Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Chicken run, Milkweed and guacamole
Steve finished our chicken run! It is wonderful. We put them all out in it the other day and kept them up long enough for them to get settled. I have also been putting Sparrow in there with them for a few hours at a time. Phoebe, our beautiful, little, bunny-tailed cat struts around on the beams supporting the wire on the roof thinkin' she is 'all that'! I felt they had been cooped up long enough, so I carried them out one-by-one to let them run in our yard for the day despite the rain, so once again, I have chickie-poo on my front porch!
I think I need to get some climbing roses, scarlet runner beans, and clematis to plant all around the coop to climb up the wire. How lovely would that be?
My veggie garden is growing nicely. We have a new squash and several tomatoes we have never grown before from Tasteful Garden, an internet garden shop. We got peppers, watermelon, strawberries, carrots, and cucumbers from the local co-op. I have flowers in my favorite colors growing all around it. I have lots of geraniums on my porch this year. And in the blueberry garden I have coreopsis, catnip and liatris. I have been trying to move the established peonies out from under the pecan trees, it has gotten way too shady for them over the years.
I puppy-sat Milkweed, a tiny Chihuahua, for a week while his folks travelled to Colorado and back. He is so dear. Although I am a big dog person by nature, I can see how people get hooked on the tiny ones. I was practically in tears when Miguel came over to take him home.
Miguel stayed to have dinner with us. We had Burritos. Steve fixed a steak and onion filling. Steve and Miguel made a very delicious (but very hot) salsa verde. We chopped tomatoes, lettuce and jalapeño peppers to put on them and set out sour cream to add to them. I made guacamole. It was quite the complement when Miguel loved my guacamole because he is an excellent cook and is from Mexico!
Here is my guacamole recipe:
3 ripe avocados (black skin, firm texture)
1/2 lemon (squeeze for juice)
1/2 lime (squeeze for juice)
1/2 cup of your favorite chunky salsa (my favorite is Pace, mild)
1/2 a tomatilla (chopped)
Miguel says that if you put an avocado seed into the guacamole once it is make it will keep it from discoloring. I have never done this, but I am anxious to try it next time. I am also going to scrape the inside of the lemon and the lime next time for little bits of tart 'bite' - I love tart.
Mix it all together, chill.
Enjoy!
I think I need to get some climbing roses, scarlet runner beans, and clematis to plant all around the coop to climb up the wire. How lovely would that be?
My veggie garden is growing nicely. We have a new squash and several tomatoes we have never grown before from Tasteful Garden, an internet garden shop. We got peppers, watermelon, strawberries, carrots, and cucumbers from the local co-op. I have flowers in my favorite colors growing all around it. I have lots of geraniums on my porch this year. And in the blueberry garden I have coreopsis, catnip and liatris. I have been trying to move the established peonies out from under the pecan trees, it has gotten way too shady for them over the years.
I puppy-sat Milkweed, a tiny Chihuahua, for a week while his folks travelled to Colorado and back. He is so dear. Although I am a big dog person by nature, I can see how people get hooked on the tiny ones. I was practically in tears when Miguel came over to take him home.
Miguel stayed to have dinner with us. We had Burritos. Steve fixed a steak and onion filling. Steve and Miguel made a very delicious (but very hot) salsa verde. We chopped tomatoes, lettuce and jalapeño peppers to put on them and set out sour cream to add to them. I made guacamole. It was quite the complement when Miguel loved my guacamole because he is an excellent cook and is from Mexico!
Here is my guacamole recipe:
3 ripe avocados (black skin, firm texture)
1/2 lemon (squeeze for juice)
1/2 lime (squeeze for juice)
1/2 cup of your favorite chunky salsa (my favorite is Pace, mild)
1/2 a tomatilla (chopped)
Miguel says that if you put an avocado seed into the guacamole once it is make it will keep it from discoloring. I have never done this, but I am anxious to try it next time. I am also going to scrape the inside of the lemon and the lime next time for little bits of tart 'bite' - I love tart.
Mix it all together, chill.
Enjoy!
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Pepper
Yesterday, we sold sweet Pepper, our black Morgan/Quarter Horse mare. We needed to sell her since Steve wouldn't ride her. She went to a therapy riding, summer camp program out in Somerville near Shari's place. I am very glad for her. I believe, with her personality, she will enjoy it there, she will love the attention.
Her dark color compimented the lighter colored Fjords perfectly agaisnt the verdant pasture. I will miss her terribly, she was always a joy. /em wipes a tear away.
