Farm Life, Chickens and so Forth

While I've Been Away...Garden Totes

2012-01-07T08:35:00.004-05:00

I've been making Garden Baskets!

They are made from cedar, are nice and lightweight and will last forever.

My family all got them for Christmas, all the gardeners anyway. My sister's that don't garden got the small version that will fit on their counter and hold all sorts of fun things.

The large one is over 21 inches by 11 inches with the handle 19 inches high and will hold over half a bushel! It will make for less stooping while picking in the garden. They are made with garden wire so I can spray everything off with the hose before it comes into the house.

Now if spring will ever come so I can use it.

It's Been a Long Time!

2011-07-21T08:01:00.010-04:00

It's been ages since my last post, five months to be exact. So much has happened but it's almost all the same thing, just a different year.

A most beautiful puppy that went to live with a really nice family.

We have baby turkeys, a big garden, puppies, a new roof, and on and on. I take pictures almost everyday, wanting to post something but it all seems repetitive and boring to me.

Our new arbor.

We built the arbor to block the view of the road. We also built new steps that lead to the front door because we never had any and the people that had the house for 20 years before us never built any either. What were they thinking? Guests had to attempt to walk up the steep slope.

We are hoping that the grapes eventually cover the lattice.

The garden.

There are changes are worth noting though. This year we used black plastic on the garden. Man oh man, I feel liberated! No weeds at all. The only area I have to weed is along the bean and pea fence and that's actually fun. I can mow along the borders. Another thing worth noting is the fishing line that we have strung, at different heights, along and around the garden. You can kinda see it in the picture. It supposed to be a deer deterrent.

It's working so far. Yesterday while I was mowing, (And yes it was so hot that I was practically sliding off of the vinyl seat from sweat.) I saw that one of the lower pieces had been pulled way into the field by something that had gotten caught in it. It's only 20lb. test so it couldn't hurt an animal but we sure hoped it scared it.

I just went out this morning and picked way more cucumbers that I can use. Too large for pickles, they really snuck up on me. I think I'll make some freezer pickles, they are sooooo good, almost like candy.

The new roof.

We re-roofed the house last week, very hot and very humid but it needed to be done and it is!

So that's the update, maybe I'll be back a little sooner next time.

~Beth

Turkeys and Puppies and Snow and Snow and Snow and...

2011-02-05T23:41:00.010-05:00

I bought my husband seat covers for Christmas. So, maybe around New Year's or maybe even later he decided to install them. The directions said to plan for 45 minutes and wear safety glasses so he didn't know what to expect!

They are from a company called Precision Fit Seat Covers and boy are they really heavy duty and nice! I picked a fabric called Endura (water proof.. read coffee stain proof) and a camo color .

So on a kinda warm day he and the boy went out to install them. I should go out now and take a close-up picture of them but it's 8am and freezing out and not worth it. And check out that you can see green grass in these pictures. We have not had green grass showing since that weekend. We have been slammed by snow storm after snow storm after snow storm. And throw in a couple of ice storms too.

Luckily they had the help of one of the turkey hens and got the job done easily and there were no safety glasses needed. What do they think will happen? A snap will smack your eye out? Really?

But I just cropped this last picture so you can see the seat cover a little better. It was actually kind of challenging shopping for the covers. The web sites are not all that user friendly. But I finally settled on this company and we are really glad that we did.

Speaking of snow! Poor Laddie has a snowy playground out there. See him watching me... always.

There he is with two of his daughters. They are almost as big as him. They were supposed to stay small, I hope they don't get too much bigger.

I still can't get him to come into the house. He loves it outside and is still so afraid of people. He will come to the door and lick my hand but if I try to pet him he is off. He is really excited to see me and really happy when I talk to him but he's not crazy about being touched. If I catch him and pet him he loves it though.

I did trick him one time and got him in, I threw a biscuit on the floor and he came in to get it and I shut the door behind him. He needed brushed and looked over so he got about a half an hour of me fretting over him.

He won't fall for that trick again. When he was in the house I had to put a diaper on him cause he just pees anywhere so maybe he was humiliated. (kidding) More like scared but when he was in here he was happy, trotting around. But he still would not come up to anyone. He is such a chicken. Actually, that's not entirely true, when I catch him and pet him for a while he will come up and let me pet him after I let him loose but it only lasts an hour or so.

Soooo, I decided that I wanted to try and take some portraits of the two puppies. I researched and read all about shutter speed and aperture settings and stuff like that and usually I can follow directions pretty good but my attempts were pathetic. I still have no idea how to use my camera besides point and shoot. All the other photo bloggers take beautiful shots but if I get a good one it's by accident.

It was frustrating but the results are below.

I put a sheet up and found a spot with natural light. She looks like she has a chicken neck here.

Bad angle but I did get a highlight in her eyes. Or I guess it's called a "gleam" or a "spark".

She's sitting like a frog and mind you, she didn't want to be up there on the table surrounded by cardboard with a sheet hanging off of it.

Now she's looking for her sister.

Now the other dogs are barking at something.

Now I want to smack her. (Just kidding, I would never smack her, she's my sweetie!)

But I kinda did want to.

OMG!

Better. But still chicken neck and bad angle.

Crap!

A little cuter but blurry.

Ugggggg!

She kept looking for her sister so I decided to put both up there, wow, look at the results and you know that when I pushed the button they were looking at me very cutely.

Sherpa, the one in front, looks like a bat. The one in the back is named Pink. She has the classically correct features of the Sheltie breed. Sherpa's ears are huge, I hope she grows into them but her personalty is amazing, the most loving puppy you've ever met.

She spends most of her time laying under my computer chair. (When I'm in it ) Pink is more stand offish, would rather be playing with her mom. Sherpa prefers people though, it's awesome. The best part of our day is when we come home to our dogs.

My husband insisted that they sleep with us. I waited until they had no accidents all night then up they came. They always go down by our feet to sleep though. My sister read that if they sleep up by your head that it means they are trying to dominate you, not these little guys. Even when we pet them try to hold them up close to us they won't stay. My sister wonders what it means that her Jack Russell trys to sleep on her head...

Very cute! I think the background should not have been light, her white collar does not show up very well.

Cropped it is cute but not in focus.

Pink looks cute but I have no idea where Sherpa thought she was going.

I cropped this to show only Pink but it's blurry... but she has that spark in her eye and it is cute.

All in all I learned that it is hard to take puppy pictures and I need to take a photography class! But I never want to go anywhere so that may be a problem! Maybe this spring or maybe there is some kind of on-line course. I'll keep taking pictures though, some good, many mostly bad but I will keep trying.

Til next time,

Beth

A Video for my Nephew and His Family

2010-12-27T17:22:00.003-05:00

I made this video for my nephew and his family for a Christmas gift. They are visiting from California and have a new baby.

I was inspired by the beautiful song from this video by Jenna at Cold Antler Farm. She is one of my most favorite bloggers. It's here, at this link below.

http://coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com/2010/12/year-so-far.html

But here is mine.

The song is by Josh Ritter and it's called "Change of Time" and I just love this song.

They Are Coming for Christmas.

2010-12-19T17:23:00.008-05:00

We are coming to Ohio, YAY!!

(My words, not theirs... they live in sunny, 70 degree California.)

My nephew and his wife had a new baby last spring.

His wife is beautiful and we are incredibly lucky to have her in our family!

The new one.

Three sisters!

She has two very beautiful grown up sisters and we can't wait to see them again.

Very beautiful!

There, that's better!

This was taken at the pumpkin patch last fall.

Uh oh! Going to freezing cold Ohio?

I'm not too sure about that.

Really? Well, ok....

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Santa Was at the Dollar Store!

2010-12-04T20:53:00.016-05:00

I grocery shop at Dollar General. Maybe two times a week, sometimes more. Every third week or so I stock up on basics, maybe dog food, paper towels or whatever and usually my cart is heaping.

On these trips I usually fill a cart up to the point where stuff is falling out, like my dog biscuits and bread last week and it costs less than $100.00. A heaping cart for less than $100.00! The total for these same items at a normal store would be at least $200.00. And believe me the items are EXACTLY the same, just in different boxes. Sometimes the items are name brand like the tea that I buy. Dollar store price is like $2.00, grocery store price $4.00. I love, love the Dollar General!

Anyway, An advertisement for the dollar store is not what this is all about. Santa is what this is about.

Thursday when I had this heaping cart and I was about to checkout I remembered that I needed cereal so I pushed my cart near the register and hurriedly went back to grab it. I popped around the corner and there was a man standing in the middle of the cereal aisle looking for something that he was having trouble finding.

I was kind of peering over his shoulder because he was, of course, standing right in front of the Cheerios (which by the way are much cheaper at DG than at the grocery store). I noticed that he was quietly singing the Christmas song that was playing on the overhead speakers. He found what he was looking for and when he turned to go to he noticed that I must have heard him singing. He looked a little embarrassed and smiled so I smiled back and grabbed my Cheerios.

When I got back to my cart at the checkout line he was waiting behind it. I had parked it about 10 feet back so people could easily get around it but he had decided to wait behind it thinking that I was already in line.

Now, one thing you must know is that I'm always in turmoil with a full cart at the checkout line at this store. Most people go in there to grab a few things quickly and don't expect to wait in a long line. So of course, me being the middle child or whatever the reason, I always tell them to go ahead of me. -Always.- Sometimes I'll let three people go in front of me and then I'm in agony, watching the other shoppers, hoping no one else comes up behind me.

If they have a cart then I don't feel so bad but if they don't and if they have so few items that they are carrying them in their hands then I have to let them go ahead of me or else I feel terrible. Even though I am always in a hurry to get home, I still let them go ahead.

Now, back to the the man that was waiting behind my cart... So when I see him standing there I (of course) tell him to please go ahead of me. He looked surprised, actually very surprised and said "Are you sure?" and I said "Of course!" and then I thought nothing more about, because I'm on the lookout for shoppers possibly getting in line behind me with few items.

As he was paying the cashier he seemed kind of nervous. First he gave the lady too much money and she got confused and that made him kinda confused and then when she gave him his change he dropped a couple of pennies but didn't pick them up and kind of turned and sheepishly smiled at me again.

I smiled back but believe me I was eyeing those pennies on the floor cause I would never leave pennies on the floor and I was busy thinking about trying to pick them up for him but my bulging cart was between me and them (the pennies) and I was starting to put my items on the counter. For me, if I see pennies on the ground, face up or down , I'm picking them up. (Ha, I didn't mean for that to rhyme.)

The man then turned towards me and laid a 20 dollar bill on top of my groceries that I was in the process of stacking up on the counter. Then he said "Thank you for letting me go ahead of you and I want you to put this towards your grocery bill."

I opened my mouth to say something but no words would come out because I immediately started to tear up. I absolutely couldn't believe it. He quickly turned and walked out of the store before I could protest. Which I would have done if I could without blubbering and possibly scaring the man and embarrassing myself to the point of never being able to return to that store ever again.

I finally got control of myself and was able to pay the cashier. I have no idea why that made me react the way I did. My husband thinks I'm nuts.

So this year for me, Santa was at the dollar store, no red suit, no jingle bells but he was there.

Oh and by the way... we have two Sheltie puppies for sale. I think they would make a really great Christmas present for you to give to someone special...

Don't ya think?

And if I don't post again for a while...

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

And oh by the way, I did pick up the pennies. I put them on the counter for the cashier but then changed my mind and picked one back up and put it in my pocket. When I got back into my car I set it on the dash so that every time I get into my car to go somewhere I will see it and remember...

