Almost forgot

 

If you will please forgive my unmade bed, and messy bedroom, I am pleased to present, the rippled afghan I made my father in law for Christmas.  He absolutely loved it!!!! He calls my crocheting tangling thread, and it always makes me giggle. What really cracks me up is when I have something with me that I made, and he asks me if I tangled that myself, and I'll tell him that yes I did, and he'll proceed to say, well then, you tangled that right nice.  But well, it did take me what feels like forever to get this completed, but it was well worth it. I was determined to have it done in time to give to him for Christmas, so I spent two solid days of doing nothing but hooking, and then got up that morning, and crocheted for about 2 hours, and got it done, and wrapped just before we had to run out the door to get to my in-laws house.  I haven't worked on anything since I finished this...but I will be soon. I plan on getting back to getting patterns designed.  

Done

Well, Christmas is over. Today I'm going to start putting away the Christmas stuff, and getting out my album that I put all of the pictures in that are sent to me as cards or in the cards.  And hoping that I put everything away organized enough that everything will come out easier in a year. (ha ha what a dream) Some people say not to take down Christmas stuff until January 2nd, but those people are apparently unrealistically addicted to their Christmas junk.  But I'm glad its over for the year. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and I feel so much better now that its over for the most part.

The original 7 of our chicks are growing swiftly still. In fact I had to do a double take the other day, one of them was standing next to my red star, and she's almost as big as her already. Right now they are on an eating binge, so I'm thinking they are about to hit another growth spurt. We bought 200 lbs. of feed from Tractor Supply on Saturday, 100 of it was grower/starter feed, and 100 of it was cracked corn. We are mixing the cracked corn and grower/starter feed for everybody who is not in coops, those who are still in coops are getting straight up grower/starter at the moment. This spring we will go back to mixing the grower/starter feed with layer feed, but for now, the higher protein is good with the cold weather. Especially since we have some molting chickens.

I'm hoping to be able to release the 10 in the coops, and the 5 here in the house sooner than we did the last batch. I think with the forage block, and a head of cabbage we should be alright. I'm ready to be done with all of those separate feeders, and water containers. Not that its a bad thing, it just takes many trips back and forth to keep everybody fed.

Well that's about it for now, I'm going to try to get some pics today of my pullets and young roosters for you guys to see. Its been quite the journey with my first batch of hatchlings, but it was a good one.

Chicken Life

My Red Star chicken...my best layer

 

So I tried adding captions, but could only make it work once...so I'll just go through and talk about each picture individually...I guess I'm just not computer smart some days.

 

The first pic is of my red star chicken. She is the best little layer. She's pretty calm, and just sort of goes with the flow.

 

Up next is one of my Marans laying an egg in a spot where the eggs are really hard to get out. My hubby is going to make an egg scoop for me. I've cracked a few too many eggs working on getting them out of there.

 

 Next is just some of the gang enjoying the sunshine. My crazy flock. I love them so.

 

 

The next two pictures are of my White Leghorn chicks, and my Rhode Island Red chicks. They are all female, and are now 6 weeks old. They are too little to let out with the rest of the gang, but big enough to be out of the house. So they are tucked away safely in coops in the house. We did separate them by breed. Generally I probably would have just mixed them all together, but decided this time to just keep them sorted.

 

And lastly is another pic of the gang just kind of scratching around, enjoying some of the cracked corn I threw out for them.

 

 

 

Wishing you a Merry Christmas

 

Wishing you all a Very Merry Christmas, From our Family to yours.  

Still raining, but....

Even in though it was raining, we still managed to get the bigger of the chicks out in the coops. We took them out in groups of five. First we took the Rhode Island Reds out, catching them in the kennel was exciting..one even made a mad dash into our bedroom...that was kind of funny, and thankfully she didn't poop and was so surprised by her surroundings she was easy to catch.

Next came the White Leghorns. Catching them was still pretty tricky, but none of then got free in the house...however once we got into the chicken house one did get a freedom run. Thankfully she didn't get hurt by the bigger chickens. She got pecked on the head a bit, but she's ok, and tucked safely in the coop with her sisters.

The five babies are still in the kennel here in the house. Since Frank worked last night, and then has to work tonight we are going to take them out tomorrow. That's going to take a bit more work anyways, we have to move some stuff around so that we can fit the crate in there with no problems.

I know this is thing to sound bad, but I feel like we've been raising chicks for what feels like forever...in all reality we've been raising them for 9 weeks...that's how old our first batch of chicks are.

Not to go all over the place with the chick talk...but it does look like 3 out if the 5 we kept from the last hatching are little boys. Its kind of disappointing...but we need meat as well as eggs.

Rain!!!!

