Articles

Hethya 120 Egg Incubator Check Price on Amazon Our first egg incubator seemed to fall short of useful.  It seemed first that it needed to have air moving around it to keep eggs in the middle from getting too hot while those on the edges were not warm enough.  Humidity was never what it needed […]

https://youtu.be/nCwcv5AngOE This past few months we have been working on clearing about 5 acres of mostly eastern red cedar from our property. Clearing out lots of fallen trees, limbs and brush plus the cedar will be a big benefit in reducing the fire hazard and cutting down the cedars, the poor quality hardwoods and even […]

Building a solar farm on the homestead Winter of 2021 going into 2022 brought some of the usual winter weather issues, cold, snow, ice, freezing rain  and sleet, along with some sunshine. The previous year brought freezing rain as well, with most of it going south of us. Problem with freezing rain is that it […]

Milling some cedar We have been clearing  some trees from the orchard area and also some from east of the house where we are converting some woods area into some silvopasture.  The orchard area had a variety of hardwoods, oak, hickory, black walnut, wild cherry and some pine  and cedar.  We have been cutting those […]

Goosey had gone broody a couple weeks ago. After she sat on her eggs for acouple days, I removed her eggs a couple at a time until she had no eggsleft. She sees the empty nest, and went about her normal routine. No more broody goose, until Lucy decides it’s her turn. She took overGoosey’s […]

From mid August 2020 through the end of 2021, the homestead has been in something of a tizzy. While the virus pandemic has been the major focus for much of the world, not so much here.  Kris became ill with what turned out to be a spinal infection which required surgery to clear.  While the […]

Weed Free Gardening We have found the two biggest issues we face with our garden is the weeds and the watering. Much of this is due to all the time we spend on other things.  Being retired you would think we would have time for everything.  But aches, pains, and doctor visits seem to occupy [...]

Garden Update – April 2020 So here it is, the first part of April and the garden season is underway here in the Ozarks. Over the winter, we have cleaned out the bedding from the chicken coop and run, and spread out over the garden area. Our last frost date here is April 15th, so [...]

We added a couple new fruit trees to the homestead 2020 This year is the first I can remember that the purple plum we planted has set on a full bloom.  The peach trees also have had a very good bloom, and the apple trees which have started to bloom and lost to freezing weather […]

January in the Garden Getting in the garden in January can be real challenging.  Cold and often nasty weather here make it an unpleasant task most days in January. A big issue with our garden has been poor soil condition.  We keep adding organic material, compost, and what ever else we can to build the [...]

Building an Automated Chicken Coop Door [In December, we added some more turkeys to the flock, so now 5 turkeys.  They were kept in the hoop coop for a while, primarily to keep the rest of the flock out of the higher protein feed the turkeys were getting.  Once released into the flock, they did […]

Chicken Coop overview for November 2019[mk_padding_divider] A look at our coop and run for the Chickens, Geese, Ducks,  Guineas, and Turkey. There is some automation, including WiFi for the coop.  Automatic Door, Automatic interior lights to come on in the early morning hours, brooder lamps, fan for ventilation and more.  Several IP Video cameras with [...]

Scout vs Ritz Scout came up to Ritz, the lead duck, in full challenge mode. Ritz did not back down, but turned to face Scout bill to beak. In the blink of an eye, Scout leaps into the air, claws lifted forward in full fighting mode. Ritz, ducked under Scout, bit Scout's tail feathers and [...]

Making Country Wine It turns out, making wine at home is not nearly as complicated as many home brewers would have you believe.    The materials and process, as outlined below in the video explain it quite well. We gave this a try with fresh plums, also as shown in the video, since we really like [...]

We updated our Youtube channel In order to better fit what we are doing on our place, we changed the channel name to Figs Pigs and Feathers. Yes, that’s right.  We have added pigs to the mix.  Fig trees and a host of others have and will be added to select locations on our property, […]