Jack is a playful pet and he the best dog you could ask for. He is a Labradoodle and likes to hop. He can hop really high and it’s really funny.
He used to sleep in my parent’s room but now he sleeps in my bed every night. In the morning, I have full responsibility on feeding him, and letting him outside.
Sometimes I try to take him on our walks, but my Mom does not let me walk him in the mornings (because she has her hands full with her coffee). I beg sometimes. It barely works, but its worth it. Normally I have to wait until our afternoon walks.
Jack tears up toys really fast but only likes toys that squeak. He loves to play catch, until he gets tired.
I tried talking Mom into a middle name for Jack, but she didn’t like my ideas and I didn’t like her’s. So he has not middle name.
*Posts are edited by Mom for spelling and punctuation.
*Posts are proofread by Mom for clarity and some spelling and punctuation.
Sarah is our cat. Sarah is an 9 year old black cat. Her birthday is July 17th. Normally her eyes are yellowish green. My Dad named her after a snack brand because he likes snacks. Our cat is sweet. Sarah is a loud meower. She hasn’t always been a meower. Almost every morning Sarah comes and meows at my door. MEOW! MEOW! MEOW! It’s annoying, but I love her.
Last week she almost scratched my sister Grace’s eye out but only because Grace ran up behind her and tried to pick her up suddenly. Mom kept telling her to leave Sarah alone all day. She didn’t listen. Her eye is okay now.
*Posts are proofread by Mom for clarity and some spelling and punctuation.
This is when I was 8 years old.
Hi I’m Brian. I’m 10 years old right now, and I was born on a Columbus Day. Some things I’m interested in are football 🏈 ,baseball ⚾️,basketball 🏀, 2K MADDEN, and WWE WRESTLING. My favorite WWE wrestlers are THE MIZ, UNDERTAKER, THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR, JOHN CENA, KANE, and ADRIAN NEVILLE.
My favorite football teams are the Cleveland Browns and the Green Bay Packers. Baker Mayfield is of my most favorite football players of all. I had fun playing football for the first time last year, even though we only won 1 game against Johnstown. We still played in the playoffs because every team gets to play in the playoffs. My mom yells and cheers a lot from the stands during my games and my Dad is a coach.
Me playing QB
Me and Coach Dad
In baseball I have 3 trophies, and 6 metals. My favorite baseball teams are the Cleveland Indians and the Houston Astros.
I love homesteading because you get to do things outside, like improve a chicken coop. I hate gardening though because I don’t like bending over and pulling weeds until the weeds are all gone. But I will pull weeds for money. 🤑🤑🤑
Me exhausted after my Mom made me help in the garden
I love having chickens because you get to play with them. I also like to eat eggs, so it will be cool when they start to lay them.
Chicks dig me.
I like being a big brother because they always play with me and I like helping my mom with them. One thing that is annoying about them is they never stop arguing some days.
I like living in Granville, Ohio, even though I miss my friends back in Texas–especially my best friend, Jacob.
Me and my best friend, Jacob
At least Ohio is not always hot in the the spring and summer like Texas. I like spring the most because the weather goes from chilly to warm and back and forth.
Y’all! It’s almost time for this years’ first harvest of rhubarb!!!
In the back house garden I have two green rhubarb plants side-by-side that provide a steady harvest all from May to Fall. Rhubarb is one of my favorite crops to harvest from our gardens because it means I get to put my love into making something delicious for my family and those around us.
Grace says, “Yay for rhubarb!”
What is rhubarb?
Fun fact, while rhubarb is technically a veggie but it’s often categorized as a fruit because of how it is prepared and served. Looking a lot like celery and ranging from red to pale green, rhubarb has a tart, slightly sweet taste and therefore typically cooked with sugar and fruits, like strawberries, to make jams and baked treats.
Rhubarb is a perennial that requires a cold winter to grow, so it wasn’t too common Texas. I first had rhubarb in college when visiting my Great Aunt Bertha in Washington State. She lived on a country cul-de-sac where she and her neighbors shared a garden (sound familiar?). My Mom and I trekked out to the garden to pick a few stalks then spent the afternoon with her in the kitchen as she taught us her secrets to making rhubarb pie. I don’t remember much about what she said, but I certainly remember there was lots of wine, laughing, and taste testing. I also remember tasting the rhubarb before it was cooked and wondering why the hell Aunt Bert would put it in a pie. That night we ate pie for dessert, went back for seconds and made more pie the next day!
