A five month catch-up...

Whoo-weeee!  Five months, to the day!

First, there is NO way to catch up on everything that has gone on during the last five months.

Second, I've come to realize the journaling time-log aspect of this blog is quite useful to document our year-to-year gardening, chicken-hatching, quilting, running, and 'other' activity.  The most recent example:  we started a new strawberry patch, but wanted to know how old our original patch was.  Logged in to the blog and found..... June 19, 2012's post.  

So, rather than be overwhelmed with the undertaking of catching up on EVERYTHING....

let's start small.

I AM still taking quite a few pictures and posting (excessively) to FaceBook.  (LOL -- if you're still a follower and wish to, look me up and send me a friend-request.)

Therefore, the last five pictures on my phone....

Time is very relaxed, but very full around the place so far this summer.  Three full weeks into summer vacation already;  it is simply flying by!!!

The only project I have underway in my sewing room is Bonnie's Allietare mystery that I finally broke down and started.  It's an amazing design, as always!  My color palette is of sea and sand, so "Vetro di Mare" ("Seaglass") will be my rendition.

The mug in the picture was gifted to me by a senior girl in my AP-Statistics class;  she knows me so well!!!

We continue to love our chickens.  We hatched out 20 in April, but sadly, all but one met a very sad end via predators!  I was sickened, and we took charge in reenforcing all of our brooder houses, box and ground coops.   The one that remained, Hector, has been hanging out with our meat-birds.

Then, five of our hens decided they wanted to sit on eggs, almost all at the same time.  So.... we let 'em!

All chicks are 3-4 weeks old:  Peckers has 12, Daisy has 14, Blackie#1 has 4 (after losing one), and Blackie#2 has 6.  I can NEVER tell these two black hens apart!!!!!

Our fifth, sadly never hatched any;  I have a feeling she left the nest too long from time to time.  We had set another incubator full of eggs, and we were hoping she'd hold off long enough to take an interest in playing Mama to them, but to no avail.  So, we have another 17 in one of the brooder boxes, motherless.  It is our most protected brooder, so they should be safe.

Most of my outside gardening time is spent in our vegetable gardens, however a wee bit of time was spent cleaning out my small perennial flower bed out front yesterday.   Some wild milkweed showed up last year, and after being scolded by child #2 for pulling it out last year, I left most of it be this year.  The fragrance of the milkweed blooms is amazing!  Candace says it reminds her of lilac blossoms.  Will wait and see if any Monarchs are attracted to it this year.

Summer school was underway for the first two weeks of summer.  This past week (third week of summer), Candace took part in the Prairie Fire theater production of Jack and the Beanstalk.  This was the first time she was able to take part in any Prairie Fire production;  she played Gabby, villager child #2 (bottom, second-from-the right, in purple).

While Candace has been heading off to summer school everyday, Caitlyn has been working in the local strawberry patch, picking berries everyday at 6 a.m.   Paul and I both wanted her to know she's working for her college savings and that 75% of anything she made was to be placed in the bank.  The other 25% was completely hers, if she cared to spend it.

For quite the longest time, she really didn't mention anything that she really wanted, but early last week, she said...."I know what I want now -- a kayak!"

She met her goal yesterday.  There were definitely a couple mornings when she gave me some puppy dog eyes, asking if she could have a vacation day, but.... she ended up persevering, and hopefully learned some discipline along the way.

We can't wait to try it out!!!!  (We also bought a second one for the family).

Today is forecasted to be absolutely gorgeous, so we're thinking of heading to the lake after dropping Cassie off at work (she's three weeks into working at McDonalds -- a whole 'nother new adventure for this growing family).

Happy Sunday!  

Summer winding down; chicks, harvest, soaping, and a smidgen of quilting

The newest, and FINAL, chicks of the season joined us this past week.  

I had been peeking in on Mama daily seeing we didn't really know when she started sitting on her clutch of eggs.  Do you see the little guy tucked in right by her breast?  

