Holiday Card and Outtakes

Every year for the holidays my photographer husband comes up with a creative way to include the entire family in our Christmas card.  Since our newest addition to the "Smith Farm" is our kitty that we fostered, then adopted, he became this years highlight!  When we first brought Blue home his name was Wren, but it just wasn't sticking.  "Blue" is such a great name because we get to use it so many ways!  "You're my boy, Blue!" (for those who don't know it's from the movie Old School) or "Big Blue" because we are avid NYG fans and he happens to be big...and blue!  And now "We're having a BLUE Christmas without you" (c'mon everyone knows Elvis)! 

How does your Garden GROW?

The best thing about having a garden is being able to step outside and enjoy fresh, free (ish) food!  It's been a busy weekend for Cam and I so we haven't been able to get some of the staples and our cupboards are running a little bare.  All I could muster up for my work lunch was cereal, rice milk, and a banana so I was pretty hungry when it was time to go home!  My friend gave me a ride home and as soon as I stepped out of the car I saw a beautiful radish!  We recently planted peas and radishes in the front of our house trimming the lawn and driveway just to see what would happen.  This was the first radish from that bunch and it was DEElicious.  I got inside, and though I knew what I would find, opened up the fridge and freezer and cupboards again to find nothing.  But as soon as I went out back I had access to a variety of beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, kale, spinach and of course....EGGS!  Since I'm not very creative I went on the internet and found a recipe for Cucumber, Tomato, and Avocado Salad.  It called for dried basil and oregano and I was bummed for a minute because we don't keep dried basil, but then I realized I could just use fresh!  It was such a delightful salad with all of the ingredients besides the avocado being home grown.  I love our herbs and garden and I really look forward to expanding our horizons!  This is our second year "on the farm" and though we learned a LOT in that short time I just know that we are going to continue to expand and learn.


Tomato, Cucumber Salad w/ basil, oregano, sunflower oil & apple cider vinegar

First heirloom tomato!

Homegrown Cukes!



Some of our first progress!

Stan watching me watch Cam garden

When we first planted sunflower seeds

Look at them now!  Towering over my 6'5 father!

Shelldon (fka Shelly)

Since the days have been getting shorter and the weather has been rainy, I haven't had a chance to spend much quality time with the "ladies" in the backyard.  Cam does a wonderful job of tucking them in at night and making sure they are safe and sound from any backyard critters.  After 2 or 3 days of not really seeing them I made it a point to go out and sit with them until they called it a night...and that's when I realized, Shelly is a Rooster!

Since I'm not a chicken expert (YET!) I was hoping that my feeling was wrong and started referring to good old GOOGLE but was so impatient that I just called the Urban Farm Store where we got her..him.  Pete told me to look for pointed 'saddle' feathers at the base of her body near her tail so I ran out and looked and sure enough, Shelly was a Shelldon.  It explained a lot about her/his personality and also just how BEAUTIFUL (handsome!) she is!  The first thing I did was cry.  I love that little chick that EggBerta raised from 3 days old and since roosters aren't allowed within city limits we technically have to get rid of her...him.  Another reason for my tears was a bit selfish, or maybe just the farmer in me coming out ~ he's not going to lay eggs!  He's an Ameracauna and the hens lay variations of blue, pink, and green eggs or so I hear.  Eggberta was supposed to be an Ameracauna but she turned into a Wyandotte, so when she went broody I tried for the Ameracauna again :( 

EggBerta is a Momma Hen!

She's a stressed out mom...as I would be!  She's a worry wart!

I couldn't resist, I had to make our broody Wyandotte a mom!  I'd toyed with the idea of getting a half dozen fertilized eggs and putting them under her to hatch, but we're not quite ready for that yet!  We only have room for 1 more full grown hen, and I wouldn't know what to do with the extra chickies...and what if one hatched a rooster?!  One of these days we'll have a house with a big yard and coop and for sure a handsome rooster, but currently we're only allowed 3 hens. The only other option was to get a 3 day old chick from the Urban Farm Store and pull the ole' switch-er-oo!  When we originally got EggBerta she was supposed to be an Americauna so we thought it fitting for her to mother one :)   I did some research and called the Farm Store and the babies were arriving on Friday.  The only problem was that I work until 7pm and the store closes at 6pm, so I put the idea out of my mind and figured we'd just wait until her next period of broodiness ~ it just wasn't meant to be. As luck would have it, right before I went to lunch that very same Friday my supervisor asked me to leave 2 hours early to make up for OT.  It didn't even hit me until the ride home at 5 that we could make it to the store! It was a sign! I called Cam and told him I'd be pulling up shortly and to meet me out front, and off we were to get Shelly!  There were a lot of different breeds at the store but we only looked at the "Easter Eggers" and picked out the newest member of our flock, headed home, and waited just a little bit before we made the move. 

Oddly enough when we went in the yard EggBerta was out and about and I feared that her broody period was over. The chick was cheepin' away and when EggBerta finally went back on her nesting box we got the chick and placed it under her!  Shelly took to her new mom right away but EggBerta wasn't sure what to do!  She was pecking the chick to keep it underneath her and kind of started to purr, or coo.  It was cute.  We stayed outside until dark to make sure everyone was well behaved, and I was up at the crack of dawn next morning anxious to see how the night went.

We weren't too sly about it!

It's fun to watch EggBerta come down the ramp and that little ball of fluff peepin' and cheepin' to keep up!  During the day mom and baby have been staying in the chicken run with their own food and water, but on my lunch break and when I'm home in the am and pm they graze around the yard under our supervision.  Right now I'm gazing out the kitchen window watching them in amazement. Shelly will be able to fend for herself and be on her own in 6 week.  I hope EggBerta looks after her until then!



