Follow the shenanigans of a woman's attempt at going green while trying to raise a little one on a small ranch in Arizona with chickens and horses.
Before you buy your next carton of eggs….
Egg producing farms (except for the certified organic free-range farms) do the following:
- Use chemically altered hormone injected feeds to increase egg production.
- Cram as many chickens as possible into cages stacked on top of more cages, towering them within usually about 8 chickens crammed into a tiny little cage, fighting over feed and dropping eggs down below to the collection area.
- They de-beak the chickens so they don’t kill each other crammed into small areas. The beak is the most sensitive part of a chicken, and they are not even anesthetized to add insult to injury (literally)
- Male chicks are GRINDED ALIVE because they are not useful. In one factory alone, 150,000 male chicks are killed daily. Please note, the following video is extremely graphic and very hard to watch. I don’t expect many people to click play, I had to debate on clicking it myself for 10 minutes and then I just cried.
- So before you pick up another carton of eggs for the cheapest price at the grocery store, look for certified organic free-range ones first, and as soon as possible check around locally (try craigslist if you must) and look for someone who has home free-range chicks. Go to their place, make sure you can see how they raise them and care for their chicks.
Peanut was shy! :(
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to find out what Peanut is today. Peanut was determined to keep his/her legs crossed the entire time.
They’re going to have me come back in 2 weeks (Friday at 4:30) to try again.
Earth Day- So Far
Today is Earth day (shouldn’t they all be?!) We aren’t through the day yet but here’s how we have spent it so far.
We got up at 6am to see our friends head back off to Illinois. As soon as they headed out, we decided to:
1.) Turn the AC off for the day and open up all the windows and turn off all the lights. (Yeah, I know, I’m on the computer, ssshhhh)
2.) Went to Schnepf farms and see what they had there.
We’ve lived in Queen Creek for 5 years and had never gotten to their U-pick organic farms. Sadly, I realized that I’m still a city girl and I had no idea what to do with picking Cauliflower and Broccoli. They looked like giant huge leaves… so where’s the giant heads we’re used to seeing? We didn’t see any signs saying to dig so we weren’t sure what to do. Blah. I did get a little fresh spinach though and some gorgeous looking tomatoes.
We stopped by their market and picked up jars of Strawberry Preserves (not that I can’t make that myself, I’ve just been too lazy), and a jar of Strawberry/Rhubarb Preserves that I can’t wait to try out. A little expensive, but we just did it for part of the experience and the fact that we only got 26 cents worth of spinach. HA!
3.) We left Schnepff, stopped by A&P to price out our dwarf citrus trees we’re planning to get next week. (Oranges, Lemons, and Grapefruit.) I also want a plum tree (LOVE plums) and a peach tree eventually, though I think we’re going to partake in Schnepf’s U-Pick Peach Festival in 2 weeks.
4.) After that, we tried to stop by my favorite wholesale nursery, only to discover it was no longer there and a gigantic southwest mcmansion was going up in it’s place! BLAH!!
There’s a small chance that the nursery might have just moved because we think we spotted their stuff not far away, but if they did, they didn’t appear to be open. I could just cry though, their plants were the only ones that survived out here and I paid a fraction of regular prices for the plants. I really hope they just moved.
5.)Then we headed out to Tru-value for the tiller we’ve been meaning to rent for the garden area, and Ray started working on tilling up my future garden bed while I started to soak down the area we will be planting grass in near my flower beds to help with the dust control issues we have out here.
Suffice to say, it’s only 1:30 in the afternoon, the AC is still off (usually it would be on as soon as it hit 78 in the house). I’ve gotten a decent amount of vitamin D today and I feel great!
Friends coming and upcoming anatomy scan
I’ve got an exciting upcoming week…. I’d almost like to blame my insomnia on that but I know that’s not the case. (My insomnia has been to an extreme lately and I’m honestly not sure how I’m functioning… I’m getting maybe 1-2 hours of sleep a day….. seriously!)
So anyway, we have friends coming in from out of town that should be arriving tomorrow night or Monday morning. Scott and Lisa haven’t been here for 2 years, and the kids haven’t been here for I think 3? Nora, their littlest, is the namesake for one of my chickens.
However my chickens have gotten to looking so similar that I only know two of them by sight now. 
(Geeter and Amy Farrah Fowler)… Nora’s crooked black bumps on her nose have gone red and straight like everyone elses and I have no idea which one she is….
We also have the anatomy scan coming up next Saturday! I’m really hoping the Peanut gives us a perfect view. Next post should be next Saturday when we find out!
Meet the horses
Really quick video on the horses (they’re not doing anything spectacular or anything, just eating..)
and now, back to procrastinating…
