Homesteading this Weekend

We had a lot of projects going on this weekend, what a wonderful way to spend the 68 degree days we've been having! I wanted to share my laundry system with everyone. My husband designed a system where all of our grey water (from washing laundry) empties in to this gallon container...

...and waters various plants that we have, like these grapevines...

...and this little apple tree we planted last spring. (It has a friend a few feet away, just didn't make the picture.)

Then to dry our clothes, we use the line! I love line drying my clothes! Its honestly therapeutic for me. I'm not usually an advocate of regulations and rules to govern peoples' personal choice (call me libertarian), but it seems to me that in the desert, the ONE resource we have is SUN!!! My clothes are dry in about an hour in the winter, about 20 minutes in the summer--and no wasted energy. Yay!

Now for the aforementioned announcement: we replaced our chickens this weekend! Hooray! We now have ten "laying" hens...the woman we purchased from said they had been born in April but weren't laying through the winter. In my experience, chickens do lay less during extreme climate changes--but I've never had a flock completely stop. We'll see what happens with these ladies! We're all very happy to have them--the coop had seemed rather lonely and forlorn after the autumn massacre.

This little girl, and her partner to the right, are super cute and rather funny looking! I think the kids have named the blonde one Nimrod. hahaha! They aren't supposed to be great layers, but I picked them up for my 6 year old--she loves animals and loves chickens (we call her the Chicken Whisperer), and I knew she would become immediately attached to the sheer cuteness (and strange-ness?) of these two. In a later post, I'll look up the name. 

Here is a picture of my recently rotated, full compost bin! Isn't it lovely!! I threw a layer of leaves on top and slapped a lid on for this batch to "cook"; and in the second bin, I am starting a new batch. Its crazy to me to watch this work!

Lastly, I received a few starts and seeds from a new neighbor! She just moved here from Darwin, where they have a sporadic community garden; she saved some vegetables that had been planted in the fall and survived there in the ground. These may just not make it, I don't know what to expect!  Hers were doing fine, so maybe they will just live through these cold months? We'll see!

 This one is spinach and kale. I also threw in some lettuce and more spinach seeds.

   This is wild garlic.

 These are beets!

 This terrible picture is of the little onion sprouts.

Whew! Happy Homesteading! Can't wait for Spring!