The Chicks at One Month

The chicks are now one month old and have changed dramatically since their first fluffball days.

In fact, one might even say they are a little bit ugly now.  Each day we’ve been letting them out into a temporary pen

and yesterday we made it sturdier and more permanent.  Adjacent to the chicken coop (the chicken coop fence is one wall) we put tall fencing.  Because the holes are about 3″x4″ and they could walk right through we covered the bottom is chicken fencing (which they can’t get through.) We made a sort of gate from strong strong fencing.  Then Paul hammered together a three sided shelter for them, with a bar they could use as a perch.  We were going to be gone all day yesterday and needed someplace safe for them.  When we got home the temperature outside was 58 degrees, which is pretty chilly for them.  They were all asleep in a big heap together.  We scooped them and put them back in the garage in their bin with the heat lamp.

The mother hen is now taking her chicks out and about with the rest of the flock.Presumably these chicks will not have trouble joining the flock since they have their mom and they mingle with the flock already.

 We are concerned about when we introduce the 22 chicks into the coop.  In case you didn’t know the phrase “pecking order” is a real thing and chickens establish this dominance by pecking the lower ranked chickens. They’ve got another week or two before we’ll be putting them into the coop, though.

In the garden things are going well, though it is a constant and losing battle against the weeds, especially the ones that are like morning glories and keep strangling my plants and apparently come back 2 minutes after I pull them up. My greatest hope is for our plum tree to yield so many plums that I can make all kinds of things with them. Right now the tree is loaded with little green fruits:

In the world of sewing I made two things this week: little zippered bags for gifts for Tabby’s teachers. I think they came out really nicely and I hope they like them.

I think I feel caught up here and back on track now. Though we might do a little project today that I know I will want to post about

Memorial Day Weekend-a family reunion!

Memorial Day was already a week ago, and we’ve had a busy week, but I haven’t been able to post or keep up due to some computer woes. I’ve had my beloved pink laptop for at least 5 years and it seems that it’s time has come. A new one is on its way and I’ll be backing up all my photo files and moving over to it soon.  So, let’s get caught up!

We started off Memorial Day with our town’s annual parade.  This year, as a Cub Scout, Clark marched in the parade.  We all waved and cheered for him.

As usual it was very hot.  As usual there were many many fire engines.  While this was a highlight when Clark was 3, I’ll be honest-I found myself less charmed than in years past.  It’s a short parade and I always enjoyed the small town festiveness of the occasion, but this year it seemed that hardly anyone was watching the parade.  Very few people were on our street (it goes down two streets.)  Also, the parade consists of the police bagpipes and drums, which is awesome, a million fire engines, Scouts, senior citizens, and some politicians.  I think we need to get some more people in there, a marching band (need more music!), and how about some animals? There’s tons of horses around here and who wouldn’t like to see some horses clip-clopping along with red, white, and blue rosettes on their manes? There you have it Neshanic-that’s how to spruce up the parade! Anyway, after that we had the scouts back to our house for some ice creams and that was very nice. Then, for the main event!

Both of my brothers were in town for the weekend-one from Vermont and one from Colorado.  The last time all of us were together was Thanksgiving, 2 1/2 years ago, so we were very happy to all be together.  The kids had a blast playing together and we all went to the river to go swimming (we had taken Pippin swimming  just the day before.) It was an inspired idea and we had a great time swimming and wading and floating and playing.  On the menu was grilled honey spicy shrimp (a recipe I’d seen here two months ago and marked to make for this occasion), ribs made in the smoker (Paul made a great rub consisting of:

• 1 tablespoon cumin
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1 tablespoon granulated garlic
• 1 tablespoon granulated onion (we used grated onion)
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar (I used 1 1/2)
• 2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• (my addition) 1 tablespoon turmeric,

), hamburgers, salads, and birthday cake.

And here’s the whole family all together:

Back row: Sarah, Paul, Ben, Crissy, Joan (my mom, the matriarch), Anna, Karen, Tim
Front row: Esther, Wylie, Clark, Tabby, Will

New Year’s Resolution: Recipe Organization

This year one of my New Year’s Resolutions was to get my recipes organized and under control. I think I thought I would do it for the first week of January.

Keeping my recipes organized is something I’ve just never been able to get a handle on. First of all, I have a ton of recipes. For years I subscribed to Cooking Light, and then for several more years to Everyday Food (really, the best cooking magazine), as well as Taste of Home (which started out at as a joke, but in fact I have clipped many many recipes from there.)  Add in recipes from friends, other magazines, and all the ones I find online and you’ve got thousands of recipes.  While I’d love to be all electronically organized, I really love a handwritten recipe, as well as flipping through pages and looking at pictures.  Basically it’s never going to end up all in one place.

