It’s been a while since I’ve posted. A long while. And a lot has happened… (We had buffalo burgers- and they were awesome! I had four chickens disappear in ONE day- including Speckles, the broody hen. The ‘baby’ chick is now probably our 2nd biggest chicken- 2nd only to the rooster!) but I still don’t have a job.

One thing about not having a job is that I get to watch the trees change daily. Last year at this time I was travelling. A LOT. I remember the leaves being green one week and it seemed like by the time I got back home (a couple of days) all the leaves had fallen already. And while I would, honestly, rather have a job than watch the trees change, it’s been nice to  see the beautiful colors. (And I am trying to remain positive and optimistic… even though I’ve been out of work for almost 9 months now)

My sister Katie got this shot while we were at the lake this weekend. You can see that they are starting to drain the lake. She fell in love with my camera too. (Nikon L100) You really can’t beat the features for the price!

In other I-Love-My-Camera news, my sister and I got pictures of each other’s eyes. Weird, I know. But I love the color of my eyes. They’re hazel, and I think they resemble sunflowers. If only my vision wasn’t so very horrid, they wouldn’t be half bad!

I see you.

One of the best things about getting up early in the morning is getting to see the sunrise.

You can see that we have a view over the city below. Very neat.

On my last post, a lot of you commented on our tomato plant supports, so I thought I’d post more pictures of them.

Mr. C thought up the tripod support idea. He thought it would be cheaper and be neater to look at than regular tomato cages. I fought him at first, but now I think he was right- they are pretty neat looking and go with the natural look of a garden. (It’s also something that’s easily moved to a new spot next year)

As you can see, they are just 3 small trees cut down and set in a tripod fashion. He then tied them together with a thick piece of string. Another (longer) tree trunk is then laid between tripods to support the tomato plants.

The piece of this that’s harder to see is our tomato clips. Before Mr. C and I started dating, I had never seen them before. A big-time farmer he used to work for used them, and so Mr. C found some on ebay and bought them in bulk.The string is snapped into place using little ‘teeth’ on the clip and the clips are placed on the tomato stems to support them.

The only downside to this method is that the tomato plants will need more clips as they get larger. But b/c you control what part of the tomato plant gets support, I think it makes it easier to find tomatoes.

What method do you guys use to support your tomato plants? Have you seen these clips before?

So it’s been approximately 723 days since my last post. Well, close to it anyways. I wish I could say it was b/c I was out in the garden weeding like a mad fool, but alas… it was only b/c I couldn’t get pictures to upload and without pictures, what is there? Just words. Boring words.

Mr. C got me a new camera for my birthday. (A Nikon L100, that I LOVE. It’s got a 15x zoom!) so I’ve been taking random pictures around our little farm.

First up is the tomato plants. This year Mr. C decided to go a more natural (and cheap!) route to string up our tomato plants using small tree trunks. I think it looks pretty neat. (Ignore the weeds)

I SAID don’t look at the WEEDS!

And thanks to my zoom (b/c if I try to get his picture when I’m close to him, he runs to me and flops on his back), I finally got a cute picture of BrownDog with his ‘broken’ ear. I don’t know if he was born like that or what, but I think it’s cute nonetheless. Soon he’ll be headed to the groomer for a much-needed shaving.

Isn’t it cute? And it looks like he’s smiling!

And last but not least is a picture I snapped of a hummingbird. The light wasn’t good, but this was with my zoom and I was amazed at how much detail it picked up. (Did I mention I love my camera?)

What kind of cameras do you guys use?

I’m sad to say that Barney passed away last week. I came home from running errands and he was laying dead next to the house. Maybe he accidentedly flew into the wall? I’ll never know.

RIP Barney. You were a great rooster and managed to get Fred to quit attacking Mr. C.

On a happier note, I spent the weekend with a friend in Pigeon Forge, TN and thanks to getting lost, I got this great view shot. Beautiful, isn’t it?

And on an even more fabulous note- I won a birdhouse from Mountain Woman At Red Pine Mountain!

I don’t think I’ve had a picture on here of Barney, our EE (Easter Egger- he carries the blue-egg laying gene) rooster. Him and Fred (our Golden-Laced Wyandotte rooster) get along pretty well for the most part. They’ll often roost side-by-side at night, and only square off every once in a while. He also doesn’t try to attack people like Fred does. (Fred doesn’t attack me b/c he knows that I’m the alpha in the pack!)

He’s a pretty big boy, but he’s not as hard on the ladies as Fred is. I’ve considered sending Fred to the stew pot (Not mine! But I’m sure someone would take him) but I’m sure that Barney would then be more aggressive in trying to assert his alpha-ness.

I caught these two talking on the job:

“…and you know what he said? Nothing!! Like sharing him with 17 other hens is acceptable!”

This past Sunday we went to the lake house to do some more work. We had originally decided not to remove the strips that covered the gap between the drywall. Then we decided that we might as well do it now, b/c painting this room again- even in 15 years- was NOT going to happen.

So, we took off the strips AND the moulding. (molding?) You can see below- all the white spots show were moulding or the strips were.

You can also see my trusty painting stool that I’ve about fell off 10 times.

So, after we took off all the unwanted materials (we plan on buying new crown molding, but the molding around the doors and window we kept so we can repaint it) I went through and hammered in all the little nails. It took a while, but sometimes you just need to swing a hammer, ya know?

This is a close-up of the gap between the drywall. Mr. C will fill in the holes, sand it down and we’ll paint. AGAIN. You can see one of the many, many nails that I hammered in too.

