Ginger and Huckleberry Finn

I could not have posed this picture better myself. Ginger and Huckleberry are definitely getting closer to each other. I have heard of male and female dogs that take care of each other like husband and wife....They are most assured a duo and Huck watches out for Ginger. Ginger's first heat has come and gone. She started May 1st. She has been acting strange lately and I question if she is either 1. prego or 2. having a "false pregnancy". She has been nesting under out front porch step, her teets have gotten bigger and Huckleberry is rather interested in her lately. I however can't hear or feel anything in her tummy. As for the other dogs Kodiak is going to be fixed this week and Max and Toby are in good health.

July 19th... things look promising!

Radishes and Brussel Sprouts

















Bok Choy
















Cabbage
















Tomatoes





























Corn, Peas, green beans and herb pots.
















Left side garden: Tomatoes, Cabbage, Collie Flower, Carrots, Lettuce and Squash
















Right side garden - Broccoli, Radishes, Brussel Sprouts, Bok Choy, Swish Chard, Lettuce, Spinach, Onions (red, white and yellow), Potatoes, Blue Berries and Lavendar

Fort Worden

Pacific Ocean / Straight of Juan de Fuca. The land you see far off in the distance is Canada.

A few weekends ago Kurt and I decided to take a road trip.... drive the complete 101 circle around the Olympic National Forrest. We took all the dogs (minus Kodiak since she gets so terribly motion sick...) and took off that morning. Our first and main stop was at Fort Worden near Port Townsend. We hiked around the park, saw the light house and the old bunkers where the guns were located to protect the Straight of Juan de Fuca if war times occurred. Guns were never fired from this Fort when it was in operation. It is a rather large State Park now that has several beach trails. This state park also has cabins to rent during the summer. As we continued on our journey around the 101 loop we stopped in Forks for dinner, the great home of the Twilight series plot. Oh, my goodness... what craziness that town is under! All advertisement signs stated something related to Twilight... "Stop in for a burger.. this is where Bella eats!"... "Vacancy - Twilight Special" ... "Bells buys here groceries here!" We attempted to have dinner in Forks however the lines were VERY long at all restaurants (20 minutes to get seated, 20 min. for someone to take your order and 45 minutes for your food to come per the waitress)... we we grabbed a "bite" (ha ha) to eat at the grocery where Bella shops of course! and headed home. It was a very nice day outing.

This picture was taken of our garden area on June 21st. Boy has it grown in one month! The picture below was taken on July 19th. This is the gate into the garden area. There is a tilled garden off to the right and the left hand side. We have plans to placed a gravel path between the two gardens leading up to the chicken coop gate and into the rose garden. In the garden off to the right we have planted: blueberries, potatoes, garlic, red/yellow/white onions, broccoli, brussle sprouts, spinach, lettuce, radishes, bok choy and lavender. In the garden off to the left we have planted: corn, peas, green beans, tomatoes, cabbage, colliflower, lettuce, carrots, fancy lettuce, squash, cucumbers, zucchini and peppers. As of today we have harvested some radishes, lettuce and some peas. I have also placed some herb pots on the back plastic you can see in the garden with: basil, dill, chives, cliantro, thyme, kale, lettuce and a few other potted veggies. Everything is growing like mad, including the weeds. I am having a REALLY hard time keeping up with the weeds. I continue to mulch like crazy and find myself searching for things to mulch with (grass clippings galore) to help curb the weeds to a manageable state. I try to weed at least a row every day and by the time I am done with a cycle through both gardens the weeds are a foot tall once again. Any organic suggestions would be welcomed readily!

Juliet's Roses

Juliet's memorial rose garden is definitely a work in progress, but consistently progressing. All of the rose bushes/plants etc. planted have produced this year. We have also planted some Calla Lillies and Peonies in the garden. We have a vision of the entrance to this garden being stone pavers arched with the arbor Kurt and I got married under. We vision a square garden with the edges lined with roses and the center of the square hosting smaller rose plants, a bird bath, decorative stones and a memorial plaque for Juliet. In the far corner of the garden we want to place a small bench, a quiet place for us to go for peace and quiet (as much peace and quiet that you can get with Waddles and Wanda in the background :-) I will keep taking pictures and adding to his entry as the roses come into bloom.

