Filed under: News & Resources
Just wanted to plug my all-time favorite charity, Heifer International. Here’s what they can do with just a $20 donation:
Purchase a Flock of Chicks for a Family
In places like Tanzania are struggling to raise a family on just 50 cents a day. With the training and chicks they received from Heifer, egg sales have boosted their daily income to $2, so they can now buy food and still pay school fees. Now, through passing on the gift, all of the children in their village are going to school.
Heifer helps many hungry families with a starter flock of 10 to 50 chicks. A good hen can lay up to 200 eggs a year – plenty to eat, share or sell.
Because chickens require little space and can thrive on readily available food scraps, families can make money from the birds without spending much. And chickens help control insects and fertilize gardens.
Photo courtesy of Heifer International/Darcy Kiefel Sveta Musaelyan (in blue) and her friend, Marinka, pose with eggs and a chicken in their village of Shaumiani in the Republic of Georgia.
Heifer International’s goal is to do more than give basic aid. They equip people to take care of themselves and have them “pass on the gift” to others in their community.
Visit the Heifer International website for more information on how they go about their mission to end world hunger.
Happy Holidays!
Filed under: Uncategorized
I like winter weather if it involves change–storms switching to heavy fog switching to wind switching to something. Not so much if it’s the same day after day. So here’s another fall picture to liven things up:
Filed under: Chick Pics
The backyard under a thick coat of fog:
Click on image to enlarge.
We planted a winter salad garden from seed about two months ago. We’ve been eating fresh homegrown greens for weeks now. There was even enough salad in this little patch to bring enough for everyone at Thanksgiving (11 people).
The chickens LOVE fresh, young greens. We put up a protective cover to keep them out (the green netting/PVC pipe thing standing upright in the image). You can see my Significant Other–or, his nice backside–picking the salad while everyone hovers:
The chickens spend a good minute or two every morning around the salad garden, staring at the plants through the netting. We have to shoo them away while we harvest enough salad for two people (just a minute or two), as they will use that window to try to snatch a plant right from our hands:
See how deep yellow their legs are looking? That means they’re almost ready to lay eggs. When they start laying eggs the color will fade to a paler yellow.
I expect Wanda, Frida and Flo to lay their first eggs within the next month!
Filed under: Stories
It’s now a tradition–my husband and I sit at the window that overlooks the backyard every morning now. We watch the chickens forage and The Dog follow them as we drink our coffee:
Filed under: The Coop
This is our backyard on a daily basis. It already feels normal:
The tarp is over the chicken coop as winter weather protection.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I took this picture two weeks ago. Now almost all the leaves have fallen, but before they did, the color on our neighbor’s tree was amazing:
Filed under: Uncategorized
It’s officially fog season until February. This may be the last blue sky day we’ll see here in Sacramento for awhile–it was amazing:
