Friday, June 30, 2017

Our week in pictures

Oh, what happened this week? I love blogging because it gives me a chance to actually pause and think about that question instead of saying "oh, not much".  Also, it's good to record this stuff in case I ever need to produce an alibi.

Well, the weather's been crazy - cool then HOT with random downpours all week.  Tuesday, I think it was, we actually had a hailstorm.



Holy hail, people! Wish the little guy could have seen it but he was napping at the time.


Wednesday I sold these two runner ducks through Craigslist.  They were picked up by a dad and his daughter who actually have a group of runner ducks, but the drake was killed by a raccoon.  So now these two will have their own harem of ladies.  If they were ladies I would have kept them but they were dudes, so off they go. And if the family was lying and actually was going to eat them, they were very expensive sandwiches.  I think it's safe to say they weren't getting butchered.


Wednesday evening was a Thai cooking class with some friends.  We had a lovely time and the food was delicious.  A shrimp curry, coconut rice, pineapple mango salsa and cucumber salad.  Ironically, the cucumber salad was made the exact way my grandparents used to make it and they were not Thai.  My grandfather's people were from eastern Europe and my grandmother is southern.  Hmm.  Maybe cucumber salad is just one of those universal foods?


Today I saw something I've never seen before, which is always a treat.  Went to the feed store where I found this beauty as I was waiting for my feed to be loaded.  It was HUGE and very fuzzy.  Google tells me that it's an Imperial Moth.

Went to some yard sales on the way to the feed store and came home with treasures (in my opinion anyway).


This woven rug was free at an Amish sale.  Was going to put it in the camper but maybe the kitchen?  The colors are lovely.


Be still my heart.  This is getting packed away until the the little guy is older.  Oh, I am in love.

All of the rain and heat has been good for the gardens.  Here are some pictures


Onions, potatoes, squash, brussel sprouts, cannas, toddler.


Fava beans - when am I supposed to pick these???  The beans inside are still tiny.

The rest of the vegetable garden is only creeping along but we'll get there. I need to remind myself that everything got planted later this year and to be patient. Things will grow.

Except for possibly my beans and peppers which were partially eaten by deer last night. We have 5 acres and they have nothing better to do than eat my transplants. Damn deer. I will remember this offence when it's time to buy a hunting license. 


Does anyone know what the beautiful silver plant is on the right?  It's a perennial and does not flower.  Not lavender but kind of looks like it.


Hostas.  They're so pretty.

The little guy just woke up so time to hit "post".  Here's to another week ahead.

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Anniversary weekend


This weekend was our anniversary.  We went to the the Cleveland Museum of Art to see the Alex Katz show, which was terrific.  Afterwards we had dinner at L'Albatros, which is the kind of establishment which is both fancy and expensive enough to make a person forget they have adult responsibilities and obligations, which I guess is the whole point.   


A view of Lake Erie.


Friday, June 23, 2017

End of week - quail, camping, berries, garlic scapes

I am exhausted and ready for bed but wanted to get some of this into my notes so I don't forget later on.  Because I will, otherwise.  I have both the memory and attention span of a rock.

Poultry:
  • Red Ranger hen had babies.  One of her eggs in the incubator hatched and I put the chick under her tonight.  I hope that she doesn't notice anything in the morning in spite of the fact that it's yellow and the other ones are black.  Here's hoping she mothers it and doesn't kill it.
  • I butchered two of the younger Red Ranger roosters this week. I'm sure Jamie Oliver thought he was doing a good thing when he showed the world how to make chicken nuggets at home but I'm pretty sure we're just going to end up gaining weight.  If you raise the chicken and make the nugget, does that make it health food?
  • The quail hatched yesterday - 35 peeps so far from 40 eggs.  We had friends over for dinner while they were hatching in the kitchen, so that was fun. They are so tiny they I was using beer caps for little waterers until they got interested in the quail waterer.

One day I will post a photo where my hand doesn't look fat.  Good Lord.

