Yum

Yesterday, since it was cool out, we decided to make dinner in the crock pot.  Beef roast with potatoes, carrots, onions and celery.  Yum!

I also baked some bread.  I found a recipe on Libby's website for pumpkin-apple bread that I thought was rather fitting to welcome in Fall:

Boy were they good!!  A nice, hot, hearty dinner followed by a sweet, cake like dessert.  The apples really made a difference in this bread.  It was a great day despite the fact the Panthers lost....AGAIN....

Changes

Today, our high temp was 77F.  Tomorrow's forecasted high is 49F...I think Fall will make it's debut tomorrow.  I like fall, with the cooler temps and pretty colors.  What I don't like is the weather that follows, or the short, short days.  I started taking my Vitamin D a couple of weeks ago.  They say it can help to keep your spirits up for those of us who have "SAD" - Seasonal Affective Disorder.  I have it...my husband hates it.  But I think this year may be better with all that I have learned, or re-learned, this past year.

I still make my own butter every week.  I will begin baking bread again with the cooler temps - just couldn't bring myself to do it during the summer when it was 100F outside and the air conditioning was running non-stop.  Only this year, I will try to make it every weekend, instead of only when we need it.  I will freeze the extra so we have some during the warmer weather too.

I will be busy making my crafts too.  I found some cute patterns for crochet and knit and have been working on them.  I am receiving some very good feedback from family and friends, and may start renting tables at the local festivals next year to try my hand at selling them.  I have also looked into setting up an Etsy store.  This year, I am making a lot of the gifts we will be giving, instead of buying something I am not sure the person will like/use, or giving up and just getting a gift card.  I am certain the hand-made gifts I have selected will be very well received...or at least I hope so!

I think having the chickens this year will help me as well.  I never tire of watching their antics, listening to their "conversations" with each other, how Emmy Lou waits at the gate for me when it is time to go to bed, or opening the nest boxes and finding beautiful, home-grown eggs inside...

I am looking forward to my holiday baking using my home-made butter and home-grown eggs this year.  They can't help but make everything taste better.  We are filling up the freezer slowly but surely - chicken noodle soup two weeks ago and chili last week. 

This weekend, I will pull the last vestiges of tomato plants from the other raised bed and we will cover the greenhouse.  Last weekend we covered the pool.  It is time to start closing down and putting everything up for the winter to come.  Before I know it, the holidays will be upon us (Monday is Halloween already!!).  I still have vacation time at work I have not used - I look forward to being able to sleep in a little when I do finally take them.

Hope everyone had a great day!

Whiny Wednesday

• Covered the pool on Saturday....today the cable holding the cover on the pool snapped - as in broke apart...now we get to do it all over again...
• 76F today...can we decide if I am lighting woodstoves or running air conditioning please?!?
• Ever try to type with every other fingernail being broken off?  Let's just say there is a lot of "backspace" going on!!!
• I just saw the biggest potato plant ever!!  In my compost bin....oy...
• My favorite tree in the fall is losing it's leaves before the tree turns its gorgeous colors :-(
• Ok everyone - whine away!!

Tidbit Tuesday

• I'm back :-)
• Voice still comes and goes a little, but MUCH better
• There is only one week left in October....wha???
• I have had to fire up the woodstove a couple of times in the morning to take the chill off
• Glad we were able to split some wood before I got sick!
• Got the pool covered last weekend....yep....it's that time again....
• My roses don't care about the weather change - they are still sending out new shoots and blooms
• It's nice to have a window or two open now.  I actually have to close them to keep the heat in at night!
• Hope everyone is having a great day!

Almost back to normal....

Wow...been a long two weeks....this cold kicked my butt!   I think I am finally at the end of it though.  My voice just keeps coming and going now.

Thank you all for the tips and hints.  Unfortunately for this round, Sudafed was my best friend.  But I fully intend to look into the suggestions you gave and be ready for the next time!

I also had my husband make a big pot of chicken noodle soup and ate it for lunch and dinner for a week straight.  He makes such FABULOUS chicken soup.  If I could have hooked it up to an IV, I would have.  Every time I had a bowl I felt a ton better.  So now we have about 5 containers of it in the freezer ready to heat and eat :-)

This past weekend, we were supposed to have our 3rd annual bonfire, but only a couple people showed up, so we just had a fire in the firepit instead.  But we made up a big pot of chili and froze the leftovers so the freezer is now stocked!

