A skateboard and some chickens

A fall afternoon in the front yard. It looks like this.









He tried putting a chicken on the skateboard. Tuns out, chickens don't skate.

The court

The perfect compliment to a new driveway is a new basketball hoop. Sure, you have to dribble around the chicken poop, but that's just a way to build precision dibbling skills (or something like that).

The boys made a "court" with chalk – each zone worth a different amount of points. Nate turned it into a math game, because Nate can turn anything into a math game, and Walter scored 107 points! Although that number changed, and got bigger, every time he told the story. :)



And, speaking of chicken poop, these girls got a little taste of the outdoors today. 4 weeks old now and on to the awkward teenage stage. They go from cute to not-so-cute in a hurry. But those pretty adult feathers aren't too far away.

Spring chickens

These little darlings, plus three more, are the newest additions to our flock. The lighter ones in the photo are Easter Eggers and will likely look a lot like Love (the grayish one, below). The darker two, and the three not shown, are Golden Laced Wyandottes. Such pretty birds! I can't wait to see them develop those beautiful feathers. And it won't take long. The new chicks are now three weeks old, and already about three times their original size. We haven't named them yet and I'd love to hear your suggestions.


Since we're doubling our flock, Nate is making plans to expand the coop a little. I hope these ladies will kindly welcome the new birds into their home.

A farm report

Well, not really a "farm" report, but a little update on the goings on around here. 

Walter is loving kindergarten. He runs out to me after school with a big smile on his face and tells me he's "exhausted." And then continues to skip to the car and jabber on about this and that, filling me in on his day. I love picking him up from school. I love his energy. 

He's got soccer and swimming keeping him busy two nights a week, and those activities have given me a little extra knitting time. Knitting during chilly soccer nights is a great way to keep my lap warm. I've been working on a sweater and it's been slow going, but I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere. Just a couple of sleeves and a waistband to go!

The honey has been harvested and the bees have been put away for the winter. The harvest was smaller this year, only about 7.5 gallons, compared to last year's 10 gallons. Ramona was weak all summer long so we didn't take any honey from her. Both hives have plenty of honey left to keep them going through the winter. We'll see if they are strong enough to make it. Time will tell.

Molly is the same old Molly. Her hair has grown back from her summer cut and she's dropping tumbleweeds of fur all over the house again. 

The chickens are doing well. Black Licorice is finally off the nest – done being broody for now. We've got some molting and our egg production has been down a bit, but we hear that is all normal fall chicken activity. Susan, the owner of Cluck, the chicken store down the road, has been a great resource to us. We often go to her with our chicken questions and concerns. And she's taken a liking to Walter. She even let him name the new chicks she's been keeping at the store. "Friendly" and "Dorothy Vader" are pictured below. If you're in the area, visit Cluck! It's a really cute store selling all sorts of chicken supplies and chicken art, including some fun metal pieces made by the Billmeyer artists, Jim and Nate. 

We've already done a little pumpkin picking and carving, and since this pumpkin is already covered in mold, we plan to do some more this weekend too. Did you know that chickens love pumpkin guts? 

In the home improvement category, we can finally check the driveway off the list. Brand new asphalt makes for a fabulous biking surface. Nate's on the hunt for a new basketball hoop now that we have space and a flat surface.

And, I saved the most exciting news for last – Nate has qualified to run the Boston Marathon! Whoop! Whoop! Nate ran the St. George Marathon in Utah on Oct. 5 and finished with a time of 3:07:14. (To qualify for Boston he needed to finish in under 3:10.) He's been training hard for the last, um… well, a really long time, and managed to take 20 (TWENTY!) minutes off his previous marathon time. That's a LOT of hard work. We're excited to head to Boston in 2015. 

(Thanks for the photo, Jim!)

That's the news from our homestead. How's the fall been treating you?

Chicken chores

First off, this video is not very exciting. It's not pretty and the sound is blah. But it's a minute of something I want to remember. The way the chickens follow Walter (and their treat) to the coop. That one last pet for Love before he closes the door. And that exasperated sigh when he sees Black Licorice is still broody and sitting on her nest. I love this evening ritual. 

Chicken chores from Stephanie Billmeyer on Vimeo.

From the weekend

The camera was filling up with photos so I figured I better put some up here. Our weekend was spent mostly outdoors – soccer practice, farmer's market, garden planting, and just hanging out in the yard. I think it's so peaceful to just sit outside and watch all of our creatures. The chickens are back to being free-range during the day. So far, so good.


The bees are out and about, collecting pollen from anything they can find. Mostly dandelions at the moment. It's so fun to find a bee in the yard and know that it's our bee. 

Molly is enjoying the new smells of spring. She's rolling in all kinds of gross stuff and bringing all kinds of dirt and bugs (ticks!) into the house. But we still love her. 

Walter can't get enough of the outdoors. Chasing chickens, popping bubbles, playing baseball, riding bikes, hitting golf balls. There's just so much to do out there!



The garden was planted on Sunday. I'm hoping the weather stays nice and things actually grow. I feel like I may have jumped the gun a bit this year.

In other project news: the scrap map is done! Not just done, but framed and hung in my sewing room. 


Hooray for fun and productive weekends! 

Farm report

Winter on the "farm" is a little slower than summertime, but there's still lots of activity out there. The chickens are laying well. We're getting 4-5 eggs a day from our seven hens. I think I may not have announced to the internet the tragic end of the eighth chicken. Poor Charlie Shortino disappeared a while back during a day out in the yard. We assume she was taken by a predator of some sort but we had nothing but a pile of feathers as evidence. Right after the incident we confined the girls to coop. But lately they have been getting some supervised outings so they can explore the snow and peck at the bits of grass that are peeking through.


Walter is still an excellent chicken catcher, but mittens make the whole thing a bit more difficult. Don't worry. This awkward hug was quick and Love was not harmed.

Our more mysterious creatures, the bees, seem to be doing well. We don't check on them often, assuming they are taking care of themselves. Today was warm enough to take a peek and this is what we found:

Ramona is full of bees! According to what we've read, (Ok, what Kristin has read. I'm lazy.) the queen starts laying again in January to build up the hive. Looks like Queen Ramona has been doing a great job of that. That big dark spot is all bees.

In comparison, here's our weaker hive, Beezus:

We only saw one live bee, but the hive was still humming. There's definitely activity in there, but we may not know how much until we inspect the hive in spring.
The seed catalogs have arrived and garden plans are in the works. We are all looking forward to the snow melting and spring to come.

We're so EGG-cited!

It's here! It's here! Our first egg is here! A tiny green egg appeared in the pine shavings this morning.

The green color means it must have come from one of the easter eggers. We're all betting it was Love.

We cracked it open, scrambled it up, and split it three ways. Just as Walter had planned.



Good work, ladies! Keep 'em coming!