Learning the Hard Way

Wow, looks like life got a hold of me again!  I have been playing catch up since finishing the castle project at the church.  With the Gem and Mineral Show, National Health Week at Curves, and a co-worker on vacation (meaning: working triple the time I normally have to), not to mention the accident with my horse that put me out of commission for a solid week at least, life has been a bit overwhelming.  Exciting, yes but also overwhelming. 

On top of all that, I have apparently required a refresher course on not taking short cuts.  First example:  Horses that don't get ridden consistently require hours of groundwork; especially when they are obese on new grass and have become certain that they are princesses and should never succumb to the indignity of carrying a mere person on their back.  (You'd think she would at least appreciate that said mere person has lost over 65 pounds of carrying weight...nope)

On a beautiful May Sunday afternoon, I took such a shortcut.  As you can see, I lived to tell about it...barely.  Deciding against the drudgery of groundwork, I tacked Roxy up, put on my helmet, and mounted.  As usual she was a handful, but nothing I couldn't manage.  After all, I have owned her for 
almost 10 years and she'd never dumped me...famous last words.

She looks pretty innocent, doesn't she...

After a few minutes of riding the fence line, I decided all was going well enough to branch out into the 18 acres of conservation land.  Lex, my shepherd was by our side and the day was beautiful.  After an hour of riding slow switching between walking and trotting, I decided to give Lex and fat princess a bit of a run.  Big Mistake.  The moment I loosened the reins and urged her to a canter, she decided it was time to ditch the witch.  After the third buck, it occurred to me that I had no training as a rodeo bronc rider and threw myself off to the side.  I wondered if she would be one of those faithful, repentant horses that patiently waited for their rider to get up and remount.  Nope.  Off she ran, kicking not a single buck to mar her remarkably fast progress to her pasture.  She rounded 9 acres in record time, leaving me like a sack of rotten potatoes behind.  As I got up, I was delighted to note that I didn't hurt a bit - not bad for 47, I mused.

As I trudged back to the pasture, I did what every good horsewoman does when she's thrown.  I found an old bridle with another bit since she'd stepped on and snapped hers during her olympic run and remounted her.  I worked her for another 30 minutes in pastures one and two and even made her canter - which if I am being honest - was kinda scary!  But we did it and the ride was wonderful.  At that point, I should have called it good and ended it in on a positive note.  Oh, but for hindsight. 

Feeling a bit cocky in my mastery over this 1800 pound princess, I decided we would check out pasture three for a short turn before heading in.  She decided, Not.  Forgetting all the tips and tricks my trainer had taught me, I struggled to keep her head up to prevent her from bucking, and tapping her between the ears to keep her from rearing.  Instead I should have turned her in circles so she could not become the rocking horse she did.  She completely freaked out, reared up and over on top of me. 

As I fell, I heard my neck make a cracking noise my chiropracter has never before or since accomplished, and I recall thinking, that this couldn't be good.  My head whacked either the fencepost on the way down or the ground as I hit - honestly not sure which.  But to be sure, the most painful part of the whole process, was feeling her scramble to her feet using my right leg three times to assist her footing.  I was pretty sure there was going to be some bad news. 

As I struggled to sit up, (I surely did not want my husband to look over and see me lying prone on the ground after he was ready to send her to horsey heaven after the first round) mentally checking that all my body parts were still attached, I was amazed to note that princess was standing next to me sides heaving as if I had landed 1800 pounds of horseflesh on top of her then used her as a step ladder.  I would like to think her loyalty kicked in, but I'm honest if nothing else.  She eyed me balefully as if the whole thing were my fault.

After about 15 minutes of mental and physical checking, I did what any insane horsewoman would do...I got back on.  Two times around the smallest pasture was enough for me.  I untacked her, rubbed her down, then went inside and took two Naproxen and three ice bags to bed.

I am grateful to report that there are no broken bones, no head injury (thanks to the helmet that cracked in lieu of my skull), a bruise the size of my right leg...oh, yeah, that is my leg, and two hematomas; one on the left side of my right knee, and the other on the mid calf of my right leg.  It could have been worse...a lot worse.  And I am grateful to God that He intercedes on my shortcuts.

Tracking Spring 2012

February 23 - Red Winged Blackbirds return
March 1- Peepers (pond frogs)
March 2 - Robin and Swans
March 6 - Killdeer
March 8- 13 deer (although they are a year round presence, this is the largest I've seen the herd)

Every spring I play a game of tracking and journaling the wildlife that return in the order and preferably with the exact date I witness them.  I adore wildlife and treasure the wet springs if only for the new and rare species I've seen.  Although 2009 was truly a flooded mess; with our barn and most of our land a lake around our house and the ducks and geese swam along our driveway and fish swam in the back yard, it was the year I saw a Belted Kingfisher female diving for fish in my backyard.  It was also the year that I saw Hooded Mergansers and a pair of Teall Ducks for the first time!  It was also the spring that granted me the gift of watching a bald eagle survey our land and ponds for dinner.