Here are my main places, starting in the upper left and going clockwise:
My recipe box:  This includes recipes on cards as well as recipes that have been torn out of magazines.  Which is a little confusing-why are some torn out recipes here and others in a notebook?  I’d have to say that the recipe box mostly has things I go to over and over again. Mostly, but not necessarily. Peeking up from it in this picture you can see my friend Denise’s recipe for Irish Soda Bread, it’s the only one I use for this. A scrap of paper with 4 ingredients for 3 Bean Salad scribbled on it (after taking this picture I wrote it out properly on a nicer card.) A photocopied recipe from the New York Times magazines many years ago for Chicken Roasted With Sour Cream and Chutney (sooooo good! Basically stir up mayonnaise, sour cream, chutney, lemon juice, and curry powder, pour over chicken breast and bake.) Pear Bread-this is actually in a cookbook I have but it got a special card-great recipe, like a pound cake. North Woods Bean Soup-clipped from Cooking Light many years ago, it’s a favorite for winter soup nights.
My Recipe journal: This lovely book was given to me a long time ago by my friend Perri. See?

I promptly filled up the entire dessert section, a bit of the others, and I have to admit that when I looked through it I realized how many more empty spaces there are.  For example, why didn’t I just write the 3 Bean Salad in there? Because I forgot, that’s why!  Some of my very favorite recipes are in here, such as Sweet Potato Corn Chowder, which has practically faded away.  When I page through it and see the recipes I remember when I ate them and why I put them there, which is very nice.
 When I lived on Martha’s Vineyard I must have cooked this recipe for pasta with seafood for my friend Kathleen and I easily a dozen times.  We loved it and ended up just calling “the dish.”

The Recipe Binder:  This was my solution several years ago to the growing clipping collection.  I taped all my clipped recipes on to pages and then put them in sheet protectors.   It also includes other printed out pages put in there.

My Menu Diary:  This little book has pages where I write down the menus I’ve had for special occasions.  I started it to be sentimental and think that someday it would be a treasure (maybe not as fun as Victorian menus to read, but still), but it quickly became really useful.  Time to bring a dish to Christmas Eve dinner? Hmm…let’s see what I brought last year so I don’t repeat.  I admit that sometimes I forget to write in here, but I can often check here on the blog to see if I’ve written anything.  I’ve just filled it and will have to make another one.

So where do I go from here?  I’m not willing to give up these 4 things and will maintain them.  But, I did pull out all the recipes I use just for Christmas and put them in their own folder:

I pulled out all the baking recipes from the big notebook and put them in their own notebook.

See the cute little letters? I used a friend’s die-cut machine to cut them out. Because half of organization is just looking nice.  So clearly the next step is to decoupage the covers of these recipe notebooks.  I do also still have all these Everyday Food recipes to contend with:

Over the winter I forced myself to go through all the magazines, tear out what I wanted, and recycle the rest.  I sorted them by category and clipped them together, but now what? I may just keep them like this, in a folder in the notebook, and flip through them when I want to.  I did that yesterday and found a wonderful Lemon Ginger Bundt Cake that is in the oven right now, being baked for dinner tonight at my mother’s with both of my brothers in attendance.  Our families haven’t all been together in a couple of years, so I’m really excited about our Memorial Day BBQ.  You can bet that’s a menu that will get written down in a new little Menu Diary!  And you can bet you’ll be seeing some big family portraits here.  In the meantime, here’s a picture of someone’s new haircut, which is the shortest he’s ever had it!

So I’m not sure that the resolution has been fully achieved, but it’s definitely had progress made on it and I feel good about it.  Tell me, how do you organize your recipes?

Checking in with Mother Hen at 2 1/2 Weeks

It’s been a little over two weeks since our little mother hen hatched out the first two of her chicks (just two weeks for chick #3 who hatched almost 48 hours after the first one.)  What’s been going on with her?
The first couple days she remained on her nest in the henhouse, then relocated to an on the ground nest under the house within the coop.  She led her babies around the coop (fenced in, though the door was open for all the other poultry to go in and out.)  They are so dear to watch-little bouncy fluffy balls cheeping and hopping around her.  Several nights ago she decided she was ready to return to going to bed at night in the hen house.  The first time she did this only one baby made it in with her.  The entrance is about 2 1/2 feet off the ground and they can either fly up there, or go up a fairly steep (if you’re 3 inches big) ramp.  Babies #2 and 3 had to have Paul and I catch them and give them to her.  The next night all three were left outside and again we helped out.  Since then they have been just fine going into the house with her at night.
In the morning the first time they followed her down the ramp, sliding and jumping.

