Crazy About Chickens

I am so excited to be getting my first set of chickens tomorrow. My good friend Angie was kind enough to hatch them out for me and I will pick them up in the morning. This will be the first time I have raised Easter Eggers (they lay blue and pink eggs). I have raised Rhode Island Reds in the past, and had so much fun with them. For those of you that don't know, chickens can be very affectionate animals. That just makes it harder to raise chickens for meat, because it is hard to kill something that you have become attached to. But knowing that I have given them the best life possible makes it a tiny bit easier. And I do practice humane killing methods. But for now, I am not worrying about meat chickens. I'm just building my little empire of layers at the moment.

An example of eggs from an Easter Egger. I will take a photo of my own as soon as mine start laying.

Back to the Country

Living in the city has only taught me one thing- I am truly a country girl at heart. Yes, I have wild, black and red hair, several tattoos,  a nose ring and listen to underground metal, but I can't deny my country roots. I grew up in the country where there were no sounds of traffic, no police sirens, no noisy neighbors or bright lights. My neighbors were an older couple who kept to themselves, the only sounds to break the silence were the moos of the cattle across the road in the front of our house and the only bright lights at night were the stars and moon.

Every Sunday, I would travel with my grandma to visit her sister (my great aunt), Sue. Sue was very self sufficient. She had a working farm that included her own milking and meat cows, turkeys, chickens, goats and HUGE gardens. Those Sunday visits usually meant sitting on the front porch, shelling beans and helping to put up preserves and what-not. I learned so much from those Sunday visits. But, things change as they tend to do.

I do not wish to go into my personal life too deeply, but the moral of this story is, I slowly separated myself from the country way of living, and wound up (through a long chain of events) in an apartment in a very large city. I was miserable! I prayed daily for a way to get back to my country roots.

My prayers were answered, and here I am, in the country once again. I mean WAY out in the country. I'm sitting on a beautiful 17 acre farm, surrounded by nature. The farm land hasn't been tended to in a great while, so it is my goal to turn it into a working farm once again. Not crops, mind you, but livestock.

Will it be a lot of work? YES. Will it be worth it? YES.

Oh, just a warning, I can do ANYTHING. From canning, to baking, to sewing, to making my own soap, to rebuilding a carburetor- I can do it all. And I will post pictures from any and all of my projects. 

Follow along with me through my journey. Who knows- you might just learn sumthin'. :)

What's Up with the Title?

Ok. So I was having a hard time coming up with a catchy name for my blog. For some reason, I've been singing the song "East Bound and Down" today, and that turned into "Egg Bound and Down", reminding me of the first time I ever had to deal with a hen that was egg bound. I know. I could have come up with something better, but it made me laugh, so it stuck.