Uncharted Heritage

 

Adding fruit to our little homestead.

What is a "fruit cocktail tree"?

Why did we choose a "fruit cocktail tree" to begin our orchard?

For more information on planting and pruning fruit trees, we referred to: Storey's Basic Country Skills: A Practical Guide to Self-Reliance and Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills

Recently we made the decision to eliminate the rooster from our flock. This was a good decision for our family. I realize that everyone's experiences with having roosters varies. This simply has been our experience so far.

Firstly, the pros of having a rooster:

*The biggest reason we liked having our rooster was the fact that he was protective of the hens so we worried a little less about attacks from predators. (However, the extreme protective behavior was also a downside to us actually enjoying our chickens, as our roo was also eager to attack us.)

*Our second reason we liked having the rooster was that he consistently alerted us to their location when they were free-ranging. If we were unable to see them, if we waited a moment and listened we could hear a crow from him and could tell their whereabouts.

*Lastly, we liked that we had the possibility to have chicks.


Now the pros of NOT having a rooster:

*Our hens are so much friendlier. All of them. We had one that was always friendly, but the others were skittish and tended to keep their distance mostly. It was hard to convince them to let us pet them, and extremely difficult to catch them and hold. Since the rooster is gone, all of our hens come to us freely, willingly and eagerly. In fact, they will line up at our door sometimes and wait on us. :)


*Since the chickens are friendlier, this leads to the next benefit. Since there is no aggressive [rooster] we can allow our children to play outside without fear. Our oldest daughter began to not like playing outside, come to find out, she was always worried the rooster would escape the coop/run. Since he is gone, she is excited to play outside again.


*The hens typically stay closer to home. It seemed with the rooster they roamed a bit further when free-ranging. Sometimes the hens still wander off, but usually not as far and/or for not as long.

*Lastly, our hens' eggs are not fertilized. This makes it easier to give them away or sell them. We have found that some people will not eat eggs that they believe may be fertilized.

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What has your experience been?
Do you prefer having a rooster in your flock?
What have been your PROs and CONs?

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Linked to the Homestead Blog Hop

This year we are going to try companion planting. One of the benefits of companion planting is protection from pests and diseases when planting in the right combinations.

I have been studying the vegetable companion guide in Storey's Basic Country Skills (picture below), as well as various online resources.

I debated about whether or not I wanted to share this. But this is part of our homesteading experience, so I am going to journal it. Maybe someone else is having the same issues? Maybe things can work out differently for them?

When we first got our chickens a year ago, we picked up six of the "Sex-Link (Female) Tetra Brown" chicks from Tractor Supply's Chick Days. Most of the time when you get any sex-link females you are warned that there is only a 90% guarantee that they are actually female. One of our six chicks ended up being a rooster.

Once we figured out we had a rooster, we begin asking around to see if anyone would want him. Apparently, no one wants roosters. Oh well, we thought. He sure was pretty and we knew that there could be benefits to having a rooster, such as helping to "protect" the girls.


For a little while things seemed okay. He stayed with the girls. He alerted us to their location. He became protective...increasingly too protective.

First he began trying to attack me. I was pregnant (with twins) last summer. I couldn't move around easily. And had to be very careful around him. We were worried he might try to attack our daughter. So we ended up having to keep him locked up in the coop area. Unfortunately, the girls were affected by this, as it was difficult to let them free range without letting him out too. (As he got more aggressive and amorous, he began pulling out the hens' feathers, but that is a whole other blog that you can check out by clicking HERE.)

Eventually even coming close to the fencing would cause him to charge. The only person he did not try to attack was my husband. If he was free-ranging in the yard and my husband was outside, he generally kept his distance from all of us. But if John was not out there, he would charge us.

Our daughter eventually began to get afraid to go outside to play, even if the rooster was put up. We definitely didn't want her afraid to go outside.

Sometimes you have to think with your head, and not with your heart.

The last straw was soon after trying out the chicken saddles. It was time to close the coop door for the night and "Fred the Rooster" attempted to attack John. Fred doesn't 'live' here anymore. We will just leave it at that.

It is almost Spring and we are excited to be planning our garden.

I put together a gardening/homesteading journal - nothing fancy - just an old, unused notebook with pockets, folders, notebook paper [for notes] and blank pages [to draw out plans] - something easy to keep up with and something that doesn't matter if it gets a little dirty when used outside. It will be nice to have something to carry around and make notes with.

I believe the journal will be a great tool to keep track of what works well, as well as to make notes of our failures. Hopefully we can learn from our mistakes each year, make adjustments, and improve. I really wish this is something that we started a lot sooner.

Do you keep a gardening and/or homesteading journal/log?

Something that we are planning to change up this year is the location of our vegetable garden. Our previous location seemed ideal. We enjoyed the proximity of the garden to the house and the shed. It also was on a hill, but leveled. The garden, well, it just looked good there. So what is wrong with this location? Morning Glories! and Bindweeds! Pesky weeds that are disguised as innocent flowers. But these weeds grow quickly, are nearly impossible to get rid of, and they choke out the vegetables.

We spent a little time the other day examining the property for a new location to try this year. We have a few ideas, though nothing has been determined yet. Before we make a decision we are going to do a little research about what we are wanting to try growing this year - we are currently working on our list.

It is not often that all of my [Dad's side of the] family is able to get together. We all live in different states, scattered throughout the country. It has been a long time since we have all seen each other, and it was the first time all the great-grandchildren were together. We tried to use this rare opportunity to capture a family photograph of the four generations. 

Ingredients (1 serving size):
1 cup flour
1/2 cup water, add slowly/not all at once
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 to 1/4 tsp salt (modify according to your taste)
1/2 tsp sugar (modify according to your taste)
(fruit of your choice is optional)

Mix dry ingredients. Add water until dough is the consistency of a biscuit dough.

Place in covered fire-safe (greased/oiled) cooking pot, and place over fire. Bake approximately 30 minutes over fire.

Alternately you could cook on the stove-top (in a greased pan) over medium heat for about 10 minutes each side, or you could bake in an oven, preheated to 400 degrees F approximately 20 minutes.