Zombie Awareness Month

Squashes!

This, my friends, is a picture of sweet success. Can't wait to bite down into these things. With grass fed beef steaks and new potatoes and local green beans. Come on, Saturday! Get here already!

And I named this chick. Tried hard not to, really, I did! (Resolved for no names until I knew their gender and which ones I'd be keeping.) But this is Moe. Because... black strip on her head only = mohawk = Moe.

Of Dragons and Chickens

Jam packed weekend! That's the trend for the year, apparently.

Dragon Boat Races! The Museum's new fundraiser. So. Much. Fun! My building, known colloquially as the Kress Building, got together a fun and fabulous team - the Kresstonites. While we didn't win any races, we also didn't lose any. BUT. We did win Best Team Costume! If you can't win, lose with style, right? Dragon tail hats for the win (courtesy of moi. Humility is not my strong point.)



Also this weekend? Baby chicks!
So much cuteness it's ridiculous. :)

Final Hatch Count: 20

Though I lost one last night, and have two more that are rather puny looking. Not confident they'll make it through. Sadface. One of the punies is the only Americauna egg that hatched. That's life (and death), though. Spending my lunch breaks this week driving home to feed and water them. They're going through water at a ridiculous pace! Of course, it doesn't help that they kick the pine shavings into the water, soaking a lot of it up that way. Silly chickies.

AND. To add to the insanity that is my life, I'm hemming a wedding dress and the bridesmaid dresses in the next week or so. Also making five (count 'em - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!) confirmation dresses for my priest friend's church. Deadline? June 12th.

But wait! There's more!! The tension on my fast machine is jacked up, so I need to take it to the shop and see what's up with that. And, of course, the chicks are in their brooder box in my sewing room. Some way I'll also need to build some sort of additional coop to put them in when they can go outside in another couple weeks.

Yikes.

"Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees. night was come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night: too serene for the companionship of fear. We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence. I had risen to my knees to pray for Mr. Rochester. looking up, I, with tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty Milky-way. Remembering what it was - what countless systems there swept space like a soft trace of light - I felt the might and strength of God. Sure was I of His efficiency to save what He had made: convinced I grew that neither earth should perish, nor one of the souls it treasured. I turned my prayer to thanksgiving: the Source of Life was also the Saviour of spirits. Mr. Rochester was safe: he was God's,and by God would he be guarded. I again nestled to the breast of the hill; and ere long in sleep forgot sorrow."

Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte

A Dilemma

Of the rooster variety.

My luck has turned, and I now have at least one, maybe two, to many roosters. Reginald and Clarence (and Norman) have beaten Horace up and knocked him off his throne. Pretty sure Reginald was planning a coup that whole time he was just lurking in the corners of the run... So who stays and who goes?

This delightfully 'furry' creature? Pretty sure if he stays, it'd have to be just him. And honestly, he drug Dru to the hen house by the neck last night. Not winning many brownie points with me...

Or this previously nice one? Who used to get along ohsowell with Horace and has enjoyed chasing Norman his whole life there?

Somehow I don't think leaving these two together will work out very well. Pretty sure they'll stay at it till only one of them remains... And I like Horace. He's a good roo. Pretty sure he's gonna win the rooster lottery and get to stay.

Meanwhile - 2 more weeks till chicks! Which means I've gotta figure out a brooder system... yikes. (And I'm not keeping ANY new roosters. Hens only this time.)

Norman's safe. He's such a weanie. :)

Recipe for an Excellent Good Friday

1. Run 3.3 miles in 32ish minutes with a friend.
2. 4 flats of strawberries + friend and her child + 4 hours = 32 jars of jam (various sizes)
3. Sunshine and a breeze
4. Fellowship with the crazies at church tonight
5. Looking forward to a bluegrass festival and planting the last of the veggies tomorrow.

These Boots Were Made For Farming...

... and that's just what they did today. :) 

The final, fenced in garden. Calling this one The Big Z. Many thanks to the little brother for putting the fencing up.

All that work in February has ended up really paying off. so glad I got all that outta the way in advance, as just using the hoe today was starting to get to my hand.