The chickens have started producing more eggs - which I thought was strange as the temps have fallen quite a bit here in the last couple of weeks.  But, I will take it!  We are now averaging 2-3 eggs per day, and we even had a couple days where all 4 laid in the same day.  We had a couple with very thin shells, so I have added a small bowl of oyster shell for them, free choice.  They don't seem to mind the chilly mornings - but I have also started giving them some scratch grain in the evenings when I know it will dip below 40F - 45F overnight.

They are loving the grass clippings with all the leaves in them, as the leaves are falling faster than they are changing color.  I guess it is because of the hot, dry summer we had this year.  But there is still some pretty color here and there.

Sorry that I have been MIA - I feel guilty for not posting my Tidbit Tuesdays or Whiny Wednesdays, but you will have them both this week!

Hope everyone is healthy and getting to enjoy some cooler fall weather and some foliage displays!

Down for the Count

So, you may have noticed the small number of posts recently.  I have been sick...very sick.  My husband was down for the count last weekend.  Now it is my turn.  I started to feel bad Wednesday...I woke up Thursday feeling like a Mack truck had hit me - twice.  I stayed home from work, put an out of office message up, took some meds and went back to bed.  Now, this is monumental for me.  I NEVER go back to bed.  But I was feeling so terrible, I really had no choice.

When I woke up, I tried looking for some home remedies for relieving sinus pressure...yeah, the ole drum and bugle corp were at top volume in my head that day.  I found one, made it up, and almost gagged to death on it!!!  Wowee!  How do people drink that stuff!?!?!?  You were to boil water, put in a mug, add 2 TBS apple cider vinegar, 2 TBS of honey and drink it down.  BLECK!!!  So now, not only was my head pounding off my shoulders, but my stomach was doing somersaults.... great...

Then I remembered, one of the executives I support went to Japan last year, and brought me back a fancy canister of tea.  Now, I cannot read Japanese, go figure, but when I brewed the tea, it was green - I thought, perfect.  Green tea is supposed to be fantastic for you.  It was okay, I am a coffee drinker, not a tea drinker.  But when I am sick, I will choke down the tea.  It did make me feel a little better, but the congestion would not break up.  I finished off every bottle of over the counter medicine that was left from when my husband was sick, and spent a very restless night trying to sit up enough to try to get my sinuses to open up so I could breathe!

So, for this round, I went to the store today and got the only thing that works for me - Sudafed 12 hour - the real stuff, behind the counter - not the fake PE stuff.  Also got some Ny-Quil and cherry flavored Halls, so now I am set for this cold.  Within one hour of taking the Sudafed when I got home, my sinuses started clearing out. YAY!

So, does anyone out there have any suggestions for the next round?  I would like to try to do more homeopathic stuff and not rely on the pharmaceuticals (but this time desperate times called for desperate measures)...I have read about ginger tea, tea with lemon juice, cayenne pepper and honey, peppermint essential oil facial steam baths, etc.  But I am looking for something that you have tried and it WORKS.

Cuz when I am sick, there is no time for messing around.  I have got too much to do and can't be down for the count.

Whiny Wednesday

• My husband was sick over the weekend, had to stay home Monday....now I'm sick!
• Windshield did not get replaced yesterday - company didn't come in the morning while it wasn't raining...they waited until after lunch when it was POURING
• Have to commute to the big city tomorrow...while being sick...oh what fun!
• It POURED this morning....would have been a grand day.....if I were a DUCK!
• Feel free to whine away......I'm going to take more Thera-Flu, Excedrin and whatever else I can find that my husband didn't use up the last few days :-(

Reba's better

She laid an egg around 1:30 PM yesterday - so I took that as a good sign.  I went down a couple more times to try to give her more oil and tip her to see if anything else would come up.  Nothing else did - I got maybe 1/2 teaspoon of oil in her.  Later in the afternoon, she started hanging with the other girls, not staying alone under the coop.  Then around dinner time, she was acting more like her old self.  Pecking around with more vigor and when someone else found a tasty morsel (a bug) and ran off, she ran after them with the others.

This morning she met me at the pop door when I went down to let them out and started eating right away.  Not as fast as she usually does, but still, an improvement over yesterday.  I will continue to watch her but she is much more alert and doing more of the normal chicken thing than she did yesterday.

