Eggs How I Love Thee

We are in the mists of many, many eggs. Our chickens are laying at full speed and we seem to have one that loves to give us double yokers. And lest you think I am complaining about the 13 dozen eggs we currently have I am not. We love these nutrition packed, golden yoked eggs. But, yes, now that you mention it, we do sell them! It’s Zoe’s little business.

She has been doing an awesome job taking care of the chickens and collecting/cleaning the eggs. As with many of us, she doesn’t like to work alone. That’s what siblings are for! She will take Zeke out with her and tend to the chickens. It is so sweet to watch her teach him how to do the different tasks. And to be fair she told him she would pay him for helping.

Ezekiel is a natural at catching the chickens. It’s quite funny actually. He is very relaxed and easy when he goes to get one that I never see him chasing a chicken to catch it. If I need one I know just who to send out on the job.

The biggest problem? How many ways can one prepare eggs? We eat our share (and some of yours) of scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, fried eggs, egg salad, egg, egg, egg, egg, egg. (sorry, a little Dr. Seuss moment) I was bummed to find out a quiche only uses 4 eggs.

Quick Tip: Did you know if you put some baking soda into the water when boiling eggs it makes them easier to peal? I just learned this nifty little trick(thanks Cindy!) So, what are your favorite egg dishes?

Mar 24

New Milestones

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Abigail has been growing and changing like crazy. Her newest trick now is walking. She doesn’t crawl much any more except if she needs to go really fast. And just yesterday her first tooth popped through. And on the top too. It only took her almost 11 months!

Every time I tried to get a picture she would fall over laughing. She has gotten a bit picky about her food. Well, not the food itself but rather the method in which she has to eat it. She doesn’t like the baby food consistency. None of my kids have. And she wants to do it herself as most of my kids have. It makes it a bit challenging to get a variety in her diet. Applesauce is the one thing she will almost always eat. Oliver on the other hand likes to eat whatever she doesn’t. Seems he likes his food pureed now.

Mar 23

Afro Brothers

Apparently Not

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just for fun

Shannon will not be winning the “Mother of the Year” award. In my eyes she has gone from an awesome ewe with a sassy but sweet personality to “Whats for dinner?” Yep, my love towards her was very conditional. She has rejected one of her babies. The last few days have been less than fun. She ended up having a boy and a girl. After the first 24 hours or so she started shoving the boy away whenever he tried to nurse. We are having to force her to stand still to allow him to nurse. At first she was reasonable with this and as long as I had her head she was still. From there it went downhill and she was fighting me more and more each time. Wresting with a stinky sheep at 1 in the morning is already old. Then came the ramming him into the side of the house when he tried to get close.

So, we have moved him into his own little pen with a heat lamp and started giving him a bottle. We may continue to force her to nurse him but only during the day with help other than that it will be a bottle for him. Plus side to formula is I know how much he is eating and, interestingly enough, it smells like vanilla cake batter. Not bad.

Our little orphan

Whether or not this will be normal for Shannon on future lambs is unknown. If we bread her next year she may do great and be a completely different mother. Or she might always reject one in which case we would stop breading. We were told that if she rejects a baby next year she will probably always reject one and chances are her offspring would as well. On another note Greg started calling him Murdock today. Isn’t that the cutest name for him? But then I had to remind him of our naming rule. Sorry, no Murdock.

Mar 15

Babies!

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No, not me. Our Sheep, Shannon, had her babies today! Soooo exciting! We just recently confirmed she was pregnant. Here she is a week before delivery.

It was hard to tell if she was pregnant or just getting fat from the extra food she was getting. Then one evening I was able to poke around on her stomach a bit and saw the baby (or rather what turned out to be babies) kick. It was so fun to see and confirm lambs would be arriving. I read up on lambing again and talked with a friend that’s been there done that. This morning when I went out to feed Shannon seemed REALLY pregnant. More so than just the evening before. No wonder! This evening Zoe went out to close in the chickens and came running back to the house yelling “Babies! Shannon had her babies!”