Crops! A row of Roma tomatoes, row of cucumbers (Lemon & Straight) along the back, zucchini, squash (straight and crookneck), 3 sweet heirloom peppers, 1 'medium hot' heirloom pepper, 2 habanero peppers, 3 'Crimson Sweet' watermelons, dill, anise (hyssop) and bee balm. There's room in the back corner still, and I'm pretty sure I'll stick lavender there.

That broccoli I planted to late in the season? Yeah... you can't fool Mother Nature. It's blooming. Quite pretty, actually.

The romaine lettuce is doing quite well, as are is the buttercrunch lettuce and spinach. Nothing from the cauliflower or the cabbage. Better luck in the fall, yeah?

And those potatoes? Doing quite splendidly, thank you very much. :)

Also. I peeked. There are for real potatoes there. So exciting!!!




In other farm news, hoping to take a passel of eggs to the incubator around the 17th.

news!

I realize I may be the only person that gets excited about such things...


But Drusilla laid an egg today. For the first time in almost a month. Of course, it was soft and cracked, so I chunked it. But still. An egg!!

*beams*

Visit here. Join us on our scavenger hunt.

Bad Days

After a couple of days of disappoints and stress, what's the bright spot in my life?

The thought of some of these in the near future.

I'll be attempting to hatch out some of my very chicks in another week. Thanks to Not My Cousin Charles, who just bought an incubator and offered to let me bring some of my eggs over to hatch. Now I just hope to get some fertile ones. And with 4 roosters and 3 laying hens, the chances are pretty good, methinks.

(Dru's still sick and not laying. Still have no idea what's up with her, or if she'll lay again. So. Baby chicks. Only keeping the hens! Roosters = good eats.)

The New Kids on the Block

Reginald

(a beautiful black silkie - he looks furry instead of feathery. Trying to get a picture of his face, but he's skittish.)

Rosemary

(an Ameracauna - the green/blue egg layers!)

I Can Haz Potatos?

 

 

Yes, please. :)

This Is How I Roll

For a week, any ways.

Proctology gloves for the win!

March!

March is my favorite month (and not just because that's when my birthday is). It's the month when things turn green again; the daffodils show their cheery faces to the sun; the sun is warm again and the world just erupts in glorious green and colorful splendor.

happy thoughts!

• I can almost use my hand! Though ohsocarefully. 
• My potatos are sprouting. SO glad they (well, at least one) survived the ice and the subsequent digging up to see if it was alive. :)
• Spring. Did I mention how I love it?
• Fun times with fun friends
• Games of "Rawr!"
• Feather pillows. They are the bomb. Just sayin'.
• Chickens. They are just amazing - be they rubber or real, they're still amazing.

Chicken Train

Ridiculous gardening list (to be accomplished in 6 working days, 3 of them being church days as well): DONE!

Elizabeth: so sleepy and tired from simultaneous farming and Insanity.

Carpal tunnel surgery: Tuesday. Kinda ready for the break.

FUN!

Beautiful

 

 

Regina Spektor ~ No Surprises ~ Radiohead.
A heart that’s full up like a landfill
A job that slowly kills you
Bruises that won’t heal

You look so tired and unhappy
Bring down the government
They don’t, they don’t speak for us
I’ll take a quiet life
A handshake of carbon monoxide

No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
Silent, silent

This is my final fit, my final bellyache with

No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises please

Such a pretty house, such a pretty garden

No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)
No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)
No alarms and no surprises please (let me out of here)

A Drawing

Yogurt Win; Fitness Fail

Thicker and creamier than last time, even.

But no fitness this morning. Turned off that alarm and went back to sleep. :(

Two things of cheese hanging right now. One with pink himalayan salt. I'll add loverly herbs and whatnot to that one tomorrow. Yums!

Yogurt Fail?

Well, pretty sure I just royally messed that batch up.

1. The milk boiled over
2. Didn't properly wash the measuring cup
3. Splashed some water into the milk with the measuring cup
4. Didn't pour the milk/yogurt mix in very slowly
5. Had to pick up my jars with my hand because the tongs weren't where I thought they were

And the worst part is, I won't know for sure if I've failed until 11:30.
That's waaaaay past my Insanity bedtime, people.
And if I miss Insanity in the morning, that'll just up the FAILURE level of this week.

Blergh.

Now to scrub a milky stove and sterilize my cheeseclothes, just in case by some miracle this venture works.

