homesteadinghippy-blog

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An exciting day on the homestead! Yesterday I put in nesting boxes for my hens, and this morning I noticed that someone had re-arranged the straw bedding into a little nest. Since I didn’t see an egg then, I closed the box back up and let them be. This afternoon, though, I checked again and found one little brown egg in the straw.

I built four nesting boxes from leftover plywood, which should be enough for my 11 girls. Since I wasn’t sure what the best size was, I made them one cubic foot each. This is big enough for the hens to get in easily, but tight enough for them to feel secure. The box is built onto the wall of the coop, so I don’t have to disturb the birds by opening the door to collect my eggs.

The top board lifts off to give me access without having to disturb the birds too much.

See the egg! Second box from the right.

Of course, this egg was not saved for later. We fried it sunny-side up, with just a little salt. So much more flavor than store bought, although it is a bit smaller, at 1 ounce. I gather that they will get bigger as the hens mature.

In other news, we butchered all but two of the roosters. I will be writing about that in the next week or so.

~The Homesteading Hippy

First Egg! An exciting day on the homestead! Yesterday I put in nesting boxes for my hens, and this morning I noticed that someone had re-arranged the straw bedding into a little nest.

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Leaves on the Homestead

Leaves on the Homestead

I love mulch. Not the red piney stuff that stinks to high heaven when it rains, but the natural layer of leaves and twigs that is provided year-round by our trees. Some people believe that the leaves are a gift to us from the trees. I think that one plant’s trash is another man’s treasure, and I recycle the plant’s waste. Whichever way you choose to look at it, leaves are very useful to have…

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Yardlong Beans

Maybe I cheated a little. This photo should be familiar to every fisherman since the invention of the camera. While not truly a yard in length, these beans are still huge compared to my Old Homestead and Rattlesnake beans. They are Vigna unguiculata sesquipedalis, the yardlong bean. Also known as snake beans or asparagus beans, this south Asian crop is actually a variety of cowpea, closely…

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Cleaning with Dirt

Chickens are weird. It works for them, though. After two wet days, the weather cleared and we got a nice spot of sunny weather, as is typical for Florida in May. I decided to let the chicks do some “practice ranging,” where I put up a temporary fence and let them experience grass. This allows me to learn to trust that they won’t all…

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Fast-Growing Fruits

So I take great pride in my bananas. Yes, my wife points out that I don’t even like bananas. Yes, I probably don’t deserve to be proud because the trees are doing all the work. Yes, I don’t actually have bananas yet, just rapidly growing flowers. I can still be proud.

(more…)

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Welcome to the Coop

Welcome to the Coop

Last time, I showed you my vegetable garden, and mentioned that I would use chickens as a pest control strategy. At this point, said chickens are still small fluffy things, although they are growing rapidly. Let’s go into some of the reasons I wanted chickens before I go too far into what I’ve done so far.

Yes, I plan on eating them, at least the roosters. My wife and I don’t eat much meat, and…

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Welcome to the Garden

Welcome to the Garden

Last week I told you that my first homesteading step at our new home was to put in a vegetable garden. This time I’d like to go into more detail regarding what I’m doing, as well as the usual assortment of how’s and why’s. We live in zone 9b in central Florida, which means that I’ve had to shake up my knowledge of gardening a little bit to make this work. The winters here are very mild, with only…

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Welcome to the Homestead

Welcome to the Homestead

Well… It’s finally happened. It’s hard to call yourself the Homesteading Hippy without a homestead, especially while living in an apartment or a friend’s spare bedroom. It’s hard, even when you rent enough space to make a garden, when you move every other year. Last fall, my wife and I made the step into homeownership, buying a place of our own. Now, I can finally get homesteading for real! All…

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Pleco for Lunch

It’s been a while since my last post, and a lot has happened in that time. First of all, I moved again, this time to Tampa, Florida. I went to college in Saint Petersburg, just across the bay from here, so this is somewhat like coming home for me. Yesterday, I had an experience that I felt was worthy of my first blog post in a long, long time. As you may know, Florida is just packed with invasive…

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Sauerkraut with my Mom

Sauerkraut with my Mom

I love sauerkraut. Besides its delicious taste and many health benefits, it is also, in a way, the reason that I began this blog. … It all started several years ago, when I was not working and bored out of my skull. In an effort to be productive, I started making some of my own food. I baked some bread, and posted the effort on my social media. I caught and cooked fish, and shared that. Then I…

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Simple Lacto-Fermented Onions

My favorite type of pickling is lacto-fermentation, where bacteria break down sugars and produce lactic acid. These bacteria are not only incredibly healthy (they’re the same type that folks eat Greek yoghurt for) but they also add flavour to the food. It’s been a while since I’ve done any pickling, and I believe the last time was when I made corned beef right when I first started this blog.

Let’…

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Making Jackrabbit Sausage at Home

Making Jackrabbit Sausage at Home

A few posts ago I promised you a recipe for Jackrabbit. Having played with a few dishes, I decided today to try making Jackrabbit Sausage. Ace’s parents gave me a meat grinder for Christmas, and this seemed like a good way to try it out. Since I don’t have a sausage stuffer, I decided to make bulk sausage instead, but if you wanted to this could just as easily go into links. (more…)

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Arizona Springtime

The weather has been unseasonably warm the last few days, and although we’re supposed to get some more rain soon, I enjoyed a hike though Catalina State Park last weekend. Because we’ve had such a wet winter, the desert is really springing into life!

(more…)

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Carry Me Back to Old Virginia

Carry Me Back to Old Virginia

The title is from the folk song “My Clinch Mountain Home” which describes how hard it is to leave Virginia permanently. Luckily, I have many reasons to come back to visit often.

Last week I went back to visit my family, where I spent most of my childhood. It was nice to see everyone again, and I got a little time to relax and take a break from work. Now that I’m back in Arizona, I’d like to share…

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Hunting Part 3: The Meat

Hunting Part 3: The Meat

This is the last of three articles on my hunting adventures in Arizona. Firstly, I had described how and why I got into hunting for food. After that, I described the hunt itself, and how I find and catch a rabbit. This time, I’ll explore how I prepare the rabbit once I’ve caught it. (more…)

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Hunting Part 2: The Hunt

Hunting Part 2: The Hunt

This is part two of a three-part series on my recent introduction to hunting for food. The first article explained my reasoning and purchase decisions. This time, we will focus on the process of hunting itself. The next article will be on preparation of the animals once they are caught.

So far, I’ve found that the most difficult part of rabbit hunting is to find a rabbit. Cottontails make this…

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Hunting Part 1: The Rifle

Hunting Part 1: The Rifle

I’ve been holding off on writing about hunting, because I was unsure of how to do so in a tasteful manner. In the end, I decided to do a three-part bit on my recent move into hunting for food. This article, the first in the set, will cover my acquisition of a rifle and my decision to take up hunting. The second will cover the hunt itself, and the third will deal with how to handle the catch, from…