Finding winter hobbies ....

Besides cooking... with the colder weather I get the crafty bug....
This week I pulled out my sewing machine that I bought about 7-8 years ago... I sewed a little fleece snuggly pillow case for our Doxie Daisy and then put it up for some reason.   It has sat since then..   Fired it up yesterday... kept balling the thread up and couldnt figure out what I was doing wrong.   Begged for help on Homesteadingtoday.com's sewing forum and managed to get it going right again.  Now I need to find or download the manual and get me some fabric and start playing.   Maybe one day I can make myself some cute clothes!   In the mean time I hope to make a couple of ideas I have in my head for Christmas presents....      Dont laugh at my attempts please!

Cakes.....

What I've been up to lately:

Fondant Cake #1....   

My favorite so far!  
I did a grave digger monster truck cake for the boy, I also did a death by brownie cake for hubby: brownies layered with caramel and chocolate syrup and then topped with a chocolate cream cheese frosting.    Then I did a tiramisu  pink monkey cake for my sister in law and a big pumpkin cake for a friends little girl's 5th birthday party.   I am loving making these cakes.      

Party Plans on the brain

Well we are down to 5 days before the party... Invitations are out.

Yesterday I constructed tire shaped cake pops...

The pictures did NOT come out.. sorry

Another batch of pops is in the freezer waiting. 

I have all my cake mixes ready

Pans ready

Wednesday night I will begin baking.

Thursday and Friday I will start decorating.

Saturday is the birthday party.

I am soo nervous about these cakes.

one is going to be chocolate...

the other banana cream.  

Party colors are Black and Green.

As part of the party favors I bought white tshirts

died them brown using tea.  yep tea!

Then we are going to imprint mud tire tracks in black.

 To match the invitations. 

Too much fun! 

ok where to start..... hmmm

I cant recall all the things I planned to blog about.

So I'll skip ahead.

The boy has a birthday coming up.

5

Can you believe it?

So I am planning a nifty birthdays party for him

You only turn 5 once,  

and he starts school a couple weeks later.

He wanted monster trucks.

So I am planning a big cool cake.

But..

Ive never decorated a cake before

My mom did amazing cakes when I was a kid.

I did sculpting in high school and was pretty darn good.

Plus all the art classes.

and now my Jewelry.

So i've been playing.

Marshmallow fondant.

Hoping I can make a passable mud tire.

and a two tier monster truck cake.

Specifically

Grave digger colors.

Bright green and black

well more brown than black

I hate black icing.

Hoping to be able to figure out tire tracks all over the cake.

and a little monster truck for the top.

(a toy one)

 Wish me luck!-

What am i......

One of the cochins I picked up.. not as pretty.

But wondering if she is a lavender(Self blue).

 

Rootser

Another what am I... American game?  I am bantam sized with big attitude.

  

And the Wyandottes...

I think there are two hens and a roo......

what am i?

New Babies...........

Mamma Turkey did it...

4 turkey poults alive and kicking...100% hatch for her!

I almost took them away,  when I got home one was on the lamb running around alone....

But she cried and cried when I took them so I penned them up and she is fussing over them.

I added the one that hatched in the incubator today also.

The corral will be moved into the barn tonight and a heat lamp put over one end and food and water put in there.   Toms gonna have to sleep somewhere else I think... not sure if I can leave him in there or not.

The new girls and a finally a picture of Paquito

Paquito

The ad said black and white Cochins

I thought they meant  Black Cochins and White Cochins..

They were Two of these little pretty girls.....   

Silver Laced Cochins!! 

I am soo excited!    

I also got 3 little chicks that I think are silver laced... We shall see.... 

The Boy wanted a red one.... so we picked this little girl.... There was one I liked

better but she had extra toes like a silkie 

There is a little pale blue girl too but shes roughed up fro the roo and the pic didnt come out. 

Here is the other little girl. 

Craigslist...

Ad on craigslist for cochins... Hens & chicks....
Red, Black, Blues & Whites....
Im gonna call here in a few...
gonna get me some more babies!!!!

Paquito and the Cochin Saga...

Re-Introducing:  

Paquito!

 (Pictures to come later!)

See last year I went into chicken overload....  the chickens were destroying my garden,   I only had one pen,  

The first Turkey tom was regularly stomping my chickens to death...and the ducks to death.... 

