Tomatoes go on an outing

On By stefrobrtsIn gardenLeave a comment

My tomatoes are on a field trip today

They are out enjoying the sun and getting a feel for the great outdoors. It’s beautiful today, and there is a huge temptation to plant them. I asked some of my friends, and some have tomatoes already planted, while others say to never plant your tomatoes until the end of May, because you could still get surprised by a frost. Historically, I have stunted a lot of tomatoes by putting them out too early! So this year I am waiting. Instead they can enjoy a little ‘hardening off’ time outside on nice days, and go back inside where they are protected for a couple more weeks.

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.

5 week old Chicks

On By stefrobrtsIn 2010chicks, barclay, farmLeave a comment

My chicks are around 5 weeks old now, and I guess they’d properly be called pullets (the girls) and cockerels (the boys).

They’re still cute, and they won’t hardly hold still for pictures!

They are getting more curious about me and the great outdoors. I have been sitting and hanging out with them recently, holding scratch for them and getting them to eat out of my hand, and with that they’ve been letting me touch them and finding out that’s ok too. I haven’t been able to spend as much time with them as I’d like, but I think being gentle and predictable has helped move me up the ‘trustworthy’ scale with them. The Buffs have been the most curious and outgoing – the cochins are a bit more reserved.

I hate to sell them but I don’t have room for them all, and that’s why I bought them – to make a little extra money. Unfortunately the ads on CL right now are full of people who bought chicks in March and are eager to get rid of them, and are selling them at bargan prices. I’ll hold on to these guys a little bit longer and sell them when they are ok to be outside full time. Hopefully to urban backyard chicken keepers who don’t have room to raise their own chicks, and just want layers ready-to-go.

Barclay is a lot of help!

Asian Brown Rice Salad and Orange Glazed Salmon

On By stefrobrtsIn food1 Comment

I made these two recipes tonight:

Asian-Inspired Brown Rice Salad with Snow Peas

Grilled Salmon with Orange Glaze

They were delicious together! Wow – really really good! I loved the complex flavors. Dave enjoyed it too, and he doesn’t care much for salmon. I always try to dress it up a little for him.

The Allrecipes.com site is my favorite place to find recipes because of all the user comments. For example, the first comment on the salmon recipe was someone saying it worked just as well substituting apricot for the orange marmalade in the recipe. I didn’t have orange marmalade, but I did have apricot preserves, so seeing that comment convinced me to go for it, and it was delicious!

The sheep invasion!

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, farm, jack2 Comments

My neighbor Kelley showed up with his trailer this morning
And released a whole flock of sheep into our field! These are his sheep he uses to produce lambs for the 4H kids. They had eaten down his field, so we figured why not take them for a ride around the corner and let them eat down our pasture for a bit. 
The dogs absolutely lost their minds when they saw them!
Jack was on full beagle alert – woo woo wooooooo
Barclay would like to get out there and chase them.
The sheep have bells on. The bells are to frighten away the coyotes. Kelley says it works for him. They make a pleasant jingling as they graze around the field.

Alpaca shearing day!

On By stefrobrtsIn 4H, farmLeave a comment

Our 4H club has 2 alpacas that were donated for the kids to use, plus one family has nothing but alpacas. Since the alpacas get sheared a little differently than the llamas, we scheduled to get them all done at once out at the alpaca farm, Fancy Fiber Farm, yesterday. Martha and I stuffed Lucky into the back of my van and drove him up there. We arrived to find ‘packys waiting for their turn in the barn 🙂

These guys crack me up!
Tanya and Joey got to work brushing all the debris out of Lucky’s wool. He didn’t much like that, but put up with it a lot better than I expected, especially considering how much stuff he’d ground into it all winter.
Inside the shearing barn, they had a very interesting setup for doing the alpacas. They tie their feet and lay them down on a tarp and stretch them out. The alpacas actually take this quite well, and it seems like the safest way to do it for both animal and handlers. 
Don’t you let alpacas ride in the back of your van?
More pictures and video Here
Be sure to watch the video to see how they actually got Lucky on the floor.
The 4H kids do a great job handling the animals!

The backyard flock

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens1 Comment

Just a few of the girls (and Big Blue) in the backyard flock.
This hen is my only remaining ‘game hen’ mix I got from Martha. One of my original five chickens. I gave her sisters away one by one because they refused to stay in the pen and were causing headaches for me, getting chased by the dogs and hiding eggs. She’s pretty good, though I’ve seen her out a few times lately. She raised a bunch of chicks last year, so I figure I’ll put up with her. I’m hoping she goes broody again this year.
This is one of the chicks she raised. Obviously not from one of her own eggs! This girl is all Buff Orpington. Very pretty! I have a soft spot for fat, gold chickens!
Big Blue is just pretty darned impressive!
He stands about 2 ft tall! I’m glad he has continued to be very polite about his rooster duties and has not caused me any trouble. He’s so pretty I just love looking at him, I’d hate to have to send him packing!

Watch out for rusty nails!

On By stefrobrtsIn farm, health1 Comment

Yesterday the weather cleared up so I ran outside for some afternoon chores. I cleaned the chick brooder, put fresh chips down for the regular chickens, took all the dirty chips to the compost pile, and then I was walking through the garden when I saw some persistent weeds poking up out of my raised bed, so I walked around behind it to pull them. As I stepped behind the bed I felt my foot slide down onto something, and I looked down to see one of the boards I had pulled from the compost pile, and I thought I had them all turned over so if they had nails the nails were in the ground, but in this case, the nails were pointed UP!

I pulled my foot up and slid it out of my shoe and looked, hoping I had just barely poked myself – I saw two little red dots on the bottom of my sock, spreading, so I was guessing it was worse than that. I calmly tried to pull my shoe off the nails, and it wouldn’t come. I couldn’t hobble back barefoot, so I fought it for a minute, swearing at myself the whole time. It didn’t hurt so much as it made me mad because I knew it was the end of chores for the afternoon, and I had a lot I wanted to get done! I finally got the shoe off the nails and put it back on and hobbled back to the house, calling the dogs as I went – what a miracle, they came when called! On my way into the house I grabbed the phone, hobbled to the bathroom and took off the shoe and by now the sock was completely soaked in blood – bad sign. I rinsed my foot off under running water, and called Dave, told him my bonehead maneuver. He closed up the store and came home. I proceeded to follow my first aid training – if it’s ugly, cover it up! So I slapped on a sterile pad and wrapped it with some vet-wrap, then sat out on the couch with my foot up and waited for rescue.

Dave came, took me to the urgent care place, and they all seemed surprised I had come in just for this. I think burying two rusty, filthy nails deep into the bottom of your foot is just cause for going to the doctor, but what do I know? They looked at it, cleaned it, wrapped it back up, confirmed my tetanus shot was up to date, gave me a prescription for some antibiotics, charged me $100 and sent me home. I think that was probably money well spent, if only for peace of mind.

So today I am hobbling around trying not to put weight on that foot. Both nails sunk right into the ball of my foot, so it’s tricky to walk on. It aches like a son of a gun, but I wouldn’t say it really hurts unless I press on it. I think this is going to interfere with getting chores done for a couple days. Well, now it can go ahead and rain all it wants!