  • Moved the geese and ducks into the back coop area.  Didn't think I had that many waterfowl until they were all together in the same place. Umm.... yeah... that's a lot of birds. Wow.  I think I just solved the raccoon problem by increasing the noise level 10 fold.
Garden:




  • Berries are in.  Currants are being picked and wild black raspberries (the tiny ones) are ripening all over the place.  We've been having both in salads and in pancakes.  There are still tons of wild strawberries but we are no longer eating them because the neighborhood cats have taken to peeing all over my berry patch.  Seriously.  It's depressing and awful.

Pre-goose relocation.
  • I have a ton of garlic scapes and don't know what to do with them.  People have suggested a garlic scape pesto.  They seem like they would be wonderful cooked somehow, steamed maybe. They are beautiful and remind me of asparagus both visually and texture-wise.  I bit into one and, yep, garlic.  I would love some ideas on what to do with these.
Fun personal stuff:
  • WE WENT CAMPING.  Took the camper to a State Park by our house for a test night.  Everything went perfectly and now we think we're ready for a bigger trip.   
  • Tips for taking a not yet two year old camping include:  Took the pac-n-play to contain him while we set up camp.  I bought a bag of little toys at the dollar store for him to play with when we got there (tiny dinosaurs, magnifying glass, bug net, etc.) - this was brilliant, cost under $10 and entertained him all day. Brought along a copy of Goodnight Gorilla.  I also made a hand-washing station with a water jug so we could wash hands right at the table, that was priceless.

Camper was very comfortable and more spacious than we thought it would be, even during the brief rainstorm.  We had the oldest camper at the park by a loooong shot.  Also the coolest looking one.


Next time I need to remember that the front bed is a twin but the back one is NOT - I need to find sheets to fit - maybe a double?

It's been a very busy and satisfying week.  Hope the next one is just as good. Yay summer!

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Our Red Ranger hen has babies!

Congratulations to our Red Ranger hennie, who successfully hatched her first babies today!  When all of the other Red Rangers went to the butcher last year I kept her back just as an experiment.  I wanted to add her genes to the group to increase the size of the chickens we hatched.  She turned out to be a good layer of large, light brown speckled eggs.  Being a meat bird I never thought she'd go broody.


This is what's been greeting me for awhile when I lift the outside cover to gather eggs. Not a happy face.  When an egg broke under her I reached in to clean it up and received a peck so sincere it left a huge bruise. 

She's done an absolutely excellent job sitting. Today when I went to check on her I found this:


Awww!

By this evening she had four healthy chicks under her.  A fifth had hatched but died.  I couldn't leave them in there main coop because the nesting boxes are several inches off of the ground so tonight the family was moved to the ramshackle A-frame overflow coop. If you ever have to move a new family by yourself, I did it by scooping up the hen (pecking and screaming her head off) and tucking her under my arm. Wear gloves and a jacket that pads your arms.  You will need it.  Then I gathered up the babies into a box making sure she could see them all the while cooing: "See?  Here's your babies. They're right here, you're fine, everybody's fine, blah, blah." It actually seemed to help.  She calmed down when she realized they were ok. 


The hillbilly maternity ward.  This coop was given to us for free 10 years ago and is falling apart but has been a godsend more times that I can count.  I candeled all of the remaining eggs in the nest and only three were near hatching. They're in the incubator and if they hatch I'll tuck the peeps underneath her while she sleeps. Waking up with extra babies would be a helluva surprise for anyone.  Good thing chickens can't count.

The chickens are in the downstairs. What's that thing upstairs? 

  

Why, hello!

  She's a cross between a Runner Duck mom and a Pekin dad, the little duckling who was raised by a chicken and once left out in the cold.  She has a beautiful nest and carefully pulls the feathers over the eggs to cover them when she goes out to eat.  

We seem to have a ton of broody birds around here every summer.  Most all of the females here have set a nest of one kind or another.   I swear it's the result of our birds being almost semi-feral.  I mean, they're fed and watered and housed but for the most part they are just left to do their own thing.

