Here’s a picture of the okra, although it’s buried amidst a whole bunch of volunteer (ones we didn’t plant this year) sweet potato plants! We’ll see if anything actually comes of them:
Since there was so much of the sweet potato plants growing by themselves, we took some slips that were growing from the potatoes themselves from last year and planted them. They’re doing ok…you can see a little tuft in the picture above in the lower right from the area where I planted the potato slice itself. You can’t really distinguish them, but there is some growth from the slips we planted along that fence line on the right:
Here’s more of the okra and sweet potato plants:
And here’s a section of black eyed peas. We originally planted some really, really old ones, but nothing happened, so we planted these after the other section below:
And here’s the first section of black eyed peas planted:
And a flower!
And here’s the view from me in a lounge position on the ground, just to give some height perspective:
As always, we thank the Lord for these little miracles that “just grow” (from our perspective)…we can plant and water, but it takes God’s direct hand of providence to bring forth anything. And we pray He grant us food from them, if He might!
The Lord has graciously continued to grant more chicks this 2021!
This was a surprise pair, group 3. I heard some cheeping in the barn, and eventually tracked it to the loft, and sitting on a bucket of rope on the shelves in the left was a mama and a chick! Whaaaat? An egg had fallen off as well, but I grabbed her and her youngin’ and all the eggs and put her in the brooder barn in a caged area, and she ended up hatching out another one, so we have these 2 extras now this year!
Since this picture, one had gone knock kneed (ie. its knees bending the wrong way slightly) and spraddle legged, but I put an electrical tape binder around its legs to keep them together but spread apart like normal, and have been working with it, and at least now it’s able to keep itself upright. The other one is now out in the chicken pen:
And here’s group 4. We put 12 eggs under this mommy, and not a one was unhatched…wow!
And here’s group 5, which has 5 chicks in it! (although 6 were hatched, 1 died pretty quickly)
And here’s a video of them all. Group 3 I had to film at night because the mama hen was starting to pick on them, so I had to get her out of there that night:
As always, we are very thankful to God for Him graciously granting these new provisions on the homestead!
Following close on the heels of Tanya’s turkey chicks, another one of our turkey hens got broody in the barn also, in one of the goat stalls.
Tanya and hers were still in the brooder barn (aka. the summer kitchen), so we didn’t really have a place for Tasha, and I didn’t want to put her in a small caged area like we do for our chickens.
Well, Tasha’s chicks started hatching, so what we ended up doing was drop down a couple of extra OSB boards we had and stitch together two chicken fence-cages into a longer run like in the brooder barn. We then covered it all with blankets and bent one end down so I could lean over and access the inside, and we set up their water and food.
And then it was time to try to transfer her and the turklets. The youngin’s were already starting to walk away from her and explore a little, so we just started grabbing them and moving them into the caged area, and Tasha thankfully kept calm. And then with her, we put a large fishing net over her, grabbed her from within that, and put her into the caged area. Thankfully, that all went rather smoothly. 8 turkey chicks in all! Wow, and thanks to the Lord!
Sadly, 1 died pretty quickly, but the other 7 kept going and growing.
Quite a few weeks later, when they all were much bigger, one morning, one of the young was getting picked on, so, with them pretty close to big enough where we were planning on letting them go soon anyway, I decided to let them free at that time.
Here they are just before we got them going:
Well, that part did not go rather smoothly. I couldn’t get the end of the cage propped up with the blankets on, so I removed some of the blankets, and Tasha, who is skittish anyway, just seemed to panic and flew up and out of the caged area and out the north door. Arg! So, we tried to shoo out the turklets so they would stay with her, and they started doing the same thing, flying up and off walls, going all over the barn, etc.
Soon, we were able to get them all out the north door. Mommy was kind of running up the walk path up to the goat fields with a couple of turklets behind her, so we tried to get the other ones to follow, and everyone started scattering. It was quite a mess. We were trying to get all the yougin’s to stay with mama, but looking back, we probably should have just let them be in the cage, as shooing them out caused a lot of trouble.
Throughout the day, 2 of the turklets made it back, hanging around the other turklet group or wherever, and Tasha came back too. And by the end of the day, only those 2 were to be found. Sigh.
In the evening, one I believe went into the barn, the other sat down next to the generator box, and so we got it and put it in the barn. We were praying God might grant more come back, or that we would find them, or that He might grant their safety over night.
Later, as Sue was walking Brodey our dog, she had an inkling to take a bit of a different path, and lo and behold, she discovered 3 sat down next to the orchard gate! Wow, what a gift from God! So, we used a fishing net with them, and got them into the barn. So now, 5 were in the barn, and 2 still missing. And that was it for that day.
The next day, I was walking around, looking around for the missing ones, and walked by the hill of dirt that was the dirt dug out for the root cellar, and lo and behold, God granted I just happen to walk by one and see it sat down in the grass! Wow, another gift out of nowhere! So, we netted it and put it in the barn in the goat stall area where the other 5 were still hanging out.