Chickens sure are curious birds. We have three ages of birds. In this picture you see the older birds which were born on May 8th. They are Golden Red Sex Link, Barred Rock & Silver Laced Wynndots. I have to say the Golden Red Sex Links are the nicest chickens and the Silver Laced Wynndots are mean to the others. The Barred Rocks are neither here nor there and are pretty complacent birds. So they are about 9 weeks old. These are the king birds of our coop. There are 18 of these birds altogether. We originally bought 20 with the idea that at least 5 would die, due to the learning curve we are under as chicken farmers. Two chicks died the second day we got them.. survival of the fittest at work in on garage. We have purchased all hens, but as you can see in this picture sexing chicks is not an easy task because low and behold we have one rooster. This is my favorite chicken of them all. I name her "now him" Henny Penny... not so Henny or Penny anymore. So a few weeks after we got the chicks, the ones which are now 9 weeks old, I decided to get 8 more chickens. I was very interested in getting some chickens that lay green eggs and I also was interested in getting some chickens that grow feathers on their feet. I had heard about the Americana chickens from a farming class I was taking and was told if you include one green egg in your batch of farm eggs for sale they will be more profitable. AND.. the chickens with feathers on the feet... well frankly this really intrigued me and I had seen one of these chickens at the fair and wanted 4 for my own. So I got four of each type of chicken to add to our coop. They were born on May 21st and are about 7 weeks old. Of the 8 we originally got, we now have 7 left. Not as steep of a learning curve that I originally thought would be present. I guess it is not that hard to raise chickens! So, that puts us up to 25 chickens... but wait there's more! I get a call from Julie, a teacher from Star Lake Elementary school (the school I worked at in Federal Way) and their classrooms are hatching chicken eggs as a school project and she wanted to know if I would be interested in raising the chickens when the class project is over. OF COURSE! I said. Who wouldn't want more chickens for their farm!? So between the two class rooms there were ten chickens that were hatched and survived. They were born around May 25th and are about 6-7 weeks old. These chickens are a mix of varieties and frankly I am still unsure what exactly they are. I don't know yet how many are hens and how many are roosters. Of the original 10 we have lost 2, so now we have 8 of the babies. We just lost one of these chicks recently. Kurt found the chicken nearly paralyzed in the coop. We isolated the chick in our garage, afraid it has some kind of illness that could spread to the others. We observed it for a day, hand fed it and watered it... but this was the first chicken we had to lay to rest by our own doing. Interesting experience to say the least... I now know why we don't name our chickens! This is a hard thing to face initially. However, it is also very prevalent when living on a farm that animals live and animals die.. just a fact of life that isn't always easy to face. The baby chicks which are still quite a bit smaller than the other hens can fit through the horse fencing we placed around the chicken coop. We have had two back to back day's of golden retriever (Ginger) vs. baby chick and round two was Kodiak vs. baby chick. Thankfully we were present for both matches and the chick survived. Ginger was actually very gentle with the chick... don't get me wrong she was very excited to catch the chicken and carry it around but it was obvious her intention was not to kill the chicken but just carry it around. Kodiak on the other hand... I think had we not been there we would have been down to seven baby chicks really quick. The chicks were also getting into my garden area and desecrating my vegetables... so we placed about one foot of chicken wire around the coop and that has since prevented them from getting into my garden and the dogs have reminded them not to go into the yard.

Chickens don't really take that much time. We actually probably put more time into the chickens that we should. We secure the chickens in their coop at night. We have heard many horror stories about possums, skunks, foxes, raccoons etc. coming into a coop at night and destroying a flock. So every night we close the coop door & lock it. We call this "putting the chickens to bed" around our house. Lately, some of the older chickens have decided to roost in our apple tree at night instead of going to bed. They have seemed to be fine and no major predator catastrophes yet. So, when we wake up in the morning first thing we do is going out and open the chicken coop. We lay down some feed and scratch for them.... fill up their water dishes... clean out the duck pool every other day. I have been cleaning out the chicken house about once per month.. I have read that this is actually more often than necessary but I have been need mulch for my garden and find the sawdust and chicken poop works well for weed control. We have resident blue jays, pigeons and doves that come and eat the chicken food as well. We have not yet figured out a way to control the other birds from coming into our coop.