But since then…they just jump out the door like little flying paratroopers!  There’s a little hole in the door which we had not thought too much of, but this morning when I went to let them out I found the henhouse locked up tightly and all three babies outside running around. Mother Hen was not amused.  I’ve just covered the hole, so hopefully they won’t sneak out in the morning again.

A few days ago she started bringing them out, but keeping close to the coop.  As of yesterday she’s got them going around in the gardens and grass, into the garage, and all about.  They look extremely tiny in the big world.

It’s nice that she’s so accustomed to us and, because of that, will bring them over to us for food.  The little babies are not very skittish and quite cute.  They are very tiny-about on par with our black silkie chicks.
Tonight I finally got a picture I’ve been wanting-the little chicks peeking out of their mother.  They were in the nesting box, ready for bed, all looking out at me.  They didn’t mind a few photos.  Checking them out up close you can see that one of them has an all black face, while the other two have little eye outlines and yellow beaks.

I love our little chicks that we are raising, but I have to admit I love watching these babies best of all.

Summer Purse

A friend admired the little clutch I made for myself and requested one. She likes bright colors and patterns, too, so I used this vibrant pink fabric. I cut it just so, so that it would line up in a cool way on the front and have a sort of medallion design centered on the back.

The inside is just like mine, with a small pocket.

I think I may have forgotten to write about another sewing gift-another artist’s roll.

I did applique initials on the outside.

I love these little roll up things. You could make them for all sorts of things other than art supplies–knitting, makeup brushes, umm….what else?

This past week has had a lot of gardening and special events (dress rehearsal, the circus, recital, tasks), so I haven’t been sewing  down my to-do list.  Time to get on it-especially since I have a dress to make for myself.

Divide and Conquer

You may recall from past posts and pictures that our pond garden area, while very lush, is tremendously overgrown.  Last summer I felt like you could hardly see the pond and it was too jungley.  I vowed to hack the hosta apart and open it up a bit.  Earlier this spring I dig out over half of the big hosta.  I transplanted what I dug up to the front yard, where it is doing very well.  As for the left behind one? Doesn’t look any smaller!!

This morning, looking at the other side of the pond, I realized the day lilies were out of control and needed digging up.

It’s probably not the right time, but I didn’t value the plants tremendously, plus I know they are pretty hardy.  In fact, I believe some of them were divided cuttings from a friend.  Turned out that there was even a big beautiful hosta hiding in the middle of them.  It took several shovels and both Paul and I and a lot of grunting, but we finally dug up everything that was next to the edge of the pond.

I filled it in with mulch.  It looks a bit barren, but I think that the plants that are behind that area will flop over towards the pond in a little while and it will look fine.  Also, the bullfrogs (there are definitely two) enjoy hanging out in the shaded area from the plants, and there are still plenty of shaded hidey holes for them. I’m also hoping our not-too-bright ducks will be more inclined to go in because I don’t want to always have a sled of water by the back door. That’s right, we put out a plastic toboggan with water in it for them. They love it.

The dug up plants are so massive that we are going to transplant them to the back wall part of the house that is just kind of ugly and barren.  I’m even thinking that next year I will divide my beautiful most successful hostas.  Look how humongous they are this year-glorious!

I doubt it would hurt them to be divided a bit.  Sometimes it’s hard to remember in gardening that you need to divide, cut, and prune to help things grow to their best advantage.  The butterfly bush I pruned is already bushier and bigger than when I pruned it a month ago.  The plum tree we pruned this winter is looking exceptional (and is covered with tiny little plums that I really hope succeed in growing and ripening. Dare I say…to fruition?)

It was such a warm and beautiful day that we let the baby chicks out for a couple of hours.  I watch the ones with their mom and see that they spend plenty of time out in the air, not under the heat of her, so I knew ours would be fine.

At first they seemed a little uncertain, but then they really enjoyed scratching, chasing for the worms I brought them, and even dusting in the dirt-just like a grownup chicken! It was nice to sit with them because whenever we loom over their container to see them or pick one up, they are terrified of us.  But just sitting out there with them they were not afraid to come near us, crawl over us, and peck at us.  They are also very excited to try out their wings.  Yes, at two weeks old, the phase of adorable staged fluffy baby chick pictures is over.  Their grownup feathers are already coming in.  While the feathers are pretty the combination of little feathers and downy fluff is making some of them look quite…awkward.

