HL Acres

10/02/2026

SOLD

🪻 Lavender Orpington Hen Available 🪻

I have one 6-month-old Lavender Orpington hen available and looking for a new coop.

She is already laying and comes from my health-tested flock here at HL Acres. 🥚💜

Lovely young hen, ready to go and already paying rent! 😂

6️⃣5️⃣
Located in Cochrane (Hunta), ON.

Please message me if interested!

10/02/2026

HL Acres Journal Entry #13

October 2, 2026

There is something deeply deceptive about a box of tomatoes.

From the top, it looks reasonable. A lot of tomatoes, sure, but nothing a determined homesteader, two canners and an absurd amount of stubbornness can’t handle. What you don’t realize is that they’re stacked three to four layers deep.

🍅 Tomatoes.
🍅 More tomatoes.
🍅 SURPRISE, B*TCH. MORE TOMATOES.

Five boxes.

Five enormous, apparently bottomless Amazon boxes of Romas that I have spent the day washing, sorting, peeling, chopping, juicing, packing and canning. At some point today, my kitchen stopped being a kitchen and became a small-scale tomato processing facility 😂 Both canners were running, every available surface had jars on it including my herb rack. Tomatoes were in the sink, tomatoes were in bowls, tomatoes were in boxes, tomatoes were cooling on the shelf….There were tomatoes in places tomatoes had no business being.

By the end of the day, 29 litres of them had been wrestled into jars - Seven litres of beautiful tomato juice, and another twenty-two litres of diced tomatoes tucked away for winter chilli, spaghetti sauces, casseroles and whatever else ‘Future Me’ decides to make when the garden is buried under snow.

And there is still:

One. More. Box 😳

I’ve decided that one is being donated to a friend’s pigs LOL Honestly, this is the part of homesteading that photographs never quite capture. The pretty picture is the finished shelf, glowing red and orange in glass jars. What you don’t see is the aching back and sore feet, the sticky counters, or the mountain of skins. The canners turning the house into a sauna. My fingers may be permanently prune-shaped 😂 Or the moment you look into a box you’ve already been working from for what feels like 75 years and discover another layer of tomatoes underneath.

But these jars are our food…Food we grew. Food we won’t have to buy this winter. Food I can pull down when grocery prices are even more ridiculous. Food I can turn into supper for us, or share with people we love if they need it.

So yes, I complained. Profusely. I swore at the Romas. Repeatedly. 😂 But today it was 29 litres down, and that’s enough for today.

One box to go.

If the pigs don’t want it, Hubby can do that one.

🍅🖕😂

09/25/2026

Edit: new post coming. RuPaul has decided to FAFO. He is no longer part of a trio.

🍗🍗🍗🍗🍗🍗🍗🍗🍗🍗

Still available! Delivery along Hwy 11 to Orillia available tomorrow!!

*Purebred Splash Ameraucana Breeding Trio* 🩵

I’ve decided to let go of my Splash Ameraucana breeding trio as I’ll be changing up some of my breeding pens for next season.

1 rooster + 2 hens
Hatched February/March 2026
Both hens are currently laying
All three are purebred Splash Ameraucana

Being Splash × Splash, this trio will produce 100% Splash offspring.

The rooster has been genetically tested and confirmed homozygous Blue (Bl/Bl). His genetic testing certificate will be provided to the buyer. The flock has also been tested for MDV, MG, MS, ILT and ALV.

These are young, established birds and would make a beautiful ready-to-go Splash breeding group for someone wanting to work specifically with this colour.

1️⃣5️⃣0️⃣ for the trio
Will not separate

Located at HL Acres, Cochrane area.

09/18/2026

HL Acres Journal, Entry #12

“God, I love the view from here.”

Because “the view” isn’t only what I photographed across the trees tonight. It’s looking around in September and realizing I’m standing in the middle of things that I made happen. I planted seeds and now I’m mildly terrorized by cucumbers and Roma tomatoes. 😂 I put eggs into incubators and now there are generations of chickens standing in my pens. I grew way too many jalapeños and now there are rows of little jars of cowboy candy cooling on my counter. I picked up something tiny in the grass and discovered nature had accidentally given it TWO extra leaves.

None of these things happened magically. Some of it was expensive, some of it went horribly wrong, and some of it required starting over. A lot of it required work when I was sore or tired and didn’t feel like working.

And still…

At the end of an ordinary September day, I have dirt under my nails, my animals have been fed and closed up for the night, I have jars of food I grew myself cooling on my counter, and I have the privilege of standing here and watching the clouds turn gold over the lake.