Her dark color compimented the lighter colored Fjords perfectly agaisnt the verdant pasture. I will miss her terribly, she was always a joy. /em wipes a tear away.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Spring chickens
My chicks are big enough to be called cockerels and pullets now. They are growing fast and they are beautiful. I still have all eleven chicks. Right now, the girls are at that age where they are much like little doves. They are perching on my hand like a pet cage bird and listening to my every word. So sweet. If you look down into the little pullets tail feathers you can see big rounded, black marked adult feathers coming out already. The boys are running about looking for someone to bump chests with and boss around.
I had a worrisome couple of days when I witnessed a long thread going down the gullet of one of my prettiest little pullets I saw her wrestling with it, trying to get it out with her claws. I picked her up and tried to pull it out, it came out a few inches then it tightened up and I dared not pull any further. I let go of the string and carried her around to try to find my garden scissors, and when I found them and moved to snip and shorten the length of thread, the tippy end of the thread was disappearing into her mouth! She moped around for a couple of days, I felt I would loose her for sure, then one morning she was all well. She lucked out there because I saw around 15 inches of thread go down, it could have done horrible damage.
Sparrow, my once lone little EE hen, is enjoying their company immensely. She spends her days lounging with them under the forsythia and digging through the leaves and old daffodil plants along the fence in the front yard with them. They are still a little wary of her and they don't follow her. They are starting to warm up to her though. I saw one running to her for comfort once after all her buddies had slipped around the corner of the house while the little chick was busy scratching for bugs in the garden.
Their run is finished! It is gorgeous. As soon as the nights warm up a bit, we are going to move their hutch into the pen to give them a nice familiar place to sleep at night in the new run until they get a little bigger. Now I have to figure out a way to get them from the run back to the yard during the day. Maybe we can work out a routine where I feed them in the run at night and in the yard in the morning.
One of little 'girls' is most definitely a little boy. He didn't start to color out until after we had him a few days. He is colored much more subtly than his brother who was well colored when we brought them home.
Two of my girls have yellow legs. That is just as well, because hopefully I can sell them with one of the boys which might make it easier to find him a home. I will be loath to give up any of them, even the ones who loose breed type.
I am very happy with my chicks. They are going to be lovely eye candy when they get grown up. They are so sweet and tame. They are flying up onto my shoulder, sometimes so many at once that they jostle for position. The most flighty ones are very tame in comparison to most chickens I have had. One day, when a little pullet was startled by a barking dog, she literally jumped right up into my arms! They are so dear.
Two things have the power to transport me into happiness ... the sound of horses peacefully munching hay and the sweet chip-chip song chickens make as they scratch in the garden for bugs.
I had a worrisome couple of days when I witnessed a long thread going down the gullet of one of my prettiest little pullets I saw her wrestling with it, trying to get it out with her claws. I picked her up and tried to pull it out, it came out a few inches then it tightened up and I dared not pull any further. I let go of the string and carried her around to try to find my garden scissors, and when I found them and moved to snip and shorten the length of thread, the tippy end of the thread was disappearing into her mouth! She moped around for a couple of days, I felt I would loose her for sure, then one morning she was all well. She lucked out there because I saw around 15 inches of thread go down, it could have done horrible damage.
Sparrow, my once lone little EE hen, is enjoying their company immensely. She spends her days lounging with them under the forsythia and digging through the leaves and old daffodil plants along the fence in the front yard with them. They are still a little wary of her and they don't follow her. They are starting to warm up to her though. I saw one running to her for comfort once after all her buddies had slipped around the corner of the house while the little chick was busy scratching for bugs in the garden.
Their run is finished! It is gorgeous. As soon as the nights warm up a bit, we are going to move their hutch into the pen to give them a nice familiar place to sleep at night in the new run until they get a little bigger. Now I have to figure out a way to get them from the run back to the yard during the day. Maybe we can work out a routine where I feed them in the run at night and in the yard in the morning.
One of little 'girls' is most definitely a little boy. He didn't start to color out until after we had him a few days. He is colored much more subtly than his brother who was well colored when we brought them home.
Two of my girls have yellow legs. That is just as well, because hopefully I can sell them with one of the boys which might make it easier to find him a home. I will be loath to give up any of them, even the ones who loose breed type.
I am very happy with my chicks. They are going to be lovely eye candy when they get grown up. They are so sweet and tame. They are flying up onto my shoulder, sometimes so many at once that they jostle for position. The most flighty ones are very tame in comparison to most chickens I have had. One day, when a little pullet was startled by a barking dog, she literally jumped right up into my arms! They are so dear.
