Bells of the North Homestead

As usual come winter here in North Pole, Alaska we turn inwards and spend time relaxing; learning new skills; reading books; and just as of this past Autumn I started attending college for my certification in Herbal Retail Management with the American College of Healthcare Sciences in Portland, Oregon.  So while we're not working non stop outside, we still stay relatively busy, all within close proximity to the lit wood stove.  Drying our laundry and cooking dinner on the wood stove while keeping us warm As we get closer to what can be considered Break up or what is called Spring in the lower 48, we begin to set up our plans for the next growing season or summer.  For some time now, actually before we started raising meat rabbits we wanted to have laying hens.  To us it just seemed to be the easier option.  Rabbits, in the beginning, actually were not even on our radar!  To us the eggs seemed much more desirable then the meat we would get from the rabbits.  Now that all