Turtle trapping, jam making, chicken setting & a birthday party

Wow, that's an awesome post title. It was a whirlwind of a week.  Here's what happened.

Thanks to my dad, I checked one off of my "kick-ass rural fun" to-do list.  We finally went turtle trapping.  Dad is an expert outdoorsman and I have memories of turtle hunting with him when I was little.  I've wanted to go for a long time because it sounded like fun, plus I love to cook and turtle isn't exactly on the shelves at the local grocery store.  There is a season and regulations surrounding this activity; also you need to have a fishing licence.  Plus you will need to call around and find bait - in this case beef lung.  He set lines at a pond he knew about and I went with him to check them the next day.  Honestly, I would have been thrilled just visiting this place.

There were about a dozen goats, a couple ponies and guinea hens keeping us company. There was even a tiny bridge over the pond that the goats ran across. 

Success!  This guy weighed 20 lbs.  

He was butchered the next day and put in the freezer.  My dad did a great job explaining all of the "how's" and "why's" of the butchering process and it was simple but involved if that makes sense.  Poultry and mammals are much easier anatomy-wise.  I would guess that we ended up with about 10 lbs. of meat.  Of course the shell was saved too.  I cooked the back straps (turtles have them between the ribs and shell) and they had the texture and flavor of, I kid you not, lobster.

Fork for scale.

 The rest was frozen to make soup this winter.  I have already titled that future post Turtle soup - aka "pond to table" eating in my head.

Canned two batches of preserves this week.  

It's been an amazing year for berries - we have more blackberries than I can pick, and it's so hard to find organic jams/jelly around here.  I made a batch of blackberry jelly and added berries to half the batch so we also have some jam.  Then I made a blueberry-lime jam from the Ball blue book.  Not the "blue Ball book" as I have accidentally called it.

The tiny hen in under the cabbages hasn't hatched any eggs yet, but now we have another hen who has gone broody.

That is not a "happy to know ya" face

That's three in one season - we've never had any chickens do this before.  I wonder why?  We could use some new blood around here so I got in touch with someone I used to work with who has chickens and am picking up some fertile eggs tomorrow to set under her.  I'll keep a hen or two and any others will graduate to fajitas at the end of the season.

The building on the next-door property we bought was torn down.  When little man and I laid down for a nap it was still standing and when we woke up it was knocked down.  Kinda sad I missed the show.  It, and all of the trash that was in it, is still smoldering over there and think I heard the neighborhood cheering this week.  It had been an eyesore for years and years and was dangerous besides. Having it down really opens up the property.  Goats? Turkey farm?

Little man's birthday was this week.  I didn't know this before I had a child but his birthday was the best birthday in the history of birthdays.  It was so much fun.  We have a tiny house and it was going to rain so we could only invite a few people over.  I finished and hung my buntings, got balloons and made a  4 layer banana cake with cream cheese frosting  It was honestly the best day ever.

Well, that's it  Time to commit to a new week.

End of week update

This week really flew by.  It's been so very hot here this week - easily 90 degrees every day with very high humidity.  Nothing really to do but stay inside and try not to wilt.  The plan was to read a little.   I ordered the book The Price of Salt off of Ebay but it hasn't made it here yet.  I've wanted to read this book for awhile because the reviews make it sound haunting and beautiful. Hopefully it will be here soon.  What better way to wait out hot summer days than with a romance novel?

I did manage to get the garage primed this week and started to paint it. I can pretty much get about an hour's worth of work done before the heat gets to me and I head inside.  It looks great and I'll keep chipping away at it.

Two ducklings hatched out of the incubator in the basement, making my hatch rate a dismal 20%.  I set 10 eggs and when I candled after the first week, saw that 1 was cracked and two somehow had air cells in the middle ( not on either end but in the center of a side).  From there I pulled infertile eggs and went into lock down with 5 alive.  Only 2 hatched.  Possible parents: Hen (runner or pekin) & Drake (pekin or mallard) I'll have to get pictures.  They're yellow with black spots.  We went for a drive tonight and I saw that a neighbor has a "baby ducks for sale" sign by the road (what are the odds?) so I think I'll stop tomorrow. I was hoping to put more ducks in the freezer than this come fall.

What else... listed some more things on Ebay and worked on some craft projects.  Little man turns 1 year old next week (!). We've been working on saying "how old are you? ONE!" and having him do this:

It mostly does not work, but we're getting there.

This is going to be just a couple of people and a "balloons and cake with sprinkles" kind of affair.  I am making a bunting for the party.  It seems like a lot of people suggest that you sew two triangles right sides together, turn them right side out and press  to make each one.  I don't have that kind of time.  I made a paper template and pinned it to two layers, wrong sides together, and sewed around it.  Then I cut them out with pinking shears. The triangles aren't sewn in yet, just laid out to look at the colors.  Notice Bee's tiny paw.

Also worked on little man's quilt. I've done two of each of these colors for a total of 8 blocks. Need to buy two more shades of blue to finish with a total of 12 blocks.  They'll be set 3x4. So happy with how this is turning out. 

Let's end the weeks with some poultry pictures.  Mr. Rooster and the lone ranger.

More chickens.  Two of Mr. Rooster's daughters and his son.

Turkeys with little man's stroller for scale.  We were doing our evening rounds.  I think I have a tom and a hen?

The banty rooster.  

Still sleeps in the pine tree but has been doing it alone for about two weeks.  Where is the hen, you might ask?  Good question.  I see her come by in the early morning each day to eat and then she disappears again.  Three of our 5 acres are overgrown brush and bramble and she, being the size of an orange and brown colored besides, could be anywhere.  No clue.  For those of you that may be mentally working out this equation:

banty hen + sorta missing + comes home for quick bite and sip then disappears everyday = ?

I'm right there with you.  I fully expect to see a clutch of chicks in our yard any day. 

Creativity spillover - quilting

I think taking the time to write and use the creative part of my brain is starting to spill over into other areas.  I have had no urge to craft for a long, long time.  I think to anyone who knows me this is understandable considering everything my family went through with my mom's illness and passing.  Then I had a baby.  I probably can't blame it all on stress because my mom was kinda famous for getting craft projects 3/4 of the way done and then moving on to something else.  So it may just be something I inherited, like my freckles or hair color. LOL.  Anyway, I've been feeling the energy lately to tackle some things that have been gathering dust. 

First up, the little man's I spy quilt.  An I spy quilt is made of up novelty prints, and you use one of each object.  The quilt can then be used as a toy or learning tool, i.e. "how many birds do you see?" "let's find something purple"  "Where's the airplane?"  I'd been collecting I spy fabrics for about 8 years and wanted to make one for him.   But I couldn't decide on which fabrics to omit, and of course I kept seeing more prints I liked... SO eventually I just cut squares, sewed them together and ended up with this.

The idea was to add a solid border to calm it down.  But then I piled more fabrics into it and it turned into a hot mess.  A busy, hot mess.

I hated it.  It sat there for awhile, like months.  Then I came across this quilt in a Google search:

Well, that looked nice.  The borders really gave your eyes a place to rest in between the prints.  (BTW, I cannot find the website this picture was originally taken from.  Google says Pinterest but I can't find it on Pinterest to give the maker credit. I apologize for this.)

I have lots of blue fabrics, so I got out my seam ripper and took the top apart.  Then I got started again today while little man was napping.

That's much, much better and I think I can finish the quilt now.  

Camper update: none.  I haven't tried the soda thing yet because it's rained every day since I posted it so the camper is tarped.  To be continued.