Shitake Mushrooms!

The weather was nice this weekend, so we inoculated some more logs for our shitake mushroom crop. This is all part of our forest farming that we are doing up in the acreage behind our home on our mountain. It is always a family affair when we work on our mushrooms.

Dean has 30 Oak logs in the back of his Jeep truck. He unloaded them in the upper part of our barn where we worked on them together.

The guys drill the holes in the logs, I inoculate them with the mushroom spores & Dahlia covers the inoculated holes with melted bees wax. The logs will then rest for about 8 months. We will then begin soaking them on a rotation schedule in our stream & then stack them in a "Lincoln Log" pattern. They will then begin to "fruit" & be ready for harvesting. We really enjoyed our first harvest last spring. Dean's mushroom soup was scrumptious. Mr. Tom at the Inn next door still raves about it & is asking for more!

The Ducklings have arrived!

We now have 9 Peking ducklings added to our farm. They are only 3 weeks old & still have their yellow fuzz. At about 8 weeks old, they should have their solid white feathers & be ready to be outside. In the meantime, I will be preparing their cozy duck haven near the barn for the springtime.

Notice how they are waiting in line to take a dip in the "water hole".

 

Here they are taking a bath.

 

Beekeeping & 9 ducklings!

I'm very excited as I start my 6 weeks of beekeeping classes on Monday. Also, we pick-up our 9 new baby ducklings on Tuesday...More info. will be posted once I have some photos to share. God Bless!

Our bounty of eggs...

These eggs were collected over a span of maybe 2-3 days. Our Araucana hens lay the most unique eggs, they are dark brown, light & dark greens. There were even a few light purple ones! One of our Rhode Island Reds gave us some light pink eggs.There is one hen that has found her way to our front porch. She has been leaving us an egg the last few mornings. They have made it to the frying pan & to the table within 5 minutes of being layed. There is no way of going back to store bought eggs once you've had a "fresh from the farm" egg.

Fresh milk, all 6 half gallons worth...

I am in the process of learning all there is to know about using raw milk & turning it into, cream cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream, & more. Using the cream for butter & separating the whey to be used in other homemade recipes. This really is a dream come true... to learn all there is to know about family homesteading.

Happy New Year 2014!

Dean is holding 2 of our 13 new Christmas Eve Chicks! Our new additions are Barred Rocks & New Hampshire Reds. They are nestled warm in their "nursery"...which happens to be in our dinning room at the moment. They will be ready to help add to our egg production count by June.