A Virtual Tour of Pure Water Hollow Homestead

It is an honor being one of the “featured bloggers” on Homestead Blogger once again, and also a bit overwhelming. Part of me wonders why anyone would be interested in my little homestead here. But then I look around me and quickly realize that I have an absolutely wonderful life and I am getting to experience some awesome adventures that are made up of the types of things that homestead minded people dream about. My desire is always that our homestead will in some way point to our glorious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Everything we have or do is ultimitely because of Him!

I’m really writing this blog for my immediate family, extended family, and for posterity as well. I must confess that I also have a selfish motive. In many ways I am recording this adventure just to aid my own memory. Sadly, I have had to realize that I do not have a very good long term memory at all, and 20 years from now I do not want to hear about all kinds of wonderful things we shared as a family and not have a memory of them for myself!

I was not intending to get so contemplative on this post.

What I am striving for with this entry, is to just give sort of a virtual tour of what types of things we have had going on lately at Pure Water Hollow Homestead. We had a few beautiful days Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, so I asked Christina, my 11 year old, to walk around and take pictures of our property and animals with her digital camera. She took some great pictures and I also borrowed her camera and took a few more.

The first animals you are likely to see are our dogs and cats. I don’t have any pictures of the cats right now, but here is our Pyr named Chief:



And this is Mammoo:



We also have Luna, a black mixed Pyr that didn’t make the cameras this time and a Lab named Champ that you will see in a minute.

Christina took several pictures I really liked from an angle that I have not seen much in picture form. I had the truck down in the play field to unload some hog manure over the garden spot. That is our Chocolate Lab named Champ with me(he is always with us even when we do not want him to be):



While we are down here I’ll show where we planted the new fruit trees and bushes this spring. You can see the milk crates behind me. This is where we planted 8 new blueberry bushes.



They are Blue Crop, Blue Ray, Earliblue, and Jersey from left to right and then the pattern is repeated in the next four. So far they are all living, but we never tested the soil there to see if it is a good place for blueberries. I hope they will grow and thrive there.

In front of the house I planted a new nectarine tree next to the peach trees:



We still haven’t gotten everything cleaned up from the ice storm, and these pictures do not show up very well. I’m putting them here mainly for us, but you can at least see the mess we have been facing. We went ahead and planted two plum trees and two new apple trees next to the old apple trees across the lane from the garden. Here are the new plum trees:



And here are the new apple trees:



Across from the apple trees is the garden spot and play field that you saw a minute ago. The geese had come down from the pond to visit. They are in the children’s playfield in the fore-ground. Those poles you see are a grape arbor and the cherry tree in bloom is to the right. You can see the outbuilding we call the tool shed, the side/back of our house, and our white van to the left. In the mid-ground is the children’s play-tree and swing-set:



Let me show you the grape arbor closer up. Once the leaves come out, this is a beautiful spot and we usually have plenty of grapes for jam. The Chery tree next to it always has an abundance of cherries:



This is a shot from further back. Here you can see the flower garden and you get the first glimpse of the creek that flows by the garden:



Come on back a little farther, up on the school house hill. From here you can see the chicken coop and lot, and in the distance the garden spot, the children’s play field, play-tree, the roof of our house and the tool shed:



Since we are here at the chicken coop, let me show you the other side of it. Those rectangles are the nest boxes for the hens. The nests are on the inside of the coop and we can gather the eggs from the outside:



And when Christina opened up the nests to check for eggs she found some hens in the process of depositing their rent money. Both of these are Buff Orpingtons, but they share the coop with Light Brahmas, Partridge Rocks, Black Giants, Australorps, and Dominiques. If you look close you can see the egg from the one on the right as she is getting up to leave:



We also have an area we call "the chicken duplex", because it is a two room compartment. Currently we have a game hen mama raising a brood of chicks in each section. Wingleg has 8 Buff Orpington chicks she hatched as well as 6 from TSC. On the other side is Onefeather who has 6 Black Giant mix chicks that she hatched as well as 6 Rhode Island Reds from TSC. The pictures didn’t come out the greatest through the fence, but you can get an idea.

This first one is of Onefeather and her brood. She is 5 years old and the only one left of our original group of hens and pullets from 2004. She has proven to be a good mama hen many times now:



In this picture you can see the duplex better on Wingleg’s side with Wingleg and her group. Wingleg is from the 2005 generation of pullets, so she is pretty old too. She may have been in one of Onefeather’s early groups of hatchlings.



Let’s go up that dirt road that swings around to the right in the above picture and then down to the left to the ravine lot:



Here is the ravine lot closer up. It is totally enclosed with wire to keep predators out. I originally designed it to keep our pet raccoons in, so we made it pretty tight. This is where we have been separating various hens and roosters in order to get specific eggs. The most recent group to have called it home was the Black Giants, which are the chickens you see in these pictures:



Now we will walk up the hillside via the steep dirt road to the barn areas. In the below picture the path to the ravine lot is in the middle on the left. It goes downward and this other road goes up to the pigs, goats and pond. Behind us is the chicken coop and lot:



Here we approach the old barn. Believe it or not, it is standing up much straighter now than it was a month ago. The pigs had played a number on it the past couple of years, eating out the main poles so that the barn had begun to lean quite a bit. We just had new posts put in and the walls pulled up straight as well as some new roofing where it was leaking very badly. I hired the work out, but I did get to help a few hours one day. The two guys were here a good part of 6 days working on it and only charged $600! I feel that it was well worth it because I think the barn will be able to stand for many more decades now. The alternative was tearing it down and building new. We still have work to do on it to make it a real nice barn, but it is very usable right now:



I like this view that Christina took from a distance. In so many of these pictures you can tell what a rugged terrain our homestead is located in:



Here is part of the new roof. We used remnant pieces of metal that was much cheaper to purchase. To get it cheap, we couldn’t choose the colors we would get. This picture won’t mean anything to you, but I like it, and now we can store things in a dry loft:



Inside the barn, we have moved our two sows. They should be giving birth to piglets very soon. We have now raised several litters of our own piglets born here. We sell most of them and keep some to raise to butchering size. This year we actually butchered and cut up our own pork right here on our property! We hope to keep a couple from these new litters and butcher them before Christmas this winter.

Here is a recent picture of Sally:



I will try to come back later to show you our other sow, Nellie and our boar Rufus. I can’t seem to find the pictures we took of them last weekend.

This past fall we had a new barn built for our goats on the other side of the ravine. It is a 40 x 12 foot building with a 3/4th loft. We still have work we want to do on it, but I am pleased with it overall:



Here is a nice picture of it from a distance, on the upper road to the clearing. You can see the pond in this shot also:



Here are some of the goats inside the new barn:



We have two does that are expecting next month. Here is the one we call Mama Belle. She sure looks pregnant doesn’t she? The smaller one is one of her previous kids, Tiny Tim:



Little Lulu is also expecting, but she doesn’t show as much. This will be her first time kidding. The little face bottom right is the buck we have on loan that provided these pregnancies:



And here are the other wethers, Little Joe and Big Jim:



Here comes the ducks walking by. They like to stay around the goat barn sometimes. We have decided that the dark ducks are Rouens and the whites are Pekins:



There they go off into the water. They spend most of their time in the pond:



The ducks share the pond with our geese. You already saw them visiting us down at the play field by the house, but here they are where they are supposed to be. The gray ones are Toulouse and the white ones ore Chinese. This white one I call Goosy Lucy and the gander I’m calling Sid:



Here is the other gander, Marty:



We have one of the Chinese setting on a nest of goose eggs, so maybe we will get to see some goslings swimming around next month. (I am looking forward to having goose meat for supper some day.) This picture does not show up very good, but that is the nest we made for her and she is spread out in there over 8 or 10 eggs. I’m naming her Mother Goose:



Let me end with some pretty pictures that Christina found as she walked around our homestead this weekend:







We still did not visit the clearing, the maple grove, or the ridge trails, but maybe some time in the future.

I hope you have enjoyed this virtual tour and I also hope you have seen the hand of God here. We feel His presence eveywhere we turn around. He has been so great to all of us!
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8 comments
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HSB Front Porch on April 20, 2009 at 11:04 am
I LOVE the virtual tour! What a great idea. You have an amazing place. Wonderful job you and your family have done…

Thank you so much for sharing with us.

Blessings,

Chasity L. Burrell

Senior Editor Homesteadblogger
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Sarah (Your Cousin) on April 20, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Hello! How are you? I have been doing great! I just wanted to tell Christina she did a wonderful job with the picture's! I Love your ducks! I hope we can come to your house and see them and all of you soon! We Love you all and Please know that we are thinking of you! I hope you have a blessed week! Talk to you really Soon!

~With Lots of Love,

~Sarah~

Ps. The Flower Picture's are really pretty!
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SimpleFolk on April 20, 2009 at 7:39 pm
I just stopped by to congratulate you on being featured, but thank you so much for the amazing tour! You have a beautiful place.

Amy
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Judy on April 22, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Hey KY neighbor, love the photos of everything. Your place is really coming along nicely. The tour was great, makes you feel like your really there. The animals all look happy to be there to. I enjoy your blogs keep up the good work…See ya'll soon. Judy

congrads on being this weeks blogger…!!!!!!!
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Sharon on April 22, 2009 at 10:36 pm
What great pic's! I enjoyed the "tour"!
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karen in MS on April 23, 2009 at 11:28 pm
You are very blessed to have such a wonderful homestead!!

Thanks so much for the pictures. I enjoyed them very much!
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Manna Milling Moms on April 24, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Congratulations on being the Featured Blogger!

You have a beautiful homestead. Blessings and Provisions from the Lord is our sustainability.

In Him, Jill (the big sister)
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Schatzi on April 26, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Congratulations on being featured…what a beautiful place you have. The virtual tour was great. You are truly blessed. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Blessings,

Connie

Our Buff Orpingtons

I haven’t written specifically about our chickens for a while now. We changed out the flock last summer with chicks from McMurray Hatchery. We bought Buff Orpingtons, Black Giants, Light Brahmas, and Partridge Rocks; all large, dual purpose, heavy breeds. Here they are in the box when we got them from the post office on June 24th:



The yellow ones are the Buff Orpingtons which is the breed I want to write about for this post.