Two things have the power to transport me into happiness ... the sound of horses peacefully munching hay and the sweet chip-chip song chickens make as they scratch in the garden for bugs.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
New baby chicks!
I found some nice well-bred Ameraucana chicks! I called a gentleman, who had the same lovely bloodlines I had before and lost in the drought, whose name is listed in the Ameraucana breeders list. He and his brother breed wheaten, blue wheaten, splash, black, and blue Ameraucanas. They have French Marans also. I didn't know if I would have the heart to try again with such beautiful birds, but once I got the ball rolling with some phone calls and emails I was thrilled! We drove to Chickamauga GA, through Chattanooga, and the battlefield, and the town both Steve's and my parents got married in (because it was like the Gretna Green of the Southern US after WWII), and through some of the loveliest countryside in the nation to pick them up.
Here is the breed's website: http://www.ameraucana.org/
We drove home with eleven little chicks peeping in a box. One is definately a wheaten cockerel, one other may be. One is a blue wheaten and I think it's a pullet. All the rest are beautiful wheaten pullets. Since I have one shot at a nice roo, maybe two shots, I am hoping he will be a nice one with clear golden, red and black colors, full beard and muffs, a nice shape and size and a nice typey comb.
I have them set up in a raised pen on my front porch where I spend a lot of time anyways reading, drinking coffee, cleaning saddles, and potting plants in nice weather. So today I planted ivy-leaved geraniums, lobelia and euphorbia in hanging baskets while little chicks peeped and pecked and explored the porch near me.
I was so excited to have brought home some buddies for lonely Sparrow, my one hen. Maybe with the new chicks she will stop trying to get into the house! I had all the little chicks loose under the forsythia bush They were having a blast peeping, pecking, flitting and bumping breasts. They learned how to dust their wings and hop up onto low branches. It was, perhaps, the first time they had ever run loose like that. Sparrow noticed them and started walking towards them seemingly fascinated. She stopped under the forsythia and talked a sweet chicken song. The little chicks gathered a few feet away from her, equally interested but a little unsure. Then one little chick responded to Sparrows coos and clucks and bravely walked up to her. They touched beaks ... awww. Then Sparrows beak darted out like a snake, pecking the tiny baby and making her squawk in fright and pain, and she ran back behind her little buddies. That will be a lesson remembered, I am sure! Maybe someday soon Sparrow will accept them and run with them.
Here is the breed's website: http://www.ameraucana.org/
We drove home with eleven little chicks peeping in a box. One is definately a wheaten cockerel, one other may be. One is a blue wheaten and I think it's a pullet. All the rest are beautiful wheaten pullets. Since I have one shot at a nice roo, maybe two shots, I am hoping he will be a nice one with clear golden, red and black colors, full beard and muffs, a nice shape and size and a nice typey comb.
I have them set up in a raised pen on my front porch where I spend a lot of time anyways reading, drinking coffee, cleaning saddles, and potting plants in nice weather. So today I planted ivy-leaved geraniums, lobelia and euphorbia in hanging baskets while little chicks peeped and pecked and explored the porch near me.
I was so excited to have brought home some buddies for lonely Sparrow, my one hen. Maybe with the new chicks she will stop trying to get into the house! I had all the little chicks loose under the forsythia bush They were having a blast peeping, pecking, flitting and bumping breasts. They learned how to dust their wings and hop up onto low branches. It was, perhaps, the first time they had ever run loose like that. Sparrow noticed them and started walking towards them seemingly fascinated. She stopped under the forsythia and talked a sweet chicken song. The little chicks gathered a few feet away from her, equally interested but a little unsure. Then one little chick responded to Sparrows coos and clucks and bravely walked up to her. They touched beaks ... awww. Then Sparrows beak darted out like a snake, pecking the tiny baby and making her squawk in fright and pain, and she ran back behind her little buddies. That will be a lesson remembered, I am sure! Maybe someday soon Sparrow will accept them and run with them.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Natchez Trace and Shiloh
Shiloh 
Shiloh
Steve and Crickett
Steve, Topper and Kyffin
Kyffin and Topper
Monday, February 2, 2009
Riding, car trips and art
So much has happened since I last blogged. Winter is finally winding down, the days are getting longer. The daffodils are up in full bloom even though there is still a nip in the air. Spring is just around the corner. The horses are loosing their fuzzy jammies. I groom them while they are eating with a slicker brush like one buys to groom a thickly coated dog. I haven't found a horse brush that will get down into the horses thick winter coats quite like a slicker brush will. I have to be real careful not to scratch or poke their skin with the slicker needles though. The birds will have lots of slicker shaped horse hair clumps to build their nests with. I am going to have to get after Solly with the clipper blades as soon as it dries up a little, I hope it isn't so late that I will mess up her incoming Summer coat.
