This ‘n That Saturday

Not a whole lot going on this week at all. I’ve been mostly working outside, taking advantage of our gorgeous summer this year - I only have boring things to blog about…

• I’ve been enjoying some nice bonfires…

• Cocoa is definitely over her broodiness and is back to laying eggs

• I came home one day this week to find a couple of Mama turkeys and their broods hanging around the chicken coop. I wish they weren’t so shy and had waited around until I could get my camera and take some pictures…

• I am sooo happy with my garden this year. Right now seems to be cucumber season – I’ve been picking tons of the beauties. I’ve given away over a dozen and I still have bunches…

I’ve made a bunch of bread and butter pickles and have been eating a lot of creamed cucumber slices. I was going to make some cucumber sandwiches, but when I found the cream cheese in the back of the drawer in my refrigerator was dated November 2009, I put that idea on hold until I go grocery shopping…

• I’m glad I didn’t tear out my green bean plants – they put out a ton of new flowers and I’ve been picking beans left and right. I’ve frozen a ton for the winter and hope to freeze a whole bunch more. What a difference when there aren’t any Evil Baby Bunny Rabbits eating the stuff in my garden!

• I’m trying something new – someone told me that Brussels sprouts are easy to grow… my Mom likes Brussels sprouts, so I put in some seeds in some of the bare areas I have around my strawberry plants and around my watermelon plants. We’ll see what happens…

• I don’t know why I didn’t notice earlier, but I had a pumpkin plant mixed in where I put my watermelons…

Pretty obvious, huh? They’ve pretty much filled in the bed since this picture was taken. They aren’t producing anything, but they are keeping the weeds down in the bed,so I’m happy with that.

• The inspection for the Jillmobile is due. I have an appointment to get it done this week, but who knows how far it will get. I’m having ‘Check Engine’ light issues, which are always a pain and expensive, plus my ‘Service 4-Wheel Drive’ light went on. I am not anxious to find out how much this is going to cost me and how long it’s going to take to fix. Not having a second vehicle, I have to rent a car every day my truck is in the shop

• On the brighter side of things - I’m not a huge fan of Geico, but I do enjoy some of their commercials. I like Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel and couldn’t help but laugh at these – I thought they were great!

  

And then there was this one that I couldn’t embed – it’s short and definitely funny! I’ll bet the Hillstrands never saw insurance commercials in their future when they signed on to their TV show

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

     

Socks

As I may have mentioned before, I am not a big fan of shopping.  It might even be said that I dislike despise hate shopping (except for Home Depot – LOVE Home Depot  )

Out of all the kinds of shopping that one can do, I think that clothes shopping is my least favorite.  The whole process of finding something I like and then hoping I can find it in my size… and even if they have it in my size, there is still only a 50/50 chance that it really fits.  And when it doesn’t, then you have to look some more and try on some more.  Ugh.  I’m tired just writing about it.  And even when I do find something I like and it fits, I don’t get any huge thrill out of wearing new clothes - not like getting a pile of 2 x 4’s or a new drill… now that’s fun!

But as with most rules, there are exceptions and there is an exception to my dislike of clothes shopping:  Socks.

Nothing feels so nice as putting on a brand new pair of clean, fluffy socks.

I wish I could afford to wear new socks every day.

Wordless Wednesday

Broodiness Update

For those who aren’t up to speed, I’m dealing with my first broody chicken…

Well my hopes are up.  It looks like 40 hours of solitary confinement may have done the trick for our little Cocoa.  I let her outside today and she did not head straight for the coop.  She was not all puffy and clucky.  She actually played nicely with the other Ladies all day (it was really nice seeing all five Ladies together again)    And as far as I can tell, she doesn’t have any hard feelings towards me.   And when she turned in for the night, she perched on top of a nesting box – not in one 

Now we’ll see what happens tomorrow.

Hopefully she’s given up any ideas of trying to hatch the nothing she was sitting on and she’ll start laying again this week!  

