Worth The Money Archives - Page 4 of 4

These are my product, plant and animal recommendations. Things you can buy that I have found to be worth the money.

The Perfect Thank You Gift For Chicken Babysitting

January 19, 2021 BrassEgg Chickens, DIY, Worth The Money

Any Homesteader can tell you that finding someone to care for your livestock is not the same as finding someone to feed your fish while you are gone. The sheer logistics alone can be a nightmare, much less the specialized knowledge of how to find where the broody hen keeps hiding her eggs. While recovering from a broken leg I realized that winter would catch me before I could build a winter coop out on my farm in the next town.

I could probably sneak a few hens into my subdivision, but the surprise Rooster in my flock would jeopardize the whole mission. This is the moment the Homesteader’s Hero enters the scene. My Homestead Hero is Amy. Amy is a force of nature who at one point had a huge garden, Southdown Baby Doll Sheep, Laying Hens, Cow Dogs, Cats and would can up a batch of peaches on a whim! Amy rose to the challenge of caring for the extra hens and noisy rooster like a champ.

What can you give such a brave soul? A fancy advent calendar was a fantastic idea; but…they sell out within just a few days of hitting the stores. What about creating an advent calendar of our own that let’s my Homestead Hero know how much I appreciate the support in my Homesteading Adventure? Yeah, that might work!

What you need is a way to give something useful to your Homestead Hero while also letting them know how very special they are to you. We could have just bought a cute kit to fill, but I decided to take it one step further. It took a little while and some driving around, but we located 24 little ‘surprises’, wrapped them all different and numbered them. After the monotony of 2020, my Hero really enjoyed it. Just an idea for next time you need to thank someone special.

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Pretty Egg Apron

January 16, 2021 BrassEgg Chickens, Featured Favorites, Worth The Money

My daughter bought me the cutest ‘egg apron‘ for Mother’s Day and I’d like to pontificate about it. The first and most important element of this apron was that my daughter bought it to show support of my hobby/interests. She is the best gift-giver in the family; observant of others, willing to spend much more than a typical 14-year-old would want to part with, she doesn’t project her taste on others and she really spends a lot of time thinking through gifts. I love that she got me the apron…it fits right into the way I idealize how things will be.

It’s a cute and sweet idea. It’s not easy finding a gift for a homesteader or hobby farmer. Our interests are hard to understand and our teenagers can be embarrassed by anything mom does. She not only showed me support but she idealized how things would go just like I do!

However, wearing the apron out to the coop would violate the whole issue of keeping the chicken stuff separate from the living area and kitchen. The other problem with trying to use the apron the way it’s portrayed is the logistics of my suburban home. We will only keep the chickens here in the winter, but look at what I have to do all winter to get to them.

Each afternoon I climb over this retaining wall, stand on the arm of this chair and then walk down this sloping lawn to the coop. I’m 90% recovered from my broken leg, but this still makes me nervous.

This winter when there is snow and ice I will go down through the basement, but that has it’s own logistical issues. The first time using the egg apron I forgot what I was doing and tried to come back over that wall with 4 eggs. I caught myself at the last moment and only ended up with one crack in an egg. I also have forgotten while in the kitchen and leaned against the front of the sink, no cracks that time.

Is it a terrible idea? No, it serves a big role when the eggs get dirty either because one hen lays her egg on the ground or because it’s rained and the hens jump into the nesting box with muddy feet. I don’t want my husband or boys seeing the eggs like that because they would probably refuse to eat all eggs. Forever. So, when I come in from the coop I change my shoes in the garage and go into the laundry room to wash my hands. While I’m doing that I put the egg basket under the spout and let them get wet while I put on my egg apron.

Now I can wash off all the offensive mud or other ‘chicken gifts’ and slip each into a pocket to dry while I do the next. When I’ve got all the eggs in their little pockets I saunter into the kitchen and start putting them into a carton. I try to make sure my daughter sees me…she enjoys encouragement as much as I do.

The Perfect Egg Basket Is Farm Tested

January 14, 2021 BrassEgg Chickens, Featured Favorites, Worth The Money

I tend to have romantic notions about things. I know they hardly ever work out like in my head, but at the beginning I am always convinced that everything will be straight out of a movie scene. So, when I got this cute basket over a year ago I was so excited to have such an “authentic” and “patinaed” item for gathering eggs. Sheezzz…

Look at it! It is super cute, but it wasn’t built for farm use…that is a decoration, not even a reproduction. When you find authentic antique farm equipment it is robust and made for work. I knew that, I just got really excited and romanticized the idea. In just a few weeks of my kids using it the chicken wire began to break free from the wire frame. No self-respecting grandma would have purchased such a flimsy thing to pick up her eggs!

It felt like admitting defeat, but I swung by the Farm store and got a real egg basket. This is what I love about buying farm grade items…there is no messing around here. Look at the dark green rubber coating. Mine does tip over pretty easily though. In the store I’ve inspected this version that has a wider base, but not a thick rubber coating. Depends on what you value most.

There is no place for grime or chicken fertilizer to hide. Unlike the innumerable hiding places on the decorator basket that constantly got chicken feathers and other ‘chicken gifts’ stuck in the tightly wound cracks. The same problem would have happened with a wicker basket (which was my first idealized vision, complete with little white tea towel inside to cradle the precious eggs).

Here’s the truth: Chickens produce a lot more gifts than just eggs, and you really want as much division between your ‘chicken coop stuff’ and your ‘living area/kitchen’ as possible. No tea towel, no wicker basket with tons of crevices and hiding places for grasshoppers, leaves or even more unpleasant things. I even leave my chicken shoes (especially shoes!) and coat in the garage and change into other shoes before walking into the laundry room. I hang the basket in the laundry room (that hat hasn’t been worn in years, but I probably should give it a wash and store it somewhere else).

Then I can wash my hands right there in the laundry room. I try to never set the basket down in the kitchen and just transfer the eggs to a bowl to await washing. I have a system for when the eggs are muddy or otherwise unclean, but the over-arching theme is to try to have a system that keeps things so clean that my husband never freaks out.