Fall 2010 Pictures From our Game Cam

2010-10-22T07:58:00.011-04:00

Most of the pictures are like this and we have actually maybe 300 pictures of our neighbor mowing the lawn. Back and forth, back and forth. But I do think there is a deer running in the left part of this one.

But most are like this, just different angles of the sun. We get around 350 pictures every time we check the memory card and like I said, maybe 300 are of the sun.

And like this... more sun.

And then we get some like this.

There she (he?) goes.

Oh no! What is Buster doing back there at 10:00 at night!

And look who else is back there. I hope he is not the one stealing eggs.

Holy crap! What is that! Do I see pointy ears?

A coyote I'm afraid... Yikes! Waaaaaay too close to the chicken yard.

Awww... there they are.

That's an apple tree behind them.

Heading for the apples.

Does she smell something scary? That tail is way up.

Ohhhh yeah! See the antlers?

He's a nice one

Oh, this one sees the camera... or hears it.

I don't think he cares.

Uh oh.............................

LOOK WHAT'S COMING IN!!

Makes my husband's heart beat fast!

WOW! WOW! WOW!

YIKES!

Double YIKES!!

What an amazing buck.

OHHHHHH MYYYYYYY!

He's only coming in around at around 2:00 am. I bet we'll never see him during shooting hours. He didn't get that big by being careless.

I'm just happy that we've gotten these pictures.

Til next time,

Beth

Day Trip to the Ashery

2010-10-17T16:48:00.008-04:00

We (meaning me, my two sisters, my cousin Sandi, my Aunt Shirley and my Dad) went south to do some shopping. It was a perfect fall day, lots of sunshine and beautiful scenery. We drove through the back roads, along roads that had no power lines admiring immaculate Amish farms and shops.

We had one particular favorite place in mind for our shopping, the Ashery! It's one of the biggest bulk food stores around. we found lots of great things to buy. (During spellchecking I noticed that my dad is in the picture going into the store.)

I am very happy here cause I'm getting all my good stuff and more importantly, getting away from the crowd. The place was packed!

Can't help but take pictures of the buggy.

A beautiful dairy that we passed.

So impressive. We used to have a really big horse but it was nothing like these giants.

I think this is a schoolhouse. We went by kinda fast.

Some of my treasures. My dad mentioned that his mother (an amazing baker) always put currants in her nut bread so I bought a bag and I will use her recipe and make him some nut bread for Christmas. Her cookbook is the only thing that my dad wanted from her house when she died. He laminated all the pages.

We also stopped at a really great apple orchard who's name I don't remember. I bought a few of these amazing Jonagold apples, simply the best eating apple around!

I also bought a bushel of Granny Smith seconds for only $8.00! So I made this pie and I'm so tired today that I forgot it was in the oven but it was still delicious!

Here's my bushel and like I said I'm so tired I can't muster it up to can them. I did put one batch of pie filling in the freezer.

Kevin found these in the garden yesterday so I also need to blanch these and freeze them, tomorrow I guess.

I even burned the potatoes for dinner, forgot about them too.

I always drink unsweetened ice tea but I even drank a glass of coke for some energy but no luck.

They were good anyway.

Have to add a puppy picture. Look how big. Momma doesn't even have to lay down for them to nurse anymore. Only two weeks, three days old and they are so big.

Til next time,

Beth

Apple Pie Filling, Turkeys and Puppies

2010-10-14T18:21:00.006-04:00

Apple Pie Filling Sauce...

I guess that is what you would call it. It starts out watery and ends up like gel. Last year I used a recipe with cornstarch but that's not supposed to be safe so I switched to Clear Jel. I kinda like the cornstarch better. The Clear Jel filling was so thick it was like goo. We'll see when I make something with it.

Bad picture, sorry but it got smooth after a while but was very prone to sticking so I had to stir, stir, stir.

Apples all cut up.

Put in jars and poured syrup over then noticed that the sauce was too thick to get to the bottom so I poured it all out, started over and layered it as I went.

Then capped them up and processed.

Some of the jars were sticky so I think it boiled out so I'll be watching those jars and not filling so much next time.

Looks really pretty though.

Remember the turkey with the broken leg? Well, she is fine and back to roosting on the spot where she got her leg caught. Kevin pounded the hooks off of it so they won't get caught again.

(Eileen, it looks like the one in the middle is a tom and on each side are are two hens so I'll be bringing one over when your ready.)

They are so beautiful!
The tom's starting to gobble and strut, just in time for Thanksgiving. (but we're not eating him though, just yard decoration.)

Newest puppy picture, they are getting so big. If you can count them there are seven in that pile!

Til next time,

Beth

YAAAY! A New CAMERA and PUPPIES!

2010-10-08T22:08:00.012-04:00

Finally, finally I have a camera!

And this one I'm pretty excited about, that is if I can learn to use it. It is a Fuji Finepix S1800. It's no fancy, expensive one but I am thrilled with it.

I checked reviews and compared prices til I was seeing double but this one seemed to be the best for me. It's got all kinds of features that I have no idea how to use but I am determined to learn.

It's 12 mega pixel and has a macro function so I tried a closeup of this Honeybee on a Moonflower and then cropped it for a closeup.

I think it looks pretty clear, you can even see the shadow of his little antennas. I'm going to try to crop it closer and see what it looks like...

It still looks pretty clear. Awesome!

I am so excited to play with this camera!

Here's a picture of Husband taking the son out for his first tractor driving lesson. The son is not too excited and he did not enjoy it much. Maybe once he learns he'll enjoy it more... hoping.

Finally the canning season is winding down, when it's apples you know the end is near. I used all of our own apples to make apple butter so off we went to the local orchard to get a bushel of seconds for apple sauce and apple pie filling. Actually I should be making the pie filling and not sitting here typing right now but you know...

Cut them up and cooked them til soft.

Ran them through my wonderful Kitchen Aid Mixer attachment.

Set it on the stove to keep hot...

And filled up the jars and processed. This will be so good all winter.

I also have been experimenting with an apple crisp dessert that will work with a jar of my pie filling. I made this jar last year and this is what I will be making as soon as I get done with this post.

I think I have gotten it perfect!

I want to be able to just empty a jar of the filling and then have a quick apple crisp topping when I need a fast dessert. This was almost perfect but I have to maybe double the topping so it's crunchier around the edges but the flavor was yummy.

And now for some great news......

WE HAVE PUPPIES!

Here's the proud daddy, looking all leisurely cause he didn't do all the work.

Awwww, could you just die?

Shelties normally have three to six puppies, she had EIGHT. Poor thing. The first one was born in the wee hours of the night and I was not there to help her and she must have been so scared that I think she hid from it and it died.

But the second one woke me up crying so I was able to calm her down and help and the rest went pretty well. After each one I kept thinking... oh good, she must be done but ooooh no they kept on coming.

They all have really cute markings. One of the boys has a little white heart shape on it's head. So cute. The other two boys have perfect white collars and the four girls all have a little white that goes up a little on the back of their head, just like their momma.

Their eyes will open in a couple days and then I'm sure all hell will break loose.

But for now they are little angels that sleep all the time.

Although one morning at about 4am I heard a puppy crying and I couldn't find it anywhere. I finally figured out that it had crawled into the hem of a pillow that was exactly the same size as him. There was no way to get him out cause he wouldn't go backwards so I had to cut the pillow open. Crazy.

No words needed.

Mamma below is thinking....

GET ME OUTTA HERE!!!

More pictures to come as they grow!

Til next time, Beth

Ducks on the Pond

2010-08-10T18:37:00.010-04:00

Maybe two months ago I went and found some ducks for our pond. I got a pair of Harlequins, hopefully male and female and a pair of Runner ducks. They have been stuck in this pen near the house for a while until they were ready for the water.

And we finally found a use for the trampoline that I have been wanting out of my yard for two years.

We wrapped it in chicken wire and used step in posts to create a space for them to feel safe. It's working really well as long as we get no raccoons ambling by. Plus, they need to be used to being away from the chicken house. The set up is not so pretty but it works very well.

Kevin extended the fence a little into the water so they can swim a little and get away from any land creature that might try to get them.

I think they're happy.

Our little side flower garden is really beautiful now.

Every thing's blooming and it's really easy to keep weeded.

If you can see there is a pretty butterfly on the Verbena.

There little guys are missing their sister. I went out to see the chicks last week and there sis was hanging from her ankle from their roost. She had gotten it inside of a hook. I felt so bad, so, so bad! It was my fault that I didn't take the hooks off but how do you know what can happen. The hooks were way below the roost pole.

Here she is in her hospital pen. She spent a week in the house with a large immobilizing splint on it. We changed it to a smaller bandage and put her outside in a small pen. She is much happier. Her would sister spend all day calling for her and she, in turn calling back when she was in the house so at least they can see each other. They hang around outside her door off and on all day.

It's swollen but she is putting weight on it so I hope it heals. It was absolutely broken completely, both bones and would move back and forth in a terrible way. I put some of those long wood match sticks (broken to a proper length) that you use for to light a fireplace on three sides of the break and taped it nice and firmly. I'm really hoping it works. Does anyone out there know how long it will take to heal and how long I should keep the bandage on?

Back to some plant stuff. We bought some Hardy Kiwi a while ago and have been waiting for a good spot to plant it. We finally got our fence in and we plan to have it grow up and along some wire we will put on top of the fence. Kevin plans to drill holes and run some high tensile wire along through the top to make a strong place for it to grow. It is very heavy stuff and it grows really fast. I guess it takes five years or so for it to fruit. All we have is time so we will wait.

You have to get male and female and this is the tag for the male.

You have to plant it about 15 feet apart so we planted then at every other post.

Here's the fence almost done. He's left the poles long at the top to enable the wire to run through with room for the plants to spread around.

Strawberries running all around. Unfortunately the chickens have discovered them so some sort of short fence is required.

Pretty petunias. The color was much better in person and would be here if I had a normal camera and not my phone for pictures.

Another beautiful day at my sister's house below...

Hanging at the Tiki Bar...

The boys fishing. Kevin and Tom (BIL) had the boat, trying out Kevin's new fish finder out (btw, the lake is 38 feet deep at the deepest point! Never knew for sure.) so the boys were stuck with the paddle boat, their tackle boxes barely fit in the back.

I think they really had fun, no matter the size of the boat.

Have to end with this awesome picture.

Til next time,

Beth

Has Anyone Seen My Camera?

2010-07-25T09:58:00.018-04:00

My blogging life is ruined. I've misplaced my camera. I won't say lost as that makes me irresponsible. The only means of taking pictures that I have is my phone, I guess it's my punishment.

The worst part is, is that I know it's around here somewhere. Along with Kevin's fishfinder, our flash drive, the son's flash drive, and a lot more things that I can't find.

Here's a few pictures that I've managed to take with my phone. The pictures are kinda random but since I've not blogged in a month and a half I'm all over the place.

I thought the pictures would be really small and not as good as my camera but as I'm looking at them they are really not so bad. The hardest part about taking pictures with the phone is not having a view finder and having to look at the display screen while taking the pictures... kinda hard in daylight.

Salsa fixins, finally found a recipe that we love!

The son and his best girl.

Kevin with his jumbo catfish. I think they are three years old. He's hoping they spawn or have spawned. He doesn't want to harvest any large ones until they do so for now it's catch and release.

He made this fish catcher but so far all we've caught is a couple of minnows, he thinks he needs to modify it some, not sure if they are getting out or not getting in in the first place.

Here's our sweety Buster. Unfortunately he's picked up the dreaded Feline Leukemia and we almost lost him. After force feeding him and some potent antibiotics he pulled through. Although now he's susceptible to everything. We have to watch him closely.

And if he wants to sleep in the bathroom sink he can. Actually he can sleep anywhere he wants to.

