinized by all who go by. Now we have nothing to hide as we take excellent care of our animals, but I do believe that anything in my garden should be pleasing to look at as well as perform it’s task well. We have known all a long that we would be building new animal structures within a few years and I am getting the itch to get started. I have been looking at coops online and have a bad case of chicken coop envy.

So I am going to plan the perfect chicken coop! We have been keeping chickens since 2001 and have had 3 different coops now. With all this behind me, I now know exactly what I want in a coop and more importantly, I know what I don’t want. We know exactly where it will go and we know that we want it about a foot off the ground. I also want it right by the edge of the driveway so it is easy to get too in the snow. It will be a wonderful spot for them with oak trees for summer shade and plenty of south facing sun in the winter. It will be visible from our living room and the dining room and easy to get in and out to gather eggs and cleaning and feeding. I want room to hang their feeder and waterer inside. I am tired of frozen water and lugging hot water to the coop each winter morning. It will also have a solar motion sensor light so we can see at night when locking them up and so on. It will also alert us if something is prowling around the driveway. I am thinking about installing a heater as well, but not sure if I can find a solar one. But at any rate, it will be well insulated, including the floor and roof. Luckily we don’t get sub zero temps here and it rarely gets down into the single digit temps.

We will use the 6 nest boxes that are in our current coop. I also have some vintage windows that we rescued from a cabin that was being demolished this summer. I have the wire to make screens for the windows and insulation for the walls. I could also use the door I have on their current coop but it will need fixed up and fitted with some plexiglass and new wire screening first. I also want to get rid of the floppy chicken wire that currently keeps them in their yard and replace it with wooden lattice that is lined with wire screening. I then plan to put netting over the top.

So I am off to a good start, but there will still be much to do and buy. I have visions of a little storybook cottage type coop. It will be called “Le Poulet Chalet.” Not that original I know, but I like it and it has a classy French ring to it. We are considering using metal roofing for this one and I want to put rain spouting on it with some rain barrels for water collection. I also have two large green pots to put on either side of the step we will need to get into the coop. I also think window boxes are a must have. I know I tend to go a little over the top on projects like this, but with it being so visible I do not want to run the risk of people calling code enforcement for my ramble shack chicken house. They are much more accepting of things like chickens if the whole thing is pleasant to look at. I also put an old claw foot tub on the left side of their pen, which will stay. I am planning to plant a small Japanese maple tree in it come spring.

So, it will be quite the project. But we kind of know what we are doing this time and we are of to a good start and have a few things already. I do need to decide how I want the outside. I will probably use the same siding that is on our house, unless I can find someone giving away cedar shingles. Sometime you can and sometimes you can. Time will tell. I also have in the back of my mind to eventually host a chicken coop tour for the local sustainability group and if that ever comes to pass, mine will have to be up to par and worthy to be on a tour. So how many weeks until spring?

Holiday Traditions

Like many others, my family and I have our family traditions that we do year after year after year.  Since it is October, it is the time to visit the apple orchards.  If we didn’t live where we do, we would want to live where these apple orchards are.  Every year we go to the same shops, to the same place to watch them make cider, to the same petting zoo, the same restaurant for pie and to the same places for our picnic lunch.  I don’t know why, but doing these same things every year gives us a sense of the season.   If you skip doing the tradition, it doesn’t seem like that holiday.  Even as an adult, I look forward to the holiday traditions.

Now that isn’t to say that you can’t change them up once in a while.  For instance, I used to love to have people over for Christmas Eve dinner.  I did this many, many years in a row.  Then I became a lector at my church and suddenly I had to be at church on Christmas Eve.  Since Mass was at 7 pm, I cooked up dinner prior to going and we ate when we got back.  However, serving, eating and cleaning up a large meal at 9 o’clock at night was getting to hard to do.  Maybe my age is showing, but I just didn’t have the energy to do it any more.   Since  going to Mass on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas morning became a tradition and cooking a large dinner wasn’t, we were at a loss as to what to do.

Some years we go to a friend’s house for a late dinner, which is wonderful, but we needed something that we could do as a family.  Since we usually go visiting on Christmas Day, I found myself in the position of not being able to cook for the holidays.  So I came up with the idea of a Dickens Tea on Christmas Eve afternoon, prior to heading off to Mass.  This has worked out so nicely.  We do it as just a family, so there isn’t the stress of getting the house company ready.  The menu is fairly simple, but the same every year.  Since we eat around 3 or 4, we are nice and full for church, but not so full that we cannot enjoy a small meal afterwards with our friends.  Of course, on the way home we have the usual driving around looking at lights, however, in our neck of the woods, there isn’t much to see.

