Natalie and her chicken egg apron!

It's been a snowy, cold few days here in Michigan and it's about to get a lot colder and the snow is really coming down now! The herd is basically staying inside the barn and coop, not wanting to go out into the cold and snow! So I'm looking back at summer and warmth! I made Natalie this adorable dress and apron to use when she would collect eggs! I used the Gertrude pattern from CKC Patterns and she loves it! Here are the photos when there was still green grass and before our chickens even laid their first eggs! I hope you enjoy! Isn't she just the most adorable little country girl? She just loves her chickens!

Thanks for reading! ~The Vela Homestead

Chickens, meet snow!

Apparently, chickens hate snow! Who knew....They always make me laugh, and really, they are funnier than you would think they are! I couldn't imagine our lives without these silly girls that's for sure! Here they are, seeing their first real snow fall! They had seen a light dusting back on halloween that quickly melted, but today, they got real snow! Watch the video to see how they reacted! I made it into a short 2 minute video of all their fun reactions!

Thanks for watching! ~The Vela Homestead

Building our pen and coop!

Yesterday I talked all about our turkeys. Today I'm going to talk about our chickens! First we knew we would need a pen and coop for them to live in, so we had an adorable custom chicken coop made. Michigan can get pretty cold, and I wasn't sure about predators out here, so to be safe I wanted something pretty secure that would lock up nice and tight! My husband, brother and my oldest son built the pen and my daughter and I painted the coop and the boards for the pen! It was a fun group effort to bring this place to life and get it ready for our chicks!
Here is a progression of photos of our pen and coop build! I hope you enjoy!

Before paint!

Building the pen!

Paining boards

Finished pen!

And the coop after paining and adding a flower box! 

I really love the barn red color and all the green grass! Although with 12 chickens the green grass didn't last long :) I hope you enjoyed a tour of our little homestead in the making!



Thanks for reading! ~The Vela Homestead