I keep an adorable little nature journal handy to track the dates and species spotted and pass a few moments sketching some of them. 

Spring Chickens on the Rare Side!

If you want some of the rarer breeds of chickens in time for the spring/summer, you have to order in the middle of winter.  I just ordered 10 chicks of five different varieties.  Most of these are of rarer breeds.  Some of the reasons I chose them are because of their color, the abundance of eggs they lay, the color of eggs they lay, their personalities (all must be gentle and friendly), and a few because of how unusual or unique they are!

Black Copper Marans

Between seed catalogs and chick/poultry catalogs, I get very excited during the winter.  I try to hold back and order just what I need to replace hens that no longer lay....

White Sultans

This year I needed 6 hens.  I ordered 10!  When my husband suggested Turkeys, I was all for it!  He was thinking one or two for the freezer, but I was thinking the threatened Narragansett Turkeys that can still breed naturally and have babies, so we can have lots of turkeys - every year!  He said maybe we should wait and think it through. :(

Though, I understand his reasoning.  After all, we have three small coops/pens.  It is here I

must be very careful not to covet my neighbors poultry arrangement.  He has several HUGE, immaculate poultry barns with runs.  In fact, it is there that I sent my beautiful Sebastapol Geese to live when I was mistakenly sold more males than females and could not bear the fighting that entailed. I had no room to separate the poor fellows.

Thank God for Bruce who has the same passion for poultry that I do!  Every time I drive by, I crane my neck to check out his "spread" of barns, runs, recycled, yet pristine shelters, and perhaps a glance of Petrov or Rechenka....that's not really coveting is it?  I imagine our 40 x 60 foot barn turned into a poultry haven with a center aisle and outdoor runs that could house numerous varieties of chickens, ducks, geese, pheasants, and perhaps a few guineas to keep the ticks at bay!

O.K. back to reality.  Perhaps I ordered a few more hens than I actually needed.  Maybe my dream of poultry heaven must be pulled in to match my reality on earth, but one can dream!  That's what seed catalogs and poultry catalogs are for, right?

Buff Orpingtons

Silver Spangled Hamburgs

Dominiques

Extending Summer

My husband is brilliant at putting my ideas into action!  Actually in this case the idea came from Lauren and her co-op friends in the Michigan House at U of M, Ann Arbor.  She had posted on Face book how on one of their work days, some of the students who live at Michigan House built a couple of mini hoop houses for their raised bed gardens.

I had learned about giant hoop houses through my work at the Conservation District and the USDA.  I was not interested in these giant structures, although I was intrigued by the prospect of extending the season all the way to December...and starting the season much earlier than May.

Well, when I read about the inexpensive project, and the fact that my daughter was on her way to becoming a true green thumb, my excitement mounted.  Thankfully, I have a very agreeable and hard working husband!  He put these together starting Friday afternoon and finished before dark.  Now we will extend the eggplant, basil, parsley, and swiss chard.  I also plan to start some lettuce and spinach seeds this week.  We'll see just how far we can push back the winter!

Pesto Presto

Lately my garden has had a wonderful abundance of spicy globe basil, and what better to use it for than some nice green jars of pesto? I just love how versatile pesto is, we use it on pasta, potatoes, even pizza! (Chicken Pesto Pizza that is; a recipe that I can provide upon request :) Below I include my much used, and much loved recipe for canned, freezing Pesto.

You will need:  

1 cup pine nuts

4 cups fresh basil leaves, fimly packed

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Make sure your fresh basil is washed, then spread the pine nuts on a baking sheet and toast in oven at 450°F until lightly browned.

Puree toasted pine nuts, basil, and garlic in a food processor or blender until smooth.

Add Parmesan cheese, processing just to blend. In a slow steady stream, add 1 cup olive oil through feed tube of food processor or lid of blender while machine is running.

Pour pesto into can-or-freeze jars, leaving 1/2-inch head space. Drizzle 1^1/_{2  teaspoons olive oil over pesto.}

Seal, label, freeze.

Enjoy!

It's Raspberry Season!

This week my family found the first raspberries off our plants. I can't tell you how excited I am, as we've never had much luck growing raspberries in past years. This year our plants are large, healthy, and full of berries! I spent the morning weeding the garden and the berry beds and picking the first crop of my favorite fruit.

Did you know: An individual raspberry weighs about 4 g, on average and is made up of around 100 drupelets. each of which consists of a juicy pulp and a single central seed.

We have two kinds of raspberries; the traditional red raspberry and blush- a lighter colored variety.

My faithful, hilarious companion Lexi. Apparently he likes the raspberries too!

I got the garden completely weeded this morning...let's see how long it lasts.

This is our gentle giant, Thor. We have a small row of corn growing right in front of the chicken run.

Me, surveying my handiwork with my other companion, Dylan.