So once home, we all get into our jammies, grab a cup of hot cocoa and settle in to watch Charles Dickens a Christmas Carol.  By the end we are all snuggly on the couch and sleepy.  Our daughter heads off to bed and my husband fetches the gifts I have hidden out in the shed or car or one of my other many hiding places and  we get to work playing Santa.  With only a 13 yo at home now, I do miss the days of the surprise in the morning at what Santa left.  But as one phase or tradition fades, others take their place.  So as the holidays approach, enjoy your family traditions or make a new one.  It is so enjoyable for the whole family.

Oh joy, it’s autumn!

Well here I am still having a hard time getting back into the swing of blogging regularly.  I will try to improve on that.  Now I find that it is autumn and am wondering where the summer has gone.  Is it just me or does time fly by this fast for everyone?  It seems I get less and less accomplished each year that goes by.  Each morning I get out my to do list and it seems to take days or weeks to get a couple things crossed off.  Not sure what to do about that.  However,  I do keep plodding away and hopefully someday I will see some progress.  I do love autumn though and I am very glad it is here.

With the arrival of autumn, my thoughts naturally turn to home and the holidays.  We decked out our house with a hay bale, pumpkins, and all sorts of harvest decorations.  The mantel is all decked out as is the book case and the back door.  The nights are cool and the days are sunny and warm.  The leaves are starting to turn.  It has been the perfect October so far.  Next will be Thanksgiving and Christmas and all the joy those holidays bring.  I can smell the turkey cooking as we speak.  One thing about living in the mountains is the smell of wood burning permeates the air.  Our currently home does not have  a wood burning stove as our other home did, but we plan to install one at some point.  I do miss the wood fires.  They keep the house so much warmer and cozier than any other type of heat.  We currently have a propane stove which looks like a wood burner and for now, this will have to do, but it just isn’t the same.

Our little maple tree

My little corner bird garden

Our hay bale display in the front of the yard

Our little mantel above the propane stove

Our back door

So what exactly have I been up to you might wonder, besides decorating for fall.  Good question and I ask that of myself frequently.  I have been busy in the kitchen, although the garden results were not as spectacular as I had hoped for.  But there is always next year.  Here are some of the things I did get accomplished.

I got a few jars of green beans actually canned and we had steamed green beans on several ocassions.  The chickens also got to partake in some green bean eating as well.  I also learned how to make homemade apple butter.  We were lucky to get some fresh apples from the trees at my work and viola,  I made applebutter.  I must say I am quite pleased with myself as it is delicious and I had no idea I was such a good applebutter maker.

Fruits of my labors!

The tomatoes did fairly well this year, which was a blessing after last years diaster.  We had blossom rot on every single tomato last year.  It was truly depressing.  We were really getting into making spaghetti sauce with our crop this year and then weekend before last it happened.  It got cold.  We had sleet, frost and snow.  That was the end of our garden.  So now we are trying to ripen about 10 dozen green tomatoes.  Wish us luck.

The zucchini did ok, but not as  well as expected.  I think I had them in too shady of an area.  Next year they will be moving up front to the claw foot tub I just put out there this weekend.  We did get quite a few though and I have a stock pile of zucchini bread in the freezer as well as about 2 dozen packs of grated zucchini frozen for future use.

My claw foot tub in it’s new home in the front of the house.  Soon to be home to zucchini with blueberry bushes on either side lining the fence.

The cucumbers did ok, but we didn’t get enough to make pickles.  My husband ate the whole crop so there was no loss there.  The corn did nothing.  It barely got knee high, so it will be moving from the front to the back next year as well.  I didn’t do that well last year, but it did better than it did this year.  The cantaloupes grew and grew but never got any fruit on them.  Big disappointment.  We actually got on watermelon, but it never developed enough to eat.  The pumpkins and squash got tons of blossoms, but not fruit either.  Is this a bee issue?  I don’t know, but we are considering going into beekeeping in the near future.

The herb garden did fairly well.  I have lots of basil dried and stored.  One can never have too much basil.  The rosemary is flourishing and we have parsley, sage, thyme and oregano drying as I speak.  The spinach didn’t do well at all and the lettuce did ok, but I think I had it in too hot of a spot.  We also got a few carrots, but none of them grew to more than bite sized.  So we have had some successes and some disappointments, but we will press on and try to do better next year.  We have plans for installing some permanent trellises and I am hoping to get in an arbor so we can add grapes.  Our raspberries are growing well and I am thinking that next year we may get more than a handful of berries.  We also have blueberry bushes on our spring list of plants to buy and as always, we keep trying to expand our strawberry patches.