I decided to weed down what I had and called one of my dearest friends that is also infected with Chickenbuyitis...  "Want a whole bunch of chickens?" said I?   

"Hell yes"  says she.....  and she takes flight to my house....

In a frenzy the like of only spur of the moment decision can be...

I stuffed half the 30 ish...something young chickens I had in her boxes... 

Buff Orphingtons,  Mixes, sultans, Duccle mixes,  and a couple of cochin roos....

half the ducks.... 

 I kept a blue cochin roo and a frizzle roo....

uh yeah...

guess what...

about the time my young cochin hens stared laying 

Both croaked

So my cochin hens have been penned mostly with a silkie roo.

whew...talk about some freaky little babies.

Especially the frizzled ones.

 Now I have 3 pens(4 counting the duck pen) and the "barn"

 I have a young little roo but hes not breeding age yet and all I wanted this year was

cochin babies....

Wait wait wait wait... and was getting impatient...

and I got by my dear sweet friends house and what do I see.

This studly little shiney black hottie named Paquito!

WHERE did you get THAT GUY I ask..

YUP.... 

I gave her that little hottie...

after much begging and pleading 

he is at my house 

"visiting some hot mammas!"

and hopefully here in a few weeks!

Cochin babies!

Plan is once Squeaky the baby roo is old enough... or I have a good set of babies..

Paquito will go home.. 

:-(

Now I really have to decide my focus.

Cochins for sure

Silkies 2nd

Amerucaunas (gotta have blue eggs!)

Butt the Buff Orphintons?

Currently all my big hens are running with my Americauna roo

The buff roos are in the "roo pen" with a little mutt roo

I have a batch of white leghorns due next week... to go with my 2 hens

What to do!

5 breeds... 3 pens...

The man wont let me sell off the ducks....

the turkeys will eventually need a pen when the babies are bigger...

Plus a friend brought me a dozen Rio Grande Turkey eggs...and 3 dozen guinea eggs.

Im pulling my hair out!  

I keep telling myself..  3 breeds  3 breed only!

BUT I WANT THEM ALL!

oh yea... I have a Production Red and a Black sexlink hen out there too....

*sigh*

I have to decide for sure by the end of the summer....

I am NOT keeping all 

Oh yeah.. there are the gold laced Wyandottes too.....  crap...

Sunday....

I am just now getting up....10:00am  cold medicine induced much needed sleep.
The boy is at church with his grandparents.
The man is mowing.

I brought the turkey babies back inside last night.
The heat yesterday was unbearable and even without a heatlamp they were suffering.
The suicide 5 had faded and just werent thriving.
The brooder in the barn is a wire bottom and they just couldnt handle it.
So they are happily scratching in shavings again and peeping away.
I threw a piece of bread in there last night and caused a riot.
Not a sign of it this morning.

I hope the clouds stick around today.  It was too bright and too sunny yesterday.
I have so much to get done and no energy.
Im still congested and coughing some and it erodes my energy fast.
But I think the man is mending.
He napped and layed around favoring his knee yesterday and maybe it helped

But I need to get moving.  I am adventuring into the boys cave today in an attempt to irradiate the chaos.
I got a little done yesterday and he launched a counter assault and pulled all the "lost" toys out again....
 That room is scary!

Living for the Weekend...

Finally this week is over!   

My cold finally bested me on Thursday and I stayed home from work

and slept most of the day.

Worked Friday but man was I feeling yucky.

Today I can tell I am improving 

I think.

Still coughing and congested.

But there is a LOT to get done around here.

Spring cleaning here never ever ends....

After being down and out for a week with the boys in charge.

I scrubbed my kitchen clean... whew men are the messiest cooks.

Now it is sparkling, I almost dont want to cook and mess it up.

Husband is gimping... his knee is hurting him really bad and we dont know why.

He didnt DO anything to it...

I moved the baby turkeys to the brooder cages in the barn...  

Its nice not having the brooder tubs in the house.  I am thinking we may not do that again.  

I hope the youngest ones adjust ok. 

Mamasita (turkey)is still sitting on her 4 eggs I think they are due to hatch June 1st.

