Nasty Gnats

Those horrible black biting gnats are officially here. 😭 

I thought I spied one as I got out of my car, but thought "it's too early and it's been cold!" I was wrong. Poor Jaron bore the brunt of that...

We spent yesterday afternoon outside - moving the potato containers, pulling dandelions in the garden, and hauling mulch to make pathways in the garden. 

Just two of the potato containers have sprouted so far the red and purple. None of the garden planted potatoes have sprouted yet.

Jaron was quite content to play with the rocks in the driveway and then play with a bucket of dirt in the shade next to the garden. I noticed bugs flying around my face but didn't get bit. 

I looked over to see how Jaron was doing and saw blood literally dripping down his neck! 😱 I thought he'd scratched himself really bad somehow, but after running over, I saw the bite marks. 

Poor buddy. He must take after me because they didn't bother him at all yesterday, and then overnight they turned itchy. I had to hold his arm down until he fell asleep so he wouldn't scratch. 

This is after getting him cleaned up. I put some honey tallow salve on the bites, then later some elder salve. Hopefully they heal quickly. 

We went back out after dousing ourselves in vanilla spray and Bug Soother. The gnats didn't bother us the rest of the day! 

Orange Egg Yolks

Just a short post today! 

Check out these vibrant yolks...

What a difference the spring weather makes! More insects and growing things to eat means more nutrients and more color in the eggs (both inside and out). 

Goats Giving Grief

Somehow the goats know when we're gone and save their mischief for those special times...

I was gone all morning, so of course when I came home I found Brighita in the pasture and Senka on the duck side.

My first clue was Gerda's frantic bleating from the shed. Not only was she unhappy to be separated from her daughter, her head was stuck...🤦‍♀️ in the same place as last time. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ You'd think she'd learn!

First, I blocked the chicken opening on the east side of the shed. I moved a bench in front of it and slid the bench away from the building about four inches so there's room for chickens to leave and hopefully not goats. Maybe if it doesn't look like an opening, they won't try. 

Then I locked the goats in the shed so I could chase Brighita back in without letting any others escape. 

She kept trying to go out the way she got in, which was by slipping between two overlapping pieces of the fence. But the angle from Jip's side was wrong and she couldn't squeeze through. 

The Help Me Grow people had arrived by this time, and they were willing to help me corral her. 

Next up, rescue Gerda. I opened the shed door and found this scene. How did Mina even get up there??

Gerda came out easier than the last time. I dug out the straw from under her head and she was able to slip her head back through. Senka quickly scooted through the opening back to the goat side. Soon she'll be too big to squeeze through and then I'll be rescuing Senka's stuck head! 

I reset the blocks in front of the chicken hole to make the opening small again. By that time, Mina was outside with her mom. Did she jump straight down? More likely she used the cat feeding shelf and the milking stand as steps. Guess we'll need to move the milking stand now. 🙄

Full Incubator

Since our incubator is empty, Dad sent an ice cream pail of guinea eggs home with me to hatch. There were more eggs than filled the incubator, so I tried listing the leftovers on Craigslist. We'll see if there are any takers. 

Guineas differ from chicken incubation in a couple ways. They hatch in a 26 day cycle (but could be up to 28 days) and they like a lower humidity to begin incubating (45% max). The eggs are smaller and more pointy on the end. 

We'll see how many hatch! 

Secret Hiding Place

We found the chickens' secret egg laying place. 

Up in the haymow, of course. Between two bales. 

I knew we were missing a nest area because we weren't getting nearly the amount of eggs a day we should have been getting. 

Also, the egg colors have been a clue. We were missing white eggs and brown eggs. This nest still doesn't have many dark brown eggs, so there's probably another nest we haven't found...

Belated Easter egg hunt anyone??

Garden Center Day

We had an early start to the morning with an 8:00 a.m. chiropractor appointment in Jordan. A truckload of plants was being delivered to the garden center by the time we arrived after our appointment, and since Jaron was napping, I jumped in to help unload. 

That led to taking sleeves off the plants and organizing them by variety. Pretty soon Jaron was hanging out in the carrier on my back. Before we knew it, lunch arrived and we ate a picnic in the shade outside. 

Jaron wanted to move around after lunch, so he led me on a tour of the garden center. Bad day to wear white. 😅 I wasn't moving fast enough so he took off crawling on his own across the dirty floor... 

