Pork Fat on June's First Snow Day

As I went out to feed the chickens breakfast yesterday, I made sure to have my cell phone camera at the ready, because the softly falling snow I could see through the window meant that this wasn't just the first snow of the year, it was also June's first snow day ever.  I don't remember the first time I ever saw falling snow because I'm sure I was a baby.  June is already laying eggs, and this was the first snow of her life, so I thought it might be worthy of a photograph.  Is it just me, or does she look a little worried?  

Mrs. Hall kept photo bombing my efforts because she was anxious for breakfast, as usual.  

While I was crouched in chicken photographer mode, Pork Fat tried to practically climb on my face.  Have I introduced you to Pork Fat?  Pork Fat, meet the blog.  

Pork Fat got her unfortunate name because she smells like, well, she smells like pork fat!  Burned pork fat, to be more precise.  At least she did when she arrived from mom's house.  Jamie returned from a visit to our parents and walked in the door asking my if I had checked my phone messages yet?  If I had, I would have known that mom's poor chicken was being harassed to the point of near baldness by her young roosters, and she decided to send her pitiful bald chicken to me, so she could recuperate.  For some reason Pork Fat was the favorite of the roosters, and had been reduced to hiding all day, and only coming out to eat from one of the bird seed feeders I made from the melted and slightly burned pork fat from my fat melting day.  I placed her in a crate in Brandon's studio, and when I opened the door the next morning, the entire room reeked of burned pork rinds.  Bleck!  I was now the owner of the ugliest and smelliest chicken ever.  Yay.    

She really was pitiful.  She wasn't just bald because of the roosters, she wasn't also molting, and was covered in tiny sheath covered pin feathers, some of which were broken from being pecked.  Her toes are crooked too, and seem lumpy and swollen.  She probably has gout from eating all that pork fat!  She was also very timid, but after living in a crate for a week or so, she started to be less frightened of me, and was eating ravenously.  Believe it or not, she actually looks much prettier now than she did, and she ain't pretty.  

I'm not sure what it is about this chicken (maybe its the smell?), but Mrs. Hall and June hate her.  They chase her down and stand on her back and pick her feathers out violently while she squawks like she's dying.  They even made her bleed, and I had to keep them separated with wire for a long time.  Now, at least, she can be in the yard with them, but if she comes anywhere near them they attack.  At night I put her in the coop after dark, and they all sleep together peacefully, so I have hopes that she will eventually find her place.  Since she knows that I will protect her, she's the friendliest chicken I've ever had.  She tries to jump into my arms, which is very annoying, and I can hardly walk because she is under my feet clucking for me to pick her up.  I'm beginning to see Mrs. Hall's point of view.    She's ugly, smelly, annoying, and heaps of trouble.  Poor Pork Fat.  

Chicken Tractor Tour

Since the weather hasn't been conducive to more than a few moments of chicken appreciation at a time, especially when the best hours of the day have been spent in the office, it was well past time to do some routine chores around the barn yard, so on a sunny day during my two week vacation, the ladies and I spent some quality time sprucing up the coop.  

This is the view from just inside the nest box door.  You can see the nest platform with wood chips in the foreground, and the long flat board that extends from the nest box which is the perch for roosting.  In theory, the chickens spend the night on the perch, and only go in the nest box to lay an egg.  In reality, they sometimes like to sleep in the nest box.  I don't blame them; it's cozy and soft.  The problem with this is that chickens poop during the night.  If they are on the perch, the poop falls to the ground, if they sleep in the nest box it gets mixed in the wood chips and makes the nest box gross. 

One special feature of my chicken coop is the hole in the nest box floor.  This is where I can insert a bottle of water with a special red nipple in the lid, that allows the chickens, from below, to peck at it and get a drink of water.  In theory, this allows the chickens to have clean water on demand, and allows me to move the coop without having to worry about spilling the water. In reality, the chickens prefer to drink from a bucket, I move the coop infrequently, and the bottle of water freezes in the winter anyway, so, I took it out, and now I have a pointless hole in my nest box for eggs and wood chips to fall through.  

Well, the hole isn't entirely pointless, as it provides a handy way to scrape all the dirty wood chips from the nest box with a hoe.  Still, I have been meaning to do something about this hole for a long time, and decided this was the big day.  What I needed, was a nest box liner.  What to use...? 

Ah ha!  Scrounging in the nearby shed, I found a roll of posters I have been hoarding saving, and decided that one of the posters would provide more use as a nest box liner than it does being rolled up in the shed.  I let Mrs. Hall and June decided which to use, and they both agreed that Wildflowers of Kentucky fit their style quite well.  We spent some instructional time reviewing the flower photos before placing the poster in the nest box.  