Here is what McMurray has to say about them from their catalog:

One time years ago at our Hamilton County Fair the poultry judge was asked to describe the correct plumage color for this variety. Taking out his gold watch he said, "That’s the color for Buff Orpingtons." And pure gold they are, symbolic of great value and high quality. Introduced from England in the late 1800′s, they became one of the most popular farm fowls in this country. These are large, stately birds of quiet disposition. Easy to dress for the table they are white skinned, plump, and juicy, a beautiful eating bird. Their heavy, full plumage make them excellent winter layers, shelling out brown eggs right through cold weather. They also make excellent setters and mothers. These "Golden Beauties" have been one of our most popular varieties for years and years with their glistening plumage and pinkish white skin. Baby chicks are a soft light buff color. (http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/product/buff_orpingtons.html)


I think the Wikipedia article on them is pretty accurate. Here is part of it:

Appearance
Some characteristics of an Orpington are:

Heavy (7 to 10 pounds),
Soft, profuse feathering, which almost hides the legs of the bird,
Curvy shape with a short back and U-shaped underline,
A small head with a small comb.
Large and usually tame
Its fluffy feathers that makes it look distinctively large.

Personality
The Orpington chicken is thought of as a highly docile bird and is suitable for families with small children. They are very popular and their popularity is increasing. They also tend to be smarter than other breeds, some people tend to claim their Orpington has performed tricks and they usually come when their name is called.

Eggs
Orpingtons lay between 110 and 160 eggs a year. They do not stop laying in the winter. The eggs are a light brown to tinted white and range from small to large depending on the heredity of the breed. Hens tend to go broody more than other heavy egg breeds, which is to say occasionally.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpington_(chicken))



Now for some pictures of what our grown Buff Orpingtons look like.

This is the alpha rooster of the flock, King Arthur. I thought King Arthur was an appropriate name for an English breed of chicken:



Isn’t he beautiful?

And here is one of the hens:



This is King Arthur with another of the hens:



I like this picture of Simon feeding them because you can get an idea of the size of King Arthur next to Simon:



In this one you can see our other Buff Orpington rooster back in the cage on the left. His name is Sir Lancelot. He is actually the rooster that we put with the hens in their secluded lot to get pure-bred eggs. That way it didn’t bother the rest of the flock to loose their dominant rooster, King Arthur:



I guess they have been one of our favorite breeds and they seem to be most in demand from folks wanting to purchase chickens from our farm. More than once someone has seen our Buffs and then asked if we have any for sale. Hopefully we will be able to raise some for a profit.

Only 4 of the 7 hens from McMurray survived. A couple died during the first couple months from unknown causes and one was killed during the winter when I failed to close up the coop for the night. We found the remains of the hen along with 2 Partridge Rock roosters. I'm not sure what exactly got them, but it served as a potent reminder that I must be diligent to close the coop every night possible!

I put the four remaining Buff hens and one Buff rooster (Sir Lancelot) in a secluded lot for about three weeks to make sure the eggs would be pure Buff Orpington. When we had a game hen go broody (the one we had named Wingleg) I collected the pure-bred eggs for four days and put them under the setting hen. During those 4 days they only laid 10 eggs, so that is the number that got set under the hen for incubation. 9 of them hatched on Sunday and the 10th hatched out on Monday! I was impressed that we had a 100% hatch rate, all adorable little yellow chicks! I will try to get a picture of them soon and put it in here later.

I had also picked up 6 Buff Orpington chicks from the new Tractor Supply Company store we have in town with the hopes of adding them to the mama hen. Here are the chicks from TSC:



Last night we successfully placed them under the mama hen! At first she was very upset and concerned that something was happening to her chicks and she tried to flog me in the dark. Soon all 6 new chicks were in the pile with the first 10 and Wingleg started cooing and purring to the disturbed chicks and settled down on top of all 16.

This morning I only counted 14 chicks, but I did not disturb them to count them thoroughly. Hopefully all 16 made it through the night.

So far our new chicken experiment is working out well and we are thankful to God for the lessons we are learning.


PS added later:
Those chicks from Tractor Supply turned out to be Red Stars instead of Buff Orpingtons, which are good chickens but won't breed true. Don't trust what they tell you about the breeds of chicken they are selling at TSC as they usually don't really know.
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1 comment
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Judy on April 16, 2009 at 8:47 am
You have beautiful chickens,,love your rooster he is sooo handsome. I am trying to put together a sturdy chicken coop so that the raccoons etc. cant get into it…I miss my chickens and those fresh eggs. I have ordered from McMurray's before, very happy with what they send..

Erica to Work at Summer Camp

Erica found out this weekend that she has been accepted to work at Camp Nathanael this summer!

This is something she has been praying about for some time and is very excited about the possibilities of serving God by ministering to the "Children of the Mountains" that come to camp. It is a Christian camp, but the bigger focus is as a mission to the lost in the area. They even have a program that children can earn a free week by completing Bible lessons and memorizing scriptures. It used to be the only way a child could attend camp, but the past few years the camp has opened it up for paid campers as well.

Erica has attended as a camper for many years and will be a camper again for one week during High School week, but the rest of the summer she will be working.

