Peacefulness before more farm yard issues

Last night, about 2 a.m.,Shadow decided it was time to thump the song of her people.  It seems I'm the only one who hears this.  Must be the mommy senses.  In any case, she kept me awake from 2 a.m. to about 3:30 a.m.

It made for a bit of a tough wake up, especially when I was planning to hit the flowage for fishing early in the morning. 

After wrangling the boy out of bed, and getting some food in his gullet, we were on the road.  

It was a bit cool this morning.  Temperatures were in the 50s Fahrenheit. We were also the first people on the flowage.  This almost never happens.  

The wild berries are flowering. 

Getting everything set up and ready to go. 

Off they go ... 

We all went out to claim our own spots.  I found a spot and had my breakfast.  A peanut butter and raspberry jam sandwich. 

So peaceful.

The fish weren't biting, unfortunately, so my son decided to have an adventure and kayaked to the island in the middle of the flowage. 

We could hear him chattering away and breaking brush. 

When it was time to head back, he had a bit of a time getting through the brush and ended up taking a dip in the drink when he was looking for the spot he parked his kayak. 

A few of the snaps he sent me. 

All in all, it was a good morning. 

As we pulled into the driveway, my son said "Who is that?  (Or what is that. I don't remember exactly) Both my husband and I glanced over into the trees at the front of the yard.  We saw two animals. 

This isn't good, guys. 

The freaking fox (or a different one, but I'm sure it's the same freaking one) came back. 

It had our big roo.

The fox saw us, knew what was coming, (which was us coming after it) and it bolted across the street and into the neighbors yard.  Our roo came running towards my husband and basically collapsed in his arms. We looked him over very carefully.  No blood.  Lots of missing feathers.  Nothing felt broken. My husband carried him back to the coop and the pen area, and set him down.  Our Roo stood for a bit, obviously in shock.  We had to catch the loose hens and secure them again. 

We don't know what happened or how the pen once again got open. My husband made sure the bits are closed over and everything was snug. 

All we know is that our boy is hurting.  

Then hens stayed around him and kept him company.  Our other roo, K2, stayed alert and kept a watchful eye on everything. 

We will have a better idea, I suppose, tomorrow.  He seems alert and he can walk.  He moves his wings.  He's just very still and is keeping his head down. It will be an amazing thing if he does come through and survives a fox attack.  I think him having a lot of fluffy feathers, especially around his neck, was a bit of a saving grace for him. 

We've been checking on him, off and on. 

So ... yeah ... that put a damper on the day.  

The rest of the afternoon was sort of a bust.  To keep my mind off of what was going on, we all went out and hit a different lake for a few hours.  My son has sunburn.  My shoulders are sore from kayaking against the wind and my husband didn't have to clean fish. Again. 

The rest of the my evening I've been watching tv, cross stitching, and checking in on the roo. 

The temperature dropped quite a bit this evening.  I think it's supposed to get down in the  40s.  Yikes! It's nearly the middle of June. No more cold nights!

Shadow and the babies are doing well.  

A surprise on the homestead

Just when you think you know what is going on in life, a surprise happens.

My son and I had just arrived home and he was heading out to the back yard to take care of chicken chores.  I was bringing stuff into the house and had just barely made it through the doorway when my son rushed back into the house, saying "Mom! Mom!  There's a brahma out and a bunch of babies."

Well, we still call the younger hens "the babies" so I thought he meant an older girl and a few of the babies manged to get out of the coop somehow.

Me: "Oh.  Well maybe the managed to sneak out of a window, or something." 

Son: "No! There's a brahma and baby chicks outside!"

Well, not really knowing what to make out of this I said "What?" and said I'd go outside. 

I went outside and, in the middle of the yard just as nonchalant as can be, was a brahma girl and seven baby chicks.

What a surprise! I stood there for a few seconds, not believing what I was seeing.  "How did this happen?" I said out loud.  I know full well *how* it happened.  I just can't believe we had a hen hatch some eggs out in the "wild."

I told my son to not let the big girls out.  It was decided that we needed to catch mama and the babies.  Then put them in the small coop so she can raise them without the flock them and possibly hurting the babies.

Catching them was a trip. First we had to wait for her to guide the chicks away from the back deck. Then I rustled up an old fishing net and managed to half-chase them around the yard and catch the babies, one and two at a time.  A few managed to squeeze through holes and get away.  I forgot that particular net had a big hole in it from when we caught a big Northern.

As I caught the chicks I handed them off to my son and he ran them to the little coop.  Mama was starting to freak out a bit; her babies were scattering and she was trying to protect them.  My son was able to grab her and she threw a FIT and verbally chewed us out. If hens can swear I'm sure she was swearing up a blue streak. 

They are together in the little coop and quite content. The rest of the flock has been hanging around the pen, staring at these little cheeping creatures.

Nature will find a way, I guess.  A while back we did have one brahma girl who was acting broody but she was always sitting in a nesting box.  If this is the same girl, she was determined to be a mama.  In our experience, once a girl goes broody, it's hard to break her of it.  She's determined to be a mom, always.

In the meantime, we are all marveling this miracle, wrapped as a surprise.  We don't know where she had her nest.

Canning season is upon us (and jerky making)

The family has spent the last week or so berry picking. We've got a few nice patches on our property and we found a few nice patches elsewhere.

This weekend I dusted off one of the pressure canners and got busy.  But first, I got a new kitchen gadget.  An OXO food mill.  I couldn't wait to try it out. I kept the blackberries and raspberries in the fridge and kept my fingers crossed that the food mill would arrive on Saturday. Thankfully it did because I'm not sure the berries would have lasted much longer. 

Long story short, I really like the food mill.  I can't believe I waited as long as I did get to get one.

