Checkered Giants

Whitney here. Lindsay hasn't been too good with updating the blog because she's been busy with the bathroom project, like me. Yes, the bathroom is still an ongoing project but it's finally ALMOST finished! We just need to finish the window and do some grout touch up on some spots. Oh and install our new mirror but in order to do that, we need to cut out a hole in the wall. Yeah... We're putting that off right now.

Anyway, enough about the bathroom. That's not what I'm here to talk about.

Lindsay finally got her own pair of Checkered Giants. She's been eyeing this breed for quite awhile and even got a pet Checkered Giant, named Roxy. Now, Roxy is one evil bunny. We call her "Whitney Biter" for a reason. Thankfully, Roxy is going to find a new home because she is way too neurotic for us. She is definitely a pet bunny, not a breeder rabbit. She goes berserk when she doesn't get "play time" - she pulls on her cage bars constantly. I'm always

worried she's going to break a tooth. She has an OCD about chewing on the bars if she doesn't get out. She does it constantly, once to the point where her mouth started bleeding. That was the final straw for me. As for Lindsay, her final straw was when Roxy kept pulling at the cage bars at nighttime when she was trying to sleep. So we put her on Craigslist and someone e-mailed. They want to meet her next Thursday so hopefully the meeting goes well and Roxy goes home with them.

I got off on a tangent there. Lindsay has been looking for a pair of show quality, pedigreed Checkered Giants for awhile. She was complaining to me that she's been looking all over for breeders and could only find one or two on the west coast.

So I pulled up my trusty directory and found one close to us, Dazzle Bunny. It's in Eatonville, a little over an hour drive but a lot closer than the other breeders Lindsay found on the east coast. :-P

Anyway, Lindsay e-mailed them and was thrilled to find out that they had a grand champion blue buck AND a junior black doe for sale. So she bought both. The blue buck is definitely very beautiful. He has a nice deep blue color - his name is Banshee. Lindsay thinks she wants to use a Greek theme for her Checkered Giants so she's naming the little black doe, Athena. Athena is around three months old and will be shown for

awhile, until she reaches breeding age, then Lindsay will breed her to Banshee. Lindsay is also thinking about naming her rabbitry "Mount Olympus Giants" or someth

ing like that. She hasn't decided for sure yet.

Let's see if I can figure out how to put pictures in this blog... Awesome, I think I figured it out! :-) The top left picture is Banshee. It's not a good picture -

it doesn't show his blue color very well. The picture to the right is Athena. She's a beauty.

I should also put up my Champagne D'Argents pictures while I'm at it.

The picture to the left is my Champagne D'Argent doe. I still haven't decided on a name for her. I'm trying to decide if I should use a French name theme since the Champagnes originated from France.

The Champagne D'Argent to the right is my buck. If I go with a French name theme, his name might be Pierre. If not, I'm calling him Bandit.

Take caution when you pass him, for he sprays with accuracy.

Oooookay.

So it's been too long since I've updated and although I'm tired and I have a headache, I'll force myself to do a little ditty here.

We didn't end up acquiring these said llamas because quite frankly WTF?! Too many other projects to finish up and though it was a great opportunity, the timing just wasn't right for us. I definitely think we made the right choice. We just finally got all 4 frames up on the shed and tomorrow I'm going to start measuring siding and hopefully be able to do some of that. I would love to have the shed mostly done by Saturday so I can slap a temporary roof on top and start moving stuff into it.

There's also the issue of the massive duck acquisitions we've made recently (our muscovies, khaki campbells, and our buff). We need to revamp the living quarters for our chickens and ducks. Though I love the idea of free ranging them, right now they are making an absolute mess of the front of the house because they hang out begging for food! As a result our walkways and front steps are just littered with poop. Very gross. So we're going to need to brainstorm and design some solutions to this while still allowing them access to fresh grasses and ranging area.

Third project would be the fence. We have bought a lot of the supplies we need for the fence but we just haven't had a lot of time to work on it. We even got two gates, though they are too small to serve as a front entrance so we may have to build a front gate from wood, etc. We have a bunch of holes dug down on one side so we need to measure and cut posts, and then concrete them, not to mention start affixing the fencing material. WHEW! I could use about 50 more hands and 24 more hours in my day!

Even with all the craziness though it's been extremely rewarding. We're slowly getting our house situated and the bathroom is comign along slowly but surely. I can't really complain and when it's all said and done I'll be able to said that we actually did it with our own bare hands. There's a pride that comes with that. And I wouldn't trade that feeling for any apartment man could build.

Llamas, fencing, and AHHH!

So we are getting llamas! Four to be exact. It's strange. Every person I've told this to gives me a sideways look as though I might be seriously losing my sanity. Which is a distinct possibility. But ANYWAYS -- I found free llamas on craigslist and seized opportunity. They're coming with an impressive amount of free supplies and hay to come with them. The woman is even giving us free fencing. Apparently, she's an older woman and is downsizing her farm. So her loss is our gain in this particular aspect. I don't anticipate that we will keep all of them permanently but for the time being they can help us eat down the property and protect our other animals from coyotes or persistant stray dogs.

But of course... we don't have a pen set up yet. Eh ha-hahaha-ha. How hard could it be really? Putting up a fence? Dig some holes, plop in a post, some cement, staple the fence to said post. Riiiiight. Except after some

blazing hot weather, it finally decides to rain. Right smack dab on the week that I need to get this fence in for incoming llamas. Funny. Reeeal funny Washington. Plus i

discovered that concrete is NOT cheap and y

ou need quite a large quantity of it for fencing. SIGH. But we persevere and move forward. Seems we might need to postpone the pick up of the llamas anyhow because the woman called and said this Sunday wouldn't work and Saturday doesn't work for us, so again, might need to push it out. Which at this rate would not be a bad thing. We still need to build a lean-to shelter as well as pen for incoming goats. We're slating goats for next month though.

