Easter egg part II

Remember my wacky Easter egg?


I didn't.

I put it in my refrigerator and promptly forgot about it, for at least two reasons.

First, I was so absolutely certain I knew what was inside it, that once I blogged about that egg it apparently left my brain. Similar to writing something down on a list (and then I lose my list).

Secondly, I had not a clue how to crack open that tiny little thing without completely smashing it, which would not make for a very interesting photo.

So it was that I surprised myself when I found it rolling around a drawer in my fridge a few weeks ago. No worries, compared to store bought eggs it was still very fresh.

Then, after breaking it open and discovering the truth, I forgot (again) to blog about it. Imagine that.

For the record, I just knew that egg contained a yolk and nothing more. It was the perfect size.


There it is. On a small saucer.

Goodbye egg.

I smacked it on the table (the egg, not the saucer). It hardly even dented so I smacked it again. Then, I had to dig my fingers carefully into the place where the shell cracked, trying my best to break the membrane underneath without, you know, smashing the whole darn thing. That membrane was strong. I ended up peeling half that eggshell right off the membrane before I finally just tore into it with my nails. And then, I still had to give it two almighty tugs before it ripped sort of in two.

And I was wrong.


Some egg white, and an embryo.

That, people, is called a "fart egg". I find the coolest stuff on my farm, don't you think?

Spring has arrived

"You Capture" theme this week was "Spring".

Why this was such a tough one for me, I'll never know. I could blame it on the jalapeño. I could blame it on my thyroid. I could blame it on the chickens. None of which would be fair.

Actually there was something this week that really threw me, but I'm not ready to talk about it yet (maybe when the apple trees bloom).

Here's the obligatory "Look! Unbelievable! The trees are alive again!" photo.


I can't believe I posted that. Perhaps our 45mph wind today has gone to my head.

Through my head?

Alright, so it's Spring (insert heavens opening and angels singing here).

I turned on the spigot to fill my watering cans.


Upon turning around, the hose which was attached to the spigot was nowhere to be seen. Huh? I looked to the side. There it was, running away from me.

I followed it around the corner of the house, past our front steps, and around another corner where it connected to a second hose which ran the full length of the house, only to connect to yet another hose. The third hose ran around the kid's playset towards two very tall Pine trees.

And this is what I found.


It was obviously the work of my five-year-old boy, who may or may not have an unhealthy obsession with hoses and pipes.

Also, my photog friends, that photo is SOOC (other than resizing, watermarking and a frame). I am feeling very "Heck YEAH!" and not very humble about it, just thought I'd say.

I filled my watering cans because my peas are reaching out toward the sun.


But we're still more than a month away from our normal last frost date, and so I also have these interesting little things. I experimented with one last year. This year I have six. If it goes well, next year I will have an army of them.

Everyone who sees them asks what in the world they are.


Want a peek inside?


A very lucky tomato seedling, safe and warm, getting a head start and stretching it's roots deep into the earth, well before our Spring says it should be able to.

Take that, early prairie Spring.

You Capture - "Spring"

UPDATE:
For those of you who were curious about the little greenhouses, here is a link to the product. It's a ring of plastic tubes that are open on the top. With the tubes filled half-way with water the greenhouse closes for more protection. When they're filled to the top it opens up.

A big smile

This kid of mine has the biggest mouth I have ever seen on a three-year-old.


It makes for some pretty amazing smiles!

He and his brother were tickling themselves with their plants. Then, they decided to blow on the leaves as violently as they could, which was apparently hysterical. Their baby sister thought it was hilarious too.

Their plants were not smiling, as you can see.


I Heart Faces - "Smiles"

The revenge of José

Since some of you have an emotional investment in José Jalapeño, I thought it would be considerate of me to finish his story. You'll thank me later, perhaps.

(You can read about him here. Also click here, to see his adorable baby pictures.)

José had been looking terribly delicious lately. My oldest boy wanted the honor of picking him. Really, I wanted to pick him, but you know how it goes when you're a mom.


He did a great job.

With José in hand, we realized just how small he was.

No problem, my youngest boy wanted to wield the kitchen shear too. I can't blame him. This was a ton of fun (keep in mind that we don't have a television).

With two hands on the weapon, a three-year-old boy's assault on the jalapeño plant began.

He aimed for the largest one,


and missed.

The tiniest one was set free instead and went bouncing across the room.

The child was determined. It appeared that he didn't even notice his first victim and pressed on towards his goal. It took a few minutes, but he finally returned victorious to the kitchen.

They smelled as amazing as they looked (the jalapeños, not my boys).


I chopped them up, thinking I would need to remember that my hands would be like fire to any mucous membrane for the rest of the day. Specifically, I wondered how I would safely change the baby's diaper.

But there it was, ready for the broiler.


Don't look at my ugly plate, I have much more handsome ones but they can't go in the oven. Well, actually they could, but it might be exciting in a bad sort of way.

Into the broiler it went.

And then? I don't even want to say it, but you know it's true.

I touched my eye.

My left eye. The one I need to make an appointment for because I think my tear duct is blocked. For real.

I didn't realize it for a few microseconds, of course. I grabbed my eye and quite honestly don't remember what I said, but my husband stood there staring at me like I was an alien. I quickly turned the broiler off because gosh darn it I am not going to ruin these chips! And went racing for the bathroom sink and ran lots of cold water into my poor eye that cannot wet itself.

It was like strolling down memory lane, except in a very painful way. Don't worry, you're coming with.