Shelly grazing on
her own.

Plum Tree Time

made these into Plum Jam

One of my favorite things to do when I come home from work is to go outside and sit under the plum tree.  EggBerta is still broody so I say hello to the hubby and dogs and go right out to the coop and get her off her imaginary eggs.  I usually throw her in the air and she flaps her wings and gently lands on the grass.  Then I pick a couple of plums from the tree and sit on the wooden bench beneath it ~ and we eat.  Two bites for me, the rest for the hens.  One bite for me, the rest for the hens.  The dogs come around and try to see what they're missing out on, but then realize that it's just fruit and opt to clean up the chickens droppings...mmm tasty :-/  The husband usually joins us and picks a fruit off the tree, takes a bite and tosses it to the birds, which are right at his feet!  I like when EggBerta's out and I really want to make her a mom (but I'll save that for another post!).  Then we head over to the garden and just point things out to each other: 

"Look how big that tomato got"  "Did you see the little peppers on here?"  "I can't believe how tall the corn got!" "Look at all those beans!" "I think the head of red cabbage is ready"

Runner Beans we grew from seed.

 And it happens every day.  My husband just got back from a 5 day business trip and it was so fun to see his reaction to things!  Made plum tree time even more fun!  And he's so creative in the kitchen. Tonights dinner was a 5 course meal!  Carrot and Radish tops, Cheese Plate, Sauteed Beans, and amazing salad with lettuce and carrots, onion, red cabbage, radishes and beans from the garden, and a brownie for dessert. We're off tomorrow so who knows, Plum Tree time could be all day.

Heeeerrreee Chickie Chickie!!

The ladies are laying pretty consistently now ~ we get at least 2 eggs a day and most days 3.  But they are getting smart those little ladies, especially Martini!  I realized that she wasn't producing recently and had read somewhere that some hens may find different spots to lay because they want to protect their eggs (and wisen up to the fact that every day they lay an egg and it goes missing!  She was acting extra funny one afternoon and was pecking at the sliding glass door to go in the house while we were out in the garden.  She was so persistent that we finally let her in and she layed an egg behind the curtain! So I wasn't surprised to find that there weren't eggs in the nesting box over the next few days.  I went in the yard one day while she was "missing" and took a broom stick and was going through the bushes to see if I could find her...and wouldn't you know she came out from UNDER THE DECK with a broken eggshell in her mouth!!  Then I looked under the deck and saw that she had laid 3 other eggs under there!  I took the broom handle and nudged them out so Cam and I are going to have to work on getting under the deck blocked off.  For the next couple days I made sure to just keep her in the closed run until she was done laying the egg, this way she had no place else to go. 

We have an EGG!

The circle of life!

Can you guess who laid it?!  The gals are a week shy of 5 months so we weren't really egg-specting any so soon!  I went out to feed the girls some cherry tomatoes and couldn't find my Tweety Martini!  She's the Speckled Sussex and is ALWAYS the first to greet me...and here I was feeding Layla and EggBerta and she was nowhere to be found.  I panicked.  I called in the house to Cameron and told him I couldn't find her.  I asked my neighbor who was in her backyard if she had seen her (her response was that she had and she tasted really good...which wasn't very comforting!) and Cam calmly walked over to the coop, opened the door to the nesting box, and lo and behold! 

Thatta Girl!! You did it!!

There was Martini crouched in her nesting box :)

What an amazingingly great day :)   We celebrated, gave Tweety Martini some milk and chicken scratch, and went in and tested it out!  They yolk was so orange!  I'd heard that it would be since they are allowed free range and can eat bugs and worms, but still it was a nice treat :)

Carton Egg on Left ~ Backyard Egg on Right



The Proudest Hen :)









Happy Friday the 13th!!

Had a pretty crappy start to this 13th...I failed my written Oregon drivers license test....DOH!  But nothing a little 5 mile run can't cure, and a deep clean to the house ~ and of course my Hens, Husband and Dogs. 

They will make mostly anything better :)

We have a Speckled Sussex!

I'm new to Portland and everything that comes along with it...and I'm in LOVE!

Less than a month after we moved in November I got baby chicks, and being that I'm new to chicken keeping I read up and learned as much as I could! I went to the store with 3 birds in mind...a Plymouth Rock, and Americauna, and a Silver Laced Wyandotte. The gal who worked at the store steered me away from the Rhode Island (not sure why I hear they are great birds) and talked me into getting a Barred Plymouth Rock who we named "Lay-la". They had Wyandottes but only Blue Laced Red and we named her "Tweety Martini", and the Americauna we named "Egg-berta" (since my maiden name is Egbert!). The were all so cute such little balls of fluff! I loved so much watching them grow!

A few weeks ago though I was looking at Egg-Berta and she just wasn't turning into what I thought she would look like but she is SO PRETTY! And Martini was confusing me because Wyandottes are supposed to have such a pretty pattern and hers wasn't coming in. I had also read in a few places that people who own Wyandottes consider them great layers and pretty to look at but not very social with humans and Martini is the exact opposite of that! She runs right up to me when she hears my voice and is the only one of the three that will tolerate me picking her up! I went back to the store and showed them pictures and Egg-Berta is the Blue-Laced Red Wyandotte and Martini is..yup, a Speckled Sussex! I was a little disapointed at first because without the Americauna we won't be getting pink, blue, or green eggs - but the description of the SS fit Martini to a T!  So now I call them my "imposter" chickens.  Out of the 3 breeds I wanted I only ended up with one, but I love all my ladies!