This ‘n That Friday

• Well, Cocoa was a bit put-out when I wouldn’t let her back in the coop at the end of the night.  It will be interesting to see what kind of mood she’s going to be in tomorrow 

 

• As I mentioned earlier, I am really liking this season of Eureka.  After watching tonight’s episode,  I was trying to place where I’ve seen the guy playing Dr. Trevor Grant…  He seemed so familiar, but yet not – I just couldn’t put my finger on it, so I looked it up.  It’s James Callis – the same guy that played Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Galactica!  It’s so weird hearing someone talk in an accent that you aren’t used to hearing them with     He’s a great addition to the show.

   

 

• So I never got around to mentioning it, but a couple of weeks ago I made another trip to the Buffalo ReUse store to pick up some used brick for another project around the house.  The same brick that cost 65¢ a piece at Home Depot, I got for 25¢ each – quite a savings when getting 100 bricks!  While I was in the area, I decided to check out the Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore.  It’s along the same lines as Buffalo ReUse, but it is definitely smaller and I didn’t see any outside/yard stuff there.  I did score on a set of hinges I’ve been looking for tho’!

 

• Who do you write like?   If you paste a sample of your writing to the ‘I Write Like’ site, it  will analyze your word choice and writing style and compares them with those of the famous writers.  I tried it three times, submitting three different blog entries - I got this answer twice…

I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

          and this answer once…

I write like
Douglas Adams

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

          I can live with that!  (ht to Jennifer)

Broody Chicken

 

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m dealing with a broody chicken.  It’s been tougher than I thought it would be.

One of the things that is supposed to break a broody hen is dunking her bottom in water.  It’s supposed to make her uncomfortable and not want to sit in the nesting box.  Wrong.  The expression ‘wetter than a mad hen’ has no meaning to Cocoa.  I think that she kind of liked being soaking wet.  I tried this several times a day for a couple of days.  It didn’t phase her at all.

Another thing that is supposed to work is ice cubes.  You’re supposed to put ice cubes under her while she’s in the nesting box.  So I did.  Every 45 minutes for three hours.  She happily sat on them until I gave up.  Yeah - I gave up before she did…

The other thing that is supposed to work is to put the chicken in a wire cage and suspend it for a few days.  I’m not going to do this because 1) I don’t have a wire cage big enough for a chicken and 2) That seems really mean.

The only option left that I can find is to separate her from everyone else and keep her where there isn’t any nesting materials for a few days.  I’m not sure if the baby chick brooder is big enough for her.  If it is, then that will be her new home for a while.  If it isn’t, I’ll have to make something… that’s going to be plan starting tomorrow.   (well, this is not the only other option – there is always the route of turning her into a chicken dinner, but I could never do that!)

For now, I’ve been throwing her out of the nesting box when I get home from work and locking up the coop so she can’t get back in until night time.  (It’s actually kind of funny now, because when she sees me in the afternoon, she knows what’s coming – she does the cartoon character thing and sticks her feet out and braces them on the sides of the nesting box so I have a hard time pulling her out) Of course when I open it up again for everyone to go in for the night, she heads straight for the nesting box.  When I lock up for the night, I take her out again and make her sleep on the roost.  But the whole day she sits in the nesting box.  Not laying any eggs.

She has gotten very clucky when she’s outside, but she hasn’t tried to peck me at all and I know that she’s eating and drinking at least during the second half of the day, so I guess that’s a plus.  Except I have a couple people buying eggs from me now, and having lost one chicken, having a broody hen doesn’t help me out any…

Stay tuned!

Wordless Wednesday

Eureka and Co.

With the weather being so great so far this spring/summer, I haven’t been watching as much TV as I usually do – I’ve been more selective about what I’ve been watching…

• I’ve always like Eureka – I like the cast a lot (although I think that Jordan Hinson (Zoe) made a big mistake leaving the show) and I think that the story line is different from anything else that is out there. I caught the season premier of Eureka last night and thought it was great – I think that this season is going to be the best one yet.

• A new series started yesterday – Haven. It’s airing on SyFy, Bravo and USA, which I found kind of odd. Maybe other shows do that too, but I just never noticed… The previews looked really good, but the pilot didn’t impress me. I love Stephen King-type stuff, so I thought this would be really good. I’ll give it a couple more episodes, but if it doesn’t pick up, I’m going to leave this one by the wayside.

