The Freaking Fantastic Blog and List Building Challenge

I suppose you've been wondering why I've been blogging for consecutive days, lately? I've taken a challenge to blog for 30 days straight. So far, I'm doing good! I don't remember who said this, but they say to make an action into a habit, you have to do it for 30 days in a row. It's getting to the point where I'm missing blogging if I get late with a post. Hmmmm. Maybe 'they' are right!

In a nutshell, Tiffany Dow has a marketing blog for people to learn how to create better content for their blogs and websites. She is very straight-forward with her writing and it is very interesting to read what she has to say. If you have a tendency to have your feelings hurt, don't read her blog. She tells it like it is. Her challenge is called The Freaking Fantastic Blog and List Building Challenge and it's open to anyone. Go ahead and join!

I am totally enjoying reading what other people are blogging about. It is fun to see who is checking my blog out, too! I am finding out that there are a LOT of interesting folks out there writing about things they love. My love is my homelife, little farm (sort of) and my animals. If you check out my blog from time to time, that is what you'll be seeing on here. 

Hopefully, you'll take the time to check out Tiffany's blog and the rest of the interesting folks in the comments section who are busy writing about things they love.

Take care. Happy Blogging!

Drat that Rat! (Not for queasy stomachs.)

We have chickens. Therefore, we have rats! Yeah. The big buggers!

We don't have just any ol' rats. We have smart wood rats. We bought this to humanely catch and release them.

Humane Small Animal Trap

We baited with yummy peanut butter. We tried yummy bacon. We mixed peanut butter and seeds. We sprinkled a light trail to the trap. We did everything we could think of, baited with everything we thought a rat would find yummy, and the rats are way too smart to take the bait.

Then, we tried the rat poison blocks. I'm not keen on them because if your pet gets a hold of them, the Coumadin in the blocks could kill your babies. Now, if you have 15 rats climbing the rafters a few inches from your head when you walk into the coop, this sounds like a pretty good solution, right? Guess again. They wouldn't touch it.

Then, we tried the spring-loaded traps. We caught a few with these traps. This was our best weapon, but it wasn't foolproof. Yeah. They snapped the traps without getting caught and ate the bait. I even attached the bait with dental floss so they couldn't take the bait without snapping the trap. The rats wouldn't touch it so the fire ants ate all of that bait.

When's the best time to catch rats? In the winter when the fire ants aren't so active. Otherwise, you'll lose your bait to the ants by morning.

Sorry for the bad post, but such is the life on the little farmstead.

Take care.

Lazy Me!!!

Yes. I've been a lazy poster. It's not because I haven't been busy. It's because I've been lazy.

I promised pics of a craft I was working on. I'm still working on it. Lazy me!

I've been meaning to post on the goings-on about our small acreage. Lazy me!

I've been meaning to tell all of you what I've been cooking for the holidays. Lazy me!

Well...I have to get back into the swing of things. I enjoy reading everyone else's blog and seeing what they've been up to in small farmville. Just maybe someone wants to keep up with us?

For some reason, I cannot download pics today. Every once in a while this happens. Sorry.

I can now upload photos. Much thanks to the computer guru at work! Go Bob!

So...in November, for Thanksgiving, we had some company come up from Florida. It was hubby's brother and his daughter and family. It was great to spend some time with them. I especially enjoyed it since I really didn't know them that well. One thing my niece and I had in common was SHOPPING! If you don't know someone that well, go shopping. It's a great conversation starter and an all-around fun olympic sport. ; ) We spent a day bargain shopping! No guys, just us girls. I treated them to some homemade pizza when we returned. I made dough in the morning and we had two very large pizzas in the evening. YUM!

For Thanksgiving dinner we had loads of food. My brother-in-law wanted to treat us to a dinner. So he had his daughter cook. What he didn't know was that when the rest of the family came over, there was more food coming in. I did my usual desserts and breads. Everyone else brought sides. It was great!

Pumpkin Pie, Cornbread, Rolls

Biscuits, Cookies, Banana Cream Pie, Lemon Cranberry Bundt Cake, Honey Butter

 Then in December, I still had flowers blooming in my garden. My lantana was busting out with flowers because it was still warm. The butterflies were everywhere! There were some yellow flowers growing up into my weeping holly bush. They were really outstanding with the red berries from the holly bush. Crimson and yellow together were really pretty for fall.

Lantana

Unknown Pretty Flower

 Then, we were invited to go to my Florida brother-in-law's place for Christmas. It is a pretty short trip and we had great weather. Sunshine all of the way down. : )  We spent a day at BIL's house then went to his daughter's house in Palm Harbor, clear on the other side of Florida. It only took about 1-1/2 hours to drive. It was a really nice drive. We had great weather the whole time we were there and stayed in Palm Harbor until the day after Christmas. Then it was home again.

In January, we started planning for our spring garden. This meant getting seeds germinated and a strawberry patch ready. Last week, I finally transplanted the last of the strawberry plants that I was going to plant. In the large patch, we have 1110 plants transplanted. In the nursery patch, we have 135 plants planted. Were we busy? You bet! We're experimenting with a watering system this year since we have such a large patch. Wish us luck with that! But we still have somewhere between 200 and 400 plants left to get out of our other garden before we can plant tomatoes, beans, peppers and such. All of those left over strawberry plants will be lifted and I'll take them to work for the guys there.

Hopefully, I'll be able to insert photos again by the next post.

I wish you all well.

Michelle

CHICKENS?!

What do we have? Chickens! Twenty-some of them!

Here is a picture of my three hens sharing eggs to hatch. The brown one is Mama-Cup. She's a Buttercup who started the whole setting thing. The white one is Mama-Velder. She's a Lakenvelder who decided to help out. And, the one in back is Lana. She's supposed to be a Dominique. She has two sisters so I decided to give them can-can dancer names. However, I think she's NOT a Dominique because of the way she looks. I think she's a Barred Rock from the description in chicken catalogs.

This was a really fun thing to see! My hubby thought it was funny. The people at work were pretty amused at the sight of this picture (which is my desktop background).

No eggs hatched from the efforts of these three. There was a little bit of a problem one night. It seems something came in and ate 4 of the 5 eggs I marked so I would know which were being set upon. It must've been a snake. My chickens are pretty spaced-out when they set, so not much bothers them. A snake could've slithered into the nest easily and done the deed at night. The last egg was not fertile.

The other problem we had was Lana wasn't feeling too well. I think she just wanted to be near the some chickens. She passed away shortly after this picture was taken. I think she was egg-bound. That would not be the way I'd want to go. Sadly, that ends the life of some chickens.

Happy chicken farming to those of you who do!