Yesterday I ran some errands and stopped by our local Orshclen’s (farm supply store) and immediately upon walking in the door, I hear the peeping. Yep, the first round of baby chicks have arrived! Every spring, they get in baby chickens and bunnies (I think even some ducks!). My children love this time of year as they can go in and pet/hold these tiny creatures. I live in a rural farming community, so most folks would think of these critters as livestock. This would be our foray into quasi-homesteading.

We have been talking about getting started in chicken farming since last year. Supposedly chickens are easy to raise and care for. Since I’ve never had live chickens, it’s a bit intimidating and overwhelming to me when you consider we need a coop, heat lamps, what do they eat?, etc… Thankfully yesterday another couple walked up to look at the chicks and they already had chickens – so being my ‘shy’ self (NOT!) I asked them some questions and they were very helpful and kind. (thanks stranger couple for your helpful advice!)

Click to Order: $11

I came home and mentioned to Mark about the chickens and to begin chicken farming. He still seemed to like the idea of us getting chickens – so stay tuned as we work out what type of coop we will have (more for nightime safety), how to best go about allowing them to be free range chickens, yet still keep them safe from predators, and which breed(s) to get – and how many! Who knew chicken raising had so much to think about and consider. The children are certainly excited.

My original arrangement with the stacked dog crates wasn’t as stable/sturdy as it needed to be, so I changed that and moved my sewing cutting table to a new location in the office as well.  This works much better.

Here’s Georgie and Hannah.  This dog is so spoiled and obviously not lacking for attention.  He’s just about ready to outgrow Hannah’s lap!

Today was the day to re-arrange and clean my office. Since Mark bought me a brand spankin’ new vacuum cleaner the other day, I thought I would see if I could break it by vacuuming up copious amounts of dog hair out of my office carpet (the carpet is eventually going to be replaced with laminate, but until then – we torture vacuums).

The biggest issue I had been facing with my office now occupying the extra main-floor bedroom, was the addition of the six dog crates into the room. My dogs spend their day with me, as I work – and that was a great setup, when I had my office in its original location downstairs. Then we decided to dog-proof that room and create a ‘dog room’ with a dog door and access to their fenced outside potty area. So the dogs got my office for their bedroom, and my office moved to the downstairs family room. The dogs could still spend the day with me, and be close to their outdoor access. This worked well, until I realized how much time I had to spend running upstairs to switch laundry, cook, tend to children, etc… and so I decided to take the ‘guest room’ and convert that into my new office. I like the new location, but I have less square footage than either of my previous two office locations. To say it was cramped, would be an understatement. Oh, and did I mention, this office also serves as my sewing/craft room. Yeah – it’s a multi-tasking room and it was a mess.

I’ll will spare you any before pictures. It was too horrid to share; but here are the after photos.

This first photo shows my computer desk, stacked drawers and the folding table I added to hold the homeschooling materials.

A better view of the homeschooling center, and that white cabinet to the left, is my sewing & serger machine cabinet.

And finally, a view of the newly stacked dog crates. I did not have them stacked before, so you can imagine the floor space they took. Why the dog crates, you may ask… well, I have one 5 month old puppy and another that turned 1 year old today (Happy Birthday Henry!), and they are not reliably housebroken. Also, I have gotten four new dogs since Christmas 2007, so they have not yet proven themselves to all be 100% trustworthy in the housebreaking department: so we have scheduled potty times, play times and then crate times to avoid accidents in the house. If I can’t watch them 100% at that moment, then I crate them. This also avoids puppies chewing on furniture, power cords, etc…. So it’s an all-around training method that works well. In case you were wondering: the dogs do not spend their entire day and night crated! They get at least 2 hours every day outside running and playing, in addition to supervised time roaming around the house and laying on my lap, at my feet, on the couch, in my office chair, etc… At night, the office becomes the dogs’ bedroom. It works for us. The stacking (and yes, they are tethered/anchored together to avoid the top one from falling off), freed up some floor space – which I desperately needed.

Next phase of the home office project will be painting the walls, installing new laminate flooring and overhead storage cabinets, and cleaning out and organizing the large closet in this room and installing an organizer system. It will definitely be a large project, but will be awesome when it’s finished.