Well, I did it yet again- I let another exorbitant amount of time go by between posts.  And shame on me that it happened during the growing season!  I had great intentions of posting at least weekly this summer, with updates on growth progress and planting and all that, and clearly that didn't happen.  Not to say it wasn't a busy and eventful summer (perhaps because it was a busy and eventful summer?).  

Things did pretty well in the garden this year, and I think we were both happier with our choices of where we planted what.  The greenhouse was almost exclusively tomatoes (three different varieties, Yellow Pear and I can't remember the other two...), though we also had blackberries (thornless) and strawberries (Seascape everbearing) in there too.  Though not unseasonably early, we have had some cold weather this fall, and none of our tomatoes were able to ripen on the vine.  After several days and nights of having to run a space heater in the greenhouse to ward off the frost, we decided our electric bill would appreciate us ripening them indoors.  We've had excellent success, some huge tomatoes (the largest weighing in at 1 lb .3oz), and made 4.5 quarts of awesome salsa.

ripening tomatoes

awesome salsa! 

In the front bed, we had six different lettuces- three romaine types, and three loose leaf mix types.  The lettuce was great in the beginning, but we had some pretty hot and dry weather that turned it all bitter a lot sooner than I'd have hoped (it has since become fodder for the hens, which they are very happy with).  Our herb bed did marginally well.  Only one basil came up out of who knows how many seeds, though I think it was largely due to overcrowding by all the tomatillos we didn't plant...  (We had a LOT of 'volunteers' come up in just about every bed this year, from seeds that survived the winter in the compost- mostly tomatillos, and a good number of squash and pumpkins.  One spaghetti squash came up in the greenhouse, and produced an ENORMOUS squash, easily a 5 pounder.  And we ended up with 5 gallons of tomatillos, which is nuts considering we never meant for them to grow in the first place!)  Our Calendula did fabulously, it bloomed for months and months (it's STILL blooming, in November! Bonkers!), and you can bet we're saving as much seed as we can.  Calendula (or pot marigold) is a wonderful medicinal plant, and the variety we grew is a medicinal variety, so we're saving the flowerheads as well.  It's mostly used for topical ointments for cuts, bruises, rashes, etc.  

A stoic Calendula bloom, bright and shiny in November!

Our potatoes did marginally well this year.  We planted a different variety than last year, a standard yukon gold, but they were slow to start, had pretty small foliage growth, and they all got hit by some sort of blight.  They yellowed very prematurely, and many of them died above ground.  Despite their ill-health, we still got a good amount of potatoes, but not as much as we would have expected from the number of plants we grew.  Oddly enough, some of the sickest looking plants yielded the most/biggest potatoes, so maybe they were just putting all their energy into growing below ground rather than above.  We won't be saving any of these for planting next year, we'll have to figure out a better variety.  Maybe the Russian banana fingerlings we did last year, as those were healthy and beautiful and delish ;)

Our hens are doing marvelously!  They are BIG birds, and they're a riot.  They're pretty quiet, until you come in their pen, then they get noisy and silly and Wyatt loves to chase them.  And you definitely can't wear crocs in their pen, cause they see those little holes as an invitation to peck your toes!  We got our first egg from them a few weeks ago.  It was so cute and little!  For a while, it was clear there was only one layer, but now they are all starting to figure it out!  Still not sure how many of them are getting to it, as the number of eggs varies each day- Yesterday, two.  Today, five!  But the eggs are gradually getting bigger, and they're finally figuring out what those nice cozy boxes in there are for!  

Well hello girls!

A nice cozy nesting box, finally being put to use!

 As winter is just around the corner for us (it's flurrying as I type), we've been putting things away for the winter, stocking up on wood, and doing a good amount of canning.  We bought 8 heads of cabbage in September and made a huge batch of the best sauerkraut we've ever had.  Aside from requiring 6 weeks of patience, it was crazy easy to make.  We also made a green salsa with half the tomatillos we grew, and a sweet jam with the other half.  We still have cherries and peaches in the freezer to make jam with, as when we put that up, it was too hot to cook and can jam.  Better to save that kind of chore for when slaving in a hot kitchen is a cozy thing to do!

