gosling

Sorry about this.  I am well aware that this is becoming one of those annoying blogs that posts nothing but photos of cute animals... but I can't help it.  They are my life right now.

First off, lambs on their first outing with mum.

And that chicken finally hatched out her gosling.  The little baby's about 12 hours old and, well, the photos tell a good story.

more duckling shots and brand new lambs

Ducklings are getting bigger

Less than 5 minutes old and cute as a button

She's licking them off and bonding with the little ones

baa - the first two lams are doing well.

First lambs on the farm

These are Icelandic sheep.  She's a real dedicated mum and has taken to both her lambs right away.

Chicken wanted to know what was going on.

and got told off by mum

They lamb out in the open, then spend  a few days in the mummy shelter (called a Jug), which is full of good things to eat and lots of lovely warm straw.

Hope you aren't getting board of these duckling photos yet

Had a cold snap here so I moved ducklings and mum to the greenhouse where they can be out of the wind.

Here's a mummy hen sitting on goose eggs.  She's in for a surprise in a few weeks.

Duckling inspired art

Duckling inspired art by my friend H

little ducks with mummy

Ducklings 2013, first day out.

Mummy duck standing guard

Making sure everyone's okay

Their run for the first few days to keep them safe.
boards around the edge for extra protection against the wind

"Mummy?  Are you my mummy?"

All together now "Awwwweeee"

They still haven't learnt to eat or drink yet, but mummy decided they needed to get out of the house for a while.  After sitting on those eggs for 45 days, can you blame her?

Hatching time

Mumma Muscovy Duck with day old chicks.

Vintage Auto Knitter - IT WORKS

Isn't that a beautiful sight?  More later.  Right now I'm busy ;)

Joyful praise for the kitchen

This is what my kitchen looks like today and for the first time in months I feel joyful.

pasta sauce and maple syrup, true heaven.

sourdough bread in the oven

Shepherds pie, or a very close approximation.

I'll have a write up about them soon on my food blog, but what's most important is that I'm feeling glad to be cooking again.  Been a bit of a dark period for me the last couple of months, so hopeful this gladness will stick around for a while.

Having the kitchen to myself to create consumable works of art really makes a difference.   It inspires me in the most primal way.  How I love it.

Stars and yarn and stuff

Starting to recover form the cold/flu thing.  Self imposed quarenteen is lifted, and we are at low risk of spreading germs.

There are a lot of little things going on around the farm from the urgent need to build a new house for the ducks to sleep in before the monster vermin get back in the old duckhouse again and try to eat toes off my poor ducks again, to smoking bacon this afternoon.  The chickens need cleaning, the garden needs tending, ... lots of things.

Everything just piled up while we were sick.  Although there are a few good things that came of it.  We weren't feeling up to doing big jobs, so a lot of those little tasks that had been sitting around the house for months (yes, even years) got accomplished.

Other news on the health front, I finally got to see a specialist about my voice problem.  Been waiting almost 4 years for this appointment.  The specialist is somewhat optimistic that they can help, but may only be able to go so far before we have to find more doctors and more tests to find out the underlying cause.



   Here's something extra special.  These handmade birch bark stars travelled all the way across the world and arrived at my house yesterday.  Thank you so much, they are beautiful.

I think I have a pen pal.  Time for me to pick up my pen and write back.



Another bit of good news.  I finally ordered the needles I need to get the knitting machine working.  The needles are still in the US.  They have travelled from Tenino, Washington state (just across the water from us) all the way to Los Angeles since the 9th of Jan.  I'm wondering if I should be worried that they are moving away from where I live and not towards me, but at least they are moving...?  But in some ways it's a good thing that they are taking a tour of the Western States while I get my *ahem together and finish some of these jobs on the farm that really need doing.

And other good news, Henny Penny is starting to feel better.  Not 100% yet, but definitely turned the corner   She's moved back in with her flock and is bossing everyone around as per normal.  But sometimes, you can see she hurts.  The vet says it's arthritis  so I might make her some special cinnamon cookies to try and get the inflammation down.  Just have to check if cinnamon is okay to feed chickens in large doses or not.

Sorry for this being one of those random update posts, but I'm still trying to get my head together after this cold.

