October on Twin Haven

October started off with Turkey season.  Joe got us a Wild Turkey from the flock that we have been feeding all summer.  Boy was that turkey good!  We had our friends over to share that meal with us.  It was an early Thanksgiving lol

Autumn on Twin Haven was so beautiful.  I will post some of the beautiful pics I took here.

This month, I have also ventured into pasta making.  I bought a pasta attachment for my KitchenAid Mixer and now make all of our pastas from scratch.  So far I've made large and small macaroni, spaghetti and noodles with the attachment.  We love the fresh pasta and it's a great way to use up extra eggs.

 October is always a good month for soups.  Here's a couple that I made this month.  On the left is Smoked Sausage, Butternut Squash and Barley Soup (new recipe) and on the right is Loaded Baked Potato Soup with Chicken (we love this one and make it often).

We had our first snowstorm on Oct. 27 and it was just a dusting but enough to make getting ready for winter a priority with more snow in the forecast for the weekend. 

All through October we were planning to have a "Harvest Hoedown" at the end of the month.  We invited a few guests and it turned out that everyone was either busy or working except for our friends The Morrell's.  This was probably a good thing!  We had Our First Nor'easter blow in on this day and turned our Havest Hoedown into a Winter Wonderland.  It was a nasty storm that dumped 20 inches of snow on us in 8 hours time.  It was just crazy!!!  We lost power at about 8pm on 10/29 and didn't get it back till the evening of 11/2.  Thank goodness we had a generator!  But still was unable to use the stove or microwave!  Also thank goodness for our outside wood furnace and our wood stoves!  We are now prepared for winter!

Well that ends our Month of October on Twin Haven.

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What's been happening on the farm.

I cannot believe that it is almost December already!  I also can't believe that I haven't blogged since August but we have been busy so.............I'll try to catch us up to date by memory and with the help of dated pictures. lol






At the end of August we had a visit from a black bear that lives on our property across the stream.  He came to eat the suet that I had put out for the birds.  He didn't really hurt anything and went back over the stream when Joe chased him.  Such a beauty he was and a reminder that we live in God's Woods here!



In September we canned a lot of produce here at Twin Haven!  God provided and I preserved it :)  I made salsa, jellies, jams, pickles, relishes, apple butter, apple sauce, pear sauce, ketchup, tomato juice, marinara sauce, stewed diced tomatoes and more.

 

Wow, that was a lot of canning!!!  I think I went through about 4 bushels of tomatoes, a bushel of apples, a bushel of cucumbers, 1/2 bushel of pears and peaches.  Everyone loves everything that I canned, so it was time well spent!  I need to close here for now but will post more tonight.  I'm taking to boys to see Happy Feet 2 in 3D today.

New Coop Expansion

The weeks big project was expanding the chicken coop. We added another chicken house and doubled the size of the coop. The second batch of chickens has now moved to the green house and while they are not yet big enough to run with the bigger chickens we did screen their front door for visits.  The older chickens really want to go in and visit the chicks but really are just too big.  I think it will be after butchering that we introduce the chicks into the pen as there will only be one rooster and six hens left.  There will be a new pecking order established and the younger pullets will be 7 weeks old and almost the same size.  We really enjoy watching our animals play.  Whether it's the chickens, goats or ducks.

Four turkeys and all six Cockerels have survived their first two weeks :)  I'm still looking for more turkey chicks but am looking for three week old ones and not day old this time.  I will spend a couple of dollars more to make increase their odds of survival.  The chicks give us a lot of enjoyment watching their antics.

The garden is doing so so.....I've picked beans twice, we are eating jalapenos and lettuce.  Everything is blooming just not producing much yet.  We have lots of small green tomatoes, I sure hope with this rain it picks up and gets going. 

Hope you all have a great week :)

Teresa

August Fun

Black Spanish Turkey and Cockerel

Summer is just flying by! I can't believe it's August already!!!! Doesn't seem possible! We've added turkeys to the farm but of the six we got (ordered 10 but was shorted!) only 4 are remaining. They are so fragile. The four we have now are a red bourbon, a spanish black and two blue slates. I'm thinking about going to the chicken swap this weekend and getting some older turkeys, too.  We also added 6 Cockerel's, bringing our chicken population up to 44.

Older Chickens in Pen

 Our oldest chickens are now 12 weeks old and should be starting to lay eggs in a month to a month and half :)  so exciting!

Screech, An Easter Egger Chick

Our second batch of chickens is now 3 weeks old and are getting cramped inside their brooder.  We will build an adjoining pen with the green coop this weekend to start letting them out during the day.  They are still to little to mingle with the big chickens but can get used to seeing them.  Eventually, I would like to set up the green coop as our brooder coop and breed chicks here the old fashioned way!

Pumpkin Blossom

The garden is really starting to
grow.  We have pumpkin, squash and cucumbers all in blossom.  We  have been picking jalapenos and cayenne pepper and the bell peppers are blooming.

The beans are all producing and we finally  have little green tomatoes!  Unfornunately, we also have those ugly green hornworm catepillars too.  I picked two of the nasty things off this morning. 

Hansel showing off his balancing skills.

The goats are growing, but we are wondering just what they are lol.  Jamie was so excited to get them, that we didn't ask what kind they were.  We looked through books and they most resembled alpines at the time.  I guess time will tell.

