Chickens ordered!!

Sometime during the week of April 1st we will be getting a shipment of baby chicks. Let me tell you,
I am SUPER excited. We have not done chickens before so we have a ton to learn this year but we are ready for this adventure. And when I say ready, I mean that we are ready in our heads but on with ANYTHING else. We will need to finish the chicken coop and run, get feed and build a brooder. SO MUCH TO DO. We ordered both layers and meat chickens since we eat chicken so much and love it.
Layers: Pearl-white Leghorns, Black Star, Rhode Island Red
Meat: Orpington, Red Ranger, Delaware (not sure how these will do, I have a book that says they are good for meat, we will see).

We will see how it goes, we actually have no idea if we will even like raising chickens. However, if we decided that we don't like it, they won't live forever and we don't have to do it again.

Looking forward to April!!!

A new beginning...

Hello Friends, it is that time of year where I start getting antsy. Christmas and New Years are over and I really don't have much to think about and plan. However, I am a planner...SO, this is the time of year that I start planning my garden and all of the things that I would LIKE to do outside when the weather warms up. Last summer Chris and I started dreaming of being more self-sufficient. We have many reasons for taking this on but the most important reason is that we hate spending SO much on fresh produce and meat at the grocery store. I like to eat healthy but I hate spending so much to do it. Another reason...I HAVE TIME! I don't work outside the home but I would LOVE to help provide food for our family. So we started thinking of different ways that we could provide healthy food for our family. Well, of course there is a garden. We have had a small garden for 6 years now and we enjoy eating food out it but never seem to have enough to can for storage. We decided to take out our old small garden and to plan a new big garden. I am super excited! I got a new book that is helping me plan our garden and know what veggies I want to plant. Well, the garden takes care of the veggie part of our meals but out family eats meat and we are still paying too much for that at the store too. What do we do about that? Well, for many years my hubby and his extended family have butchered hogs together. They all get together for 2 or 3 days and do all the work themselves. We LOVE the pork and eat it most of the year. We can still get by with only buying half of a hog and that seems to last us most of the year. We are thankful for the help of family in butchering, not an easy task but one that Hubby and his brothers would like to perfect so that they don't have to rely on others. Ok, we have pork...we can't eat that for every meal. What else do we eat a lot of? Beef...yes but we can't have a cow, at least not at this time. Ok, keep thinking. Chicken, we eat chicken probably at least once a week. We could butcher chickens! We eat eggs too!!! So we are going to get into chickens, layers and fryers so we will have poultry and eggs. We thought some more on anything else we could raise in a very small space. Rabbits!! Hubby's dad used to raise rabbits when the kids were younger. Hubby said that rabbit meat to good and tender, well that was enough to convience me. We purchased some rabbits and we are hoping to breed them soon but not too soon, maybe a little closer to spring. Did you know that two rabbits can produce more meat in a year than a cow because, well, you know that rabbit thing.

So, I decided to start this blog to keep us motivated and to maybe inspire one of you! Ok...back to planning!!