Got a Cough? Take the week off.

Got a Cough? Take the Week off.

Kind of catchy don't you think?  I don't know if I drempt it or if it is something put out by the local health authority  but there is some strong wisdom there.  It might have also been a dream, but I heard this is shaping up to be one of those really bad years for colds and flues.

We have a cold in the house, it's a real dozy.  Worst I've seen in years.

So please don't think I'm avoiding you.  We are just being selfish and keeping all the germs to ourselves.  They are mine!  All Mine!  You can't have any!

Not that we can actually take the week off.  The chickens would be very hungry if we did that.  But we can avoid people like (we have) the plague.

When we are feeling better we will return to the real world, maybe.  It's actually nice and quiet here these days - If you don't count the sneezing and coughing.

Crazy Christmas 2012

Been a crazy Christmas this year.  A friend's mother's neighbours  granddaughter got invited to stay at hour house by her aunt.  Admittedly this is a bit strange to us as we've never met our friend's mother's neighbour, her granddaughter or the granddaughter's aunt before... but differences in culture and langue means that we had a house guest.  Lucky for us, she turned out to be lovely and not some sort of psycho killing maniac after all.

One more dinner with a friend tonight and I can pack up the Holiday decorations.

I always try to put up the decorations as close to Christmas Eve as possible and fully intend to leave them up till 12th night.  But it never works out that way.  By New Years I'm more than ready to pack up the ornaments and call it the end of the festivities.

Oh, my friend just arrived at the door.  Got to go brush my teeth real quick.  Shouldn't have ate all that garlic for lunch.

Happy Holidays everyone.

Holiday decoration

I'm not one to go all out for The Holidays; however, I do enjoy a good feast.  Now that my usual holiday gathering is full of kids as well as adults, I thought why not have a bit of fun decorating.

Fancy Mochi New Years thing,
plus fruit and nuts to help make the display a bit more festive.

A small toy or book for each kid, plus some small token for each adult.  That plus a feast is enough to make The Holidays special without too much stress.

Shiny star for the top of my tree

Usually for the holidays I gather green branches that got blown down in the wind and use them to make some decorations, and then cut some holly berries and bright yellow willow branches and maybe some bright red dogwood for colour.  But this year I found a myrtle tree at the nursery.  I couldn't resist.  Myrtle is associated with everlasting friendship and for keeping away the black death.   

Holiday Ikebana - or at least a very close approximation of it.

Do you find you have a point in the night when you give up trying to sleep and just accept life as it comes, get up and make hot chocolate?  For me, it's 4am.  If I manage to get to sleep after 4, then I won't get a proper sleep cycle in and will end up more grumpy than with no sleep.

Right now I'm worried about my hen.  She has high spirits, but says her foot hurts ALOT!  She also doesn't like me squirting medicine down her gob twice a day.  All that, plus being locked inside with us humans instead of playing outside with her flock (who spends most of the day at the front door asking for her to come out and play) - all that, makes me feel like a big mean... um, thing.  Hey, it's 5am, I've been awake all night, forming words doesn't really work all that well right now.

In other news, during the summer we grew some cut flowers which were exchanged for Ikebana (Japanese traditional flower arranging) lessons.  I'm not very good, but I try hard, that must count for something.

This is my attempt at a holiday arrangement.  Holey in two forms (female berries and a male vertical sprout for fertility) to celibate the holiday season, some willow sprigs that are just starting to open their buds as a reminder that spring is just around the corner, and some sage to spice things up a bit.

Working with holey was a mistake.  It is really hard wood and does not like the spiky things.  I think it's jealous of them as I got poked more than once by the leaves.  But you know, it's sort-of festive looking even if I didn't get the traditional ikebana form correct.  I'll try again with something a bit less spiniferous next time. 

Henny Penny home again

Henny Penny is home now, very dopey and not too happy.

I'm pretty certain Henny Penny understood 'scary thing make foot feel better', but she can't understand why we had to make her toe go away.  The flesh was dead and if we didn't amputate, it would basically creep up her foot and cause her a slow and very painful time until it reached her heart.  But explaining that to a hen, even a smart one like Henny Penny, can be a bit difficult at the best of times.