His favorite area is the pottery section. He loves to look inside the pots. And drop things inside them. 

We did end up helping unsleeve more plants for part of the afternoon. Jaron helped G squish all the unwrappings in the dumpster. 

That was enough sun for the day, so Jaron and I went home. 

I needed to hang up a load of cloth diapers in the laundry room. Jaron was feeling snuggly after waking up from his car nap, so I worked one handed with him in the other arm. He saw me hanging the liners on the drying rack, grabbed one off the pile in my hand, and hung it up for me on the rack. Then he grabbed another one to hang up, and continued to help me. They were crooked and some fell down, but so sweet. 😊

Egg With No Shell

G found a duck egg with no shell earlier this week. It's super rare, but it does happen occasionally that a chicken or duck will lay an egg with only the membrane and no shell around it. I think I remember it happening maybe once during my childhood?

Over a few days, the egg got squishier, no doubt from moisture escaping with no shell to protect it. We did fry it up for breakfast one morning. Looked and tasted completely normal! G ate it just in case, and had no negative effects. 😅

Heavenly Garden

The garden center was getting rid of a whole bunch of bulb plants past their prime. I ended up with all of them. 😅

I already had a few bulbs planted down by Bekhor's area, so it made sense to plant the rest there too. 

The lilac sprout I transplanted last year is doing great. Hopefully these bulbs will be good companions to it. I did not do my research ahead of time to see if they're friendly. 

Then I worked my way around the outside of the tree cluster. 

Mini irises, blue hyacinths, blue crocuses, and white tulips. 

A few ended up in the row of existing bulbs.

And a few ended up inside the tree cluster. I'm hoping there's enough light for them to flower before the trees leaf out. 

One last piece of joy from today... Jaron walked on his own at Help Me Grow! We had his butt to a chair so he was facing me in the middle of the room. And he walked straight towards me, no problem! We didn't even have to convince him. We laughed in surprise and delight, which Jaron loved, so he did it over and over again. He got up to 7 or 8 steps on his own! 

Shenanigans

The animals are throwing me for a loop today. 

This morning, I didn't notice any goats outside eating their hay, which was a little surprising but not out of the realm of possibilities. They do have hay inside the shed. A couple hours later I heard Jip barking up a storm. 

I peeked out the bedroom window and again didn't see anything wrong in the pasture. But Jip was barking so insistently I looked out a front-facing window... the goats were out! 😩 

A quick check of the pasture gate showed that it was closed, so they had to have escaped a different way. 

I threw on chore clothes and ran outside (leaving Jaron to finish his breakfast on his own for the time being). My mind raced to all the tender leafy plants just making their appearance on our homestead: the fruit trees finally leafing out, the hostas (nailed by the goats so often last year) poking up, a bunch of trees and shrubs yet to be planted, my colorful flower pots... 

The goats didn't go back in nicely as I hoped. I also couldn't see where they had gotten out. And then I heard Gerda's whining cries from inside the shed. She sounded like she felt left out and/or was stuck, so I figured the goats had somehow gotten to the other side from inside the shed.

I went back in the house to grab Jaron. He was thrilled to go outside so early in the morning! I corralled three of the goats back into their pen. Then we went to check out the shed

This is what we found. 

And then witnessed the goats I had just chased back inside jump right back out the chicken side. 🤦‍♀️ 

So, I blocked the chicken door so the goats couldn't escape the shed, chased the goats back onto their own side through the human door, and moved the bail so they wouldn't be able to hop over the pallets separating the two sides. It took a long time to get Gerda unstuck. Her horns wouldn't go back through the small opening. I ended up cleaning out the hay that had been blocking the underside of the hole, giving her more room to pull her head through. Whew! 

What a morning. 

And it wasn't over yet. 

This next story is not for the faint of heart... 🥺

A friend of mine came by later in the morning to pick up her weekly dozen eggs. She and her son like to look at the animals when they do their pickup. She sent me this text, "Heads up I think Jip either killed or has nearly killed one of your chickens. Black and white speckled, did not get close enough to verify if it was dead but it was not moving at all."

Heart sinking, I raced outside again. 

One of the trampoline chickens was huddled on the ground within Jip's tether range. My best guess is that it wandered within Jip's reach, thought it could escape into the shed, and didn't realize there was a fence blocking the way. That happened the other day with a couple mature chickens and thankfully I was outside to intervene. We definitely need to cut a chicken escape hole in the corner of the fence. 