Stocking up the root cellar

As for sewing projects, it's been a busy summer.  I made the first pair of pants for Red out of a plain cotton canvas, but the fabric turned out a little too lightweight, and they shrunk quite a bit lengthwise.  They're good summer weight pants, except for the nasty tear at the shin that happened the first time he ever wore them, while on a hiking trip.  Whoops...  To make up for it, I finally got around to making him three, yes three, pairs of heavy denim jeans just a couple weeks ago.  They came out excellent, will hold up much better to the heavy abuse Red inflicts on his work clothes, and are definitely long enough this time.  I also turned some truly vintage quilt blocks into a tablecloth.  The blocks were passed down to me from Red's grandmother, though they were actually sewn (entirely by hand) by HER mother, anywhere from 60 to 90 years ago.

And now that we're officially on the holiday countdown, it's time to start work on Christmas gifts.  Still not sure on every item, (I've had a number of requests for aprons!) but I'm experimenting with some homemade slippers- I made the first pair for myself, but might try something a little different for a second pair (for myself as well, teehee).  Wyatt definitely wants a pair though, and keeps trying to steal mine!

Soft and fuzzy slippers!

Just a sneak peek, as this is a gift yet to be given, but wanted to share my first friendship star quilting project ;)

Then of course there's what we want for Christmas, which I am SO excited for, and will be getting early, from my awesome parents- an electric grain mill!!!  We've had our hand crank mill for over a year now, and definitely won't be going back to only storebought flour, so it's about time we treat ourselves to a mill that doesn't feel like a workout or chore!  I think we've decided on the Miracle grain and flour mill, as it will be able to handle larger stuff like beans and corn, and it doesn't create a mess of flour dust like the other home flour mills available.  I've been given the go-ahead to order it whenever, and though I'd love to be patient and wait till Christmas, I don't think I can wait much longer!  Perhaps I should use this as an excuse to end this blog post?  Hmm... sounds good to me! ;)

Most recent sewing projects

Before my project list is taken up with pants after pants after pants for Red, I decided to do some me projects.  Two are re-fashions (turning old clothes into new), and one is made entirely of fabric I got for free (go freecycle!).

The first project was turning a rather formal gown into a fun top and skirt!  I started out with the dress I wore for my college graduation- a gorgeous embroidered sparkley thing, far too formal for anything I would ever go to, ever... But that was just too fun to let go to waste in my closet.  Biting the bullet and cutting it in half took some courage, but I'm SO glad I did!  The top turned out great- I did a rolled hem along the bottom (love my serger!), replaced the super-thin spaghetti straps with wider ones, and made a new zipper pull (the old one was broken off).  The fabric is a very slinky acetate, which has a gorgeous drape, but is dry-clean only, so this will be a special occasion shirt.  I don't do dry cleaning ;)  The skirt, on the other hand, didn't turn out as great.  It was tricky, since the new waist where I cut it was far too wide (the dress originally was flowy, not fitted), so it took some finagling to get it narrow enough to not look weird but still big enough to do an elastic waistband (hadn't thought about needing a zipper until it was too late).  Also, I shortened it by several inches (I needed the fabric for the new shoulder straps), so that made figuring the waist a little funkier.  Meh, I was more excited to have the top than the skirt anyways ;)

The second project was turning an old skirt into a new halter top!  I had a cute organic cotton skirt from Patagonia, but it wasn't something I wore frequently at all (in fact, it was in the giveaway pile until I realized I could use the fabric for something else).  It's a thick, stretchy jersey, and perfect for a pattern I had in my stash for a halter top, so yesterday I just went for it and made it!  I hadn't sewed from a pattern in a few years (since my Dorothy costume, in fact) and I had forgotten how much I like sewing from a pattern!  It takes all the worry and guesswork out, which may seem like it takes the creativity out, but whatever, it was easy and quick and turned out perfectly, which I can't say would have happened had I made it up as I went!

And the third project was a nice lightweight nightgown, made of fabric and some lace trim that I got on freecycle last year.  I did use a pattern I had to cut the pieces, but constructed it my own way, and I like it!  Nice and light for summer!

Oops, I did it again...

Oops... I let another long span go by between posts... I had great intentions of keeping up much more closely with my blog this summer, keeping up with regular updates on the garden and whatnot, but that just hasn't happened.  Summertime is twice as busy for me as wintertime, since I have both the inside and the outside to take care of!

