recently planted
AWESOME book alert!
The other day I was at the feed store and I came across this book… Farm Anatomy (by Julia Rothman). All I can say is AWESOME! (oh yeah, that was out loud!) The whole book (including the text) is all hand drawn by Julia with a style and design that my eyes can’t get enough [...]
Special Delivery.
Mrs. Brown had been sitting on her 12 egg clutch for almost a month now. All day, all night she just sat. As far as I could tell there was only a few times she got off for food and water. (how she does that I will never know…) But as the days turned into [...]
au natural.
This year for our Easter egg dying we decided to go natural and make our own dyes. Curious to experiment, we made our dyes using Beets (red), Cranberries (red), Purple Cabbage (blue), Blueberries (blue), Yellow Onion Skins (yellow), and Tumeric (yellow). Making the dyes is pretty easy… Just take a a few cups of material [...]
right on cue.
Just in time for Easter, Mrs. Brown, our shy turkey hen, has begun to lay. She lays every couple of days, and we are hoping (because there is a Mr. Brown) that we will have little turkeys soon…
changed priorities ahead.
This past weekend, Michael and I dropped the kids off at Grandma’s and headed to Crown King, AZ with our friends and neighbors for a little get away. Crown King is a little town at the top of a hill (mountain) that started as a mining camp and is now a place for off-roading and [...]
a garden of her own.
When I first decided to put in our garden I had dreams of kneeling side by side with Maryanne and Margot pulling weeds and harvesting produce. But once the plants grew up and took over it became clear how dangerous the garden could be. With rebar stakes to support bird netting and small walkways mixed [...]
In the basket over there.
Blue has been not right for a couple of weeks now. I had thought she was just feeling a little oppressed by Mr. Brown and so I have been giving her opportunities to be separate from the flock, you know for a little down time. She still wasn’t getting back to her old self, falling [...]
when life gives you lemons.
Last weekend was the start of the lemon processing. See the problem with trees is that the fruit is ready when it’s ready and basically all at once. (and because why not?) So what to do with hundreds of lemons… all at once. Ideally I’d have list of recipes and techniques to preserve and use [...]
BFF.
When I was about Maryanne’s age, my mom got me a cat. I remember the day I met him. We were at the pound in the “cat room” and I was supposed to pick my cat from the multitude of cats jumping from cat tree to cat tree (right.). From the moment I entered the [...]
breakfast in bed.
Maryanne has been dying to cook. (DYING!) I’m not going to lie, I’m usually not very supportive of her culinary endeavors. Not because I don’t want her to learn the art of preparing a meal, but because I dread the mess that comes with it. (DREAD IT!) So the other day, after totally squashing her [...]
A resolution started.
From the beginning of the garden there has been one very important piece missing… the compost. Compost has been a secret and elusive thing… but this year, no more. I will learn the ways of decay, and last weekend the girls and I found the infrastructure to make that happen. Next to the trash bins [...]
Chores
Maryanne has been wanting some chores. Ok, really she wants the money that you get when you do the chores. So this weekend she was on lemon gleaning duty. With a little help from her daddy, all the lemons have been harvested. All four very large buckets/baskets worth. Now I will be spending the next [...]
a garden of her own.
When I first decided to put in our garden I had dreams of kneeling side by side with Maryanne and Margot pulling weeds and harvesting produce. But once the plants grew up and took over it became clear how dangerous the garden could be. With rebar stakes to support bird netting and small walkways mixed [...]
Slowly but surely…
Trudy is getting all her feathers back…just a few more weeks and you would never know she looked like chicken dinner.
a series of unfortunate events.
The other day I went to check on the girls and discovered that Henny had injured her eye. It was sunken in but it seemed to work at least a little bit. I suspected Princess, the silver laced we got a few weeks ago. Since her arrival Princess turned out to be quite an aggressive [...]
cooling off.
so yesterday, immediately after discovering our loss, Michael went on Craig’s List and found a portable swap cooler for sale. He called, it was still available. I threw the kids in the car (Margot was still in her PJ’s) and raced out to Tempe, hoping that it would still be there by the time we [...]
In the basket over there.
Blue has been not right for a couple of weeks now. I had thought she was just feeling a little oppressed by Mr. Brown and so I have been giving her opportunities to be separate from the flock, you know for a little down time. She still wasn’t getting back to her old self, falling [...]
guilt
Last night we lost one of the girls. One of the Susans to be exact. It was the heat. I found her at the back of the coop all balled up (well as close to a ball as a chicken can get). It absolutely breaks my heart to know that she suffered. And then there [...]
the best dog ever..
Nancy is the best dog ever because… …She is a lover not a fighter. … She can sit on the front lawn FOREVER and never run off. … She loves ALL my babies (human, fowl and feline) just as much as I do.
Two days ago the inevitable happened. Valerie got out, unattended, and attacked. Only this time not wounding one bird but three. Fran, Susan and Brown Turkey were all injured, Fran being the worse. I was gone at a meeting with a client when I received a phone call from Michael, there had been a mistake, [...]
edward the cat…
Ed for short. He is loud… He is majestic… He is amazing… He has decided to let us stay here.
