Little Brown Hen

So those of you who are on my facebook may know that I recently got a new job- a full time every day job.....and because it is right before the Master's Golf Tournament (very big here) the State Park where I was working on weekends is going to be full the whole week of Master's and even though I am not obligated to stay (they make us sign a paper saying so when we take the job), I could not just leave them without anyone working the weekends through the week of the Master's so I have agreed to keep working weekend until they find someone.....
....anyway, that isn't what this post is about. The post is about the little brown hen that is loose in my yard who stole a little nest for herself right in plain sight in my back shed by the old rabbit pens. It was under where I lean our hoes, shovels and rakes so she had a fairly safe spot...or so she thought anyway.

I had no idea how long she had the nest but she had sat on it for quite a while and I knew she must be getting close.
I went to my weekend job at the Park...and when I got home Phil had the little brown hen in a separate pen and it looked like she had been attacked and had a broken leg. Normally I would have put her down but she had that little nest and I knew they had to be close to hatching so I put her on her nest and hoped for the best. Came home the next day and she was still on the nest and she was clucking whenever the dog came to close to her. Came home the next day and she was still on the nest and I heard peeping and went to lift her gently off the nest, and found she was dead.
Her eggs, however weren't, but they were cool and I needed to do something. When I picked them up I found several of them were pipped. I took them inside and put a damp paper towel in a bowl and put the eggs in it under the brooder light. Normally for eggs to hatch in an incubator you need humidity to keep it moist enough so the chicks don't dry out and get stuck in their shells so I kept adding water to the paper towel from time to time, hoping I could keep it moist enough. I had to help the last two a little but they made it. One egg was never pipped and when I candled it with the light it had not developed. We ended up with four dark brown chicks and two yellow stripped chicks.

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Today 3/20/17

Long day. Slept till 8:00 this morning but missed a few hours between 4 and 6 because my hips were hurting. My doctor tells me I can go to another doctor and get a shot and it will help but I can't afford other doctors besides him
. Had to go shopping. When you are eating fresh fruits and vegetables most of the time it involves a lot of shopping. Got a new bird feeder and of course, some new flowers that were marked down because wal-mart killed half their stuff during the late frost we had but a few survived to get marked down. 
Went to the thrift store and got five sets of double pointed knitting needles which was great because our Wal-mart only sells size 3 for some reason. I also got a little chair for the porch. Someone broke one of the plastic chairs  and then just left it on the porch for the unsuspecting.....
Went to visit my brother Andy and his wife Kat for a while. I do enjoy those visits. 
Came home. Cleaned out one chick brooder then cleaned out a small pen and moved the chicks in the other brooder (8 chicks) outside! Yeah! 
Put up my new bird feeder. Watched the birds for a while. They seemed to like it. Also got to see that a pair of chickadees have decided to make a nest in my birdhouse that hangs on the side of my yard swing. They have done this before and the cats chase them off but we'll see how it goes this year. We have a lot less cats since getting them all spade. 
 Marinated pork loins are in the convection oven and we'll have salad with it for supper.
Sorry no pictures today. Someone on my facebook mentioned liking my posts so I thought I would try a little more detailed post here and see how it goes. I will try to take pictures next time though.

Today Was a Good Day

I was supposed to go to get chicken wire and a new stapler so that I could fix up some pens so that we could get the older batch of chicks outside. There are too many of them and now that they are older they just don't fit in the brooder anymore. They need more room! But just before I left I listed my spare roosters on our local yard sale page and had a couple of different people answer it. Then someone messaged me about chicks. I arranged for them to come after I got back from town where I didn't buy the wire and stapler because I knew if I got rid of the roosters I could move hens around and would have a spare pen.
When I got back the woman came for the chicks. She picked out ten of them to take home with her and then got two of the roosters as well. Great! I made a little money and solved part of the chick problem since she took only from the older chicks.
Later a very nice man and woman came for the other roosters and I sold them two hens too because I do have a whole lot of hens now. This totally emptied out my smaller pen and left one other pen without a rooster at all. I do have two silkie roosters though and they may end up in with those hens which will mean another small pen will be empty. (Yes, chicken musical chairs!).

In other good news... while I was at the store I happened to find haddock on sale. We have not had haddock since we left New England. I have never seen it for sale here but there it was in the seafood case. I got 4 fillets dipped them in milk and breading and baked them tonight along with some macaroni and cheese, veggies and sourdough bread. It was SO good! I hope you all had as good a day and since tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day it is sure to be another good day! :)

Just a Little Black Cupboard

A few weeks ago I saw a little black bathroom cupboard at the thrift store but I didn't get it because it was spray painted black and everywhere something had touched it the paint had scratched right off. The next week, however, the little black bathroom cupboard was still in the thrift store and so it must have just been mine. Anyway, I took it home because I knew just where we needed it...in Michelle's bathroom. Michelle's bathroom is really cluttered and messy. Apparently it takes a million products to make her beautiful every day.

 

I wish I had taken a picture of the cupboard when it was black but I forgot all about it. I just took it out on the porch and started sanding...and sanding...and sanding...   Took me most of the day to get as much black off of the cupboard as I could. Then came the painting...coat after coat. Did I mention I am not exactly a painter? I was still doing coats the next day.

Then I decided that since her bathroom is mostly yellow that we needed some yellow stenciled on. I ended up with this.

Phil got it mounted on the wall for me tonight which turned out easier than I thought it was going to be. 

I cleaned up and organized Michelle's bathroom again and now we have this:

Dried Cranberry Banana Bread

So I did test out my dried cranberries and, of course, there were no recipes for bread using dried cranberries so I made one up. I used the cranberries right out of the bag and because they are so light most of them rose to the top. I might try letting them soak in water next time and the bread was a little dry so that might help with the dryness as well or I might use milk instead of water and see if that helps. The flavor however, was outstanding. Such a nice light banana taste with just a touch of cranberry. It was wonderful.

Dried Cranberry Banana Bread

Grease two loaf pans. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
1/2 cup margarine or butter (1 stick)

Combine these ingredients in a bowl and cut in butter until pea sized.

Add:

2 eggs
2 bananas, mashed
1 1/2 cup water

Mix well.

Add 2 cups dried cranberries. Pour half of the batter into two loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour.

Dehydrated Cranberries

The cranberries were finally marked down at the store (although not as cheap as they usually are) and I bought three bags thinking I would make cranberry sauce again but then never had time for it. When you buy produced marked down here it is usually perfectly good if used soon...so I needed to use these. I decided to dehydrate them thinking they would end up like dried cranberries I had seen in the stores...kind of like raisins. That isn't what happened when I dehydrated them however.

They did not shrivel up, most of them kept their shape but feel hollow inside and they are brittle and break up when crushed. It is very odd and not at all what I expected. 

So I have some experimenting to do with these cranberries to see what I can make with them. I am thinking of rehydrating them in water and using them in bread or muffins. I also suppose there could be the option of making cranberry powder of some kind and using that in recipes but I am thinking I likely won't use it so I will try the first option and let you all know how it goes.

It Seemed Like A Good Idea At the Time....

Sure it did. Let the hens keep their eggs, we'll just sell the chicks.....And then three hens got on the huge nest together and 21 days later the chicks started to hatch...and the other two hens that were in the pen....kept laying in the nest...and a few chicks hatched one day...and then a few more the next and then a few more....
I advertised them on the local Sale facebook pages....and no one responded....no one at all...and the chicks keep coming...
And I set up a second brooder because there were just too many in the first one....
There are now 32 chicks. Some of them are getting rather big. I think I'll make a sign and advertise on a few more sale sites...and hope.