(See, really bad picture, lots of the phone pictures are really blurry)

Last spring I brought some sunflower seeds to work for the cardinal that sits in the trees and sings every morning as i walk into work. It's such a wonderful sound after the cols winter that i wanted to give him some nourishment to thank him.

One of the seeds started to grow and i really enjoyed watching it all spring. I was so hoping that no one cut it down so I talked to the landscapers that mow and trim the grass and they said that they would leave it.

Here's the little sign that i put on it to try to keep it safe. When i first put it on the plant was so little that it would hardly stand up with the weight of the clothespin.

On my way to work one morning I had the privilege to see this! It was really odd, no rain anywhere. It didn't help me feel any better about going to work but I did stop on the the road to take this so I guess picture phones are awesome anyway.

Our first little harvest of broccoli, not much but some.

It made three bags.

The rest of the pictures are from my new phone that I recently got. The colors seem a little washed out and faded but maybe after i learn to use the adjustment features they may be better.

We used to have an unsightly spot along our driveway that we turned into a flower garden. We've planted mostly perennials but included some annuals for instant color. This is one that is really instant. This sweet potato vine is going crazy. I'm actually going out after i finish this post and give it a drastic haircut!

We've got all kinds of nice things growing now.

Annual verbena is available in the nicest colors. I planted it all around to help fill in until the perennials become established.

This little Corsican mint is incredibly charming. As it gets larger we will split it and move it around the rocks.

A pale purple verbena.

The bigger picture of the invading sweet potato.

There's some alyisim (don't know how to spell it), creeping jenny, rudibeckia, and some cheap lights that i got at Walmart that give off no light hardly at all.

You can see a grape vine trailing at the end. Kevin is going to put up a lattice privacy screen at this end and he will train the grape to cover it. Eventually we can sit here and snack on grapes in the evening. (I guess I shoulda moved the hose for the picture but i didn't.)

Puppy went on my morning stroll around this morning. She is my shadow.

A close up of the water lilies.

The bigger picture.

As every year, the moon flower went crazy. And this is just whats growing in the gravel walk.
I pulled out maybe 500 plants yesterday, some with stalks as thick as my thumb and some tiny seedlings.

I finally got some morning glories to grow after Kevin killed the first batch with weed and grass killer. He didn't know.

I have them growing up the bird feeder too. This is the area where I pulled the moon flowers, you can still see hundreds growing in the gravel. They had almost smothered the little flower bed.

Butterfly bush way overgrown, it would get a haircut too but the stalks are so woody I'd need a chainsaw!

A month ago or so I had the boys drag this trimmed up tractor tire into the back yard and fill it with some dirt and a little peat moss. Then i planted it with the strawberries that I bought maybe two months ago. I couldn't believe that they were still alive. i kept the weeds out and then this morning when I was going around snapping pictures they looked like this. I set down the camera/phone and then...

they looked like this. Not perfect but better.

The old apple tree has lots of apples this year, I think half of them have already fallen to the ground making mowing interesting.

I strolled on over to the grape arbor and took this picture of the trunks, do grapes have trunks? Stems? Stalks? I am grape terminology challenged. There are really old, not sure.

Laddie, our shy, really, really shy adopted dog watches my every move. Scared that i will try to catch him.

I got a little closer...

Then I got too close and he moved. He will come and take biscuits from my hand and once in a while a piece of lunch maet which he wolfs down like he's never eaten before. I'm sure he's never been fed by hand because a couple of times he's gotten my hand while grapping the food, ouch.

While I was taking the pictures of the grapes I turned around and look at him, keeping his eye on me, all the while Cleo(the black, chubby one is looking for sopmething to eat and Puppy is ever vigilant waiting to herd the neighbors car. She doesn't get too far cause the fence stops her.

We ordered some more chicks, I am crazy... thats the last thing I need but I had too. I have them in this brooder/rabbit hutch that my friend, Eileen gave us. It is perfect for the job. I have a heat lamp in the one wire window which I covered with a plastic lid to keep the drafts out. The new Cochins were in there then we moved them out to be replaced by the turkeys I hatched and now it's the new ones. Once they get big enough I will remove the door to the little ladder so they can get outside.

I got some RI Reds and some Cornish. The Cornish is the one they use to cross with a White Rock to get the standard meat bird.

We are going to try crossing them with a Chochin rooster and see what we get. The Cochins are huge and fast growers and the Cornish have the broad body and sturdy legs so we'll see what we get. If we like the cross we will hatch out our own eggs and raise our own. We can hatch eggs at any time od year and as many or few as we want. Chicken eggs are a breeze to hatch and raise compared to turkeys.

The cornish cross birds are so disgusting in their habits that it makes us kinda feel bad raising them. We don't care how long it takes to get them to butcher size as long as they are able to walk, have feathers and eat in a normal fashion. Also not die because they eat too much.

Here they are, the stripedy ones are the Cornish and obviously the red one are thr RI Reds. All pullets except one free rooster which happens to be a fluffy head..umm a Polish Crested?? Yeah, I think thats it. I did NOT want an extra rooster cause we want only the Cochin roosters but what can we do, it's so cute and his name is Spareburt.

I know someone who has spiked blond hair and that's his nickname and his hair looks just like the little rooster, too funny. I'm going to out and try to get a picture of him... hold on a minute.......

Here he is... check out his hairdo. He stood up tall just at the last minute, I took three shots of my face before I turned the phone the right way.

Sitting on their little roost I put in for them.

Here's our new ducks, they will soon take up residence in the pond and eat all the weeds we don't like... at least that's the plan. I got a pair of Harlequins and a couple of white Runner ducks. Don't really like white ducks, (white feathers floating all over the pond) but oh well.

Peaches on the tree.

Potatoes in the other tire.

Rasberries tring to hang on although if I watered them more they wouldn't have to try so hard.

Blueberry bushes doing great!

Apples doing great too.

Grapes will soon get an arbor.

Sweet Peas growing wild by the driveway.

Corn is tassled and will soon be ready.

Can't wait for fresh corn on the cob.

Pumpkins all over.

There were two honey bees in this flower but also a cucumber beetle! Can't kill the cucumber beetle without killing the honey bee so the beetle wins.

Of course zuchinni, just found a recipe for chocolat zuchinni cookies. Going to try then today.

An extra corn picture, just don't to take the time to delete it.

Green beans.

Pitiful broccoli, not sure why unless it's the choking weed problem that we have.

Heirloom tomato, Hillbilly. Will be good if they ever get ripe.

Morning glories... again? Too lazy.

This is a funny piece of coal that was stuck in the bottom of the sidewalk we pulled up. Nothing important just odd.

Til next time,

Beth

ps. Blogger's spellcheck is as terrible as my spelling so if's there are typos it's bloggers fault. Lol

Memorial Weekend in Pictures!

2010-06-05T07:14:00.012-04:00

The first part of our weekend was spent in Killbuck, a small town in southern Ohio, at Kevin's brother's log cabin in the woods.

The driveway, or should I say the rocky trail to the cabin is treacherous. If it's rainy you don't get out at all. You can get in, it's all downhill, but you can't get out.

It was built in the mid 1800's, does have electricity does not have running water.

It overlooks a large valley with a creek running down the middle but the trees are so thick that the view is only trees.

The kids had fun on the four wheeler.

The apple does not fall...

The oldest brought his airsoft guns and destroyed many pop cans.

It's a good thing no bunnies ran by.

Then they brought the big guns out.

Must go check out the target.

Yep, we hit it!

If you notice, this used to be a whole tree but much target practice has caused it to come apart at the seams.

Uh oh, he brought along electronics to pass the time.

A tour of the cabin...

the kitchen,

the living room...

and the bathroom. Yikes!

The distance to the cabin from the bathroom...pretty scary in the dark

This is Paul, the owner of the cabin and he needed a rock moved.

First he managed to break into manageable pieces.

KERRRRRRR

SMASH!!!!!!!

Then they loaded it up on the front of the four wheeler.

It's easier to hold a giant rock and drive a four wheeler at the same time if you stick out your tongue.

They moved them over to the artesian well so that you don't have to walk on the wet ground to get to the spring.

The spring.

They put a tube in the end of the pipe and fed it downhill into a barrel to collect water.

Behind Mike (Kevin's dad), you can see the trailer that he fitted with a large piece of black plastic. He filled it with water in order to heat it up for his morning bath. A really hillbilly hottub.

The other half of our Memorial Day Weekend.

Started with a picnic at my sister's house and Rascal had fun!

So did Tom, don't ever leave him alone with your camera!

He wasn't drinking either.

Tom and Amy.

This is Norm and he is the MASTER BUILDER! He built his own house, the really cool shed in the background and a beautiful little fish pond which I of course neglected to get a picture of. My mom and dad in the background.

Then we moved to the lake at my mom's house for some swimming fun and beverage fun at the Tiki Bar (Which Norm and Tom built, I helped too.) My beverage is ice tea but some of the others like the brew.

The guys are out at the raft playing Water Wedge. It's a game where somebody hits golf balls at a big tub on the raft, trying to hit the tub and get a hole in one. It's only happened twice, once last year and then on Memorial Day (actually it was Sunday) Tom got one! The guys and girls on the raft dive for the ones that miss, you could try to catch one if you wanted but it would hurt!

Lee was hitting the balls for them and he did a great job!.

The oldest and his girlfriend had fun too!

Little Charlie slowly moved in to get onto the picture.

The Lake crowd.

If you were looking for Kevin he was mostly fishing.

Til the sun went down and mosquitos came out and we went home.

Til next time,

Beth

Say Hi to Laddie!

2010-05-28T21:51:00.009-04:00

Say Hi to Laddie!!!!

He came to live with us today. He's very skittish, not being around kids very much and all of our commotion so it will take some time. He and I sat on the swing for awhile tonight, watching the kids swim and I think he is going to be fine.

And of course I've been hatching eggs!

I chose mostly my Cuckoo Maran eggs because they are a beautiful dark brown. I also chose a couple of Americanas that were crossed with my Maran rooster. Two years ago I crossed Americanas with a Barred Rock rooster and got hens that laid really cool olive eggs and some even had brown speckles.

I hatched a couple of those too. Here are the empty shells that hatched. The two olive ones are from those Americans/Barred Rock crosses that I love so even though I only got nine to hatch I'm very happy.

Here's the first one hatching but it was upside down in the egg so I had to help it a little. It cried and cried til I opened it up a little. It was a little too bloody to open all the way so I was going to wait til the morning but when I got up it was out! Very cool.

The only bad thing is that now I can't tell them apart.

There is one that is definitely smaller so it has to from the pale blue egg.

Fishing Report!

Kevin started fishing in earnest out at my mom's lake and he has been catching some good ones. This was a really big crappie. At first when I saw the picture I thought it was a largemouth.

My BIL Tom caught this nice bass. The beer can is for a size comparison. Of course they took no measuring tape with them. The crappie was definitely a Fish Ohio fish.

Kevin caught this nice bass too. Don't know how big, again no tape or scale.

He was really surprised when he reeled in this northern pike. He didn't know that they have had a stocking program there for the last 30 years.

He, of course, didn't keep the bass or the pike or even the giant crappie but.....

He did keep some from the next trip last weekend. A nice perch, I made him put it back together so I could take a picture, he had already started cleaning it before I took it.

And I think he said that this was a black crappie.

Bunches of fish for dinner.

And if you notice, he is cleaning them on the table in the kitchen. Don't tell my mom or my sister. My mom thinks it is against the law to clean fish in the house and the table that he is cleaning them on is my sisters. He put down plastic and plenty of newspaper so there was no mess at all.

