Snow Day Morning Chores

 

Finally, a work day snow day!  We had perfectly picturesqe snow on Christmas day, but I already had the day off so it hardly counts.  The perfect snow day is an unexpected day off, right?  

Especially if you have a collection of fuzzies to keep you company.  Sienna puppy is growing so fast, but I predict she will not be as large as Wendigo.  I've been reminded that I thought Wendigo was a challenge when she was Sienna's age too, but now Wendigo seems a perfect angel compared to Sienna. 

Sienna chases, chews, and pounces but it's so good to have a dog that will do all my chores with me again.  Wendigo limits her exhertions to protect her bad knees, but Sienna sticks with me no matter how many trips I make to take to visit the goats.   

We begin our mornings chores with a visit to the donkeys on our way to the mobile chicken coop.  Good morning Ernest - what a big yawn!  

The mobile chicken coop has been moved into the small fenced paddock next to the donkeys.  This gives the chickens their own space to eat and assemble at the coop without being harrassed by Sienna.  The chickens can get out of the fence through gaps, but they tend to stick to the tree lines and back fields to avoid the dog.  I miss seeing them near the house, but it's nice that they keep their mess to the back of the farm now.  

With only ten hens, a rooster, and two guinea fowl, there's plenty of roost space in the mobile coop, yet five of the hens are roosting in the cedar trees at night.  They are taking a risk that a racoon will nab them while they sleep, but they roost so high in the tangled branches I can't fish them down and re-train them to the coop.  Cross you fingers that Sienna and Wendigo take their guard dog duties serisously.  

I moved the chicken food to a lidded barrel near the coop, and I have water buckets near the fence that I can fill from the hose.  I secure the coop door open in the morning, spread chicken pellets on the ground, and bust the ice from the water bucket.  Sienna waits with the donkeys while I tend the chickens.  On this snow day, instead of the normal excided exodus when I open the door, all the tree roosting chickins quickly hopped inside instead.  I don't blame them for wanting their feet out of the snow.   

Look!  Eggs in the nest box!  

After a winter break, my hold hens started laying again when the days began to get longer. The giant white eggs are from the little white hens, and the smallest tan egg is from the giant red meat hen.  

Good morning, Rufus!  Are you anxious for your breakfast hay?  I break the ice on the donkey water and give them a couple flakes of hay.  I've been told that mini donkeys can live on a single flake of hay per day, and a flake is approximatley four pounds of hay.  Rufus and Ernest love to eat, so I give them each a flake in the morning and each another at night.  They would eat even more if I gave it to them, but Ernest is supposed to be on a diet.  I've been cutting little maple saplings from the tree lines and pitching them in the fence.  They eat all the little twigs and peel off the bark!  I think they get bored without something to chew on.  Especially Ernest, who nibbles on the wood gate.  

I need to weigh a flake, because I may be giving them way more than they need, and Brandon is worried I won't make it through until spring with the hay we have stored.  I can easily use a bale each day, and we won't make more bales until the end of May.  I do have one last giant round bale from the year before, so maybe we'll squeak by.    

The goats are living in the fence in the woods behind the zip line field.  Can you see the little shed in the photo?  It's a bit of a walk from the hay barn or the water spicket, so I get plenty of steps during my chores - even some wieght lifting as I carry hay and water.  

My nephew and I walked to visit the goats when we had our camp fire thanksgiving pie celebration, and he mentioned that all these animals seem like a lot of trouble.  Tell me about it - Ha!  I told him that I spend about a half hour on chores in the morning, and another in the evening, so I get an hour of outside excersize every day, rain or shine, because if I skip it my animals will suffer or die.  Talk about motivation!  He said he spends an hour outside playing basketball every morning since he can't go to school.  Why didn't I think of that! 

Unlike the sheep, who rarely need their hay basket filled as they spend all their time grazing grass, the goats are voracious hay eaters, and hay wasters.  Can you see how much hay has built up inside their fence?