Anywho, I had two VERY FULL gallon-sized buckets of berries in the fridge and I got to work on them.  

iPod photo of before-milled and after-milled blackberries.

Canning jam was a bit of an adventure this year.  For whatever reason my jam wasn't setting up at all.  The jam looked like I hadn't added any pectin to it.  But a rebatching (or two) took care of the problem.  My Tattler lids really saved the day since I could just rewash them and use them again.  I use a mixture of Tattlers and single use lids.

 

My son counted all the jars that had processed and the final number of all the jars of jam I've done this year was in the 70s.   I have never made that much jam in one season.  I think I got a little crazy with the "free berries".  This picture doesn't have all the jars showing.

 Isn't it pretty?  I just love the jewel tones that jam has.

In other news.  I talked to my husband about making beef jerky.  He was intrigued by the idea and started doing a bit of research online.

We have a smoker (or two, ... maybe three. Okay at one time, it was four) and he put seasoned meat on the smoker for one or two hours, to get that wonderful, yummy, delicious *drool* smoked flavor and he finished it off by drying it out on the grill.

For making jerky for the first time, he hit a home run with the flavoring.  Oh! It is wonderful. He already got a request from someone to make more.

There is a local place that has a meat counter that includes smoked foods.  Their jerky is nothing compared to what my DH made this weekend. 

This weekend after the jerky was made my son ended up eating about 1.5 lbs of it. Which is amazing to me.



 

Berry picking

 A week or so ago we went wild blueberry picking and then strawberry picking at a local berry farm, and then I made jam. 

This was just the first two batches that came out of the water bath.  I think I wound up with 16 jars of jam, total.  Maybe 20. ... It was a lot and it's all delicious. I have to keep my son from eating the blueberry jam by the spoonful.


Last night we decided to go check out the blueberry patch.  We weren't really expecting to find much. We were convinced the wild life had found the berries and there wouldn't be anything left, but we wanted to see how the patch was faring and make mental notes for next year.

Wow!  There was a TON of blueberries. The picture above is berries from 10 seconds of picking on one plant. To bad we didn't bring buckets.  We will know better for next time.

This was after a picking on another plant for a few seconds.  We found the patch early and picked early, never dreaming that the patch would pretty much be left alone. You could tell that a bear had been in the area but it had gone after an anthill instead of eating the berries.

The boy did NOT want to leave the patch.  He was really enjoying eating all the berries off the plants. 

Then we headed down the road and came to a little clearing. The original reason for stopping is that my dh thought that there would be a view of the main river in our area. 

No such luck, but it was still a nice view.

DH meandered around and found a raspberry patch.  Yum!  I had no idea the raspberries were ready.

The patch went on for quite a ways.  The berries were quite sweet.

Now we just got to keep our eyes open for the blackberries.  I'm really excited for those.  We have several blackberry patches on the property.  Just got to get them before the wildlife does.  I'm eager to try my hand at some blackberry jam.

Chats on the Farmhouse Porch #77

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1. Do you eat eggs? What is your favorite way to serve them?

 I do eat eggs.  My favorite is fried.  Either in butter or bacon grease.

2. Do you have a favorite item that you really like having around? (a pillow, a chair, a sweater, a teddy bear, etc.)

 This time of year it is definitely blankets.  All year around I like to have zip up hoodies. 

3. Is most of the furniture in your home dark wood, light wood, painted, lacquered, or distressed?

Most of my furniture is dark wood.   I prefer mission style.

4. Please fill in the rest of this sentence. "I could write a book about ____________."

 I could write a book about ... I don't know. I'm a jack of all trades, master of none kind of gal. Maybe I could do a pretty coffee table book full of pictures from around me area.  That sounds more my speed.

 

5. If money and calendar/family obligations weren't an issue, would you prefer to spend next weekend at a Bed and Breakfast, a posh hotel, a cabin in the woods, or on a sailboat on a calm body of water? I guess the last thing, the sailboat, would have to be someplace warm. :) (It's 30+ degrees here.)

A cabin in the woods. ... though I do like the idea of being pampered at a posh hotel.  But most certainly a cabin in the woods -- with a fireplace that has a stone chimney.  I would be curled up on a big comfy couch next to my hubby or curled up in a chair either reading or knitting. 

Thanks for stopping by! Many thanks to Patrice for hosting the chat. 

Chats on the Farmhouse Porch #76

I came across "Chats on the Farmhouse Porch" on one of the blogs I recently started following.  This looks like fun and I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon.




  QUESTIONS

1. What was your favorite game as a child?

When I was a child I played a lot of board games and card games.  I think my favorite board game was one that my mom had picked up at the local Goodwill.  I don't remember for sure what it was named. "Bankroll" comes to mind ... It was a cross between life and monopoly.  There there three "levels" and once you saved up enough money in your savings account you could advance to the next level on the board.  Things got more expensive the higher the level.  You could "retire" and win the game once you had X amount of money in the bank and a certain amount of real estate.

edit 1/23/13 I found the game.  It was called Bankroll. 

2. Have you ever had your own business? (home business, a shop, Etsy, lemon-aid stand, etc)

I have never owned a business.

3. How's your spelling?

Considering where I work, it should be better, but I'm a bit stubborn.  I call it "good enough." Though if I see bad style and formatting and errors in other people's work, it sometimes makes my eye twitch. 

4. How are you about going to the dentist?

I'm not a fan of the dentist.  But I did sit through a quad cleaning after not going to the Dentist for 10+ years.  Thank goodness for novacaine. I have remarkable healthy teeth. 

5. Do you enjoy board games?

I enjoy board games but I don't always have someone to play them with.  For a while my son was pretty hardcore on "Sorry".  The first time he played "Monopoly" against his dad and I he won.  Not too bed for a 6 year old (or was he 5?)