Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas...

Just a short one tonight folks. Mainly because last nights was sooooo long.

First I want to talk about the comment section of the blog. It is a bit confusing and hard to find. If you want to comment on a particular post from my main Blog page you first need to click on the title of the Blog post you want to comment on. Clicking on the title will bring up just that one post. Scroll down to the bottom were you will see a comment box. Once you type your comment you will have to select a profile. The profile list is long so you MUST scroll to see all of your options. You can either chose one or scroll to the bottom and post as anonymous.  Hopefully this helps.

Now that the business is out of the way lets talk about TONIGHT. Nicky and I went Christmas caroling with my Sister-in-laws church. It was so much fun.  So rewarding to see peoples face light up when they realized what was going on.  Not to mention the excitement on their face when we handed them a plate of cookies.  One little lady even started to cry.  Everyone should remember it is the little things that sometimes mean the most and can make someones day.  It was GREAT!!

I challenge you to do something spontaneous no matter how big or small this week for someone at random.  It will help us all remember what the true meaning of Christmas is.

EGG-cellent

Even though it is not Easter my husband and I get to hunt EGGs everyday. Trust me it is truly a surprise to see what the ladies have left behind. Before I explain the picture below we are going to have some Egg-ucation.

1) Eggs come in all sizes and colors.

2) Only HENS lay eggs.

3) Only a Rooster can fertilize the egg.
4) You do NOT need a rooster for a Hen to produce an egg.

5) You DO need a rooster for the egg to hatch a chick.

6) YES, you can eat a "fertilized" egg. (Fertilized only means there is now potential for a chick. The Hen must "sit" on the eggs and bring them up to the proper temperature before the chick will start to develop.)

7) It takes 21 days for a chick to hatch once incubation has begun.

Other fun facts include: You can get an egg with a double yolk during the early stages of laying, you may get an egg with no yolk, you may get an egg that has a soft and slightly see through shell but is normal inside, and last but not least if the egg gets a little stuck in the laying track you get a very elongated egg.

So now that you know a little about chickens lets move on to the photo. Yesterday while gathering the eggs I noticed this tiny (far left in photo) and I mean tiny egg shell in one of the nesting boxes. I gathered it with all the others and brought it to show my husband and of course to crack it to see what was inside. Upon inspection it was just like a normal egg shell as far as color and thickness and so I proceeded to break inside. Inside was the smallest egg white I have ever seen. I am not sure who laid this or why but it was worth documenting. 

As you can see from the photo we get all colors of eggs. When I purchased my hens I purposefully chose different breeds so I would have a variety.  We have brown, light brown, white, green, brown with specks, cream and of course the small bantam hen eggs which are mainly cream in color.  So I guess size wise we have Extra Large, Large, Medium, Small, and Tiny.

Multiple sizes and colors

People are always asking me how many chickens I have so below is the breakdown.

23 total

16 Hens

  2 Bantam Hens (miniature chickens)

  3 Bantam Roosters

  2 Bantams- sex unknown at this time. (These were the first two my hens naturally hatched)

Top four questions after they hear that answer is:

1) How many eggs do you get?

2) What do you do with all those eggs!?!?

3) Do you sell them?

4) Where did I get the chickens?

The number of eggs we get fluctuates everyday. It also depends what time of year it is.  Hens always lay better in the summer months with longer daylight hours.  Most of the time we use the eggs for meals, pasta, and holiday deviled eggs. What we have left we give to friends and family and occasionally someone donates to the feed fund.

I have bought chickens at the following three places and have had success with them all:

Tractor Supply

Meyer Hatchery

Champion Feed and Pet Supply

Now you can tell everyone you learned something new today!!

Chicken Ramp Success and a Nice Meal

I know this is going to sound corny BUT I am totally thrilled to have over 200 visits to my blog in less than a week.  Even though half of them are probably my husband. (I think he is spying to see what I write about him!!)

On a different note I want to share two things today: The new chicken coop ramp and my dinner...which I whipped together (because my chef hubby was not home) all by myself. It was DELISH!!!

As you all know if you read the How To Train a Chicken post from last week we attempted to add a ramp in the coop for the birds to have easier access to the roost. Our first attempt was cool and functional but not wide enough for the larger hens. Today we broke out all the power tools and got busy. We used extra wood left over from other projects that we had laying around the barn. Which brings me to another point. FREE PALLETS!! Yes, if you just take a little time to look online (Craigslist) or drive around the neighborhood you will be surprised how much wood you can find for free.  My husband and I have built so many things out of free pallets. Herb planters, flower pots, tomato stakes, chicken tractor, coop ramp and even a bench. I am sure there are more projects I can't remember.  And lets not forget....IT WAS FREE!
Now that I am off my PALLET soap box let me continue. Todays chicken coop ramp was built from 3/4in X 7 inch planks connected together for length and 10 inch wide plywood strips. We also used old shoe molding from another project for grips because the ramp is quite steep.

New ramp on Left, Last weeks ramp in back of coop.

Next on the list for the coop is to hang the feeder to get it off the ground and to modify a five gallon bucket for their drinking water.

