4 Sweet Sisters

You know you're famous when...... You're in the shower. School is supposed to be done for the day and isn't. The phone rings, you hear children making a mad dash to try out their phone manners. At the same moment hear strange squawking coming from the backyard. Is a chicken down? Has hawk snatched her? Ahhhh . Fame and motherhood. Next your beautifully mannered offspring are screaming through the bedroom and bathroom doors, " Mister Jemanybbbdko Camp dell is on the phone." Your screaming, "WHAT?", back through the shower walls. Finally one of your children creeps in and repeats the garbled name. You say, "please take a message. I'm in the shower right now!" You hear the patter (trampling) of 7 and 11 year old feet leaving. Only to be replaced by 17 1/2 year olds easy glide. "Mom, Jeremy Campbell from Fox 13 News is on the phone and would like to do an interview with you this evening. It's about our chickens and how the city is a...

After a busy week of school, soccer games, dehydrating and canning; I'm a bit tired. Fall through early spring is truly the busy season for garden harvesting, pumpkin bread business and holidays here. For some reason every year it takes me by surprise! We've gotten most of the gardens in, had plenty of rain and are now fighting the varmints and the chickens. Don't those chickens realize a third of the garden is for them? If they eat it now they'll never get to taste those big lovely collard leaves! On the subject of chickens this is the first time that we've had almost our who crew molt at the same time. That means we have been getting less than 3 eggs a day from 12 girls in the past month or so. It's been a bit disappointing. We really use a lot of eggs here. I usually keep 4 dozen at all times in my refrigerator. Right now I' have about 8 eggs. I really don't want to buy eggs. Hopefully we are coming to the end. We have a lot of featherless hens out th...

Ugh! Can I just say it gain? Uuuugghhhh . This what our garden looked like last fall. If you look at the top of the picture you can see the girlies swing set. The "ladies" coop used to be there. We moved it to the back of our garden now that we have more room. (We bought a section that didn't come with our original lot.) To be fair the area above is so barren because that is where the swimming pool sits. It's back up now but the "ladies" did almost the same thing to the rest of the garden over the winter and spring. Any ideas on what we should do with this site in the fall? I had planned a fire ring, but I really don't think it will be used much. Still thinking this idea through. We purchased this fence almost 2 years ago when one of the do-it-yourself stores had them on sale. The ladies love going onto our neighbors property but they also liked to wander up the next street. We had a long term plan for this fence. We knew eventually our neighbors-to-...

I really enjoy how the English use the English language. My favorite right now is the use of the word garden. It sounds so much prettier than backyard, although I do like a good back yard b-b- q ! If any of you have chickens and live in the city or suburbs you know that they pretty much take up all of your garden space. They love to hunt frogs and lizards , scratch for bugs, worms and dig holes. Oh no one told you of the holes they dig? That's so they can lounge in a refreshing dirt bath. Yah . Know one prepared me for that part. Consider yourself warned if thinking cute fuzzy chicks. In all seriousness we love our girls (the hens and the girlies that live in the house). I just have gotten soooo tired of walking out onto the back deck or anywhere else in the garden and stepping in slimmy poo. So this will be the first installment of taking the garden back. Superman (remember the guy and his shirt from yesterday?) built and put this screened room up for me two Mother's Day...

Hi Folks. I can't believe it has been so long. The fact of the matter is schooling, girl's groups, play practice and a much needed vacation is kept our family overloaded. All wonderful things, but you know how it is. Right? What's been going on around here? Well unfortunately last night Farm Girl found old Gert ( one of our first chickens) dead. Just before we had a passel of ladies convening on the homestead to make apple pies. Not good timing. She was truly one of my favorites. She had a wonderful life here. Eating spaghetti, hunting frogs, bugs and children. She also gave us some wonderful eggs! Farm Girl was a sad, but seems to be learning the ways of farm life. Saturday she is going to look at about 150 new chicks a friend of ours just got in. Maybe we can persuade Superman to get a couple ;) Our garden is perking along. We are already harvesting collards for the chickens! We put in two rows in just for them. The weather has not been cooperative. We haven't had a...

Or should I say has one of your chickens ever laid one like this? I keeping thinking "Vermont Volleyball" ( Bing Crosby, White Christmas) but that really has nothing to do with this or does it (poor Danny Kaye). We seem to have girl that lays like this occasionally. No extra squawking, but it sure looks like it's got to be painful! You can't tell from the picture but this egg is larger than a Extra Large Fancy eggs from the grocery. It's just like any other egg once you crack it open, but it does look unappetizing. Have you ever "laid a egg"? I'm sure we all have. In fact there are days where it's just best if I keep my mouth shut! Today could be one of those days. Lots of extra squawking and pain for everyone in ear shot. I'm relying on my Father to get me through and keep my beak shut! Have a great day! julie

Has anyone viewed this great new blog ? Urban Girl is up and running! The title of great new blogs is.... From A Chickens Point Of View . If you stop by and take a look please leave some bloggy love! Have a Great Day! julie

