Chickens

This past Saturday Ed and I went to a farm auction in Kutztown PA. This auction is held every spring to benefit the Amish and Mennonite schools in that area. The local community brings donations that are then sold to help the schools.

They have everything from home interior, quilts, farm equipment, yard equipment, animals and much much more.

While we where there we of course had to check out the animals. They manly had fowl and rabbit, one family did bring a horse to be sold. The birds where everything from chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys to pigeons, quails and guinea hens. They had peeps and ducklings also, so while we waited for the auctioneer we checked things out. They had a lot of Americana Peeps these will lay colored eggs when they reach maturity.

The auctioneer finally arrived and the bidding started. I will tell you that I got all the Americana Peeps, all sixty three of them. I know, I know that’s a lot of peeps, but here me out, if you would purchase them for a hatchery they would cost from $2.00 / $3.00 a piece. That in itself isn’t bad. I certainly would not have purchased sixty three of them, maybe a dozen. At the auction, are you ready for this I paid a mere $0.35 a piece for them. Now do you see my logic, In reality there is going to be some loss from predators so having this many chickens is not that big a deal and since they were strait run I don’t know how many are male and female. If there are manly boys then I will have to get rid of some of them since they don’t lays eggs.

We brought are little four day old guys and gals home. With some stops at a feed and farm store to get supplies. Set them up under a heat lamp, feed and watered them and they are doing real well.

These are the little ones after we first got them home.

Now they are a week old and growing fast, I started them on grit today. That is to help them digest there food since they don’t have teeth the grit helps to pulverize there food. As they get bigger I will be separating them into multiple containers so they have more room. Below you will find some pictures that I took today.

  They look like little hams posing for the picture

What I have been doing is holding them a little each day so they get used to humans. Some like it, others do not that’s fine because they will. We would like to have educational demos at the farm and I would like all the animals to friendly with the guest adults and children.

My goal is to keeps you up to date with there progress so check back once a week to see how they are.

Dandelion Wine

Last spring while I was reading one of my magazines I came across a recipe for Dandelion Wine. It became to late for me too make any last year so I vowed to make some this year.

So that is exactly what I did, you don’t realize how long it takes to pick enough flowers to make this wine. Try like two and half hours, you only use the petals no green parts.

After picking the flowers for like ever, you also need to get some lemons and oranges. Besides sugar, yeast and water you are set to go.

With this recipe you use the rinds of the lemon and orange plus the orange its self. First you boil the flowers, water, and rinds for twenty minutes. Strain that out and add your sugar, then let it set until it has cooled. then you add your yeast and orange slices. Now you let it set for, four days this is the first setting.

On the fourth day you strain out the mixture and let it set for two weeks. This is the second setting which is pictured above. Then there is a third setting for another two weeks before the final transfer to the bottle and setting in a cool place to age.

The recipe says that the wine will be ready for Christmas so I won’t be talking about this anymore until then. All good things take time, it’s the same with good wine as well.

Cheese Update

Back in January Ed and I started to make hard cheese, Gouda, Monterey Jack, Farm House Cheddar, Traditional Cheddar. If I remember correctly I said none of them would be ready until Easter. Easter was here and gone and we tasted the first of the four cheeses.

The first cheese we made was the Gouda, we had it with some wine from a friend gave us and bread that I purchased from a bakery. Boy was it good, the first pieces were reminiscent of Parmesan, with a slit sharpness that mellowed out. It was a good pairing with the wine and bread.

After we sampled the first pieces we did share, everyone that got a sample liked it very much to the point I got and order for a wheel. 

The rest of the wheel I kept in the refrigerator to have later in the week. As the week went on the flavor of the cheese mellowed out not being as sharp when it was first cut. This Gouda is also a good grating cheese. I made some pasta with olive oil and herbs. Just before I served it I topped it with some grated Gouda and it was good.

The next wheel we are going to try is the Monterey Jack, once we do I will let you know how that came out.

Palms

Last year I was asked to weave palms for Palm Sunday, our church was having a talent day where members brought thinks they made to the church too be on display for Palm Sunday service. Since I did such a great job last year I was asked to weave the palms again this year. It’s also a special day since it is the start of the churches tenth anniversary.

So this year I did them a little different then I normally would, with a few extra pieces. That will adorn the church.

These are single flowers for a side table. I made a dozen total that can go in one vase or be split between two.

This is a cross with flowers woven to look like they are growing up the cross. There are also some woven pieces interlaced through out the piece.

 

Theses two are alter pieces that will be placed on the alter and a side cabinet.

This piece is for the cemetery, I make up some every year to remember loved ones.

 

Those are this years pieces. After I was working on them I came up with some possible new effects for next year. So we will see if they work out.

Gardening

I was able to get to the garden today and take some soil samples. I still had to shovel about a foot of snow out of my way first, but when I got too the soil it was soft, wet but soft.

I learned today that some amending needs to be done. I already new this so it was more a confirmation then not. All the levels need to bee increased a bit. Except for the pH levels their were all in range.

I did take five samples from different parts of the garden. It's kind of cool to be able to get a different result twenty feet away from the same plot of soil. It shows that you need to keep good records and be aware of what your plants need.

So all I have to do know is wait till the snow melts and amend the soil so I can start planting. I suspect that will be in early April.

Seed List

I guess i was slepping last night when I posted about the seeds, so below is a list of whats new this year.

• Mary Washington Asparagus
• Green Globe Artichoke
• Yellow and Green Bush Bean
• Tall Telephone Pea
• Glaskins Perpetual Rhubarb
• Vegetable Marrow Squash
• Vegetable Spaghetti Squash
• Black Pearl Soy Beans
• Yin Yang Beans
• Early Pink & Calico Popcorn
• Chichiquelite Huckleberry
• Emerald Gem Melon
• Scaly Bark Watermelon
• Striped Stuffing Tomato
• Virgina Peanuts
• Jerusalem Artichoke
• Bull's Blood Beet
• Indigo
• Black Hollyhock
• Golden Margerite
• Wild Indigo
• Safflower
• Chinese Woad
• Flax
• Milk Weed
• Erlene's Green Cotton
• Mississippi Brown Cotton
• Bo-Tree
• Rainbow Mix Aster
• Pacific Beauty & Pink Surprise Calendula
• Halequin Marigold
• Farinacea Blue Bedder Salvia
• Music Box Sunflower
• Kong Sunflower
• Chinese Latern

Weaving Tip / Trick

A little trick I thought up for table loom weavers is to mark your leavers for difficult or complex treadling projects. What you do is get some Post-It page markers and for every leaver that you are using mark all the treadles that leaver will be pulled.

For example leaver eight is marked 3, 4, 6 and leaver seven is marked 3, 4, 5. You read your ti-up from left to right for each leaver and mark which number in the draw down that leaver is to be pulled. In the examples I'm using, leavers seven and eight are pulled when you get to 3 in the draw down as well as 4. Leaver seven is puled at 6 and leaver eight is pulled at 5. I used these two leavers for the example because you can see what i have written on them from the picture. I also omitted the tabby from the tabs since I know what tabby is I didn't need to add it. When your done you just remove the tabs and add new ones if you need to for the next project.

I will recognise that not every table loom owner will be able to use this system. Since some leavers are on the side of the loom instead of the front or maybe you can stick the tabs so they are visible on the leavers. I really don't know it's just a thought. I hope this helps new and experienced weavers out.