Fast forward about 15 years and I’m walking around the house gardens with Kay, the original owner of our then new home, as she gives me the low down on all the perennials she planted in her 40+ years living her. It was overwhelming trying to consume all the information and knowledge she was spewing out that spring day but as she pointed out what were weeds, what would bloom when, and what we could and couldn’t eat, I was elated to hear her point and the big-leafed green stalky plant and call it rhubarb. I hadn’t recognized it as it is the green variety and not the red rhubarb I had picked with Aunt Bert. Needless to say I was baking rhubarb pie that weekend.
What I’ve Learned About Growing and Harvesting Rhubarb
First off, I am no expert. I mean the first year of harvesting, I used garden shears to cut nearly ALL the stalks at the bottom, even the short little ones. Like a rhubarb buzz cut–rookie move. I was also just letting the plant do it’s thing and flower until Kay told me to stop it. So what can I share?
What Part of the Rhubarb to Eat
First of all, it’s important to know the leaves of rhubarb cannot be eaten, they are poisonous. You can compost them as they break down pretty quickly in the compost process. It’s the stalk of the leaves that you eat. I’ve read the flowering stalks are edible but I haven’t tried them.
Flowering or Bolting Rhubarb
When rhubarb produces flowering stems, this is called bolting (a term I’ve only known for a year or so). These flowers are pretty and don’t harm the plant or taste but do impact your harvest as the plant exhausts energy on the flowing stalks rather than producing more stalks. This means if you want a lot of harvest, your best bet is to remove the flowering stalks with a sharp knife at the base of the plant. Actually, even better is to remove them when they are seed pods, before they become a flowering stalk. I am still working on my confidence in recognizing these seed pods and just staying on top of these stalks.
Harvesting Rhubarb
You’ll want to harvest stalks when they are about 10 inches long. You can either use a sharp knife to cut the stalks at the base, or simply need to grab the stalk toward the base and pull with a twisting motion. Don’t harvest ALL of the stalks at once, like I almost did. This could kill the plant. If your rhubarb plant is new, you’ll need to wait 2 years before harvesting your first harvest to that the plant can become well established. You can keep harvesting those 10″ stalks through the summer and even into the fall but you’ll want to slow down your harvesting after mid July to let your plant store up energy for winter.
Cooking and Baking with Rhubarb
As mentioned before, rhubarb, because of its sour taste is often paired with sugar and fruits. That sweet and tart combination makes it perfect for summer! Honestly, I’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to rhubarb. My go-tos are strawberry rhubarb pie and jam but I am looking at expanding my rhubarb recipe collection this year! In the 2 summers I’ve been baking with rhubarb I’d say the pies and jam have definitely become a fan favorite. I always make 2-4 pies at a time and at least 6 jars of jam so there is plenty to share with neighbors and friends. My kids refer to these pies and jams as ‘famous’ and Brian Jr. claims I could profit well at the farmers market. Not sure about that but I’m excited to share these recipes with you this summer.
Cory’s “famous” Strawberry Rhubarb pie
Making strawberry rhubarb jam
Canning for delivery
Grace taking a picture of the rhubarb plants for a post. 🤣
Hazel, named by Tarin for baby #3 (due in July) is a Cuckoo Maran and is our biggest chick so far. When we first got the chicks, they were all about the same size, except for Lola who was the smallest. Since our two families were sharing the flock, the kids each named the chicks and decided we split the chicks up so each family could brood their three chicks. So, the kids were shocked when we first got the flock together for a playdate a week or so later. Hazel was not only much bigger than the rest, she was also first to start getting her darker feathers. Each week the kids come running to share how much bigger Hazel is than the rest.
Hazel, 8 weeks old.
Despite getting the flock together every chance we had (aka when the weather was warm enough for a ‘field trip’ from the brooder), it was hard to tell how they would react together as a gang. When we moved the chicks to the coop last week, we spent the weekend hanging out by the coop proudly watching our chicks. I had read that chickens typically established a pecking order, even without a rooster, so we were all interested in how the flock would socialize together. In our brooder, it was Greta that displayed the leadership behavior, but in the big flock Hazel seems to be the clear leader of the flock. She uses her size to dominate the food bowl. She’s actually a bit of an ass when there is food around, pecking at other hens feet and chasing them off, especially Greta.
If there is food around, you can count on Hazel to be the first to the feeder and the last. Can’t wait to see if the current pecking order remains–though with as much as Hazel eats, I don’t think any chick will be surpassing her in brawn and feathers.