I think one time my dad cleaned fish in the house and he scaled them. The end result was a kitchen full of mess. Kevin filleted his so no resulting scaly mess.

Yummy!

Til next time,

Beth

PS. Hopefully I'll get off of my lazy behind and post more often. I have a post all ready with pictures of the rock wall progress but never got the energy to sit and write the words. Some of the pictures were out of order and it's hard to change them around so I got discouraged.

(Here's a picture of me that Kevin just took while I was working on this post, check out my helper.)

Spring and Hard Work

2010-04-04T08:18:00.010-04:00

The first weekend in April and really nice weather means that it's time for some yard work. We're sore and tired this morning (Sunday)... maybe we'll watch TV all day...yeah right.

Moving some big stones from all the different spots around the farm, sure glad we have the 8N!

Plus these awesome forks that Kevin made.

The son waiting for the stone, notice he has his good school shoes on.

Oh, and here's his shirt, most likely still outside on the ground.

Moving the rocks into place made for some squashed fingers and hopping around.

Dad helps and together they moved them into place.

We are going to add a couple of more courses, leaving dirt pockets and spaces for planting, some trailing plants and strawberries and who knows what else will be added.

Took all day.

Our peach tree is getting big, hope we have peaches this year. (Some of the pictures are out of order but it takes too long to move them around so sorry.)

I spent the morning digging and moving day lilies. They get so big that I can't see the rock.

Here's my Americana hens, the dark one in the back is the one that I raised last year, she's beautiful!

They all came running, expecting a treat. I'm very happy that the yard is drying up. This was a mud pit a week ago.

Evil tom turkey! Does anyone want him? I'm serious, he is going soon, if not to someone who wants him then he is going in the freezer.

This hen turkey decided to lay eggs in a tub. You just never know.

The other side of the rock. When I moved the day lilies back I spread out my iris and moved a couple new ones in.

Kevin's dad (Hi Mike!) gave us some really pretty yellow ones last year that I planted by the pond but the uncontrollable weeds took over and so I moved some of them here. If I can get motivated today I'll move a few more.

Sweet Puppy! I took her to be bred a couple of weeks age but I don't think it worked... time will tell.

My followers everywhere.

I got a picture of the last crocus, on it's last leg but still pretty.

I put this forsythia in last year hoping for some yellow this spring.

I got some yellow but I have to look really close to see it.

I found this cute little daffodil all by itself, can't wait til it opens.

I bought some more fruit trees, blueberries and raspberries, now to find the energy to plant. Not feeling it today.

These are ever bearing strawberries. We'll put them along the new wall and maybe some.... uh, actually I have no idea where I'll put them.

A honeybee already found them. He's probably so happy to find an open flower.

My raspberries, yummy.

Here's the whole group. Notice that they are all up on a table? You may remember that I have a pair of geese that would love to nibble all the bark off of these trees.

Uh oh, look who found me, it Two Toes, my Rhode Island Red hen that loves for me to pick her up and scratch her.

She's happy now. That's actually a flower bed behind us that the chickens have decimated... need to get on that soon. First, I'll need a chicken proof fence.

Til next time,

Beth

New Homemade Benches

2010-03-08T07:31:00.011-05:00

The picture below was my inspiration for a set of new benches for our large table.

(I don't know why it says "click to enlarge", it was on the picture.)

Our table is heavy pine and we needed something new for the benches. You see, this is what we are currently using.....

And we really needed something newer, ya think?

So... we got out the Kreg drill tool.

Bought some legs and lumber at Lowe's...

Some special hardware for attaching legs and sides to tables.

And this is how it turned out. It's ok but it is a little too low. We are going to make some adjustments, thicker boards on top and maybe an additional ball foot at the base like the table has. It would match better and make it a little higher. Then we'll stain and varnish to match the table. (I cannot get this font to change back to regular size, it's not supposed to be large!)

A Weekend Fun Lunch!

Start with this and some of ...

these and then....

brown some of this or just some regular burger.

Yummy so far.

Pour half of the chips on a big ole pizza pan.

Sprinkle some of this...

and then get yourself a couple packs of this.

Mix the powder with some cool water..

Then add it to some boiling water and stir, stir, stir then...

Add some real cheese, any kind you like.

Then pour some salsa and cheese sauce over chips and add another layer of chips..

And Pour cheese all over and you get this!

I would've added tomatoes, olives, lettuce and whatever else sounded good but I didn't have any.

Then hurry and get some or it will disappear fast!

Then after feeling so guilty for having junk food for lunch, (with Pepsi to drink)

You will make a big pot of homemade chicken noodle soup for dinner.

Yummy too!

Then you will break down and make some chocolate cookies for dessert.

I searched the Internet for some cookies made with cocoa and found these, really good but would have been awesome with the chocolate chips that it called for, didn't have any of those either.

That's one big beater to lick.

Really nice and soft, a little crispy on the edges. All in all a really tasty weekend.

Til next time,

Beth

Finally, Eggs and an Update on the Snyders

2010-02-21T09:18:00.005-05:00

Yahoo!

I'm finally getting eggs! First I had four one day and then a couple days later I went in and found all these. I really love the dark olive green ones. We crossed Americana hens with a Barred Rock rooster and ended up with these really great dark olive eggs.

The pale blue one on the right above is from the Americana and the ones behind it are from the cross. It doesn't make them taste any better but it sure is fun collecting them.

An Update on the Snyder Family:

They recently got a nice, three bedroom house trailer to move onto their property. They put it alongside an existing pole barn which they quickly converted into a big living room and storage. Now they have room for everybody again. The kitchen in the trailer is really bright and roomy and my friend, Gay, is so happy to be living and cooking in her own house again.

I went to a spaghetti dinner and silent auction benefit for the family last night. There was a huge turnout and the whole basement of the church was full. The spaghetti was delicious and the big piece of chocolate cake for dessert was awesome! I bid on a few things and was really excited when I won.

Look what I won!

Isn't this antique picture really beautiful! I absolutely love it. I also won two vases which I gave to Gay to take home. I hope she likes them. One was a beautiful pink with flowers and the other was a really pretty blue.

I also won this yummy banana spice cake and had to have a piece as soon as I got home. I am still full this morning.

I also won this!

Ins't this the coolest cupboard. It's made from really old, weathered barn siding and has three shelves inside.

It makes me happy just to look at it and I was so excited to show Kevin. He loved it too.

Here's the whole entire Snyder family. There were all there last night along with Gay's sister from Hilton Head, NC and Dan's (Gay's husband) mom and sister. I think Gay's family filled up half of the church's basement all by themselves!

Til next time,

Beth

I'm Way Over It!

2010-02-14T07:23:00.006-05:00

Well, well, well......... now it's time to test everyone's patience. Christmas was almost two months ago and now what do we look forward to. It's nowhere near time to even think about getting excited for spring. The other day I told someone that I think spring is in the air and they looked at me like I was crazy, I'm not kidding. I really wanted to believe it.

Two days later we got dumped on. I think it was 400 inches that we got here in the snow belt. (Any people south of the Mason Dixon line will never understand.)

People say I shouldn't complain, you live in Ohio, get used to it.

They just don't understand.

I don't think they have to carry five gallon buckets of water to their chickens through 45 inches of drifted snowbanks. Trying to maneuver along a thin trail that the dogs have carved out is impossible. The bucket of water bumps along, usually dumping a half a gallon down my leg and into my boot. Although I actually did get some eggs yesterday! FOUR, yes, four from 12 chickens. That's all since the first of January.

This spring I'm investing in Australorps! I'm going to thin out the flock and get some chickens that actually lay eggs. I'll keep my favorites hens though, the ones that I love. (Which is actually all of them so it's going to be really hard!)

This guy has decided to start sitting up at the top of this tree. It barely looks strong enough to hold him. My brother in law, Tom said it looks like something out of a Dr. Suess book.

Look how funny. He's lucky he's so beautiful because yesterday we went round and round. Him trying to kill me and me trying to get away from him. I ended up wrestling him to the ground, laying on him, with one arm around his body the other hand around his neck (so he wouldn't peck my eyes out). Yelling at him, explaining that I can't clean his water bucket if he is trying to kill me. I think I almost strangled him, the look on his face was crazy. And by the way, he is huge and scary. I had to wrestle him down two times and then he almost left me alone... let's just say he was a little more respectful of the crazy woman.

The other day when I pulled into the driveway after getting home from work I saw that he had flown over the fence, probably from this perch. He ran to the car and commenced to try to surround me. His head reaches up above the car window and he was staring at me, chattering, daring me to come out. If you've never heard a mean turkey- that is the sound they make when they want to kill you, it's kinda like a really mean chattering sound but it ends with a really cute sigh. I'll have to try and record him sometime. I got the snow brush from the back seat of the car and used it as a defense weapon to get out. If I have any kind of long stick in my hand I can bonk him on the head with it and he will back away.

Here is the 400 inches, of course it's not 400 but it may as well be.

This freezer is on the back porch, (how hillbilly is that) anyway, look at the snow and how it drifted. Funny, huh? I couldn't wait for Kevin to get up and show him but it collapsed shortly after this. It was still dark out (maybe 5:30 a.m.) when I took this picture.

That's a lotta snow on that table. Looks like 400 inches to me!

The doggies making their way to go potty. That's similar to the path that I walk through to the chicken house, nice huh. Kevin plowed it once for me but it was just before we got the 400 new inches.

Even with all the snow and everything there is still one thing to look forward to in February!

A box of chocolates and a bottle of champagne.

If you've never had Austi Spumati champagne you need to try it. It's not expensive either. At least this bottle wasn't. I think Kevin said it was like $15.00, not too bad for a special occasion?

Happy Valentines Day Everybody!

A Devastating Fire

2010-01-16T06:51:00.011-05:00

Last Thursday my very, very, good friend's house burned to the ground. She and her husband had sent all the kids to bed and checked the house before going to bed themselves at around 11:oo pm. Here is an excerpt from the local paper:

Dan and Gay Snyder and seven of their eight children were displaced after their home at 2041 Alliance Road burned to the ground shortly after they went to bed.
Family friend Pat Allen said the Snyders and seven of their children went to bed at around 11 p.m. An adult daughter, who is a college student, was not home at the time of the blaze.
By 11:22 p.m. the family was standing in the driveway, wearing pajamas and watching their home go up in flames.

A family spokesman said Gay Snyder was awakened by the family dog, and when she went to investigate, she found the home filling with smoke. The Snyders roused their children and all evacuated the home.

Firefighting operations were hampered by extreme cold and a moderate wind fanning the fire.

Dry hydrants at area ponds were tapped for tanker filling, and the cold caused one of the fill pipes to snap under pressure. There was not enough manpower to cut through ice to access water, so tankers were shuttled to the Deerfield fire station, where there is a 35,000-gallon cistern with a fill pipe accessible for tankers.

The Edinburg Fire Department set up a second fill site at a pond in the area of Giddings Road and S.R. 14, and quickly assembled an alternative fill pipe. The Atwater Fire Department was able to continue to access the fill site with a broken line at Fewtown Road.

A faulty valve on a heating gas line allowed natural gas to feed the fire for almost an hour before the supply was finally stopped at the gas well.

About 20 firefighters assisted 12 responders from Deerfield. The Portage County Sheriff’s Department assisted with traffic control.

Deerfield Fire Chief Miles Felmly said the residence was a two-story home. The floor in the front of the home collapsed early in the fire, giving the impression that the fire may have burned under the floor for some time before being detected. Damage figures are still being determined, but the home is a total loss. Cause of the fire has not yet been determined but the faulty gas valve had nothing to do with the origin of the fire.

The Portage County Chapter of the American Red Cross assisted the family.
Allen said the family is temporarily staying at the home of an adult daughter, but her home is too small to comfortably accommodate so many people. However, the family needs to stay close by because they need to care for livestock.

She said there has already been an “overwhelming” response by churches, family, friends and contacts through the 4-H club in which the Snyder family is involved.

“This family has been so giving and does so much for others,” she said. “We just tell them that it’s our turn now to help them.”

Record Courier Newspaper

My friend Gay Snyder (on the left) and her daughter.

Here is a link to a video from a local TV station that came out and interviewed my friend and her husband.

http://www.wfmj.com/Global/story.asp?S=11800150

Gay told me that her son, Daniel, is being awarded for his action with getting all the kids out of their rooms and outside. She said that one of their family dogs came downstairs with the kids but they lost one, a lab named Brandy, in the fire. Her son had to be treated with oxygen by the paramedics after they arrived.

Daniel Snyder

This is Gay's son who was able to get all the family out. He is a really wonderful, hardworking young man who is starting his own construction company.

Everybody piled into her daughter's house, finding room to sleep on the floor, it looks like Oscar takes up a lotta room.

They were looking desperately for a house nearby to rent but there was nothing close enough to their farm. They have horses and cattle that need daily care. Right now they are hauling water in for them but they hope to get their electricity hooked back up soon so they can get the well working again. She and her husband think that they may try to have a house trailer moved onto their property so that they can stay there while re-building.

A welcome sign that one of the kids painted.

It may be hard to find a trailer for their large family but I think it's the best thing for them. She will be close enough to get her garden going this spring. She lost hundreds of jars of food that she had canned last summer and she had two freezers in her basement that were lost too.

Her husband had recently finished the front porch.

She mentioned that even though they will get insurance money for their things it can never replace all the handmade things that she and her kids have made over the years. Most of the gifts that they exchanged over the years were homemade.

Just before Christmas she had shown me the dresses that she had made for the younger girls for church. They were beautiful and looked like they were right out of a Mary Jane Butters Farm Magazine.

Gay's youngest daughter and Oscar.

She said that she was so thankful to the Red Cross because right away they gave each child money to replace their glasses that they had lost and a little money for some groceries. Her first priority along with the glasses was to get all their birth certificates replaced. She needed them in order to replace her drivers license plus she had three adopted kids, one from Liberia and two from Haiti, that she lost all their paper work and needs to replace.

She mentioned that one thing that she is sad about is that she lost all of her cookbooks and recipes that she had been collecting over the years. She is an amazing cook, making everything from scratch. Her cinnamon rolls are fantastic! Her husband built most of the house himself, adding on to an old farmhouse over the years. He had even made their living room floor out of cherry wood that he had made himself.

She's very sad about losing all their pictures and videos too. Even through all of this she has not lost her sense of humor. She said that as long as they are together they will be happy and they will laugh together.

The Snyder Family

Update: I was asked in a comment if there was a fund set up for the family. There is, this is taken from the paper "Donations may be made to the Snyder Benefit Fund at any branch of Huntington Bank. "

Plus one more thing...If anyone out there has back issues of Mary Jane's Farm Magazine and doesn't need them she would love, love, love to have them. She lost all of hers and they are her most favorite thing. If you would consider sending them I would be more than happy to send you the money for postage. I went to the website to see about getting them but they don't have a lot of them. Just leave a comment and I'll get in touch with you or send me an email.

Beth

December 2009 and Deer

2010-01-02T08:26:00.008-05:00

Here's the rundown of December 2009, mostly Christmas happenings.

We tried making Clothespin Cookies for the first time this year. My sisters came down to help and they turned out pretty good in spite of us.

Sprinkled with powdered sugar after they were filled.

Plus we made my Aunt Shirley's famous Oatmeal Candy Cane Cookies.

They are really delicious!

Of course we made cutouts too.

My grandma's old biscuit cutter is my favorite cookie cutter.

Diane's husband wanted oatmeal cookies. These weren't too pretty but they were really good!

Me and Amy filling the clothepin cookies. Diane hid from the camera.

But I found this one, she may not like it because she was talking and it doesn't look like her.

Here's where I found the recipe in an old Amish cookbook, one of my most favorite cookbooks. I had written "good" next to the recipe when I had made it years ago.

I found these curtains at the dollar store. I used jute for tiebacks cause they didn't come with any.

Then, Amy's husband needed a haircut. I worked as a hairdresser for a long time, don't miss it at all.

Bosco was hiding in the presents and I just realized that this is the only picture I have of our Christmas tree.

Buster, our other kitty, left this for us. This is where I found it. He laid it ever so nicely on this Santa hat with it's little head resting on the fluffy white brim. It's fitting I guess.

What was weird was that it was a mole not a mouse. Where did he find a mole, that's crazy. I don't think he brought it in from outside but maybe he did. Do moles live in houses? I don't think so unless they have a dirt floor.

We had visitors on our back deck. Bosco didn't like them one bit.

Mr. Tom came to visit too. It's freezing out right now and I have to go out and feed and water them...and the chickens are not laying much right now. I'm having trouble seeing the rewards.

Our Game Cam

Kevin bought an outdoor camera for me way back in 2005 and we've never really used it much but he really wanted to see who was eating the corn he was setting out for the deer.

Cute huh?

Maybe a button buck or a little doe? See how big the ears look compared to it's head, must be young.

We never fixed the date on the camera, it still says 2005 I think.

He's checking to see who else has been there.

This is a bigger bodied deer.

Oooooo, look. A ten point.

A little small but still a ten point.

They don't seem to be at all afraid of the camera.

Or are they?

They sure do love that corn!

Til next time,

Beth

Turkey Butchering Day, Thanksgiving and Remodeling!

2009-12-06T07:28:00.017-05:00

This is a very long post with lots of pictures so if you're just interested in the turkey butchering go straight to the bottom.

And we absolutely did not butcher the tom you see here, even though his whole goal in life is to attack me. At least he has something to live for.

Thanksgiving was really nice this year. Actually it's been nice every year of my life except maybe last year wasn't so nice what with my mom just getting out of the hospital the night before and my sister, Amy living in Georgia (she is home now).

I used this bottle of $3.98 wine for basting my turkey, the bottle was the prettiest of all the wines.

I cleaned a couple of pie pumpkins and roasted the seeds. I found a recipe that calls for you to boil them for 15 minutes before you bake them with a little oil and salt, very good! Usually I don't like roasted pumpkin seeds but it seems that boiling them first causes the shell to soften slightly making them much crunchier after baking.

I ended up giving these to my chickens to eat. As I was taking them out of the oven my sister told me that my mom bought pies and I was so busy with everything else that I figured the chickens and turkeys would love them. I have another one that I'll cook up maybe for Christmas.

I had no twine to tie up my turkey and after searching all over the house I finally found this light pull string, I cut off the metal tab things and it worked just fine.

I figured it was a much better choice than this stuff, it might have weird stuff in it.

My turkey basting supplies, butter and the wine in the other picture. I always roast my turkeys the Martha Stewart's Turkey 101 way. Always delicious, never dry. Covering it with cheesecloth and basting every half hour with the wine and butter is the best.

All stuffed up and ready for the cheesecloth. Check out my helper in the background.

Complete and ready for the oven. It was still dark outside when I took these pictures because I had a 27 pound turkey that had to be ready by 3:00 pm.

This is about four hours into it. The cheesecloth really protects the skin from over browning before the rest gets done.

Time to remove the cheese cloth and look how nice it is.

Another hour in the oven and it was perfect.

Yummy! Do you think my plate's full enough? I ate it all too.

He waited patiently for a bite, he got one too.

Kevin got an early Christmas gift from Tom. An awesome knife engraved with his initials.
Unfortunately, he didn't get a deer yet so he hasn't tried it out.

I collected dill that was growing at my back door and decided to dry it in case I need it for early pickles. I'm going to try to get some started early enough this spring so I will have fresh though. I couldn't find any last year until later in the summer. I'm going to try and grow some in a hoop house or something, maybe even a cold frame?

This was the motivation for my week of remodeling. I had scheduled half a week off after Thanksgiving when Kevin is off for gun week. He spent most of the week down south in a cabin so with the house empty I seem to get a lot done.

First, I painted the doors for my lower cupboards and hung them up.

I also laid down some tiles that were needed because when we took out the pantry there were spots that had the old tile under it. Plus I put down a wood border that replaced the old silver border that you can see in the picture above.

Here's the floor with the new tile and border. It still needs some finishing work but it looks way better that before. (Amy, call me and let me know how you think it looks. )

Now, back to the reason for some of my work. All of the walls in the living area used to be this awful paneling. We eventually want to drywall but I had nowhere to hang my new decoration so I convinced Kevin to let me paint. He wanted me to wait until we drywalled but who knows when that will be and I needed to hang up my new decoration. It could be years.

Everything was so dark and dreary and dirty looking.

First I primed. (Actually, first I filled all the holes and sanded and sanded!)

There was a really high spot and I had no ladder.

So I improvised and stood on this stool on top of another stool, very lucky I didn't fall. When I put on the paint I taped a paint brush onto a extension pole and used that, it worked but if you get up close it might look bad.

Lookin' better!

Much better.

Then I decided to go after the wall on the other side of the house.

I want to get new curtains now. Maybe just plain ones like you'll see in the picture of the sliding glass door. Soon I'll trim around the windows.

I also put down this carpet in the laundry room. The floor was terrible with mismatched tiles.

I then trimmed out the area over the sliding glass door and hung the curtains, not perfect but so much better!

This picture looks a little better. I really like these simple tab curtains and will hopefully get some for the other side of the room.

Turkey Butchering

Yep, it's you!

We normally use killing cones but they were not big enough so Kevin resorted to using feed sacks, worked pretty good too. You can see him in the background, he hung the bag with the turkey in it, cut them and they stayed really calm, slowly going to sleep. That's me and my MIL Kaye in the foreground.

Then the birds went into the scalder, they barely fit they were so huge.

That's Kevin and his dad, Mike running the plucker. It was so nice to have their help for the day.

The plucker was the best investment we ever made.

More scalding.

More plucking.

Kaye and I working on getting the guts out. First getting the crop loose.

Then getting the back end loose and ready to slide out.

All out and trimming the gallbladder from the liver.

Kaye's removing the lungs and I'm trimming the heart maybe or something.

There's the gizzard.

Cutting it open to clean all the stuff out and remove the lining.

All done, this one weighed 27 pounds and it was the one we had for our Thanksgiving dinner.

Our photographer for the day was my niece Stephanie. It was her first butchering experience and she took lots of pictures. The next picture that she took was a little unusual but I thought I'd include it as a fitting ending to the day. It was how we all felt after lugging around 27 pound turkeys.

Til next time,

Beth

It's Thanksgiving Time!

2009-11-22T08:44:00.007-05:00

My computer is fixed! YAY!! And my blogger sign-in works! YAY!
I missed posting in most of October so here's a re-cap of some frosty fall pictures out of my front door. Unfortunately, the 100 acres across the street is up for sale so this view may change soon.

Here's the last of my moon flowers after the first hard frost.

One little blossom trying to survive.

Kevin installed all new windows in our house. Now I just have to install all the trim and the mouldings and I'll be home free.

We emptied the freezers to make room for the new meat chickens and turkeys. So we tried out the new monster canner. It does 14 quarts at a time.

I did a bunch of chicken, turkey and some stock.

At the last minute I grabbed a bunch of grapes off of the arbor and threw together some jelly.

Boiled them up with a little sugar, from a recipe in my favorite Amish cook book.

Put them through my nifty new Kitchenaid squeezo attachment and filled up some jars.

Presto, some awesome grape jelly.

I discovered that an old friend that lives in Hudson, Ohio has a really beautiful farm where he grows organic garlic. It's called Thaxton's Organic Garlic. He attends the local farmers markets where he has tastings and offers samples every week. Here's a link if you'd like to take a look at his Local Harvest site.

http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M32032

He grows thousands of cloves of garlic every year, saving the very best for replanting stock and also selling some of the best for others to plant. We were lucky enough to barter one of our pastured turkeys for some of his stock this year. We planted our garlic a few weeks ago and he will be getting his turkey today or tomorrow.

I'm so happy that my computer is well again. The only problem is that all of my bookmarks are gone so I won't be able to visit a lot of my old favorite blogs and I've lost a lot of my farming source addresses.

Til next time,

Beth

p.s. I'm going to try and remember to take pictures when we process the turkeys so hopefully I'll post about that soon.

Computer Down Again!

2009-10-10T10:50:00.001-04:00

This time I got a blue screen of death. It may get fixed this week, I'm so hoping!
Se ya soon,
Beth

Morning Glories!

2009-10-01T04:45:00.005-04:00

The other day I was on the computer and heard some turkey clucking and purring noises, (I guess that's how you describe their sounds). I looked out because they should not be close enough to the house for me to hear them.

They walked over the fence again. These turkeys are not capable of flight so they must have walked, no other way to get out.

I tried to get them off of the deck with a broom but meat turkeys are so friendly that they weren't even scared. They just kept spreading in different directions.

Finally, my morning glories are blooming.

Aren't they the most beautiful thing in the world! I love blue flowers.

Plus, there are a few that are really stunning. They have streaky stripes and faded colors.

I'm not sure if this is normal but it's beautiful. I wonder if I can save the seed? That would be cool.

A cute little honey bee.

So pretty!

I planted them on the garden fence along the driveway, I'm not sure how long they will bloom but I'm happy for these.

Til next time,

Beth

September Happenings

2009-09-19T18:57:00.002-04:00

I just downloaded 181 pictures but I have so much to do today that I only have time for a quickie update. I started this at about 7:00 am and just finishing it at 7:00 pm.

Here is a garbage can full of beets to can today. (UPDATE AT 7:00 pm-DONE)

That's a bunch of beets. A guy I work with has pears, jelly and a bunch of other stuff he canned but he has no beets so some of these beets will be traded for pears and jelly!

I spent 30 minutes scrubbing these jars, they were a freebie from a friend but only because they were so dirty nobody wanted to buy them from her garage sale.

A bushel of apples to make into apple sauce, apple butter, pie filling tomorrow plus we need to make salsa and I don't even know how I will because of the beets I am tired.

One of the reasons is because I have to walk around her all day when I try to work in the kitchen. Either she lays right there or along one of the cupboards. I try to make her move but she just lays down in another spot. Always on the alert for a falling piece of whatever, today she was eating beet scraps.

The Thanksgiving turkeys getting big. See how the fence is leaning? Sometimes they take a notion and the walk over the fence, en masse, pushing it until it leans over and they can walk through.

Beans, still more on the bushes to do but I don't care right now but I'm sure I will do them or I will be mad next winter.

My new processor, I burnt up the old one grating crap loads of zucchini.

Picked peppers, still more to do but ya know?

Here is why I am tired. They look yummy though.

I took this picture a few weeks ago, it is a bushel gourd flower, one of the prettiest flowers I've ever seen, looks like fine lace doesn't it?

Til next time, Beth

Spooky Flowers and a busy August!

2009-09-05T06:53:00.009-04:00

And a whole bunch of other stuff.

I've spent the last half hour (maybe even an hour) pouring over a really great blog, here's a link if any one's interested:

http://marmitetoasty.blogspot.com/

Completely hilarious, serious, funny, sad, crazy, confusing, funny, did I say funny? She writes about her very young son getting hit by a car, her other sons that she raised by herself, there are snippets of her childhood (which were sad), pictures of her surgery and all other sorts of things. It's quite the roller coaster ride.

Anyway, back to what I should have been doing.......

The month of August flew by and here are bits and pieces of what I have been up to.

The new oven was installed! Thank you Tom and Husband. Tom (BIL) was at a friends house and his friend had a black, 30" (which is exactly what we were looking for) gas oven in his garage that they had bought but they decided not to use and it had been sitting there for months.

It costs, brand new about $1200, they paid $820 at a scratch and dent place but it was immaculate with maybe a little scratch on the handle. So, Kevin wired their closet and we got the stove for free, minus a couple hours labor. It has a super large burner that will bring the canner to a boil in record time, our old stove would barely boil water.

We painted the front of the bottom cupboards.

And the bar.

And this morning I painted a drawer front. Last night I broke the handle tips off of the old, hated handles, sanded the edges, painted them with a nice brown, rough-textured paint (matches our lights) and installed a new drawer slide and screwed on the drawer front.

(p.s. Amy, call me and let me know how it looks, is the handle too curvy?)

What do you think?

Yesterday I looked out and saw Flipper messing around the apple tree. They go out most days to the front yard to eat the apples that have fallen. He was trying and trying to get one off of the tree, they had eaten all the ones on the ground.

Pretty funny to see a goose trying to pick an apple off of a tree. I felt so sorry for him. He worked and worked but couldn't get ahold of one so went out and picked a couple and dropped them on the ground. A browsing goose!

The kids snapped green beans for two hours all the while watching Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure. When the Tequila dance came on I told them to stop and watch this part because it was a classic. I think they thought I was nuts.

Amy (sister) works at a Ford dealership and she said that the Tequila song came on the radio and one of the mechanics jumped up on the bed of the pickup truck he was working on and started to do the dance. She said all the customers that were in the waiting lounge could see him and they were all cracking up.

This is the second, later batch of corn. Much bigger but I don't think quite as sweet.

Beans to snap. My pictures are out of order but it takes too long to sort them once you get them in the post. Blogger should fix that.

Amy and I put these up while watching Pee Wee with the kids and we did a little of the dance when the song came on.

Here is the early corn, smaller but like I said, it was a little sewwtwe (this is why it takes me so long to blog and my posts are so far between, that is what it looked like when I tried to type sweeter). We only froze a little because we ate all the rest.

Side by side - early and later. I think I will only plant the yellow corn next year, corn should be yellow.

Tom (BIL) and Kevin had fun shooting their guns last weekend. Puppy didn't like it, she hid in the house the whole time.

We have a kinda cool shooting bench, no credit to us, it came with the house. You see, when you buy a dilapidated house in red-neck country they all come with a shooting bench. Maybe no indoor plumbing but always a shooting bench.

If we get invaded we will be ready, can't afford the bullets but we have the arsenal. The shells for the bigger guns cost over a dollar each. Bang, a dollar, bang, another dollar, $$$, they had fun though.

Paper plates hung on a piece of plywood with a mound of dirt behind. (There were funny things drawn on the plates that I won't describe.)

Have to go and check the plates.

Trying out the .454.

Always happiest when they have holsters on. The bigger the better!

And.....

We had a party at my mom's house. This is where I grew up. My BIL, Tom built a Tiki Hut (of sorts, actually bigger and better) at the beach and we have had all kinds of fun this summer. Tomorrow is the end of the year party.

See that big tub out on the dock? They have been playing a new game this year. Somebody, usually a good golfer, will stand on the beach and hit golf balls, aiming for the tub. Hopefully not hitting bystanders or swimmers. That is where the part about a GOOD golfer comes in!

They usually stand a little to the left from where I took this picture, but you can see the distance. The object of the game is for the people on the dock to retrieve the balls before they sink. (Also why we need a good golfer.)

The balls sink kinda slowly so if they land close to the dock you can't dive in because you will overshoot them and end up under them and lose them.

So you kinda have to do a really shallow, monkey kinda dive. They also try to catch them which is even better than having to dive for them. But, the best thing is for the golfer to try and hit the bucket.

This had not happened until the last party. I had been watching my cousin Dave hitting balls all day and then all of a sudden one went right into the tub!

It was awesome.

The cheers went up all over the beach! (There were only about 25 people but you would have thought it was a hundred from all the noise.)

Here he is!

The best Water Wedge player at Stewart Lake! He's also on a golf league and really good.

This picture is what happens when you see a beautiful rainbow, run to get you camera and then it's gone. It was beautiful but I guess you had to be there.

Then..........

The son and I enjoy our zucchini bread so much that we spent one evening after work grating craploads of it with my food processor to the tune of 19 bags. I'm a little sick of zucchini now but I still have a bunch more to grate. The only problem is that when I went to chop up some tomatoes for salsa the other evening I loaded up the processor, pressed the button and nothing, zippo, naughta! My processor was dead. Yikes, the thought of grating 10 giant zucchinis by hand....blah! I am on the hunt for a processor.

This may be the last of it.

And.................

Of course you gotta have a Brats cake for an 11 year girl's birthday. Especially a Dairy Queen ice cream cake! When I went to pick it up and pay the cashier said "That will be $30.00 please." I practically fell down! It did not taste $30 dollars good but the 11 year old was beaming so what can you do.

This is the spooky flowers part.

During the work week I get up at about 4:00 am. I make husbands breakfast, pack his lunch and see him out the door at about 4:30. I don't have to go to work until 7:00 so now it's time to relax, get on the computer, do laundry and whatever. I'm usually in a daze and unfuntional cause I hate getting up at 4:00 a.m. Five is fine but something happens to my internal clock at four.

A weeks ago after he left I went out to sit on the back deck to escape from the the heat of the house, itwas still hot from the 90 degrees the day before. I think it was already really warm outside, like 70.

It was kinda misty and foggy when I sat down on the step with my cup of tea. Puppy was with me, ever the shadow. I went back in to get my camera because all the mist made it look really cool. My camera is not an expensive one so I couldn't catch exactly the mood but it was close.

The moon flowers that I have bloom only at night so they really stood out in the dark and the trees in the back looked really cool. There were shadowy figures moving in the background, visible only because they were stark white.

Not ghosts, only big, fat white Thanksgiving turkeys.

There's Puppy and my cup of tea. (plus the towel I was sitting on because the deck was wet)

To give you an idea of how foggy it was check out the next picture.

This is what happened when tried to take a few pictures with my flash on. I guess the flash bounced off of all of the dew drops in the air. Odd huh?

Here is the same scene a little later as the sun started to come up, still really foggy though.

Next on the agenda here:

Paint the back of the house, install a few windows, pickle beets, can carrots, finish drawers, paint cupboard doors, clean freezers and move the small one indoors, can excess meat in freezers, drywall living room, paint kids rooms, finish trim in bathroom, completely remodel our bathroom and on and on etc, etc.

It took me forever to finish this post and there were so many more August activities that I could have included. I'm kinda glad Fall is coming. It would be time to slow down but that is when the inside remodeling work will begin.

Til next time,

Beth

Sweet Corn Trials and Tribulations

2009-08-13T17:25:00.005-04:00

I remember being so excited as our neighbor tilled our new garden in the spring.

And then we planted our sweet corn. I've always bought corn to freeze but this year it we decided to grow our own.

It was so fun watching it grow!

Finally the early corn was almost ready to pick.

This is the later variety. Getting really big and kinda heavy.

As you can see from this picture it was so heavy that it started to fall from the wind. Two days later we had a really bad storm and it was ALL BLOWN DOWN. All of it, laying flat on the ground. (sniffle, sob!)

Well.... let me tell ya something. Pick a bad emotion and I felt it. What could we do?? We had no twine or anything to tie it up with and Kevin thought it was hopeless. How in the world do you tie up 40 feet by 40 feet of corn?

