Thursday, January 17, 2013

Triple Creek Farm, January 17, 2013

Often when the city folks are coming for a visit, I suggest if they are going to visit the farm they need to bring some good boots.  Not those prissy boots they wear to the office but wet weather boots.  When they show up you would not believe the boots I see.  This week we have been blessed with rain, something I had almost forgotten about.  Four days of rain which was frosted with snow!!!  The runs have been a mess.  We have added straw to the runs to cut down on the mud.  The duck run was slick, one could easily fall if not careful, you need good boots. By Saturday afternoon, we were starting to dry out.

IN THE KITCHEN

Our soup of the week is a large pot of vegetable soup, of course, there is beef in it but Momma always called her soup vegetable soup and so do I.  Carrots, celery, onion, potato, green beans, lima beans, corn, peas and cabbage filled up my kettle I added tomato juice combined with beef broth for the needed liquid.  I have been looking at a recipe for egg white meringue made with a thicker of cornstarch, water and sugar, we tried this on a chocolate meringue pie.  The pie was made on Monday with the final slice eaten on Saturday evening, there was no weeping of the meringue and the taste was as fresh as if it had just been made.

ON THE FARM

This activity has moved inside our house.  Our basement has not been finished, the construction was completed several years ago and we moved in.  All of the little holes in the trim have not been filled. the wall board in the bathroom needed one more coat of joint compound.  Well, this week has been working out well, The bathroom has the ceiling and 1 wall finished.  Joint compound completed, little holes filled in the trim, it is so nice to see white walls rather than wall board grey with white splashes on it.

IN THE COOP

With the rain and snow this week the girls have been coming in early as I give them the scratch inside.  I have noticed a change in the pecking order, Smiley, one of the two girls that Aurora hatched this spring, has become the head girl.  Feather seemed pleased to hand over the job to her.  Friday morning, snow on the ramp when the door was opened.  Smiley came out and jumped on the ground, which was white and wet as it was not freezing here, turned around and jumped on the ramp and returned to the coop.  Made an announcement and that was it, the girls all started settling in the coop and remained there all day.

The ducks have been having a wonderful time, 7 more duck eggs were collected and 29 hen eggs.

IN THE GARDEN

I planted Chinese cabbage seeds in the cold tunnel a few weeks back and this week I have 5 plants up.  This has put a smile on my face.

I have started seedlings and am so pleased to have some plants on their way.  I will be adding more as time goes on.  I will be putting some of the early plants in the cold tunnel  and I shall try some direct seeding in the tunnel, also.  This is truly a learn by doing project.  For the small amount of work I am doing in the tunnel I see good results.  I do not know if I am just too easy to please or if things are going as well as I think.

Mr. Bootsie added supports into the cold tunnel so it would have some extra strength, the snow load is going to be heavy because the snow is so wet.  He went out after the snow stopped and cleaned the tunnel, we were concerned as to how much of a load it could handle.  I went inside Friday afternoon and everything was normal.

IN CLOSING

I struggle with many things, and the computer is a challenge for me.  Sometimes I have lots of errors show up on blogger.  We are located out in the country and I run on an air card.  So, I am not sure if my problems are not really my problems because others are experiencing them, also.  But one night, this week, when I was updating my weekly blog I made a mistake and clicked on publish when I was trying to save my update.  Needless to say I spent sometime correcting this mistake, and I am not sure I corrected everything.  For any of you who saw parts of this earlier in the week I am sorry.  I hope there were not a lot of misspelled words and I know I have made some changes because things change as the week progresses.

I am so pleased to see there are new followers, some of you have been around for a while, please know that I appreciate your taking the time to read my blog.  I would enjoy hearing from you about what you like and things which bore you.  Most of all I want to say, " THANK YOU".

                                                Until the next time,  Bootsie

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