The problem is that we will have to get used to getting things done here around Pure Water Hollow without her for those summer weeks! She will be greatly missed, but I’m excited for her to have this opportunity. We will have to let our children go to make their own way in the world sooner or later, and this will be one of those steps in that direction. If our children are able to go out into the world as "arrows" for His Kingdom and are able to handle themselves maturely and in a Christ-like manner, then we have done the job that God wants us to do as parents! Of course even then our job will not be over, just different.

If anyone wants to check out the camp here is a link to Camp Nathanael’s website (http://www.campnathanael.org/home.php) and another one to Scripture Memory Mountain Mission (http://www.smmm.org/home.php) which oversees the camp.

On another note, the weather pros are predicting 1-3 inches of snow for us tonight! How about that? It was 80 degrees and sunny yesterday and now we have severe freeze warnings for the next two nights! Like they say, "If you don’t like the weather in Kentucky, stick around 'cause it will change."

God bless everyone.

Goose Eggs vs. Chicken Eggs

We have always appreciated meals consisting of eggs here at Pure Water Hollow. We had gotten used to our own fresh chicken eggs many years ago and can tell a difference in the taste between our chicken eggs and store bought chicken eggs. Recently we acquired some geese, and we have been collecting eggs from two of them, I think.

We have been a bit backwards about eating them and instead have just been keeping them in the fridge. I guess the novelty of having eggs so large kept us from wanting to destroy one.

However, a goose egg takes up a fair amount of room and will not fit into the egg carton!



After accumulating about 15 or so in the refrigerator, it was finally time to take action! Some folks had told us they would not eat a goose egg, but others said that they were good. We decided we needed to find out for ourselves, so last night we had eggs for supper.

(We also had some of our own home raised ham, so it was another great meal of food from our own homestead.) Lisa and Erica fixed scrambled eggs, fried eggs over easy, and an omolet, all with goose eggs!

I don’t do much cooking, so I can’t really comment much on the kitchen part of the meal but Lisa said the first thing they noticed was that the yolks were bigger in proportion to the whites compared to chicken eggs. Other than that, I think the preparation was pretty much the same.

The meal was a great success! There were compliments from all 7 of the customers (us). Everyone liked the eggs at least as well as chicken eggs if not better. It was hard for some to notice a difference and Matthew said he didn’t think he would know they were different if he hadn’t been told. Erica and Christina thought it was all very good.

My omolet (which took up the entire plate and consisted of just two eggs) was delicious, but I noticed it was much “fluffier” and thicker than normal. The taste was pretty much the same, but the texture was different. Everyone noticed the same thing concerning the scrambled eggs. They were fluffier and perhaps a bit richer than usual, but very, very good.

Those who ate the fried eggs noticed the biggest difference. The yellows were much thicker than fried chicken eggs, almost the consistency of honey, with perhaps a richer taste than usual eggs. I think Lisa and Simon liked them better than normal fried eggs, and Timothy was happy with it all!

We usually bring deviled eggs to our church dinners and we are having the next dinner on Easter. We are thinking we will still make a couple of plates from regular chicken eggs but then throw in a few deviled eggs from goose eggs just for fun! Wouldn’t that be a hoot! I bet it would be a great conversation starter around the meal tables!

It seems there is always something interesting going on around our homestead. Maybe we are just easily entertained, but we are still grateful to the Lord for our geese and the novel eggs that they are providing for us!


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4 comments
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~Patricia~ on April 4, 2009 at 7:08 am
I've obviously always known goose eggs would be larger than a chickens – but to see them side by side – WOW. I really like that even your kids are adventerous enough to give them a try. It really makes it more fun.

Thank you for the posting advice – it was really frustrating for a bit. I did upgrade the browser-to IE6, it's the newest this system can run, lol but I can post…for now, we'll see. I'll have to add pictures later as you said though. Or learn to write very descriptively again
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Kelly on April 4, 2009 at 7:37 am
We all loved the picture of the goose egg beside the chicken eggs. We were all saying, "WOW!" haha! Maybe because we are looking at our 4 geese and now waiting for our big eggs. And I'm looking forward to taking some goose deviled eggs to church myself. haha! Great idea!
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Sunflower on April 4, 2009 at 8:06 pm
I used to have a source for goose eggs -I am allergic to chicken eggs and even worse to duck eggs – but not goose eggs! They were a delicious way to have a tasty egg!!! Wish I could still get them!
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janaeel on May 24, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Ive had goose eggs as well and i enjoy them but I thought i would share that I once as a boy had a 21 egg omelet made from quail eggs from the quail we raised at the time. As for me an egg is an egg is an egg.

Janaeel

More Homesteading Dialogue

(The folloing is from messages between myself and another homesteadblogger.)
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Original message from aplainpath:

I just found your blog this morning and will be returning when I have more time to read. My husband is military, so we feel like we've been putting off our dream of living the way your family is, in order to go where our country sends us. We just moved to SC the end of last summer, from doing 3 years in an apartment in Germany. Russ, my husband, said that was enough and flew back to find us a place to start. ha! We are on 3.5 acres for now, but are planning to do what we can with it.

I ordered chicks, ducks and geese from McMurray. We've also bought 3 rabbits, looking to have meat rabbits. Russ is reading on beef cattle right now, thinking of getting a calf or two to raise. And we're putting in a garden, have fruit trees, grapevines,etc. Feel so blessed with what God has given us here! We don't know yet where we will retire, but we're planning a larger piece of land and building our own log cabin. Not a kit, a do our own logs and everything kind of log cabin. ha! Russ went to a class out in WA, http://www.loghomebuilders.org/. If you haven't seen it, you might want to check it out. Maybe good resource for your boys for the future as well.