Our current due dates are:

Chicks  5/25

Ducks 6/1

Turkeys 6/1(Mama & Incubator)

Chicks 6/ 2

Bunnies 6/5

Bunnies 6/6 ( 2 litters) 

Ducks/Turkeys  6/9

I need to get off my hiney and plant more in the garden this weekend.

Ive been putting it off.

I think we are going to the library today.

and the park.

Tuesday..silence... a rare thing.

 The view from my front door this afternoon

We are having ac issues today in our little farm "shack"(what I call this place when something goes wrong)

I think its cooling off now.  Not sure what its malfunction was but it does this about 3 times a year... Either when I am sick(like today of course) or it is a bazillion degrees outside.   So the man and his trusty sidekick went to town to get something for said malfunctioning unit of comfort.   

The only sound I hear is turkey poults peeping.  All 5 of the suicide clan are still kicking... saw one eat this morning...  hope hope...

I drug my hacking sneezing self outside and divvied up chickens for the billionth time... Im trying to find the right combo of hens and roos and pens and chaos to keep the extra banty mutt roos from muddying my breeding plans.   Hubby wont let me GET RID OF THE MUTTS... so I am stuck juggling roos.   I decided my production red and black sexlink hens are going in with the Buff Orphingtons.  The white leghorn hens went in with the Americaunas.  

Now I have an empty pen... 

with plans to hopefully convince my friend to let me borrow her pretty Paquito... 

 a littly fluffy manly black cochin roo... since  I am cochin rooless and want cochin chicklets... 

and my little bitty baby cochin roo is just getting his crow...  and earned himself the name Squeaky(eee..Eeeee.EEEE says Squeaky!.)  

Got that done.. moved the chicklets that were in the house in a rubbermaid brooder out to the barn to the "brooder/rabbit cage"...  yay! no more stink for now...  the turkey brooder box is still inside... but for some reason they dont stink...    So I accomplished a little bit today.   I am patting my icky sick self on the back for that..... 

It is a gloriously beautiful evening so far and sucks to not feel good enough to be working outside.  

Parsley, Oregano and Mints.

Our little fish pond is full of lilypads and goldfish.

Walking (topsetting) Onions 

saved from an old homestead a few miles from us 

that was about to be plowed under.

The place was a field of these growing wild 

 The first tomato of the season.  

A "Black" heirloom variety. 

I need to remember to save the seeds! 

Tragedy almost....

Sure enough....

I got excited about my new baby turkeys.

Yes #5 hatched... 

BUT!!!!

When I got home today I walked in the door to the most horrible peeping.

from the turkey brooder with my newest babies.

I dont know if they wallowed in the water dish or if it leaked some how.

But my new babies were soaked, chilled and writhing like they were dieing.

I stuffed them back in the incubator and waiting and hoped......

.........

......

4 hours in the incubator and they are back to normal somewhat.  

I changed waterers just in case. 

new dry bedding in the brooder and

the older turkey babies transfered for warmth and teaching.

They are now back in their brooder and I am holding my breath.

Hopeing they will be ok.

Turkey babies sure are determined to DIE....

:-(

Mondays incubator scoop....

This weekends chick count:

1 duckling

4 turkeys!

now swoon from the cuteness i'll wait for you.....

I sold off ALL yes ALL of the chicks and ducklings that were in the brooder cages in the barn yesterday.

14 ducklings

23 Chicks.

I was excited and sad at the same time. Room was needed for the hatches do in the next few weeks and my evening chores were becoming life consuming and I needed a break.

Now I only have the silkies, cochins, frizzles, frankenchickens and the Wyandottes underfoot

I did keep the youngest crew that included more silkieXfrizzles, some Americaunas and some Leghorn X Americaunas, 2 ducklings and 4 turkey poults(cant sell them of course)

We welcomed the cuties above this weekend and this morning. Two more eggs left. 1 duck 1 turkey. When I checked last the turkey was pipping and maybe starting to zip open and the duck hadnt pipped yet.
I was working on easing back on my incubating... but have had tons of inquiries about chicks after selling off all of those this weekend so may keep setting some.

Now to other things...

The garden is coming along. Demon grass seems to have started dieing off... Chickens are knocking the rest of it out I think. Got one more bed reclaimed, onion sets planted(late..) the tomatoes and peppers have been planted for a while. Need to plant squash, cantalope, luffa, and a few other things I am trying this year. Mike wants to plant corn and Watermelon again... I need to tell him to get moving on that haha.

