New coop

A few of my observant readers noticed a new coop in the background of some of my pictures. I didn't want to post about it until I got it painted. Logan and I painted it yesterday.

We didn't build it. I bought it from a guy on Craigslist. He wanted $50 for it. Mark went with me to look at it and said it was a good deal since we have no scrap wood and would spend that much on wood to build it. I'd still like a full size coop some day but this is a big improvement from what I had them in. I'm supposed to be getting more chickens from a friend of a friend soon, so I needed something bigger.

Here is a view in the front door. Each level has 8 nests in it. 5 in the back and 3 in the front. I put the wood eggs from Gail in 3 of the nests in the back. I'm still waiting on my first egg, but at least they should know where to lay them.



The back doors open up for easy access to the 5 back nests (10 total). We aren't using the top level yet but will when we get more chickens.

To encourage them to spend more time on grass, I've set up these "field shelters" around the pen. They really like them and spend a lot of time in them. I have 3 of these spread around the pen.

Have you ever tried to paint with chickens around? Have you ever tried to paint with really friendly, curious chickens around? They are very helpful!

Buying in bulk from Amazon

Joanna wanted me to write about how I buy food in bulk from Amazon. Just a few disclaimers before I do.

1. I know some people have philosophical issues with Amazon, I respect that. I don’t have the same issues, so if you hate Amazon, ignore this post.
2. I try to buy local, all my produce and animal products are local, soon to be even more local. What I buy from Amazon is stuff I couldn’t get locally anyway.
3. I don’t buy in bulk as in 50 pound bags of rice or wheat (at least not from Amazon), but I do buy in bulk as in 12 cans of something we use at a cheaper price.
4. I’m one of these weird food storage people. We have 3 months of food stored now and are working up to 6 months. It really helps me to be able to get our stored food so much cheaper.

I discovered Amazon was a good source for food about a year ago, I’ve always been happy with what we have gotten. When you get food from them, they give you the option of signing up for automatic delivery at a reduced price. This is worth doing. You generally save an additional 15% off their already low price. You can sign up for 1 month, 2 month, 3 month or 6 month intervals. They will email you before they ship anything and you can delay the shipment as long as you want or even cancel it all together. I generally sign up for every 3 months, figuring if we aren’t out by then, I can just delay it another month or 2 until we need it. The other upside of the automatic delivery is that shipping is free whether you are above $25 or not.

OK, not convinced? Let me give you a few examples.

Coconut milk, we use on average a can of coconut milk a week. We eat a lot of Thai food. The cheapest I can find coconut milk in the store is $1.89 a can. It is generally over $2 a can. One Amazon, I can order 24 cans and after I get the automatic delivery discount, I’m at $0.89 a can! A savings of $1 a can is huge!

Whole wheat penne pasta – This is generally over $2 a bag at the grocery store. Sometimes $1.50 if you can find a sale. On Amazon, I pay $1.35 a bag. We eat a lot of pasta, at least 3 days a week.

Organic vegetable bow tie pasta - This is over $3 a bag in the store if you can even find it. On Amazon, $1.89 a bag. We eat this particular pasta an average of once a week.

One last example, my husband eats these every morning for breakfast (different flavors so he doesn’t get bored) and Logan eats them as snacks. At the store over $4 a box, from Amazon, $2.87 a box.

These are just a few examples of stuff I buy from Amazon. There are many more. I got a great price on cans of organic black beans!

More babbling about names

I appreciate the comments on the right name coming to me. And it may, but I HATE naming things. I'm not good at it and usually come up with something stupid. It is made additionally hard because of Mark and Logan. Any names I really like, they reject because it is too girly. I really liked Nature's Blessing, but they both HATED it. I was also trying to come up with something incorporating bluebird, because we have a bunch of them here and I've never lived anywhere with bluebirds. I really liked Bluebird Haven Homestead, but it was rejected by the 2 boy folks also.

So, in some ways I'd rather turn the whole naming thing over to someone else and be done with it. Probably we will put Foggy Bottom and Whistling Wind on the short list and live here longer, at least into spring and see if anything else comes to us. We don't have many trees on the property and none of them are special. But maybe a whole flock of something will show up in the spring and make the naming obvious.

This is why we came up with that naming scheme for the animals. Makes things so much easier.

One more

Sorry, I'm fighting off a cold today and seem to have too much time on my hands. I've never lived anywhere that is so windy, so this one came to me today. We can't seem to resist the humor.

I can't add Whistling Wind to the poll but if you like it better than what you voted for, just tell me in the comments.

Would love input

For those that have voted on a name, I'd love to hear your thoughts behind it. Why did you vote for what you voted for? Why didn't you vote for the others? If you have strong feelings for or against one, I'd love to hear it.

Fun with farm names

My first poll

This is my last post for today, I promise!

We are trying to come up with a name for the farm and have narrowed it down to 3. I set up my first poll on the side bar to get your input. I can't promise that the winner will be the name, but it will help us narrow it down.

I could give you the thought behind each name, but I don't want to influence your choice. If you want to know you can ask.