My husband and I started cutting up some more pallets for the wood pile and are just now taking a break.  The pallet pile is starting to get smaller, and the cut pile is growing nicely.  We figure we have about a month's worth cut so far.  Maybe later today we will get to do some splitting - I love doing that!  The pallet wood burns well in the stove, and hot enough to keep the whole house warm during the day, but you can't replace split wood.  There is just something about it.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and gets to partake in some gorgeous weather like we are here!

Reba's sick.....

I knew something was wrong right away this morning when I let them out.  Reba is usually the first to run to the pile of feed I put on the ground (hey, that's the way they like it - no feeder for them!) and gobbles it up.  But today, I opened to coop and everyone came out EXCEPT Reba...then she sauntered out and walked the opposite way from the food.  I thought, hmmm, strange.  The other three were just gobbling up the food and Reba was just slowly walking around...a peck here, a peck there.  So, in the house I went to get on backyardchickens.com to see what I could find.  Hard to nail down "looks lethargic" on that huge forum.

So back outside I went, I cornered her and picked her up to see if she had mites or something.  I was holding her around her midsection, wings pinned between my arm and my side, with her head behind me, looking through her feathers - no bugs.  So I figured, I will check her vent - as I went looking for it (they have a lot of feathers there!!) I heard a sound like a waterfall behind me.  She was "puking" water out from being tipped slightly upside down in that position.  Light bulb goes off in my head - aha!  Sour or impacted crop.  Great.  I turn her around and start massaging her neck, where I think the crop is.  I don't know - I'm still a newbie at this!!  It doesn't feel exactly squishy, but not hard as a rock either.  Back inside to the laptop - was it olive oil or vegetable oil - can't remember.  Find it - olive oil, although they say mineral oil is best.  Of course I don't have mineral oil.  Get the olive oil, put it in a tiny measuring cup (like the kind that comes with cough syrup), back to the run to try and get her to drink some of it.  Yah....right.  So I just keep dipping her beak in it, and every so often she licks it off.  Then she gets mad and wants to be set back down.  I figure, good, she is showing some of her old spunk.  Put her back down after rubbing her neck a little more, and she walks slowly under the coop and just stands there. Poor thing!!

I will keep trying to get more oil in her today, and I have to go to the store and get some plain yogurt.  They say that is good too - but not too much.  The point is to get her crop emptying again - not keep filling it faster than it is being emptied.

I thought I was done with "burping babies".  My daughter is 20 - hasn't needed that in a long time!  But, apparently, chickens need it every now and then.

Will let you know how she makes out.  Any other advice?  Did I miss anything?  Thanks.

Whiny Wednesday

Welcome to the first installment of Whiny Wednesdays!  Thank you Carolyn Renee for helping me select the title!

• When does your "To Do" list ever get small enough that it actually fits into ONE day??
• Shorter days = crabby me!!
• Why is it that just as our four chickens start laying eggs, the days are so short that we only get one egg one day, maybe two the next, then one egg....oh, and let me guess, when spring hits, and the days get longer, they will go into molt and we will still only get one egg here, couple there....maybe we need more chickens....
• I want a Dunkin Donuts near me!!!!!

It's ironic....I usually have quite a list of whiny things, but drew a total blank when I started writing this post!!!  Hmmm....maybe this will help cure me? :-)

Tidbit Tuesday

• The commute still sucks
• The cooler nights have been a nice change
• I like hearing the sound of crickets instead of cicadas at night
• The stars are so bright this time of year - there is no humidity in the air
• I missed my chickens today (I know, sad, isn't it)
• Hope everyone had a great day!

Busy, busy, busy!

Wow - where did the weekend go?  And it's October already?!?!?  We had a very busy and productive weekend around the homestead.

Saturday, we got up early - fed the dogs, cats, chickens as usual.  Then headed to town so my husband could get his mop, I mean hair, cut...then off to the local Heritage festival (yes, there is pretty much one every weekend in September for each of the local towns/cities near us) to visit my daughter who was working a tent for her job, then off to Lowe's to get more sand for the chicken run (the rains washed it all away while we were in NY), then grab some lunch, get home, hook up the trailer to the four-wheeler to move 500 lbs. of sand back to the run, unload and spread it (that was my job) while my husband worked on fixing the log splitter.  We had to get a new pump for it - the one we initially put on it was not strong enough to handle the back and forth on the pushing mechanism.  It went forward just fine, but was very SLOW going back.

