Dad

It has been a rough year, my dad/best friend passed away Feb. 10th, I was glad to be at his side with both of my sisters and mom as he passed. He was a great man and lived his life with Christ by his side, it is comforting to know that he is with his Heavenly Father and someday I will join him again.

Until next time

Tim

Welcome back Ron

It's good to see Ron at Homesteading Hickory Hills is back. I started blogging after following him for a while and quit when he did. Glad to see he's back and hopefully ok, he had a great blog.

Tim

Been a while

First post in a long time. I plan on getting back to blogging, since its been a while I have quit a bit to share mostly good but some bad as well.

Nest Boxes

Well I finally got around to building the nest boxes for the chickens. I was going to make conventional wooden nest boxes, but then I was watching a video on YouTube when Becky (from Becky's Homestead) showed building some out of 5 gal buckets. Since my time is short right now I thought this would be a quick way to go. I have a ton of 5 gal buckets that I bring home from work but they have have cutting, hydraulic fluid etc. in them, so I just went to Tractor Supply and purchased 5 new ones at $2.99 a piece. I had plenty of scrap lumber setting around and two 2X6 "L" sections 8' long as well. I cut the two "L" sections into 5' sections to set the buckets into and mount them to. When I had the house restained I replaced a couple of 5/4 X 6" steps so I used these for the sides and then used a sapling for the roost pole on the front. It only took me about an hour to put this together and so far the chickens like it just fine. I took turns putting each chicken in the boxes to get them familiar with them, some were a little reluctant to enter, but with a little persuasion the all eventually settled in.

Below are a few pictures of the nest boxes..

Doodlebugs added another critter to mix a couple of weeks ago, meet BooRoo.

I have raised rabbits on and off for the last 40 years, so it wasn't to hard for her to convince me into getting her one. My mom and dad's neighbor was kind enough to give her one of his. When I was little and we lived in Louisville I started raising them, we lived on a busy road so they were always easy to sell. I remember we always stocked up for Easter because you could sell all you had plus some, the best part, about three weeks after Easter most of parents would bring them back to us and then we would resale them.

Until next time....

Tim

First Egg

I've been so busy I have not built my nest boxes yet for my chickens, I knew they should start laying sometime the middle of this month. Last night when me and doodlebugs went to the barn to put them up this is what we found.

No, the egg did not come from this wooden chicken, it just happened to be on the kitchen counter. Well I've got to go work on my nest boxes, so until next time...

Tim

A few days off

I took the week off last week so we spent a few days at Holiday World in Santa Claus Indiana. While there we stayed at their campground Lake Rudolph, right next to the park. My kids love Holiday World and so do we since it is very family friendly, I also like it because it is only about 30 minutes from the farm. If you have never been Holiday World use to be called Santa Claus Land, it is a ride and water park, the prices are very reasonable and they drink stations throughout the park where your get your sodas free, the food prices are also very reasonable as well.

The first day there it rained all day, so we just spent the day hanging out in the motor home watching Perry Mason and the Walton's DVDs. The second day we played putt putt and then went to the Lincoln National Park, I can't believe as long as I lived around there and as many times as we have stayed at Holiday World we had never visited the park. The park includes the farm where Abraham Lincoln lived from the age of 7 to 21 years. It is also where his mother Nancy Hanks Lincoln is buried. In the state park across the road they have a Amphitheatre that has a dinner show (which we will see next time) detailing how his time in Indiana helped shape him.

Below are some pictures of the old Lincoln farmstead..

This is the foot print of the original house the Lincolns lived in.

Bubby, Doodlebugs and Mom

The Garden

Nancy Hanks Lincoln died in 1818 of milk poisoning, milk poisoning was caused by the cow eating White Snakeroot which was toxic, then when humans drank the milk they often died. Milk poisoning was one of the most feared ailments in those days, it was not known back then what caused it.

Below are pictures of the grave site..

Until next time...

Tim

Staining completed

It has been awhile since my last post, we were on vacation all of last week and very busy getting ready the week before. While we were gone they finished the staining of the house so I didn't get a lot of pictures of the process. Here's the finished product...

Tomorrow I will post about part of our vacation, until next time...

Tim