Paradise in Disguise Hobby Farm Blog

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...

My Dad often says, "If you don't like the weather in Delaware County, wait five minutes." Often, this is so true. On Novemeber 19th, it was 65 degrees and sunny.    In fact, I took off Friday, Nov 18th, because it was such unseasonably warm weather, and I was in the middle of building a new, bigger coop for the turkeys. That Saturday was no different, and we even worked until 8PM because it was so "pleasantly warm". We even had 30 yards of livestock bedding delivered, which we worked several hours to add to the coops, especially the new turkey coop But, that quickly changed. I woke up Sunday morning and lay in bed for awhile. Then, I heard Dad knock on my door, and say, "Maria, there's something you need to see. You may not like it, but we need to discuss what to do." I knew they were saying we were supposed to get 1-3 inches of snow, so just thought there was more than they forecast. Dad led me to the back door when the outside ...

As I was looking back over my blog post archives, I thought this one worth highlighting again,  after making a few updates and edits. My oldest hen is "Daisy", who is a white Easter Egger who I bought from a hatchery in April 2011.  She holds a special place in my heart, even though her egg laying days are over.  Why? She was my first hen to go broody in 2012, and hatched 3 chicks, one of which became "Michael Jessie",  who is also still living with the flock and sired chicks during the summer of 2016. Both Daisy and Michael Jessie are very inspirational in starting my interest in hatching chicks, and mark the starting point of what became the Catskill Homesteader Chickens. Olive & Daisy's chicks - Hatched between Oct 9 - 12th, 2014 The last hatch of 2014 was definitely "survival of the fittest", even though I don't believe in evolution. But, it is true that without human intervention, in the wild, usually it's only the stronges...

You've heard that chickens are dumb, right?  Well, over the past 8 years of raising chickens, I can attest that they are actually quite smart. Granted, they have their "moments" that they do things that make you think they're dumb. But, overall, when you take time to observe their behaviors, they display more intelligence or, at least, smarter instincts than what we've been told for so long. I have many stories that hopefully I'll be able to share with you, but today, this one features the Appenzeller Spitzhauben breed. This past May I bought 2 Spitzhauben hens at the BYC "members-only" Chickenstock. One was broody & came with "dummy" eggs. (a whole other story) Even though I didn't NEED any more hens, this is how chicken math works. Plus, I did find homes for some of my chickens at Chickenstock, so in the end, I still had less chickens!   Above - the one hen in pasture pen;  below - broody hen sitting o...