Moved!

Hello everyone, I've moved the host site for this blog. If you want to follow new posts you can find it at: http://buildestablishfill.wordpress.com Blessings!c

Our Chickens

A mother hen brooding eight chicks given to us by kind friends a month of two ago. She took them to nest somewhere outside the coop one night and only five came back in the morning. And then later on two got sick and died. We didn't feed these chicks any store starter feed, but actual food instead. I don't know if that had anything to do with it. It's amazing all the losses you have when you start raising your own food.

Again we were blessed by a neighbour who had been raising LOTS of chicks to sell. This was the last batch and at this point he was tired of raising all summer and just gave us about 30 chicks...they are hard to count and we have lost a few.

 One of the girls LOVES to look for eggs. "I go look for b'any eggs", she'll say as she marches off to the chicken coop. Unfortunately we only have one chicken right now who is the right age to be laying eggs...and she seems to be hiding them somewhere we haven't discovered yet. I'm looking forward to having many more laying hens around. It's such a blessing to have eggs produced right in our back yard.

A lot of the free chicks we are raising appear to be roosters, so much of the flock will be in the freezer before long. Hopefully we'll have one alert, but not too mean, rooster in the batch. We've been having some hawk problems, and one of the best solutions is good rooster to warn and protect the hens.

We were blessed to be given two female Silkies mixed in with the many breeds of free chicks we were given, but they are the only breeds we can clearly identify in the whole mess. We're excited for them to grow up so we can try to figure out what we have. I've wanted some Silkies for a while because they are downy and cute, and also because they are reported to be very broody and good mothers. We hope to use chickens to hatch out all our future chicks, because then the mother will take care of a lot of the work for us, and save time and resources, like heat lamps. The mothers teach them how to find food and even bring bits to them and I have often seen in neighbour's yards a rooster escorting a little family of hen and chicks all around the yard like a body guard. We'll see how all these plans work out in the end.

Blessings!

c

Mama's Medicine Chest: Miracle Skin Salve

It's rare a day goes by that we don't use Miracle Salve on something. It's affectionatly called bo-bo cream at our house, sometimes accompanied by a lot of wailing and tears. Some friends were over and while the men were talking my friend's husband got stung by a wasp. The Man said, "Oh we've some....stuff...that work great on that." He couldn't think of what it was really called and didn't want to tell another grown man we could give him some Bo-bo cream *smile*.
 I first tried this product for diaper rash, because one of the girls had a persistant case and any of the standard diaper rash creams made it SO much worse. It worked great, and slowly I found out just how MANY things it works great for.

• Sunburn
• Bee/wasp/hornet- I usually  swell up and hurt for days, but that last time I put Miracle Salve on it and finished cleaning out the car and had no other issues.)
• Rashes- I've heard it works great on poison ivy, but haven't experienced that ourselves.
• Dry skin- It won't make my eczema go away, but it will calm and sooth it.
• Bruises- Can't begin to tell you what a HUGE difference this makes, especially if you get it on there quick. Often the bruise doesn't even appear.
• Ant bites, and other bug bites- The girls and I have all gotten into ant hills this summer, you don't know the burn unless you've been there. I quickly wipe them all off in the yard and then run with the screaming child to get bo-bo cream.
• Razor burn 

Basically I use it on any skin problem that isn't oozing or bleeding and have seen great results most every time. I have learned that if it's a bruise or a bite the longer you take before you apply, the less affective it is. I've melted some down in a glass measuring cup, in a crockpot of water and then poured into chapstick tubes that I keep in my purse, so we always have some around. I use it a lot on my lips and on my face too if it's very dry. My sister had a break out on her face and she tried everything she could think of to make it go away, and nothing worked till she tried miracle salve.

I like to just buy my salve, but you can make a similar salve yourself if you are interested. Check it out here.
You can click on the Miracle Salve banner at the top of this post to buy the pre-made salve that we use. If you buy it through this link or the banner for Beeyoutiful at the side our family get a portion for the sales. Don't feel obligated to buy anything though. I have simply been so pleased with that products that I am always telling people about them, and when I found out I could get some money back for telling other people about them, I decided I would.
I have been buying from Beeyoutiful for about 5 or 6 years. The owners are a Christian couple, and are so helpful. You can call and ask  them questions about supplements, how and why to take them, and what would be best for you to take, and if they don't have the answer they will research it and get back to you. You can waste a lot of money on low quality suppliments, that your body can't even absorb because they are synthetic. GMO products are used in some supplements, in fact it's thought that the first deaths (in 1989) linked to GMO products was due to genetically modified bacteria used in the supplements. Most (if not all...I haven't check) of their suppliments are from whole food sources, and the owners have the same quality standards for their supplements that I have, but their prices are very reasonable. If nothing else you want to request one of their catalogues, which is more like a free semi-annual magazine, full of really helpful and informative articles. They usually send out two a year at least. And you can read the old one's on-line.
And if you are without Miracle Salve and someone and get a snake, ant, bee bite look around for some Plantain. My understanding is that it grows in all 50 states, I see it in most lawns, and I've read it will stop even a rattle snake bite...though personally I would be putting some on as we drove to the hospital. You just grab a leaf, chew it up, and put it right on the bite or bruise. Just a good thing to know about if you didn't already.
Best of health to you all!


c