Jip was excited to see me, not really paying attention to the bird. But the damage had already been done. The poor thing had a big gaping wound between its neck and shoulder. It was shaking, clearly in shock. I picked it up and brought it into the garage to put with the two little ducklings that recently hatched. 

Part of me hoped that we would be able to nurse it back to health, but the realistic side of me knew that we were going to have to put it out of its misery...

I had hoped G would volunteer to do it once he got home from work, but in the middle of busy season, who knows when that would be. He told me I had to do it. 😫 I knew he was right. 

You'd think growing up on a farm would have prepared me for this more, however, most of the time nature took its course before we needed to intervene. That or my dad took care of it. There's only one time I can ever remember putting down an animal, and that was back in high school. Something was wrong with one of the baby lambs, and the vet said it was not going to make it. She recommended putting it out of its misery. I remember giving her the go-ahead and she gave it a shot. I'll never forget watching the life slowly drain out of this poor little lamb's eyes. Later, Dad chastised me a bit because the shot cost $60 (or was it more? I remember it was a lot) and we could have taken care of it ourselves.

Back to present day. I had hoped my in-laws would be available to watch Jaron while I did the necessary task. No such luck. So, with a heavy heart I strapped Jaron to my back and went outside to grab the chicken. I started crying before I even got to the spot I chose to put it out of its misery. And once I had taken care of it, I sobbed harder than I have in a long time. Thankfully since he couldn't see my face, Jaron thought my crying was actually laughter and he laughed to copy me. 

We went in the house and read books and snuggled until I felt better. 

I really hope this isn't a frequent occurrence. I don't know if my heart can handle it. 😭

Chocolate Chip Cookie Quest

I have a chocolate chip cookie recipe. It's my mom's from my childhood - the Toll House cookie recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag. G isn't a huge fan of it, so I'm on the hunt for a recipe we both like. 

Attempt #2 was a recipe given to me by a fellow food-loving friend. She got it from Sally's Baking Addiction. 

Initial thoughts - decent taste but a pretty putsy recipe. 

The dough is so soft, you're supposed to refrigerate for two hours, preferably overnight. 

Her other tip was to form them in balls, then squish them into cylinders (taller than they are wide) to also help them not spread too much. 

I did both and they turned out a good size. I don't love how pale they are. The instructions said to bake until just the edges were golden and the middle would look unset. 

You're supposed to leave them on the pan for 10 minutes before taking them off to cool further. That allows them to bake more and set up. 

Still the innards seemed a little uncooked (which might be the goal for extra soft and gooey cookies). I've discovered I like my cookies a nice golden brown all over. G hasn't tasted these yet, so his vote is still undetermined.

All in all, great tasting cookies, but not my go-to cookie recipe due to the extra steps. I'll continue the hunt! 

Pikler Triangle

This little guy likes to move. 

I heard on a podcast that Pikler triangles are excellent for growing babies' muscles and coordination naturally through play. Then we visited friends who had a little arch/slide combo in their living room. Jaron climbed all over that thing! 

So I searched marketplace. Nothing was exactly what I was looking for. Ebay had a few options though! And reasonably priced! I chose this set in the end because it seemed the most sturdy. It can hold 150lbs or up to three kids. 

As you can see, it has a lot of pieces. 

It took a while to put together! Jaron helped by handing me screws. 

The bases slide on our smooth floor, so I took an old yoga mat to be a base for the arch and slide. 

So far Jaron hasn't been too interested in it on his own. I've gotten him to go down the slide a couple times. He seems to like the round bars as opposed to the flat rectangle bars. I think once his balance improves, he'll be more in to it. 

Same with the actual Pikler triangle. He's not quite ready to climb it, so I have it folded up against the wall for now. 

I love that the color scheme matches our living room!

Corralling Chickens (and Goats)

The poor pasture has been mown down by the goats. I don't blame them. Tasty fresh grass is hard to pass up! But it certainly isn't helping the grass grow thicker. 

G finally made the time to put up a temporary fence to keep the goats close to the shed. They have plenty of hay to eat, and this will give the grass time to grow in.

Poor Jip doesn't like being away from his goat buddies. 

As I said, plenty of hay. Look how deep it is in there!

