I May Be From Venus, but He Definitely Is From Mars

Sometimes, I am totally baffled by how Tom and I could so utterly fail to communicate.

Here's the deal.  He's going to use some old railroad ties and stuff to build some raised beds for next year's melons.  At first, I told him to build them out about five feet from the mow line that he had made when he mowed around the garden last week.  I was thinking that I needed enough space between the garden and the raised beds to be able to get my riding mower through.

After thinking about it overnight I decided that they shouldn't be that far out, that they should be closer, like a regular garden row/aisle and that I would just get rid of the grass altogether between the raised bed and the garden.  That way, the raised bed wall could be the border and would keep the bermuda from encroaching into the garden the way it continually does - at least it would for that small section that it would border the garden because we currently only have enough wood for two beds.

So, Tom set about scraping away the grass with the tractor in the designated spot.  I stood there for a while in the blazing heat to watch as he dug a big gouge in the earth and shoved it around a bit.  When he stopped, I offered this suggestion, "Um, I think you only have to lightly scape away the grass and not dig so deep."  With an exasperated expression, he said, "I didn't mean to dig it so deep."  I took that as my cue to leave him to his manly job and keep any further comments to myself and I went back in the house.

When I went out to the garden today, this is what I found.

A very nicely tilled up, grass free plot.  Clearly, the railroad tie was used to measure the proper width of the raised bed, which makes sense.  And the bed is to be about eight feet long, which also makes sense.  But...it's, like, right up against the first row of the garden, which makes absolutely no sense because there is no way I can walk between the rows. 

So, I can either keep my mouth shut and let him build the raised bed right up against the first row and then shift my whole garden over next season so that there is room for an aisle, or, I can explain to Tom what the problem is and he can redo it and move the whole thing over about three or four feet.

Sadness

A snake ate all three of  my chicks last night.  I feel just awful about it.  It was my job to protect them and instead, I left them with no way of escape and easy prey for a snake.

My original plan when I started the incubation was to keep them in the house after they hatched.  Our house is a long ranch style (or rambler as some people call it) that has one end that can be closed off if unused.  We usually keep the door closed and the A/C off at that end of the house.  With the A/C off, the temperature would have been right for the chicks and they would be safe from all predators.

But, we had a guest arrive and have had to keep the A/C on for him, which makes it too cold for the chicks,  so I had to adjust my plans.  The garage is just way too hot during the day, but the chicken coop stays at a pretty even temperature since it's in the shade.  That's why I chose the coop, knowing that there was a possibility of a snake getting in there, but feeling I had no choice.

So a month of fretting over regulating the incubator temperature and turning eggs three times a day was all for nought.  The last four have not hatched.  I'll have to start all over again.

Cuteness

Oh yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about.

I read that the chicks will imprint on and become attached to the first large thing they see after being born and that would be me.  Not sure I believed that, but am now being convinced of it by their behavior, which doesn't bode well for any kind of slaughtering plans we might have.  Whenever I go check on them they'll run to me and when I put my hand in there, they want to crowd around and snuggle in my hand.

Meagan's boss, who used to raise birds, said that you have to teach them to eat and drink by tapping with your fingernail on the dishes and making bird sounds.  Maybe she said that just so I'd make an idiot of myself, but I have to admit, that's what I've been doing.  And it works!  When I tapped on the food bowl and made soft clucking sounds, they started pecking at the food.  Same thing with the water bowl.

This is their temporary home, in the blue bucket.  I originally was going to put them in that rabbit cage and had it all set up.  But, I underestimated how tiny they would be and realized that they wouldn't be able to stand on the wire floor because the openings were too big and they could also fit through the sides.  I searched high and low for an appropriate box, but Tom regularly burns the boxes and there weren't any.  I found this bucket instead which is even better than a box.  I put that grate from a dog kennel over it to keep the big chickens out.  Then, I thought the big chickens might get rambunctious and knock that off, so I weighted it down with the rabbit cage.

When they get bigger, I'll move them to the cage.  For the time being, I'm worried about snakes getting in there and eating them.

There are still four eggs in the incubator with no signs of pips.

The Pipping Continues

It is confirmed.  The incubator does not have to be a steady 99.5 (like all the instructions say) to successfully hatch eggs.  I would venture to guess that my incubator only hit 99.5 when it was on it's way down from 100+ degrees or on it's way up from 95 degrees.  Apparently, that's close enough.

The second egg started to pip late afternoon yesterday and the chick actually hatched before the first pipper. 

Sorry the pics are blurry.  It was kind of hard taking pictures through the plexiglass window.

A face only a mother could love.

It finally just kind of fell out.  Exhausted.

