Baby chicks!

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Back in September, we had one of our hens go broody. I tried a few times to stop her but she was very insistent, so eventually I gave in and put a few eggs under her. I had read on Backyard Chickens that with a mother hen, chicks should be fine even at this [...]

Unveiling

I got another blog up and running. Don’t expect much, I threw it together during a couple of Fiona’s naps, migrated some posts from this blog over, and added some drafts and quick posts of our coop progress. It’s definitely a work in progress that likely won’t be finished until after our [...]

Update

I feel like there is so much to do around here that we will never not have something that needs done again. I love it though, really. Occasionally I feel a bit overwhelmed by everything, but mostly it’s so neat to be doing all these things for our own place and trying things that [...]

Preschool garden project: Seed balls

I’d read about seed balls a few times and thought it might be an interesting project to try, but hadn’t got around to it. Basically, seed balls are a mixture of clay, compost, and seeds formed into a ball. The clay protects the seed from birds and insects, the compost gives it something to [...]

Starting small

I’m considering splitting my blog into two parts. One for parenting, family, life learning, etc., and the other for homesteading. People interested in one aren’t necessarily interested in the other. It’s a tough call though, since homesteading is a big part of life learning for us. It is possible to subscribe to just one [...]

Chicks

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We went to a poultry swap today. We didn’t have anything ready for chicks yet, so I’d told Kris I wouldn’t get anything unless there were Silkie chicks, or maybe ducks. There were neither at the swap, but we came home with chicks anyway. We got two Lavender Orpingtons (I love the colour and [...]

Chickens!

chicks

Getting chickens is one of the first things I looked into. I decided I wanted Rhode Island Reds and Ameraucanas, and happened to find a nearby breeder who not only has both those breeds, but is also extremely helpful. Her Ameraucanas are bred for colour and eggs, rather than for exhibition [...]

Coming along

So we’ve been living here for just over a month, and things are coming along fairly well. We lived mostly out of boxes over Christmas, but Kris had the last two weeks off for us to get stuff done. So far we have managed to get all the bathrooms and the kitchen painted, as [...]

We are home owners!

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Here we are, our first picture together as home owners! We went out yesterday to get the keys and do the official walk through with our realtor. I actually didn’t carry my camera around for most of it. We have to get our stuff in there (next weekend) and in January [...]

Change is in the air

Shawnigan Lake

So it’s official, we are going to be home owners. Now that all the inspections and uncertainty is over with, I’m pretty excited about it. (It was terrifying for a while, ha!) We’ll be living in a beautiful town, in a really great neighbourhood, near a huge park with tons of trails for hiking, [...]

“Birds fly, fish swim, man thinks and learns. Therefore, we do not need to “motivate” children into learning, by wheedling, bribing, or bullying. We do not need to keep picking away at their minds to make sure they are learning. What we need to do, and all we need to do is bring as much of the world as we can into [their lives]; give children as much help and guidance as they need and ask for; listen respectfully when they feel like talking; and then get out of the way. We can trust them to do the rest.”
~ John Holt

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