Dear sisters,
Where did October go? It seems like we just turned the page on September and here we are in FULL fall feathering mode! What does that mean for the Beach Farmgirl exactly? In this case, it means cleaning the chicken coop! This is one of my FAVORITE farmgirl chores! It makes me feel good inside to know my girls will be safe and warm should the weather take a sudden turn for the worst. It is hurricane season in New England, after all. Come on in and visit with the girls and I while we clean and cluck through our fall feathering chores.
Here they are coming up to say hello and see if I brought any kitchen scraps with me. Our flock has shrunk to only 6. We’ve lost a couple or our sweet girls this year. One of our senior citizen hens died of old age and another was frightened out of the chicken run by a coyote that was rushing fence in the wee hours of the morning. We heard some unusually loud clucking noises and by the time we were out of bed and dressed to go downstairs all we could see were Liza Jane’s feathers scattered all over the back lawn. Our run is over 8 feet tall and was only partially covered on one end at the time. We’ve since remedied that! Losing one of our special girls was a hard price to pay for not finishing that chore when we started it.
Our coop has one entry door located on the inside of the run. The bottom of our coop is covered in vinyl flooring that has been stapled to the plywood floor. All I need is a rake to pull out the pine shavings. Then I sweep out the floor and get the cobwebs out of all the nooks and crannies with a broom. I have to shoo the girls out of the coop before I can rake out the shavings which always ruffles their feathers a bit. I get it! I don’t like being shooed either! You can tell by the looks of the litter in the photo above that it’s time. It’s wasted down to a couple of inches and loaded with feathers. I change it out every three months rain, shine, or snow! We have a large run so I just rake the old shavings right out onto the ground, away from the coop entry and move it to a far corner where the girls can scratch in it and it will compost further. Then, come springtime I go in with a shovel fill my wheelbarrow with fresh compost ready to be mixed in to soil for my container gardening, raised beds or spread atop my established perennial gardens.
I like to use a full bale of pine shavings each time I replace the bedding. It gives the girls a nice deep bed to take their dust baths in on wet or snowy days and it soaks up the droppings in the rear of the coop under the roosts. Plus, it insulates the floor keeping them nice and warm during the colder months.
During the hottest days of summer I open the door do the coop and let it air out all day until the girls put themselves to bed at dusk.
I get a kick out of how cautious they are about going back inside the coop after it’s all clean! They stretch their necks to they can see inside then turn their heads from side to side before jumping back in. So cute!
The nesting boxes hang off the back of the coop with a flip-top roof that makes collecting eggs easy!
Here’s Lacy Lou ” nesting ” on a clutch of eggs destined for a yummy quiche or baking.
Once I have the inside of the coop cleaned and replenished with fresh shavings I like to add something festive to decorate the front of the coop. It’s the least I can do for the girls after all those delicious eggs they provide for our family! I do something a little different each year. I’ve used silk flowers in the past because they add a nice pop of lasting color on the window but this year I decided to go native and create a fresh seasonal arrangement from my garden. I cut some branches from my oak leaf hydrangea, a bridal white hydrangea blossom with the first blush of faded purple on the tips of the petals, some autumn sedum joy that is already a beautiful deep purple color and a few feathery ornamental grass plums. I tucked all of the cuttings into a mason jar filled with water and then put the jar inside the container.
There! Now it’s time to relax around the fire and have some hot cider!
My hubby got the wood ready for us, but it’s been raining for three days so we couldn’t light it. 🙁 We’ll just have to pretend it’s lit and warming our tootsies while we drink our hot cider.
We love Trader Joe’s Mulling spices for making our hot spiced cider.
Here’s our family recipe!
BOZ GLOG
1 quart apple cider ( not juice)
2 cups cranberry juice
1 navel orange ( or 2-3 clementines ) sliced
4 -5 heaping Tablespoons of Trader Joe’s Mulling Spices
Small piece of cheese cloth
Wrap spices in cheese cloth and add it to your cider mix.
Once you’ve added all of the ingredients to your crock pot set it to the highest setting for the first few hours, then lower the temp and let it simmer for the rest of the day.*You can also substitute Cinnamon sticks for mulling spices in a pinch!
Start a batch in the crock pot ( or large sauce pan ) early in the morning. By noon time you’ll have something to sip that’ll take the chill off your bones and warm you to your toes!