The back of the poster has some nice write-ups about each flower depicted on the front, and a helpful diagram of the parts of a flower.  Knowing the reputation chickens have for braininess, I decided that the hens might prefer some educational reading material while they are sitting in the nest box waiting for their egg to arrive, so I placed the poster with the back facing up.  

Even after I filled the nest box with clean wood chips, I thought it was nice that we could still read about the wild columbine, which we have in the garden and is one of my favorites.  

I spread the dirty wood chips around inside the coop, and put a layer of clean chips on top.  Some winters, I have placed the coop on top of the garden, so the wood chips and chicken poop could remain as fertilizer.  But, even if I don't do that, it's not hard to rake up the chips and droppings and spread them around my garden, so this year I left the coop where it is, since it's a relatively level and sheltered spot.  

Another feature of my chicken tractor is the white and red feeder bucket that hangs from the bottom of then nest box.  In theory, I can fill this feeder with more than a weeks worth of food and the chickens have access to all the clean food they want, and I don't have to worry about spilling the food when I move the coop.  In reality, even when the coop door is shut, the numerous house finches that live in our neighborhood find a way to eat up all the chicken food.  I don't mind to share, but those guys are so greedy!  So, I put grit and oyster shells in the feeder instead.  The grit is the grey rocks in the picture above, which the chickens can eat for their gizzards, which grind up their food instead of teeth, and the oyster shells are the white bits in the photos, so they can eat extra calcium and make strong eggs shells.  Every morning I throw cracked corn and chicken food pellets on the ground for the chickens, and as soon as I walk away the the house finches descend from the nearby trees to join the chickens for breakfast.  Sometimes I turn back around and shout "boo!", just to watch them scatter.  Silly birds.  

When preparing the chickens for winter, not only do I plug in a heated water bucket to make sure their water doesn't freeze, I also lean a piece of Plexiglas on each side of the tractor to add a little extra protection from the elements.  From what I've read, chickens can handle extreme cold as long as they aren't wet.  

Notice the little wheels on the front of the tractor?  I exchanged a dozen eggs from Helen and Mrs. Hall for the wheels, which allow me to sort of roll the tractor into position.  That was my first chicken egg barter, so I thought it was pretty exciting.  

To complete the coop clean up, I added a little edible decoration for the chickens to enjoy - the cranberry and popcorn strands that we made with my nieces and nephew for my Christmas tree.  

They looked nearly as nice on the coop as they did on my tree.  It took Mrs. Hall a few days to figure out that there was popcorn on the her house, but as soon as she did she decimated them.  The cranberries didn't go over as well.  

Thank you for joining me on this unscheduled chicken coop tour!  Anybody else have nifty things about their chicken coop they would like to share? It won't be long before I'm designing a bigger coop for my future flock at the farm, so any lessons learned would be appreciated.  

Spackling- Just Like Frosting a Cake

I do not find drywalling to be as dry as I expected.  Instead, it's some of the most exciting moments of house renovation, and also some of the most satisfying.  The exciting part comes when Brandon finishes putting the screws in a piece that I've been straining to hold in place, and then we step back and get a small trill when we realize that now it finally looks like a wall.  Turns out, walls are some of the best parts of a house.  

Once we had enough walls in place, it was my turn to take charge of the next step, which is applying the drywall compound to the seams and screw holes.  This is the part we've been dreading, and that so many people encouraged us to hire out.  Since  multiple friends have taken the time to offer phone numbers of their favorite drywall guys, I can only assume that this is a skill hard to master, and that there isn't abundant confidence that a someone like me is up for the challenge.  My past experience with drywall spackling, as a teenager, would not enhance my handyman resume either, since the seams turned out terrible and the paper soon started to peel away.  But, that was before youtube. Youtube teaches everything, and I have spent many minutes sitting on my bucket of drywall compound watching tiny images on my phone make applying drywall spackle seem as easy as frosting a cake.  

Apparently, the key to success is to do multiple thin coats, with successively larger trowels, which is not something I realized as a teen when I slopped it on thick and tried to smooth it out with a single tool.  The first coat sticks on the paper that seals the seams, and I did nearly the entire house in just two short efforts.  To my surprise, I find this job to be very enjoyable.  Since the radio station that comes in the best at the farm house intermixed hip hop, pop, and Christmas tunes for the weeks leading up to the holiday, I've had very entertaining and seasonally appropriate music to my labor.  I've nearly finished the second coat on everything that was ready, and I have high hopes that I'm doing at least good enough that with a few strategically placed paintings on the walls, we will be happy with our home made drywall job.   

In this photo, you can see the exposed chimney upstairs with its cage of boards and mess of electric wires.  Not very tidy at all.  

But once we recruited Jamie to help us load and hang ten more sheets of drywall, the room and chimney begins to take on a much more tidy appearance.  

