Eggs!!

  My incubator is a re-purposed wine fridge with a light bulb for heat and a small fan, Mike found it on craigslist. It's not very big but it works for me. To help hold the heat I have a little collection of rocks and a wine bottle filled with water on the bottom shelf.

The light bulb, rocks and wine bottle

 There are any number of reasons NOT to hatch eggs right now. It'll be too cold to brood them outside. I'll have dusty, smelly and loud baby chicks in the house for at least a couple of weeks. But these were sitting on the counter...
 

10 Easter Egger eggs from my girls

 I swear, they were calling out to me! "Hatch us, hatch us!" I went back and forth all morning. I should, I shouldn't, I will, I won't...but  I DO need new hens for my flock. And the boys can make soup or be traded on craigslist. It's not like I would just be hatching because peeps are so fuzzy and adorable (much.) So I plugged in the incubator and set the thermostat. It came up to temperature perfectly .

The humidity will come up a little when I put the eggs in 

 So I did it, I put the eggs in the tray and set in the incubator.

The eggs, the fan and the thermometer/hygrometer 

I'm only doing 10 eggs right now, I could fit 50 but I want to hand raise them. So, now it's time to wait and turn them 3 times a day. If all goes well I should have babies around the 4th of February. I'll be candling in 3 days and I will try to get pictures of that. 

The whole set up

Here is a picture of daddy chicken and possible mommy chickens.

Any but the golden one could be the mommy (s)

Daddy

Getting back to normal

 Hello everyone, it has been a busy week here. I got a picture of our new couch. Okay, mostly Gabe, but you can see little bits of the couch around him.

Gabe is so cute when he sleeps!

 The big kids went back to school on Monday (woo hoo!!!!) and we started to get back on our normal schedule when Lily got hit hard by cedar fever. She has been a grumpy, stuffy, snot producing little monster since Tuesday. She's been so congested that Mike and I have been taking turns sleeping on the couch with her so that she can sleep sitting up.

This was AFTER we washed about 2 pounds of snot out of her hair!

  Luckily she seems to be feeling better this afternoon and evening. She came out this afternoon to help me do some chores and take some pictures.

Lily is "helping"

  Mike built me a feeder for the goat's hay. Now they can't be as wasteful as they've been. Feed is too expensive to have them throw it all over the ground and stomp on it. Now they can only nibble a little at a time rather than pull it out. I love that I can show Mike a picture of something and he can build it for me!

The goat feeder (the twiggy thing next to it was our Christmas tree)

 Of course, there was the normal house cleaning, cooking and animal care. I discovered that, when I'm out with the goats, if I just keep walking they will eventually get curious and follow me to see what I'm up to. 

They're ignoring me

 I've lost several more chickens, including Bob the rooster, to predators. Moon shine has inherited the head roo position and he is thrilled that no one attacks him every time he tries to mate with one of the girls. I'm going to put eggs in the incubator this weekend so that I will (hopefully) have some young hens to add to my flock early this summer.

Moonshine is happy as new the top chicken since Bob disappeared last week.

 These are a couple of my Buff Orpington hens. They will be going into our freezer when we have enough new hens to take their place. They eat too much and don't lay enough eggs.

They have fresh water, but they just LOVE puddle water.

And Larry, just because.

Bad Blogger

 I have been a bad blogger. My only defense is that my kids are STILL out on winter break. Thankfully, they go back tomorrow and we can all get back on our normal schedule
 So, what has been going on this week? Well, our company is gone. Dad made it back to Cali with no problems. Mary and Frankie went back home to Austin and we are sad without them.
 I made my first ever batch of tamales yesterday. They were a little bland but not too bad for a first try. Next time I will tweak the recipe a little.

A giant pile of tamales

Unwrapped

 We got new (to us) couches last night. I haven't taken any pictures yet because my house is a mess from the kids being home for almost 3 weeks. It's great because our old couch wasn't just ugly, the hide a bed inside was actually broken and one of the metal bars would jab you if you sat down wrong. I just want to thank my dearest friend Val for getting new furniture and giving us her old stuff. 

 There might have been more, but my brain is sort of fried from all the noise, the fighting, the tattling and the chaos. Next week I will try to do something interesting.

Blessed Be

Dinner

 This is how dinner tonight started...

Mary is very excited that we will be having duck for dinner

 Then it looked like this...

Wild duck breasts

And this...

Dried summer pears being reconstituted

And this...

Dried pears, garlic, celery and onions

And this...

Duck breasts cooking in the pear, garlic sauce

Mary made up this recipe as she went.

Mary, testing the meat

And this is the final product...

Dinner is served

 Seared wild duck breast with a pear garlic reduction, over reconstituted summer pears with celery and onion. It was really good, the twins descended on it like starving little wolves and Mike was thrilled that they turned out so well!

 She also made desert. Starting with the fresh cheese I made this morning.

Fresh cheese, made this morning

Did I mention that Mary is a pastry chef?

Mixed with sour cream, vanilla and honey

So, that plus these...

My eggs

Made this...

The batter

Which then became this...

It's a cross between cheesecake and a custard pie

And here is the recipe for the pie. Thanks to my dear friend Mary Mayberry.

Farmer's  Cheese Pear Honey pie

Crust: 1 individual packet honey graham      crackers from box
        1 tsp honey
        1/2 cup melted butter
Filling:
         1 cup fresh Farmer's cheese
         3 Tbs sour cream
         1/3 cup sugar
         1 tsp fresh honey
         2 Tbs pear honey
        1/4 tsp salt
        1/4 tsp vanilla extract
        5 fresh eggs (3 whole and 2 yolks, reserve 2 egg whites).

Directions: pre-heat oven to 375 degrees

In a food processor, grind the graham crackers to make fine crumbs. Melt butter and add to graham cracker crumbs, pulse for a few seconds. Add honey and pulse again. Butter a glass pie tin, form the crust and bake for 5 min.

Filling;
In a food processor, combine farmer's cheese & sour cream and pulse until very smooth. Add sugar and pulse again. Remember to scrape the bowl to ensure no lumps. Add the vanilla, honey, pear honey and salt. Pulse to combine, scrape bowl and add whole eggs and egg yolks one at a time. Whip egg whites to medium-soft peak and fold into first mixture in three parts. Pour into pie dish and bake in a water bath for 25 min in middle of oven.

Visitors to the farm

Visitors to the Farm 

We have had (and still have) guests for the last week or so. First, my father-in-law came to visit. We had a good visit and the kids LOVED having Papa here. He bought us an amazing gift...a dining room table and chairs! We can now sit down together and have family dinners. Everyone was sad when he had to leave on Saturday.

Mike, Aislyn, Papa, Gabe and Ian at our new table

 Next, my friend Mary came up from Austin with her little girl Frankie. They got here last night, and my girls were so excited that their friend was here. We ate tomato soup and then stayed up late playing cards. This morning we flew kites.

Lily and Ian are wearing shorts while Aislyn, Frankie and Mary bundled up

 I have to say, I didn't realize that getting 3 kites airborne all at the same time was an aerobic activity. We did get them all up together for a few minutes and all 5 kids managed to share pretty nicely. Only one got stuck in a tree and nobody stepped on mesquite.

Aislyn's fairy kite and Ian's box kite

 Mary and I started a batch of cheese this afternoon. It will be ready to drain in a couple of hours and should be ready to eat tomorrow. We'll be making another batch tomorrow. I'll try to get some pictures of the process.

 Now I'm going to finish my evening chores and then kick Mary's butt at Rummy again. Everyone have a good night.