Month: December 2010

New Years Thoughts

On By stefrobrtsIn Uncategorized2 Comments

This has been a weird year. I wouldn’t call it bad, because any year you make it out of healthy and kickin’ is a good year! But it did start out with losing our dear Airstream camping friend Darol to cancer. That sucked, I still miss him whenever I think about my Airstream. A couple months later Alki took a sudden turn and we had to let her go. We knew it was coming, and we were grateful she had managed to survive almost three years since her cancer diagnosis, but it was still pretty sad. We still had Barclay and Jack, both young and healthy.

It was a penny-pinching year, with slow sales at the store and online. We kept our belts tight and tried to be as frugal as possible. That’s not much fun, but what can you do? I got better at using cheap cuts of meat I found in the bargain section at the market, learned to make my own beef and chicken stock, and cooked a lot of meals at home. We cut our eating out down until it become a rare occasion, which actually made it more special when we did decide to go out.

My only resolution last year was to get to the top of Silver Star Mountain, but we couldn’t even afford the gas to drive up to the trailhead – so maybe next year!

We had sheep visiting in the spring, but they didn’t stay too long because of the rain. I made a little money at the beginning of the year selling chickens, and raised quite a few more through the year, yet I ended up buying eggs this winter because my old chickens were slowing down laying, and my young chickens weren’t ready to start yet. I got to see the first of the buff/blue chicks feather out and was amazed by their colors, and so I am focusing on making more of those. I also brought home a GIANT incubator I picked up for free on CL. Still haven’t decided what to do with that.

Later in the year we were convinced to adopt another little dog who needed a home, and Navi joined our family. Her mom had been trying to talk me into taking her, but it was Navi herself who clinched the deal, sitting next to me in the grass at the dog park and rolling her head backwards to look at me, upside down – what a crazy ball of fun! I knew she was meant to be, despite my reluctance.

I made my best effort yet to have a successful garden, but the weather didn’t cooperate, and everyone in the area agreed it was a lousy year. No tomatoes for us! Lots of lettuce though. Even though it turned out to be a bummer year for the garden, I did take a canning and food preservation class. I not only learned to can and dehydrate foods, but I got to help teach classes and answer the county food safety line to help other people with their food preservation questions. At home I canned pickles and green tomato salsa (yum) and fresh peaches and pears in season.

Dave did a number of theater shows, and starred in two shows back to back, one of which I was assistant director for. It was fun to get involved in theater again, but it was nice to end the commitment and get back to a normal life too – just in time for the Christmas toy rush!

Here is hoping for a better year to come, and a happy New Year to all!

Chicken dinner!

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens3 Comments

Well, I decided to do the deed and butcher the extra rooster. I dispatched him quickly and humanely, and that was over in seconds. Then it took about an hour to clean him! The part you might think was bad (gutting) was actually no problem at all – getting all the feathers off was the part that took forever. I planned to scald and pluck, but I guess I scalded too long, and the skin tore, so then I proceeded to skin him, and that took a long time. Once I got most of the skin off I brought him inside and worked on finishing it up in the sink. I learned a couple tricks for next time – put paper towels down in the sink so the body doesn’t slide around while I’m working on it, and next time just cut off the wings, then quickly pluck them and throw them in with the rest of the bits for stock.

The end result – 2 1/2 lbs of fresh, farm-raised chicken. Big meaty legs and thighs, not much meat on the breast at all. This is how all chickens used to look before they developed chickens with breasts so big they can’t walk once they’re a couple months old. We’ll let it rest a few days and then find out if it was worth all the trouble.

Current count – 5 buff hens, 5 blue/buff hens, 1 blue/buff roo, 1 big blue roo

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Another hawk attack

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens2 Comments

This time the hawk got a crow! I saw the dogs out in the drainfield sniffing and poking at some dark lump, at first I thought it was just a molehill, but they looked confused by it. I went out to investigate and found a freshly killed crow! Poor thing was beautiful, crows are such lovely, jet black birds. I think the dogs must have chased the hawk away. I took the body away and closed the chickens up in the coop (they were all inside anyway, they must have seen the hawk too). I’ll leave them locked up for a day or two and see if the hawk goes elsewhere. Otherwise I mighthave to see about making a run for the chickens. Seems like we only have hawk problems in the dead of winter when the hawks are getting more creative.

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Somebody ate a chicken

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens3 Comments

..and it wasn’t me!