See, isn't that exciting.  Now we have walls!  Even more exciting, the chimney walls mean I get to use some outside corner spackling techniques that I have only watched other people do on the interweb.  I've tried my hand at the first two coats on some inside corners, but outside corners are brand new for me.  I bet after I finish all the many coats of spackle on the walls of this house, I will be a champ when it comes to frosting a cake!

This Year - Lights!

Happy New Year, folks!  I took a two weeks off from work and my normal life and did my best to take full advantage of the holiday season.  I visited, gifted, baked, decorated, and imbibed enough that there may have even been some spontaneous caroling.  Jamie told me that to really make sure my time off didn't feel like it was over too fast, I must change habits to create new connections in my brain, which makes time feel like it passes more slowly.  So, I tried brushing my hair with my left hand, and I did my best to avoid all glowing screens of technology during my hiatus.  I also learned some new house renovation skills during this break, so now I can add light fixture installation and drywall compound spackling to my brain connections, and since it feels like it's taking forever to master these skills, this approach must be working! 

Trying to decide on the best lighting for the kitchen and dining room has been creating some minor stress for me.  Every time I looked online for lighting options, there were endless fixtures to chose from, and I couldn't settle on any of them.  When I looked at Lowe's during our frequent supply runs, I never saw anything that I thought fit the space.   I've had some ugly light fixtures in my life, but it wasn't until I was faced with selecting light fixtures of my own, that I truly appreciated the fact that I could always blame someone else's bad taste for my ugly lights.  

Brandon didn't seem to have the same anxiety about light selection.  Once the ceiling was finished enough that lights could be installed, he was ready to be able to see while we worked.  Before we even made it half way down the first lighting isle at Lowe's, he identified these square florescent lights as possibilities.  I never even gave these lights a second glance, but once he pointed out that they might look light the sky lights that I had wished for, I was ready to give them a try.  What a relief!  

I think Brandon was right, too.  The lights do remind me of sky lights, and they fit the slanted ceiling quite well and make more than enough light. Now that they are installed and functioning, we are pleased.  During the installation process though, we were frustrated with the shoddy workmanship of these lights and the terrible instructions.  Junk!  We didn't give up though, and after tinkering with them we managed to get them together. 

We selected a deck light for the spot on the wall in the bathroom that will be near the toilet.  The ceilings are too low in the bathroom for overhead lights, and most of the wall sconces available seemed too fancy for our funky room.  

The first night we had the lights installed, Brandon, Puck, and I walked down the long driveway so we could admire our house with lighted windows from a distance.  It looks... so alone!  And the night looks so dark!  It was a little spooky really, seeing the tiny lighted windows and realizing that there are no other lights around.  It's going to be a change from what we are used to, for sure.  Where we live now, there are lights everywhere -neighbors houses, cars, and street lights.  At the little farm house, it's going to be just us and the stars, and whatever goes bump in the night...

Home Made Ranch Dip (No MSG!)

I have more than a normal level of excitement for learning to make my own ranch flavored vegetable dip.  I've tried to express this excitement to those at home, but was not getting the enthusiastic response that I thought this kitchen experiment deserved -  Hey guys, guess what?! I have all the ingredients to make ranch dip!! Isn't this awesome?... (not a single Whoop! in response).  Maybe I should explain how cool this is?  

A bowl of ranch flavored vegetable dip nestled into a ring of vegetable sticks has been a staple appetizer at family gatherings since I've been old enough to help chop the celery.  It's what we serve; it's what we like.  Kids love it too, and will actually eat vegetables if they can put ranch on it.  And, its' so easy to make.  All we have to do is stir a package of ranch seasoning into some sour cream, and  wha-la, the dip is made, and the special occasion has officially been launched.  

But, then we learned about monosodium glutamate (MSG).  Well, I guess we always knew about MSG, and knew it wasn't good for us, but I didn't truly appreciate the potential for harm until I was watching a documentary where one of the interviewees said that MSG is used to make mice fat for experiments on weight loss and weight gain using lab animals.  What?!  Sure enough, when I googled MSG there are pages of websites demonstrating that mice don't naturally eat until they are obese, but if you inject them with MSG, or feed it to them, they keep eating until they are fatties.  Not only do they get fat, some of the websites claimed that they develop poor eye site, eating disorders, and learning problems.  People are asking, what if MSG, which is in so many things we love to eat, is part of reason so many of us are fatties too?  It would be great to avoid MSG as much as possible, but there are no pre-packaged ranch dip seasonings that don't have MSG, at least not where I shop.  They don't even try to hide it by naming it something else, they just put it right in the ingredients list, bold as brass.  

I tried to stop serving it, but what is a try of vegetables without the bowl of ranch dip?  It's junk, that what.  Especially for the kids.  Raw broccoli without ranch dip is like asking a kid to eat tree bark, and I don't blame them.  We want our ranch dip, and we want it without MSG, and after years of telling myself I'm going to learn to make it from scratch, I finally, just last week, did it!  Whoop! Whoop!

