Missouri Mushroom Hunting!

It's a Missouri tradition! The morel mushrooms are popping up and lots and lots of people are tramping through the woods looking for the gold!

We were blessed to be able to go to a beautiful place last night to take the kids mushroom hunting for their first ever time! It was chilly and drizzling out, but we had so much fun!

And of course the finished product!!!! YUM!!! We made a batter with fresh eggs from our chickens and whole wheat flour and then we dipped the mushrooms, and fried them in olive oil! YUMMMMMMY! :)

Holy Shiitake! Inoculating some Shiitake logs!

We have had such a wonderful 2014 so far, getting to learn new things! This was a fun sunday with friends and we learned how to inoculate shiitake logs! A good friend taught how to drill the holes into the logs and then you take the spawn/spores that you purchase online ( here is the kind he used.... he said it is excellent for your immune system ) :
   

 

You take the spawn and you use a neat tool called an inoculator.... and you just squirt it into the holes!

 

 

And here is what it looks like with the spawn in it....

 

 

Just keep it nice and neat, and then you take hot wax ( we used cheese wax! ) and you just dab it over the holes. That keeps impurities, etc out of the spawn. :)

 

 

We made a fun assembly line, ate some pizza and had a great time working and chatting. We finished about 200 logs in 4 hours! As payment for working so hard, we got to learn the process and we got to take home 6 logs for our little urban farm!!!

 

Here they are! We keep them covered with a couple 99 cent burlap bags from the farm store. They just need to stay in the shade.... soon there will be shiitake mushrooms growing all over the logs and they will continue to produce once or twice a year for about 8 years!!! Such a great thing for your little farm! :)

 

 

Hope you are having a wonderful week!!! What kind of neat things are you up to at your farms ??

Love, JL~

ps- follow me on instagram at fruittreehill  !!!! I love instagram and love making new friends on it! I just started! :)

Chicken Swap

I am so incredibly blessed to belong to a fantastic facebook group called Chicken Swap of Missouri... they have been my helpers and teachers and I am just blessed. We did an ornament swap this year which was super fun. I found rooster ornaments at Hobby Lobby and sent those out.. and I received some cute ones back.. I received a snowman made from a lightbulb ( forgot to take a pic of it, but it was super cute!!) and here is the other two I received!!!

Both were homemade... crafty ladies!!!

Aren't they adorable?? It's kind of hard to tell, but the one on top is a sewn hen.. super cute and the one on the bottom is a clay star with a sparkle rooster stamp!! LOVED THEM!!!!

Do you have a go to group of friends that help you with all your chicken problems?? Or a group of people just to chat with about chickens? I am incredibly thankful for the awesome "peeps" at missouri chicken swap!!!!

Love, JL~

Feed the Birds.. Tuppence a Bag!

Don't you love that movie???? It has to be one of my many favorites! We are blessed here at Fruit Tree Hill.. we have hundreds of birds that flock around the bird feeders and we love to watch them and listen to them! The kids have actually held a couple of the baby birds, and we love to watch the resident cardinal couple make a nest and hatch some cute babies!!

Here is one of the bird feeders... you can probably see the 1.00 sticker on it.. good ole yard sales!! Plus we have multiple suet feeders which they go crazy for!! This week we will be making some new feeders. I have been browsing pinterest and they have such cool ideas!!!

This one is made out of a slinky!!!! How smart!!!

This is a great idea to me... I can just picture lots of these stars hanging in the trees etc for the birdies to eat!!!!

What kind of bird feeders do you have at your house?? Any fun stories about the birdies?? Leave a message in the comments!!!

Love, JL~

Fancy Egg Cartons

My girls were busy this weekend!!! They blinged out some old walmart egg cartons so we can have something snazzy to give away eggs in!!! It's hard to see in this pic but they are COVERED in glitter!!! LOL... anyway.. I think they have something here... blinged out egg cartons! We are ordering egg cartons and labels at http://www.customeggcartonlabels.com/  this spring.. so we can use them at the Farmers Market... I'm thinking the girls will have to add some glitter!!! LOL!!!!

The egg carton artists :

Marlee and Sydney

( this is an old pic but you can see how fun they are!!! Buckets of fun I tell ya!!!)

Winter is coming.....

Winter is coming.... that means it is time to break out the garden catalogs and hatchery catalogs and start planning for next spring!!! What are some of your favorite companies for gardening? Right now I'm really liking the Gurney's catalog, because they are running a deal I am going to take advantage of! You spend 25 bucks.. you get 25 bucks free!
www.gurneys.com

Also, this weekend has alot of plans... we need to finish getting the yard ready for winter.. time to put everything to bed. Being in Missouri, you just never know what the weather is going to be like. Last winter we had tornadoes and also ice storms. So we will mow the yard one last time, get straw on the beds, and put away all the outdoor toys. Keith will be finishing getting the coops and cages winterized and then we will just have to take care of daily needs for the animals. Keith built a new huge run in the back of the big coop for the chickens. They LOVE it. They have been chowing down on pumpkin ( the obligatory front porch pumpkin that everyone has on their porch for fall) they love the pumpin and it is super good for the chickens. I have read it also works as a natural de-wormer which even tho my chicks don't have worms, I am hoping it is a good preventative too! I have been reading alot on what makes healthy chickens, because we have happy healthy chickens, and we are getting beautiful eggs. We are blessed.

Don't tell Dylan ( the rooster whisperer) but he is getting an incubator for Christmas. He can't wait until spring so we can incubate our eggs and grow our flock , so we can sell eggs at Farmer's Market. I have huge ideas for Farmer's Market next year. I can't wait!!

So I will leave you with a pic of the kids enjoying the park this fall... just because I can. HA!!!