Okay, said all that to say, I'll definitely be returning to your blog and appreciate all your posts and photos. A good resource for us beginners.

And thank you for your testimony. We were saved (born again) by God's grace about 8 years ago now.

Thanks again!

Kelly

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Thanks for the encouragement!

You all sound a lot like us and I enjoyed checking out your blog just now. You have a beautiful family.

I still feel like a "beginner" myself, but when I look back at all my old posts I am amazed at how much the Lord has let us do!

We got some Buff Orpingtons from McMurray last June and now they are big, beautiful and laying eggs! I will try to post some pictures of them soon.

I will definitely check out that log house site. (Thanks) One of our dreams is to build a bit further back on our property and we have wondered if we could do something like a log house.

By the way, we also now attend a Baptist church that is independent, although I don't think it is exactly like the churches that generally classify themselves as Independent Baptists. I have some issues with how the "once saved always saved" ideas are presented sometimes.

I will add you to our friend list as well. A few of the posts I have marked as only "friends" can see, mostly ones with close-ups of the children. (We probably really have no reason to be concerned, but I shudder to think about some of the evil people out there in the internet.)

If you want to see more pictures of my children you can see the posts in the "Who We Are" category now. They are mostly out dated now, but you can see what they looked like a year or so ago. It's amazing how fast they grow and change! I'm sure my 9 year old and 11 year old would love to play with your children! (And my 1 year old when he gets just a bit bigger.)

I'll look forward to following your blog, now that I know about you.

God bless,

Eric

Timothy Is Over a Year Old!

This is not as detailed as my old "Spotlight" posts when I spotlighted each of the children, but I wanted to do a small "Spotlight" like post. I don’t have many pictures of Timothy loaded on my computer, but I did have this one of him playing the piano a couple of months ago.



Here he is in his high chair getting ready for his first birthday cake:



He enjoyed his first birthday cake:




Maybe we enjoyed him enjoying his cake more than he actually enjoyed it!





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3 comments
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Judy on March 26, 2009 at 9:32 am
Oh he is so adorable!!! I remember my boys first birthday he loved his cake as well. It is fun to watch them destroy the cake isnt it? Keep the photos coming I really enjoy your blogs. At least the weather is starting to get better here in KY. Yeah no more ice storms. lol
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~Melissa on March 26, 2009 at 10:04 pm
I can't believe he's so big already. I recall your decision to have more children and I think you've done good! Just warms my heart! Enjoy your family…

Warmly,

~Melissa
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HSB Front Porch on March 27, 2009 at 10:34 am
I can hardly believe it has been a year already!!!!

How precious!

I also wanted to ask you if you would like to be a Featured Blogger for me. If so, you can pm me or email me directly at

senioreditor@homesteadblogger.com

Thanks and enjoy your weekend.

~Chas

Remembering the Winter of 2008-09 Including THE Ice Storm

Now that it is officially Spring, I would like to reflect a bit on the past winter we just experienced. We actually had a winter for the ages, but somehow I neglected to chronicle any of those days that will long be remembered by people in this region. In some ways it seems that winter flew by but I guess we were just busy making it through it all, here at Pure Water Hollow.

Old Man Winter visited us early with snowy weather before Thanksgiving on November 23rd through the 26th. We also saw snow on December 8th, 12th, and 16th (but we did not have a white Christmas). The local school system had to cancel a total of 5 days for snow before Christmas vacation, which was rather unusual; it was a hint of things to come.

We didn’t see any interesting winter weather again until the middle of January. But beginning at that time all the way well into February, winter was not in doubt. There was a bit of snow January 14th and 15th, but the temperatures were the main item of note with a string of below freezing days until the 22nd. We supposedly had several nights below zero but the lowest I saw on the thermometer at Pure Water Hollow was 4 degrees on the 17th. The temperature, along with freezing rain and snow showers, canceled church on the 18th. The water pipes in our home froze up toward the end of the severe cold snap during the 21st and 22nd. In contrast, on Friday the 23rd temps got up to 66 degrees and our new chickens laid their first eggs!

After a nice weekend with sun and upper 30s, snow hit again on Monday the 26th. It wasn’t much snow, but it was enough to call off the local school systems again. The big news was the winter storm warning that the National Weather Service issued that evening. Most folks around here seemed to take it with a grain of salt. "Those warnings are always over rated," was the predominant sentiment at Wal-Mart that evening.

We woke up on Tuesday, January 27th with everything covered in ice. The radio confirmed that the road in front of our house was closed down along with nearly every other road in our county. Electricity had gone out for many the night before, but our power did not go dark until 6:25pm on the 27th. The power lines were covered with up to 2 inches of ice which was causing some electric poles to actually snap and the weighted trees brought down other lines! On the 28th we stood outside in the freezing rain (away from tall trees) and just listened to the trees all around us snap and pop. It sounded like we were in a war zone with gun shots going off every 20 seconds or so, as trees and limbs came crashing down! It was a very eerie experience.