The garden is doing really well, things are finally starting to look like plants!  Our first crop of lettuce in the greenhouse is long gone, replaced by lots of tomato plants, the blackberries in the greenhouse are growing, and we've already tasted the first strawberries!  Outside the greenhouse, our outdoors crop of lettuce is getting gorgeous, the potato plants are shooting up and filling out with gorgeous foliage, beans and peas and greens are growing, and the cherry trees are laden with young fruits.  Our hens are doing wonderfully!  We now have 10 Buff Orpingtons (got two from Red's mom that are a couple weeks younger than the original 8), they're about 3 months old now and SO BIG!  They look full grown, but they aren't done yet!  They're probably only around 2-3lbs right now, if that, and Orpingtons can get to be around 8lbs!  They are a hoot to watch, fun to hang out with, though don't wear sandals (and especially not crocs!) cause they love to peck at toes!  The very best is letting them out of the coop in the morning.  They fly and flutter and run around, so glad to be out in the fresh air!

We've had quite a few run-ins with bears this year, far more than usual, and have had to stop composting for a while until we can get some electric fencing up.  We've never had problems with critters like this before.  We had a couple visits last year from bears, but there was a period of about two weeks where we had a bear almost every night, and several visits during the day, which is not so common around here.  We even had a bear rip the cam-strap off our trash can, which has never failed us as bear protection before, so now we keep the trash locked in the zircon up the hill.  We haven't had any trouble the past two weeks or so, but for a while it was getting pretty ridiculous, and we now have a rule that no one goes outside without the dog (at any time of day or night).  Whiskey has definitely earned his keep, chasing bears away!  I'm just thankful we don't have any grizzlies around here, that our bears are relatively smaller and less aggressive black bears.

I'm extremely excited, because a big order of all sorts of fabrics is due to arrive this afternoon!  I'm going to be rebuilding Red's work clothes wardrobe from scratch, and I'm actually really excited about it!  I've made pants before, but never anything with a true tailored waistband and fly.  It should be a really fun challenge, and I can't wait to take it on!

In the meantime, some pictures of the garden and hens, taken today!

 The lettuce and onion bed!

 Blackberries climbing in the center, tomatoes around the walls, strawberries everywhere else

 Pole beans

Some of the many potatoes!

You can bake! And the ultimate pizza dough!

Since last fall, we've been baking all our own bread.  There's always a loaf on the counter or dough in the fridge (and usually there's both!).  Baking bread is so easy, and not at all the time consuming task non-regular bakers think of.  Baking seems to be enjoying a bit of a renaissance these days, and I want to spread the good word!

Bread Basics

Great bread is all about ratios.  Stick to the correct ratios, and you really can't go wrong!  The magic numbers are these: 1.5, 1.5, 3, 6.5.  That's 1.5 Tbsp yeast, 1.5 Tbsp salt, 3 cups water, and 6.5 cups flour.  It's so simple it's crazy!  And you can follow the same numbers for substituting, as long as the total numbers stay the same.  (Don't substitute anything for the yeast or salt, those are key ingredients!)  For example, I like a softer sandwich loaf, so I do 1.5 cups water and 1.5 cups milk.  As long as it's 3 total cups liquid, you're good to go.  Same goes with flour (though I don't recommend using more than half whole wheat, it makes for a very dense loaf).  I also like adding some sweetener (usually honey), but that doesn't follow a set ratio; I usually add a couple tablespoons of honey, I don't really measure (but it's not crucial to measure it).  Same goes for adding a fat (butter, oil).  I usually just add a few tablespoons.  

Mixing Method

In a large bowl (or a large stand mixer with a dough hook), add the liquid (room temp or slightly warmer, not hot but not cold), yeast, and salt, (and fat and/or sweetener if you're using it) and stir to dissolve the salt.  Then add in 6 cups of flour, and mix it all together with a wooden spoon (or on slow speed) (add the last .5 cup flour if it's too wet).  You want it to be fairly wet, but dry enough to feel elastic.  Don't mix with your hands if you can avoid it- this often leads you to add too much flour.  The dough should still be pretty dang sticky.  Cover it with plastic wrap, and let it sit for about 2 hours.  Don't worry about punching it down, or whether the volume doubles or triples.  It doesn't matter! The yeast knows what to do!  If you're not ready to bake after the 2 hours are up, pop it in the fridge.  It is wet enough to last several days to a week!

Elastic enough to form a ball, but the shape shouldn't last long!

Baking Time!

After the 2 hour rising mark, you're ready to shape.  This recipe works best for free form 'artisan' style loaves, rolls, etc.  (See below for sandwich loaf variation)  Flour your hands and your work surface liberally, and flour the top of the dough.  Liberally sprinkle corn meal on a baking sheet.  Grab a good hunk of dough, form it into a ball, and place it on the corn mealed baking sheet.  Allow to rise uncovered for half an hour.  A few minutes before baking time, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.  Melt a tablespoon of butter (salted or unsalted, your choice) and gently brush the surface of each loaf.  Bake for at least 30 minutes, but possibly as much as 45, depending on the size of the loaf.  The top should be crisp and browned, not just golden.  Trust me, it's way better to overbake than underbake!  Allow to cool completely before slicing, if you can resist!