Definitely not cute.

Puffy one was born last night and spent the night in a box on top of the garage refrigerator.  The wet one is the one that started to pip yesterday afternoon and didn't completely hatch until around 7:00 this morning.  We have another one pipping in the incubator.

Chicks!

It's day 22 and there is a peck hole, I think that might be called a "pip", in one of the eggs and Meagan and I heard some peeping.  So, despite my constant troubles with this cheap incubator, I have at least one chick hatching. 

If you look closely at the light colored egg on the left, near the bottom of the large end, you can see the pip.

Two of the eggs died for sure because they were stinking bad.  I threw those away, resisting the temptation to break them open to see if they had developed at all.  So, I have seven hopefulls left. 

Ooops

While they were playing, Harry stepped on Mochi and broke his leg.  He has a little cast on, but it doesn't slow him down a bit.  However, he is no longer allowed to run free and play with Harry.

This happened about a week and half ago and Mochi didn't seem to be in any pain at all except that he wouldn't put weight on it and wouldn't let us touch it.

Calgon, Take Me aWaY!

Of course, we've come home to a pile of farmwork and we have a lot going on.  I started mowing this morning, but got a flat tire on the mower.  It can't be fixed, must be replaced, so my mowing will have to wait until another day.  And now the cool of the morning is gone, so there will be no more outside work for me today.

To rest my spirit, I took some pictures of pretty things.

I don't know what this weed is, but it grows all along the fence line and by the road.  I mow a lot of it down, but it is very pretty.

The moon plant is taking over the well planter.  It has some buds on it, so will be blooming soon.

There are a few other plants in there, but they, along with the pond are overshadowed by the moon plant.  I don't know how many fish are in there.  I started out with ten, but it seems some of them have disappeared.  There's no sign of a water lily bloom yet, but the leaves take up most of the pond surface.

Wedding Pics

We went to my niece's wedding in Tennessee this past weekend.  She had a vintage theme and invited her guests to dress accordingly.  Some of them did and it was fun to see what they came up with.  The wedding was in a quaint little old church building and the reception in an old refurbished, very lovely, hotel. 

Here are a few pics.

There were seven bridesmaids, but I seem to have cut one of them out.  I never said I was a good photographer.  The two to the far right are the bride's sisters.  We also see the back of the bride's mother's (Tina) head and the heads of the bride's father's (Keith) parents.

The bride escorted by her father, Keith.

Jordan, brother of the bride, walking out.  To the left, uncle Tab watches, and uncle Tom eats the popcorn intended for throwing at the bride and groom in lieu of rice.

Apparently, the sister of the groom has some of Tom's family's blood in her as evidenced by her method of popcorn eating, which is "grab and cram".

Posting Comments

It has come to my attention that some of my friends don't know how to leave a comment on my blog.  I do value all the comments and would like any advice that anyone will take the time to give me concerning any of these farming, gardening, animal husbandry, etc. topics that I write about and am learning about.

So, just a quick tutorial on posting a comment.  Look down at the bottom of the post for "comment" or "post a comment".  It can be different depending on how one has reached my blog.  Anyway, click on whatever says "comment" and a box will pop up that says "Talk to me" at the top.  Write your comment in the box, then scroll down and click the orange bar that says "publish your comment".  Another box will pop up and tell you to type the letters that you see in the box.  It will be odd words or random letters and kind of wavy, sometimes hard to read, but that's OK, if you don't get it right the first time, you get more chances.  I didn't want to have that feature because it is inconvenient for readers who want to leave comments, but I was forced to add it because of spammers.

Anway, after you follow the instructions for the verification, your comment will appear on my blog.  If you don't see it right away, you can either "refresh" your page, or just go about your business surfing and when you come back to my blog, it will be there.

Also, if you want to be notified of any new posts or comments, you can click on the "subscribe" button to the right of the screen and follow the instructions.  That way, you don't have to check back daily to see if there's anything new because you will be notified by e-mail when anything new is posted.  I subscribed to my own blog so I wouldn't miss anyone's comments.

I might have missed something, so if any reader wants to add their two cents to my instructions, have at it.

Bird Houses

Some previous owner was obviously into bird watching.  These are some of the bird houses that came tumbling down when we took out the old trees earlier this year.  There are also bird feeders scattered throughout the yard that I never fill.  I think there's plenty to eat out here without me feeding them - except for the hummingbirds.  I do put a feeder out for them just because I love watching them.  Although, since I've got real flowers out back now, they seem to prefer the flowers over the feeder.

Spiders and Snakes, Oh My!

When we had five large trees removed from our back yard, we saved the branches and twigs for making mulch, piling them up along the outside of the back fence.