Got up this morning all nice and happy and optimistic. Today we were moving at least 10 of the chicks outside, and then the other five were thing tomorrow. I turn on lights, with two dogs doing the pee pee dance saying hurry mom, hurry...get to the front door, throw it open...and...it's pouring down rain. Sam and Jasper make a mad dash outside, to do their business, and I start a pot of coffee. I'm hoping I'll get lucky and it will stop raining before my husband gets home from work.

In the meantime, I've got my morning cup of coffee, and Sam and Jasper are watching cartoons.

One things for sure though, this rain is sure to make my poor chickens quite moody today. At least I gave them something to be happy about yesterday. I had boiled some eggs, to make pickled eggs, which I did..more on that later though. But I had about 4 eggs that didn't peel nice, and I chief those up really well, and took them with the cooked egg shells and gave them to the chickens...it was a mad dash, with some happy chickens. Even my young chickens (don't think I can call them chicks anymore) were in on the action.

For 1 week

Facebook....just about everybody has it. Those who don't more than likely did, but got fed up with it, and shut down their account.

I've had a fb account for a few years now, and I've gotten fed up with it, and have walked away from it for a day or two.  I have one of those smart phones, and I find myself randomly checking FB when in all reality I have other things I should be doing. I would estimate I waste about 8 hours a day messing with fb...that's a lot of time...it's not all at once, but spread out through the day, and includes the time spent playing the games on my laptop.

So, I plan on staying off of FB for an entire week. I will not log back on until next Saturday.

I figure I will either get way more done, OR I will go into Facebook withdraw. I'm betting my phone battery will thank me.

Apple butter cake



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Sometimes the canned goods just sort of add up in the pantry, especially if they are stuff you  make yourself on a pretty regular basis.  Sometimes I make a whole lot of something one year, and not so much of it another. Well After a while you just end up with a cabinet full that you have to use up. Not that its going to go bad, but just the same, its always good to be able to use it up anyways.

 

Well a couple of weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to make some apple butter cake, but couldn't find a recipe that I liked, or that didn't call for a bunch of fancy ingredients that I would have to go in search for at the store. So, I pulled a bunch of stuff together, and here we are.  This is a very moist cake, so no matter what you insert into this is going to come out with moist bits of cake on it, so its going to look sort of raw, but I promise you, its not raw, AND your not going to notice it when you eat it. In fact, If you let it sit out over night it will dry a bit. 

 

2 Cups Sugar

2 sticks of butter (16 tbsp.) softened

4 eggs

4 &1/2 cups apple butter

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

4 cups flour

 

1) cream together butter and sugar

2) add eggs one at a time while mixing

3) mix in apple butter

4) while mixing all all dry ingredients except flour

5) add flour a little bit at a time until its all mixed in

 

Preheat oven to 375, and grease 3 bread loaf pans. Divide the batter between them.

Bake for 65 minutes.  Allow to cool for at least an hour before you turn the

cake out of the pans. Enjoy!!!

 

Now, for this batch, I was almost out of apple butter, so I substituted the remaining apple butter, with apple sauce, which was also home made and sitting in my pantry from last year.  Its just as good, but you will want to add about a half a tsp of cinnamon, and a pinch more ground cloves if you do this substitution.

 

Enjoy, and happy baking!!!!

Old posts

If you notice a couple of my older posts being republished, it's because I'm adding tags to some of the recipe posts.  Thanks for reading!!!!

My luck

So I realized I never updated you guys on the coffee plant I posted pictures of over the summer. Well it wasn't exactly in plant stage, but in seed stage. Unfortunately it never sprouted or grew or anything. It just didn't do anything. That was disappointing, but the good part is I had gotten it on clearance so I wasn't out much at all.

I still haven't started again on the celery plant either. I killed that when I put some coffee grounds on there. That was a bad idea, I don't recommend that at all, if you ever try to grow your own celery. I plan on trying that again the next time I make soup/stew.

And my carrot tub...I forgot to water those....*sigh* I am a plant killer...I seriously don't have any house plants at all. I'm thinking I may however crochet some plants for some greenery around here...I don't even have a real tree, I have a fake one!!!

Now don't worry about the chickens, I'm good with living people/animals, just not plants.

8 weeks old

For any of you who have been following me, and remember we hatched chicks, this is the first batch we hatched out. It's hard to believe they are 8 weeks/2 months old already.  They have grown so much, and quite swiftly.

It looks like only 2 out of the 7 are female though, but we can't be sure just yet..we will be able to tell for sure in another 4-6 weeks.

More Snow

Well, its snowing again here in the Shenandoah County. What really stinks is we are still trudging through the snow from last weekends storm. I guess December is our month for snow. Maybe we will have that White Christmas that Bing Crosby is always dreaming of. 

The Chickens up on the hill are not loving this snow at all. They just stick their head through the door, and eat the snow, but they wont go out in it. Yesterday they had managed to get a spot in front of the door melted and cleared with all of their pecking, and about 6 of them were trying to stand on this tiny patch of mud all at the same time. It was pretty good. I'm thinking that maybe tomorrow if all of this snow has stopped, I may go up there with the snow shovel and make them a clear spot to play in outside.