I am really happy with the color, even though it still needs at least one more coat (it was a little bare in spots!). In my head, I see a brown coverlet with a white duvet cover on the bed with brown pillows. The trim will be white (or maybe cream?) colored. The curtains will probably be white, but maybe a light brown. There’s still lots to do before we start putting the room together though!

The last picture is one of the lake. They lowered it and they weren’t kidding when they say it gets reduced to a small river in the middle. You can barely see the little river from our deck. Crazy.

With the leaves down, we have a great view of (what used to be) the lake!

One good thing about the cold weather is that we HAD to get our pekepoo, Jolee, a new coat. Okay, so she probably hates it more than anything, but it’s cute and as I remind her daily… beauty is pain. hee hee.

So, in spirit of Fun Foto Friday, may I present Jolee in her new coat (and don’t try to tell me she’s not one cute puppy dog because I’ll know you’re lying):

This is her “Oh? You’re taking pictures of me?” pose.

This is her “Leg kicked out” pose.

This is her “They have food! They have food!” pose.

And, so that you don’t think that she has it TOO rough, a picture from last night of how she spends her evenings:

Two words: Spoiled Rotten.

**And I totally got the dog coat from Wal-Mart. They have some cute (well priced) dog clothes.**

Nothing beats a nest full of (colorful!) eggs!

The chickens are down to laying 5-6 eggs a day. (The nest above wasn’t collected for a couple of days) Fall is definitely upon us.

I’m taking a cue from Chris at Refining Life and having a Thankful Thursday post. Rhondi at Rose Colored Glasses started the bandwagon and it’s a good day to jump on!

I’m thankful for the new outside chicken coop that Mr. C built.

It means that the chickens can be left alone for short periods of time AND get to go outside. Mr. C knocked out a couple of bricks (with our landlord’s permission) and we put a ramp in so that they now have an inside/outside coop. The posts were put in the ground about 2 feet deep and were filled in with dirt. (No concrete!)

I am also thankful for the deer that show up and make me smile: (This one had twins with her! She loves the apples from the apple tree!)

I’m most thankful because the big windstorm that came through (while we were at the lake!) may have knocked out our electricity, no one and no pet were hurt.

It was from Hurricane Ike (supposedly) and carried 70mph winds with it.

This is the apple tree that got uprooted. The very same apple tree that the deer liked to eat under.

The tree that took out our clothesline.

This was the big one that took out our powerline. (You can sort of see where it snapped the line from the pole) It also landed on Mr. C’s mail jeep. (But again- no damage!)

And I’m thankful for a peaceful place to go on the weekends- our lake house.

I took this picture this past Saturday, Sept 13, 2008 at Nolin Lake in Kentucky.

I hope everyone finds something to be thankful for today!

Note: I am replying back to your comments ON your comments. If you’d rather get an e-mail response, let me know!  

Apparently, I have a broody hen that’s a slacker.

(For all you non-chicken types… when a chicken goes ‘broody’ it means she’s trying to hatch eggs)

I saw her on a nest Thursday night, Friday morning, and Friday night. So I started getting excited. Baby chicks! At J&J Acres!

Then on Saturday, she was up off the nest. And I was sad. Then she was back on it on Saturday night. Then on Sunday, she got off and four chickens laid eggs in that same nest… and when I went in there later, she had given up setting on 14 eggs and was now setting on 3 new eggs.

Argh. I tried to put her in a cage with the eggs, and she freaked out.

So I took away all the eggs and she clucked around for a while, peeking into each nest.

I just don’t think she’s ready to be a mom.

From what I’ve read, chickens set on the nest for days at a time, and get up for a few minutes to get a drink and eat. This chicken was up for hours at a time the first couple of days… so maybe she just needs to grow up a little bit. Who knows.

Garden Stuff

I love pulling carrots out of the garden. Maybe because up until this year we had never grown carrots. And I still get excited because they look exactly like they do in cartoons. (Hello Bugs Bunny!)

Mr. C laughed at me for picking such a puny carrot to put on the farm blog. But I think it’s perfect! And it’s really not that puny… it just has a long stem!

It’s hard to believe, but Mr. C and I have almost picked (and given away or eaten) ALL of our corn this year. We’re already making plans to have a bigger garden next year!!

Lake House Stuff

We didn’t go to the lake house this past weekend b/c gas is killing us, but here’s a picture from two weekends ago when Mr. C borrowed my dad’s pressure washer and I witnessed a miracle:

The deck is going to look great with some fresh stain (and paint for the railing).

Thanks to all who made suggestions about the walls. It looks like Kilz Primer is a good starting point… once we get the texture worked out of the walls!

On backyardchickens.com, they are always talking about how a fresh chicken tastes way better than a store bought chicken. Curious, I contacted a woman in my area who mentioned she would be raising cornish cross chickens, and she was willing to sell me a couple. (Completely processed, of course)

So last Friday, I went and picked up 5 HUGE chickens. She said they were in the 8-10lb range.

Jimmy and I decided to try the beer can chicken recipe that we’ve been talking about for a while.

First we had to make sure that the stand would hold the monster chicken up.

And it did. So Jimmy added flavoring (lemon juice and various spices- including lemon pepper) and put onions on the inside to add extra flavor.

You can barely see the Miller Lite can in the center of the stand.

Then she got put on the grill (20 minutes per pound- it took over 2 hours to cook!) along with our home-grown cabbage and onions:

The chicken was good, but it wasn’t as tender as what we thought it should be (although it was extra juicy), so we may try cooking it differently next time.

So in our big freezer, we have: deer meat, pork, and now chicken. We’ll be getting beef once Jimmy’s dad butchers his next cow. I like not having to buy meat.

And to end the post, here’s a picture of a beautiful sunset over the now-golden field of wheat.