Kitchen Remodel and Goose News

For our special breakfast last Sunday Kevin asked me to cook up some goose eggs for him. I made myself a couple of chicken eggs and I asked him if he wanted two goose eggs or one.

I showed him the pan and he said "Uh....I think one's gonna be enough." You know how you always have toast left and always run out of dippy yolk? Well not with a goose egg, the yolk was huge.


Amy and Tom (my sis and her husband) came to help us with hanging the cupboards and it was so nice out that Tom jumped on the trampoline.

Flipper was not happy and stood under the trampoline squawking until he leaned over to pet him.

Flipper is about as sweet as a goose as I have ever heard of. If strangers come over he stands at their feet and looks longing/demandingly at them all the while squawlering/screeching at an ear piercing level! If they bend down to touch him he, in a kind of submissive posture, will eventually lower his head and sit still and allows them to pet him. From everything I've heard geese don't like to be touched. Flipper will allow it if only for a minute or two. I love petting him, he is so soft and plushy. Now......

On to the Kitchen.

Here is what the old cupboards looked like. These are not the same ones we tore out because I forgot to get a "before" shot but they are exactly the same. See how they don't go to the ceiling? I need that space! Plus, the shelves were only 10 inches apart. Barely enough room for a drinking glass.

And...why oh why did someone think it looked good to place the handles in the center of the door? I really don't get it. They're not even usable, I mean, they are but it's really awkward opening a door from the middle. We are going to cut the Gothic ends off of these handles, paint them to match the new lights and reuse them and best of all, they're free.

Kevin is starting the tear down. All the stuff that was in the cupboards is sitting on a tall plastic shelf in my dining room. Doesn't look very good but it's really easy to find stuff.

Tearing out behind the fridge.

Bead board in place.


Bead board in place on the other wall and painted. Kevin went to school to be an electrician so he swapped out all the old brown switches and plugs for tan ones. Plus he installed five recessed lights too. We removed the old ceiling fan that we never used and added these lights, put in energy efficient bulbs and now I can see.

Bead board painted behind the fridge.


Building the cupboards, making sure they are square. Kind of a waste because there is not a square room in this house.

Complete, bead board back installed.

Both complete, actually there were three.



Painted.

I am using a color similar to the color of milk, whole milk, not skim. I love that color. We were going back and forth on using a bolder color like sage green or a light mocha but I think we are going to use a darker color on the back splash or maybe tile it so we are staying with white for now.

All three painted.

The one next to the fridge installed.

We changed our mind and decided to put the microwave in this cupboard where the cups were in the last picture. All it took was a 1&1/4 wood bit and a hole drilled for the cord. I don't like having a lot of stuff on the counter and this will free up a whole bunch of space.

The microwave used to sit right by the toaster.

Now for a face frame on the cupboards. (See the new light?)

We found this really cool jig for cutting holes to join wood together. It's made by the Kreg company and it works great.

It makes these slanty holes.

Then you can run screws right into the other board, no biscuits or dovetails needed.

Frame on.

Frame painted!

We are eventually going to put doors on...not sure when.


I don't think I've shown a picture of the lights we picked out. After watching a remodeling show we saw them use some pendant lights. We really liked them so we went to the local big hardware store and found these. Love them.

Then we decided that we needed a new, matching one over our dining room table, Voila!

There is an odd corner spot between the shelves that I have been working on it for the last two days. I cut triangles out of some pine, the same pine that we used to make the shelves and it was a bugger to make them fit. Don't look too close, there is putty in there where the joints weren't close enough and actually I am waiting for it to dry as I type this.

I had to go and find something to do. I will keep poking at it as I wait impatiently for it to dry. That is why I am finally getting this post written. I needed something to keep me busy for at least an hour while the filler dries. I may add pictures after I get it painted. Now, it's been long enough, I'm off to sand and then paint- I mean sand, prime and then paint.

UPDATE:

Primed and Painted!

Til next time,

Beth

Goose Warning!

The Culprit

The Accomplice

The Crime Scene

The Crime

A closer look.

A much closer look.