Until our next shoreline visit~ cluck… cluck…
Beach Blessings and much love,
Deb xo # 1199
ann 
Deb Bosworth 
Adrienne 
diana henretty 
Kristy 
Reba 
Vivian Monroe 
Shelley Hatfield 
Dori Troutman 
Sandi O'Connor 
Shelley 
Dori Troutman 
Sandy 
Marcie 
Laura R. 
Joan 
Nan 
Dena 
Donna Phelps 
Shery J 
bonnie ellis 
Pauleta J Clawson 
Alexandra Wilson 
Pam 
Linda Baker 
Cindy 
Rebekah Stetson 
Guess it’s time to clip some evergreen boughs, get out the bows, bake some cookies and spread the holiday love. Blessings to everyone at MaryJane farm– what a treasure!
Yup! Tis the seaon, Joan! Blessings to you and yours! xo Deb
Those are some lovely traditions, especially your husband’s waffles. I too make Belgian waffles from scratch and add anything from vanilla cream to chocolate syrup. Sometimes, I thaw the frozen blueberries and fill the crevasses so each square is a fork-full of yummy. We have eight days of lighting candles on our menorah, eating potato pancakes (latkes), jelly doughnuts (sufganiyot), and having the kids spin the dreidel with chocolate coins (gelt) as the prizes. It’s a great game where you can eat your winnings. I hope you and your family continue to celebrate Christmas in the best way by being together and truly happy!
Oh, Adrienne, your waffles sound divine! Thank you for sharing your traditions with us!I love potato pancakes. My mom used to make them for us when we had left over mashed potatoes. Any game where you can eat your winnings is a good game to me! 😉 Love, Deb xo
Love your traditions. Slowly getting the house Christmas ready. Twisted knee is slowing me down! Don’t do Black Fridays, or Cyber Mondays. It’s a home made Christmas this year. Quilts galore. Hope yours is a great holiday.
Howdy, Sylvia! Well, I hop your knee gets better every day. Enjoy the season.. sounds cozy at your place! Thanks so much for reading and for your notes, as always! xo Deb
Your Christmas sounds a lot like ours. It is a real gift to not have a huge CC bill in January. I love to bake gifts for friends and family. We had a horrible flood here this year as you may have seen on the national news. My goal this year is to bake for everyone who helped us out. We had to evacuate horses, cats, dogs and chickens. I had animals farmed out all over. It was a true blessing to have people around who did not mind one bit that I called in the middle of the night for help. They came to the rescue. I feel truley blessed.
Another way we celebrate is by being outside as much as possible. After 115 degrees and up this summer 55 is a welcome relief. We won’t have any “kids” around this year again, and it has been kind of weird not to have a large group. In years past we got in the habit of not putting up a big tree, just a little tiny one. This year we went ahead and put up a 6 ft. arttie. Ha! My husband found it sitting near a dumpster last year and brought it home. He’s a scapper. I really did’nt want anything to do with it being in the house, mabey outside somewhere. It is standing proud in my living room and looks wonderful ! I may leave it up all year Haha !
I love reading your posts and btw you might like to know Vegas was socked in with fog the last 2 days ! Once in 10 years. (I live 100 miles out in the middle of no where but close enough. )
Merry Christmas ! GW
Glenda! Fog in Las Vegas? Wow! Your husband is a scrapper too? What a neat find though. Would you believe we purchased our Christmas tree at a yard sale over 15 years ago for $20.00. Every year I say we are gonna get a new one, but it looks just fine! We had two trees for a while during the Boy Scout years. We always bought a ” real ” tree to support the troop, but we are back to just one this year… All Christmas trees are beautiful! Merry Christmas to you and your scrapper! xo Deb
Yay, I love all your Christmas ideas and the simplicity of each one.
No Black Fridays for us here either in the Ozarks, no crowds, no malls, no traffic.
This year its all about simplicity for the holidays, my husband and I will have a homemade Christmas for just the two of us and buy for our kids and grand kids.
Homemade Christma’s are the best, every thing is made from love and from the heart, not shoved into a shopping cart at the last minute.
Our best memories are of homemade toy wagons and doll houses for our kids.
Merry Christmas from the Christmas City, Noel, Mo!! Diana
Hi Diana! I agree! Homemade Christmas’s are the best. What fun you must have had during the toy wagons and doll house years. 🙂 Merry Christmas, Diana and thank you for reading and stopping by to say hello so often through the year! Love hearing your updates from the Ozarks! Blessings to you! xo Deb
Thank you Deb! I/we DON’T do the Black Friday thing either and we don’t live near malls or such. But over the past few years our family has decided that we just aren’t going to be spending money on Christmas gifts. We all just want to spend TIME with each other and agreed to save our money for any travel involved and activities we want to do together. Of course, we HAVE to eat, so we do want to spend reasonable money on food and prepare a special meal and treats.
