brooders,peeps & busted thumbs

                                                                Today was DAY #1.
 I mean technically there have been several DAY #1's, but TODAY was THE DAY #1. Day 31 of starting our chicken farm, our country life, our back to basics-self reliant- preparing for the ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE-DAY #1. Why today? What highlighted this particular day above the others? Well, today my husband Edd and I built our first "brooder pen"(small enclosure for baby chicks) & "run"(fenced in area they can walk around scratching in). Now we have had chickens in the past-8 illegally- (along with 2 gorgeous ducks) while living in a residential neighborhood. So we have built a coop before. That was pretty simple , 6 posts driven into the ground, fenced with chicken wire. A few milk crates scavenged from behind convenience stores for laying boxes and door salvaged from our own screen door frame and we were in business! This however was a little more of a challenge. See, we just moved to HASTINGS,FLORIDA. For those of you who do not know, it is GODS COUNTRY out here. Cell phones do not work, everyone has well water and the closest grocery store is over 38 minutes away down roads peppered with suicidal deer and opossum landmines.

                             That is unless you count the "BUZZMART",our corner hardware/convenience/gas/and feed store. Except, they don't have any hardware & the air/vacuum machine has been busted so long no ones sure it ever worked to begin with. It is still a 20 minute roundtrip for tampons. No sir, you don't just run out to the store for milk here. So building a brooder pen with an attached run that provided adequate protection from the local wildlife presented a challenge we erroneously thought we had the answer to. HAH! after 2 trips to the hardware store(Home Depot-also 38 min away) 4 hrs,  a busted thumb, promises of physical retaliation for real(or imagined) transgressions, a thrown hammer, and a near nervous breakdown(my husbands) we have a brooder/run. Yes!, today we worked-we worked hard. We cried (hubby says it was dirt in his eyes) we laughed -ALOT, and we worked it out together. Because this was our goal, our dream for our family. To get back to how things should be. We homeschool all of our children ages 6 to 14. We have always grown a large portion of our vegetables and enough to share. This yr we plan to triple that. This yr we plan to farm rare, endangered chickens and do our part to sustain the dying breeds that founded the poultry industry  while devouring as many delicious organic fresh eggs as we can. I will put those recipes on here along with a regular journal of our progress, our screw ups our hopes & dreams and failures too.This yr I hope to share  the tips and secrets and remedies my great grandmother taught me & to learn a few more along the way as well.To enlighten some to the fact that the BARTER SYSTEM is alive and well & I use it everyday in place of cash.I make my own bread, I can my own veggies/fruits/jams & applesauce too! I hope this blog can be a road map for someone else. Someone who's looking to step back, slow down and really LIVE. We may be living pay check to paycheck but we have been happier and more relaxed in the 10 days we have been here than I have been in 6 months. We are rich in ways most people have forgotten about. Soon there will be goats and pigs and peacocks too, please keep reading and commenting and following our progress as our little farm grows and our flocks and family do too.
*rememeber: life is too short to live it for someone else...