5 Days and Counting

Poor Ginger. 

Sitting on her nest all by herself for days and days and days now.  For maybe the first two or so weeks, she had an assistant.  Mostly Ferdi, who seemed to be the daddy in waiting.  He would stand and protect her from the evils of the Pilgrims and me, and the kids, and my husband, and a passing shadow or bug or what have you.  But he abandonded her. 

As the Pilgrims grew, he saw them less as a nuisance and more as.....kids? 

Wait for me, kids!!

He seems to have adopted them.  He goes where they go, and now he defends them from me, the kids, my husband, or a passing shadow or bug or what have you.  Either that, or he's going through some mid-life crisis sort of thing, where, instead of buying a sporty car, he just "hangs out" with the younger set to retain his youth.  Sad. 

Then, for a short, short time, Arthur took up the post.  He would stand, though in a less dedicated way, next to Ginger and defend her from no one in particular.  Actually, he was terrible at it.  He would just stand there and keep her company.  It was something, though.

But then the little Africans started going outside, and Arthur got all maternal. 

Arthur is with his "babies" 24/7.  He calls for them, they come to him.  They call for him, and on and on.  With his new babies in tow, Arthur quickly abandoned Ginger as well.

Poor Ginger.

It seems she's doomed to single-motherhood.  It does not seem to phase her, though.  She just sits and sits and sits.  She gets down every so often, and when she does, she goes right back in the gaggle and is welcomed with open wings.  But more often than not, she sits alone and gets to see this:

Wheee!!!  Swimming fun!

And can't participate. 

Poor Ginger.

Being a momma is a tough row to hoe.

(PS--I did candle her eggs yesterday, when she got down for a jaunt.  It is very hard to see through the shell on a goose egg, but I could see that two of them I could see through, meaning they never got fertilized, but four of them I could not see through at all.  I think that's a good sign.  The last time I looked at them, the four of them had a smaller area of dark, so it looks like whoever's home, grew.  I think that possibly she's got something there.  I really hope so, for her sake.  She's worked so hard.)

Here Comes the Rain Again

And I'm indoors.  Between the bouts of rain, I get some things done outside, but not everything I'd like.  So, I'm trying to make the most of it--I went back into my sewing room.

And made ANOTHER apron!

(forgive the crummy pictures)

One side

Other side

This one is Scalloped Apron from the Paisley Pincushion.  I will say this for it: great directions, absolutely a pleasure to put together.  However, the sizes are a bit extreme.  If you're not a B, you're an A, and the jump in the sizes is pretty big.  I made the A because I like a little room in my aprons, but it's really huge on me.  So I have a lot of room. The shoulders don't fall down, though, so that's a huge plus.  I can't be bothered to pull my apron up every ten seconds when I'm working.  That defeats the purpose of the apron.

There you have it.  I'm keeping busy(ish).  Now I need to spend some time looking at ways to display these babies.  I've got quite the collection going!

And Now, A Recipe

Spring means I don't come inside too often, and any large scale cooking is not right on the menu.  However, yesterday we got a new stove, so I wanted to make something nice to christen it.  I decided on strawberry pie, which is fantastic.  I thought I'd share the recipe with you. 

Strawberry Pie

1 recipe for a 9-inch single crust pie

Find yourself a nice crust recipe. It makes all the difference, and it's so easy to make!

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup flour

6 tablespoons butter

1 pinch ground nutmeg

4 cups fresh strawberries, hulled

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup flour

1 tbsp cornstarch





1.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2.  Make the topping:  In a bowl, mix until fluffy 3/4 cup sugar, 3/4 cup flour, 6 tbsp butter, and nutmeg.
3.  Place strawberries in a large bowl.  In a separate bowl, mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup flour, and cornstarch.  Pour this on top of the strawberries and mix gently to coat them.

4.  Pour berries into pie crust, mounding them in the center.  Cover berries with crumb topping and top the crumbs with some pea sized blobs of butter.  Wrap edges of pie crust to prevent burning.