So all in all, it was a good  year.  Lots of room for improvement though.  One thing we really need to get going is a compost pile and a rain collection system.  So lots to do and lots to think about.  I am trying to track down some 55 gallon drums so I can get started on my rain collection system.  I eventually plan to have every roof collecting rain water.

Back to School

Well it is that time of year again.  Time to get the old homeschool back in session.  We started on Sept 1.  I was very organized this year and had all of the books we needed purchased by the beginning of Aug.  Starting school always goes much smoother when you have all the things you need.  I can’t believe Emily is in high school now.  She is starting 9th grade and the time has just flown by.  It seems like just last year we were just starting our adventure in homeschooling and now we her graduation just down the road.

I will be very sad to see her graduate.  I love homeschooling and have the kids around all day.  I have been able to spend so much more time with them by homeschooling them and it has been so much fun to see them learn.  The look they get on their faced when they get it, is just priceless.  We have sacrificed a lot in order to do this.  There have been no vacations and money has been tight at times.  But I would do it all over again.  No amount of money and no vacation could ever make up for the time I got to spend each day with my girls.  I only wish I could make the twins young again and have a do over with them.  LOL!!!

So keep us in your prayers as we venture into another year of school and the first year of high school.  I know we will get a lot of flack from those who think my daughter is missing out by not attending regular high school.  But that is ok.  We know we have been called by the Lord to do this and our kids have benefited from it.  To all you other homeschoolers out there, it is my prayer that you will have a graced filled year and that you will grow closer as a family as you share in the many blessings and joys that homeschooling your child will bring.

Progress in Le Petite Potager

The garden has been interesting this summer. We got a freak snow storm over Memorial Day weekend. This pretty much did in all the blossoms on the strawberries and we got virtually nothing to harvest. Now the ever bearers are producing a few hear and there, but I am very disappointed as I did not get any strawberries to make jam with.

This snow storm and cold weather also prevented us from putting our plants in the garden until early in June. This is very late and we were not sure how things would transpire. Shortly after we put the tomato plants in, we discovered we had a gopher. Yikes! He has a clematis, hostas and columbine from my cottage garden around my soap shed. He then set his sites on our veggie garden. He got 3 heirloom tomato plants and one roma. He also at some herbs. We tried various methods to get rid of him naturally, all to no avail. We finally had to kill him off with poison. Luckily, he had made his front door under our deck and away from the garden, so it only took one dose and he was gone. While we are very much pro wild life in our yard, these types of critters are destructive and had he been left unchecked, we would have had no garden at all.

Once he was gone, we had no more problems. Now it is Sept. and the tomatoes are starting to ripen. We are finally getting cucumbers and the zucchini are coming a couple a day. One strange thing though, we have had tons of blossoms, but not even half of it is turning to actual vegetables. My husband thinks it is a lack of bees. I don’t know. I have seen some out there, but perhaps not enough. We had so many zucchini blossoms that I thought we would be knee deep in them by now, but we are not. Same with the cucumbers and the cantaloupes. We do have two very small watermelons growing, but at this late date, they won’t amount to anything. The pumpkins and squash experienced the same thing. Tons of blossoms, but no fruit.

On the positive side, the beans seem to be faring well, however, the peas didn’t do that great. The broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower never came up, but the lettuce has done well. We had lots of basil and I am drying it and storing it for winter use. Same with the oregano. The rosemary is doing well also and so are the chives. Next year I hope to get onions in and potatoes as well.

Plus we have only had rain once this whole summer, and it wasn’t much to speak of. It has been a long, dry summer. Luckily August hasn’t brought the high temps that July did, so at least we have that on our side.

I am still hoping to make spaghetti sauce and pizza sauce from the romas. They are starting to ripen, but I need lots of them to ripen all at the same time in order to make sauce. Meanwhile I watch and wait.

Here are the beans, roma tomatoes, cucumbers, carrorts and cantaloupes

Some oak leaf lettuce

Zucchini

French Beans

Blogging Vacation

Well it seems I have taken the summer off from blogging! It wasn’t my intention, but it happened and I do apologize. I am not sure where the summer went. I have been incredibly busy, but yet haven’t gotten done near what I had intended. This has been an interesting summer to say the least.