Sunday, we had grocery shopping to do, stop at Lowe's to pick up one more part for the log splitter and some 1/2 price perennials, go home to unpack and put everything away.  Watched a little football (darn Panthers....), then while I planted the new plants out front and ripped everything out of one of the raised beds in the garden, my husband finished repairing the log splitter.  Yay!  Then I moved the chicken tractor onto the bed I emptied and set the chickens to scratching it all up.  Boy, did they have a ball!  Then we moved the log splitter to the back yard and started splitting some wood.  It worked AWESOME!!  Much better than before with this new pump.  It made short work of the few logs we split - we have a long way to go!



Yep, it's ugly...but only cost $300 so far.  The most powerful one at Tractor Supply is $2,000.  And this has way more power.


Then we went in to eat some chili I had pulled out of the freezer.  It was a chili kind of day :-)  The weather was very cool this weekend, with overnight temps dipping down to the lower 40s.  Daytime temps only got to the low 60s.  Perfect weather to get stuff done outside!

The only two things we did not get done that we hoped to were to close the pool and clean the chimney for the wood stove.  Oh well, there is always next weekend, right?!?!

On the Road Again

We just got back from a little road trip last weekend....well, not little really.  We drove from NC to NY, with the two dogs, to visit my husband's family for a long weekend.  The trip took 11 hours, one way.  Sasha does very well in the car - Mika is a whole other ball game.  She is a very high energy dog (it's the lab in her), and is very much "Daddy's girl".  She suffers from separation anxiety when my husband is not around.  So, despite the fact that we got a bag of Composure treats and doubled the dose for her, she was still not liking the 11 hours in the Jeep.  By about the 9th hour, I was ready to tie her to the anchors in the back of the Jeep just to keep her down.  But I didn't....she survived...and I couldn't wait to get a drink when we got there!!!

We left about 5AM on Thursday, thinking the dogs would just sleep while it was still dark out....nuh-uh!  It was hours of "Mika - lay down....Mika - lay down....good girl.  Mika - lay down....MIKA - LAY DOWN".  Needless to say, that night, they both PASSED OUT COLD. 

We got to see my husband's family (Mom, Dad, sister with her husband and son, cousins, aunts, uncles) and his friends from growing up who still live there.  We took the dogs to the beach on Lake Ontario...Sasha loved running in the water (this is the dog who doesn't want to go outside when it is raining!!) and Mika was terrified of the waves....Mika....the lab....the water dog....


My husband with Mika (blonde) and Sasha (black)



My husband: C'mon Mika! 
Mika:  No!  I do not like the waves!

The weather was nice - a little on the cool side - we only had a couple of rain showers on Friday.  The rest of the time was dry and sunny, for the most part.  It was a lot of good food, great people, fun and laughter.  It's always a good time when we go there - it's just a REALLY LONG trip to get there and back.


Sasha on the trampoline with Grampa



My mother-in-law, me and the sweet lady who lives two doors down



My husband playing with his nephew - the dogs are the referees!

I missed our chickens immensely!  But they were in good hands with our neighbor across the street.  Turns out, she used to have chickens of her own so she knew what to do.  But apparently, we got a TON of rain at home while we were gone, so there is no sand left in the run.  Guess what we will be doing this weekend :-)

So, what was the best part about spending 22 hours in the car in four days?

Mmmmm.....and it's Pumpkin Spice season too!!!  YUMMY!!!

(We don't have any where we live, so I make sure to get my fill when we go up north)

Tidbit Tuesday

I know....it's Wednesday...my days are still screwed up from our vacation (which I still need to tell you about)...

• It sucks when at 5:30 AM, you turn the key to start your vehicle and it doesn't turn on.
• $132 later, you have a battery that has all cells working
• We had TONS of rain while we were away, so there is no sand left in the chicken run....it is nothing but a MUCKY mess
• A wet, mucky chicken run STINKS!!  Literally!  Peeeeeee-yoooooo-eeeeee!
• It would dry faster if the sun would come out....
• At least it is still cooler out

Hope you all had a great day!

Back

We are back :-)  We took a long weekend to go out of town.  More to come on the, ahem, adventure!

