There goes my modern art lawn sculptures!

We said goodbye to our chicken's yesterday. It is sad, but they will have a good home with friends of ours. We have been having a small drama with our neighbor to the south of us. He is fairly polite, but it seems that our chicken coop, which was previously a shed, sits just over our property line, meaning it is completely on his! Rehoming them seemed to be the best and most affordable solution.

He did have his property surveyed and if the marks are correct, the entire building is over the line and the shipping container that sits in our back yard is partially over as well. I don't understand how that is possible, considering our house is the oldest house on the street (and was owned by the family the street was named after, we suspect) so we are very sure that the shed and container have been there nearly as long as the house! I think he was bothered by the rooster's crowing and rather than say as much, decided to tackle the problem from another angle.

He was also bothered by the junk in our yard. I know I am, so I can understand his frustration. If he is going to sell his house, you do have to drive by our house first and the impression you get of the neighborhood isn't the best. From the street, you can clearly see that it looks like half a dozen children live here and their parent's don't care much about the property! We don't mean for it to look that way, but put an old furnace in the side yard and tuck a couple of vehicles back into the woods and it begins to look like a run down homestead. We bought our house as a very neglected repo, apparently repossessed more than once, and I am sure all the neighbors had high hopes that the new owners would fix the place up. Maybe we are slacking a bit.

Saturday, Mr. Ireland and his father spent the morning hauling several engine blocks, car doors, half a motorcycle and numerous odds and ends from behind the shed to the dump. They had been stored in the shed before we decided to use it as storage. That afternoon, he and my brother Owen hauled even more to the dump. It will take another work day, but it will get done before the snow is here. The boys and I sorted the yard toys and tucked them under the front porch, put away bikes, and Mr. Ireland moved my bags of compost and bark chips. We will put up new lattice and you won't even know the stuff is there. I did have to give up my boxes of newspapers that I had been saving for lasagna gardening. I am sure that gave our place the air of hoarders living here! Just don't go in the basement....

I have to admit that I was very irritated with our neighbor at first. Admittedly, Mr. Ireland hates yard work. Any of it. I rather enjoy it, though, and felt that it was unfair for him to be so bothered. Couldn't he see that I had just had a baby? Well, no, he couldn't, so how is he to know that we had any intention of dealing with the outside of our home? I do have to thank him for stopping by with his list of chores outlined in the city's ordinances. If I had not gone online to look up our property values, I would have forgotten to pay our taxes! Did you know you can pay borough property taxes online? I was very excited to see that.

I will also forgive him for forcing our chickens to a new home. Another family will benefit from their eggs and they have children that will love caring for them. I think that it is not the fact that the chickens had to go but more the fact that someone is telling me what to do on my own property that irritates me. I have had this dream of having a homestead or farm since I was very young. My plan after high school included a desire to work as a ranch hand! So having farm animals is fairly high on my list of wants. It is okay though. We will start again next year and double our flock size. :D

Whether or not this is our permanent home, we will finish this property and it will not be a smudge on our neighborhood. We have no intention of being "that house" any longer. I hope to invite our neighbors over someday and proudly show them around our little homestead.

Sabbath Egg

We recieved our first little egg this morning! Edward was the lucky finder of the egg. We cracked it open and it had two little yolks! We made french toast with it so everyone could say they ate the first egg.


Our little egg next to a store bought "large" egg; two little yolks!

I have a secret to share -our children primarily care for the chickens. Every day each boy does their part: Callen brings them grain and feed, Brody brings kitchen scraps and weeds from the garden, and Eddie hauls their water and scrubs the dispenser. Eddie is also the one who lets the chickens out in the morning and shuts them in at night, so he has the privilege of bringing in the eggs. Mr. Ireland and I change out straw and check on the birds every other day. We don't expect the children to look for health problems. Caring for the chickens is a responsibility that we all share.

Having chickens is very educational too. Our littlest boy, Liam, can crow just like a rooster! He is very loud. We have also had some interesting conversations about where eggs come from, how chicks get in the eggs, and why the roosters jump on the backs of the hens! There is nothing that teaches children about mating like keeping animals!

Here are some photos from the early part of September. Verity is growing quickly - she is starting to reach for everything and watches me when I eat. I am trying to hold out on feeding her solids until she is 6 months, something I find hard to do when the baby is watching every bite I take.





The other pictures are of Edward holding an enormous mushroom found in the woods. It was so big we could see it from the dining room, growing an easy one hundred feet from the house to its dark hiding place down the hill. The boys tolerate my mushroom forays. They lost interest in identifying them, but they will still come pick them with me. I just love to find out what they are. We have yet to eat what we find, but that is because I am usually pregnant or nursing an infant and I don't think it is wise to try new mushrooms in those circumstances. I also refuse to feed them to others without trying them myself. We are very good at identifying a couple of choice edibles and may be ready next year. I have found a few mushrooms on our new property that I have never found before and I am so excited. Some of them can be used as dye, something that I will try this winter with the specimens I dried after picking. I also went to one of the clinics at the local mushroom festival yesterday and learned how to grow oyster mushrooms at home. I'll share results when I get around to these projects.



All of these were found on our property! The white one on the right had an icy cold root (stipe) - odd.

Hope you are having a wonderful fall. I was told that the first official day of fall for Alaska is today. I know seasons usually are marked by an equinox, but the seasons shift much earlier here. The trees and I think that it feels like fall, don't you?