Making ranch dip is not hard at all.  My hold up was gathering all the spices at the same time, plus finding powdered buttermilk.  I don't know why I thought it would be hard to find powdered buttermilk, since it turns out they sell it at Kroger, but some how when I looked at the long list of ingredients I always put it off.  Not anymore.  Here is the recipe I used, and when I served it to Jamie and Brandon, mixed in sour cream, even after they had been teasing me about what they thought was my disproportional excitement, they both agreed that it's some of the best ranch dip they had ever tasted.  Brandon even said "no joke" when he told me this, so I know he wasn't just being patronizing as I hovered over him when he tasted it.  

We all enjoyed the ranch dip with sour cream, which was a thick consistency good for dipping.  But what if we want to use it as salad dressing?  Well, a few spoonfuls of my home made keffir, and it turned into a creamy dressing that would be perfect.

I mixed up an entire jar of the powder, so all I have to do now is mix three tablespoons of the dry seasoning with the sour cream and I will be able to pull off the traditional vegetable tray for special occasions and eliminate the guilt of serving MSG.  

I could tell this dip was good when the cats started to circle me like sharks, and I didn't want to share a single drop with them.  I'll lick my own bowl, thank you.  

Sock Creatures Made with Sugar, Spice, Snips, and Snails

More silly sock creatures have appeared on my dining room table this holiday season.  They insisted that they be made for my nieces and nephew, even though we all know that no kid really wants toys made from some one else's old socks.  But, since I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when they open these monstrosities, I'm glad the silly sock creatures arrived when they did.  

I think these creatures are some of the funniest and ugliest I've ever created.  I didn't intend for them to be quite so ugly.  Until they arrived, I was pretty sure all sock monkeys were inherently cute.  The first one I made for my youngest niece sort of looks like cute puppy, so I assumed the rabbit shaped creature would have a similar cuteness factor for my older niece.  What's not adorable about argyle socks?

But, once the creature was stuffed, I realized that it wasn't very feminine, and my niece appreciates femininity.  The creature sort of looked like it had giant ant antenna instead of cute rabbit ears.  Sock creatures really do take on a life of their own.  No problem though, since I can feminize with some sparkly pink accessories, as my niece has taught me, and add some personality with funny teeth and googly eyes, right? 

 

 

As we all know, eyeball placement can define sock creature personality.  Luckily I discovered another handy use of the cell phone camera - the ability to try various eye ball placements and then spend way too much time weighing the pros and cons of each image.  Personally, I liked the eyeball placement shown on the bottom left, but I decided it was a little too scary and alien for a child's room.  Same thing with the cyclops eye on the bottom right.  The eyes high on the forehead in the upper right photo give the creature a non threatening expression, but maybe too silly?    

I finally decided on the eyes near the lips, to enhance the friendly baby rabbit look. A pink sock  with shiny red hearts was turned into a skirt, collar, and antenna bow.  Sugar, spice, and everything nice!

For my nephew I decided to use one of Brandon's worn out socks, since I thought a little boy would be most likely to appreciate the gross factor of cuddling up with his uncle's foot essence.  

What are little boys made of?  Snips and snails and puppy dog tails, that's what little boys are made of!  I didn't have snails, but I did have snips.  Snips of an old neck tie, and snips of socks to turn into tusks and tongue.  And, the creature has a tail!    

My nephew's favorite color is yellow, so I incorporated yellow eyes.  And, for first time ever, I gave a sock creature a button nose.  An artist must follow her instincts.  

My plan is to have the kids come to my house and decorate the tree while the adults enjoy some eggnog. I think I will let the kids open their sock creature presents at the tree decoration party, when they won't be overshadowed by the heaps of real toys that are coming on Christmas day.  I have predictions about how they will be received by each.  We'll see!

June, Did You Make This?

As a chicken owner, daughter of chicken owner, and friend of a legit Chicken Farmer, it's embarrassing to have to buy eggs at the grocery store!  But, since my flock consists of one very old and molting hen, and one very young hen, and everyone else's flocks have reduced productivity too, I've found myself sheepishly hiding cartons of eggs in my shopping cart.  But, look what I found in the nest box this week!  Isn't it a cute little egg.  

I'm sure it was put in the next box by June, but when I asked her about it she looked at me like I was crazy.  Or maybe she looked at me like she was crazy... it's hard to know who is the strangest, the chicken or the person asking the chicken questions.  

June and Mrs. Hall are getting along very well right now.  As long a June lets Mrs. Hall lead the way, she seems to have been forgiven for being newer, younger, fluffier, shinier, and better able to lay eggs.  Underneath Mrs. Halls mean instincts is a good heart, I'm sure.

I can't wait to expand my flock.  One egg a week is not going to satisfy our egg habit!