And in the Lord’s perfect will, #7 never came back. We don’t know if it just crouched down and died, or just ran off, but that was it. But, God didn’t have to grant any of them to come back, and we thank Him for what He did grant, and His answers to prayer!
Today, the 6 are still going strong, and spending their days out and roaming the homestead. Mama never rejoined them at all, and within the last couple of days, she had gone missing. She had slightly injured her wing when she tried to fly out on that mayhem day a couple of weeks ago, but I had a hard time believing it killed her now. However, last night she made an appearance to take a dirt bath and eat some, so we know she’s still alive, and it looks like she might be nesting again. We do pray God grant her safety out there, if He might. Maybe we’ll be able to find her and migrate her into the brooder barn.
And now, without further ado, here’s their video, which includes the release day, and the followups with finding turklets, and the 6 eventually starting to venture out of the barn:
We recognize that nothing we have is our own, and that all things are the Lord’s to do with as He pleases. We thank Him for graciously granting the turkey chicks He has, and we pray we never murmur, and that He glorify Himself through them in some way, and always through us in some way.
With the cold winter freezes, and especially with the artic blast week we had, we were hoping for some fruit from the orchard this year. Now, even with freezes typically playing a part of a good fruit harvest, we believe these things still only come about if the Lord grants them out of His graciousness.
And, accordingly to that, He has decided to do so, and we are very thankful!
Here’s a recent look at the orchard itself:
This is a pecan tree in the background, and you can get the size perspective with the fencing and goats. I believe this one even grew back from the root!
And here’s most of the rest of the pecan tree line:
Here’s a peach tree loaded with yummy goodnesses!
And then picked:
We made a solar food dehydrator quite a few years back, and it’s still working pretty well, despite some cracks in the plexiglass, the big ones I believe coming from young goats jumping off the dryer! 🙂
And here it is with the fruit drying or about to start drying:
We rarely get apricots, but this year God granted a whole bunch, and here are some dried ones. They may not look like much, but fruit with the water gone condenses its natural sugars, so they taste great!
And here is the collection of dried tasty morsels the Lord has granted so far:
Once again, we are always thankful to God for granting food off the land, coming from His direct hand of providence!
The Lord granted one of our hatchlings from last year get broody this year, and thankfully she did so in the barn, so she wasn’t out in a forest somewhere, susceptible to ending up being dinner for a predator.
Our strategy was to wait until they hatched, if any did, and move her and them into our brooder barn (formerly what was going to be a summer kitchen), where we have a cage run that has worked well with new turkeys in the past.
Well, as God would graciously grant, she did hatch out her chicks (I call them “turklets”, like “chicklets” but for turkeys 😀 ), and so we grabbed her, and put her turklets in a bucket, and carried them all into the brooder barn, and set them all in there.
Thankfully again, I don’t believe she squooshed any in the mayhem of grabbing her (turkeys are quite strong and much bigger than chickens), and in the final count, she had hatched out 8 youngins’! Wow, that’s I think our biggest haul yet!
But, these things are pretty fragile as we have found out in the past. However, the Lord has granted to see them all through, and all 8 are still going today, and going strong!
I did end up waiting until the day we felt it was time to shoo them out of the brooder barn to freedom to start taking pictures and videos, and here they are:
Here’s mama, who after they had grown so big, started sitting on the eggs that were still there:
And here is their video adventure on their first and second days out!
We are very thankful to the Lord for His provisions and seeing all these 8 through to semi-maturity!
Once again, one of our hens got broody this 2021, and after tucking her away in the brooder barn, she hatched out a bunch — not even sure how many…maybe at least 9, and I believe they all have made it so far!
Here are a couple of pictures of them all:
And here’s their video:
We once again thank the Lord for His gracious provisions in granting this next set of 2021 chicks! We are thankful the eggs can go to help others!
That time of year rolled around again this 2021, hens getting broody, and some of ours don’t always get broody in the barn or chicken tractor…
One of our hens didn’t come back to roost one night. I think it was the next evening, I thought I’d go see if I could somehow find her out in the woods somewhere, which is where I hoped she was vs. having been eated by a predator. I circled around the back side and west areas behind our house. I headed down one direction, and saw what I thought was a plastic bag in a thicket of weeds with no leaves because it was still winter-ish, and I thought, no way was that the hen. But, lo and behold, it surely ended up being her! An amazing gift from God to find her back there, somewhere I would not usually look!
When we tried to get her, she ran off, but we were able to track her down, and so we took her and her eggs and put them in the brooder barn, and God graciously granted I believe it was 5 chicks, and all 5 are still going today, although sadly, it appears one is having a problem with its foot — she’s walking on it crimped backwards…don’t know if it’s an injury or a disorder. But, we pray the Lord might grant it healing.
Here are a couple of pictures of them all:
And here’s their video:
As always, we are very thankful to the Lord for these new provisions, and we pray they benefit His people in some way!
Heb. 11:8-10 - "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."
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