This morning Barclay was barking at something inside the chicken area, which was unusual. There’s usually a reason for his barking. So I went out to investigate. In the middle of the orchard was one of the buff hens. Something had attacked and killed her, and started eating her but got chased away. From the damage I’m guessing it was one of the neighborhood hawks. I think that I was bothered less by losing a hen, and more by the fact that the hawk didn’t even hardly eat any of her, and by the time I found her she’d been laying out there who knows how long, and there was nothing to do except throw the body in the trash. What a waste 😦

Current count – 5 buff hens, 5 blue/buff hens, 2 blue/buff roos, 1 big blue roo

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Limbo

On By stefrobrtsIn xbox3 Comments

Our present to ourselves this year was a new Xbox 360 – something we have been waiting to get for a long time! It was well past time to retire the old xbox, and we are both videogame junkies given the opportunity – after all, we both grew up with Atari 2600 joysticks in our hands.

The new Xbox has some interesting twists though – the whole ‘Xbox Live’ thing is a new way of thinking about videogames. Being hooked up to the internet all the time, just like the other computers, makes for some interesting abilities old consoles didn’t have. We can watch streaming video over Netflix, or play games against other people far away. Those parts only work so-so, because our rural internet connection is not quite up to spec for intense gaming and streaming, but it works well enough. I decided to jump right in and check out some game demos, and found one I fell in love with immediately and had to download. Limbo.

The game is entirely in black and white. It’s not like any platform game I’ve ever played. It can be described as run, jump, push, pull, with occasional climbing and button pushing. Doesn’t sound very exciting, but the puzzles are incredible – real mind benders. None of the puzzles are the Mario type, where you have to memorize complex maneuvers and practice running the same thing over and over again until you get all your timing right – it’s not nearly as tedious as that! Things happen slower, and most of the time you have time to think before something kills you. Your little runner dies – a lot – and comes back ready for more. It’s just great fun. I was challenged by every puzzle, and delighted when I got through them. 

I can’t get over what an incredible little game this is. It only cost $15 and I got more entertainment value out of it than some games I’ve paid much more for, and that’s pretty unusual.

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Happy Birthday Barclay!

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay4 Comments
 
About three years ago we went to a dog show to meet an American Eskimo breeder, just to talk about maybe thinking about getting a puppy sometime in the future. Instead she introduced us to a friend who had an extra puppy that someone had backed out on, and we ended up putting money down on him. A week or so later we brought home fluffy little Barclay. So it’s been three years of socializing, training, a lot of fun and a bit of hard work. When he was a baby he threw the most terrible tantrum in puppy class and the teacher sat down with us and held him until he gave up! That was just more incentive to keep working with him. He’s turned out to be all the dog I could hope for. He is sweet and gentle with humans, friendly and playful with other dogs, and although he chases the chickens when he can, he doesn’t really want to eat them, just to play! He’s not what I would call obedient, but he comes when I call him, most of the time, relatively quickly – for an eskimo. He makes me laugh all the time. Earlier this month he passed his therapy dog testing and earned his Canine Good Citizen certificate. 
They say everyone gets the dog they deserve, I’m flattered to think I deserve this. 
Happy Birthday, Barclay!
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Pony :)

On By stefrobrtsIn Uncategorized1 Comment

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I went over to visit my friend’s mini-horse again. She needed me to do a petsitting visit two days in a row, so I got there early so I could spend some time with her horses. She told me where to find the brushes, and I went back and gave the little girl a good brush all over. She seemed to like it just fine, especially her withers – that made her make a funny face and wiggle her lips 🙂

The next day I got there later, did my petsitting chores, and went back and talked to the pony and gave her a bit of a scratch, but it was getting dark so I had to go. She usually just watches me walk away, but this time she followed me to the gate, then stood there giving me sad eyes. So I went and got a brush and she stood perfectly still in the paddock while I brushed her all over – she really liked it! But then it was really dark and starting to rain so I told her good night and went to put the brushes away while she wandered back to her stall. What a nice little horse! I’m so glad my friend said I was welcome to come by anytime and get a mini-horse fix!

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Rainbow

On By stefrobrtsIn outdoors1 Comment

Driving home in a bit of misty rain, I got to the turnoff for our road and noticed a bit of color on the horizon. It was the end of a rainbow, but the rest of the rainbow wasn’t visible, just a little stub where the trees meet the sky. I’ve never seen anything like it! It was beautiful! I ran inside to get my camera, but it had a hard time picking up the colors against the bright gray sky. With a bit of tweaking I brought the colors out as best as I could. Definitely one of those cases where it’s hard to get the camera to record what you see.