Does anyone remember me talking about the Chickadees blow drying the chickens during our rainy weather? Well... they've taken it a step further. Welcome to: 4 Sweet Sisters Chicken Spa Waiting in line. School Girl's bathing station. They actually seem to enjoy the water. But by far there favorite treatment is the blow drying! Urban Girl and Lucy The Spa is open by appointment only. So get your chicken's reservation made today! ( Toe nail painting cost a bit extra.) National Chicken Day should be very busy. ( heehee ) blessings, julie

Today's installment of Works For Me Wednesday: Storing Fresh Eggs, but first School Girl asked that I show her Star Wars eggs! L to R: Princess Leah, Jabba , Darth Vador , Luke, Hansolo , C3PO, R2D2, and Chubakka . On to today's subject. We just bought our first store eggs for dying. It's been almost 5 months since I' ve had to do this. So needless to say my store egg cartons were shot and we were starting to lose eggs on the floor. What a mess! So here's what I came up with. They are deli meat keepers from Tupperware and come with egg trays! Each box holds 24 eggs and are they sturdy. They are also easy to clean and help me keep track of what needs to be used first. Here's what I do: The orange container is for freshly laid eggs. Eggs go into this container, but they don't come out until the at least 1 tray from the gray container is empty. I then slide the trays forward in the gray container to make room for a tray from the orange container to go in ...

Just stopping in to say, "i've gone a bit mad and torn almost every room apart!" Gotta get back to it. I just want it all cleaned up, sorted out, put in it's proper place, put in sale pile, put in give pile and kicked to the curb! Get cleaning Ladies!!!! We've had a couple of new additions over the last week! This little one was born Palm Sunday... And this one was born this morning. We have a pecked hole in another egg and expect a new chick tonight. The Silkies are getting a bit testy with us! Aren't they cute? Okay, now get to cleaning! julie

Remember when I said, " Nobody always does it this or that way?" Well I wasn't kidding! This are NO were near are normal diet of delicious organic and raw foods! But the sure are Yummy and Cute! Chocolate Covered Peeps Waaaay to easy to make and very frugal if: you by them on sale or with your ECBs. I wouldn't suggest stocking up for next year( although I doubt they'll go bad- hee hee hee). You can stock up on the dipping chocolate! I did and a little secret "always" put some really good chocolate chips into the dipping chocolate for extra flavor! Basically warm up the chocolate, dip peeps and dry! These are going to field day with us today! I think 1 per child is enough and Moms won't be freaking out:) I do plan on putting them on a nicer platter, but truthfully I don't think the children will mind? Also they are super fast to make, 15 minutes for 30! Check out more great Frugal Friday ideas over at www . lifeasmom . com Also check out this r...

On Monday I shared that Cindy (Cinderella- a chicken) had lost an egg. We were bummed.... Come to find out that Fluffy ( a chicken) had been fighting her for the right to sit on the eggs! Yesterday, our friend Sandi brought by more fertile eggs and Cindy was again content. When I went to check on her later that morning, Fluffly was standing on top of her trying to get to the eggs. Now I know why ladies fights are often called hen fights! It really did remind of a woman being protective and warding off the enemy. (Okay, I think I'm getting to involved in our animals lives-good thing we don't have a dog!) So later in the day Superman and I thought it might be a good idea to move Cinderella out for a while and give her a little peace. (Anybody remembering needing that when you were expecting?) Later that evening he made her a cozy little house with her own personal run. I was VERY impressed! Just before dark we put her and her eggs in. We were feeling pretty pleased with ours...

This morning Cinderella hopped off her nest to get a quick bite to eat and take a dirt bath. So Farm girl took the opprotunity to check for new eggs; other than the 2 she's trying to hatch. Well she came running into the house, yelling that one of the the chickie eggs was missing. So I sent Urban girl out for a looksie. Maybe the egg had rolled off the nest when the chicken stood up? She found Cindy with the egg hanging from her chest feathers. Farm girl pulled it off and cleaned up. The egg was lost, but a small lesson was learned... julie

Well here they are!!!! Can ya hear the excitement? Fannie and Gertrude. Gert is the darker of the two. After church yesterday, Miss Sandy brought them with the little girls - Puffy, Fluffy, Lucy and Princess Leah. My camera went dead.......Oh Superman you know what I need............. I post some of the little girls later. Here's what we got the this morning! Out of focus due to a 6 year old digital camera that eats batteries (hint hint). But I know you all know what eggs look like. I just can't believe they came from our backyard! The silkies won't lay for a bit longer. They were born in August where as the big girls were born in June. I can't believe we have them! I've been wanting them for about 5 years and here they are! Yippee! We've had a very busy weekend. The chickadees had a birthday party weenie roast, building the coop and Grammy's birthday celebration (with chicken holding). I'm so glad there is NO SCHOOL today. I've made polish dill pic...