Tidbit Tuesday

• Surprised the cooler weather is still around :-)
• Had to commute to the big city yesterday for an all day meeting - left the house at 5AM - got home around 7:30 PM = L O N G day
• I missed my chickens yesterday - didn't get to see them :-(
• Chickens were happy to see me this morning!!
• Is it really almost officially "Fall"??
• One of my followers was surprised when I posted on a Wednesday one week - she said "you never post on Wednesdays!!"  I did not realize this...so, I would like to call on all of you to help me come up with something for Wednesdays to get me to fill in this void....I know some use "Wordless Wednesdays", but I'm not real good about doing the picture thing (if you can't tell!!)...any ideas???

Four! Ouch!

Yesterday, our girls gave us FOUR eggs - YAY!!

The only problem was, Dolly decided to lay her first ever egg on the ROOF of the nesting boxes....which of course slants down to the ground....so her egg rolled off and landed on the ground, cracking the shell.  Her first one was the only one that looked like a first egg - it was smaller, and very long and narrow - but I opened it, and it was normal inside.  So, way to go Dolly!  Finally!  Now, lay them INSIDE the nesting box, please???

And look at Reba's egg....doesn't it look a little large??

Yeah....you guessed it - a double yolker!!  Our first!  Loving these home grown eggs!

Ahhhhhh......

Yesterday was a chilly day...Thursday, the high temp was 87F.  Friday it was 61F.  Once again, Mother Nature is confused as to what MODERATION means....but it was a refreshing change.  The chickens didn't like it - they all lined up along the fence on the run, their feathers all boufed up and their skinny little chickens legs sticking out from underneath LOL  And we only got one egg - BOOOO!

After my husband got home from work, we used the rest of the daylight (which wasn't very much now that it gets dark earlier) to cut up some pallets.  Have to take advantage of the cooler weather while we can.  We will do some more today - the high is supposed to be only 61F again.

We are also going to a local festival for a little while to see what is new this year.  We will probably be dodging some raindrops, but we do try to patronize the local festivals when we can as our community and the surrounding towns are so small.

Hope you are all enjoying a little breather from the heat - ahhhhhhh....

Update

Loretta's egg today was back to normal.  No unusual "stripes" on it.  Not sure what happened with the last one.  When I wiped it off with a damp paper towel, it did not turn red like dried blood usually does.  So, maybe her "paint gun" is still working out the kinks :-)

Only got two eggs yesterday and today...maybe there will be third when I go down to lock them up for the night.  ::fingers crossed::

Shout It Out!

Wow....I am flabbergasted once again.  Tiny Gardener has awarded me:

"Liebster" is a German word meaning dear, sweet, kind, nice, good, beloved, lovely, kindly, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, and welcome.

The Liebster is awarded to spotlight up and coming bloggers who currently have less than 200 followers.

And she said such nice things about me and my husband, and what we are attempting to do here on our 10-acre homestead.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

So, here are the rules:

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.

2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.

4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.

5. And most of all - have fun!!

Here goes:

1.  Thank you Tiny Gardener!!

2.  a.  Sharon over at Quilting the Farm - Even though I cannot sew a button to save my life, Sharon's blog is beautiful and has tons of fun stuff on it.  Sharon's homesteading adventures are a lot like all of ours, even though she is in Canada - they are just colder....and snowier!!

     b.  Susan at e-i-e-i-omg! - Love her!!  Homesteading is hard....no doubt.  But she does it alone!  I couldn't even imagine...Susan shares it all - from the "hoorays" to the "ughs"...fun stuff!!  Plus, she lives very close to my old stomping grounds in NYS :-)

     c.  Small Farm Girl - I really enjoy reading about her and her husband's adventures - a real gem (and comes in just under the 200 follower limit - PHEW!)

     d.  The Haphazard Countryman over at CONCRETE to CHICKENS - just like the rest of us, trying to carve a country living after being citified :-)  It was nice to have someone going through the anticipation of our first eggs, and trying to get things right as we make the changes to homesteading.

     e.  ADoC over at The Accidental Farm-Girl - I just started reading this blog and thoroughly enjoy it!  Funny, bright and brutally honest - also check out her other blog Another Day of Crazy - I laugh until my sides hurt!

3.  Done :-)

4.  I know they all will!!  This is a great bunch of people and a wonderfully supportive community - I am honored to be a part of it!

5.  Thank you to all my followers - you keep me going!  Have a super day everyone!!