Yesterday, while I was shopping, Tom got the wood chipper out and started making his way through the piles of brush, a.k.a. snake havens.  He discovered a copperhead in the pile, baring its fangs at him.  After beating it senseless, he cut it's head off with the loppers.  Then when Harry finished barking at the lifeless body, the chickens ate it for lunch.

This morning I put the mulch into my two new flower beds, which are ready to receive all manner of greenery.  I put a plant called "catmint" in this one (to the right of the birdbath).  I guess it is called catmint for a reason, because Jasper cat would not leave it alone.  I finally had to wack her when she broke a stem off of a nearby plant because of her crazy rolling around.

I continued this informal flagstone pathway a little further to edge the flower bed and filled it in with mulch.  I had intended to put red hydrangeas in the back of this bed, but found some Niko Blues on sale a few days ago.  I'm not sure if my soil is acidic enough to keep them blue, but I guess I'll find out next summer.

This is as far as I got today.  I'm not going to have enough to make the pathway actually go anywhere, so I need to figure out what I'm going to do from here.

This is the third black widow spider that I've found in the pile of flagstone.  This one, the smallest of the three, is scuttling up under the nearest rock to get away from me after I uncovered her lair.  Before I realized that they were there, one got carried from the pile to the path and I even held the stone up against my hip for support.  Ack!  There are probably more, but I am wearing gloves and checking all sides of the rocks before picking them up.  There was a day when I wouldn't have gone within 20 feet of a place that I thought might contain a black widow spider.

Jelly Making

This is about half of the thirteen pounds of muscadines (confirmed by someone who knows grapes from muscadines) that I picked the other morning.  Even though one of the recipes that I found on the net said not to bother taking them off the stems and they can be cooked with stems, I just couldn't bring myself to cook the stems, so I picked them all off.  And I learned something new.  Picking muscadines off of stems makes your hands itch so bad that they feel like they've been covered by fire ants, bitten all over, then rolled in poison ivy.  Lesson learned.  Wear gloves.

Next step:  mash muscadines.

Jars that I bought a few seasons ago are perfect for jelly.  This recipe makes four pint jars full.

Boil the muscadines for about 20 minutes, mashing occasionally to squeeze out more juice.

In the meantime, boil the jars and lids to sterilize them.

Wash up in between each step and enjoy the pretty blue dishwater that the muscadines make, but scrub your sink because it stains.

This is the juice from the muscadines that I first tried to mash through one of my jackpot contraptions.  When that didn't work out so well, I tried to mash it through a sieve.  Not the easiest process.  After that, I strained the juice through a double thickness of cheesecloth.  This is five cups of juice to which I added six cups of sugar (!) and a package of Sure-Jell pectin, stirring until it was all dissolved.

I poured the jelly into the jars, put the lids on and then into the pot of boiling water they went.  I learned something else here.  Don't try to save time and scrimp on pots by using a regular pot for the processing.  As the water boils, the jars jostle all around and end up bunched up together.  Since all of the instructions say, "don't let the jars touch" I was very paranoid about having exploding jelly jars in my kitchen (and the possibility of injury number three that is looming) and was constantly shoving the jars away from each other with my handy jackpot canning tongs.  Lesson learned:  use that scary canner.

Four jars of muscadine jelly.  All the lids sealed despite my inept boiling-in-an-inappropriate-pot method.

And I couldn't wait another moment.  As soon as the jelly cooled, I had to open one and taste it.  It actually tastes good, although, it is too runny.  Either I didn't leave it long enough to set up properly, or I did something else wrong.

I have another five cups of juice made and am going to follow the Sure-Jell instructions on the next batch of jelly and see if that makes a difference.  I noticed that their instructions say to dissolve the pectin in water before adding to juice.  Maybe that will help.

Bargain Extraordinaire

Oh, I am very excited about this.  While perusing craigslist.com on Wednesday, I came across these birdbaths.  A woman who was cleaning out her yard just wanted them gone and sold them to me for 25.00.  What a bargain!  I would never have bought them new because they are priced at hundreds of dollars.  I was at her house shortly after 8:00 the next morning to get them.

I put this one in the new flower bed that I'm preparing.

And some day, there will be a flower bed out there in the corner.  I'm thinking hydrangeas as a backdrop would be great there - something pretty to look at while blocking the view of the wood shed and wood piles.

Grinders and Stuff

I got into my jackpot box and put the contraptions together.  Not an easy feat with all kinds of parts from two different contraptions and no instructions.  But I got 'er done.  This thing is a grinder/slicer.  Supposedly it slices and dices and grinds just about anything you might want to slice, dice, or grind.  Those little discs laying on the counter are the different blades.  There's one that says "butter" on it, intended for something like almond butter, so it claims to grind stuff up pretty fine.