Since the hatch, we've been trying to get an accurate count, but have simply decided to shrug and wait until we graduate Mama and chicks to a ground brooder, that way we'll count as we remove them from the brooder house. We THINK there are 12-14 in there, which brings our total number of chickens on the property to..........

Ummmmm.........

....

somewhere around 85-90.  LOL.  However, not all of them will spend the winter with us.  Many of the hatched chicks this year are roosters, and we simply don't need a whole lotta roosters around the property.  Two have already been claimed by a neighbor; we're hoping to find houses for others just as easily!

Goodness, WHERE to even start with this catchup...

Well, it IS breakfast time around here.  Hungry?  Paul shared an Apple Fritter recipe to my FB page a few weeks ago, so last weekend, I gave it a try.  Soooo yummy!  See the icing drip onto my thumb?  Yuppers, folks!  Finger-lickin' good! Recipe here.

And yes!  It is that time of year again;  the annual pollinating of Ragweed!

*whispering*  But crazy enough, I have not been overwhelmed with itchy eyes or runny nose this year.  Could it be that I'm finally growing out of this allergy????  Candace, on the other hand, continues to be miserable;  allergy medicines we've tried barely take the edge off.  

So that means I've been able to be in the garden without too much discomfort.  Yay!

The tomatoes are slowly starting to ripen; about 20 pounds harvested so far, with HUNDREDS of pounds yet to come.  No lie!  HUNDREDS!!!!!!  Holy tomatoes, batman!  I guess 78 plants will do that, huh?  LOL.....

One monster so far....

The excess basil from the Pesto making a few weeks ago has been drying and waiting for processing. 

It doesn't take much basil to fill a spice container, so we're reserving the rest to make some tomato-basil seasoning once we've dried some tomatoes.

A coffee filter worked great as a collection device and then again as a pour-spout, only after sifting out some larger stems by hand.

Coffee filters were also used to keep dirt from falling out of some pots that were used for my plant clippings.  

I find it quite cool watching the root systems grow!  I don't know what kind of houseplant this is, but it is SO easy to care for AND propagate!

Much of our living room has been taken over by plants, which doesn't bother me at all... sorta!  

An opportunity was given to me to add two more mini-greenhouses to my lot (thanks Karen!!!!), all in exchange for some homemade lotions and soaps.  

For now, the greenhouse plastic was set aside, and they are being used as organizational shelving for our (ever-growing) collection of plants.  Weird, maybe, but I can't help but smile when I look at the showcase of plants and photos!

Some more soaps have been added to the curing shelves:  Oatmeal, Milk and Honey, and Hazelnut coffee (my NEW favorite!!!!!)  I love walking through my curing room (which also happens to by my quilting room).  The smells are yummy, yummy, yummy!  What a fun adventure this has been this summer!

Caitlyn's Lemon yogurt "Energy" soap has been in the bathroom for the past couple of weeks.  After trying it out, I accepted that a simple recipe is truly sufficient to make a great bar of soap!  This was one of the first batches we made this summer:  70% olive oil and 30% coconut oil, and then some fragrance.  Quick and easy to mix up; lathers and bubbles wonderfully, and does its job!

The corn harvest has been underway for us for the past week, and two weeks ago, when visiting my parents, I allowed myself to kick back while waiting for the grilled corn.  (Hmmm... another picture with a glass of wine.... )

Have I mentioned how thankful I am for the help I get with the Fall harvests????

Amidst a harvest, when time doesn't allow for large time-consuming meals, it IS okay to simply place a jar of fresh salsa and a plate of fresh corn-on-the-cob on the table.  

We ARE finding time for fun and relaxing, too!
Last week, Paul and I finally buckled down and hired a crew to pour a 30x30 concrete slab, with intentions of using it as an "activity" area for the girls.  Basketball, volleyball, skating...

And....

....wait for it.....

I found a couple hours of time to work a little more on the Smith Mountain Morning quilt!  Hours 13 and 14 (no pic) were completed.

School schedules are almost back in full swing.  Cassie has made the starting lineup on the JV volleyball squad; I'm not sure who loves the sport more, her or me!  We're off to watch the Varsity play in their first tournament of the season in a little bit.  

