Around the homestead

Les and I have been wanting chickens for some time now, we had a flock of layers when we lived in China Valley BC, but we have been waiting to live on our own place again since we moved back, now that we are settled here, we got started this spring on our coop. It is not quite finished as Les needs to run the electrical out to it and therefore he can't do some of the finishing yet.
I have on order 50 buff orpington-my favorite! As they are coming from a hatchery and are a heritage breed they are coming unsexed, so we are hoping about half will be female and we will keep for layers and the other half males to be butchered. Buff orps are a dual purpose breed, and they are just beautiful! We also have on order 75 barred plymouth rocks, we are raising 25 for my parents for butchering as well as 25 for some dear friends for butchering, the other 25 I would like to keep a few as layers to compare their quality and frequency of laying, and some to butcher to compare the taste of the meat. We are very excited-however there is fairly long wait list from the hatchery so we will see if they get here before August of not! At least it will be in the cool of fall when we butcher! So here are a few pics of our coop-12x 16 and he still has to make the four runs.

                                             He built his own trusses

                                         

I will add a few more as the work progresses, we are running into bad weather lately and he has been so busy at work, but its getting there! Good thing our babies aren't going to be here for a month or two!

Yarn Along

Ok I know I said I would post something other than knitting, but alas I have been too busy! So here it is again, my works in progress! I had to tear out my longies three times, change my yarn and watch a tutorial on youtube to figure out what I was doing wrong! I am pleased to report that I figured it out and have already done the kitchener stitch in the gusset-which isn't perfect because I was trying to do it with a fussy baby distracting me! But I did it and it turned out good enough! I also learned how to do proper short rows-gotta love youtube! However after doing them I realized that there is a trick when doing them in the round-so I will learn that next time I knit this pattern!
I don't have a picture, but I made my mom some lovely pot holders out of the Luna yarn for mothers day as well as a bath puff for my cousin-I love the colors still and I just love working with cotton!
As far as reading goes, I picked up a copy of Maryjane's Farm magazine last week and read that and I also just started reading a book off my shelf about Florence Nightingale. It is pouring rain here this week, so I actually might get some knitting, reading, housework, sewing etc done this week!
I had to take a picture of my recent garage sale find-a beautiful oak highchair-I'm so in love!!!

Be sure to visit Ginny's Yarn Along to see what all the other ladies are working on and reading!