Well, I was desperate and desperate times call for desperate measures.

Luckily we had our cucumbers growing next to the corn and we had put up a fence for them to climb up. (They didn't.) But it proved useful in the corn dilemma.

I grabbed the only item in our house that was long, really really, long. Strapping tape!

Kevin told me that I was crazy but I had to try it. I taped up a little of the corn and it seemed like maybe it would work! It was getting late so he said we could try something the next day.

We took a couple rolls of tape out and strapped and strapped. We wove it all along the length and then wove it side to side all along the corn, from one fence to the other, sticking it to itself along the rows in between the stalks.

It may have been a little unorthodox but it worked!

Our neighbors must think that we're crazy.

That tape has held through weeks of rain and wind.

We even had a really blowy thunderstorm a few days ago and I really held my breath, watching out the window for signs of falling cornstalks but nothing.

And yesterday we had our first homegrown corn.

Til next time,

Beth

Hatching Guineas and Eating Locally

2009-08-01T08:54:00.011-04:00

And by eating locally I mean very locally, from our own garden. So finally, last week we were able to have a dinner made entirely from our own farm.

First we had a cucumber salad with onions. Kind of a sweet and sour salad with vinegar and a little sugar. Of course we didn't grow the vinegar or the sugar, we just grew the large items.

I picked the biggest beets, boiled them and added real butter, no, I didn't make the butter either.

So, speaking of real butter...a couple of weeks ago the son called and asked me to get milk and butter from the store. Well, I knew that I had butter because I had started buying real butter and had stopped using the cheap tub stuff after I was called back to work.

I am determined to use only real butter because I know thatit is actually a real substance and not chemically "created". For the past month or two I have kept a couple of sticks on a plate, usually on top of the toaster (the cat can't find it there). If it gets left on the other counter it ends up with "lick" marks on it.

Lick Marks

Anyhoo, when I went home, after picking up some milk, I noticed that we did indeed have some butter, soft, on top of the toaster and more boxes in the fridge. So, the next day he calls again and asks me to get some butter.

I'm a little perplexed so when I get home I pointed out to him that we do have butter and showed it to him. It slowly dawned on me (when he looked at the butter with a blank look on his face) that he did not know that there was such a thing as real butter and he did not know that butter comes in stick form.

I have been remiss.

Do not try to take a picture of steaming hot broccoli right over top of it, the steam will fog the lens (and hopefully not cause permanent damage to your camera).

Hold your camera a little to the side of it.

And for the main dish, a little butter fried venison. (It counts as home grown.) We paid a lot of money to fill our deer feeder with corn last year.

On to the Guinea Hatching.

A friend at work has guinea fowl. He wanted to hatch some of the eggs and he did not think his hens would sit so about a month ago he brought me nine eggs. At first I told him they should hatch in three weeks but after some checking into it I was very surprised to find out that guineas eggs take four weeks to incubate.

The eggs are so much smaller than the chicken eggs that I am used to that I was really surprised. It just seemed so strange that a turkey egg, which is at least twice as big as a guinea egg, will take the same amount of time in the incubator.

So finally, after the four week wait they started to hatch.

The first one after I moved to the brooder.

I put the shell in with the brooder and took a picture to give to my friend at work. He's not picking them up for a few days and I knew he was ecxited to see what they look like.

The first one hatched really quick but a second one was pipped but getting nowhere. It had pipped that morning so I waited all day but nothing had happened even the next morning, the keet's little beak was still moving around when I checked it so I knew it was still ok.

I figured that when I got home from work if it was still not hatched that I would take matters into my own hands. So, when I got home about 4:00 and there was still no progress, I picked off a little of the shell, bit by bit to check the membrane for blood in the vessels. They seemed dry so I picked a little more, still dry so I decided to remove the top of the egg and get the little guy out. As I was removing the shell the keet was peeping loudly so I knew it was strong still.

I finally got the end removed and popped it's little head out and it went into action. It kicked and kicked and flopped it's way out of the shell. The yolk sac was retracted and there was no blood at all so obviously it was really ready. I think for some reason it was stuck and couldn't turn in the shell to get itself out.

It scrambled all over the incubator, it didn't even rest for a minute, but couldn't stand up yet. One of it's feet was a little turned in. I held it up every couple of minutes so it could get it's legs under itself a little. I put it in the brooder, after only about an hour, with the other one because it kept peeping, I think it was lonely.

By the next morning the one's foot was normal and they were both doing fine, making little guinea noises and pecking around the brooder. I don't think I can even tell them apart. They were acting a little mean though. One kept pecking the other one's foot and making him cry.

Sadly, none of the other eggs hatched but at least my friend has two to grow up together.

I can see now why they need 28 days to incubate. They are crazy strong and fast as soon as they pop out of that shell. They make poults and chicks look as dumb and slow as turtles.

One does seem to be a little different in color though. Maybe slightly browner and the other one a little grayer. Cute, huh?

Til next time,

Beth

Garden and Chicks and Pickles

2009-07-21T16:49:00.000-04:00

Our first batch of pickles. I'm putting up more today so that's why I'm trying to get this post written at 4:30 a.m. I uploaded most of the pictures for the post days ago but have been unable to find time to sit and type.

The garden is coming along. Carrots look great. It is the first year for the garden in this spot so I hope the little guys can find room to grow in between all the dirt clods.

I am trying Romain lettuce this year. I'm not crazy about most leaf lettuce, it's too hard to get the dirt off so I have high hopes for this type. It's a little thicker leafed so hopefully easier to wash.

I have a little cantaloupe started. I hope the bugs don't get it!

I think this is a watermelon. We planted the sugar baby type. I hope I can tell when they are ready.

We have lots of little yellow squash coming. Yummy.

I took this picture more than a couple days ago, I better go and pick it today, it's probably huge now.

Our early sweet corn has tasseled. The garden ended up being larger than we planned so this area in the right of the picture did not get manure spread on it. It's amazing how small some of the corn is compared to the left side, really great proof of the power of poop.

It seems so early for the corn, I can't wait to boil some up for dinner.

See the little ear?

It's been really rainy and grey lately, it was like 60 degrees yesterday (I just heard the weatherman say that on the morning news) and today it's supposed to be warm and sunny so the garden should burst.

Here's the later maturing corn. It's way taller and heaver than the early corn. The wind blew it around a little yesterday. I need to try and hoe around it to help it stay up.

Tomatoes thriving. No bad bugs or worms yet.

We really need to get to tying them up, maybe today. I took the day off to spend some time with the kids. I'm taking the youngest for a horseback riding lesson at one o'clock and I have about 100 other things to get done too. Laundry, pickles, brush dog, if it's ready- freeze borccoli, clean, vacuume, dishes, (Uh oh... I just remembered...I need to hurry and let the young turkeys out of their pen this morning, I'll be right back) and a million other things. I want to work on getting the rest of the cupboards painted this weekend.

I am so looking foward to pickled beets. I need to find a tried and true recipe. Anybody have one?

Onions and garlic.

I wish we had planted more dill. I am going to have to use dried dill today for my pickles.

We had our first broccolli out of the garden. Next year we are going to plant much, much more.

I just love Cleome.

We plan to sell our boat. We were going to fix it up but we hardly ever want to leave the farm. We had someone come and look at it but when we got it out and cleaned it off we realized that we did not want to sell it. Kevin is going to go and get the plates and license and I think we are going boating next weekend. We have a tow behind tube that the kids will love!

We planted these daylilies last year and forgot about them. It was a real treat when they bloomed.

The moon flowers are beautiful but not as beautiful as Puppy!

These two hens fought over a nest box full of eggs and finally got some to hatch. Since they both were squeezing into one box they squished most of the babies but this one lived. I finally moved them to a bigger area. This little chick has two very good moms.

You can't see the chick very well in this picture but it's there.

(When I went out to let out the turkeys one of the hens was out of the pen. The lighter colored hen had gotten out so I had to let the baby and the other mom out in the pen with the big chickens and turkeys. I hope they will be all right and the big turkeys don't hurt the baby.)

UPDATE: I went out and put them back into their pen, was too worried.

This hen hatched out three babies. I moved her to a different spot.

See 'em. How cute

I have this awesome weather thing. It gets readings from a satillite so it's mostly accurate. On this day though there was a problem. The high for the day was supposed to be 80 and the low was supposed to be 60 but the current temp was -100. Whatever.

I took a video when I let the turkeys out. I'll try to upload it. It's taking forever, like over an hour now and I can't post this until it's done. I am trying to upload it to youtube instead. It might be too large or something. Youtube says it will take an hour and a half to upload? We'll see...

UPDATE: It worked through youtube ...sorry about the quality. Should have used my Flip instead of my camera.

Til next time,

Beth

Tadpoles and Tree Frogs

2009-06-28T12:17:00.000-04:00

We had a birthday party for the oldest last weekend. He decided to have a few friends over and camp out then the next day we had family over for a cookout. It was really nice.

The kids had fun collecting bullfrog tadpoles and swimming.

Little Tree Frog

Kevin's dad (Hi Mike!) found this little guy, actually heard him first, sitting here on this leaf.

I did not realize that geese are mountian climbers. Whatever possesed them to climb to the top of this little hill?

As you can see, they are not very good climbers.

I'm back to work after being layed off for for most of five months. If only they had called me back after canning season. The garden is coming along great- corn, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, beets and beans are really growing good. Cucumbers, not so good, hopefully they'll come around.

Til next time,

Beth

Our Dock, Vegetable Garden and Flower Garden Fix-up

2009-06-08T12:16:00.000-04:00

Amy (my sister) and her husband Tom came over Sunday and helped us get a few things done. It's so much more fun when some one's here to help. Tom is a major motivator so we got a lot more done that we planned.

Amy and I went and bought some mulch, I really like the dark mulch better. Everything looks so much brighter against the dark.

Here's my butterfly bushes trying to come back, also some moonflowers.

Here's my row of beans in the garden. We are going to put a row of fence down the middle.

I have three pumpkins. Here's one of them.

I snuck some morning glories into the corner. I'm so glad they came up-the seeds are from last year. My husband only wanted to grow edible items and only practical ones at that. I can't wait to make pickled beets but he's more worried about tomatoes, beans and corn

Cauliflower and broccoli.

The first row is lettuce, the second carrots. He plowed rows so that the whole thing has raised beds. There are low spots here and this way nothing will get drowned. We also mulched everything heavily with some old hay that was given to us.

Corn that needs to be thinned. It will kill me to pull them out. I should have planted thinner and put in another row. All the seeds sprouted it looks like.

Maybe tomorrow I will do it. I think I have to thin to eight to ten inches? Anybody ever leave it closed than that? Hmmmmmmm?

Here's the potato planter almost exactly one month ago.

They are really filling it up. We need to add dirt.

Wow, look at them grow!

And here is the dock waiting for paint.

The front part.

It's getting paint now, paint sprayers are the best!

Front done but not dry.

Everything for the dock we had here, it's all leftovers from other projects or we had free stuff so it didn't cost us anything.

This is some stain we had left over from our deck. We weren't crazy about the color but it was free! It was all gloppy and had some big chunks of dried stuff in it that would have clogged up the sprayer. I needed to figure out some kind of filter.

So I found some screen and an old coffee can. Made some clips with electric fence wires and it worked pretty good.

I had to change the screen after every batch.

See how much it darkens up when dry? Blended the different kinds of wood pretty good.

Top done too.

Installed, the kids are loving it and it is pretty fun to sit at the end and watch the fish.

Til next time,

Beth

Garden is In!

2009-05-26T07:27:00.001-04:00

First came the planning, layout, design. Always good on paper but when we started to plant things it took on a life of it's own. We actually have lots of space left but I plan to take care of that soon.