The Ultimate Pizza Dough

This recipe follows the same ratio, only on a 2/3rd smaller scale, and will make a beautiful big and fairly thick pizza (after all, delicious dough deserves a thicker crust!).  Follow the above ratio if you would rather make two medium pizzas, or one large and some breadsticks, etc.  

2 cups water

1 tbsp yeast

1 tbsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp olive oil

4 cups flour (I think it's best half white flour half whole wheat!)

Combine the first five ingredients as directed above, then add flour and mix and allow rise as directed above.  After the 2 hour rise, you're ready to shape your pizza.  You'll need a LOT of flour on your work surface and hands and rolling pin.  Preheat the oven to 450, and prepare your toppings.  Cover a baking sheet very liberally with corn meal.  Roll out your dough, flipping it over and adding flour to keep from sticking as needed, until it's as large and thick as you'd like it (for me, as big as my baking sheet will allow!).  Spread sauce, cheese, and toppings as desired, and bake for about 20 minutes until the cheese is hot and bubbly and the crust is golden.  Enjoy!!!

My Favorite Sandwich Bread

1.5 cups warm water

1.5 cups milk

1.5 Tbsp yeast

1.5 Tbsp salt

3 Tbsp honey

4 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

3.5 cups all purpose flour

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup oat flour

1 cup rolled oats

Add first 6 ingredients as directed above, then add the flours and oats and mix.  Add either flour or liquid until it is elastic but still sticky.  Allow to rise as directed above.  After 2 hours, grease or spray a loaf pan with a neutral flavored oil.  Flour your hands and the top of the dough, and pull out half of the dough and form into a ball.  Stretch the ball slightly to elongate, and place in the prepared loaf pan.  Allow to rise another 45 minutes, uncovered.  (Do the same for the other half of the dough if you have two loaf pans. If not, you can make rolls, or refrigerate it for another day!)  Preheat oven to 450.  Melt a tablespoon of butter and brush the top of the loaf, and bake for 40 minutes or until deeply golden/browned.  This time, definitely wait until completely cooled before slicing.  

You can grow potatoes!

This post is the first in a series of 'you can do it' type stuff for the garden and whatnot!  We have a number of friends who have become interested in starting to grow their own food, and have asked us for advice on how to get started, so we thought that this would be a great way of helping people learn how to do it!  I would love if you read this post (or any of my posts) and think of someone who would appreciate it, that you pass a link on to them!  Often times starting a food garden for the first year can be a really daunting task, and a lot of gardening books and articles make it seem more complicated than it needs to be.  We hope to be able to spread the knowledge around so more people can learn to grow and enjoy their own food!!!  And so, we start with potatoes!

Though we've been growing food for about 6 years now, we only just did a potato crop for the first time last year, and it was a complete success!  Potatoes are extremely easy to grow, have great yields for very little effort, and are an excellent staple crop that is very easily stored.

Preparing to plant!
Potatoes will grow just about anywhere- in containers, in old tractor tires, in hay, in your compost pile, or any ol' garden bed.  The easiest way (apparently, we haven't tried it yet but want to!) is to just stick them in a mound of hay, let it do its thing, and come harvest time you don't have to work it out of the dirt, you just pull potatoes right out of the hay!  The only rule you really need to follow is making sure none of the potatoes are exposed to light.  Light turns potatoes green, and the green part is slightly toxic.  The way we prefer to plant them is in dirt, in a slight hole (rather than a mound), and cover the dirt with a good bit of hay.  As the tubers grow, if any peek up through the dirt, you can just add more dirt or hay to keep them in the dark.  Anyways, getting ahead of myself here.  All you need is some good, loose soil, and they'd love some compost if you have it (or can buy it).

And of course, you need some potatoes!  You can buy "seed" potatoes at garden stores or online nurseries, which are no different from what you'd buy at the grocery store, except they are probably already sprouting out the eyes.  If you can't find true seed potatoes, you can use potatoes from the grocery store, but you're better off buying organic potatoes (better chance that they are not a hybrid variety; you can't save seed from hybrids to use for next year). (If you buy potatoes from the grocery store, wait until they sprout before you get ready to plant them.  Some store bought potatoes are treated with an anti-sprouting spray.)  Last year we grew organic Russian Banana fingerlings.  This year we are trying Yukon Golds.  Larger potatoes (like Russets) need a longer growing season, so keep that in mind when choosing a variety.