Two weeks in the house is not going to make for a happy hen, but some good medicine and lots of love... hopefully this will do the trick.

Where I have my first visit to the vet and talk about sad things.

Snow in Victoria a few years back

It's snowing, the first hint of a proper snow we have had all year.  It might even settle on the ground in an hour or two.  Usually I would be cheering on the snow, like a child in hope of a snow day.  But not tonight.  I have to go back to the vet in a few hours to pick up Henny Penny.

It's my first experience with a vet and I'm finding it very stressful 

Henny Penny

As much as I love farm life and working with the animals, they really do break your heart.

You do everything right, everything you can and more, and things still go wrong.

Last week we lost Herman and Major Brown to a cougar attack.  It was very unfortunate  this young cat had been killing livestock in the area since spring.  It had not only learned that farm animals are tastier and easier to kill than deer, it also had taken to killing for fun.  If in the past other farmers had acted better, either allowing the conservation officer to set traps, or at least knowing better than to disturb the kill, then the cougar would have been taken care of earlier.  As it is, the remains of our darling friend and rescue alpaca Major Brown helped capture and rid farmers of a cougar that had killed at least 30 sheep, 10 goats and two alpacas since spring.

Loosing an animal hits hard anyway, but these two were very close to our heart.  These two rescue boys that we welcomed into our homestead had issues, but we had gotten to a point where they trusted us and knew we looked out for them.  The cougar got into their pasture and well... I suppose anger is a natural part of the grieving process.  I'm angry at myself for going out to a Holiday dinner with friends and enjoying myself while the alpacas were .... and I feel angry at other farmers for not doing enough to stop the cougar when THEY had a chance.  I'll get over it, but right now it just hurts.

Tonight Henny Penny is having her toe amputated.  To be quite frank, no matter how much I love a chicken I wouldn't normally go to this much expense over them.  There is something very different about her, ever since she got in a fight with a raccoon and had a puncture to her brain and I nursed her back to health.  She's been smarter than your average bird.  Crowing for earthquakes (with about a 90% accuracy).  She nurses other injured animals back to health.  She just seems to understand so much, more than many humans I've met.

She's just special to me, so I swallowed my fear of the vet and took her there this evening.

I'm worried to all hell about it.  There is something about vets that I just don't trust.  The vets we have here are not farm vets, and although they are willing to move heaven and earth for kitties, doggies, and other wild things, they don't seem to be very interested in birds.  I have the feeling that this vet knows what she's doing, but I guess most people don't resonate with chickens like I do.

I'm off to pig out on hot chocolate while I wait for them to call me and tell me how the surgery went.  I have this gut-sinking feeling that I've killed her with good intentions, but if I hadn't taken her to the vet, her foot would slowly rot and kill her.  I'm sure they will take the best care of her they know how, but what if something goes wrong?  I really don't like waiting to find out if the news is good or not.  I really wish I had more faith in other people.

What's your favourite food blog?

An extra thank you to everyone who's helped out with the blogs over the last few weeks.

I've decided to try the Amazon Associates programme over on my food blog, Adventures of a Whole Wheat Pastafarian.

From what I can tell, basically I put a special link in the blog.  If people click that link than buy something, I may get a small percentage of that purchases.  Way more information than you ever needed to know, here.

I decided to go this way for a few different reasons.  First off, I already link to many Amazon products.  They have good stuff and good service, and they are available to most people in the world.  Second, it's more targeted to the readership than any other programme I've researched.  I really dislike going to a blog about yarn and seeing really ugly adverts for teeth.  I think if I'm going to start forcing advertising on people, it might as well stay relevant to the subject I'm writing about.  Third, I've been looking around at other sites I enjoy reading, and Amazon seems to be the most common.

I'm going to give it a shot, see if I like it.

It seems unlikely that I will ever make my fortune writing, but I do have my eye on a few little luxuries I would like to pick up.  If I can get better at my photo taking (you know it's really hard to take good photos of food if you aren't Japanese) and keep my writing on that blog focused and informative  maybe it will be successful.

Question for you all.  What's your favourite food blog?  What do you like best about it?

Sunset reflecting on the pond

The tail end of the sunset reflecting of a misty pond.

Sunset