Another view of the new fence. We'll take the opportunity to split the pasture in two so we can rotational graze once the grass is taller. 

The chickens continue to push their boundaries. G reached his and put a piece of fencing from the corner of the garden to the pasture fence to keep the chickens from getting in the wind break/ common area of the development next door. 

Unfortunately, it blocks our easy path to the in-laws. I guess we'll have to go around. Hopefully the chickens don't figure that trick out! 😅

There was a lot of wind in the forecast so G flipped up the uninstalled duck pond in front of the trampoline door to be a wind block for the young chickens. It's been a hit so far! I've seen a number hanging out underneath. 

Rain was also in the forecast, so Jaron and I spread some fresh seed in the pasture before it came. Just an ice cream pail full. I'll do another round in a few weeks. The soil conference taught me it's more successful to seed lightly and often to better hit good germination and growing weather. 

The front yard got a sprinkling of wildflower seeds. Our goal is to fence that area to make a third pasture for the goats to browse. 

Fruit Fences

The chickens sure love to scratch up the mulch around the trees and berry bushes. The berry bushes are just starting to leaf out, and we don't want anything eating them, so I put up a fence. 

Jaron has been interested in grass, sticks, and rocks on the ground, so I left him examining the lawn while I briefly gathered supplies in the garage. 

I came out to discover he was coming to find me walking along the orchard fence. 

So determined! 

He eventually ended up riding along in the baby carrier on my back. 

I made a straight line for the fence using a long extension cord. Wooden stakes and a mallet built the support. 

I stretched old chicken wire along the fence and stapled it to the stakes. 

Pretty quick to put it together that way. The only downside was the piece I used was about six feet too short. 

I found a different piece that fit perfectly, but it's not the same height; it's a foot shorter than the longer piece. Hmm. Cut a piece of tall fencing to fill the gap or deal with a shorter section on one end? I'm leaning towards the latter.

In other news, the chickens have been loving their dust baths. The levels are lower than when I started, so eventually I might have to refill. Guess I better get more sand. 

Another interesting thing I noticed recently is that we have something sprouting in the compost area. 

My guess is it's old chicken feed. Seems like they've been eating the sprouts, so it's not getting wasted! 

Butteries and Nutella

G and I are watching the very first seasons of the Great British Baking Show. It's been interesting to compare early seasons with the most recent ones- what's changed, how they tweak things week to week that more closely match the show today. 

I found a recipe I wanted to try and actually made it right away: butteries. They're a little putsy, but seem like they're hard to mess up. 

The dough comes together quickly, then you have to do a step every half hour. 

They're a bit like a croissant crossed with a roll. So in keeping with croissants, you need to create layers and lamination. 

The fat is a combination of butter and lard you spread on with your hands. Look how big the chunks are... You can see them through the layer of dough. 

But after all the steps, I did achieve layers!!!

You're supposed to form them into a rustic roundish shape. ✅

Bake until golden brown.

They taste absolutely delicious, warm or cold. Jam or butter is spread on the flat side. This morning I had the idea nutella would be a great pairing. Of course we didn't have nutella, but we had the ingredients. I found a recipe that said it only took 15min to make. Perfect. 

1.5h later...

What took so long?? Well, the oven had to heat up to 400F to roast the hazelnuts, which took a while. Then the hazelnuts didn't peel like they were supposed to. I should've had them in the oven longer because they came out of the freezer. So I ended up doing little bits at a time, throwing the pan in the oven again, over and over. 🙄 

The food processor took a while too. But eventually it ground down to a smoothish liquid. 

It didn't taste as sweet as I'd like, but since I'm trying to cut down on sugar, I'll leave it. 

The buttery did taste fantastic smothered in the homemade nutella. 😋

Spring Blooms

G brought home some color for our planters. I love it! 

The best part is, once they're done flowering, we can plant them elsewhere to bloom next year. 

Many things are sprouting on the homestead...

Rhubarb. Has it been here for three years? I might be able to harvest some this year. 

Chives in the orchard. 

In Bekhor's area bulbs I planted in the past are coming up! I also planted some daffodils that were finished flowering. Should be nice and springy next year.

Oregano coming up in the garden from last year. Also lovage, which looks kind of like celery.

I had a ton of lettuce to plant, but instead of doing each kind separately, I mixed all the seeds together and scattered them around three different garden plots. Hopefully that was not a mistake. 😅