Happy 2018

Another year is in full swing. We’ve had some blistering, record breaking cold weather here in Virginia over the past few weeks. Much colder than we’re used to and for a longer stretch of time than we’d like. We had a 3 day break where it swung all the way back up to 70 degrees, but now we’re back with the lows in the low teens and highs still below freezing.

Some small updates from SRTH. We still have three chickens who are braving the cold. They have a heated coop and a water heater to keep them hydrated. They are missing the grass since it’s been frozen and all eaten up with no regrowth yet. I’ve just started trying to sprout some extra chia seeds for them to see if they will go for that. I gave them a frozen/thawed soft pumpkin the other day. They seemed to enjoy the insides until it froze again and now it’s a solid mess of pumpkin mush and seeds.

As for me, if you read my GBS post from the summer, I’m happy to report I’m back to life as usual. Abilities are 100%. I’m still rebuilding strength to lift heavier and my feet/toes get a little tingly at the end of the day, but I’m not complaining. I’m running 3+ miles (when it’s not brutally cold out), lifting 3-5 days a week and riding my mountain bike when (again) the weather is respectable. I’m working part time as an outpatient dietitian at Specialty Nutrition and Health a couple times a week after my full time job at the hospital.

The new year is a time a lot of people use to start new habits, stop bad habits, make other life changes and make goals. Here are my goals for the first half of the year:

  1. Post at least two times a month- articles, journal reviews or garden/farm updates.
  2. Deadlift 250 lbs by March 30th, and 300 lbs by June 30th.
  3. Make time to meditate 4 days per week.

It may seem a little odd that I haven’t posted any food goals. I will continue to research and learn what foods are best for me, but also try and focus more on lifestyle and environmental factors including stress, sleep and gut health. I’m reading Brain Maker by Dr. Perlmutter right now which is about how gut bacteria and the lack thereof may be a root cause for disease. So one of my food goals this year might be something like “make fermented vegetables.” We are still making kombucha, but will try and branch out and make more “healthy bacteria” foods.

Let me know if you’re making any food/diet/lifestyle changes, or have some questions about anything health and wellness related.

Here’s some articles to read about interesting wellness related stuff!

Type 1 Diabetes may be reversible?

Microbes are the cause of Alzheimer’s 

Saturated fat does not clog arteries

Enjoy!

SRTH

 

 

Chickens

We love eggs, so it was only logical to get some chickens on our “farm.” We had been wanting to get chickens for a while and had planned to get them this spring, but a little set back called GBS delayed our chicken endeavors.

Finally recovered enough, we decided to go ahead a get 5 chickens. We had a coop, a lot of grass, woods and bugs for them to eat. We got a feeder and a waterer and went and picked up 5 pullets (aka teenage chickens) from a reputable place in Ashland, VA. We were excited to have some truly free range, bug eating, happy chickens.

Getting them into the coop for the first time was a disaster. Long story short, we were bounding through the poison ivy infested woods, in the rain, chasing chickens for hours before we lost one completely. Thankfully she came back that evening looking for her friends. We tried to establish some perimeters the first couple days, but soon the chickens were wandering farther and farther while we were at work for the day.

A few days went by and then we got our first egg. That was very exciting! Soon we got 2 eggs a day.  All was good, except that the chickens were wandering to the neighbors yard and we felt a little bad about that, even though they were very care-free about that whole situation. We inadvertently named one “Boldie” because she was bold. She was the first out of the coop, the first to come up to you and the easiest to pet and handle, and she was the leader of the flock. She was also the first to disappear. Two days later “the feisty one” went missing.

Our days of fun loving free ranging chickens seemed to be coming to an end. We had to do something. Since they were used to 2+ acres of wandering space, we thought we’d be nice and build them a large mobile chicken tractor. When drawing plans, 16ft long by 5ft wide seemed like a good compromise. Little did we know just how heavy something that big would be.

Plans evolved as we made it. I did decide to use 2×3 boards instead of 2×4’s for a lot of the pieces knowing I was saving weight, but I did use some 2×4’s because they were free from a friend, and it is a beast of a tractor.  We put a corrugated steel roof on a quarter of the top to give them some shade and a couple nesting boxes. We decided against three solid walls just to save weight towards the end. We made a nice sliding door to allow us to butt the tractor up against the coop so the chickens can transfer easily in and out of the tractor, and so it was big enough for us to get inside. 

A co-worker of mine graciously agreed to chicken-sit while we were building the tractor. We were afraid they would continue to get picked off if we didn’t put them somewhere safe. This was a fun but time consuming project. It took all of 2 full days, plus driving and shopping for hardware. If I were to do it all again, I’d do the same thing but make it only 12 feet by 4 feet, and maybe get bigger wheels, which is something we can still switch out. Pulling it over a gravel driveway is nearly impossible and even pulling through long grass is tough. I wanted to get the wheels just big enough to work without leaving a big gap at the bottom so chickens wouldn’t try to escape while we moved the tractor around. I also need to put a long piece of wood between the current “handles” so that one person (maybe) can move it around.

It looks pretty good and should keep the chickens safe. Hopefully it’ll hold together at least for a while. We are happy to have the chickens back and happy to report 2 eggs today!