Im working on blogging more.... some days I get it all typed up and the computer spazzes and looses what I've typed... slow internet and slow wore out laptop are not a good combo. I am planning on trying to replace it next spring.

But... thats all for now. I will work on being a better blogger!

Peeps peeping.... by the dozens

That incubator I talked about last time...
AWESOME.
Full...
Noisy....
Aproximate hatch count this morning was 40ish... yeah I cant quite keep track...
I love it.
I have a gallon bucket with a soft little liner that I pull them out and plunk them into to transport to the brooder. Each time the bottom is solid chickfluff... 10-15 at a time.
Its a blast.
I put an add up today for chicks for sale. Hoping for takers.
I have 10 reserved for my bestes girlfriend.
Shes crazy like me
The ducklings were hatching this morning.
Im hoping for a decent turkey hatch this time too.

It sure is crazy busy around here!
Yes pics will be posted when time allows!

Ill explain later...... Updated Rambling....

Updated... 4/12 The above pics were of the inside of my new freebee score.... a cabinet style incubator with about a 180 egg capacity, turner, hatching tray etc.... FREE! I am delerious... Easter Sunday I had posted pics of the hatching chicks to facebook and a little while later my cellphone rings... My old buddy Chris from the high school era had seen the pics.... He asks me " can you use another incubator? " Heck YEAH! I figured it was a styrophome one like I already have... nope he says.. you need your truck! He didnt know if it worked or anything but told me he figured if it didnt I was handy enough to get it going... Plugged it in the next day and voila it worked.... now the reason for the pictures above? I had no clue how to adjust the temps and once it fired up it shot up to 117°... I was linking those pics to the Backyard Chickens Forum asking for input. With their help It is now adjusted up to temp and FULL of eggs...... I transfered my turkey and duck eggs due to hatch 4/18 into it so the styrophome incubator could be locked down (out of hte turner and no more opening the incubator until hatch to preserve the humidity.) for the chicks and single duck egg about to hatch. Once this batch is complete and the other styro incubator hatch is complete I am going to start working on a schedule to hatch on so I dont have two different hatch dates in the same incubator to give me fits. There are about 25 eggs currently in hatch mode, 3 chicks out this morning, 5 eggs pipped, the duck egg was pipped and rocking(hurry up little ducky!) . The East sunday hatch was 8 babies of 13 eggs to start - 3 duds, 1 stopped developing early and 1 failed to hatch, when cracked open it looked like that one expired about 2 days before hatch. Not counting what is currently hatching here is the chicken count on our farm:

Americaunas 2 hens 1 roo

Buff Orphingtons 2 hens 2 roos

White leghorn -2 hens

Black unknown - 1 hen

Red unknown -1 hen

Frizzle cochin - 1 hen

Cochin- 1 hen

White Silkies - 1 hen 1 roo

Mutt roos - 2

Chicks:

Buff Silkies (8 )

AmericaunaXBuff (3)

White leghornXBuff (3?)

BUFF(2)

Cochin X Silkie(1)

Cochin(2)

Gold laced Wyndottes (6 of unknown sex)

4- Freebie Meeties off craigslist ("the mutants")

Then

1 pair of Narraganset turkeys

3 ducks(2 drakes 1 hen)

It sure is a full house around here. I got the Americaunas seperated and have the White leghorns in with them for crosses. The silkies and cochins are seperated together, This week we are putting wire on tops of the last run to seperate the buffs. Its been a busy spring so far.

Whew....

Happy Easter!

I know I havent blogged much,  but I am going to try to do more. 

21 days ago I put eggs in the incubator not looking at the calender....  Today for Easter Wyatt went to church with his grandparents and right before he got home I heard chirping!   Within about 10 minutes of him arriving and seeing the cracked egg our first easter chick pushed its way into the world.  A BLUE AMERICAUNA EGG!   3 more are pipped but are not in as big a hurry to come out it seems.  

there are 5 more pipped but they arent chirping or hurrying like this little guy.  He was out of the egg within about 30 minutes of pipping.  I have a second incubator with 42 eggs in it.  a nice batch of turkey eggs,  some duck eggs and a hoard of chicks...  I cant wait....