Summer of 2024 is my 3rd year raising meat birds, and I hope I can continue on every year going forward because there is nothing like roasting a homegrown chicken.
The first two years I did it under a trampoline and moved the trampoline once in a while to get them some fresh grass. I had a chicken house that I locked them in at night to keep them safe from predators. It was a fairly good setup but my chicken house had leaked and I was having to have bedding for the meat bird house, just what I needed another coop to clean.
The entire winter of 23/24 I was researching a new way to raise meat birds. I came across a few homesteaders that were using a chicken tractor 24/7, moving the tractor to fresh grass every couple days. They were using the poultry netting electrified to keep them safe. After endless hours of researching I decided that’s the way I was going to do it.
This story is not without drama I promise! Ok the first 3/4 weeks the chicks were going out during the day, cages in barn at night to keep them warm. They are 100% small enough to zip through the square mesh of a poultry net and go wherever they please. I found them in the woods, in the gardens destroying flowers from digging holes and dust bathing. A few ventured to the garage, and 1 lovely chick ventured to the abyss never returning lol, casualty number 1., casualty 2 was just a random death, probably it’s heart, it’s comb turned purple. After about 3 weeks 90 percent of them don’t fit through the holes , there were still a few small enough to get thought, I’d say week 4 they all stayed in.
So now they were feathered enough to be outside 24/7 under a homemade chicken tractor with a roof to stay dry and a covered end to hide in and feel safe at night. All was calm for a week or so, then one early dark morning before daylight I heard a chicken screaming ! I rushed out and saw a chicken laying in the bottom corner of the fence upside down, neck and head chewed, casualty 3. Something had breached the electrified net, probably a raccoon. I now knew it would be back so I knew we had to up the security.
My dad came up with the idea of a perimeter electric, 3 strand fence. So that’s what we did along with a much bigger charger, cow size lol he reassured me as he stood there grabbing it, yup it’s got kick 🤣.
From then on out all was safe and survived! I only had one sleepless night because the power went out, which meant no electric fence! My dad was sure to call me at 1:40am to tell me time to get up and bring your truck down, leave it running with lights on the chickens, and stand guard, the raccoons will be out! Thanks for your du diligence dad.
I started with 30, ended with 27, solid numbers. I moved my chicken tractor every 2 days to fresh grass. This was the first year I fed completely organic grower, 9.5 weeks and 10.5 bags of grower, processed they mostly weighed out in the high 7lbs to mid 8lbs. A few big 9-10 pounders and a couple 5.5-6.5 pounders, I’m pretty darn pleased and will be doing the same next year!!!
Consider the chicken tractor method if you have the room!
How’s your gut health? I’ve always faired well, loved talking to folks about how to keep your gut healthy hoping to inspire them to want to make it a priority.
Then the summer of 2024 came lol I haven’t been taking my regular digestive enzyme or my probiotic. Life is so hectic being the taxi for 3 kids and a husband, and my chickens and my chicken coop got red mites, stress was so high.
Looking back I think it was the harsh coop cleaner and ivermectin I had to use that pushed my gut health to an all time low. Since August I’ve been miserable. Prolonged gut distress unlike any I have ever had. Frankly I’m lucky to make it to town and back without searching out a bathroom or panicking that I might have to pull over.
I’ve been putting it off, and it’s like my body is screaming louder and louder the more I delay. I know how to fix my gut I just have to dig my heels in and do the hard things. By hard things I personally mean cut down to 1 coffee a day (I love coffee and prefer 3 cups!) I need to make digestive enzymes a priority before every meal and I need a solid probiotic. I need a fresh jar of kimchi, I need to be conscious of the food I’m putting in my body and I need to get a good caffeine free herb tea to fill the void of warm drinks.
Consistency will be the key and sometimes the hardest part . Setting a night time timer for the probiotic is the key for me otherwise I forget it more than not!
I’ve decided to do a 30 Day Gut Reset challenge if you think you might need this. Hard things are always more fun when you do them with a friend! I’ll pop a link at the bottom that will take you to what specifically I’m buying and how much it’s going to cost me.
I’m confident 30 days is going to make a solid difference but continuing this on as my norm is what is going to creative a lifetime of a healthy gut.
Here’s to doing the hard things!
We all want our homes to smell good right? Rewind 6-7 years ago the only thing I knew to make my home smell better was the huge selection of scented candles and plug ins. There is a saying "when you know better you do better" That rings so true for me. When I first started this journey to a safer toxic free home, I read a lot, did my research and got educated. The biggest takeaway through all the information I gathered, was to avoid the word "fragrance/perfume". The fact that this wording is a loophole for companies to hide ingredients under that they don't want to disclose, under the reasoning they could compromise their trade mark smell, this is terrifying to me, what else are they hiding under there?
So from that day forward I carefully read all labels and decided not to use products that contained fragrance or perfume. This instantly knocks so many products from your shelves, tables, beauty counters, bathrooms, it's quite eye opening. So candles and plug ins were definitely off the list! But now what? I want my house to smell good, I want to satisfy my sense of smell, there has to be options. Luckily I had a friend that introduced me to what a diffuser was and the grades of essential oils out there, I had no idea they aren't all the same and I would have to make some decisions on quality and sourcing.
I very quickly discovered how much better this diffuser was vs a candle. No fire hazard, no nasty fake smells, no wax to deal with, no having to read ingredient lists to weed out the good from the bad. Pure therapeutic essential oils are straight forward and have amazing benefits. I started out just wanting my house to smell good and I ended up learning that I could use them in the diffuser for things like sleep, stress, mood improvement, concentration, creativeness, anxiousness. A diffuser can be so much more that just a nice smell. I am so grateful for this journey with essential oils, it really has allowed me to take my health into my own hands and create a home that is full of simple products that only complement our bodies not make them work harder.