24 hours before you want to plant them in the ground, you will need to cut the potatoes into pieces, with about 3 eyes per piece.  Let them sit overnight in a bowl or paper bag to allow the cut edges to dry, which will protect them from molding in the ground.

Planting day!
The best thing about planting potatoes is that you really can't screw it up.  As long as the ground isn't frozen anymore, you're good to go.  Roots and seeds know when the time is right for them to start growing.  If it's too cold for them, they won't grow until it's warm enough.  Smart, huh?  On planting day, you'll want to dig a hole about 3" deep, and the width of your shovel.  Put one piece of potato in each hole, and make each hole about three feet apart.  The spacing might seem wide, but trust me, the foliage will get huge, and the potatoes need lots of room!  If they cant grow outwards, they'll grow down, which means more digging come harvest time.  Fill the hole back in with the dirt, add some compost if you've got it, and cover with about 2" of hay just over the hole (you can find bales at feed stores, which will have the best certified seed free hay).  If you don't want to use hay, you'll need to plan the potato a few inches deeper in the dirt.  If you want to do them in containers, you'll need a quite wide container, as there needs to be plenty of room for those potatoes to grow!

The Waiting Game...
Different varieties take different lengths of time to get to harvest time, but the time between planting and harvest is really pretty easy.  Keep them watered, don't let the soil get bone dry, and if any tubers start peeking out into the light, cover them up with more dirt and/or hay (Hay is easier cause it's a whole lot easier to remove at harvest time than a whole lot of dirt!).  Potato foliage is beautiful, the flowers are really pretty (not all plants will flower, so don't freak out if yours don't), and some will even form little seed pods that look remarkably like tomatoes.  But BE FOREWARNED!  ALL parts of the potato plant EXCEPT the potatoes themselves are POISONOUS!!!  Potatoes are a member of the nightshade family, so if you have a curious kiddo who happens to like green tomatoes, keep an eye on them that they don't stick a potato seed pod in their mouth (been there, done that with Wyatt!).

Potato blossoms!

Their foliage is so big and beautiful! (That's only about 5 plants!)

Harvest Time!!!
When the summer is waning, the foliage of the plant will start to yellow- that means it's harvest time!!!  You don't have to worry about frost as long as they are in the ground.  You probably want to get them out of the dirt before it snows, but that's more a matter of convenience ;)  When you harvest, it's easiest to cut the foliage down so it's out of your way, and pull away the hay (it's all great for your compost pile!).  Be very careful as you dig, because scraping the skin of the potato will shorten the length of time you can store it.  The easiest way to safely loosen the dirt is to dig in a wide circle around each plant, loosening the dirt with a spade (like you would do to till a garden bed), but be careful when you put the shovel into the ground, push it in slowly so you don't chop a potato in half.  Then, it's a bit like a treasure hunt!  Break up chunks of dirt by hand, and be sure to go through the dirt all around the plants, because stray potatoes might have decided they liked a bit of privacy and gone deeper or further to the side of the plant than you might expect.  Once you think you've gotten them all, dig a little deeper just to be sure.  If you've planted in containers, you might even dump the whole container out on the ground to get every last little tuber.  Discard any potatoes with lots of green on them.  If there are potatoes with just little bits of green on an end, you can still eat those, just cut the green bit off before cooking.

Unfortunately, you probably don't want to cook a potato straight out of the ground.  They will be much better, and will do better in long term storage, if you let them dry in darkness for several days up to several weeks, to dry the skin (don't wash them!!!).  We put ours in cardboard boxes in layers between newspapers, and stuck them in the closet.  After this time, they are ready to eat and store!!!

Storing your harvest
Potatoes do best in darkness and dry coolness, in a very well ventilating container.  Brown paper bags are not ventilated enough, unfortunately... Wood boxes are probably best.  You can also store them in sand, or burlap sacks, though I don't recommend buckets, even with loose lids.  That's what we did, and all the potatoes we saved for seed to plant this spring ended up liquefied.  GROSS!  If you don't have a cool garage or basement, a dark cabinet will do, but if you have a big harvest, you'll need to find a cool space to keep them.  Don't put potatoes in the fridge though!!! Too cold, and the starch will turn to sugar, and while I love sweet potatoes, a sweet regular potato is not so tasty...  Only wash potatoes right before you cook them.