This storm turned out to be the worst natural disaster in the history of our county! (According to the official dignitaries that keep track of such things.)

The roads were closed for days with the threat of arrests for folks trying to get out on them. Apparently it was impossible to drive on the roads due to the trees that were falling all over them. During the height of the storm on the 28th our volunteer fire department tried to respond to a wreck. It took the men 3 hours to go 5 miles down the road in front of our house, with two chain saws cutting the way. Trees were falling as fast as they were being cut, and it took the firemen another 2 hours to return back down the same road they had just cleared! At one time the radio reported that 5,888 trees were blocking the state and county roads in our county! 350 of those trees were reported down across our 10 miles of road in front of Pure Water Hollow, and 150 trees were down on the road across the 5 miles of road from the four-lane to Pure Water Hollow!

The power was out for much of the county and for many of our neighbors until February 8th! That was an incredible 14 days for some homes as near as just a few miles from us! Fortunately our power came back on at 10:25 am on the 29th, after just 40 hours. Our home is on one of the main circuits of a main line and we have almost never had our power go out during the 17 years we have been here, so this incident was easily the longest amount of time we have ever been without the power grid!

We did fine through it all, with our propane heat, artisian well water, oil lamps, a well stocked pantry and our grill on the front porch for cooking. Others did not fare so well. Matthew went with our fire department on Saturday the 31st to check on folks and bring water where needed. There were still so many without power and in need that they continued checking on folks on Sunday, February 1st. I went along to help on Sunday and I was amazed at how terrible the roads still were and how many homes were still with no power. The next week we started hearing of nearby casualties due to the ice storm! A man about 5 miles from us died on Feb. 3rd with no electricity to run his oxygen machine, and another man about 6 miles down the other road passed away after a heart attack trying to clear trees from the road! Thankfully those were the only two fatalities in our county related to the storm.

Amid all the danger an ice storm brings, there are always some interesting pictures to be taken. I wish we had taken some pictures of the damage done by the ice, but we weren’t thinking about it at the time. Erica did take several shots of the amazing natural beauty of a frozen world.

Here is an example of what nearly every pine limb looked like:



And here is an interesting shot of a red flower from an early blooming quince bush:



How about a close-up:



In this next picture you can see the sheets of ice that gradually slid off our metal roof as the sun warmed it:



In addition to the ice of January 27th-28th we also had snow on January 30th and on February 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th! The biggest accumulation of snow during this time was only about 2 inches on Feb. 3rd, but with the temperatures mostly below freezing the entire time and so much ice all over everywhere, all the new snow just added insult to the injury of the ice storm!

The cameras were back out on February 3rd and 4th for that 2 inch snow.

I thought this was cute of a Light Brahma hen drinking from her waterer without getting out in the snow:



This game-mixed mama hen was tough and raised a clutch of chicks she hatched in November right through all the bad weather!:



Here are the goats in front of the goat barn getting a drink after Matthew got some liquid H2O back in their trough:



Since I’m showing a representation of our various stock, I thought I would put up this one of Matthew taking care of our boar Rufus:



And here is an adorable picture of Matt and Christina on that day. I am so blessed to have children who truly love each other and aren’t afraid to show it:



Our local school system had classes during only 8 days in January and missed the first week into February! Our Sunday church services were canceled twice during that time. We then experienced a beautiful week of spring-like weather with days in the 60s and 70s from Feb. 7th -14th, and nice days in the 50s from the 15th – 18th. We had snow showers on the 19th, 21st, 22nd(2 inches which again canceled church), 23rd, 28th, March 1st, 2nd, and cold temperatures when there was no snow. On Feb. 11th we had a severe wind storm which knocked power out for most of the county (no school again) and on the 18th we had a severe thunder storm with a sizeable accumulation of nickel sized hail!

We had a string of wonderful weather from March 4th thru the 11th with four of the days in the 70s and 2 days into the 80s! It reached 84 on Saturday March 7th the day we attended a Christian music festival called “Winter Jam”. Winter was not finished with us yet, however.

After such beautiful summer-like days, our biggest snowfall of the year came on March 12th/13th. The 6 inches of sticky snow that fell overnight did not stay around long, but it sure was pretty while it was here! Since it came on a Thursday, we only missed 1 more day of school from that one. The last official week of winter was a mix of dreary/rainy days in the mid 50s and a couple of sunny days in the mid 70s.

Here are a few pictures of that wet 6 inch snow:





In some ways, the winter of 08-09 was not overly remarkable. We at Pure Water Hollow Homestead were not greatly affected by our severe weather this winter. However, when you throw in the devastation caused by the ice storm, it becomes one of the most remarkable winters in the history of Kentucky!

To summarize our winter this year, between November 20th and March 20th we saw 30 days with some snow, but only once with snow more than 2 inches. We also saw at least 25 days that were above the mid 60s. We had an ice storm that covered everything with 2 inches of ice, snapped power poles like toothpicks, closed all roads in the county, and knocked out power to everyone (some for 14 days). Later we saw a wind storm that knocked out power to many, and a thunderstorm that left piles of hail and knocked out power to some. Our biggest snowfall was 6 inches on March 13th (which didn’t cut out the power to anyone that we heard of). Throughout these 4 months of winter, all of our livestock did fine. It was a chore sometimes to keep the animals drinking water in a liquid state, but we managed. We butchered some of our chickens and hogs, sold many piglets, the sows were re-bred, the goats were bred for the first time, and our new chickens began laying eggs. Life at Pure Water Hollow kept right on going through winter, and the Lord helped us each step of the way!

