The Garlic Experiment

I left a few cloves of garlic sitting in the windowsill a few weeks ago..

I noticed they had begun to sprout so after making green tea one day I wrapped the sprouting cloves in the wet tea bags.

Every day when washing dishes I would water the little sprouts and each day they would get a tad bigger!To my surprise they quickly began developing roots and today I decided to transplant them.

I purchased small pots that would sit in the windowsill, filled the bottom 1/3 of the pot with tiny pebbles for drainage, the top 2/3's with soil, and put the growing cloves in the dirt.

I will continue to water them and update you all with their progress, but for now I'm just excited to have had them grow this well!

In the middle pot, with the smurf, I planted a few Zinnia seeds to get them started for Spring!

Chickens, Snow, and Southern weather patterns...

We may only have a few chickens, 2 Hen and 1 Roo, but we like to make sure they are happy, healthy, and safe during extreme weather conditions!

These are the four quick steps we took to ensure they were safe during the snow. The weather man is predicting 6-10 inches.

1.Spread a fresh layer of Hay to keep them warm and busy, scratching through it. We use the deep litter method that Fresh-Eggs-Daily recommended. So far so good, using this method the birds stay warm and toasty inside their coop.(Also we picked a few handfuls of grass, before the snow covered it up, as a tasty treat).

2. Use loose hay to seal up any large gaps in the coop. This will help keep them dry and keep the warm air in. There is a ramp that leads to their outside area so the hole on the floor of the coop leading outside will provide air flow without letting in any snow.

3.Cover the outside areas with metal or wood to give them as much space as possible to move around.

4. Whip up some oatmeal; fresh whole oats, garlic powder, and dried basil from our garden last summer! They love this and look hilarious when they get it on their face! <added bonus!! lol

Weather Extremes: In the south the news can predict several inches of snow and then you end up with a bright sunny day. I don't like to close up the coop until I feel the temperature drop, or cover up their outside area (where they have access to sunlight) until I see the snow falling. This means we have to be dedicated to checking the temps outside (not on the television) in order to keep our girls (and boy) safe.

Please bring in any pets that you can bring in, and stay warm/ safe yourself!

Thanks for reading! -The Winters

Curled Toes & Chickens

At two days old we knew she would be different..

Meet Lou.. Our Black Sex-link chicken with crooked toes. The day we brought her home we noticed that one of her feet was completely backwards, she was walking on the top of her foot.

When I spoke with the previous owner of this sweet little bittie chick he said, "you can bring her back and trade her in for a different chick.. but we will kill her".

Immediately I knew she found us, so that we would save her life! I did some research online and found out that you can brace a chicks foot to straighten it out until they are around two weeks old.

(This is the only photo I have of her in her brace)

I made her tiny brace out of a piece of cardboard cut into a "W" shape. Then I used medical tape, the kind that is removable, to tape her toes to the cardboard. I changed the tape 2x a day until her foot stayed bottom side down.

She still has crooked toes on her left foot (refer to the photo at the top of this post) but she is alive and thriving!

Lou is the chicken on the left side of this photo, next to our rooster Arthur!

I keep a very close eye on her, and will continue to do so specifically when we get more chickens this spring (to make sure she isn't being bullied). So far though, she stays at the top of the pecking order and seems to be just fine. She continues to lay beautiful eggs, normal size and shape, and until she dies of natural causes she will have a safe place to live here with us at the Winter Stead!

I lied..

Yesterday when I wrote I said you may not hear from me for a little while, and I have to admit I thoroughly enjoy writing and sharing here so... Hello I'm back already!!

I had a five page paper to write today about Agrarianism and Deep Ecology. While I was researching these topics I found a lot of great information. I wanted to share this quote by Rebecca Gould, she says:

"At the moment, in much of the United States, homemaking is looked down upon as a profession. In reality, it is the most important profession and can be the most exciting of all.... The home is our most important social institution and unless we give it the respect that is its due and stop the incessant erosion that is taking place, we will suffer irreparable loss.... The home is the focal seat of education and emotional security. More and more the functions of the home have been taken over by the school, but the school is no substitute, no matter how fine the instructors or expensive the equipment....What mental insolvency has overtaken us that we can allow the core of our culture to be denigrated, weakened and reduced? Far better to burn your house to the ground and live in a cave than to lose the sense of wonder and privilege of making a home" (1).

I love this!  My husband and I get so many sideways looks when we tell people that no, we do not have a full time regular job, and that yes in fact we are okay with that! We work at home, there is not a single moment while we are home where we are not busy doing something. A homesteader's job is never done. Even while we sleep if our chickens wake us up making weird noises we rush around finding warm clothes and a flash light to run outside and check on them. Usually it's only the neighbors dog, but just in case we want to make sure our girls are safe.

If we ever have a child we will definitely home-school.

Next spring we plan to add several chickens to our flock and sell/ barter eggs, we want to do the same with our fresh produce, and we hope to learn how to can fresh produce for ourselves and to sell/ barter. We already sell/ barter our home made health and beauty products so I guess we are off to a good start!

For all of you out there who are currently striving to create your homestead and those of you who are already thriving from your homestead.. keep up the good work!  You inspire me, and I hope to inspire you, together we can re-establish what a home is all about.

1- Gould, Rebecca Kneale. At Home in Nature : Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America. Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California Press, 2005. p 15. Copyright © 2005. University of California Press. All rights reserved.