Happy Halloween!

Antique Shopping

I was recently inspired by this post over at Farmama, to do a little antique shopping.  I've been trying to come up with a list of items to replace my corresponding electric ones.  Until I read that post it never occured to me that I could get a non-electric sewing machine.

Coincidentally, after I read that post two treadle machines were posted on Kijiji.  The first one was sold but the second was still available.

Here she is in all her glory.

Let's call her Gloria.

Isn't she pretty?

Lots of toys.

Foot Power!

Predictably, the belt snapped straight away. Ebay has over a 100 listings for treadle belt so I ordered some. It should be here in about two weeks.

I gave away my fabric stash before we moved so I'm off to Etsy to pick out some new stuff to test my machine on.

What should I make first?

Toasty

Another Triple

This has got to be another triple yolk.

I'd love to know who the unlucky chicken is.

Moving the Buns

I read a lot of different opinions on pastured rabbits before I decided to go the tractor route.  It seemed to be split evenly between those who thought rabbit tractors were the best thing since sliced bread and those who thought it was a royal pain in the ass.

We went ahead and built the tractor keeping in mind that if it didn't work out it was no big deal to change our method.

Well it didn't work out for several reasons;

1. Rabbit tractors are heavy, too heavy for me to move which means they only get moved once a day (when Limey is around).  This will not be acceptable once babies arrive (next week if Donna is pregnant!).
2. At first we used wire on the bottom but it compressed the grass too much for them to eat it.  Then Limey switched to wood slats but that led to digging, which led to a big mess in the cage and an escaped rabbit.
3. Jayne (our male duck) decided to make the rabbit tractor his own personal toilet.  When your rabbits are getting covered in duck poo, something has to change.

So yesterday I gave Limey the go ahead to change the setup.  The tractor is now outside the chicken paddock (closer to the house) up off the ground (so we can catch the manure for the garden) and has a roof to keep it dry.

I guess we don't really need the wheels anymore.

Nice big cages.

The Doctor wants another date night.

Ultimately, the rabbits will still eat from pasture, they'll just get it clipped for them instead.  This will be a lot less hassle than moving a heavy tractor around.

Triple Header

You may remember the post about the double yolk egg.  If not, check it out here.
That wasn't the last of the double yolkers, we've had another three since.  Of course, once you've seen a couple of big double yolk eggs, the novelty wears off.

The other day, I found an even bigger egg in the coop.

How crazy is that? It's a really big egg. It's also a little oddly shaped in the middle, kind of a raised band of shell. I wonder how long it took to work that one out?

Of course I've been pestering Limey to eat the thing so I could crack it open. He agreed to an omelet this morning and this is what we got;

Three beautiful yolks, one giant egg.

Is it too much to request a quadruple next time?

Identification Please

What the hell is this?

Obviously it's a lizard, but what kind of lizard?  Is it native to Nova Scotia or is it someone's lost pet?  I found it in the grass next to the driveway.  Should we dissect it as a gross science project?  Ugh I remember when one of the science classes in highschool dissected a cat.  The entire place reeked.  I tried to get out of the various dissection projects in my class (worm, fish and frog) but my grumpy Einstein look-a-like teacher wouldn't let me opt out.  My chem teacher on the other hand was awesome.  It was hard not to laugh in his class, although that was primarily because he punctuated every spoken sentence with the word "is".

But I digress, can someone identify this lizard...is. 

Seriously it was like his personal version of "eh".  Bizarre huh?

The Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything

Well not really. Just the answer to the question of what this brown ball is.

Remember me?

I'm not impressed with that ball. I knew it was likely but the reality of it is more than a little disappointing.  We had the following guesses; truffle, weird egg and poop.  How I wish it was any of those.  A truffle would be lovely right about now.

Do you see it?

Yes boys and girls. That ball of brown is my soil. My clay soil to be exact. Limey rolled it into a ball and left it on the counter. It air-dried hard enough to kill someone (watch out coyotes) if I whipped it hard enough at their head. That soil should be outlawed as a public menace.

The guy who ploughed up the yard said that it was the best soil he's seen in years. The best soil?! For making pots maybe. Cement would be easier to garden in.  There was a bit of topsoil that is now mixed in to the clay but it'll still require a lot of work to make it decent for growing in.

All tilled up with nowhere to go.

We'll be accepting donations of bagged leaves from now until eternity. Just drop them on the driveway. 

Oh and if anyone has a pottery wheel...

What is it?

Any guesses?

Ouch!

One of my chickens laid a very special egg today.

From the right; spoon, large egg, gigantic egg!

It was huge.  I needed an excuse to see what was inside.  Luckily there was a crack in the top and then I "accidentally" dropped it again for good measure.  

Voila!

Double the yolk, double the fun!

How cool is that?

One Good

One of the Borg chickens is different from the others in the collective so we decided to name her.   She's also taken Lemon's place as favourite chicken. Damn my fickle heart!

I'm looking at you.

This is One Good. As you can see she's missing an eye. Her beak is also a little wonky. I'm assuming these are birth defects and not the result of an injury.  They seem to have no negative affect beyond her having to scoop her food rather than peck it. 

Limey named her after the villain in my never to be finished steampunk novel. The character's name isn't One Good but Limey calls him that because he only has one "good" arm, leg and eye. The non-good parts are mechanical.

Anyway, One Good is a cool chicken. She follows us all around the yard clucking loudly and trails along the fence when we are in the other paddocks. She also lets us pick her up.  I can't tell if she likes the kids or not as she'll let them pick her up but when dd2 gets down low enough, One Good pecks at her head. 

She never pecks at Limey's head.

True love.

Maybe she will escape the stew pot...

Cooking on the Wood Stove

We had the wood stove on last night and it was still going this morning so Limey decided to cook some eggs up on it.

Look at those orange yolks! When we got the Borg they had only been fed scratch. Their first eggs were a pale yellow just like factory eggs. Once they started foraging for most of their food, the yolks changed colour to reflect their more varied and nutritious diet.

Happy chickens make happy eggs.

Hens are in Overdrive!

Planning Ahead

Now that we have a good start on raising farm animals it's time to begin thinking about next year's food garden. The weather is still nice here in the Valley and it's prime time to get the yard dug up in preparation for spring.

Here's the space;

If you ever read my previous blog "Rose Cottage", you won't be surprised to hear that I'm planning to dig up the front lawn. Despite some badly positioned trees it is the most convenient spot for both our family garden and the one for market.

A neighbour is coming by tomorrow to dig it up for us.  Then in goes the garlic (planted right side up this time).  We bought a soil test kit when we were in Halifax so we test the soil so we can decide what amendments are needed.

It's a big space to fill.  I can't wait for the seed catalogs to start arriving in December!

Limey dug all the Halloween stuff out of the garage today. He started to decorate the front foyer while I searched the net for prop ideas for outside. Unfortunately we did not bring all our homemade stuff from the old house. I'm really missing our tombstones, rocks and skellie-trees now that I'm faced with having to make new ones.

I briefly entertained the idea of throwing a Halloween party this year as it's been awhile since our last one. This house does not have a finished basement though and I have a phobia involving the supporting beam of my house collapsing. The sloping, bouncy laminate in the living room doesn't help. Limey rolls his eyes at me every time I request steel support columns for my birthday. Maybe some day we can afford to fill in the entire basement with cement...