Roxy

The ducks are really getting big too!  Soon we should be seeing duck eggs on the shore.  I would love to see some baby ducks with their Mommas next year on the pond!  I am going to take them some hay this afternoon to roost with and see what they do.

Wylie and Auzzie have adjusted well to the farm.  They are busy keeping watch over the place and all the animals.  Their favorite thing is to sit on the deck and gaurd the brooder chicks. 

That pretty much wraps up this week on the farm.  I hope you all have a blessed day.

Teresa

This week on the farm.

This week has been busy here at our farm.  The Chickens are doing well and have switched from organic chick feed to organic growers feed with some supplemented scratch.  They are starting to get big and fat :)  

Gretel and Hansel

 Hansel and Gretel are now 11 weeks old and starting to really grow.  They love for us to come give them attention and often call for me and the boys to come out and play.  The boys like to get in their pen and let them crawl all over them.

The ducks now have full use of the pond and are growing big and strong.  We did lose one though but we still have 12.  They come right up to me and tonight they ate right out of my hand.

The garden is doing pretty good, we started eating lettuce and cherry tomatoes out of it this week.  The cold temps in June really didn't help it to grow.  We are making up for that this month with temps in the 85*-98* range.  I can't wait for more veggies to grow!

This week we also added something new to the farm, 20-2 day old chicks! 

They are Easter Eggers, New Hampshires, Plymouth Rock Barred and Buff Orphingtons.  They are all females and 2 of each will be kept for eggs and the rest for eating.  They have already left their home in the basement and are on the deck in the brooder coop.  They are so cute!

On a sad note.......this week John's bunny Jack died for no apparent reason.  We will probably  be replacing his bunny soon.

That sums up this week on the farm :)

Hansel & Gretel Join the Farm

L- John with Gretel R- Jamie with Hansel

On July 2, 2011 we again went to the Chicken Swap to find some turkeys and new chicks.  We ended up getting 2 Alpine Twin Buck and Doe Goats. They are so cute!  They loved to be held and petted and cry for me to come give them attention everyday.  The boys and I named them Hansel and Gretel.  Hansel is white with a couple of black spots and Gretel is black with a couple of white spots. 

Goat Pen

We were looking for lambs for Jamie but were not having any luck.  He really liked the goats so we got them instead.  We still want lambs and are on the look out for some decently priced ones.

June- 2011 Our first month in New Hampshire

Our adventure begins last December with hubby getting offered a promotion and being moved to the plant in Massachusetts.  Hubby is a huge hunter and wanted to live in New Hampshire where it is more hunter friendly.  We were looking for a home that would house not only us but our 20 year old grown sons who have autism.  We started house hunting immediately online and searched through tons of real estate sites.  It took us almost four months to find our home.  

Our New Home

Our new home is just over the Massachusetts border (second house inside NH). 

We arrived in New Hampshire the last week of May.  The first week was dealing with movers, new furniture deliveries and unpacking.

Garden and Goat and Sheep Pen being built.

From June 2nd to June 4th  we started turning our property into a farm.  We began digging and planting our garden and building our goat and sheep pen. We planted tomatoes, peppers, peas, green beans, lima beans, pinto beans, kidney beans, lettuce, carrots, onions, potatoes, sunflowers, corn, watermelon, pumpkins, cantaloupe, cucumbers, zucchini, crock neck squash, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower and both red and green cabbage.  

Jack

Spotty

On June 4th we went to Milford to the Chicken Swap and got the boys bunnies and our first set of chickens.  The boys got lionhead bunnies which they named Jack and Spotty.  They were suppose to be outside bunnies but the cool night temps brought them inside quickly and they took up residence in the boys rooms.

I also purchased 21 3 week old variety of chicks.  They were mostly Golden Comets but there were also 2 Buff Orphingtons, 2 Black Silkies and a Barred Plymouth Rock Hen.  We had 3 chicks die and ended up with 2 Roosters (1 Golden Comet and 1 Buff Orphington), 1 Buff Orphington Hen, 2 Silkies (not sure of sexes), and 13 Golden Comet Hens.  The chicks started out on the deck but soon made their way to the basement because of cool temps.  We housed them in a Brooder Coop at the beginning.

After 2 weeks they were ready to make their way outside to a big coop and pen.  Joe and I built the pen ourselves but bought the coop off of craigslist from a student who had built it in shop. This coop worked well but was a little small for our flock so we began to look for a larger coop.

While we were building the pen we were also having a water crisis on the property.  For some reason our well wasn't pumping water and the well company thought that our well had gone dry.  After a month long battle of trying to get the water problems fixed we now have two working wells but are $25,000 poorer.  (There goes our tractor money)

Blue Swede and Rouen Ducks

In the middle of the month of June, my husbands friend and co worker asked him if he would like some baby ducks for free.  We had an overgrown  pond on the property with no wildlife in it and my hubby loves ducks.  So of course, he says yes.  The ducks were Rouens and Blue Swedes.  They were about 6 week old when we got them.  There were 13 of them but we did lose one.  

New Large Chicken Coop

That next week was spent cutting down the overgrown vegetation around the pond and buying a larger chicken coop, in order to give the ducks the smaller coop.  (Someone should of told us that ducks don't like using coops. lol)  The chickens got a new home and we now have an extra coop that we will put to use soon.   

That ends our first month in New Hampshire.  We got tons of stuff done and had a lot of heartache over our water situation.  Bring on July.