4-H Camp

Mitchell and Josh went to 4-H camp. It was a big moment for me because they have never gone to a camp or even a sleepover without family. They had a blast, learned lots, and made new friends.

http://www.journal-advocate.com/sterling-local_news/ci_28217940/logan-county-hosts-4-h-camp

baby rabbits

The first born litter: 8 babies

Como and her first litter of 8!

We bred 6 does and the babies have started arriving! Como was the first to give birth; she is a doe that we have raised from birth. She is almost a year old and this is her first litter. Como is smaller and had a surprisingly large litter of 8. Her babies are colorful: brown, black, and white. Storm delivered her small litter the next day. She had 3 babies. We gave her 2 of Como's babies to foster. After a few days the fostering seems to be going great!

Como with her babies

2 brown babies being moved to a foster mom

Babies 2 days old

Como's litter is my favorite because she doesn't cover them much so they are easy to see and watch. Check out the video of the babies today (4 days old).

Natural Dying Fabric for 4-H

Josh is in his first year of 4-H. One of his projects is visual arts. One of the activities he selected is dying fabrics using natural materials. Today we experimented with red cabbage.

1) Fabric soaking with alum

1) We soaked cotton fabric in simmering water with a few spoonfuls of alum. This is to pretreat the fabric so it holds the color better. We did not do this step with all the fabric and we had similar results. (I think it would wash out without this step.)

2) Josh helped chop and tear up on head of red cabbage. The kids thought the inside of cabbage looked like brains! The cabbage was put in a pan with a strainer and covered with water. It simmered on low for over an hour. Occasionally we stirred the cabbage.

2) Red Cabbage simmering 

3) The cabbage liquid was put into 3 different containers. In the first we added a spoonful of baking soda to get a blue color.

3) Blue dye with baking soda

4) Stir occasionally

4) Josh stirred the fabric occasionally and let it soak in the color for a few hours. We did not use heat for this step.

5) We added a few squirts of lemon juice to the original cabbage color to achieve a purple color. We expected to get red but it was definitely purple. Josh wanted to try to make green. We added a few spoonfuls of baking soda until the liquid turned green.

5) Purple and green

6) Josh loves the boy colors (blue and green) and doesn't care for the purple fabric.

6) Josh with his blue and green fabrics

In recent weeks we have dyed fabric yellow by using onion skins. We used wild grass to get a yellow that was a bit darker. Some things we tried but failed: using oranges, orange poppy petals, and whole dandelions. None of these made enough color to dye to fabric. Cabbage is our favorite so far!

Purple, green, blue, and yellow dyed fabric

garden sign

Mrs. Flint's Flowers sign

My little flower garden filled with treasures

I have a flower bed in front of the house. It is eclectic and a gathering place for treasures. My hubby found the metal dress form at the junk yard... we want flowers to climb on it! Hopefully the garden will soon be filled with colorful flowers. I decided the little garden needed a sign. The kids and I are out of school for summer vacation so I enlisted my 10 year old sons help. He used the power drill to screw a piece of scrap wood onto a stake. He spray painted the sign red for me. I used a brush and plain old white paint for the words. Easy project and especially neat for my son to help with.

Guinea Keets!

 Guinea Keets!
We purchased our first 6 guinea keets today. We own one female guinea who we adopted as an adult. She does so well on our farm. Our 6 keets seemed to be dying after a few hours at home. I researched what we might be doing wrong and decided to remove the shaving bedding and add another heat light. My husband put the two dead keets in a box to return to the store. They were in the back of our hot vehicle for two hours during a soccer game. After soccer we heard chirping in our vehicle. My husband quickly checked the keets and this little one was alive and happy! It was jumping around and very much alive. After 24 hours we have 4 healthy keets. Our mircle bird is my favorite.

Rouen Ducks

We have a family of five Rouen Ducks. They free range on the farm and sleep in the chicken house at night. We get two to three eggs a day from the ducks. The incubator is full and we have tried candling the eggs. Seeing veins in the picture is a good sign!

The first egg is beginning to hatch! It was laid on April 18 and the beak is out on May 15th. We will continue to watch and photograph the little duckling's journey into our family! 

Birthday Chicks!

These are my birthday chicks! My husband took me to Boomgars and told me to pick out 6 chicks. Afterwards he said it was my birthday present. The most creative gift I have ever received!  Our brooder was originally a dog kennel with the top half removed. We discovered that the dog could jump in the brooder so we had to switch to a wire cage. We lost one chick because of the dog getting in and loving it. 4 chicks survived and are thriving in our yard. We ended up with a rooster and 3 hens.