Category: barclay

Walk on the tracks

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, outdoors1 Comment

I took Barclay for a short walk on the RR tracks near our house today

Barclay enjoyed tromping through the drainage ditch along the side of the tracks. I let him because it was clean and the water was running.

I made him get out of the ditch farther down where the water was stagnant and standing. It was full of tadpoles!

Look at the leg on the bottom one! How cool! I’ll have to go back and check on these guys and see how they develop.

On the other side of the tracks (the wrong side?) the ditch was sludgy and full of algae. Some of these algaes can be poisonous to dogs, so I didn’t let Barclay near it – yuk!

The only wildlife we saw was this busy little junco hopping around the tracks.

Looks like he caught something.

Wild Irises, I think…

Pretty pink rhodedendrons…

Purple rhodedendron. So pretty!

Just another morning

On By stefrobrtsIn 2010chicks, barclay, chickens, mightyLeave a comment
What a beautiful morning! The sun is shining..
The birds are singing…
The flowers are blooming!
The rain has made our backyard like a jungle. A jungle Barclay would love to explore, but I’m trying to teach him to stay on the other side of the fence, even though he is an expert at finding places he can fit through. Here he is looking at me through one of those spots. He can squeeze right through there, and probably would as soon as I turn my back!
The cats will sit for hours staring at a clump of grass, waiting to catch a field mouse. But once it’s dead they lose interest and leave it in the yard…
Ugh! Bad kitties…
It was such a beautiful morning I let mama hen bring her chicks out of the tractor to explore the yard. I’m confident she’ll take good care of them. She’s very watchful.

Trout Lake 2010 – pt 2

On By stefrobrtsIn airstream, barclay, dave2 Comments
 On the third day we woke up to a beautiful morning

We jumped in the van and went for a drive through the pine forests to a nearby town called Glenwood. We stopped at the Conboy Wildlife Refuge.

Yup, more pine trees.
Wide open marshlands for the birds. Though we didn’t really see any.
Our walk around the park pooped the puppy
But he perked back up in time for lunch..
After not seeing any birds at the refuge, we saw plenty of them while we were parked eating lunch.
And wildlife. Well, almost…
And a pretty view of the countryside
We got back to camp just in time to watch the races – dogs vs people!
A weekend in the Airstream is always a great weekend!

Trout Lake 2010

On By stefrobrtsIn airstream, barclay, dave2 Comments

Every year our camping friends get together for an early summer campout at Trout Lake, WA. We pack up our wee little Airstream trailer and join in when we can. This year it was on the ‘must do’ list!

This isn’t half the trailers – just the ones on our end of the campground.

For me, the primary thing I love about this campground is the spectacular view of Mt Adams just a few miles away.

Of course the opportunity to hang around and catch up with old friends and make new ones is pretty cool too.

Barclay managed to find his way into the center of the circle most of the time and did his best to schmooze lovin’ and treats off the other campers.

 Dave and sleepy Barclay at afternoon nap time for doggies

Dave and Barclay
Dave insisted on getting a picture of me and Barclay!
Closeup of Mt Adams
So pretty and rugged!
We had an expert ‘smores’ cook serving everyone around the fire
And then a jam session broke out
And I just sat staring into the warm fire and enjoying the music
Until it was time to go to bed!

The Dehydrator

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, farm, food, garden, jack2 Comments

I am taking a class about food preservation, and a couple weeks ago we learned about dehydrators. I got to bring the class dehydrator home to finish our lab assignment, and I loved it! I have never cared much for the dehydrated fruits you get from the store, but these were fresh and crisp but not so hard you’ll break a tooth. The pineapple came out like natural candy! So I wanted one bad!

This week I easily sold all my pullets (baby chickens), and actually made a profit (miracle of miracles) so I felt like I could splurge and a get a dehydrator, tah dah!

It’s really simple, just a fan and a heating element, so it blows warm air over the food trays and dries stuff out. It can be used for fruits, veg, jerky, herbs, or even drying flowers for crafts.

I did some apples and bananas, then tried peppers and pineapple. The pineapple is ridiculously good. The peppers come out crunchy and sweet – I’m going to try sprinkling them on a pasta dish.

I suppose it could be used to make dog treats!
I’m enjoying learning how to use it! It’s really going to be nice to have this summer and fall when I have too much produce from the garden, or too much fruit from the orchard. Last year I had to let a lot of pears and stuff go to the chickens because I didn’t know what to do with it all. And the herbs that went to waste at the end of the year when the plants started dying down? Into the dehydrator! I think this is going to be a very useful addition to my kitchen/garden.