Last year, we planted 10lbs of potatoes in 48 holes, had 46 plants come up (We think the two that didn't grow were dug up by the dog), and got 55lbs of potatoes from those 46 plants.  Pretty freakin awesome!!! This year we are planting 20lbs!  Yay!!!

One of many boxes of our Russian Banana Fingerlings! Yum!!!

This is a case of mistaken identity...

Well, two weeks of chicken ownership has been wonderful! We didn't lose a single chick, no health issues, they grew so fast, and are nice healthy birds! But unfortunately, not all of them were the birds we wanted... We *thought* we had 12 Buff Orpington chicks, and thought the 8 darker ones maybe just had different parents or were just darker birds or something... Well, as they grew, so did their feathers, and as their feathers came in with patterns, we realized something wasn't right... It took until they were very nearly 2 weeks old before we were able to positively identify the 8 darker birds as Rhode Island Reds, a very beautiful breed no doubt, but not the right breed for us.  For one, they aren't as cold hardy and wouldn't do well in the winter here, and for two they are prone to be a more aggressive breed, and probably wouldn't get alone with the 4 Orpingtons we did have once they got older.  But thankfully, thanks to Craigslist we were able to find the Reds a new home, and take the 4 Orpingtons to Red's mom Kayla, and get 8 new Buff Orpington chicks for ourselves, all in one day!  Ca-RAY-zy!  So now we have 8 weeny teeny little yellow puffballs (and yes, this time they ALL are Orpingtons!), they are 4 days old today (or thereabouts, we got them on Wednesday, and are assuming they were day-olds then), and already have grown quite a bit.  It really is remarkable the difference in their behavior even at this tender age compared to how the Reds were, the first batch of chicks were constantly peeping and chirruping, but this batch is quite quiet in comparison!  They aren't as fond of being fed special treats (cracked wheat and oats) by hand by us yet, whereas the Reds weren't too shy of a hand full of treats, but these are much more tolerant of being picked up and held, whereas the Reds were very skiddish even at 2 weeks old of a hand without treats... Anyways, this new batch are healthy and doing well, and we're excited to get our flock right the second time ;)

(On a personal note, today is Wyatt's 3rd Birthday!!! My poor baby boy is so sick with a nasty tummy bug, and we've had to postpone his party, but we still have special stuff to do with him tomorrow even if he can't have friends over :(  Poor kiddo!  I think Red and I are more upset about it than he is though!)

Here chickie chickie chickie!

Today we grew our family by a whopping 12 teeny little girls!  No, I didn't just have duodecuplettes (PHEW!), we got CHICKS!  12 adorable teeny fuzzballs, all Buff Orpington pullets (female chicks).  We've been planning for some time now to get chickens, but weren't sure if we wanted to go with day old chicks (like these) or juvenile pullets, or even if we could find laying hens locally, but after no luck of finding free hens, and no luck finding pullets of the breed we wanted, we decided to go with chicks!  And luck have it, the local feed co-op has Buff Orpingtons!  We picked them up this morning, and they are happily chirruping away in their brooder box in our living room.  They'll live in this box for at least the first few weeks, as they need constant heat heat heat!  The first week, we have to keep them at around 95 degrees!  Fortunately this is easily done with a couple 60 watt incandescent bulbs and some nice dry warm and insulating wood shavings for litter.

Bean and Tig are both absolutely entranced, clearly they think this is the best thing that has ever happened here... Though the chickies are nice and safe in there!  Wyatt is excited too, and all of our new favorite activity is just sitting and watching them!  I am so excited to watch them grow, get to know their personalities and quirks!  No names for them yet, for one they're very hard to distinguish from one another (and will continue to be, as their feathers will be in a constant state of change for the next few months!).  They will begin laying in about 5-6 months, so come early fall we'll be enjoying delicious eggs!  Three of the twelve will go to Red's mom when they are about 6 weeks or so, past the fragile chickie stage and well on their way to being big girls!  Buff Orpingtons are a heritage breed, originally bred in England in the late 1800's.  They're a heavy breed, hens reaching around 8lbs at maturity, and they will lay large light brown eggs.  They're very cold hardy, and have small combs and wattles (the floppy things on their heads), and that's a good thing cause the bigger the combs and wattles are, the more prone they are to frostbite.  Here's a shot of a mature hen- (borrowed from pluckandfeather.com)