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!!!

Duck eggs!!!

Finally...or already, I'm not sure which it is with the excitement I'm feeling over getting my first duck egg. They weren't babies for long at all, they grew so fast, that I didn't get to enjoy baby ducks long at all. They really are just as cute as adults, but I almost wish they could have stayed babies just a little longer.

So, I had to throw in a couple of shots of my boys just because they are my boys!!

Still going strong

Here we are in the middle of August, and I'm far from slowing down!!!! I've bought the final chicks I plan on getting until I'm off of my walker from my hip replacement surgery I'm having next month.
I got some fun pictures this week, and thought I'd share them with you all. The black and gold colored bird is one that I had hatched out back in the spring. She is an Orpington \Australorp mix. I call her my Orpalorp, and it's a lot of fun to say.
My ducks appear to be full grown, and I'm finally positive on the genders. We have an even split, it's 6 and 6.
Junior still has a lot of growing to do, but it appears he takes after his daddy.
Yes, I took a selfie with a chicken. This is one of my older Rhode Island Red girls, and by the feel of her, she has been eating well. She is nice and solid. However, I think she is old enough she does not lay anymore, so she's living the good life.
My chicks that I got from Ideal and TSC are feathering out and growing quickly. I cleaned their broader today, and they were a bit flighty still, so it was hard to get a good picture.
Yup...more chicks!!! I went to TSC for chick feed, and came home with 20 straight run Barred Rock chicks. I was rather excited to find them, because they are one of the breeds we planned on having this spring. So, I got a head start. They will be outside before I have my surgery next month!!!
That's about it for now. I hope all of my readers who are anywhere near or in Texas are staying safe!!!