Personally, I enjoy snow (but not the very, very cold temps). I would have liked to have seen at least one very heavy snow in the two foot range like we used to have in the 1990s. It would have also been nice if we had had several more decent snows in that 6 inch range. Overall, I thought the 08-09 winter was a pretty nice winter for us. At least we had many snowy days, which had become rare around here in recent winters. Perhaps in the meteorological history books, this winter will be the marking point of when the rough, snowy winters began hitting eastern Kentucky once again. One can only hope!

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5 comments
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Marcia on March 24, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Thank you so much for sharing.. I enjoyed your post very much…

God Bless,
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Trixi on March 24, 2009 at 7:28 pm
I also enjoyed your post. Thanks for sharing and I am so glad your family faired well.

Blessings,

Trixi
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Debbie on March 24, 2009 at 10:18 pm
You did a fantastic job on this winter write up and the pictures very very good to. I wish I could say our winter is over with but we are still getting snow. At least it's not sticking on the ground today.

Thanks

Debbie
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Judy on March 26, 2009 at 9:36 am
beatiful pictures of the ice storm. you made it look pretty. lol glad that is behind us know and hopefully next year it wont return!! God bless you and your family and keep those lovely pictures coming. I really enjoy them.
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karen in MS on April 14, 2009 at 10:46 am
I just stumbled across your blog and thought I'd leave a comment on this post. I live in South MS and have never gotten to experience snow like you have, but I have experienced an ice storm! We had one down here several years ago and I got some great pictures. It didn't stay cold very long (only a few days), but the damage the ice did took weeks to clean up. I also can remember the limbs breaking off trees and sounding like gun shots. I think we were without power about 16 days, but it really didn't faze us. We had plenty to eat and I cooked on my cast iron skillets over the gas fire in the fireplace. It was fun, lol.

Egg-cellent Update

We have been covered over with eggs here at Pure Water Hollow! Last summer we changed out our chicken flock with some chicks from McMurray Hatchery. They arrived at our post office June 24th, 2008, so the hens are now pretty much full grown. We purchased breeds that are good dual-purpose birds. Jersey Giants, Light Brahmas, and Buff Orpingtons are more known for their meat, so we weren’t really sure how many eggs we would be getting.

We have 5 Jersey Giant hens, 5 Light Brahma hens, 4 Buf Orpington hens, and 3 Partridge Rock hens from McMurray. I have been very impressed with their first month of laying. (We have since added a couple of Dominique and Australorp hens to the mix, but I’m not sure how many eggs they are contributing.) The first week that they really started laying was 2/15 – 2/21 with 53 eggs. The last week of February was 71 eggs. The next week was 90 eggs, and then last week we got 105 eggs!

I have sold 10 dozen of the eggs at work, so far. I am only asking $1.50 per dozen, but that is $15.00 already, and every little bit helps. Hopefully the word will get out and I will be able to sell many more.

We also have a game hen setting on 10 Buff Orpington eggs, so we will see if we can hatch out some pure-bred Buff Orpingtons. We secluded the Orpington hens for three weeks with an Orpington rooster before using the eggs for hatching to ensure the eggs wouldn’t be fertilized by our Jersey Giant or Light Brahma roosters.

We have also gotten 6 goose eggs now. The first one was on March 8th. They started to lay in a nest in the barn, but have since begun laying in different places. I’m afraid there may be other goose eggs laying around that we have not found. We have found one of the duck eggs, also, but they seem to be hiding their eggs better.

I like this picture of our first goose egg with some of the chicken eggs:



I didn’t realize how much larger a goose egg is than a chicken egg!

I have many more posts I would like to write about our chickens, as I have been enjoying caring for them and watching them very much. Perhaps I will get some time soon.

Thank you, Lord, for blessing us with our eggs and chickens!

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1 comment
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amanda on March 20, 2009 at 1:13 pm
We have had an increase in egg production in the past few weeks as well. We are averaging about 8 eggs a day compared to the 4 were were getting a day. We only have 9 layers.

We just bought 5 more chickes to add to the layers (3 Americanas & 2 Rhode Island Reds). I pray that the Reds aren't roosters. We seem to have an over population with roosters :- (

Have a blessed day in THE LORD!

Amanda <><

Matthew 6:33

Duck, Duck, Goose

Instead of just a children’s game of duck, duck, goose, we can now play on our homestead a game of duck, goose, duck, goose, duck, goose, duck, gander! These are real, live ducks and geese I’m talking about. A fellow traded them for one of our piglets, and I think it was a good trade. They are all relatively young birds so we should be able to get much use from them.

There are two Chineese geese, and two production Toulouse geese. The Chinese are Whites and both females and the Toulouse are Grays, a goose and a gander. Both breeds are capable of breeding naturally and hatching off goslings. The gander should work well with all three hens, so I hope we will get to see little goslings swimming around our pond someday.