Whale Watching

These are transient Orca Whales. There were about 27 total traveling in the waters today. This is VERY rare.

Sea Lion hangin' out....

This is a picture of the Orca whales just before then swam under our boat today!

Kurt and I are away in La Conner this weekend. We are celebrating my birthday this year with a weekend away. Today Kurt took me Whale Watching. He secretly invited my best bud Jenn along. What a nice surprise!!

Kodiak & Ginger

This is a picture of Kodiak and Ginger. Kodiak is a female pup that we think is a chow/lab mix. Nichole found her tied up to the highway gaurd rail on the way home one night. Kodiak was about 3-4 months old when we found her. The night I found her was very cold & foggy. It is by luck that she was found. When we got her home we bathed her because she was absolutely dirty and covered with fleas. Now that we have had her for several months we are glad we decided to keep her. She is a very loving dog with a fierce stubborn attitude. She has selective hearing. She likes to chase after the other dogs and loves to have a ball in her mouth the entire time. She does not like to play fetch. We are getting her fixed in about two weeks. She loves to be outside and is the guard dog of our pack.

Continue Garden Spot Part One

This is a picture of Kurt tilling up the garden/rose garden. In the distance you can see the chicken house and all the rose plants we purchased for the rose garden lined up along the fence line. I need to take some more recent pictures of this garden spot because we have done a lot of work out there since! Currently, the rose garden is planted, the vegetables are in rows and the blueberry's are planted along the right hand fence line.

Maximillian aka "Max"

This is Max. He is a purebred golden retriever. He will be two years old this July. Max is the love bug of our pack. He loves to stay right by your side and is eager to please. He loves to chase his brothers.

Recently, Max got tangled up with a slow moving car. We suspect his paws landed on the cars front tire and he went rolling. He hit his head and had some road rash on his body. He had to get staples on the top of his head. Come to find out later, he also broke the bone on top of his head and broke two of his teeth. He has some nerve damage as a result of all of this and the muscle on the top of his head has atrophied. Poor fella! We have him scheduled next week to have his two broken teeth extracted and a full series of head x-rays. Will keep all posted...

Garden area Part One

This is part one of our garden area. This was a few weeks ago when it was still under construction. This is the first time this soil has been tilled up and let me tell you that was quite a chore this year. Weeding will not be fun!! We have spent hours and hours out in this dirt, pulling out clumps of grass, weeds, rock and amending the soil. Part of this tilled area has become Juliet's memorial rose garden. Kurt and family spent many hours putting up fencing around our garden area, installing nice gates and burring the fencing around the chicken coop area (not seen in this picture). The soil is a clay-silt and will need lots of compost/chicken manure and amendments in years to come.

Princess Ginger Snapp

At Hummingbird Hill Farms we love dogs. We currently have 5 dogs, 4 golden retrievers and one black chow/lab mix. This is a picture of Ginger. She is currently 10 months old. We will be breeding her starting this fall.

Ginger is a sweet dog. She is gentle dog. She brings me a present every morning when my alarm clock goes off. The present is usually my slipper, a sock, dish towel or anything else she can get her mouth on. She never chews up the present, slobbers on the present.. but just gives it to you willingly (sometimes she can be an Indian giver!). She is a mellow dog, however she never moves slowly. Her head motions are quick and rapid. She love to play ball, loves to dig after moles and most of all loves to stalk chickens. Her hair is very downy and crimps when she gets wet.

Welcome!

Welcome! This is the blog for Hummingbird Hill Farms in Hoquiam, Wa. We are a small 8 acre farm. We currently have 5 dogs, 2 cats, 36 chickens and 2 ducks. We have a vegetable garden, a rose garden and several apple and young cherry trees.


These duckies are named Wanda and Waddles. We would like to welcome you to Hummingbirg Hill Farms.