Our group of friends, Steve's work buddies and family and friends, had three Christmastime gatherings. As usual, the food and the company was unrivalled!
A few weeks ago Steve and I piled the Labbies in the truck and drove a little ways up the Natchez Trace to Shiloh. The Trace is always a lovely drive and Shiloh always takes my breath away, between its beauty and the history it is truly an awesome place every Southerner should visit. If trees could talk ...
A couple weeks ago Shari called me up and said, "Grab your saddle and catch your horse if you want to go riding with us, we'll be there to pick you and Solly up in 45 minutes!" We went back to the Brushy Loop, but since it was late in the day we didn't ride the whole loop. I think we went to a parking spot in the middle of the loop and turned north this time.
http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/alabama/maps/documents/OwlCreekMap_letter_size.pdf
We - Shari on Dancer, Kimberly on Raven, and me on Solly - rode well past the swamp and the deer meadow and turned around. In the deer meadow Shari got on Solly, while I held her Dancer, and gave me a lesson on controlling her forwardness without hanging on her mouth every second. I don't call her my go-go bunny for nothing. Solly likes to run down hills. In the woods on leaf strewn trails that will often have slick mud hidden under the leaves, hurtling downhill at twenty miles an hour on a horse is not pleasant. She is also a horse who really thinks she ought to be the leader and she sometimes gets hard to handle when she isn't first horse on the trail. She almost ran over young Raven, when I had a lax moment and Solly took control and tried to get in front. It's a good thing Raven is a good natured little gal. Shari taught me to not be afraid to use the bit quite sharp if she is really ignoring me, the annoying bug on her back, and how to get her to listen to me better. Earlier she reminded me to use my legs to move her hind end when I use the one rein stop, that only turning her head is not a proper one rein stop. The lesson helped quite a bit. The sky got darker and darker until we were riding back to the truck and trailer past dusk. It's been many years since I rode horses in the forest at night and it was glorious. Shari told us stories of riding in endurance rides that started before the sun came up. The stars were out as bright as they would be in the mountains, we could see them clearly through the bare winter trees. Orion. The Seven Sisters. A beautiful, bright planet - Mars maybe? We found the road and Arnold the truck and marveled at how fun a ride we had as we unsaddled and groomed our good horses. Steve had delicious hot chili ready for us when we got to the house so we turned Dancer and Raven out in the barn paddock and tossed them some Bermuda hay for their visit, and went into the house for dinner. Does a day get any better than that?
Last Thursday, Shari and I, her family, and some other folks from our local Parelli club piled into our vehicles and went and spent three days at the Parelli Celebration in Franklin, Tennessee. Making new friends, watching beautiful and outstanding horses, learning new ways to connect with your horse so you can control them better and enjoy them more, and just being inspired is what I got out of the time I spent there. I also got their Patterns series, I think they will help me, the way my brain works, better than any horse instruction I have ever found other than my irl teachers. I cried buckets watching Lauren Barwick and Maile and hearing her tell her story.
http://www.daylife.com/photo/0cIv1uy1b9gil
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1Td1eBSKkI
I laughed till I cried when the two little boys and their tiny ponies did their shtick. Linda gave me lots of pointers about how to handle my silly left-brained introverted and left-brained extroverted ponies. Watching Pats demonstrations always leaves one knowing how you can improve upon your horsemanship. I enjoyed everything all weekend long, even swearing about the hotel clerk who gave us a horrible time. The high spots were too numerous to list them all. Except I missed my husband and doggies. Steve came up for a few hours on Saturday and came all day Sunday and brought the dogs, but, unfortunately he had a wicked bad headache and didn't enjoy himself. And after the Level 1 photo shoot, Pat touched my shoulder as I helped him come down off a barrel ... I may never wash my green, corduroy shirt again
Apparently, my drawings on the name tags Steve made for the NFHR annual meet were a big hit! I have been getting lots of requests for nametags and designs for NFHR and other Fjord clubs and groups. That is quite complimentary ... thanks everyone for the kind praise. I have been busy on designs and will get in touch soon.
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