After I put this one together, I tried using it to strain the grapes for the jelly.  Hmmm, not a good idea.  It pulverized the grapes, seeds and all and got clogged up so that I couldn't crank it and basically was just a big mess and I had to give up.  I think it has other uses that I haven't discovered yet.  It might be good for making some kind of jam with a berry that only has tiny seeds.

Moon Plant

This is my moon plant.  My green thumb neighbor at our previous home gave me seeds one year which I planted in a big pot on the front porch.  It comes back every year, so when we brought the big pot in the move back in the fall, the moon plant, in it's dormant state came along with it.  It sprouted three plants this year.  I let this one grow in the same pot and moved two of them over to the well planter. 

The moon plant blooms at night, hence the name, and then closes up during the day, which is too bad because we aren't usually out at night to enjoy it.  Although, it doesn't close up immediately at daybreak, so it can be enjoyed part of the morning.

Incubation Impossible

Since our hens are a year old and I've read that hens are good for laying eggs for about two years, I've been thinking that we need to hatch some chicks so that we'll have a continuous supply of laying hens.  None of our hens seem inclined to hatch any on their own, so I went and bought a cheap-o incubator from Tractor Supply.  It's called a Still Air Incubator and is from Miller Manufacturing Company. 

I looked up how to incubate eggs on the net and found instructions.  Those instructions say that to hatch chicken eggs, the temperature must be a steady 99.5 degrees.  So, how hard could it be to stick some eggs in the incubator, turn them a few times a day, and hatch some chicks?  Hmmm. 

This is the incubator.  It's styrofoam, has some indentations in the bottom of it that have to be filled with water because the eggs need humidity.  They also need ventilation so there are a couple of small red plugs in the top that have to be removed.

On the top are two plexiglass observation windows through which you can see the heating element and the eggs when they are in there.  Also, there is a tiny dial that you turn to increase/decrease the temperature.  The incubator also comes with a thermometer mounted on a piece of clear plastic.

The first incubator I got didn't work properly.  No matter what the dial was set on, the incubator got so hot that the thermometer was all the way to the top - over 120 degrees.  So I took it back and exchanged it for this one.

It's supposed to be exactly the same, but the thermometer is even cheaper than the first one and is so tiny that it is unreadable.  You can't even read the whole numbers on it, much less the .5 that you're supposed to read.  I had to resort to getting Tom's fancy thermometer that just points and clicks.   The problem with that is I have to open the incubator to get a reading.  When it's open it immediately begins to cool.  Not that it really matters, it seems that it is impossible to get the incubator to the temperature of 99.5.  Too hot, too cold, too hot, too cold, too hot, too cold, too hot, too cold.  I've been adjusting the temperature dial for about 24 hours now in the tiniest increments possible trying to regulate the temperature. 

At this rate, my hens will have quit laying eggs and died before I can put any in the incubator.

Hitting the Jackpot

As I was mentally fortifying myself to get in the kitchen and make some jelly out of the grapes that I picked, I was searching for jelly recipes on the net.  All of them mentioned things like canners and canning tongs, so I was making a list of things I would need to get before I could start the jelly making process.  Of course, as usual I was using that as an excuse to procrastinate.  I don't like to cook.  I don't want to make jelly.  I don't want to can beans.  I don't want to dry herbs.  I don't want to preserve zucchini.  It all reeks of cooking, but it all must be done.

Anyway, I suddenly remembered that my friend, Janice, had given me a canner/pressure cooker before we moved out here to the farm.  In addition, she had given me a box marked "canning supplies".  It's been two and half years since she gave them to me and I've managed to put off learning to can this long, so I hadn't even opened the canner or looked in the box.  But, I was down to the wire.  I had picked the grapes and something must be done.  So, I dragged the stool out to the laundry room and climbed up to peek into the canner stored there.  Voila!  There were some canning tongs right there in the canner!  Yay!  No buying tongs.  Boo.  I have all I need to make jelly.

While I was up there, I spied the canning supplies box, which I had totally forgotten about, so I dragged it out along with a package of jars that I had optimistically bought two summers ago.

And, man did I hit the jackpot!

There was this grinder thing with three sizes of sieves.  And see, there are the tongs.  They look vintage.  I like that.

And two other grinder things, which I have no idea how to use...yet.  And loads of lids and rings!  This is very exciting!  I even took them back to the bedroom, where Tom was watching TV, and spread them out all over the rug for him to see and admire.  :o)

Yay for friends who give us things!  And a big thanks to Janice for her generosity.