There aren't many people who enter my home who don't instantly say oh what is that smell it smells so good! How great is that!
Pretty intense statement hey? But seriously that is exactly what it has done for me and so many people around me. It almost feels like yesterday that I was that mom of 2 wanting desperately to rid my home of all the toxic products I had bought into for so many years.
I was always looking for the most delicious scent, the newest product on the shelf, seeing commercials and adding things to the grocery list. Until the day came I was getting headaches fr0m all the chemicals I was using while I cleaned, experiencing a pretty serious topical reaction on my youngest skin after I put her clothes accidentally in with my husbands laundry. I remember the day so clear, I had used a new scented laundry sheet for my husbands work laundry, it was the newest wave laundry technology lol, all in one, laundry soap, fabric softer and dryer sheet.. It was a topical reaction waiting to happen, my daughter woke up from a nap and I went to change her and saw the massive welts all over her lower legs, I was terrified and had no clue what had happened until later in the day when I went down the list of possibilities.
This was the day I decided to rid my house of everything nasty and go to the extremes of vinegar and baking soda for cleaning and went on a search for the most natural laundry soap I could find. This went ok for a few months but it was terribly boring and I did crave some sort of scent, I just didn't know how to achieve it naturally. Then a friend said why don't your try Thieves, I had no previous knowledge of this magical word but it didn't take long to figure out it truly was the answer to all my problems.
A super concentrated plant based cleaner that I could dilute in a spray bottle and use on everything, YES PLEASE! I always joke with folks that Thieves is the answer to all their problems, they just may not know it yet lol. I really clean everything with it, counters, floors, glass, bathrooms, windows, walls, inside and out of cars/trucks, chicken coops, added it to my pressure washer for my deck, gosh I'm sure there is more! Knowing you are using one less toxic product for your home is a huge piece of mind, now days there are many toxic things we can't avoid so creating a home that is free from as many harsh toxic chemicals as possible is a huge goal of mine for the health of my family and myself. I also love it stream lines the junk I have under my sinks. Literally one bottle of cleaner and the rest of the space is up for grabs! Ha! it really was a shock but I quickly filled up that space with stuff.
Thieves Cleaner for the WIN.
Pretty intense title I know! But it has also been a focus for me and so many of my mom friends over the last MANY MANY years. As you start to come out of the blur of early motherhood days you start to really think about it, ok, now how do I want my life to look now that I have kids. You may decide you want it to look completely different now that you are raising a family, you may use this new motherhood journey as a stepping stone into something you never had time for, so many things can trigger that urge to reinvent yourself or figure out what are you here to do, and how you want it to look moving forward.
I talk about how important hobbies are in a moms life, I do that for many reasons, we need creative escapes from life challenges, we need things we enjoy and feel passionate about, but hobbies also allow us to dabble in different fun areas we enjoy and open our eyes to areas that might be something more, like a business, or a side job. I'm a firm believer in that only having one income is extremely risky, 2 incomes is well, I little better but still not ideal, and 3 or more incomes is where you start to thrive and head towards financial security, it's so easy for life to pull the rug right from under you at any time, and as moms we need to be looking ahead and setting our families up for success no matter what challenges come our way.
I remember the days when all I could think of is when is that next feeding, will I catch a nap today. It's hard but it does get better and then new big kid challenges arise, there will always be challenges but as we get in the groove, we can start to look past those and start to focus on us more. Even though my kids were a little older I still struggled with the ME time. I was taking care of kids from sunrise to sunset 7 days a week, I found it impossible to find ME time. That's when I decided to get up before the kids and take that time to really figure out what I wanted in life. Could the hobbies I loved make me money, were there things I wanted to do in my day that would contribute to my overall vision of what I wanted in life, heck at times I needed to just figure out what I wanted life to look like. There were many time in my life I was just sailing along no plan, vision or goal, I had no idea what I wanted life to look like, I was stuck in 24/7 Mom life, blinders on; get up, feed kids, play, run errands, do routine, get everyone to bed, clean, sleep, do it all again tomorrow.
We need excitement about getting up and doing life, we need excitement about projects you are going to tackle that will bring you joy, we need activities to call our own, you have to add some creativity in your life, your brain and soul will love you for that! We as moms need soooo much and I think we are very often depriving ourselves of that. Something as simple as picking up a craft can do so much for your mental state and your happiness, it can fulfill you more than you know, try it!
I get that this all seems impossible when you have to take care of everyone and everything, that is my life as well. That is why flipping your life around and getting up before everyone and taking care of yourself can be such a golden opportunity for all the things I just talked about. After you get that routine developed you will feel excited about getting up early and starting your day. Trust me! This time you can use for your wildest dreams, you can truly start to find yourself if that's what you need to do. If you are ready to switch up what's not working, for some serious YOU time and finding yourself, head over to my facebook group Happy & Thriving Moms or if you're ready to jump in with 2 feet, head over to my website where I have created a 21 day course to walk you through getting up before the kids and rocking your life
It's ok to feel stuck, what sets you apart is taking steps to get out of that stuck spot and start thriving. Moms are amazing and I want you to also feel amazing in your life, it all starts with how you are taking care of yourself, you can fill everyone else's cup if you don't fill yours first.
Cheers
Ebony
