Well, What Have We Here?

September 21st, 2011

When I went into the turkey coop to check on Tanya and her baby, I found her out of her nest, and in the middle of the coop floor.

And she didn’t seem especially happy to see me.

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I peeked under her wing and found a baby.

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Then I checked all underneath her, and couldn’t find another thing. The last egg was broken open, but I couldn’t find another baby.

I was disappointed.

And a little worried.

When all of a sudden, another baby popped out from under her!

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Sweet little siblings.

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Tanya is mighty proud of her new family.

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And I couldn’t be more proud for her.

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Turkey Coop Surprise

September 20th, 2011

The past few months have been a blur and, although I remember giving Tanya two eggs to set on, I completely forgot when I gave them to her.

As it turns out, it was apparently 28 days ago.

Look what I found when I went into the turkey coop this afternoon.

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Just look at that precious little face.

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I didn’t get any pictures of the new baby with her mama, but Bernie got a picture of the proud daddy.

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Jake is finishing up his molt and I think he’s looking quite handsome.

Tanya is still setting on the second egg. I let her keep that one a couple of days after she started setting on the first egg, so we’ll see if she will continue to set on it until it hatches.

Remember Sarah’s little baby from earlier this year? We’re still unsure if we’ve got a jake or a jenny, so we call her Turklet for now.

And Turklet’s not much of a baby any longer.

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Turklet’s to the left of Jake, and Sarah is to the right.

So right now we have five turkeys.

I think we’re gonna need a bigger turkey coop………

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Ready……Aim…….

September 17th, 2011

While Mama was visiting with us, she asked Bernie to give her a little refresher on shooting shotguns and handguns. Bernie was more than happy to oblige. They spent quite some time discussing gun safety, and going over how the guns work that she was going to shoot.

When the time came, Bernie gave her a quick demonstration before he handed her the shotgun.

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Bernie gave her a few tips.

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And in no time at all, she looked like a pro with that shotgun.

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Look at that target swinging!

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She really seemed to enjoy shooting that shotgun.
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And she did pretty darn good!

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Then Bernie showed her how to shoot from the hip.

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Mama really liked shooting from the hip.

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Then Bernie gave her a quick demonstration of shooting a handgun.

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And mama got the hang of that pretty darn quick, too.

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My sister, Debra, came up the last weekend mama was here, and she brought mama’s great-grandson, Christian, with her. Daddy left a shotgun and two rifles for Christian and asked Bernie to teach Christian how to use them.

Naturally, the first day involved a lot of lessons on gun safety and dry firing.

The next day, Bernie started Christian out with a .22 rifle, and Christian was very eager to learn.

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And when it came time for Christian to shoot, he did not disappoint his Uncle Bernie.

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It took no time at all for Christian to get very comfortable shooting the .22.

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Bernie set up a target that can be challenging for a first time shooter – especially one that is only 10 years old.

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But Christian did amazingly well.

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In fact, it was very rare that he missed his target when he shot.

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And how cute is it watching him load his gun?

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That boy is such a joy.

Not only can Christian shoot, he can cook too! He helped me make an apple pie from apples he picked at an orchard.

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It turned out deliciously perfect.

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And a wonderful way to end a long day of shooting.

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Diesel’s and Dolly’s Most Excellent Adventure

September 4th, 2011

Last week Mom and Dad put us in the truck.

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We figured we were going to the vet.

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We started out on the same big road we usually drive on.

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There’s the old school house we always pass.

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But then we turned down a road we’ve never been on.

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And before too long we were on a really, really big road.

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We weren’t too sure what we thought about that big road. Especially when we saw the truck in this sign.

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We were sure hoping that wasn’t a picture of OUR truck.

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But after a while the world got a little flatter.

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And we relaxed a little.

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And then it got hotter.

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We knew we were far away from home when we saw these trees.

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And this river.

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And then when we saw this sign……

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We got very, very happy.

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And soon we were at my Mamaw’s house!

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Our cousin, Oliver, showed us around.

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We played for a good, long while.

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And then, after such a long day, we rested.

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Boy, oh boy, did we ever rest.

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And before we knew it, we were back in the truck.

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But this time, we had our Mamaw and Oliver with us!

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And having Mamaw and Oliver with us made this trip go very fast. Before we knew it, we saw this sign.

