Paradise in Disguise Hobby Farm Blog

As I was searching for a specific photo that's one of my favorites, to make into a more simplified "logo" for my website, I found the photo's file name was "IMG_0370". So, I did a search in "My Pictures" folder, and below are the results. The first one is the photo I was looking for originally: "Rainbow" - one of 2014's Catskill Homesteader pullets - photo taken 1/15/15 More Catskill Homesteaders grazing on the grass paddocks - "Joshua", "Dahlia", "Lilac" & "Lavender" - photo taken 5/6/15 "Alix" - a Black Sex Link hen who went broody & raised chicks; at our previous home on a "supervised free-range" outing - photo taken 8/14/14 Now, I'm not sure where this photo was taken, but most likely it was taken by my dad on one of my parent's walks. Taken 6-23-12 Our vegetable garden freshly mulched with hay - at our previous home - taken 5-26...

We’ve had such a busy week, that I haven’t had to chance to write in my personal journal, let alone this blog. But, here’s a “brief” summary of what’s been going on. We’ve been having warmer weather, including temps in the mid 40’s! But, just when it starts to get muddy and looking like spring, we have cold temps again, plus snow flurries. Saturday saw a high of maybe 30*F, and it got down to 5* overnight, like that’s what it is out there now at 6am on 3/29. Since my last blog entry, 22 of the 46 chicks went to new homes, but I still have 24 left, including all 8 from the first hatch of 2015. I’ll probably grow them out for a few more weeks, possibly until they’re 10 weeks old & I can tell who’s male and who’s female. They are eating their fermented chick starter like crazy, enough that I usually have to refill their feeder 2x a day. But, they’re also growing like they should, much better than some of the chicks in the past. I still have both the nipple waterer and regular c...

This week it’s finally started to act like Spring should! It’s been high 30’s and even reached the low 40’s yesterday! The Swedish Flower Hens were super happy to finally be able to come outside, although previously it has been so cold, they probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much. Even still, I wish the weather would have cooperated sooner to allow them to go outside. “Little Man” Swede & I had some “lessen time” again, as with Spring comes increased ego and territorial behavior. He’s again crowing incessantly whenever I’m around, stands very tall & “stiff-leggedly” scratches the ground, while keeping his eye on me. If I make the “wrong move”, he’ll try to flog me. But since he’s one of the smallest roosters I have, it’s pretty easy to show him who’s the “bigger rooster” - usually by pinning him down and/or just pecking him on the head like a dominant rooster would do. Yesterday, I realized that when he starts crowing incessantly, I need to cut him off, as a dominant roost...