And there they were. All dry and clean hanging out in the house nursing. Everything you could ask for. Even more surprising was that there were two. Being her first pregnancy we were only expecting one. She had done everything a good mama should. And now here’s the best part. Pictures!

It took every ounce of self control for Zoe and I not to run in and hold them but, I wanted to be sure they bonded well with their mama before we start that. And the proud Papa. Well, I don’t know how proud. He just got kicked out of his pen for lamb safety.

Feb 20

Where's my baby??

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Abigail has been changing so much so quickly. She seemed to go from my little baby to this crawling, climbing, tackling, clapping, babbling little girl. Where did my baby go? I know I have asked this question as each little baby has made this change but with each child this change is more and more precious. Its no wonder people have a dozen of ’em.

Abigail loves to wrestle. Greg will be wrestling with the other kids and she charges right over not willing to miss out of the action. Oliver is her favorite target and he loves it. He needed someone to wrestle with I just wasn’t expecting it to be the 9 month old baby!

She has also turned vacuuming into an sport. As soon as I start up the vacuum she either charges for the nearest particle on the floor and I have to beat her too it or she charges for the vacuum and I have to quickly maneuver around her. Today I was surprised as she joined the kids in their favorite vacuum game. They love it when I chase them with the vacuum. (I know, I wonder how my floors get cleaned at all. Those kids move pretty fast and I’m sure there’s not much time for vacuum to actually do its job.) As I turned it on the screams start and all able kids run to the stairs for safety and not far behind was Abigail squealing and moving as fast as her little knees would take her. So cute.

Jan 26

Homemade Pop Tarts

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Lets just say YUM! Really. One of my goals this last Christmas season was to do a lot of fun things throughout the month. Pack it full of fun activities leading us up to Christmas Day. One of our activities was Homemade Pop Tarts. It wasn’t something I would have thought about making myself but a friend was so excited about we just had to try it out. I am SOOO glad I did.

What to do:

1. Make pie crust dough. And please…Use butter. Divide in half and let it chill in the fridge to make it easier to handle.

2. Once chilled roll out half in a rectangle.

3. Visually divide your dough into 6 rectangles. Get your favorite jam (we used raspberry and blackberry) and put a nice sized TBSP in the center of each rectangle. Spread it out a little but leave a 1/2 in edge to seal it.

4. using your finger or a pastry brush put some water around the edges of the tarts.

5. Roll out your second dough in the same shape and size and put it on top of the first.

6. Use a pizza cutter to cut out your tarts and crimp the edges with a fork. Poke some steam holes in the top.

7. Put on a cookie sheet and bake at 425 degrees doe 7-8 minutes until golden brown.

8. Cool and drizzle with a powdered sugar/milk glaze if desired.

(Note: Let me know if something doesn’t make sense. There were a few, lets say, interruptions during the making of this post.)

Here is a picture midway for all you visual people. And what did the kids think?

All thumbs up

And one index 🙂

Jan 18

Winter has arrived

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The snowman hat is one I knitted a few years ago. I started it while pregnant with Ezekiel and finished it after his 2nd birthday. It was my first and last hat. It’s huge. Really huge. But it fits this snowman perfectly. His head was made from a 3 gallon bucket.

Winter has finally arrived! Monday Zoe was outside all day. I was mean and made her wait until it was light outside before she went out. About 8am she was in the snow and stayed out until 2:00pm. At one point I served up some hot chocolate and asked her if she wanted some. She hesitated saying “I do but….” I assured her she could go back outside when she was done but she asked if she could have it outside. Sure, why not. Zeke was even enjoying it this year which Zoe enjoyed greatly. What a difference snow pants make. Oliver played outside for a little bit but was also happy in our nice warm house. Tuesday gave us more snow and Zoe was out in it again trying to use up all the snow. She started using a bucket to pack the snow in and made a tall snowman and Snow City complete with sky scrapper. And what did Abigail decide she needed to do while I was outside taking some quick shots?