Sunday, June 18, 2017

Father's Day: balloons, food and taxidermy

Happy belated Father's Day to all dads out there. If you're in the mood for a social justice Father's Day thought please click here. If not, feel free to continue on. But it's worth your time, promise.

This weekend my dad, sister and I took all three of the littles to the Thurston Classic hot air balloon race in Meadville PA.  It ended up being too windy for the balloons to launch but the littles were able to run around and watch a couple of the balloons inflate before we had to leave. 


This one was shaped like a crab.  Cutest picture ever.

We had reservations at a local bar for dinner. The Safari Bar in Meadville is a place we've been going to as a family for many years.  There are a couple hundred pieces of taxidermy from all over the world, all collected by the owner. As someone who can't successfully shoot a deer during deer season it commands some respect.  I'm assuming all of these animals were delicious.


The bear collection greets you at the door. Polar bears are DAMN BIG, people.


Yep, that's an elephant.  There's also a lion and zebra in that room.


My favorite room.  It's mostly members of the Cervidae family.  The elk were magnificent.

I think all of the little people had a good time and the older people did too.  Excellent gin and tonics, by the way.

This morning I cooked a fun breakfast for my husband,  It stormed all day so our plans of biking were a wash. Literally.


Bacon, tiny potatoes, asparagus and quail eggs.  Looked awesome but I think we were both hungry about a half hour later.

Oh, we also had a predator attack last night.  One of the chicklets from the Great Peep Hatch was missing from the chicken tractor this morning - all that was left was a pile of feathers.  There was also another bird with a small wound to the back of his head.  I put blu kote on it as a preventative but he's going to be fine.  I moved them into the old duck coop for safety today.  I am assuming we have yet another raccoon but should set up the game camera again to see what we're dealing with.  Damn raccoons are like the plague here. Of course the bird that was killed was: 1) a hen  and 2) a beautiful butterscotch color.  Like the color of an old-fashioned candy. We were going to keep her.

This week is going to see some poultry shuffling - the ducks and geese are being moved to the back pasture. I'm going to try to re-seed the garden pasture with pumpkins to try to salvage it.  Maybe a mixture of carving pumpkins - anything the kids don't decorate the geese and chickens will eat over the winter.  Garden plants are on clearance here already (not even a month after out last-frost date!) so if I can pick up cabbage for cheap I'll plant those for feed too.

There is a chicken mama expecting babies mid-week and quail eggs in the incubator due to hatch maybe Friday.  More is being planted in the garden, and being harvested.  I'll also talk about the berries that are starting to come in - currants and wild black raspberries!

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Bee swarms, fishing & freezing greens

Otherwise known as "getting groceries the hard way". 

It's been hot as blazes here but a really fun week nonetheless.  My dad called me the other day and asked if I could give him a hand with a swarm call.  We've been doing bees for... wow... 10 years now and these are always fun because you never know what you're going to find or how the evening is going to go.  This swarm was up in the crook of a branch about 15 feet off the ground and catching them was going to require a ladder and possibly cutting a branch.  I was eager to go because truth be told I've gotten a bit gun-shy around bees since I was attacked by a really aggressive hive a couple of summers ago (the only aggressive bees we've ever had the misfortune of housing).  So I wanted to go but was wary.  I swell up very badly when stung, to the point where my skin sometimes peels. The conversation that took place when we got to the swarm did not help and went something like this:

Dad: So what I need you to do is stand here and catch this branch when I cut it so it falls straight down.
Me:  You mean that branch with all of the bees on it? You want to drop it on my head?
Dad: No, I want you to catch it as it falls.
Me. (look, sigh.... shrug) alright.

Yeah, I didn't catch it.  We missed. But it worked out ok anyway.  


The bees are the dark lump in the center of the branch.


Here they are close up.  It wasn't a large swarm.  After a bit more branch cutting, running away (me) and waiting they were able to be shaken into the nuc box to take home.  The bees were incredibly gentle and patient with us the whole time.


