We get lots of wind. Not only do we live on the plains in a desert, but we don’t have any houses behind us to block the wind. So when it gets windy, we see the brunt of it.
The other day the wind picked up and broke a few panels on our greenhouse. I wasn’t able to get a hold of the company that made it so I had to come up with my own solution to fixing it. I tried small screws, I tried glue and a few adhesives but nothing was working to well. The screws seemed to work about the best but it wasn’t a good fix.
Our Hobby Greenhouse
I figured I’d try a rivet tool. I found one at the store for ~$10. It worked great. Just drill a hole, put the rivet in, squeeze the handles and bam. Done!
Installed Rivets
I am not sure how much longer this greenhouse will survive, but I figure I can keep it together for at least a few more years. It serves as a chicken home in the winter and a place to grow fun stuff in the summer. I bet I can find all kinds of uses for this new tool too! 🙂
I had a phone call recently. It’s the type of call that is not “the norm”. I knew Cassie had emailed House Hunters International about the possibility of being on their show after she had heard from the Kruses that they were looking for couples who had bought a place in Puerto Rico. But I didn’t really think they would be so eager to talk with us so quickly! This is kind of how it went:
Melissa: Hi, this is Melissa from House Hunters International! BK: Hi, this is Britton. How are you? Melissa: Good…We are interested in doing your story! Can you tell me a little more about it? BK:( I told her all about our story, the property, why Puerto Rico…so on and so forth) Melissa: That sounds great! Well, the next step before we line things up is to get a casting video from you. I can send you some information about what we are looking for in it. BK: No problem. We can do that and have one to you in the next few days!
So these past few days Cassie and I (with help from Cassie’s mom the camera-woman -thanks Char!) made a short casting video. In the video they just want to see how we live currently and why we want to move. They basically want to see how we look “on camera”. Hopefully we come across well!
It would be cool to be on the show as it is one we definitely like to watch and I think we would be a bit different than their regular shows. Most of what I’ve seen on there are people who have quite a bit of money to spend. Cassie and I are very budget-oriented and one of our (my) criteria was that the place be “affordable”. To me that meant not getting a mortgage. Also we were ok with having a fixer-upper, unlike most people that we’ve seen on the show.
We want to move down there in the next few years, not continue to work and pay for the thing over the next 15-30. So, we save the majority of our income, we both drive normal little paid-off econobox cars, and we have invested in rentals in the hopes that one day we could use that income to live off of (see Fruitfulista for more on how we do this!)
I’d hope they would present us as the ‘fixer upper/saver/self-sustainability people’ and maybe tell the story of how we ended up with the property. One thing we were surprised about is that nearly all, if not all of the shows are re-enactments, so according to Melissa the producer/casting person in New York, we were perfect for their show!
So, here’s our casting video- wish us luck!…What do you think?
We have two chickens who are called Americanas, AKA Ameraucanas, Auracanas or just Easter Eggers. One of them is Greenfoot and the other is Littlefoot. When we got Greenfoot we were excited to see green or blue eggs, but she only laid brown speckled eggs. So this last year when we got the new chicks we got another Americana, Littlefoot and were hopeful that her eggs would be a different color.
Littlefoot the green egg layer
So…one day we went out and found a very obviously green egg! They are so cool. Now you know that the Dr. Seuss story wasn’t completely made up! We CAN have green eggs and ham!
The egg shell color is determined by the breed of chicken. A brown egg or green egg is no more (or less) healthy than a white egg. What makes an egg healthier is what the chickens eat. Because white eggs are from the industry standard Leghorn (like Omeleto) they are often considered less healthy than brown eggs that are from heritage breeds – like our barred rock. But really, it’s about their diet. On the outside the shells may have a different color, but inside the color only changes if they have a more varied diet such as being on pasture eating bugs, green grasses and the occasional mouse. If you want to see the inside difference between a conventional store-bought egg and our backyard hens’ eggs, you can see it here.
Otherwise, here’s the outside cool variety of colored shells.
Variety Pack: carton of eggs including the green eggs and speckled eggs
Now that two of our pullets are laying eggs, they’ve decided they don’t like laying eggs -or sleeping- in the the chicken coop. They will roost on the chain link fence right above the coop, but they won’t go in unless we actually physically put them in at night. As for the laying, I was getting a little worried when I didn’t see any eggs at all even from the older hens for two days in a row.
Chickens in the yard
I checked the place where they had liked to lay before under the unruly rose bush by the house, but no, there wasn’t anything there. I thought I had looked everywhere until I glanced into the mint bush and just happened to spy their clutch in there. It was so well camouflaged that I asked Britton if he could come out and try to find it. I don’t think he ever would have if I hadn’t shown him where it was. Right under our noses and super hard to spot! If you have chickens who are about laying age, make sure to check your yard for any hiding areas. Now I know where the Easter Egg Hunt tradition came about…this wasn’t just a game for kids back when most people had their own chickens 🙂
