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

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

Now the Kitchen

The main problem with remodeling in the winter is -where to put all the de-construction junk!

All the ripped off paneling can't just be thrown out on the deck.

Plus, we tore down a large (ugly) pantry that was FULL so where do we put all of the food too.

I fit most of the food in the other cupboards, after getting rid of all the stuff we don't ever use. As far as the piles of wood, most of it went out to the trash last week so it is much better now.


Here is the back of the large ugly pantry.




Now the paneling is removed and Kevin is unhooking the electric boxes and switches. Most of it gone.






Going.....


Going.....


Going....

Almost gone.

Now for a break in the remodel to check out my basket of eggs. They aren't laying too much now so each egg is like gold to me.

Check out this awesome rooster that my mom got for me for Christmas. His tail has measuring spoons in it. They slide right in the center of the tail.


See, how cool! I love him.

This turkey decided to hang out on the frame to our shade tent.

We had a foot of snow and -11 degree temperatures but nothing fazes our big hairy monster of a dog. She laid there for a while (quite a while) and the snow doesn't even melt.

She brings it right in and shakes it off in the house, nice!


(Back to the kitchen.) Now the pantry is all gone and here is the beam in place.

Now we have all this room to move around, heaven!


The island will go where the old ugly tile is. I guess we are going to build one. I found a really cool one on Craig's List but it was a little too pricey so we will go with the homemade one.

Kinda something like this.

This is my inspiration for the kitchen. Kevin is going to make new cupboards for the upper shelves and we are going to reface the lowers. I want some open ones like in the picture for dishes and he's going to make some with solid doors and maybe some glass doors too.

It's kind of funny cause the handles on these cupboards are exactly the same as what's on mine and I hate them.

They look so nice on the cupboards in the other picture.

Actually, it doesn't really matter how nice they look in the inspiration kitchen because there is no way I could use them after hating them all this time. How dumb is the placement of the handles anyway, right in the middle of the door, what were they thinking.

More to come,

Beth

Incubating Turkey Eggs!

I am so beyond excited! We are going to start some eggs in our incubator today. We have saved up 14 eggs and we will add any that are laid today. I am really afraid that some may have gotten too cold before we brought them into the house but it will be a learning experience that I will thoroughly enjoy. I have kept them in a box, covered with a towel, on the floor by an exterior door. This picture show 3 turkey eggs next to an Americana egg.

We do not have a basement so the only place that was cool enough was on the floor near the door. It is a little drafty so it is cooler than the room temperature so I was hoping it would work. I have done some research and it said that the eggs can be kept for a couple weeks in a cool dark place. Here is the incubator that Kevin gave me for my birthday. I will have to turn the eggs by hand two or three times a day. We have an automatic egg turner but it will not work for turkey eggs, only chicken eggs. Something about turkey's legs being hurt by standing on end through the incubation period or something like that. Not sure but I don't mind turning them. " And oh, by the way, lucky us!" (she said sarcastically) We got four, five or maybe even six more inches of snow last night. It is a record snow fall for the month of March for our area.

We left for work 10 minutes early this morning only to turn back when we realized we would still be late. The roads had not been plowed at all. Oh well, I got to come home and pay bills and blog, way better than working.
Lovey, lovely snow!

My turkeys have been fighting! We may separate them but for now we are hoping they will get over it. I took a video of them and have attempted to upload it and have it here so we will see what happens after I post this. Here's hoping it works!

They said warmer weather next week, mid to upper 50's. I'm really happy except I get to wade through poopy mud for a month or two, NICE!

We ordered six blueberry bushes (two each of three different varieties) and three bush cherry trees. I have never seen cherry bushes before but they say all kinds of good things about them. Can't wait.

Spring is coming....sob, sniffle...soon.

Here's to warmer weather dreaming,
Beth