I can’t get over how much they are flying about. I found one perched on top of the waterer the other day and the mother hen’s chicks leave the coop each morning by jumping out the door and flying down.

Tonight’s the big dance recital and we’re all very excited for it.  Oh! And last night we went to Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus, which was just as spectacular as I remembered from when I was a kid. 8 motorcycles zooming around a steel ball! Ladies hanging by their hair and twirling! Daredevil trapeze artists! Oh, it was wonderful! The only thing I did not like was the elephants, tigers, and lions.  I know they’re a mainstay of their circus, iconic and all that, but I just don’t think wild animals should be doing tricks like that.  It frankly made me sad.  The dogs doing tricks, though? Fantastic and fun!

Enjoy your weekend and get out there in a little sunshine and fresh air!

Disco Galaxy Girl

This year Tabby took dance classes at a dance studio. The big long awaited recital is Saturday night.  We’re totally new to this world of recitals and pricey costumes and so on, and it all seemed pretty crazy to me. Especially because it has appeared to me every week that Tabby doesn’t know what the heck she is doing. Today was the big dress rehearsal (and probably no pics on Saturday night, so doing a post now.)  She was so very excited to finally get to wear the costume (and makeup!) Because we missed the day they took professional pictures at the studio, I wanted to make a point of getting some nice posed pictures.  I’m delighted with how they came out.

And how did she do when it came time to go on stage? o.m.g. Hilarious. None of the girls in any of the classes seemed to know what they were doing. Everyone was looking into the wings to follow the steps, no one was in sync, some girls looked around confusedly, and yet….adorable. They all seemed so sincere, trying their very best, some conquering fears of being on stage with everyone watching, and it was kind of heart melting. And the costumes that looked so tacky and gaudy in the catalog looked great on stage under the lights. Who knew? Well, I guess costume designers knew.  As for Tabby? She seems to have a recessive gene that makes her love having attention and performing. In fact, she started bopping around before the music started. Then when it did, she was a hoot. She did not get all the moves down, but her moves were rockin’ and she had a huge smile on her face, absolutely thrilled to be dancing to music in front of lots of people. What has two thumbs and is a superstar? This girl!

Rainy Day Ginger Cookies

It’s a rainy day here in New Jersey. Note the chickens are all hiding in the garage, while the ducks are still near the chickens, but happily out in the rain enjoying the puddles.

Usually on a Tuesday morning I will madly sew or do other very productive things.  This morning I wanted to bake cookies.  I love baking and it feels like it’s been a while since I baked cookies just for fun, just for me.  I couldn’t find my ginger cookie recipe but was able to search the blog and find the link from last time I made them.  Apparently it’s an Ina Garten recipe I wanted to use.

For your ease, here it is:

Sift together 2 1/4 c flour, 1 t b.s., 2 t cinnamon, 1 1/2 t gr. cloves, 1/2 t nutmeg, 1/2 t gr ginger, 1/4 t kosher salt.
Beat together 1 c dark brown sugar, 1/4 c vegetable oil, 1/3 c molasses.
Slowly beat in 1 egg.  Then slowly beat in the dry ingredients.
Stir in 1 1/4 c chopped crystallized ginger.

Roll in balls. Roll balls in sugar. Slightly flatten. Bake at 350 for 13 minutes.

These came out beautiful-slightly crisp outside, soft inside, and a dark spicy gingery flavor.

I’ve just started reading this lady’s blog and I think she makes some very good points about how much more economical it is to bake from scratch, than to buy. Not to mention your homebaked goods have ingredients that you know and control in them!  I have literally no idea how much it might have cost to bake a batch of ginger cookies, but they are delicious and it was a pleasure to have the house to myself for a little while, the radio on, the rain coming down, and fill the house with the sweet and spicy smell of ginger.

(And then I had to go pick up Tabby from school and find out that she was extremely naughty in class all morning!! Grrr!)

A Happy Mother’s Day

We’ve had so much excitement the past few weeks between my birthday and Paul’s birthday that for Mother’s Day I told Paul that I really just wanted a nice Sunday afternoon bbq.  And boy, did he (and the weather) deliver!