Miracles Still Happen

Ten days ago I published a post on my new little tomato seedlings.  Look what has happened in 10 days!  Who says miracles don't happen anymore! :)

Saturday I spent several hours in the still cool and cloudy weather cleaning out flower beds.  It was like an Easter hunt for all the lovely little seedlings and bulbs peeping out of the newly warmed soil.

 Yesterday, it had jumped to 81 degrees and I had to rush home from church to unplug the heat lamp so my little chicks didn't become chicken nuggets in the heat!  They are fine. See...

 I certainly hope we aren't going to skip the spring season and dive directly into summer!

Homemade Applesauce

We tried a new variety of apples last week that went over like a lead Frisbee.  What to do with a bowl of beautiful, crispy but bland apples?  Add lemon juice and make applesauce!  I figure if the lemon doesn't add enough tang to liven up the taste, I can at least use it in my baking as a substitute for oil!

The applesauce turned out quite tasty.  It's so easy to make, I regret not getting a bushel or two of apples last fall. It seems by October and November I am burnt out from all the previous canning.

To make the applesauce, I just peeled and cored the apples I had on hand and put them in a thick bottomed stock pot to simmer with about a half cup of water (just to prevent scorching).  I also added the juice from one lemon.  Then I just let it simmer for a couple of hours.  Since our family loves chunky applesauce, I only mashed about half of the soft apples down to sauce consistency.  You can stop there, but sometimes I add apple pie spice or cinnamon candy red hots.  This time I added a few packets of Stevia as I prefer not to add sugar and called it good.  And it is!

Can it ever truly be spring without chicks?

This morning was an unusual morning to say the least.  I woke and remained awake at 3:30 a.m.  Finally at 5:00 a.m., I shoved the covers away determined to make the most of my extra long day.  After working out on the treadmill and at Curves, I came home and was determined to clean out the hen house.  Mike got right on board.  As I shoveled, swept, bleached, and refilled fresh pine bedding, he replaced a pane of glass that had been broken over the winter.  My heart sang as we removed the wadded up towel that had been a makeshift draft preventer.  A few well placed staples from the trusty staple gun and the loose chicken wire reinforcing the door was back in place.  I love spring!  Even the cleanup is inspiring.  I think my hens really appreciated all the sprucing up as well.

We were so inspired by our industriousness, that we decided to clean out all the bluebird houses on our 18 acres of conservation land.  I have been watching pairs of bluebirds check out potential nest boxes for the last two weeks.  Now they are ready for occupancy.

Since by now it was lunch time and we were starving, we headed into Dundee for lunch and a quick trip to our favorite Tractor Supply Store.  I was sooo good.  Really, I was.  I walked past the adorable little chicks not even attempting to talk my husband into another clutch of fuzzy black cuteness.  However, the sales person must have tuned into some kind of hidden desire of mine.  She walked up to Mike and I and said, these are the last ones and they're half off!  I looked at the sign and ohhhhh!  they were Auracaunas!  Those wonderful, stern looking hens that lay beautiful blue and green eggs!

Half off!  Really?  They were...but they were not Auracaunas.  Turns out they were a breed (can't recall which exactly) that were excellent egg layers AND meat chickens.  Well, that got Mike's attention.  Meat?  Yup.  Box them up.

So we came home, and I spent the next hour shoveling, sweeping, bleaching, refilling bedding in the old goose house!  After adding the necessary heat lamp and draft blocks, the chicks were nestled into their new home.  You'd think this was the end of the story but when we got into the house there was a message on the answering machine from a woman whom I spoke with over a year ago.  She was wondering if I still wanted a pair of Sebastapol geese.

I think I'll clean out the old duck house tomorrow!

Old Fashioned Comfort Food and New Fashioned Reactions

I have a friend in the hospital after undergoing major back surgery and I have a Pastor who gives of himself more than there seem to be hours in the day.  I also have a daughter in a pre-calculus class that celebrates Pi day on March 14, of course!  Well, it was a good day to make some home grown comfort food; chicken noodle soup and two deep dish apple pies.

I love to hear about and see the reactions of the recipients.  Sometimes I wonder if anyone cooks from scratch anymore?  Shelby was sharing the fascination one boy in her class had with the tiny apple cutouts all over the pie. Apparently, he peeled the mini apples off the top to savor later.  I asked her if anyone else made a pie.  She said nope, the rest came from the grocery store.

Lynette's reaction to the soup was even funnier.  I got to her room just as her lunch arrived.  Dick, her husband, asked the nurse to bring an empty bowl.  Before the nurse had time to even leave the room, Lynette had the cap and ring off the canning jar and was spooning mouthfuls straight out of the jar!

My Pastor, after discovering the other pie in his office, called me to ask if he should cut a slice or wait until his wife came home from work, and even if he didn't wait he wasn't sure he could cut something so pretty... People sure are amusing!

If you are interested in the recipes, I usually get them from allrecipes.com.  In the case of the chicken noodle soup, the only change I made was adding whole wheat egg noodles instead of white.  We just don't bring anything into our home that isn't whole grain.  The apple pie is here.