I think today is going to be spent working on finishing up a rather large crochet order that's going to California. I'm hoping to get it in the mail on Monday. I figure the roads will all be plowed and clear and I'll be able to get out.  If I get all of my crocheting done today, I think tomorrow I'll work on a quilted purse that I want to try out. Its out of my scrap therapy book.

Well that's it from snowy Woodstock Virginia!!!! Keep warm and safe!!!

Easy crochet Christmas wreath

Let me start by saying that this isn't my pattern. I don't know who wrote it, but its from a live crochet along that I did on face book.

The first thing you will need is a wire hanger bent into a circle, a J hook, and some worsted weight yarn in your choice of color. I used Red Heart super saver in hunter green.

The first round you single crochet all the way around the hanger until you cannot see any of the hanger.

The second round double crochet 3 times in each single crochet. This will make it full and ruffled.

Now the last row, do a half double crochet and then chain 3 in each stitch. It will give it a nice leafy look. Once you get all the way around finish off.

So this leaves you with a nice blank canvas to decorate.  I took ornaments off of my tree and attached them to mine.

This works up nicely, and you can have it done and hanging up in no time. I can also imagine that if you do it in other colors, you could do one for every holiday.

Snow day

So, when you have a little farm, what do you do when its snowing like mad??? You trudge on through it. Chickens, and dogs still have to be fed and watered...but sometimes we add some extra stuff for fun. Do a little baking, work in scrap quilt stuff, put up the Christmas tree.

I wrote a recipe for apple butter cake. I need to do another run through on it, and then I plan on posting it for your baking pleasure. My darling husband has given his approval and has dug right in.

Getting there

So, you guys remember 7 weeks ago when we hatched out our very first batch of chicks??? Well here they are, out of the coops, and integrated with the big grown up chickens.

I was a bit nervous after our first attempt at putting them together, but today went so much better. We had hung a head of cabbage, and put out a 20 lb. Forage block as distractions. Everything went great. Yes, there was some pecking, but that was to be expected. After all, the pecking order must be maintained.  Everything was awesome though. Now we just have to figure out how many are hens, and how many are roos.

In just 2 weeks, we will be moving the rest of the chicks outside. I'll be so glad to be done with raising chicks in the house for the winter. I'm thinking maybe we will just stick with chicks in the spring/summer and keep them outside.

all together now!!!!

Oh happy days!!!! Our first batch of chicks that hatched out (7 weeks ago tomorrow) are now out of the coops, and running with the big chickens!!! We really went to town bribing the big chickens so that they wouldn't mind the little guys so very much.  There was some pecking, a bit of squawking, some running, but all in all, everybody is ok, and happy. I can tell those 7 chicks are happy to be out of that coop and have plenty of room to run and move now. 

We have formed a plan for the remaining 15 chicks that are here in the house as well. We want to let the youngest ones get their feathers, so in about 2 weeks, the last of our babies will be in the chicken house. I can't even begin to tell you all just how happy I'm going to be not to have any more live stock in the house.

We've had to make our plans carefully for moving these guys up to the chicken house, because we really are getting into colder weather.  (although you can't really tell too awful much by the fact that it got up into the 60's here today) We've done pretty good not loosing chicks, and I'm hoping to be able to keep that going.

Neighborly

One of my neighbors recently had surgery. I've got to admit, she's one of my most favorite neighbors too. She also makes candles and gift baskets, and we've gotten into buying from each other, she'll buy my crochet work, and I buy candles and gift baskets. Its a win-win situation.  We can get unique gifts for our family members that way.  Well anyways, I took her over a few pick me up gifts today, because I just love her. I took her some Fresh eggs, crochet dish cloths, and some home made apple butter. these are all things I made here at my house...well my chickens made the eggs, but I got to thinking about it, and I was like wow, I wonder if that's how they gifted back before stores were common, and gifts weren't something you just ran out and bought. It was kind of a neat feeling to realize that hey, I can do stuff.

I've spent a good deal of the evening working on a crochet order that's going to California.  I'm hoping to have that order finished by Thursday. I don't have any patterns, so I'm doing them based on the pictures. I love a good challenge.

Well, I guess the night is calling for me to settle in and get off of this lap top now. I've been sitting for far too long!!! Hope everybody is having a great week so far!!!

December

Its the first day of December, which means Christmas is literally just a few weeks away. I am so not ready at all for this. I still haven't decided if  I'm going to put my Christmas tree up or not this year. It feels like its been such a very busy year. I've gone to new doctors, we've started up the chickens, I've been expanding my worm farm through them breeding. We lost a pet that was more family than pet. I've done new things with my crocheting, tried new recipes, started this blog. We've done repair work to our house, and just so very many things. 

I don't have any pictures ready for you all today, but I'll have some pictures coming soon!!!