Chicken Scraps Blog

Antique Lafter Rose I am happy to announce that I am now offering live Lemongrass and antique rose plants on my Etsy shop!  Currently I only have a couple of Lafter roses available, but I am going to try to get around to rooting some Thousand Beauties (a light pink climbing rose) and Rev d'Or (a light yellow climber); possibly also some Old Blush.  These are all antique roses, which means they are old, hardy varieties which are disease resistant and grow on their own roots. I also hope to add mint in the near future. Visit my shop to purchase or for more information! CCShop Live Plants

Well...  here I am making apologies again.  You can tell when I am staying busy farming, and when I am just writing about being busy, because when I'm truly busy, I don't post on my blogs!  Anyway, thankfully I usually have my phone on me and take lots of pictures, so these will give some idea of what we've been up to.  Enjoy! March and April were filled with: Trying to get good advertising pictures of Buttercup (so we could sell her heifer.) Spending time with younger siblings.

In breeding Border collies, my first goal is to produce quality puppies, rather than quantity.  Thus I chose my two dogs from reputable breeders who breed healthy working dogs.  To make entirely sure though that Cleone and Duncan are free from the dreaded collie eye anomaly , I sent in blood samples last week to a lab in Tallahassee. Today I got the test results and they are both normal, non-carriers! To view results, click here .

     Pretty much everyone will have to deal with an infection of some sort at some point in their life.  This is especially true if you live on a farm, for you will not only have to watch over yourself and your family, but your animals will also claim your attention.  We have had our fair share of infections, and while prevention is always better than cure, we have found an herbal cure that works almost every time.  In fact, we have not had to apply a topical antibiotic for about eight years now, and rarely have we used an internal antibiotic.      This is because we use an herb called Goldenseal .  Goldenseal is an herb in the buttercup family which has been used for centuries, especially by the American Indians.  It is an effective help or cure for a wide variety of disorders ranging from the common cold to mouthsores; stomach problems to bad cuts/ scrapes.

For some time now, I have toyed with the idea of creating a farm newsletter.  A friend sends one out every week, and I am always inspired by reading it, even though much of it is filled with everyday details of life on the farm.  A recipe here and there; a reference to a new project you can see on their website; how many chicks their heritage breed turkeys hatched this spring; the number of meat chickens they have for sale, and expected butchering dates; all these combine with her funny stories, and diary of what they did every day of the last week to make a fun, and instructive newsletter. Finally, I decided to take the plunge and try writing my own.  After blogging for several years now, it shouldn’t be too hard.  Mine will be different, and I plan to send it out once a month instead of weekly, but I expect this to be a fun way to keep up with my readers.  Keep an eye out too for coupons to my online store that will be exclusively available through this ne...

Over the last few years, I have been hearing more and more about A2/A2 cattle, and the health benefits of the milk, but I always kind of passed it over as rather silly; I mean, seriously, how can a genetic difference in the cow make a difference in how healthy the milk is?  I also did not like that the company who tests cattle for this gene was also the one doing the research.  But then recently, some friends who run an excellent natural farm in Lake City have started talking about it.  Apparently, a customer interested in buying a heifer asked if any of their cows were A2/A2, and when they tested, they discovered that 5 out of 6 of their cows were. Now, the interesting thing about this, is that quite a few people who have reactions to cow's milk, even raw cow's milk, have told them that they can drink milk from their cows with no problems.  I always assumed that this was because of the high level of cleanliness, and the good quality grass/ minerals they f...

Announcing a new addition to Chicken Scraps Shop :  Easy Birth Tea Easy Birth Tea is a special blend of herbs to help with pregnancy, birth and recovery.  It is safe for use in humans, horses, goats, sheep and cattle.  (SOLD AS ANIMAL SUPPLEMENT ONLY.)

I have always liked the idea of a self-sufficient lifestyle.  (Sufficient as regards food; we will always be dependent upon God!)  Saturday, we made another step towards supplying our own food. LilyAnn and Justice helped me butcher a sheep. Since my ewe died last year, he was an extra mouth to feed, kind of mean, and very healthy, so we decided it was time for him to go to the freezer.  And rather than paying someone else to butcher him, and having to cart him over there, we decided to just do it ourselves. This photo was taken several months ago. (WARNING:  Images include a (dead) sheep being processed, and children helping with the work.)

I've mentioned that we had to bottle feed the whole last litter of puppies because Inez got a bad case of mastitis from a severe scratch on her teat, received in a fight with an old feral tom-cat.  (The cat paid for it- we found it laying out in the front of our property.)  Well, it appears that she has successfully injured herself again- this time a different teat. The injury (after being thoroughly cleaned and had aloe vera put on it)

I finally got around to making this short video of how we milk our cow.  Bo was the camera man for most of it, and the music came from Internet Archive.  Enjoy!

Raw (or cooked), wheat-free granola  Here is our (alright, my little brother's) recipe for granola. This granola, unlike most others, is wheat- free. There is no flour in it, so it's much more crumbly than traditional granola, especially when raw. We originally would bake it and eat it with milk, but then my grandmother discovered how good it is raw, and so now I like it far better that way. Enjoy! (By the way, in case you can't tell, this is the mega batch version we make for our family (for the curious, it lasts us about three and a half breakfasts). Of course, you could cut it down to a smaller size if you'd like, but it keeps quite well on the counter, even when raw.) 30 c. uncooked oats (two 15 c. containers) 2 c. honey 7 prunes (my grandmother didn't put any in hers) 1 T. vanilla 1 T. cinnamon 1/2 c. dry coconut, optional Raisins or Craisins (The latter are really delicious in it.) 2 c. coconut oil Walnuts, optional Sliced or...

My top five reasons for a family to live in the country on a farm: 1:  Children learn to work.   The Bible says that it is good for children to work.  It is manifestly obvious that a person who learns to work as a child is far better off when he (or she) grows up, than one who was treated as being either incapable of, or above work.  If a child has everything done for him, then he will receive a rude awakening to real life when he grows up and has to support himself and probably a family.  Of course, a child can be taught responsibility and learn to be hardworking in the city too- help out with the laundry, sweep the floor, do the dishes, shovel snow, etc, etc, but the country provides a much greater incentive and outlet for energy.  In the country on a farm, a child works because he has to, or the farm falls to pieces because Mama simply can't do it all.  Don't view work as a bad thing- love it, and teach your children the same thing.  ...