Aquaponics weekend

A few months ago we did an introduction aquaponics class. A few weeks ago hubby got the stuff to make our own so we decided this time to take a hands on class on it by the same guy that did the introduction class.

It was taught at a local farm near us so it worked out really well, the aquaponics system is going to be a learning tool for some disabled kids on a farm. It took more then 9hrs with a few people working but we finally finished it up.

I can't wait to start ours but we have a long way to go with only two of us making it and hubby of course has his own ideas on making his own. We plan to put fish in it, not sure which kind, I perfer perch.

Sam

Hugelkultur

This weekend we finished with digging out our hole for our first Hugelkultur project bed. If you don't know what that is, I am going to put more on it in my gardening blog. http://samsveggies.blogspot.com/

We had a really productive day, we spent the morning picking up sticks around our place for the hugelkultur bed, finished digging the hole. I moved the chicken coop and took them food as well as water.

Made cream puffs out of the fresh eggs we got, watched a show with my family, made dinner, picked up raw milk from the farm down the road and the Sunday paper. Yep it was a really nice productive day. I even made a few phone calls to my family and friends.

I am trying to fight off a cold so far, so good. I got to keep moving. There is always so much to do in the spring. I should be more inside cleaning but I would rather be outside right?

Snow day

Every 10 or so years it snows here south of San Antonio. We get really excited when it does. Water goes off the shelfs, our roads are closed down. I swear most are hwy's were closed that day. No school no work for a lot of folks. I rememered the last time it snowed it was in the 80s and I was a teenager.

I know its funny how we react to snow but you got to remember we have no snow plows and to get us to go to work or school on a snow day is asking for the impossible lol.

So that night my husband and I heard ice hitting our house then later on I guess a bit of snow fell. By the time we woke up in the morning the sun was out already melting everything. My son was able to make a mini snowman & throw snowballs at the cats.

I walked around my chicken coop and fed the sheep, nothing new to them it seems. It was nice seeing the snow glitter in the sun, very pretty. I like snow but only during Christmas time. If I wanted more snow I would have asked hubby to move to a colder climate. I am a sun worshiper I have to admit. The sun gives me energy.

It was a nice snow day, I wouldnt mind another one next year maybe in December but I am not holding my breath.

My chicken catalogs have arrived!

Thats me moving my chickens this last year.

It finally came in my handy dandy chicken catalog with chick prices. I am in badly need of more chickens! But wait do I really want to do this anymore? I used to make a delivery to San Antonio every other week but it gets harder and harder to sell the eggs. Don't get me wrong I love having chickens and I will always continue having chickens but not sure I want to get that many and try again getting new customers.

There is 2 much competition out there & they don't care about the food safety rules that I had followed. If they say its from the farm people believe them even if they are locked in a coop all day long. All the people see is CHEAP and FARM. I saw some the other day and the eggs were so dirty they had poo from the chickens still on it which could be really dangerous if not properly cleaned & chickens get infection. Sooner or later someone is going to get the swine flu or something bad & all the people that sell eggs will be getting a bad rep because of someone that was lazy.

I don't force my chickens to lay having light on all night. As soon as they go into molt I don't kill them or give them away. I have some chickens out there as old as 5 yrs. My chickens are old they lay when they feel it's time to lay. I clean my eggs with warm/water/vinagar. Only a very small handful appreciate the "Pasture raised method" it's good for our field as well as the chickens.

Right now with just the small amount of eggs I am getting I sell to a few loyal customers and anything extra I give to the milk farmer down the road in exchange for raw milk. It suits me fine. I would love to sell at the farmers market because I love the idea of meeting new & old customers. I looked into it once. You have to get a license, have the rug torn out from the back of my van to sell from it. Get a background check & pay the farmers fee. So would it be worth it in the long run? Not sure. I would lose my Saturdays too

Anyways I am still excited about getting more chickens I just need to rethink how I want to run this business or just keep to providing for my home only. I am also thinking of raising broilers just for my family & maybe a few to trade?

Traditions

I love and live for traditions, I was lucky enough to marry a wonderful man that loves to cook and took the time to study and learn from my mother before she passed away. This is our third year of making tamales without my mother. He did an awesome job of cooking the meat and preparing the masa for it. I was kind of worried that no one would show up from my family most of them want to buy those awful store bought tamales, "They taste ok" they tell me. Who are they fooling? Yuck.

In the end we had a whole table full of volunteers plus always someone comes new to want to learn which is fine with us we could use the help. We buy Mexican pastry's the coffee and hot chocolate flows freely. Us older adults have some wine coolers maybe, we talk, we joke, we make fun of someone who is not spreading the masa on correctly.

Its a good time and we ended up with 75 dozen tamales for the year that we divided up among the volunteers the ones we didn't eat yet :) I hope my family continues wanting to do this some of them gripe each year because its at the end of Christmas & every one's tired. I wonder what would happen if my husband decided not to do this for a few yrs would they get used to those store bought tamales? Would they forget about the fun times as we meet up as a family? This is a tradition I hope we never stop.

Pallet-ideas

Pallet ideas

For a while now I have been intrigued by the use of pallets. They seem to be everywhere and if you look for example on the craigslist or free cycle you see people trying to get rid of them all the time.