My Day Off

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, garden3 Comments

Wednesdays are our Sunday. The store is closed Tuesday/Wednesday, so it’s time to catch up on all the stuff we fell behind on during the week. So today we started by working on the fence:

Last week we spent a good chunk of a day pulling all the fence boards off, putting up wire fencing, and replacing the fence boards. We did this to the whole front stretch of fence between the yard and the pasture in an effort to keep Barclay from going out there to eat sheep poo and chase the sheep. Within five minutes of letting him out, he had found a spot wide enough to crawl through and was back out eating poo! So today we fixed every possible spot he could squeeze through (I hope), mostly along the fence where the shelter/garden is.  There wasn’t enough wire in the roll to do that section, so we just have to put up more wood rails until he can’t slip through.

Then we worked out in the garden spreading bark chips on the paths. It has been a long process trying to get the garden finished. Although the cardboard and mulch is a no-dig method, it is certainly NOT a no-shovel method. I think my arms are permanently ‘rubber’ from all the shoveling I’ve been doing! Dave was a lot of help. He just whipped off his shirt and got to shoveling bark chips – why, I could watch that all day! 🙂 And look at the result, the garden looks beautiful, instead of walking around on cardboard covered paths!

Yesterday I planted five heritage tomato plants in the garden. That’s a total of 9 tomatoes planted, and lots of spinach, lettuce, beets, chard, and three types of squash. Also some herbs. Then today we got hit with a wind storm! Rain started just as we were getting wore out spreading bark chips, and then strong winds. I hope the plants are all ok out there!

Yesterday I used the proceeds from selling my chicks to buy a food dehydrator (yay!), so today I dried some apples and bananas. Later I’m going to dry some red bell peppers, but I’ll do it right before bed so they can dry overnight. We did peppers in food preservation class, and they come out so sweet you can snack on them like candy!

Then I did some laundry, went to the grocery store, bought a couple chickens from the ‘cheap meat’ (marked down for quick sale) section, came home and cut them up and put the pieces in the freezer, put the yucky pieces in the stockpot, took Barclay for a walk at BG Lake, came home and cooled off the stock and put 10 pints of chicken stock in the freezer (I need a bigger freezer), cleaned up the kitchen, did the dishes, and got the meat marinating for tonight’s dinner, and took the dogs outside to play just as the sun was going down.

If I do my job right, Barclay will be like this for the rest of the evening!

Now time to take a rest and watch some Dr Who. That will make it a perfect day off 🙂

Chicks go exploring

On By stefrobrtsIn 2010chicks, barclay, chickens, mighty3 Comments

This morning I took the front off the brooder box and let the chicks out to play.

Grass! Under my feet! What’s a bird to do?!

Since I’m going to keep some of these chicks, I decided to go ahead and introduce them to the rest of the flock by letting everyone out into the backyard, which is not anybody’s territory, so they could meet on even ground. It seems to have worked great.

Big chickens and little chickens, all pecking around and hunting for scratch. I didn’t see anyone getting picked on. The chicks stayed close to their shed while the adults wandered farther out into the back yard looking for bugs.

The cat was on guard for a while, but then she fell asleep. The rooster is not impressed with her work ethic!

Soon the dogs were sunbathing too, soaking up the warm sun 🙂

And the cat had to move to a shadier spot.

Just a beautiful day. One of those that makes me so happy to live in the country.

Fun with pictures

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, jack2 Comments

I had some fun this morning sitting outside with the dogs, watching the sheep, and taking pictures on this beautiful sunny morning

An airplane flying overhead. This guy kept doing laps around our neighborhood, fairly low despite how small he looks in the picture. I suspect he’s the picture guy. They take pictures of your property then come around a few weeks later and show you a framed and matted picture of your property and offer to sell it to you for an outrageous price. We refuse, of course, and I’m sure he gets back in his truck, slides the next house picture into the frame, and goes and knocks on their door. Perhaps he gets enough takers to make flying around the countryside taking pictures worthwhile, but I can’t imagine. We don’t get a lot of door-to-door out here (mostly the picture guy, the meat truck, Schwanns, and Jehovah’s Witnesses) but I thought that was a particularly odd gig.

I had to look out over the hills to find any clouds to take pictures of. I love the blue sky, white cloud, green trees in this shot. That’s the northwest in a nutshell.

This ewe huffed on my lens and fogged it up.

This is my ‘laying on the ground, looking up at a tree lit up by the morning sun’ shot. When was the last time you did that?

Jack
The Barker. After being removed from the sheep pasture – twice! He keeps finding places he can slip through the fence by going between the rails – despite his massive fluff, he can slip through a 6 inch gap in the rails. He’s like a cat, if his head fits through he can squeeze the rest through. I think I’m going to have to put wire fencing on the other side of the rail fence to keep him in the yard where I want him.