God, I love the view from here.

09/14/2026

HL Acres Journal Entry #11

“Even muddy water shines at the right angle. It’s all about perspective.”

I came up with that today while standing on our muddy road, which is apparently where I do my best philosophical work 😂 The sun just happened to come out at exactly the right angle and turned a puddle into a mirror while I was admiring the beginning of fall creeping into the trees.

Today was nothing extraordinary: I did chores, walked the dogs, and spoiled my animals. Our rabbits enjoyed a feast of greens from the garden, and my older buck worked on making next month’s babies. I sat in my chicken coop, which is overflowing with tiny feathered things, and checked on my incubator, which is full of eggs promising even “more”… And I was ridiculously, almost obnoxiously, happy.

At some point, I became so delighted by the ridiculous abundance of it all that I started sending videos and quoting The Little Mermaid at people 😂 To me, “Look at this stuff, isn’t it neat?” is an entirely appropriate way to introduce a collection of chickens LOL. And when confronted with the fact that I already have plenty?

Well.

I want MOOORRREEE 🧜‍♀️

Sure, my husband may currently suspect I’ve lost my mind, but my friends, thankfully, understand the assignment 🐥

Tonight, though, I keep coming back to that puddle and the idea that happiness isn’t the absence of “mud”… or maybe I’ve just spent enough years training myself to look for the reflection.

There will always be chores. There will be things that break and plans that fail. Animals will occasionally find horrifying new ways to cost me money, and sadly, there will be losses. Tomorrow will undoubtedly contain something dreadfully inconvenient… but today there was sunshine in a puddle, a dog carrying half a tree, rabbits making future rabbits, chicks underfoot, eggs trying to become something else, and more good things around me than I could possibly count.

Even muddy water shines at the right angle.

And God, I love the view from here.

09/10/2026

Edit: new post coming. RuPaul has decided to FAFO. He is no longer part of a trio.

🍗🍗🍗🍗🍗🍗🍗🍗🍗🍗

*Purebred Splash Ameraucana Breeding Trio* 🩵

I’ve decided to let go of my Splash Ameraucana breeding trio as I’ll be changing up some of my breeding pens for next season.

1 rooster + 2 hens
Hatched February/March 2026
Both hens are currently laying
All three are purebred Splash Ameraucana

Being Splash × Splash, this trio will produce 100% Splash offspring.

The rooster has been genetically tested and confirmed homozygous Blue (Bl/Bl). His genetic testing certificate will be provided to the buyer. The flock has also been tested for MDV, MG, MS, ILT and ALV.

Full disclosure: the rooster has sectoral heterochromia in one eye (approximately one-third of his right iris is gold rather than brown - see photo). It does not affect his vision or quality of life, but I want any potential buyer/breeder to be aware of it.

These are young, established birds and would make a beautiful ready-to-go Splash breeding group for someone wanting to work specifically with this colour.

1️⃣5️⃣0️⃣ for the trio
Will not separate

Located at HL Acres, Cochrane area.

Delivery possible along Highway 11 as far as Washago on September 25

08/30/2026

HL Acres Journal Entry #10

Today was processing day on the farm.

It isn’t a part of raising livestock that makes for particularly pretty pictures, and it isn’t something I feel the need to photograph or share at this time, but it is still an important part of what we do here.

One of the reasons we started raising more of our own food was because we wanted to know where it came from - we wanted to know what the animals ate, we wanted to know that they had clean bedding, fresh water, room to move around and sun shining on their faces. We wanted to know that while they were here, they were comfortable, well fed and treated with respect.

With that being said, there is a strange sort of gratitude that comes with processing day. It makes you very aware that meat doesn’t begin wrapped in plastic on a grocery store shelf. It came from something living, and when you raise that animal yourself, there is no distance between those two things.

I think that’s a privilege.

Not everyone has the land, the ability, or even the opportunity to raise some of their own food. We do, and I’m grateful for it. I’m grateful to know exactly where some of the food on our table comes from, and especially grateful to know what kind of life it had before it got there.

But of course, the rest of farm life doesn’t stop just because it’s processing day. The goats still require their hay (preferably while making ridiculous faces with their mouths full 😂), and the Leghorns have apparently missed the memo about their breed being flighty, and decided that humans are perfectly acceptable furniture. The Bresse are getting bigger by the day, the Brahmas are growing increasingly magnificent feathered pants, and our one determined broody hen is still settled into her box with plans of her own.

Life on a farm has a way of putting the whole cycle in front of you at once.

Some are just beginning.
Some are growing.
Some are raising the next generation.
And some ultimately provide for the lives around them.