On my internet search I have seen, sheds, chicken coops, garden fences etc.. I decided to start a link section of these places and ideas so I don't have to keep repeat looking for them when I am trying to tell people about how wonderful they are:

Buldings & Structures:

Tiny House out of pallets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKgSoKedbos&feature=fvwrel

Another small house design out of pallets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z7WI2v1Mh8&feature=related

This guy has pictures of sheds that he had made..ingenious!
http://summerville-novascotia.com/PalletShed/

Making a childrens playhouse with pallets its in another language but at least you can see the finished product
http://en.espritcabane.com/furniture-plans/pallet-coffee-table.php

Wooden fence (This one is my favorite which I featured on top)
http://www.ruralramblings.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Chicken-Lovers-Day_4310.jpg

Stairs made out of pallets
http://www.readymade.com/file_uploads/10763/14-doghouse7__large__large.jpg

Ideas for a dog house made out of pallets. This site has a video!
http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Doggy-Retreat/

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Gardening with pallets:

Pallet pen for compost another great idea with detail instructions
http://www.co.hanover.va.us/works/composting2.htm

Vertical garden using pallets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQKCm7wKS8I

Using a pallet as a garden! Great idea thanks Debbiehttp://lifeonthebalcony.com/how-to-turn-a-pallet-into-a-garden

Potting bench made of pallets
http://s3.amazonaws.com/atimg/1568058/pallet_potting_3_rect540.jpg

This is a garden table from pallets
http://www.laspilitas.com/garden/howto/pallet-table.html

Here is another detail instructions on building a garden bed out of pallets
http://www.ehow.com/how_5171668_use-build-raised-garden-beds.html

Furniture made with Pallets:

Pallet shelf
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5125/5261941819_86ed20c313_z.jpg

Pictures of pallets:
A place to put your plates pallet design
http://remodelista.com/img/sub/katrin-arens-kitchen-jordi-canosa.jpg

This guy made a table out of pallets
http://www.palatablewoodworking.com/projects/PalletTable/PalletTable.html

A bed frame they made out of pallets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P_nLk4gftQ&feature=related

Pallet computer desk
http://www.charm.net/~jriley/pallet.html

This person made a garden chair from pallets..Great idea~
http://www.laspilitas.com/garden/howto/garden-chair.html

Coffee table made from pallets
http://en.espritcabane.com/furniture-plans/pallet-coffee-table.php

Chicken Pallet ones:

http://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=23574-maran-pallet-coop

Small chicken coop, though I wasnt really impressed with this guys building skills he is very dangerious.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Turn-Old-Pallets-Into-A-Chicken-Tractor/

Here is a better chicken coop build with pallets
http://www.backyardchickens.com/coops/pallet-coop.html

Here is a nest box made out of pallets
http://littlehouseinthesuburbs.com/2009/04/nesting-box-from-pallet.html

Here is a blog of someone that build a smaller chicken coop with pallets
http://mountainmama-jenny.blogspot.com/2009/07/pallet-chicken-coop.html

This woman build her back yard seating with pallets..Great pics!
Garden and Furniture Pallets:
http://www.re-nest.com/re-nest/creative-reuse/before-and-after-pallets-used-for-outdoor-furniture-081685

http://www.epinions.com/content_4747731076
This guy talks about building a green house planters with pallets

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Please leave a note and let me know which one was your favorite design with pallets. Add your own too!

thanks

My daughter Miranda, my son Tommy and great nephew Le'on

This little boy was born this week. He is number 11 of my great nephews. With five older sisters in my family I was bound to become an aunt at an early age. I think I became an aunt at around 5yrs old. One of my nieces ended up being more of a sister to me then me being her aunt.
She calls me Auntie Samanthie most the others Aunt Sam.

I have to this date. 13 nieces, 7 nephews, 19 great nieces, 11 great nephews and one great, great nephew, this is not counting my own two kids which are the youngest of the nephews & nieces in my family. Funny but my kids are growing up with the great nieces and nephews.

Yes my family is very large. When we have thanksgiving at my house my whole living room is full of them, I have to move the sofa’s and everything out of my house just to fit everyone. One of my dreams is to have a large enough living room to fit even more.

Most of my family is here but I still have a few left behind in California where I was born but NOT raised. I have one niece in Virginia along with some great nieces and nephews. My family is so large once long ago as my husband and I drove out of Texas to go see his family in Washington state he commented on how large my family is and if we were in trouble with a flat tire someone from my family could help us no matter where we were, I just laughed.

About an hour later we pulled into a truck stop out in the middle of no where and a huge truck honked at us as we drove in, it happened to be one of my Uncles. I come from a long line of truckers and military family. My husband just looked at me and laughed. I had to agree then, that yes I do have a large family.

This is not even counting my own uncles, aunts, cousins and my husband’s side of the family, with his family we add on more nieces and nephews to our already large clan.

One of my dear friends said once your family is like a big Mexican soap Opera you should write a book about them. I just laugh, yah we have a lot of drama with a big family but with this large of a family what do you expect? The Brady bunch? Even they fought.

I asked my daughter once if she wouldn’t mind having Christmas instead in the mountains of Idaho or Washington for once, her reply was, “And miss being with all my cousins on this day are you kidding?”Guess that answers on how much we love our family.