So it's been feeling like a lot of crunchtime recently but with the bad weather its putting a greater strain on our time resources. In two short weeks I'll be going back to work for the school district and our schedules will be even more hectic than they are right now! We're pushing to finish the shed but Hank is laid up with a bad back and while Whitney and I can finish up the framing, we really need his expertise to move

forward with the siding and roofing part of the project. Which, because its raining, really needs to happen sooner rather than later.

This is our first harvest though we've collected quite a bit since this picture was taken. Even made our first zucchini bread!

A story about Ducks

A little tidbit of information about our four ducks, Quasi, Susie Q and their ducklings.

When we first looked up the information on Craigslist it sounded like a wonderful set up: a breeding pair with two baby ducklings. The price was very reasonable so we took off, excited, for a tiny little town called Elma. Now there's not much in Elma except for a nuclear reactor that never got finished (funding dried up 18 months before completion) and a bunch of little farming communities. Quaint. Perfect to find ducks! I was excited, imaging how cute the ducks would be, tucked in under our arms as we secured them into the wire cages for transportation back home. Whitney was equally excited for the duck's slug-eating properties.

We get to the woman's farm, which is a beautiful piece of property nestled against wetlands and forest. She leads us into the barn and oh my god! MUSCOVY DUCKS ARE ENORMOUS! Call me naive but I had been thinking along the lines of Mallards or call ducks. What Whitney forgot to tell me is that these ducks (especially the drake) is roughly the size of a cocker spaniel. Yes, the dog kind of spaniel.

I look at the box we brought and then back at the drake. There was no way it was going to work. The little mama and her babies, sure. But this drake was BIG and had no intention of "coming quietly." Luckily the woman must have gotten a special certification in duck wrangling because she pounced on this giant bird and in the midst of a flurry of feathers and indignant squawking, she had him captured and shoved him into a larger box she thankfully had on hand. The ducklings were harder because they're tiny and fast but eventually she had them rounded up. Then we were on our merry way. The entire way back I'm wondering how on earth we're supposed to get these big birds into our pen.

Fortunately I turned out not to be too shabby at catching birds myself but I'm impressed at the Drake's sheer size and strength! Now we've settled them in, dug a little makeshift pond, and they seem to be adjusting fairly though I still can't get them to use the dog igloo shelter. The mama had one at her old home so I'm not sure why she isn't using this one. Might be an access issue with the lip being too high. We'll have to experiment a little.

Some before and preliminary pictures

So this will be known as our infamous "before" picture of the house. The front still needs a lot of work, finishing up the front beds (although we've now planted some pretty baby bushes in there) and getting the clutter organized and put away. With the moving of roommates one month after moving in, it's been a little hectic with furniture and misc household items getting moved around.
Thank god we're having a yard sale this weekend! (1735 26th Ave NE if any of you are interested)

I'm so glad we're no longer housing our chickens in THIS! Our little temporary makeshift "we're-goddamn-sick-and-tired-of-chickens-escaping-in-the-house-and-pooping-everywhere" pen got pulled down this last week and the chickens got moved into their more permanent chicken pen. They even have a bona-fide coop now instead of plastic bins! I know, so fancy ;-)

Our garden seems to be doing really well and I'm bummed we didn't plant a bigger one this year. Next year we'll be planning ahead for a very large cropage so this year we'll just have to make do with our moderate but successful one. Plus we have oodles of berries to pick and process in September. Blackberries, Salmon berries, huckleberries and maybe a raspberry bush? I need to go back and see if I can find that one. All in all, I'm quite happy with our thriving zucchini plant, sugar snap peas, radishes, carrots, jalapaneos, corn, and tomatoes. We've also got two different kinds of lettuce.

Here are the eight chickens (from top left to bottom right): Barty, the Wyandotte, the evil red bitch (though she's grown on me quite a bit since her more evil baby stages), the black Austrolop, the black sexlink (affectionately known as Dinner #3), the golden sexlink (definitely Dinner #1!!), and the two Ameraucanas.

The Urban Homestead

Hmm. So here we are, starting a blog. We’ve decided to start a blog about our adventures in homesteading because self-reliance is becoming more and more important in our society. I won’t use this as an opportunity to get preachy about economic woes and the like, but you all know what I’m talking about. It started with four people united by common goals and a dilapidated avocado green house.

I convinced my landlord to let me rent it, until I could secure some kind of financing over the next two years to buy it. The house was nothing to throw a party over but it was nestled on four acres of beautiful property, shouldering state-protected wetlands and a few neighbors on the other side. And best of all? It is tucked just inside the city limits, even located on a bus line! So, with a little more bravado than common sense, I moved in and proceeded to task about getting appliances in and bringing the house up to livable standards. I have big plans for this place, oh yes I do.

So I convinced my fiancée to move in with me and she (being almost as crazy as I am) proceeded to get just as excited about the potential of our new acquisition. Then we sprinkled in a couple roommates and voila, we are well on our way to real community!

So here we are: Lindsay, Whitney, Hank, and Travis.


Here’s the countdown:
4 people
5 ferrets
2 dogs
8 chickens
1 rabbit
… and counting!

Because we’re technically still within the city limits, we have done our best to maintain a low profile. There are statues that limit how many animals we can own, etc. But with four acres we feel that we have ample space to create our own urban homestead! We’ll be updating this blog with pictures of our projects, progress, and disasters!