On day 20 there was a good bit of non showing work to get done.
The van needed a new oil pan put on.
Measuring out areas to get on graph paper and lay out specific details of how and where to plant what so we can be sure to amend soil properly. We tried the stroller for the first time while doing measurements, Aurora was NOT impressed! Maybe if it hadn’t been nap time it would have gone better.
While the ultimate goal is to primarily use permaculture, food forest methods …. these take time and lots of work, so we will be starting some of it as well as doing some traditional gardening as well this year. Knowing the basic “end game” layout though is important so we are not needing to dig up and move trees, bushes, whole berry patches etc in a couple years!
After doing all the basic measurements, I needed to go do some research on what soil and sun conditions several things need to determine how and where they will work. This pretty much took up my day along with tending the baby :p
The girls took advantage of me needing to focus and learn to make themselves scarce and explore the woods until close to dinner time! I must say, that aspect of this “stay home” time, I’m loving! They are exploring and learning about how the environment changes on a day to day basis as things grow, how a day of rain followed by a day of sun can make big differences! Checking out each new blooming plant etc. Normally they would be stuck “in the books” this time if year. It’s also cool hearing what they discover each day, especially as they discover locations of edible or medicinal plants!
After dinner I went and picked up 4 dozen Ameraucana chicken eggs to put in the incubator!!!!!
Ameraucana are the ones that lay blue eggs, super cool if you’ve never seen them!
Ameraucana came from Araucanas from Chile. They were breed to keep the blue eggs but get rid of some other less desirable traits and problems with the breed. Ameraucanas come in all ranges of colors and color combinations, as do the chicks so even keeping just 1 breed you can have a really fun flock!
They tolerate heat well as well as being very cold hardy which makes them a pretty solid choice all across North America. They are a laying breed so great choice if your goal is eggs but you don’t want all identical chickens!
In 21 days, give or take a couple, we should have chicks! My intention is to sell most so if you are interested let me know early and once they are hatched and I have a count I’ll be in touch so you can pick them up! I’ll fill any orders in the order they come in! There are 50 eggs in the incubator, I hope at least 40 will hatch!
The incubator I am using is this one, it holds 56 eggs, has an automatic Turner… an absolute must in my opinion, if you ever want to hatch eggs…spend the extra $20 or so to get one with a turner, your hatching rate will be greatly increased! This incubator is easy to set up and easy to use! The only, slight, negative is so far I haven’t found a way to switch the temperature reading from Celsius to Fahrenheit. A quick google search told me the temperature range I need to stay in so I taped it to the lid for easy reference, simple enough fix 🤷♀️ lol
Today, the 21st we were expecting rain so planned accordingly. We had a few online meetings in the family. I slept terribly so was exhausted and was quite grateful for a slow quiet day!
Today was mostly about tending to the currently planted seeds and plants, making sure the incubator stayed the right temperature, tending the baby and doing more research and planning. Oh and washing, drying and folding/stuffing cloth diapers 😁 All in all it was a pretty boring, relaxing day …. just what everyone needed! Haha.
While tending plants I found 6 of of the strawberry seeds had sprouted!!
