Homesteading on 2 Acres – a Girl and her Dogs
Homesteading on 2 acres in a tiny house; a girl, her dogs, and some vegan recipes
On this day the baby chickens officially turned 4 weeks old, at which point i could stop making my one room tiny house like the arctic to keep the heat lamp area at 95, 90, 85, or 80 degrees. I no longer had to walk around in sweatshirts and fleece pants, and i could cuddle the chicks outside of the heat lamp area without worry of freezing them. They officially only need it at 75 degrees and have most of their feathers at least halfway unfurled.
One day they only had two hours for me at work. This is not good news financially but it meant i had time to plant a tree. I dug the deepest hole ive dug yet. I had a lot of frustrations on my mind and i just kept digging. Then filled half of it with good soil, lowered the tree in, and then covered it and fenced it. I sure hope it lives and thrives. It took 4 hours with a rock breaking stick and a lot of sweat to dig that hole. now the problem remains that i havent planted the other pecan tree. The next time i only had two hours i was all healed up physically but was dealing with a fresh heartbreak that morning and ate a bunch of sushi and sat in the wind blowing bubbles instead. They were $1.50 at the checkout and i thought, hey its better than having a drink. Amused the birds and the dogs at least. True to aussie form, it took me about five minutes to train cashew to pop bubbles with her nose. Anyways, ill dig another hole at some point this year and put the other pecan tree in.
I planted this last year hoping eventually i could taste a little bubble of nectar on the stem pulled through the flower like we did when we were kids on the way past the honeysuckle bush headed to and from school. it is finally producing flowers. I have learned to wait until they get a little darker yellow and more wilted than the flower in the photo. Then you take the green capped bottom of the flower off and pull the stem through until a little bubble of syrupy liquid emerged and then you just lick it. It tastes like a sweet nectar. Its very small. Its a nice treat but is not going to fill you up like food. Its just a nod to a childhood memory. So far the two layered fence system is working to keep the critters away and it has not frosted. It is growing well. If it keeps on like this it should become a large bush by the time winter comes back around.
I ended up with one chocolate orpington rooster, one americauna hen, and four chocolate orpington hens. They continued to grow until they were eventually tall enough to discover the brooder box window through which i could observe them. They began sticking their heads out this little opening to survey the bathroom.
Every once in a while i have to go to san antonio for something, at which point i make a point to purchase sushi or vegan parmesan truffle fries depending on what part of town i end up in. Both are non existent in my area. On this fine day i made the trip to get to the restaurant where they make vegan parmesan truffle fries. Look at that crispy golden deliciousness! It smells and tastes delectable and intoxicating. theres nothing like it. Also, i love all things truffle. Truffle shavings, truffle oil….sign me up. If you do not love truffles, this is not for you. It is simply truffles in french fry form with so much crispiness and a little bit of parsley just to balance it out. Oh man i want those right now lol. I’ll be back over there in a month.
Every once in a while i find dead field mice in the chicken water outside. They get in, realize they cant get out, and drown. Some night critter took it. They always do. I lay the dead mouse on the ground near the front gate and by sunrise its gone. i try not to encourage predators to come up near the house or animal pens so i put it up by the gate each time but man we have a lot of field mice (not everybody has mouse tight feed sheds) and they maybe need to learn to swim. (I literally keep my extra feed bags in the trunk of the car because it keeps the rodents out, keeps them from spreading disease to my chickens, and keeps this homestead from contributing to more field mice. Larger operations store more than two bags of feed at a time and cant afford this approach. They get barn cats but the coyotes always eat them. So my town has a plague of mice and a plague of grasshoppers. Its quite the place to live, but if you’re used to the area, you can make a go of it.)
When i went to town to drop off the five chicks with my coworker i had to wait at walmart for a bit and i thought id check out the plant section rather than just sit in the car. Turns out walmart is in the business of killing plants rather than selling them. I told three separate employees that their plants were bone dry, wilted, and pretty much dead and the response i got was “we know.” One employee told me walmart doesnt care about plants. No kidding. Every time i go there they need water but this time, they literally had whole rows of veggies and flowers that might as well be in the trash bin. I mean all the leaves were basically beyond help and the stems were just sticks laying against the bone dry dirt. The leaves weren’t even leaf shaped anymore. they were beyond help. I found two little five dollar hibiscus plants that looked like they still had a chance, bought a water bottle, them, and watered them with the water bottle in the parking lot. I cant believe it but walmart killed whole rose bushes and hibiscus plants. I mean those two hibiscus and the fruit trees were the only things halfway alive. Shame on them. What a waste.
I stopped one more time on the way home to pick up those 15 okra plants for the new setup in the greenhouse. Then i stopped at the dollar general and bought dirt and climbing sticks for them.