Quiltin' at the Tamp & Grind

Farming and Fire

 I am on a ridiculous mission to till up a new, rather massive, garden bed in the back. By the end of February. A giant part of this plan was disposing of a sprawling burn pile out in the 'field'. It was added to by some... less than helpful gents, and as such was now more of a sprawling continent than a burn pile. First things first - dissemble the pile. I sorted the sticks and limbs I removed by size... dunno why. Turned out to be pretty helpful, actually, as we fed them back to the fire...

 The next part of my plan involved bribing my brother and his girlfriend with pizza and beer to come out and help me burn the giant thing. Jess even used the weedeater on all that retarded hedge crap out there and cleared a lot of land for me. They basically rock.

(Jess got it lit. Jason said the gasoline I poured on was mostly water. It wasn't - Jess almost died when it caught.)





Christmas trees burn beautifully, by the way.

The End! We got it all burned. Which totally surprised me - thought for sure it would be a two-day burn. But no - all gone!!

Next: clear the grass and till the ground. :)








Old and new seedlings undera light now. They're not growing so well (to be expected, given the conditions I'm forcing on them.) Hoping this helps!

Blergh

 

Could use a little of this in my life right now.

Just sayin'.

28 degree temps are not for me. Not right now. 

My gardening list is long and must be accomplished.

Soon.

Curds and Whey

Winter Came

Winter Weather, Eh?

So this whole winter storm warning hasn't delivered thus far.

But hey! Afternoon off (due to ice, obviously), lounging in my hoodie, tea, goat cheese, pepper jelly & crackers and working on this while watching Alice in Wonderland? Pretty decent trade-off, really.

An Informative Post

Top Ten Lessons for Surviving a Zombie Attack
(The Zombie Survival Guide, Max Brooks)

1. Organize before they rise!
2. They feel no fear, why should you?
3. Use yoiur head: cut off theirs.
4. Blades don't need reloading.
5. Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair
6. Get up the staircase, then destroy it.
7. Get out of the car, get onto the bike
8. Keep moving, keep low, keep quiet, keep alert!
9. No place is safe, only safer.
10. The zombie may be gone, but the threat lives on.

Of Seedlings and Chickens

 

A Ghetto Covered Chicken Coop

Claudette Colbert, Petunia & Drusilla

Clarence & Norman

(Horace was camera shy)

BOO!

So it's been a while. I'll spare you the ridiculous 'apologies' for absence - you don't care. I don't care. The End. :)

Upcoming Projects!

• Cheesemaking. Thanks to Kate for getting me super motivated on this one
• Quilting. I've started a ridiculous quilt. By hand, of course. This is also spurred on by Kate, as I was bemoaning how my lunchbreaks are now empty and meaningless since I workout early in the mornings for 45ish more days. Upon suggesting that I needed a project, my mind went straight to quilting. I've yet to complete the first block, I must confess. Measuring seam allowances may be helpful... but you know me. I like to wing it. :)
• Expand the garden. Got some massive plans on this front, and will be getting that rolling in the next two weeks. Yay for burning things!! Yes, that's the first step of the garden making plan. (Giant mish-mash pile of limbs that need to be eradicated as they are sitting on my gardening spot.)
• More chickens! Shocker, right? My little chicks are doing quite well. There have been some tragedies, i.e., Henrietta II and Anastasia (who laid beautiful green eggs!) untimely demise. But thanks to the help of good friends, the coop is now covered and they're safe from harm! Also, psbtw, Norman the Hen is totally Norman the Rooster. Hens: 3, Roosters: 3. All three girls are laying, finally. Molting set Drusilla back quite a ways in the late fall.
• Continue to survive work. Which is harder now that my partner in crime has left. Sadface.
• Finish Insanity.
• Have carpal tunnel surgery. (Preferably after the garden is built and Insanity is finished. We'll see how that works out. Though now that I've dropped the push-ups from the program, it's tons better.)
• Can a bazillion jars of tomatos. Yes, that's a technical term. Remember that Pollock tomato farm? SO there again this year. Only more so. 
• Make a bazillion jars of blueberry jelly from the massive amounts of blueberries I'll pick this year.
• Grow purple hull peas. Because I need them in my life.

Can you tell I'm excited for Summer?