I don't know if you can see in the picture but the worker bees along the edge there have their butts in the air and are fanning their wings - a sign that the queen bee is in the box.  They are now set up in a hive box the apiary.

Last night we went fishing at my favorite river spot. The water was low with the heat and warm as bathwater.  It was a really lovely evening.  


This time we had really good luck.  Three catfish on, a couple of small crappie and a rock bass.


That's what I'm talking about.  Two really nice catfish fillets that my husband is going to put on the grill tonight.

Lastly, because it's so dang hot, pulled all of the remaining spinach, orach, and tatsoi from the garden along with some of the broccoli raab.  It would have most likely bolted this week with the heat and I wanted to try freezing it.


Washed and chopped, it was blanched in simmering water for 60 seconds.  It will be exciting to have greens during the winter when the local store produce is so bad.

Well, there you have it.  Fish, honey (hopefully) and greens. All local, fresh things to be grateful for.


Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Morning on the Britains Farm

It's going to be a very hot week here - mid to high 90s with rain from here on out.  We badly need the rain but I could do without the heat.  It was already unreasonable after breakfast so I made sure everyone had ample food, water and shade then came back inside.  Possibly at that point I played with toys.


Shepherds discussed the upcoming sheep dog trials.


The ducks and geese were fed along with the lone chicken.


The bees are doing well.


Some of the cows were milked.  The lady in white is actually a laundress, but don't tell her.


Others grazed.  The old cow bell was from my grandparent's farm.


The pigs had breakfast.  Bonus rural street cred to anyone who can tell me what the object behind them is. Hint: it's pig related.  Second hint: I very much doubt anyone uses these anymore.


Mrs. Patmore walked the dogs.

I love these old farm toys. They are made of lead and very tiny.  Most of them are Britains or JohillCo.  Some of them are unmarked.  They've mostly come from Ebay and second-hand shops and are well-worn and played with.

Friday, June 9, 2017

Bicycle ride at the lake, salad days & incubation notes

 

We didn't go camping yesterday due to a hitch with the hitch so we took our first bicycle ride as a family, at a nearby lake that has a wonderful paved bike path.  It will be nice to have an active hobby for all of us to enjoy outside.  Riding will take some getting used to.  My only time on a bike within the last 10 years was on a beach vacation - a horsefly the size of a pony landed on my arm and I freaked out and wrecked the bike flailing at it.  So it's been a bit nerve-wracking to learn to be riding again. 


We got a tow behind cart for the little guy.  We thought he'd be super excited about riding but he was pretty indifferent to the whole activity and mostly concerned with his little bag of goldfish crackers and sharing his new word for bicycle: "try-cool".


He did enjoy pushing it around the parking lot. 


A beautiful evening at the lake.


Perfect for wading.


We had really nice salads for lunch today.  From the yard: lettuce, eggs, asparagus, wild strawberries.  Also hard salami and parmesan. 

Notes for my records:
  • I put 40 Quail eggs into incubator on 6/5 so I need to put them in lockdown 6/20 with a possible hatch date of 6/23. One of the quail laid an all blue egg yesterday??
  • The broody red ranger hen has been sitting faithfully on 12 eggs since 5/31.  Still need to move her to a private coop.  Possible hatch date of 6/21. One egg broke under her early on, cleaned up as soon as I caught it.  


Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Broad beans in bloom


Hazel squatted on his haunches and stared at the orderly forest of small, glaucous trees with their columns of black-and-white bloom. He had never seen anything like this. Wheat and barley he knew, and once he had been in a field of turnips. But this was entirely different from any of those and seemed, somehow, attractive, wholesome, propitious. True, rabbits could not eat these plants: he could smell that. But they could lie safely among them for as long as they liked, and they could move through them easily and unseen.  - Watership Down


Having never grown or even seen these plants before, I have been feeling very much like Hazel and Pipkin and Bigwig as I kneel in the garden this week. Tomatoes and sunflowers I knew, but this is something entirely different. How nice to have that experience without leaving my yard.