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That made Daddy smile.

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And that made us smile.

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We’re not sure how Oliver felt about it.

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But we *are* sure that now this is Oliver’s most excellent adventure.

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The end.

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Iddy Biddy Egg

August 11th, 2011

My girls do not often lay iddy biddy eggs, but it makes me smile each time I find one.

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Everyone seemed quite tickled with this iddy biddy egg. And, even though all my chickens lay white eggs, this egg has a pretty pinkish shade to it.

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Here it is with the other iddy biddy eggs I’ve found.

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It’s not as small as the others, but it’s much smaller than a regular sized egg.

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I set my iddy biddy egg on the windowsill to dry out, under the watchful eyes of its’ new friends.

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I’ve heard some rather crude names for these type of iddy biddy eggs. But I can’t bring myself to call something so cute such unattractive names.

I find it amazing that out of the thousands of eggs I’ve collected from my chickens, I’ve only found 6 iddy biddy eggs.

Do your chickens lay iddy biddy eggs? What do you do with them?

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Clipping A Chicken’s Beak

August 6th, 2011

Poor Duke. It seems like that fella just can’t get a break sometimes. And I’ve been so preoccupied lately that I didn’t even realize how long his beak had gotten.

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Bernie brought it to my attention last night and I told him I would get Duke out of the coop at first light, before the others were released for the day, and trim that beak first thing.

Duke is my only chicken that has a beak like that. For some reason the top of his beak doesn’t quite match up to the bottom, and the top often continues to grow over the bottom to the point where he has difficulty eating. If allowed to get too long, (which, sadly, is where Duke’s top beak is in that picture) he will be pretty much unable to get enough food into his mouth to sustain him.

I am embarrassed to admit I let this go on for too long, but I want to share it here so any of you that notice the same issue with one of your chickens will know that it is extremely easy to remedy, and it is painless for the chicken.

A chicken’s beak is very similar to our finger and toe nails. If your chicken has a white beak, you can probably see the “quick” in it – the tender portion that contains blood vessels. The portion of the beak that grows past the “quick” does not have blood vessels, or nerve endings. So if you are very careful not to clip the “quick”, it is really quite painless when trimmed.

The first thing I do whenever I have to work on one of my chickens is lay him on a towel (or her, but I’m gonna refer to the chicken as a “him” because we’re talking about Duke here), and wrap the towel completely and snugly around him, so he can not flap his wings. Securely holding your chicken while working on him is extremely important.

Once I had Duke wrapped in a towel, I laid him on my lap and used dog nail trimmers to trim his beak – not all the way back to the “quick”, but just to the point that his top beak was fairly even with his lower beak. If you don’t have dog nail trimmers, you can use side cuts, but the cut may be a little more jagged.

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I know he looks awful in that picture, but it’s just for sympathy, I assure you. Even though Duke and I have spent many moments in similar situations and you’d think he would have learned by now, I honestly think he believes if he looks dead enough I’ll leave him alone. Goofy rooster.

And here he is all trimmed up.

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This whole procedure took about 5 minutes – and the actual beak trimming took about 10 seconds.

So if you’ve never trimmed a chicken’s beak and find yourself needing to, go forth with confidence. It will be over before you know it, and your chicken will thank you for it :)

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Pony Express

July 30th, 2011

The other evening Mary Ann called to say that Anita had extra corn from her garden, and wanted to know if Bernie and I wanted a few ears.

We don’t have any corn growing, so I quickly told Mary Ann “Heck yea, we’d love some corn! Do you want us to come down and get it?”

“Nah. I think Anita wants to bring it to y’all.”

When the dogs started barking like crazy about an hour later, I looked outside to see this:

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A special delivery via Pony Express!

This is Mary Ann’s horse, Baby:

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Baby is incredibly handsome and sweet. He sure doesn’t look almost 25 years old, does he?

This is Anita’s horse, Bo:

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Bo is a Senior Citizen as well, but he’s incredibly handsome, too.

The corn tasted amazingly sweet, and Anita invited us down to pick as much as we like.

I think we’ll take her up on that.

Although the Pony Express delivery was much more interesting.