The goats are standing on nearly two feet of hay they drop from their basket, and once it hits the ground they don't eat it.  It's good for them to have clean hay bedding, and all that organic matter heats up as it composts and makes a nice warm bed for them.  Brandon found a big wooden crate dismanlted in the dumpster at school.  He brought it home, reassembed it, nailed some tin on for a water proof roof, and cut a little door way into it.  The goats think this goat house is the perfect place to cozy up out of the weather, and I laugh when I see them all come squeezing out of that little hole like clowns from a clown car.  How do they fit?   

The last chore is to feed the wolves dogs.  

Wendigo thinks it's rude to take photos of her with her mouth full. 

Seinna looks ferocious when she chews! 

Chili Competition Pie

Jamie won our annual work chili cook-off this year.  There were nine entries, and he won first prize, which is a day of paid leave.  Instead of entering a chili in the competition, I baked pies.  The award for pie baking is the joy of crafting the pies, followed by the pie admiration of my coworkers, and then the miserable state of everyone's digestion after eating nine bowls of chili and giant hunks of pie for lunch during a work day!   

I enjoyed making these pies so much I couldn't resist taking photos. Cutting butter chunks into flour is so satisfying.   

Apples, peeled and ready to fill a crust. 

I made a little extra dough for each pie this time, and it was nice to have plenty to cover the dish, and even a little extra for a tiny bonus pie.  

Flipping the rolled out dough into the pie plate is always tricky.  But look, I did it perfectly this time! 

Isn't it pretty, with the edges all crimped?  

The apple peeler/slicer crank tool thing I have always leaves a little bit of peel on the slice at either end of the apple.  These slices with peel were perfect for the tiny bonus pie made from the extra bits of dough.  

Cinnamon and sugar, poured over the apple slices.  Oh yeah.  

Then a mixture of flour, sugar, and butter sprinkled on the top.  

Baked to golden perfection!  

While the apple pie was baking, I rolled out the dough for the chocolate pie.  Success!  

The chocolate, sugar, butter, egg yolks, and evaporated milk are heated on the stove top until the butter melts, then poured into the unbaked crust.  I used up all the extra bits of dough in the little bonus pie, making the crust extra thick so I only had to steal a little filling from the big pie. 

When the pie was nearly done baking, I used the egg whites and sugar to whip up the meringue.  I even added and extra egg white, so it would be tall and fluffy.  The meringue goes on the hot pie, then back in the oven until it's golden brown.  

The meringue is always taller out of the oven than it is when it cools.  I wonder if there's a way to keep it from shrinking?  

Brandon was prepared to be dissapointed that I was baking pies for a party he wasn't able to attend, so the little bonus pies were perfect.  He got to have a slice of the pie, but we didn't eat an entire pie all by ourselves!  

October Things

My brothers and I celebrated our birthdays this October, and I baked two cakes!  Real cakes, with gluten and sugar and all the bad wonderful tasting things.  The cakes were a treat to eat, and also a treat for me to bake.  We would have needed one hundred and nineteen candles to represent all our years!   

Our traditional October birthday family meal is chili spaghetti, Cincinnati style, topped with shredded cheese, diced onions, and oyster crackers, and served by the fireside.  This year, along with regular spaghetti and gluten free spaghetti, we served spaghetti squash grown in my garden, which has been stored in the root cellar.  

I baked the squash halves at four hundred and sixty degrees for an hour, then scooped out all the squash noodles into the crock pot, topped it with ghee patties, and turned it on low.  It worked pretty good!  I hoped that if I skipped the real noodles and crackers, then I would do less damage to my body when I ate two pieces of cake!  

