Apple Cider Vinegar Mother

In my cleaning the fridge efforts, I used up the rest of the apples from this fall in applesauce. That left me with little apple scraps perfect for making apple cider vinegar. Even better, I found a bag of apple scraps in the freezer so this batch would be a nice size. 

As I mixed it up, I dug out a jar of ACV I made earlier this year looking for a mother to jumpstart the vinegar process in this batch. 

The first jar I grabbed had one! 

And then I grabbed the jar next to it...

Yes, that mother is as thick as my finger. 

Isn't it amazing that things like that grow "wild" in our pantry? 😜

Snow Fun

G's cousin came for a visit this morning. In addition to being a big Jaron lover, she's a big animal lover, so she wanted to check out the animals in the shed and have Jaron and me come too. 

It was 11 degrees outside not including windchill so we bundled up.

No baby goats! We played with Jip, got the eggs, and then played in the snow. 

First time trying a video on the blog, so we'll see how this goes...

As much fun as Jaron had outside, there did come a point where he pointed to the door and said "done." 😆

Garden Center

Jaron and I spent most of the day at the garden center. 

G's boss unexpectedly died last week and the family decided to have the wake at the garden center (Galen's idea actually). All this week, the employees have been working hard to get everything ready for a lot of visitors. They also got a shipment of plants in, so I came today to help however I could. 

Jaron helped with morale. I put price stickers on the new plants, moved plants to make space for people, and helped rearrange the greenhouse layout. The last thing was prepping a ton of fresh flowers brought in to make floral arrangements for the funeral. We filled up at least 12 buckets with flowers and greens. 

It was a long day and a good day. Nice to be able to do something to help the family. Also nice to be in a warm greenhouse surrounded by beautiful plants... Plant therapy is real. 😜 And nice to be around this guy all day too. 

 PS- no baby goats yet!

Single Digits

It's still cold - in the single digits - but warmer than last week. 

All the animals are enjoying the "heatwave". The goats have poked their heads out of the shed to see what's going on. 

The ducks are actually sleeping outside in the sun, and Jip is sleeping in his dog house. 

No eggs cracked from the cold either!

Oh, and no baby goats yet...

Jaron has made some big milestones lately. Yesterday he pulled himself to stand on the stool I sat on eating breakfast. He had been crawling around on the floor. All of a sudden I felt little fingers scritching my pants... I thought, "How is Jaron reaching up that high from the floor?" Looked down, and there he was, standing and reaching for me, flipper braced on one of the stool rungs. 

He tried it again this morning when I wasn't sitting on the stool and made it halfway to standing before he sat back down. 

He also got himself up on all fours (or threes as the case may be) in a standard crawling position. First time that's happened! 

All these milestones, eating a ton, taking long naps... Jaron has to be in the middle of teething or a growth spurt or something.

Kumquat Marmalade

The garden center has some kumquat trees that produced fruit. A lot of fruit. So G brought a container of them home for us. We ate some fresh- very strange to eat the whole thing, peel and all. They are a citrus fruit and taste like a cross between a lemon and orange. There were definitely going to be more than we could eat. How about jam? Or, marmalade as the case may be (peels are included). 

I found a super highly rated recipe online, also, super simple. Perfect. 

The hardest part was slicing the kumquats and dealing with the seeds. Each kumquat is a little bigger than the size of a quarter and inside is a range of 2-6 seeds the size of a lemon or orange seed. It took me at least an hour to get all of them cut. Probably more because I was interrupted by a little monkey who wanted entertaining... 

Brief aside... I was also cleaning the fridge in the midst of making the jam. 😅 I had set a box of carrots on the floor (still from our garden- cardboard box for the win!) and forgot about it as I scrubbed. Jaron was entertained by the box, so I let it be. A few minutes later I looked down and saw Jaron with a gigantic carrot in hand, munching happily away, dirt and all. I did wash it off much to his annoyance, and he happily chewed it the rest of the day. 

Now back to the marmalade. 

Look at all the seeds. 

I kept them because the recipe said they are high in pectin and can be used to help the marmalade set, but I didn't end up using them. After the slicing and deseeding, I wasn't sure if this recipe would be worth it...

But the rest was simple. Sliced fruit, one lemon juiced, water to cover, some sugar.

Boil for 15min. Boom. Jam. I mean, marmalade. 🤦‍♀️

And it's soooo delicious. 🤩 

Might be worth all the deseeding...

Weighing Eggs

We have a faithful egg customer who asked me what the actual size/weight difference is between pullet eggs and standard chicken eggs. So, I got out a scale and began to weigh them...

My notes from the endeavor: 

I weighed full cartons and divided it into single eggs, then I weighed individual eggs.

After weighing two dozen pullet eggs individually and two dozen chicken eggs individually, I found the average pullet egg is 46-47g (35g lowest, 53g highest, most in the 45-47g range). 

The standard chicken eggs range from 57-63g with 57g and 61g being the two most common weights. We have one chicken who consistently lays 63g eggs (the green one). Coincidentally, she is our most mature hen.

So, if I did my math right, that shows the pullet eggs are about 78% of a regular chicken egg. At least at the age our hens are now. I'm sure the early eggs were slightly smaller. 

Now I need to weigh duck eggs...

While collecting eggs over multiple days, I've noticed a pattern; the ducks tend to lay their eggs right away in the morning along with Dixie, our green egg layer. The pullets tend to lay their eggs later in the day. Coincidence? I'm not sure. 

Saturday Bonus Post, Because I Know You're Dying to Know...

No kids yet. Gerda is still large and in charge. 

It was -18 when Jaron and I went out to do chores this morning. Yes, unfortunately Jaron woke up early this morning and didn't want me to leave him alone. I had set up everything the night before to make it quick and easy to feed the animals this morning. So we bundled up and scurried out.

All of the ducks had laid their eggs for the day, and only three of them had frozen. Just two chickens had laid theirs, so I will maybe go out at noon today to see if I can get the rest before they freeze.

With the shed door closed up, it's pretty nice in the shed, but as soon as I open the door to do chores, then it starts to get cold. Sage was shivering while she ate her grain this morning. 

Even though I couldn't get the shed door all the way shut because of the frozen snow, I figured out a way to keep the door mostly closed by sliding the pallet in the empty space. Isn't it amazing that it's the perfect size!

To keep the shed even more closed up and toasty, I put a little bench in front of the side chicken door. That means the birds can't get out, but I don't think they want to on cold days like these. 😆 Only cat tracks in the snow coming out of the hole before I put this down.

What about Jip? He is a 100% outside dog, so how does he keep warm on these frigid days? Well, he has amazing fur. Yesterday, I put some hay in his dog house thinking that it would help him stay warmer. Instead, he pawed all of it out of his house and laid on it in front of his house. I think he enjoyed the warmth of the sun shining on him. 

This morning I gave him more hay, but I put it in front of his dog house. He seemed very excited about it.