The first day of school is Tuesday (9/1).  I think we're ready. ;)

Happy Saturday!

Early August happenings...

I took a moment to go through my phone pics to see what I've been up to lately... 

;)

Part of the basil patch was harvested to make some Pesto.  Paul, Cassie and myself are quite fond of Pesto... on crackers, on toast, on pizza.  When planting in the spring, I elected to plant an entire package of seed.  Heehehehe.... I don't think we need to do THAT again!  We literally have basil growing out of our ears.  Some friends were invited over to help manage the basil;  we still have LOTS left over.

Excitement in the mail!!!!!  KatieZ contacted me earlier about some cotton yarn she had in excess and wondered if I was interested in working out a deal.
?!?!?!!   Ah--yah!  Candance and I were both excited to tear into the box of goodies!

And later that day, while the girls swam, I elected to finish crocheting up some Crochet-top kitchen towels.

Also on the mail-front....
Cassie gandered out to the mailbox one day...

... to be followed home by her posse!

Some shifting of chicken houses needed attention due to the newest (and FINAL) hatchlings of the season.

Big Mama with our 22 youngest hatchlings (first week of August).  She is protecting them nicely in the ground brooder, which was NOT the original plan, BTW!
Nope, nope.  Originally, we were going to have her start brooding them in the house-brooder.
But..... it seems that another Mama was interested in even MORE chickens on the Skattebo ranch!



*forehead slap!*
Yes folks---there is a chance to have another dozen or so chicks on the property in another week or so!  And, I KNEW there was a reason for the dwindle in egg production in the upper coops!

Anyway, yah, so the house-shifting started!
We started by kicking Carlos (rooster) out of the 'new' coop in order to allow the 27 oldest chicks of the season to have safe access to their permanent housing.  Together with two other year-old hens, they are now housed.  (29 birds there).
Carlos and two other older hens departed the 'new' coop together and are now mingling quite nicely with our main rooster, Steve, and his posse of 9 hens.  So...., what is that?.....another 13 birds.  (42 so far).
Then, the 14 'teenager' that had been in the ground brooder were moved into the temporary housing that the older chicks HAD been in.  (we're up to.... 56).
At that point, we were able to move Big Mama and her 22 chickies into the ground brooder (78 now; I already counted Mama as one that belonged to Steve).
So... I THINK I've taken care of counting everyone..... add to that another dozen or so that the newest Mama will hatch.... Yah.  About 90 birds.  That's fun, right?!?!!?

Oh yah... one other little minor happening in early August...

I turned 40.  

Ducks, Meat birds, Teen-chicks and Hatchlings

I know.  I know.  I'm waiting for a quilting post too!  There's never a lot of downtime around here lately.  (and soaping doesn't take much time). ;)   Three weeks into summer vacation, and I've been in the quilting room twice -- maybe three times.  SOON though!  (I hope!)

For the past week -- it's been birds of one sort of variety or another.

Paul has been dutifully working on a quaint lil' movable coop.  Initially, it was being built for our teen-chicks that were hatched out about four weeks ago;  they have outgrown the brooder box!

However, after seeing how big the ducklings have gotten at seven weeks old (!!!), they got first dibs on the new digs!  Even with 'pond' installed :D

Our two older (and only remaining ducks from our seven we had earlier this spring :( have migrated over to the teen-duck area.  They stick fairly close to the teens, but no intermingling will happen for a while yet.  King, the white Pekin, picked on our ducklings and teens last year something awful, so... nope.  No intermingling.  Yet.  Prince, the mutt male, had been one of those teens last year.  He started taking over as dominant 'big meanie' when we still had our female, Angel, this spring.  However, since we lost our last female, both of the boys calmed down and have become good buds.

And Afro-Jack seems happy!!!!  Goofy duck.  If he ends up being female----(?).... I guess Afro-Jackie doesn't sound too bad.

Moving the ducks opened up one of our three ground-brooders.  The other two were housing our cross-breed meat birds.  And it was time to take care of those guys too!

Processing 18 meat birds was a family affair.  I know there are mixed feelings 'out there' regarding posting pictures of the process, but.... really?  I think this is our fourth (fifth?) year now of raising birds for meat;  I wasn't really involved much up until this year.  With a nearly empty chest-freezer (low on chicken, hardly any pork, beef mostly gone, zilcho venison!), I now truly APPRECIATE the fact of having full chest-freezers of meat and other garden goodies!  

These chickens here-- these are NOT EGG-LAYERS!  Good lordy.  I love my chickens that I/we hatch and raise for eggs.  They are more like pets to us than simply birds that provide us eggs.

  

But these guys.  They are like beefers, but only chicken versions.  They are bred to grow quickly.  Quickly!  At 10 weeks, these guys are a hefty size for processing.  They NEVER receive names from us, but we take care of them; feed them, water them -- raise them to grow :D

We waited until week 12 almost to the day.  This is the second (or third?) year Paul has used his DIY chicken-plucker.  Yup!  It's another one of those things that I rolled my eyes at when he purchased all the supplied to make one, but now I see the awesome purpose of this machine!  It makes such quick work of plucking those chickens.

The final outcome after a LONG day of processing?  Chicken!  We didn't weigh the final poundage we processed, but this was one of the larger chicken breasts we raised!  That's just a single breast, folks.  The average breast -- probably 1 1/4 pounds.  We sealed some half-chickens, but mostly breasts, legs/thighs and wings.

And, of COURSE, I made stock and rendered down chicken fat (schmaltz).  But that's for some other time.

Since all three of the ground brooders were now empty, the next day was spent reorganizing all the new and old pens in a new location.    The brooder box was hauled down to the new location for easy removal of the teen chicks...

The new-found freedom for some was too much to resist!  As they grow, they will eventually be free-range chickens, but we keep them safe from predators until they reach a few months old.

Watered and fed.  And it was only an afterthought--- we STILL never took the time to count how many chicks there are!!!!! **forehead slap!!**  In this picture----we're still sticking with 34 as our best guess.  One of these days when we start spreading the flock out, we'll get a good count.

These ground-brooders are roughly 8x8;  after another few weeks, these chicks will need more space, but for now, the new house for the next few weeks will be just perfect.  We attempted to remove Mama from the picture and return her to her coop/flock that evening.  It only took about 5 minutes for her to run back down to the babies.  *shrug*  It's all good.  Eventually, these babies will get mingled in with the new coop flock (Mama's flock) anyway.   

So, FINALLY!  Teen ducks and chicks are happy in new housing!

And just in time....

Seventeen new hatchlings (so far) from the incubator have now taken up room-n-board in the brooder house.  We're keeping track of how many chicks we get this time!!!

How many more do we expect??  Another two have hatched since moving these guys this morning, and there were 35 total eggs in the incubator.   There are always a few that don't survive the hatching process;  always such a sad time.  Your guess is as good as mine.  

Free ride

Of all the times we've had baby chicks, I've never once seen them ride on the back of mama.  

AND, we've never had GRAY chicks before!  We have four or five of these adorable lil' guys in the brooder.  I'm very curious to see how they develop from the gray fluffy stage they are at right now.

The garden is almost 100% planted;  onions and garlic remain.  The weather outlook this week is amazing;  lows never dropping below 50.  I'm hopeful for this gardening season :)

Candace's 3/4 grade SB team (2nd from right)

The summer schedule is underway;  Monday and Wednesday evenings filled with 3/4 grade and 5/6 grade softball;  Summer school starting next week;  Gardening filling most free time right now.  

This morning, however, after dropping Cass off for some weight-training, I'll spend a couple hours or so in my room writing some lessons for the 2015-16 AP-Statistics class.

Then?  Finish the garden planting.  MAYBE spend some time quilting.  Although, I'm keeping my options open today since our Baseball team is playing in the Sectional tournament at 11:00.  I'm thinking, if I hear they win, we'll make the hour trip down to the ball field to watch the 3:00 finals :D