First we ended up with 3 pregnant does, which were very unplanned pregnancies. We do not aggressively breed our goats, only when we need milk. However, we had a buck from a delivery last Oct that stay with us until Jan and he decided to have a little fun before leaving. Little did we know. We didn’t think he was capable of getting anyone actually pregnant at that time, but he was!

So in June we had 7 babies to 3 moms within 6 days. We were not ready for such an onslaught of new kids, but being experienced goatkeepers, we had the necessary supplies and readied ourselves in short order. Roxy, had a prolapse we I was extremely anxious while awaiting her delivery date. I didn’t know what would happen or how the birth would go. It turns out that it was a vaginal prolapse and the pressure of the kids in the birth canal pushed it up and in, which is where it needed to be. She then proceed to deliver QUADRUPLETS! Good grief. Plus she had a congested udder on the right side and so we knew she couldn’t fee 4 babies on one teat and half an udder, so we got to bottle feed them. That took an awful lot of time from their deliver in June through August when they left. Then Laci kidded the next day with one very large, but very beautiful black and white buck kid with gorgeous blue eyes. He was a sweetheart. Then 5 days later, Madeline went into labor and in her usual style popped out two kids that look exactly like her. They were two buck kids and looked almost identical to each other.

All the moms were healthy and the kids were all great. Most of them, including Roxy, went to live at the Orange County Zoo. Two of them went to our neighbors to live with their horses. So we had 13 goats and are now down to 5. What a relief! While we miss the babies a lot, they all got great life time homes and we are so happy for that.

Roxy and her new quadruplets!

Madeline and her twin boys.

Laci and her big blue eyed boy.

Reflections

Each morning I am usually up by 5 am.  My little pug dog Tucker, needs walked, so he and I take early morning walks.   Sometimes it is still dark out.  I take a flash light, but sometimes the moon is so bright and the stars are so twinkly that I don’t even use it.  It is so quiet and still.  There are no cars on the road, nothing to break the silence.   Sometimes while Tucker is snuffling the bushes, I just stand there and marvel at the beauty around me.  Being in the mountains, we have almost no street lights, so when it is dark, it is very dark.  The moon shines so bright that it is like someone turned on a street light.

The moon rises in the evening in the east behind our house and sets in the west, in the front of our house.  This morning as we ventured out, it was that time when it isn’t dark and it isn’t light out either.  I could see the moon setting as it glowed out from behind the pines and cedars.  The wind was blowing, but not too hard and the air smells so good up here.  It is a great time to just pray or meditate.  I never get tired of looking at the scenery up here and I am so very grateful that I somehow managed to end up here.

Brillant Idea!

When it comes to ideas, I never have a shortage or run out. I think most of them are brilliant, however, my husband does not. But I think I hit upon a good one this time! We have a teeny, tiny shed attached to the side of our house. It is about 4 x 8. It is ok for storing some tools or paint, but that is about it. Meanwhile I have my big freezer in the big storage shed because there is no room for it in the house.

I wanted to move the chicken to the back of my yard and put them in that little shed. However, hubby said NO! He wants them kept by the goats and doesn’t want them close to our neighbor. I had to agree with that. So I was thinking. We have this nice area in the back corner of the yard where the neighbors huge pine tree hangs over and keeps it shady most of the time. The snow never accumulates much there either due to this tree. If it does accumulate, it is the first area to melt off. My husband currently keeps his work table, aka two saw horses and a piece of plywood, and ladders back there. Looks tacky and messy to say the least.

Since we can’t grow any food back there due to the large amount of shade, I thought what if we put up a nice big shed for hubby and his tool chest and saws and ladders and all his man stuff? He agreed that would be a wonderful thing. So that would give me a small, empty shed. Hmmmm… now what could I possibly do with a little extra square footage?

Then it hit me! I could move my freezer into the little shed and since my hubby already put up floor to ceiling shelving in there, I could make a pantry! I could put all my canning supplies in there, picnic baskets, all sorts of things that are  currently getting lost or shuffled around in the big shed. I could store all my jams and canned goods and large things like cases of paper towels and egg cartons in there. It is on the north side of the house, so it is cool, dark and dry in the shed. Perfect for storing canned food.

Since this little shed is attached to our house and right off our deck, it would be handy too, summer or winter. DH will also be building a small deck in the front of this shed this summer, which will make it one step off our deck. Perfect location. So….. I think this is what I will start saving for once the skylight is in and paid for. A new shed! One thing about being on a small budget is that it really makes you get creative!

Front view of small shed

Side view of Shed

Looking into the shed

Shelving already installed in shed.