On to my delicious meal I made this evening. I have an extreme love for perogies. Thanks to my best friend Rhonda and her Canuck/European family for the introduction. The problem is Rhonda gets homemade perogies when Mama comes to town and I DON't!! So I have had to do my research and resort to buying them from the freezer section. I used to get a decent version of them at Trader Joe's until they decided to discontinue them---Bummer. Until now I have been out of luck. Last week in my International Night post I mentioned visiting some unique grocery stores.  During my visit to the Euro Market I discovered these:

Grandma's perogies

Not only did I find this version but about six other kind including Sweet Cherry perogies, Ukrainian perogies, potato and bacon, sauerkraut, and the list goes on. Tonight I finally had the opportunity to cook some up and let me tell you they did not disappoint. I immediately contacted my friend because I was so thrilled. I am sure there are several ways to have them, however Rhonda taught me to saute' them with butter and onions. The package suggested boiling them but that sounded a bit mushy for my taste. Instead I boiled them for 3 1/2 minutes right out of the freezer and then sautéed them in butter and onions in a Wok. I then tossed in some green onion salt and pepper at the end. They were DELISH!! I do not know if you can get these where you live but it is worth looking. It is a very quick and easy meal.

Perogies with sour cream

What is there left to say after that meal, except Good Night and THANKS to the hubby for helping with the ramp today!!

Niagara Falls

Today was suppose to be clean and change out the Coop day BUT the weather is not as great as I had predicted. So instead I am editing pictures which is also something that I enjoy doing. Like I mentioned in a previous post I take A LOT of pictures especially when traveling. Today I finished working on some pictures from a trip my husband and I took with my Grandparents. It was the first time for everyone except my Grandfather. We went for just a quick trip so my Grandmother (Nanny) could mark it off her Bucket List. Below are some of my favorite pictures.

Enjoy!!

How to Train a Chicken??

Well today was filled with all kinds of excitement. After some nice research on the internet my husband constructed a ramp for the chickens to climb on to get to the roosting rods. Anyone that has chickens knows the higher they can be at night the happier they are. BUT what the chunky hens don't realize is when they fly down off the roost in the morning it feels and sounds like they could break a leg. So we decided to make a ramp for them.
WELL, like everything in life it has been in learning experience. No matter how many blogs and pictures we looked at online we still have to go back and modify. After watching a few of the bigger birds navigate the ramp (after I forced them onto it) we learned it was not wide enough and that we need a few more grips to keep them from sliding around. It will work fine with some extra grips for the Bantam Hens but we will have to make a different ramp for the BIG Ladies. I seriously think one of my hens (Fausta) could be pushing 20 lbs, at least thats what it feels like when she flies up on me to get some extra treats.

Fausta being Greedy!

I also have one hen (Buffy) who was attacked by the neighbors dog that can not fly very high so she could really benefit from a ramp. It took about two to three weeks but I nursed her back to health and she delivers an egg everyday!! Now we just have to teach them what the ramp is for?!?!?

Buffy healing nice despite the bad DYE job!

Tonight however we went to a charity event that benefited the Hope Center. It is a local charity that offers many services to members in the community needing a little help. At the end of the evening they had live music for which my brother in law and nephew played. This was technically my nephews first "gig". He did amazing despite the sweaty palms and nauseating shakes after he stepped off stage. We were all so excited to here him play...and of course he did not disappoint!!!

International Night

First thing I was thinking about today is how nice and convenient canning can be. Yes it does take some time in the beginning BUT to have a nice home cooked meal in under 10 minutes is WONDERFUL!!! Last night for dinner we had our homemade Chili that we canned some time ago. We didn't have much time and we really do not care to eat out MOST days so Chili it was.

Note the little crackers in the picture. They are called Cheeslings. I found them while exploring an Indian grocery store last week. They are perfect to sprinkle over chili. I stumbled upon them while finding ingredients for "International Night". Thats right "International Night". Many of you are probably wondering what that is... SO I will elaborate. My husbands family wanted to put a spin on Thanksgiving this year so everyone brought an appetizer from a different country. My husband chose India and I chose Mexico. I think we had at least 13 countries represented. It was a lot of fun and gave us all an opportunity to try some new food from around the world. 

I challenge everyone to find an Ethnic grocery store, whether it be Hispanic, Asian, Indian, etc., and try to make something new with ingredients you find. Not only will you learn something new about food you may actually learn something about yourself as well.

Decisions, Decisions!!!

Today was clean up the computer and desk day. Anyone who knows me understands I take a lot of pictures. That being said the only way to find certain ones in a jiffy is to stay organized. I have an external hard drive full of photos and videos all categorized by person and or event. I started this for two reasons. One reason was to free up my hard drive space and the second was so I could find my photos quick for projects or for emailing. Some may look at my "tree" of photos on my external drive as OCD...others are amazed. Trust me if you ask me for a pic of your kid on Easter 2008, I can tell you almost instantly if I have one. THAT is the perk of being organized. One day I would like to have the time and resources to scan in all the non-digital photos I have so I can archive them as well.

Soooo as I was cleaning I realized I have a Groupon that is about to expire for Canvas on Demand.  I have been contemplating for weeks about what picture I want to use for my three panel photo split. With the help of the husband I have narrowed it down to two:

Maybe with the help of who ever looks at this I can narrow it down to one!! It is giong in the Dining Room which opens up to the Living Room. I have a dark espresso colored table with all different colored chairs. Let me know what ya think.