Today I’m simply thankful for all of it. ❤️

HL Acres

08/29/2026

HL Acres Journal Entry #9

Chicken math is one thing. Chicken spreadsheets are a different beast entirely. 😂🐥📊

Today was weigh-in day for some of our growing chicks, which means everybody got hauled out, plunked unceremoniously onto the scale, and judged. Because when you’re breeding chickens with a purpose, choosing which birds stay isn’t quite as simple as picking the prettiest ones.

I’m starting to make some of the decisions about which of this year’s grow-outs will eventually move forward into our breeding program next spring, and that means looking at the whole bird: structure, growth rate, temperament, breed characteristics, colour and genetics. With these Bresse, that also includes genetic testing to confirm the dominant white we want, and screen for colour genes we don’t want quietly hitching a ride into the next generation. Sometimes what a chicken *looks* like only tells you part of the story.

And then there are the numbers.

One group of project chicks, our first batch of Bresse that hatched on July 23, had me a little concerned about their growth early on. They’ve caught up nicely and are now sitting around where breed standards expect them to be for their age.

The other batch from July 26? Apparently nobody informed them that there was a speed limit. 😂 At just 4½ weeks old, the biggest cockerel tipped the scale at 598 grams.

For me, this is the really interesting part of breeding. I’m trying to make thoughtful and deliberate decisions about which chickens become the foundation for the next generation because my goal isn’t just “MORE.”

Yes, some birds will be sold. Some will also eventually go into the freezer, and a very small number will earn a permanent position here and become next year’s breeders. So while today’s farm progress may have mostly consisted of standing in the rain, weighing and sexing increasingly unimpressed chicks…I’m already making plans for next spring. 🖤🐥

08/28/2026

🧬🐓 A little exciting news from HL Acres!

I’m happy to share that I’ve been approved as a Pullidex affiliate! Pullidex, formerly The Silkie Lab, is the laboratory I use for poultry DNA, genetic and disease testing here at HL Acres.

If you’ve followed along with some of my recent genetics adventures, you’ve already seen their testing at work with birds like Lenny and Ozzy. 😂 Genetic testing can take a lot of the guesswork out of a breeding program, whether you’re looking at colour genetics, specific traits or trying to make more informed breeding decisions.

Pullidex offers testing for a variety of poultry diseases as well as DNA and genetic traits, and their testing has become an important part of how I manage and make decisions about my own flock here at HL Acres.

If you’d like to have testing done on your own birds, you can now use my affiliate code:

🧬 POULTRY-AF
🐓 5% OFF your order

Using my code also helps support HL Acres and allows me to continue spending an arguably unreasonable amount of time investigating chicken genetics. 😂🖤

Healthy flocks, informed breeding, and a little less guessing. That’s always a win in my books.

Happy Testing!

Note: if mailing from Canada, please be sure to check Canada Post guidelines for sending animal samples internationally before mailing: https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/support/articles/abcs-of-mailing/liquid-and-dry-patient-specimens.page

Fast, accurate DNA testing for chickens, ducks, geese, swans, and exotic birds. Sexing, color genetics, and disease screening with results in days.

08/25/2026

HL Acres Journal Entry #8

Sometimes chicken breeding involves considerably more science than I ever expected, and sending chicken blood away for genetic testing is just something we do here now 😂

A little while ago, I sent samples from two of our black roosters: Lenny Kravitz, our Ayam Cemani, and Ozzy Osbourne, our Svarthona. The results came back today and BOTH boys tested FM/FM for fibromelanosis! 🖤🐓

In much less scientific terms, fibromelanosis is responsible for the incredible black pigmentation these breeds are known for. Being FM/FM means both boys carry two copies of it, so every chick they father will inherit it from them.

This is particularly exciting because both boys have jobs to do here.

Lenny will be part of our Ayam Cemani × Leghorn project, and Ozzy will be part of our Svarthona × Bresse project. We’re hoping to develop some very interesting dark-skinned crosses while bringing in traits from the other breeds, so these results are a fantastic place to start. There are still other genetics involved in just how dark their offspring will actually be, so there will be plenty of hatching, growing and selecting ahead of us, but for today, this was exactly the result I was hoping for. ♥️

Both of our boys are FM/FM, both will pass the fibromelanosis gene to every chick they father, and both of our breeding projects now have exactly the foundation we needed.

Lenny and Ozzy were already rockstars by name, and apparently they’re rockstars in my little chicken world now too. 😂🎸🐓🖤

Meet Lenny Kravitz, our Ayam Cemani, Extraordinaire