The Chinese are known for being prolific layers, averaging around 50 to 60 eggs per year. That doesn’t sound like many to this chicken raiser, but I guess that is pretty good for a goose. I don’t think ours have started laying yet, being young. The Chinese are a light-weight goose so they won’t have a lot of meat, but I’ve read that the meat is very good. The males are supposed to be between 5.5 and 14 pounds. They are also good foragers, which is a good thing for our setting.

The Toulouse are a heavy breed with the male weighing 22 pounds or more, according to one book. It should be a wonderful meat bird! He does not have to worry about that, as I want to keep him around for a while to see if we can hatch off any young. They are good foragers as well, and should do great in the wild. I think that they are the prettiest of our new fowl.

Here is a picture of the geese:



We’re not exactly sure about the breeds of our ducks. We think that the two white ones are Pekins, but they do not seem to be as big as I would picture Pekins. Maybe they are young enough to still have some growing to do. The Pekin is a heavy breed of duck with the male weighing 9 pounds or more. We have females, and the one Matthew picked up seemed to be about 5 pounds. Pekins can lay upwards of 150 eggs per year, but the hens rarely go broody. (I’ve read that you can use a chicken hen to hatch off duck eggs.)

The other two ducks look like the pictures I've found of the Rouen or the Australian Spotted. The problem is the Rouen is a heavy breed but the Australian Spotted is a bantam breed. Our ducks appear to be in the middle somewhere. We will have to wait and see if they grow much more. They are very pretty ducks, though.

Here is a close-up of the ducks:



I am going to be on the lookout for a drake that might be able to breed with our four ducks. We would love to see little ducklings on the pond someday. In the meantime, we just need to keep the ducks alive. I do not yet have any secure housing for them and I’ve read that they are susceptible to many different predators. The geese are a bit more safe being bigger and more aggressive, so hopefully they will help to keep the ducks safe. We put a box with hay for them in the barn, but I do not know if they will use it.

We are excited that the Lord chose to send some waterfowl our way. I believe they will be a blessing and we are thanking God for them!

A Good Homesteading Day

Today was a good homesteading type of day.

It was only 20 degrees this morning when I went out to open up the chicken coop, but it later got up to 60! After feeding the chickens I went to town to pick up some shelled corn for the pigs and cracked corn for the chickens.

This afternoon we decided to butcher the remaining market hog that we still had. It was a warm day, but it is supposed to get back down to 20 degrees tonight with some snow, so we decided that the carcass would cool OK overnight.

Last month was the first time we butchered our own hogs here at our own homestead, but we had a fellow helping then. Today, we did it all by ourselves and everything went very well! Matthew knows what he is doing very nicely and the rest of us helped, too. (Erica stayed in with Timothy, but the other 5 of us worked and watched.) The carcass is hanging on the swing-set much like the pictures from the hog butchering post last month. We did make one improvement, though. We used a metal rod through the back legs with some weight lifting collers tightened down to spread the legs far apart. We tied the rope to this rod and used the 4-wheeler to hoist it up into the air. It worked very nicely.

I gathered 10 eggs from our chickens later in the afternoon. In the hen department we have 5 Jersey Giants, 5 Light Brahmas, 3 Partridge Rocks, and 2 Dominiques in the coop lot. We also have 4 Buff Orpington hens with a rooster down in our ravine lot. I have these separated out now so that we can get pure bred eggs that will later hatch off into more Buff Orpington chicks. (We also have another 10 hens from trading that are problem pickers which we will most likely be doing away with.)

Just before dark a few fellows came over and bought 3 of our piglets for $120. The piglets are getting pretty big and very much worth $40 a piece. These men live over an hour away from us but they say that no one is raising pigs over in their neck of the woods and were happy to find us. We still have 4 to sell. These guys said that they will likely be back to buy them in a week or so after they get some more money, but they will understand if we sell them sooner.

Over all, I thought this was a very nice homesteady type of day. Like everyday, this was a day that the Lord hath made. I did rejoice and was glad in it!

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4 comments
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sassyfras on February 22, 2009 at 6:16 am
We haven't done our own hogs. My hubby and his dad use to do their own when he was a boy here on this same farm. We did just get ours back from our butcher, he done a fine job. Do you smoke your meat or brine it?
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Mom2FarmGirls on February 22, 2009 at 10:33 am
Hello,

I have enjoyed reading your blog and seeing your pictures.

I was wondering where bouts in Eastern Ky. you lived. I am interested in buying some pigs but wouldn't want to drive to far.

My e-mail is mom_2_girls@att.net

Thanks,

Michelle
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Purewater on February 24, 2009 at 7:41 am Sassyfras asked if we smoke the meat or brine it. Last month we did not attempt to cure any of it; we just kept it all as roasts.

We are going to try to cure one of the hams from this hog. Everything we have read is that you have to cure it either with a dry solution or wet brine and then smoking is optional. We decided to try a simple wet brine of salt and brown sugar. (6 1/2 pounds salt, 2 pounds brown sugar, in a bit more than 3 gallons water for a 15 pound half ham.) We have never done this before so we'll see how it turns out!

Mom2FarmGirls: I sent you a message.
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CandyFoote on February 28, 2009 at 9:45 am
Hurry over to http://www.homesteadblogger.com/RachelsReasoning/

Today is the last day to enter her contest.

The prize is one of my ebooks!!

~Candy~