We believe the “JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON” and that is our focus and that is our celebration. We do decorate (I get kinda carried away with it) and enjoy the fun things.
Another thing we like to do is have our church fellowship group, which is very small, over to sing carols and share snacks on a Sunday afternoon. When it’s possible and the schedule works out we sometimes invite our neighbors by for an open house on a Sunday afternoon.
We are musicians so Christmas music is a “requirement” and we love it!
Merry Christmas to you and your family!
Farmgirl Hugs!
CJ
Howdy,CJ! I love your traditions…:) Its’ so wonderful to have music in the house, especially during the holidays. Live in musicians are even better! Enjoy your holiday season my dear!
Hugs,Deb
Deb, I love your family Christmas traditions. And your husband cooking the waffles will be such a special memory for your kids when they have families of their own! 🙂 Does he do any other cooking through the year? I love Christmas cards and letters; both sending and receiving. I think that is one of the negatives of social media – people aren’t really sending out cards and letters as much. I really enjoy displaying them as they come in the mail! I’m sure you are enjoying this Holiday Season with your Momma right in the house with you! Hugs – Dori, Ranch Farmgirl – 🙂
Hi Dori! My sweet hubby makes delicious buttermilk pancakes, stuffed french toast, cranberry relish, homemade syrup and a few other things throughout the year. Mainly he’s a breakfast guy which I love… It gives me a break from cooking and I set the table and get the sided ready! Breakfast is also my favorite meal to go out for. 🙂 I love displaying the Christmas Cards as they come in as well. I bet you are enjoying being back home in the arms of those sweet grand girls too! Hugs,
Deb,
I don’t exactly celebrate Christmas as everyone else……no ecrations because it takes me a month to pt them a d a ml the to put them away….just can’t be bothered with those things…. no one comes to my house for the holidays no more….kids have their own traditions. But I do relish in buying gifts and making gifts whether it be a scarf or a pumpkin pie or cookies….love giving all kinds of gifts to friends, family and some neighbors or my mail persons. I just love doing those random kindnessds this time if the year….saying thank you to all….with something special to let them know they are appreciated. I wish more people would try t…..I’m amazed how it can turn a Grinch into a Teddy bear. And gives me an endorphin rush of adrenaline….and thse feel good hormones get a lift. ….it really is better to give then recieve too. I always feel bad when someone tries to validate my feelings….I don’t feel good about getting a gift just because I gave someone a gift….they don’t have to give he a thing….I’m happy with a hug fir thank you….to me that is more welcomed than a guilt gift! I like just giving because its his I am….I work on Christmas all year long….giving to me us an art and a release fir my creativity. And I give because its the only real meaning of Christmas…..G*d gave and any one who believes in G*d should emulate him and just give….because giving us a way to say thank you to G*d….its saying you believe I. Unmeritable love! He gave because he loved us….he cane down to show s his much….he/gave up his glory, his throne and lol the Roche, so we could have everything he felt we deserved…. his love was just the beginning if it! If were his children, we should be Abel to give…..from the heart, not the purse. Giving is what we do f we love……
Susana, I agree with you… I love random acts of kindness and like you if I come across someone cranky I make a special point of turning up my smile. We just watched the Grinch Who Stole Christmas last night. Sometimes people are just tired and afraid, like the Grinch and they just need a good turn to make them see the light again. Blessings to you for keeping the Christmas spirit alive all year ’round! xo Deb
A Christmas from my heart!! we do just about the same thing and love it. We love the ‘happy’ of each other, it makes a wonderful celebration. Thanks for sharing. God Bless
Hello, dear Joan! The ‘ happy ‘ of each other! I love that! Blessings to you my dear and thanks for your note! xoxo Deb
Ah, a woman after my own heart! I spent many Christmases in that silly mad rush, too, but not anymore. All the commercialism takes the real joy out of Christmas, so no Black Fridays for me, and I try not to have to shop at all during December. I love the real things, like spending quality time with family and friends. I love baking gifts, and knitting gifts, too. Real trees, boughs of pine and holly are lovely things I look forward to using every Christmas season. I love snow, candles, and poinsettias, too. I think most of all, I love the peacefulness of a quiet Christmas! Blessings on you and your family. Merry Christmas, Marilyn