5.  Put a pan in under the pie to catch the drips.  Bake pie in 400 degree oven for 20 minutes, and then reduce heat to 375 and bake for an additional 40 minutes.
6.  Take out and let cool.

The new oven did a lovely job!!

This pie is best eaten cold, to tell the truth.  If you let it set, the flavors all gel together, and it is FABULOUS!!!

Drippy, gooey, strawberry yumminess!!

I love pie.  There's another confession for you.  I have a chicken addiction, I love and eat too much bread, and I love, love, love, pie.  This one is one of my favorites. 

Strawberry deliciousness! 

Facelift

When we started with our livestock last year, we had two small houses for them to live in.  Ten chickens fit into a small coop, and two geese fit into a small house (yes, I house my geese and ducks).  This was plenty.  However, we were increasing the flock, and therefore needed to increase the housing.  The first house to build was a goose house.  It needed to be bigger to accommodate the increased number of geese, and then the smaller house could be used for the ducks, which are a smaller flock (both in size and number). 

I got to work on the goose house, and I learned from my many mistakes building the first small shelter last year.  This one turned out significantly better.  Sturdy, level, better planned out.  After fussing with it and painting it an outrageous color, it was done and I was very happy with it.

Don't mind the empty windowboxes--I'm not allowed to plant anything in them, even fake flowers.  The geese are offended by all that stuff, apparently, and they rip it all out with gusto.

Though I do not enjoy building things (oooh--that admission will probably get me disowned--sorry mom), I like making them look nice, and since I have to look at this house every day and I can see it from many places in the backyard, I want to look at something pretty.  So it's pretty.  But it made the other, older house look much, much worse.

To be fair, I had NO idea what I was doing when I built that other house--I hardly know what I'm doing now.  And I re-used a lot of things, including the plywood on the outside.  The house had a patched look from where all the plywood met (or didn't quite meet) up, and the roof went like this: / and the door went like that: \.  So no, none of it was level and it was really sad looking.  I have avoided taking pictures of it at all costs, and that's why you don't see any here today.

The house went on being sad looking, but I ignored it because it worked.  Ducks were housed, ducks were safe and dry, and that was all I needed.  I would have liked to have knocked it down and started over again, but that gets expensive and I still have more housing to build.  Yes, I knew how crappy it looked-it would be hard to miss.  And yes, it did bother me.  So yesterday I decided finally do something (reasonable) about it.  I decided to paint it and freshen it up.  Then I decided to try to hide the roof line that does this: /.  Then I got on a roll and went all crazy with a paint brush and some left over plywood and glass and a couple of tools and came up with this:

You can still see the sloping roofline if you look above the trim, but don't tell anyone I told you so.

It'll never grace the cover of a magazine, but it's definitely better.  Most importantly, though I do like things to look nice, they have to function, and this baby still functions beautifully.

Yeay for leftover supplies! 

Linking to:

Bees!!

Best told in pictures.

Bunch o' bees coated in sugar syrup

Opening the package

Removing the feeder can and queen

Shaking the ladies out

Persistent little buggers

Running for deal life.  ---Just kidding.  Closing up shop.

Feeder installed

Second brood box added

Checking out my handiwork

Trying to get those last ladies out of the box

Mostly done.  The other girls will need to find their way.

On My Day Off

It rained, and I had a chance to get into my sewing room.

It doesn't happen often.  I enjoyed it, after I took my mind off all the work I should have been doing outside.

It's sunny today, though, so no more playtime for me.

Back to work I go!

Yes, Yes I Did.

I tilled a 2000 square foot garden.  With a Mantis.



You know the Mantis, right??  That little tiny, rototiller?  The one with the 12" swath?

From Mantis' site

Yeah, that one.  So small you can't really see it in the garden.  Wait, let me help you out.

Yeah, I'm crazy.  Check number 22 off the list.

Man, I'm tired.