I slept in crazy late and woke up to a beautifully cleaned kitchen (we left it a big mess after entertaining last night) and homemade waffles.  Then some happy time spent sewing a little zippered bag for my mother. Then, while Paul and Tabby were out at the store, I got to have some idyllic time with Clark-we cozied up in the hammock and I began reading The BFG to him.  It was every bit as delightful as I’d hoped it would be, and he’s really enjoying the story. I don’t have a picture of that, but I do have one from later in the day of my own mother and Tabby.  Look how sweet they look:

Then my mom joined us and Paul cooked us some wonderful steak and veggies on the grill, followed by homemade brownies and strawberries and whipped cream and angel food cake-yum! It was really a very nice Mother’s day.  I wouldn’t be as good a mother without such a good husband and father to my children.  So, thank you Paul! And thank you to my usually lovely children-I’m so happy you are mine!

And what weekend would be complete without some more staged baby chick photos?

Mother Hen is doing great with her babies.

I have a little movie up on Flickr where you can see them eating together and hear her special mother hen sounds that she makes.

Hope you all had a great weekend and Mother’s Day, too!

Chicks and Ducks and Geese Better Scurry…

OK, we don’t have geese, but I couldn’t resist the musical snippet. The ducks are about 2 months old, the “natural” chicks are one week, and the others almost a week. How’s everyone doing? Well, first let me say that the amount of animal tending in the house as really ramped up. Between cleaning and filling all the waterers for the ducks, feeding everyone (including special food for the chicks, special deliveries for the mama hen, and making sure the ducks are eating as well), checking on the chicks and cleaning bottoms as needed, plus worrying about everyone, it seems like our animal care routines are tremendously increased. Oh, and all of a sudden Pippin has decided that it’s cool to go into the garage and raid the nest where they lay their eggs. So we had to make it dog proof, yet chicken accessible. I’m most intrigued that when I caught him with an egg in his mouth in the yard and he put it down, it had not a single crack on it, he had carried it so gently in his strong jaws (very strong–I got the dog breed testing kit for my birthday and had Pippin’s DNA analyzed. Along with Golden Retriever he has, apparently, quite a bit of Bull Mastiff and Rottweiler in him! Who knew?!)
Anyway, the ducks are quite acclimated now and they will walk about the grounds with the chickens, clacking their bills in the grass.

They also eat the same feed and scratch as the chickens do. At night they sleep in their own little house within the coop. They have begun to fly tiny distances across the driveway and this morning one flew for the first time high in the air (well, well over my head.) And he flew all the way across the driveway and then around the garage. Whereupon he landed and had to quack extremely loudly while his friends in the driveway quacked back until he walked back to them. We have chosen to not clip our ducks’ wings. We based this decision on the fact that flying away from a predator is pretty much their only defense. They can’t run as fast as a chicken and it seemed too cruel to take that away from them. Also, we figure that if they’re happy here, why would they fly away? I think they are pretty well established here, what with being fed all the time and returning on their own to their little house each night.
The mama hen and her chicks are doing great! She has not left the coop with them, which is probably good. They have plenty of room in there to explore and scratch about, and she has the safety of going under the henhouse if need be. I love watching them bounce around her and watching her find food for them. Little MCA is recognizable because he has a bigger white spot on his head, though that will probably change over time.

The chicks in the garage are mostly doing well. The ones that haven’t died, that is. In this first week 4 of them have died which, while sad, is not a terrible loss rate. It was pretty much expected that at least a couple would die (another reason why it’s not a big deal to receive 26.) Hopefully they are all stable now. We carefully watch for “pasting up” (poop blockage) and check water, food, and heat several times a day.

I can’t resist taking pictures of the sturdier ones (mostly the Buffys as I like to call them–they are Buff Orpingtons). When they grow up will they find these photos humiliating?

The garden is doing surprisingly well, though if I want any success I should go spend an hour weeding. The peas are getting blossoms and the lettuce and spinach seedlings are taking off. To my dismay all of a sudden the chickens have figured out how to get into the garden even when the gate is closed. I finally finished the project of laying mulch or hay between the garden beds. It should make gardening a lot easier this summer if I don’t have to contend with overgrown tiny paths.

I have also been sewing quite a bit. As soon as this post is done I’m off to whip up another pencil roll for a birthday girl. This week I made an apron I’m crazy for.

I used French seams for the first time, which came out beautifully,

and I trimmed the apron in a contrasting bias binding that was kind of a pain to make, but well worth it. More about it at The Cornish Hen.
And that’s how things are around here.  Looking forward to a mellow Mother’s Day tomorrow.  We’ve had a lot of special day excitement between my and Paul’s birthdays, so for tomorrow I requested we barbecue at home tomorrow with my mom and just have a really nice Sunday afternoon.