It's hard for me to believe that October is already over.  October was the check-in on Ernest from the equine adoption agency.  I had to submit a picture of his body, from the side, and a photo of his feet.  In January they will remind me that his vet check-up is due.  If the vet says he's well cared for, then I think the adoption agency will be satisfied that we've provided a good home.  Ernest has settled in well, and feels free to bray for food and attention!  We can tell the two donkeys apart from their bray.  Rufus sounds like a rusty hinge, and Ernest sounds like an old fashioned car horn.  Aa-ooga!  Aa-ooga! 

The new puppy, Sienna, likes to chase the chickens.  Not with intent to eat or kill them, but she enjoys it when they squawk and flutter away. She's a ruckus instigator!  

When the puppy is on the loose, Cogburn, the rooster, clucks and calls all twelve hens together and leads them into the dense weeds in the tree line.  Most of the hens look ragged right now from the fall molt.  They look like scruffy ruffians hiding in the weeds!  

Look, a double rainbow!

The guineas are more brave than the chickens, so they don't run far when Sienna charges through their space.  Wendigo knows to pay attention when the guineas sound the alarm, and you can see her turn her head and prick her ears when they start to call.  She will follow them to the source of their excitement, and I've noticed the puppy following her lead.  Guineas and great pyrenness make a good defensive team.  

Pistol Pete, the ram, is growing a long shaggy neck ruff.  He's very shy and won't let me pet him.  When he sticks his head in his food bowl I sneak a few scratches between his ears.  He gets offended, and ducks his head.  He loves his daily pound of mixed grains, which I call cookies.  Who doesn't love cookies!   

Lambchop, the ewe, hasn't had her baby yet.  When we brought her home, we thought birth was imminent, but she just keeps getting fatter!  Sheep are pregnant for five months, so if her pregnancy started in July, it may be as late as December before we get a new lamb.  The reason the farmer wanted to sell her was because she was pregnant out of season, and will give birth during the cold winter.  My hope is that we can keep her lamb warm and help it survive despite being born in the wrong time of year.  If we can keep it alive, and it's a girl, then we will have another breeder.  Cross your fingers!  Lambchop is getting tamer by the day, and will even stay lying down while I pet her.  She's as soft as a cotton ball.  

Do you know how I can tell it's getting to be winter?  Is it the frost, or the dropped leaves?  Nope.  It's how many pictures I've taken of cozy cats!  

The cats and I are patiently waiting for the first inside fire.  Brandon has accused us of burning all the best, driest wood early in the year last year, so this year I'm wearing an extra sweater, and the cats are curled up somewhere snugly until real winter sets in.  It won't be long!  

Spiders, Snakes, Mud, and Mold - Oh My!

Time to retrieve spaghetti squash from the scary root cellar, Rain.  But what about spider webs?!  I could walk right through a giant spider web and get a spider in my hair!  Ack!  Don't be a ninny, Rain, you've walked through spider webs before and it didn't kill you. Do it!

Okay, I'm down the steps.  But what about snakes?!  The last time I was in here there was a snake on the stairs!  And what is that on that box over there!?  A snake skin!? It's huge! Oh nooo!!!!  Wait a minute - you are not afraid of black snakes, Rain.  They don't even have legs. Are you going to run from something without legs.  You might as well be afraid of worms.  Rain, are you afraid of worms?   

No, you're right, Rain. I'm going in. Oh my gosh, look at all that mud!  Why is the floor so muddy?  Its that horrible orange clay mud, too, that stains shoes forever.  The squash are way over there.  My shoes will be ruined!  Rain, it's just mud.  Jeeze.

Fine, I'm doing it.  Eeek!  That creepy lady sculpture is freaking me out!  What if the door blows shut, and I'm trapped down here in the dark with her FOREVER?!?  Really, Rain?  Just calm down and grab the squash, okay? Okay. 

 

Eewww, that squash is all moldy and leaking brown juice on everything.  If I disturb the mold, I'll be inhaling mold spores, mixed with dead spider spores, and snake skin spores and mud and ...is there even any air in here... I CAN'T BREATH!!!  RUN!!    

Happy Halloween Rain, you scared yourself silly.