• I’m behind on the Doctor Who episodes, but I’ve watched enough to know that Matt Smith can’t touch David Tennant with a ten-foot pole as The Doctor. I think Matt Smith is trying too hard or something… he’s just “off” to me somehow I do like Amy Pond tho’ - she makes a good companion for The Doctor – and not annoying like Donna Noble was… she was like nails on a chalkboard to me…

• Ice Road Truckers is always entertaining. Living near the perceived Snow-Capital of the world, it’s fun watching these guys – and lady – driving under less-than-ideal road conditions Since they moved to trucking in Alaska, I can’t say that I can count any of the new people in with my favorites Alex (he looks sooo different without his beard!) and Hugh, except for Lisa – I want to see her do good…

• This is a very sad season for Deadliest Catch. I’m going to miss Phil – he was my favorite

That’s about it for my must-watch TV, at least until the weather won’t let me work outside anymore… Other shows I’ll watch if I do have the time are Top Chef, Warehouse 13 and whatever Housewives of ______ County is on (Except Atlanta – that is the worst out of the bunch. Way too much much in-your-face yelling and arguing for me).

I think this is officially my post with the most number of hyperlinks in it.

Garden Update

I have to say that I’m pretty happy with the way my garden is progressing, despite the trials and tribulations it’s endured…

I am very happy with my tomatoes so far. This year I tried a different kind – I normally went with Early Girl and bought the plants already started from the nursery… This year, after reading some reviews, decided to try Celebrity tomatoes – and I started them from seed… the first time I’ve tried that The plants are looking great and this year I did not procrastinate staking and tying them. Usually I wait until the plants are too big and I never get them to stand up right… this year I put in stakes while they were still small and I’ve been diligent about tying them as they grow – yay me! I’m seeing some fruit , but they are small so I think it will be quite a while before I starting eating any fresh tomatoes and review the difference between Early Girl and Celebrity tomatoes…

My corn is doing well too - they say it should be ‘knee-high by 4th of July’… I think I’m right on track so far

Growing the cucumbers with the corn seems to be working well, too. The cukes are definitely keeping the weeds down in the bed. I think that once the corn gets a little taller, it will be easier to see what’s going on at the ‘ground level’. I did find a perfect cucumber already!

The cukes are starting to spread outside the bed, but so far I’m OK with it. We’ll see what happens as the season progresses…

The green peppers don’t seem to be doing that great, but I think that it’s because they are right next to all the dill and the dill is blocking a lot of the afternoon sun for them. Next year I’ll have to keep that in mind…

The beets I replanted are coming up nicely, and I think that barring any unfortunate circumstances, I just may get some beets this year!

I’m getting a ton of sweet peas. The plants are huge and have broken some of the strings that I had put up to hold them upright. I’ll probably harvest most of them this weekend and they will be done. I think I’m going to try and replant some more in the fall when things cool down again and see what happens.

I definitely planted too many cabbage plants the inside of the pea bed and they are way too close together. I’m going to let them do their thing , but I’ll know better for next year…

I didn’t get many green beans because the evil baby bunnies ate the flowers, but the rutabagas did great. I’ve been pulling about a half dozen every week for the past few weeks. My Mom said that they were really good. I’m going to pull the last ten or so that are left, along with the green bean plants. I’m going to replant the bed again with more rutabagas and green beans and see if I can get another crop before the end of the growing season…

I don’t have much hope for the watermelons – they got started way too late. I don’t think that there will be enough of a growing season left for anything to ripen. If the plants even get that far.

But, I do have high hopes for my pumpkins… I tried growing giant pumpkins a few years ago with limited success, but this year I seem to be doing good with them. I suspect that the abundance of chicken fertilizer they’ve been getting has a lot to do with this So far I count at least ten pumpkins in the making. I really hope to get a whole ton of pumpkins – I have plans for them (rubbing my hands together here with an evil laugh)

Wordless Wednesday