Pictures

/Sorry there are no pics of the hound, but she's rather hard to get a pic of if she's not sleeping. She's always on the go. As you can see, we love our Huskies, and having 3 again is quite the treat. They interact like no other breed on the planet.

I wanted to post this yesterday but started cleaning out one of my kitchen cabinets and that ended up taking up more of the day than I thought it would. However it's a rainy day today, and that means all 4 of the pups are in the house, and getting stuff done isn't as easy as when they can just go in and out as they please. Plus we're still working on being able to have Mishka and Bella in the house together. Right now, Sam and Jasper and Mishka are good together inside, outside all 4 are fine, but that's outside. We know not to rush things, and that it's going to take a little time. Time, however, is on our side.

I've been looking at some new recipes, and can't decide what I'm going to try first. I know with Autumn just around the corner, I'm looking at some yummy cold-weather recipes. There is nothing like comfort food this time of the year.

August more than a year since my last post

Hello there...It's been an insane year, full of ups and downs. I don't know if anyone even still reads my blog, or even wants to. I suppose I'll fill everyone in on everything. I need to get back into the blog universe.

So just over a year ago, I went back to work. I went to work for Tractor Supply here in Woodstock. I absolutely loved it there. Yes, Loved.  I had to give it up for multiple reasons. First Frank got a promotion at work, and it keeps him from home a lot more, and he requested that perhaps I could go back to staying at home. Our schedules meant that we weren't seeing each other as much, and we were getting behind on a lot here at home. Then, there was the damage that I did to my right hip, the one that still needs to be replaced. So...I reluctantly agreed that perhaps staying at home wouldn't be such a bad thing.  I am however teaching a class once a week at the Sew and Vac in quilting.

I'll catch you all up on the Dogs because I know you all love my dogs. Jasper is doing great, he needs to go on a small diet, but he's great. Sam had to go on meds because he's been diagnosed with autoimmune disease. Thankfully it only affects the skin on his nose, under his eyes, and his anal glands. He's been on his meds for just over a month now, and so far, everything is looking great. The skin on his nose is growing back perfectly. Bella is doing well, I'm having a hard time controlling her eating,  So I bought some diet food that I'm about to switch them too....in all honesty even Sam could use a few pounds off. Now for the big pet announcement...drum roll, please!!!! Last month we brought home a female Siberian Husky puppy that we named Mishka. She's a brownish reddish color with blue eyes. I promise I will have pictures in the near future.

I'm hoping to have lots more recipes to share, we got an Instant Pot, and I'm seriously in love with it. It's made my kitchen life so much easier, and I love how tender it makes the meat. I'm planning on sharing some of the recipes that we love.

In the spring, we have to start over with all of our chickens. We had another bad year with raccoons. We need to drop a bunch of money into completely redoing all of the housing and run area. We plan on trying to raccoon-proof our chicken run. I'm hoping we don't lose anymore this year, even though I'm not getting any eggs.  Having a farm is as much heartache as it is work and dedication.

Well, I will end this here. I fully intend to try to get back to posting on a regular basis now that I'm home again, and hopefully, I'll have lots of pictures, recipes, and maybe even some new crochet patterns.

Fresh Strawberry muffins

Hello all!!!! I know it's been far too long (again) since my last blog post. I swear I don't do it on purpose, life just kind of gets a lot busy. Although, that's really not that great of an excuse, especially since that was one of the reasons I bought that tablet. That way I could just sort of blog in bed, or when we settle in for the evening.  I'm going to try to do 1 to 2 blogs a week...TRY being the operative word.


So its that time of the year when the FFA sells their Strawberries, and they are beyond tasty!!!! This year though, I wanted to try something a little different other than just cutting them up and throwing them in the freezer until I had time to make jam or smoothes. I felt the urge to bake, so I sorted through my stack of recipes that I've been holding onto forever to try, and this is what I found, and it was a huge hit!!!! I did change 2 little things, but I'll put those things in parenthesis next to the original recipe ingredient.

RECIPE:
1/4 cup canola oil\
1/2 cup milk (almond milk)
1 egg (duck egg)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup white sugar
1 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped strawberries

DIRECTIONS:
1) preheat oven to 375 degrees F. and line the muffin pans with liners, or grease it if you would rather.

2)In a small bowl, combine oil, milk, and eggs, and beat lightly. In a large bowl mix all dry ing, and slowly mix in the wet ingredients from the first bowl. When well mixed, fold in strawberries.

3) Fill 8-12 muffin cups with the batter and bake for 25 minutes or until the tops bounce back from the touch. Cool 10 minutes in the muffin pan, and then remove.

That's it, pretty simple huh????

Enjoy!!!!

Winter cold and new egg layers

Hello everyone!!!! It's been a while, yet again since my last blog post. I have no good excuses if I must be honest.
 
So January has been a crazy month weather wise. We started out with a week of subzero temps, which meant going outside a whole lot to keep an eye on everyone. What was hilarious was the fact that I had on multiple layers, and was freezing, and my chickens were acting like it was nothing!!! Crazy birds.

So in the middle of all that cold, one of my 4 month old Barred Rock hens decided it's time to start laying, and she has not missed a day yet. I'm rather impressed by her, I just can't wait for the rest I them to start laying.

One of my non farming friends wanted to see what the difference is between a chicken and a duck egg was. So I took a picture and sent it to her. I'm pretty sure you all can tell which is the duck, and which is the chicken in that middle pucture.

Sam and Jasper turned 7 years old this month. Time has certainly flown. So I decided that since Sam will get upstairs no matter what, it was time to do away with the baby gate. It took Jasper about a week to try the stairs, but he now goes up and lays in my sewing room when I'm working on something.

Everything else is going well here. I'm about to start designing my first web page to sell hatching eggs. It's a project we are really excited about, and hope will do fairly well.  We really do have a lot of fun with our birds, and enjoy working with them.  I will do my best to keep you all updated on the progress of that.

Our first snow of the season

Well, it was bound to happen,  and it did!!!
Snow!!! Sam and Jasper loved it, poor Bella not so much.
So, I spent a little time in my sewing room, working on getting back into sewing a little. I have multiple projects stacked on my work table, that I plan on getting finished.
Life on the farm, and with the family is going well. I don't really have anything new or exciting to share at the moment.
I hope you are all enjoying the holiday season!

Chicken pix

Life on the farm continues

Well, Autumn is official here, and October is more than halfway over. It's been more than a month ago that I got my new left hip, and I'll be in physical therapy for a while longer yet. However, that doesn't mean things have stopped here.

The Barred Rock chicks that I have in one of my grow out sections, are growing beautifully. I feel like they should be bigger than they are, but they are only about 6 weeks old, so really they are probably on track. The straight run Rhode Island Reds I ordered back in August are doing great. I ordered 10 of them, and have 5 boys, and 5 girls. I also picked up some ISA Browns from Tractor Supply around the same time, and I'm truly impressed with them as always. They truly are my favorite hybrid.
All 6 of my girl ducks are laying. Some days, I only get 2 eggs, and some I get 6. So, I guess that means. I will get eggs from them on an every day basis.

Our farm plans are moving forward. I'm hoping by Spring to have a website built and ready to launch. We will be selling hatching eggs. We're starting small at the moment, but will be selling Rhode Island Red, Buff Orpington, Barred Rock, and Red Star. I plan on eventually adding Black Star, Black Australorp, Delaware, Dark Brahma, Copper Marans, and Speckled Sussex. We want to be able to offer more, however that may take us buying a bigger property, which we would eventually love to do.

So, keep your eyes open for the big announcement, and wish us luck as we get deeper into this!!!