My best friend is an artist, known for Mural painting. The fire station booked her for a mural recently and the mural above was commissioned by the mexican restaurant in our town. She did a sign for the local barber shop and i think she has at least one other mural planned in the neighboring town. She painted a mural on three sides of her garage near the road and ever since then people have been booking her for jobs. She has scaffolding and everything. She’s a great mural painter but the unique thing about her is that she involves the community in every mural. She paints the outline and then lets community members color in the inside of shapes with the designated color of paint before she adds the detail. In that way, we can all say we were part of our community murals. Everybody helped. There’s reasons she’s my best friend. She has an effect on people. She makes them want to be here. She gives people reasons to see joy.
I had strategically scheduled my staycation to begin one day before my batch of 12 chocolate orpington chicks and 1 mystery chick were supposed to arrive at the post office in my small town. I had ordered from a hatchery id never used before and it had mixed reviews so i was nervous about whether they would arrive and what shape they’d arrive in. Mcmurray was my favorite hatchery and the favorite of pretty much every chicken owner ive talked to here and in the surrounding three towns. They’re up north. They’re not local, so that tells you, if each of us found them independently and prefer them, they must be good. Ive never had a bad experience with Mcmurray, but they didnt offer chocolate orpingtons, and i really wanted chocolate orpingtons. So i ordered from this other place. It was the only hatchery that offered chocolate orpingtons that had the orpington wide 10 lb body and didnt look like whatever kind of chicken they were crossbred with. They actually looked like orpingtons, just brown. Thats what i wanted. I didnt want just any old brown chicken. I loved the size and fluff and temperament of the orpingtons. So i reserved a batch months in advance and hoped theyd arrive all right. Well, unlike Mcmurray, they dont put them in the cargo hold of a delta airplane and ship them to you overnight. No, these geniuses put the day old chicks in the regular old postal service mail and even though they were marked priority, they did not have a delta cargo air travel tag and they stayed in transit two days rather than overnight. They did not call me at dawn and tell me to come pick up my chicks. No, they arrived the following day at 3 pm, by which time i was pretty much in an unreachable state. The tracking service for the package said it was still sitting in a distribution facility in ohio and hadnt moved at all for a day. The postal service itself told me they had no record of or evidence of the location of the package and we would just have to wait and see if it produced itself. Then i got an email that said “delivered” while the tracking still said they were in ohio, a day late, and the post office didnt call to tell me there were live birds up there until two hours after the email. Tracking still says they’re in ohio. I put shoes on and high tailed it to the post office like a bat out of hell or a woman on a mission. I was crazy by then. These people had lost my chickens. God knows what condition this iffy hatchery packed them in. Theyve now been in the box 2 whole days. It was cold outside. I was on a f***ing mission to get these birds.
Im not sure what i looked like walking in there in pajamas with hair disheveled after pacing the floor for two days and trying not to rip out every eyebrow hair wondering where these poor baby chickens were with next to no resources left. The yolk sack would be absorbed now and the seaweed gel typically only lasts a day if the hatchery even puts any in there; some dont. McMurray always puts plenty of seaweed gel so they dont die of dehydration if delayed in transit but this hatchery did not specify whether they used the gel. With mostly menopausal chickens, everything hinged upon me being able to obtain and socialize this batch of chocolate orpingtons for a week over my staycation. We used eggs for barter, to obtain vegetables, other supplies, and even favors. We also used them to tip repair people with. It was a way to incentivize them to make the drive all the way out to our small town next time. The chickens were old ladies now and our egg supply was drying up. With the nearest legit orpington shaped chocolate orpingtons in ohio, i needed to make a go of this because they were already booked ip through september. The next non spoken for chocolate orpingtons chicks could be purchased in december of 2026. The post office guy was the younger newer employee and not the one id known for years. I didnt care. I just really wanted that box. I was in a state by then. I signed for it and went to take the box home and get them situated. Everyone and their dog wanted to see the new feathered babies as soon as they heard they were found. They wanted me to stop by on the way home. I only obliged my best friend. Everyone else i told no. Basically, the day old chicks on this timeline would not be in the greatest life-compatible condition. They’d be cold, hungry, dehydrated, and stressed. I needed to get them home pronto and see who could be salvaged, and it was cold and windy outside on top of that.