Our very nice neighbor tilled our garden for us. This the first year for the garden in this spot so we are hoping, with a little tender loving care, it will grow.

We decided to get an early start on potatoes so we asked at the local tire shop if they had any old tractor tires that they wanted to get rid of and they did. This one was giant. Kevin shoveled about 100 (not really but his back thought so) scoops of dirt into it. He planted a bunch of potatoes and they are already coming up.

We will continue adding dirt as they grow. The black tire warms the dirt and holds the moisture really well. They are growing really fast.

I was walking around nearby and all of a sudden this guy slithers by very quickly, I hollered for Kevin to come quick! He very carefully found his head (cause we could have poisonous snakes here) scooped him up so I could take pictures and figure out what it was. It was definitely not your regular old garter snake.

The pattern was so beautiful but it's tail was rattling... creeped me out. At first the only snake I could find that looked like it was a Massasauga, a poisonous rattle snake but the head and eyes weren't right. I finally found the correct one, it is a Milk Snake. Made me very happy.
Later in the day they found a baby snake of the same variety next door so I guess there are a bunch of them around to scare the crap out of me when I'm gardening.

Kevin and the neighbor checking out the snake.

Our blackberries are doing pretty well, we will even have berries this year. They didn't suffer too bad for being transplanted.

No matter where I go this is always right behind or right next to me. Before we planted our garden the first thing we did was to put up a fence. To keep away deer, bunnies, groundhogs but mostly to keep away him. He and Buddie got into our plants and scruffed up a bunch of them. I'm glad they didn't like how they tasted or we would have none left. My girlfriend had just told me how her sheep had eaten two flats of her cabbage and then the next day our geese ate ours. You would think I would have been a little smarter.

He must have gotten under the tractor or something. He's got a grease Mohawk.

The Snow-in-Summer is one of my favorites. It will climb all over the rocks. That is if I can keep the wild morning glories off of it!

Kitchen update. Windows in, lights up and the bar is mostly done.

Tile is laid, it has been grouted but I don't have a picture. We used a darker tannish grout. This tile will go all around the oven too.

Here is the front of the bar. I have to do a lot of finish work but that is all on hold until we get some rainy days. The house really suffers when we garden all day for days on end.

I put up these tarps to keep the weather off of the lean-to for the chickens. I was looking around the other day, pulled back the tarp and found out where the missing eggs are.

She was sitting on about 50 eggs. Nice huh?

Til next time..

(We build a dock!)

Beth

Finally, My Computer is Fixed!

2009-05-21T07:26:00.000-04:00

I had a bunch of bad, bad viruses. All fixed now. I will be posting soon. I have lots of new pictures of remodeling, farm and happenings. My turkey eggs have hatched and all is well.

Be posting soon!

Beth

Woodpeckers at our Suet Feeder

2009-04-19T10:21:00.000-04:00

Look who's visiting my suet feeder!

We have three types of woodpeckers living near our house and two different types visit our feeder.

This one is a Red Headed Woodpecker. I this he is the prettiest.

Look at the color of his head!

Behind him you can see the "pain in the rear" sparrow. They have invaded my chicken house, eating lots of feed and have taken over the bluebird houses.

This is the second type of woodpecker that visits us. Not a very good picture but I think it is a Downey Woodpecker. Another one visits that looks just like this one but it has red on it's head. Maybe male/female... not sure.

Here is a not very big chart of woodpeckers. I was hoping the pictures would get bigger if you clicked on them but it's not working.

Legend: 1. Red-cockaded 2. Hairy 3. Downy 4. Pileated 5. Red-bellied 6. Red-headed 7. Sapsucker 8. Flicker 9. Ivorybill (extinct)

I wanted a good picture of a Pileated Woodpecker because it is the third type of woodpecker that we have at our farm but I could not get a picture of it myself even if I tried. It's nest (hole in the pole) too far away and way to high up for my camera.

These pictures are not that good but you get the idea. We have a nesting pair that lives in the high tension power pole near the front of our house. They live really, really high up in the pole and raise babies every year.

Here is Mr. Bluebird, waiting for a chance at the bluebird house near the feeder that the sparrow has taken over. Mr. Bluebird and the sparrows have had many fights over this house with the sparrows always winning.

Here is Mrs. Bluebird, waiting too.

Kevin has removed the sparrow nest at least two or three times. Finally she tries to move in.

They worked at it for awhile but we haven't seen them for a couple days. Not sure if they found another spot for their nest or what.

Kitchen remodel Update:

This weekend we installed the new window in the kitchen, a continuation of the kitchen remodel.

Hope it's over soon. I can't wait to get all the tools, wood, air compressor and construction supplies out of my living space so calmness and cleanliness can reappear.

Til next time,

Beth

A Really Good Video, A Really Funny Video

2009-04-14T13:05:00.000-04:00

If you've ever watched any of the talent shows on TV and you'd like to see a really amazing singer then click on this link and watch, you won't be sorry! These two videos are from the show "Britain's Got Talent".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY&feature=related

Now, if you'd like to see a really funny one then click on this link. Hopefully you've seen Michael Flatly (The Irish Dancer) from the "Lord of the Dance" show. It may not be as funny if you're not familiar with him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gHvATmUsSg&feature=related

I would have embeded them so you could watch it right here but it's disabled.
Enjoy!

Goose Nest

2009-04-04T19:13:00.000-04:00

This is the nest that Buddie "built" when she first started laying eggs. I put the word built in quotes because she only had a few pieces of mulch and a few sticks that she was able to break off of the butterfly bush.

It made for very muddy eggs that she would roll around and around trying to hide them. Plus her nest was right next to the steps which would cause a mad dash, trying to get by her and up the steps without being attacked. Geese don't want you anywhere near their nests.

We moved this dog house next to the steps hoping she would move into it and lay her eggs there and feel safer, instead she moved over on the other side of the butterfly bush, again making a muddy nest.

I finally got a few bales of hay so I offered a couple of flakes to her and in about fifteen minutes she had this nest built. It's a beautiful thing. If you were walking near any pond and there were nests there you would never see them. Every time she leaves she covers her eggs completely. Perfectly camouflaged.

See what's in there.

I'm not letting her hatch any though. Two squawking, hissing geese are enough for me. Flipper is the worst. He won't bite me but most any one else is fair game. If you act scared and turn away he will chase you and try to pinch the back of your leg.

Most of the time he will only get your pant leg or boot but if he gets a hold of you he will leave a quarter sized bruise. If you act like you're not afraid he more or less will leave you alone. Kinda.

This is our tom turkey, a beauty huh? He is a little like Flipper too. He would like nothing better than to peck the hell outta you. Mostly me though. He follows me constantly, watching, waiting to get that one chance to get me. He and I go at it most every day.

I gave him the smack down last week. Grabbed him by the head and wrestled with him til I got a hold of him and picked him up. They say that if you "embarrass" a tom turkey they will stay away from you. Didn't work, he came right back for me.

The other day I was bent over trying to get eggs out of a dog house like the one in this picture. We have two of these. The other one is in the chicken paddock.

It's much bigger and we figured that the turkeys would lay their eggs in it rather that on the ground. Well, it worked but they always lay them clear in the back of the thing.

See...all the way in the back.

Consequently, I have to put one knee on the ground and crawl inside of the thing to retrieve them. Yuck, you can imaging what I have to kneel in.

Plus, it puts me at a real disadvantage when my adversary is constantly on guard, watching, waiting for his chance to teach me a lesson.

After I took the pictures of these eggs, gathered them up and maneuvered my way back out of the thing (I actually had to crawl into it) this is what I saw right behind me.

If you are familiar with turkey behavior this look means that "I am going to attack"! The down side of this was that I was on one knee at his level. Much worse knowing that he could spur my face rather than my ankles. That was scary. After that close call I got all smart and figured that I can reach the eggs if I just tilt the house up and reach down.

(But you noticed that I did take my chances and pause long enough to take a picture)

(Check out the cute little hen eying me right next to the vicious tom. A story about her follows.)

Please meet my newest favorite chicken. This is Mrs. Two Toes.

We got her last fall when my friend brought over his old hens to butcher (broke my heart) and I promptly rescued her and traded him a meat bird for her. I'm so lucky I picked her (actually she kinda is). She has more personality than any other chicken I've had before.

As you can see from the next photo she has only two toes on her foot. Her foot had been damaged in the ride over here from my friends house and her toe was broken... bent up at an odd angle and after a month, much to my surprise (horror), it fell off all together.

(Kinda gross, sorry.)

When I first got her she would just run up to me and try to peck me, no fear at all. It took about a month of picking her up and petting her to get her to stop.

She is very brave and smart, she follows me everywhere and stands at my feet constantly, wanting to be picked up but I have to watch though because if I'm not paying attention she will still peck me. I guess it's a love/hate thing.

Why do I always end up at the barn with my one pair of good shoes on?

I had to go to a meeting at the elementary school for one of the kids that morning so I spent 15 minutes at the sink trying to scrub the stains and clumps of dried yuck off of my shoes from the last time I impulsively went to the barn with them on.

I had just gotten home from the meeting, grabbed my camera and decided to run out and check for eggs. Then I remembered my shoes, crap! Did I go back in and change them ? Heck no! I just tried to tiptoe around and not step in any squishy spots.

Plus, I got to try out my brand new boot cleaner. It works great!

I just had to add a few pictures of my beautiful narris in the barn laying eggs. Look how good she blends in, she's hoping I can't see her.

I will start hatching eggs soon...almost ready!

(I guess saying "hatching" is like counting your eggs before they hatch, the proper term would of been "incubating", the hatching will hopefully follow.)

Til next time,

Beth

Visitors

2009-03-25T09:01:00.001-04:00

Amy and Tom (sister and her husband) came to visit last weekend. It was a really nice day, we had brunch and I made pancakes, cooked up some homemade venison breakfast sausage and eggs from my chickens. Amy brought some maple syrup from a farm down the road from her. YUMMY!

We went for a long walk, first across the street where there is 100 acres of what used to big old trees. Well, for about, it seems, like a year, they have been logging it. Kinda depressing. The property is owned by a lawyer that lives in a town about a half an hour from here, I guess it's been in their family for a long time. There is a church camp there on the property somewhere. And there used to be huge old trees everywhere but now only small spindly ones survived the massacre. In this case it pays to be puny. I hope they're not going to sell the property.

Then we walked out back and I took that picture of the rock with the moss growing on it.

We went back to the tree stand that Kevin and Tom refurbished a while ago. Tom got up there and spruced it up a little. Swept it with a broom that I was very surprised that they had in there. Re-hung up the tarp that had had half fallen down and decided that they need to do a little more work to it before hunting season this fall.

Then he started playing air guitar with the broom.

ROCK ON!

He had the camera and took some pictures while Amy and I were walking around the pond hoping to see all kinds of things that we didn't, like water lilys, frogs, fish, flowers, maybe a turtle or I'll even take a snake at this point.

Then I spotted him with the camera so Amy and I posed for some pictures that I will not share here. Posed pictures sometimes are not very pretty.

He decided to take Amy for a ride and try out the paddle boat that Eileen gave us last fall. This is the first time it has been warm enough with no ice on the lake to try it out. Puppy decided to take a ride with them. She loves to get on the water as long as she doesn't get wet.

Who's taking whom for the ride, I don't think he is paddling.

She is of course.

I found these next two pictures when I downloaded them from my camera onto my computer. I knew I should have worried when I saw him with the camera

With Tom and a camera you never know what will show up on the film.... or I guess, show up on the hard drive is more correct.

Can you guess?

Til next time,

Beth