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Summer Canning, Vegetables, Flowers, and Animals

July 28th, 2011

When I left mama’s to come home, I also left the USB cable that connects my camera to the computer. As a result, I’ve taken several pictures the past two weeks that I wanted to share with you but couldn’t until the USB cable arrived. So……. now that the USB cable is here, I’ve got a bunch of pictures to share. And I’m going to share most of them right here, in this post, and tell you what we’ve been up to for the past couple of weeks……

This year we’re doing all our canning outside, and I am loving it.

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We’ve been getting an abundance of cucumbers. And we’ve been canning a LOT of pickles. We’ve got close to 100 quarts now.

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Our tomatoes are just starting to come in. This is the first we picked – it’s a Mortgage Lifter.

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Not all our tomatoes are that big, but we were sure pleased that the first we picked was!

The peppers are starting to come in now, and we’ve been getting lots of beans. I’ve got a crock full of string beans and onions fermenting now. They should be ready in another week or so.

The sunflowers are doing great. They were all blown over during a storm when they were about a foot tall, but we staked them to fencing, and they recovered nicely.

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The turkey poult is growing like a weed. She’s getting bigger and bigger each day and, as an only child, she is incredibly spoiled.

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Poor Jake is molting and is down to only a couple of tail feathers.

He really seems to like being a daddy. He goes on walk with Sarah and the baby quite frequently.

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It sure makes me proud that Jake and Sarah are such good parents.

Dolly still thinks Duke is her best friend.

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And Duke still chases her all over the yard.

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My sweet friend, Elinor, sent me some lily bulbs in early spring. We didn’t have the flower garden put in yet, so I planted them in pots. They’ve started blooming, and I think they are just beautiful.

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That one is called “Scheherazade”.

This one is called “Debbbie”.

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Summer is my favorite time of the year. I hope each of you is having a wonderful one!

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Elvis is Always Thinking

July 26th, 2011

Elvis knows if he sleeps with his head…..

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right on the water dish……

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he won’t have to expend a whole lot of energy…….

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when he wakes up thirsty.

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Elvis likes to think ahead.

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Gyros and Tzatziki Sauce Recipe

July 22nd, 2011

Summertime on the homestead means an abundance of cucumbers, and Tzatziki Sauce is a wonderful way to use a couple of them. I usually make a double batch to eat on salads, but one of Bernie’s favorite ways to eat it is on a Gyro. My walking buddy, Mary Ann, asked for the recipe for Gyros and Tzatziki Sauce, and since I was going to type it up for her I decided to post it here, in case any of you may be interested.

The Gyro meat recipe is best if mixed and then refrigerated for at least an hour before cooking. This is an adaptation of a recipe I found online quite some time ago.

Gyro

1 pound ground lamb, or hamburger, or venison
1/2 cup finely diced onion
2 cloves garlic (minced)
1 – 2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp oregano
2 tsp fresh lemon juice

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Divide it into six portions and shape oblong patties that are about
two inches wide and six or seven inches long. Put these on a plate and refrigerate them for at least an hour so that all the seasonings blend well.

Grill or fry the patties until they are well done.

The Tzatziki Sauce recipe was adapted from one given to me by my blog buddy, Becki. I like to make a double batch and use it as a dressing for salads.

Tzatziki Sauce

8 oz sour cream
8 oz yogurt
2 medium cucumbers
1 tbs olive oil
1 tbs fresh lemon juice
1 – 2 tsp minced garlic
salt

Peel the cucumbers and then slice them in half length-wise. Scoop out all of the seeds. Shred the cucumber, and then squeeze the shredded cukes with your hands to remove as much liquid as possible. I usually place it in a colander for 1/2 an hour or so when I finish squeezing it, so that it can drain off any additional liquid.

Combine the sour cream, yogurt, olive oil, lemon juice, and garlic in a medium sized bowl and mix well. Add the grated cucumber and mix. Salt to taste.

I make thick tortillas to use with the gyros, but you can use flat bread, pitas, or anything like that.

Place one of the patties in the middle of your bread and then add chopped lettuce and chopped tomato on top of it. Then add as much Tzatziki Sauce as you like and you are ready to enjoy a tasty Gyro.

As a side note – I often save the cucumber juice that I squeeze out of the cucumbers and put it in a small jar in the refrigerator. I use it as a toner for my face after washing in the summertime and it feels wonderfully cool and refreshing!

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