I sat in the drivers seat and my best friend sat in the passengers seat of my car. I took a baby chick out of the box and set it in her hand. I sat there like some kind of helicopter chicken mom demanding she not squish their legs, hold cupped in her hand with the other hand on top for warmth, and keep them against her body or in her hands instead of holding them out in the open air to examine them. She was very polite about my helicopter bossing. She followed all instructions and then thanked me for letting her see the baby chicks. Once she’d seen them i continued on towards the homestead at a the highest pace i could go and still abide by the speed limit. i got them all into the brooder with the heat lamp on as quickly as i could and dipped a few chicks beaks in the water so theyd know where it was. I dont do all the chicks this way, just a few, and then once they start drinking the others typically copy the behavior. This is because when you dip the chicks beak in the water, sometimes they just hold it in their beak and swallow and sometimes they inhale. By letting the group watch and copy the first two, they tend to drink at their own pace and already know what its about when they begin the activity. Theres less risk of pneumonia. So i dipped two beaks in the water and sure enough the others observed and followed. I made sure they knew where the food was. Then i built them a shade corner. The hatchery had deleted everything non alive that i paid for in my order. No electrolytes (those were a mandatory purchase so im surprised they didnt send that) no thermometer (every time!) and no gro gel. I had to make a complaint and they tried to just give me a refund but i told them as far as the thermometer, i needed them to send that again because i needed the thermometer. They decided to try sending the order again and it arrived 2 weeks later. -_- By then i was pretty happy to have the thermometer cuz i was previously using their behavior yo tell me whether it was too hot or too cold in there. One chick arrived with a very poofy chest. My friend stated that she was cute and i should keep her, but i understood the poofy chest was not a good thing. It was an abnormality that ended up being incompatible with life. She had a pocket of air inflating beneath her skin in her chest area and she was finding it difficult to breathe. She would not eat or drink and if pressed on, her chest was full of air and made a crackly noise. She died the following day and i had a little funeral for her and buried her in a chick sized grave over by where the mosquito net tent garden had been years earlier. There was one mystery chick that was yellow and had these pudgy cheek floofs and we determined she is probably an americauna. I named her “nana pudding”. There were at least two roosters in the batch of all hens, one with a crop so far displaced it was nearly on his back. He hung on for over a week and then died and i had to bury him alongside his sibling. The chicks had not one evidence of seaweed gel in their box when i took them out. I dont know if they ate it all because they were in transit two days or if they didnt put any in. They were very thirsty. I did my best but the chicks were touch and go for the first four weeks and pretty fragile. Some were stronger than others. Mcmurray always sent healthy, vibrant, feisty chicks. I also never had a chick loss with them. And, they’ve never accidentally sent me a rooster when i bought all hens. I had so much trouble with this hatchery, when i realized there was a rooster i decided to purchase an incubator and an egg storing 60 degree mini fridge so i could breed my own chickens and never have to deal with them again. I needed to start socializing them so i wanted to hurry ip and separate out five chicks and give them to my coworker. We finally made that work on thursday so friday, saturday, and sunday i got to spend all day socializing the chicks, but being more fragile than mcmurray’s chicks, i only kept them against my chest for short periods of time before returning them to the brooder under the heat lamp. I wont name the hatchery but just trust me on this, just use mcmurray. I have no other ones i like. I have plenty of procedural reasons. Theres another hatchery i wont use because they put the heat pack above the bedding and not underneath, so if the box is jostled a chick can get crushed by the heat pad. Just use mcmurray or hatch your own. The problem was, literally no one in the entire texas chicken group im part of had chocolate orpingtons, so it wasnt like i could drive over a couple towns and get some. I had to use a hatchery. My plan is to breed chicks myself and hopefully also cross breed some buff and chocolate orpingtons this winter and hopefully make them available to more people around here.
The americauna started out bigger than the orpington chicks but they’ve now well surpassed her in size and i have to keep an eye out because they’re aware that she’s the only chicken that looks a little different and occasionally they’ll rip a long white feather out and chase each other around the brooder for it.
So i began the process of socializing the baby chickens. My friend and her daughter came one sunday to help with that. It was a much needed reprieve from the task for me. They were so little and fragile and always cold. It was necessary to socialize them but also stressful. I just wanted to leave them under the heat lamp and have them be warm enough. they didnt have the same pep and energy that McMurray buff orpington chicks did.
Nana Pudding started out the friendliest. She was smarter and more resourceful than the orpingtons. First to figure everything out, including flying and escape. Pretty soon the docile orpingtons warmed up to me and the americauna chick nana pudding decided she was kind of over me. I think she resented that i wouldnt let her roam free in the house.
This picture above shows nana pudding. Jujube is the surviving rooster. Then there’s butters (short for butterscotch). Her feathers are just a tad silver rather than all brown. Everyone else is all brown. Ginger is the biggest orpington hen who sometimes bullies nana pudding by ripping a feather out. She’s the healthiest largest hen but not my favorite because she throws her weight around because she can. Nutmeg is sometimes Ginger’s accomplice and also picks on nana pudding at times. Nana pudding, ive already had to deworm and treat for a respiratory infection by week 4. Im not happy with this hatchery and the health of their chicks but im fighting to make it work. Cinnamon is slightly smaller than nutmeg and can sometimes be found snuggled up to the smaller rooster chick, Jujube.
After a week, i went back to work. The chicks stayed in the brooder and i fretted about them day and night. Just do yourself a favor and order from McMurray. Save yourself the headache. they’ll all arrive alive, kicking, and feisty….not as fragile.
