Paradise in Disguise Hobby Farm Blog

We all are products of our childhood, and I wanted to share how my love for animals, gardening and ultimately, "homesteading" began. On Instagram, @atablefullinthewoods and @moderndaysoldways are hosting a #gettoknowahomesteader photo challenge for the  month of June. Day 1 is "Introductions", so let's get started. As a toddler we'd occasionally visit Dad at his feed store job and my highlight was holding the baby chicks & ducklings. Obviously, that imprinted me! And I loved going to zoos, especially ones with  pygmy goats that I could pet (and try to pick up)! But since our family always rented, having a farm or even "pets" wasn't an option. Therefore, my favorite childhood years was the 7 years we lived on our landlord's farm. He had a few cows, several horses, a pony/donkey, many dogs (up to 8 at one point), several barn cats and for the last year or two we lived there, a flock of chickens and two Muscovy ducks. Mom said w...

A week ago Tuesday (2/20), it had warmed up to 60*F, and   there were multiple outdoor "farm" projects calling my name.  First, the DC coop doors were too close to the ground and after trying to keep enough of a clearance to close the door, the stress caused the screws in the bottom hinge to come out. The solution was simple - cut off a few inches of the door, and  just put an extra boards on the inside of the coop.  With both doors able to open again, I started cleaning the coop.   Four big wheelbarrow loads later, I was down to the deep litter that was still nice and "fluffy". Below, is the pile of what was cleaned out of one coop! 💩    The next step was to add more "fresh" litter. The only issue was that when we got the dump truck load of sawdust in November 2016, we didn't have a dry place to store it. So, it's gotten wet and as a result, it was almost completely frozen solid.    ...

January 4, 2018 was a big day. I had agreed to do a presentation about composting with chickens and food waste to a class of students. However, I'm not a "public speaker", and most of my life, I have been known as shy & quiet. The last few years, though, I've begun to "come out of my shell". It's like the metamorphosis process of a caterpillar to a butterfly. It's been my relationship with Jesus Christ that has enabled me to change, because in and of myself, I would have remained that caterpillar my whole life. So, speaking in front of a group of "strangers" is not something the "old me" would have jumped at the opportunity to do.Yet, I here I was, actually excited about this presentation. I'm pretty sure I had adrenaline flowing, as I was more excitedly nervous than scared nervous. The teacher, Dawn, introduced me as the "chicken lady" 😍 and said a few things before turning it over to me. After a q...

As some of you know, we've been composting with our chickens for many years now. In 2012, I wrote this article for a Backyardchickens.com contest & won!  Composting with Chickens   A lot has changed since then. We've moved.  We moved 75 -80 cubic yards of finished compost for our new garden.  (photo below - Nov 2014) We have a lot more chickens.  I've made mistakes and learned from them.  But, I'm still composting with chickens.  This is the 5th year we've been recycling food scraps from Cross Roads Cafe & Tuna III in Delhi.  For a few years now, I've been looking (and continue to) for more sources of food waste, whether it be a small or large amount.  I've put a few "ads" out there on FB, craigslist, etc, but only had a few short-term contributions of food waste.  We mostly used compostable material from our garden, mulch hay from local farms and leaves we'd scavenged ...

Recently, I came across Hough Family Homestead on Instagram, then visited their newly launched blog, where I found this post: "What is Modern Homesteading?" Even though I haven't thought of ourselves as a homestead, I've always loved the "Little House on the Prairie" series, ever since I read it the first time as a young girl. Therefore, I didn't think that today, with all the "modern" conveniences, we'd be called a "homestead". Well, after reading Hough Family Homestead's view of what "modern homesteading" is and answering some questions that were asked me regarding homesteading, it caused me to reconsider the idea. While I've thought of a "homesteader" as one who built their own home (or at least part of it), often is off-grid & in a "wilderness" location, that's not necessarily the definition of a modern homesteader. For us, we breed, hatch & grow our own chickens...