I love Greta so much. This week, I noticed that Greta got her first black feather on her back, and got her first black line on her beak. Greta is getting so fluffy and so big. She used to be so tiny if I cupped my hands together, she’d fit in my hands. But now she’s so big she’s is twice as bigger than my hands now.
I used to be scared to her up because I didn’t want to hurt her and my Mom would shout, “JUST PICK HER UP ALEADY!” so loud I swear the neighborhood a couple blocks away could hear her. 😂 I’m not scared of picking her up anymore.
Fun Fact: If you holed her against your stomach and constantly pet her on the neck and chest, she falls fast asleep.
This is the fist day we got them.On my lap is Greta the one that is on my arm is Penny.
Penny is a sweet chick. Penny is a Plymouth Rock chicken. When she was 10 days old she was so fluffy! Penny is mostly yellow. When Penny is older she will be black and white. Right now she has one gray feather on her tail. Her one gray feather is the only gray feather so far.
Penny is so cute! The only spot she is fluffy is her bottom. We used to tell Greta and Penny apart by Penny’s gray spot. We do not know if it is there any more because if it was we wouldn’t be able to see it.
Penny and I at 7 weeks.
Penny likes to eat cranberries. Sometimes, when I am holding her, she jumps on to my arms, then shoulders, then my back. She usually does not peep when I am holding her but every once in a while she does. Since we got the coop, she’s been peeping more than before; probably because she wants to be near the flock.
The flock:
Hazel
Lola
Pennywise
Greta
Elsa
and of course Penny
I love each chick but Penny the most! No chick can replace my Penny!
*Posts are edited by Mom for spelling and punctuation.
Elsa is my hen. She is pretty. She is black and white and has a yellow beak. Mom says she is a Cuckoo Muran chicken. I love her. She kind of has a yellow spot on her neck.
She’s 7 weeks old now and she kind of likes me picking her up, but sometimes she runs from me. When she was little she had poop stuck on her butt and I had to help Mom clean it off. When I pick her up she flaps her wings so I let her go. She runs back to Greta and Penny. Elsa is my chicken, Greta is my brother’s chicken, and Penny is my sister Ella’s. Elsa hates being alone, she goes tweet tweet tweet tweet.
We’re gonna buy new chicks if every single one dies too or we’re going to buy one more black chick so I can have my own chick if anything ever happens to Elsa. I hope nothing does. But don’t worry, all of the chicks are alive. We have a video of the chicks 🐥Did you see it on the video? (Grace is referring to this post.) I’m sure that you can see it on your iPad, or your phone, with your laptop, or your Kindle….anything you want! Just look on a thing and find the video watch it, and then you can see what goes on with our chicks!
Sometimes my Dad puts things on the grass that’s not good for chicks so we can’t let them on the grass and instead take them to the garden. They like to eat worms, our chicks.
I help mommy do things around the house then we can play with the chicks. Sometimes Elsa runs so fast I can’t even grab her sometimes she flaps her wings sometimes she’s very quiet and I do like her cuddling up whenever I want. Sometimes Mom gives us treats for the chicks and we feed them from our hands. It tickles. Sometimes it’s a lot of work but it’s so fun to play with all the chicks.
OK guys, bye!
*Posts dictated with an app by Grace and edited for spelling and punctuation (and a little bit of clarity) by Mom.
Brian: Each morning we check on the chicks to see if they are still alive or not and feed them.
Ella: Brian sometimes does this by himself. Today we all helped.
Checking on and feeding the chicks May 7th, 2020 Camera person- Grace
Ella: As you can see sometimes they try to get out in the mornings–today the Pennywise and Elsa tried really hard to get out… until Brian poured the food!
Brian: Earlier this week, we found a small hole outside the coop and another inside by the food bowl. The food bowl was wiped clean. I helped Mom put chicken netting under the coop to keep animals out.
Grace: We count all the chicks each morning too.
Ella and Grace counting chicks May 7, 2020 Camera person: Grace
Ella: Don’t worry, Greta is alive too!
*Posts are edited by Mom for spelling and punctuation.
When we first got our chicks, I so surprised that I almost passed out! My mom didn’t even tell me we were getting 🐥. Then after that I have been checking on them constantly ever since.
My favorite thing about them is letting them walk on me. Especially then they try to fly on to my shoulder. Sometimes they poop on me… it’s gross but I still love them.
*Posts are edited by Mom for spelling and punctuation.
THE HALF-ASS HOMESTEAD 