Celebrating the first snow...

It was fall...

Then, after two days of snow...it wasn't fall.

Not at all.

The third day...it was frigid...

But it was beautiful.

Fresh fallen snow...pure and perfect.

Unspoiled.

We stacked wood.

We have been stacking wood for a week now.

Owen's baby sled turned into a kindling hauler.

Chopping your own firewood creates a crazy amount of bark and other burnables.

We weren't the only busy ones...

Beavers seem to have found one of our last few ash trees.

So beautiful.

After all that work in the cold...

it's nice to sit down in front of the fire

Chili with cornbread muffin in hand.

Enjoying the best part of being outside in winter in Canada.

Warming up indoors.

Seed Saving...Round 2

We have saved seeds before...

Last year we did tomatoes as well as white corn and broccoli seeds.

Tomato seeds, in my opinion, is only for the advanced seed saver!

(psst....its really gross)

We saved tomato seeds this year too.

Mainly because I really enjoyed the heritage Black Kris tomatoes we nabbed for free.

We also saved cantaloupe and honeydew melon seeds...as shown above.

The melons were purchased for a family event...so naturally we snagged the seeds. 

We are also trying our hand at radish seeds...which was really the result of forgetting to harvest them.

I think we have enough radish seeds now...each wee pod you see has at least 3-8 tiny seeds...

It is time consuming, but easily done while watching a movie on the couch.

Not too hard at all.

We chopped the heads off our Gigantius sunflowers...

not sure if these beauties will become winter feed for the chickens?

Or snacking for us...or for re planting next year?

Only time will tell....again, I think we have enough...

Butter crunch lettuce seeds?  Sure, why not?

One of the kinds of lettuce that came from our mesclun mix...

Yup...it's all good.

Added bonus of seed saving?

You can take them to a seed exchange and its like money!

You can exchange for any other seed you want!

AMAZING!

So if you are lax one week and some of your veg goes bolting on you (sends out flowers), don't fret!  

Get excited about what you can do with all of those seeds...

It is our goal to never buy seeds or plants again...sorry Burt's Greenhouses...

I'll always refer people to your business and your advice has been invaluable.

But we are DONE with seed buying!

(insert evil laugh here)

What were you able to save for next year?

The Girls...

So its been a few months since we got the new fancy chickens.

I thought you might want to get to know them better!

Eagle

Our first little girl to get injured.

She had most of her tail feathers peaked out in the beginning.

Now she tries to steer clear of the big girls...and often times Pigeon keeps her safe.

Aptly named Eagle, the noises she makes sound very bird of prey-ish!

Still waiting to see what colour her eggs will be!

(she is our easter egger)

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Oreo

(Formerly Dark Rainbow)

A very sweet, shy girl.

She keeps her distance mostly.

I've spent some time just sitting in the coop and she'll come around to peck mosquitoes off of my pants.

You can't really tell from these shots, but she is by far our puffiest hen!

She ended up with a new name as Owen felt Dark Rainbow was too long.

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Pigeon

By far, my favorite little girl.

She is very motherly and protective of all of her coop sisters.

She herds in the young ones and alerts them to any approaching big girls.

She is always at my heels.

I'm sure she thinks I'm the mother hen.

On another note...if we were to ever order new chicks...I would

not hesitate to get more Silver Laced Wyandottes.

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Sun

Our beautiful blonde girl.

Insert blonde joke here.

She is quite puffy but sometimes she doesn't seem to know what to do with all of those feathers!

She is hilarious to watch...quite daft and dizzy at times.

She hops straight up in the air to catch bugs in the evening.

She was the first of the little ones to start getting her mature comb.

Her grown up chicken voice sounds like a goose...it's hilarious!

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You're welcome to drop by and meet the girls anytime!

They love visitors...and have learned quickly that people means treats.

All in all, the new girls settled in just fine...

PS.  our hen that rules the coop is Clover...

She is the one hen that lets me pet her without fail.

She is hilarious...

Sadly, we lost one of our first hens.

It was the strangest thing.

She was fine in the morning, but by 6pm, she was struggling to breathe.

It took less than 5 mins for her to pass away, once we noticed she was ill.

Now we have 7 hens in total...and will probably add more this spring.

We were sad about the passing of Birch...

but its times like these when we get to teach Owen about life and death.

Not my favorite aspect of parenting...but how else are our children supposed to learn?

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UPDATE:

Our easter egger was the first of the new girls to lay an egg!

The wee blue tinted egg is on the left...next to one of our regular hens eggs.

The big girls tend to lay an extra large egg per day on average.

Not sure what class she's laying right now...peewee?