What used to be a young, promising nectarine tree is now a barkless, soon to be dead nectarine tree. The fruit you saw on the tree in the crime scene will never get ripe and I will never get to eat it.



These two amigos must have had a lot of fun stripping the bark from that tree. Every bit that they could reach, all the way around! You can see it all over the ground at the base of the tree. They didn't even eat it. They did it just for amusement. Look at Buddy, doesn't he look guilty. (His bump on his head is so funny, Kevin says we should have named him Knothead, we missed our chance.)
Here's the three musketeers. This one turkey, his name is Mister because he used to hang around with Missy. Well, he ended up being a Misses so now we have to come up with something else. I looked at her one day and said....hmmmmmm......I'm thinking........ she looks like a Maryjane so that is what her name is, except when we still call her Mister because that is what we are used to calling her.

This turkey is one of the two we raised with Flipper. The other one ended up with a messed up leg due to a bad ligament or something so I'm afraid her days are numbered. It's so hard cause she can't walk and kind of flops herself around, so what do you do. Her eyes are bright and she's healthy but just can't walk.


See look at her, isn't she cute? She kind of lays off to the side, crooked like, cause of her leg being backward.


At first we tried to fix it but it caused her so much anxiety we took the wrapping off. We can't possibly afford to take her to the vet. A very smart lady, who grew up on a farm and has been raising livestock her whole life, (she is almost 80 years old.) gave me the best advice ever. She said that we should concentrate on spending our money on healthy animals to enable them to have a better life and to let the unhealthy ones go.




It's hard though because we got so attached to this one. But the reason that we got so attached to her was because she couldn't walk fast and get away from us and we could pick her up and pet her all the time. She was supposed to be part of our breeding program we are starting with Narragansett turkeys but we can't have one with a possible genetic defect. I guess some turkeys can have weak ligaments that cause their legs to be bad.

I just ran out and took these pictures of her. I picked her up and carried her to the food and water area and she does not like to picked up at all anymore. (I try to help her and she fights me, turkeys can be so ungrateful.) If and probably when Kevin butchers her I don't think I want to eat her. It would creep me out to see a turkey in a pan with it's leg all backward. I would rather have no recognizable markings on my food. Enough said about that, too sad.

My Peach Tree

The bark area of my peach tree as of yesterday.

I'm not so dumb.

Here is Red, waiting for me to pick her up. One of my new young chickens that I hatched in the incubator is really friendly. She doesn't run away, I can pick her right up. I am convinced it is Red's baby. I tried to take a picture of her but as you can see from the picture below she scurried away from me. It may not have been her cause there are about five that all look the same. All of our Dominick's baby's look the same, maybe a little lighter, a little darker but very similar. (Really bad picture, I will go out again and try to get a good one, if my camera cooperates)

Camera worked but I forgot my memory card, still in the reader. Went back in and got it, camera wouldn't work, smacked my camera and it worked, honest I really did smack it and it really did start working.
See, some a little darker and some a little lighter. They are either Ameracana, Buff Orpington or Rhode Island Red, all crossed with Dominick who is A Barred Rock.

Dominick

Dominick Jr. (she might be a girl though)

A few posts ago I mentioned that my camera was breaking. It has been working really good lately but when I went out to take the last few pictures here is what the last one looked like. Weird, huh. That is what happens when it breaks, I can never tell when it's going to happen, it just gets all blurry, actually not really blurry but purplish and streaky. I could have said it was a beautiful picture of our sunset or a it was a thunderstorm cloud, who would have known.

If anyone sees this perpetrator near their fruit trees, call the cops quick, before it's too late.



What should I cook for dinner...hmmm. I think pizza sounds good. I will have to call the pizza shop.. Hopefully Kevin will go for pizza. We sold two turkeys today for $20.00 so maybe. He's out brush hogging so I will have to go find him and ask.

See ya,
Beth
PS. Hi Eileen!




I was feeding grapes to Maryjane/Mister and thought I'd videotape it and show it to you. She loves grapes, will do anything to get some, even come into the house. We tried to give her other stuff but she prefers the grapes. She did like the blackberries I offered her come to think of it. I made a few jars of jelly Wednesday and she shared a few.