The last time I had ice-cold water running over my eyes, it was in my previous life in the exciting world of biotech.

I had isopropyl alcohol that contained human brain DNA splash all over my face. It was in my eyes, up my nose and in my mouth. It's true, people, I swear. The doctor at the walk-in-clinic told me I won his strange and unusual case for the day, hands down. And believe me, his day was nowhere near over.

Those of you who don't know me in real life, I truly am a walking disaster-waiting-to-happen. I don't want to believe in the theory of parallel universes. I can only imagine the kind of destruction I may have caused by now, although the theory fascinates me to no end.

After José had his way with me, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my eye didn't hurt. It was just nice and warm, in a numb kind of way.

I went back and got the broiler going.


You know what, honestly? Totally worth all the drama.

Amazing.

I grew a jalapeño (a bunch of them actually), in my house, during our frozen winter, and I ate it. I did share with my husband which might even be a bigger miracle.

Truly, I am a rebel if there ever was one.


But after what I went through to do it, I really turned the event into an indulgence. Now that was pure perfection.

Courage

I have really been trying so hard to bring my camera with me whenever I leave the house.

It's not a little thing.

Heading out, I usually have my arms full of a baby who is perpetually missing one sock, jackets for boys who race out the door without them, a backpack/diaper bag on my shoulder (which does always contain wipes, I learned my lesson well). I do not have a camera bag. Yet. Luckily (you have no idea) that is about to change. So for now... if I remember the camera, the strap is around my arm and neck, and the camera itself is vulnerably balanced among the mish-mash of baby parts and kid paraphernalia which is surely loaded upon me.

Whew. Did you follow that?

Good.

Having my camera with me yesterday morning meant I got some shots I would otherwise have missed.


It takes courage to whip out a digital SLR at the grocery store (or wherever I may be) to take pictures of the oranges (or whatever screams at me to capture it).

No, I haven't done that yet. But I will!

I want to learn and improve. I want to become confident that I can work with whatever light happens to be there. (Because your on-camera flash will ruin your photos. Every time. There, I said it. And yes, I feel so much better now, thank you. It was rather freeing.)


I have always had an unhealthy anxiety about what other people think of me.

Putting that camera up to my face and standing up on a chair in a crowded room of people (which I have actually done), forces me to be confident.

It forces me to have courage.



Also: My bird expert tells me the Eagle that does not look like a Bald Eagle is likely a juvenile Bald. I was so disappointed that the adult Eagle's head was in a shadow on the second photo. These were shot with my 50mm and cropped down horribly. They could have been so very much better. Time to count my pennies and finally get that telephoto lens ordered. And, I'm still trying to figure out why the blue hue in the first photo is so different from the others. Problems like that are great learning tools as well.

Sun dried tomatoes

Little round Principe Borghese Tomatoes are meant to be dehydrated. It's their destiny.

It sounds so exotic, doesn't it? Sun dried tomatoes!


Nope. They simply spent a night in the dehydrator.

And they keep forever.

Well, not really forever, but you know.

Dehydrating is a great way to preserve what we grow. Fresh tomatoes only last for so long (except those amazing Long Keepers). Canning is so much work, although for some things it really is worth it. Freezing requires freezer space, and I do freeze lots and lots of tomatoes, but not the Principe Borghese.


They make an amazing addition to crusty homemade French bread, or pizza crusts, or even on top of the pizza. I can't even begin to describe the flavor they add to egg dishes.

They are so pretty, like little vegetable diamonds.


What may surprise you, is that these crispy little tomatoes are sweet. Very, very sweet. They have a strange strong tomato flavored super sweetness that my boys cannot keep their hands off.

What mom would say no to a request for healthy sweet treats like that?


"Mommy, nexterday I want some more potatoes again."

"Why do you like them?"

"Because I like to yell when I eat them!"

You Capture - "Sweet"

Twenty-one days

Once upon a time (like a week ago), a little orange hen known as The Nest Queen (actually she has another name that I dare not type here) decided to sit. She sat, and sat, and sat. While her friends scratched around the yard and enjoyed a beautiful Spring day, she parked her fluffy butt on the nest and sat.

When I shoved the other chickens off their poopy porch and locked them in the coop that night, I realized that she was still sitting, and that it was the first time that she had been for the entire day.

She was determined.

It was time.

With much anticipation in the mystery that was about to be, I let her keep nine eggs that were laid in the following two days. She knew what she needed to do.

But the week was disastrous to say the least.

We have a big community nest. Two of them actually, but the girls only use one.

As fresh eggs were laid beside her, she collected and carefully rolled them underneath her featherless warm belly. But you can only fit so many eggs under a hen, and in doing so she kicked the eggs that she had been incubating out behind her.

That was only the beginning of her troubles.

You know when someone has something, everyone wants it? Nest space is hot like that. There are times those girls are lined up waiting for that nest like women have been known to wait to use the restroom.

Once I walked into the coop to find three birds piled on top of each other, and another one waiting for space to jump up there with the others. And on the bottom? Yes, my broody Nest Queen and her pile of precious eggs. Eggs were kicked around in the scuffle and a few of them cracked. Still she sat.

When an egg broke in the mayhem, and subsequently dried beneath her, it glued two more eggs to the feathers on the edge of her bare breasts. Those eggs smashed in the following day when yet another hen bullied her trying to get into her space to lay.

We were down to six eggs after only a few days.

I made her a perfect private cardboard box, with a little door, nice and dark, and full of soft pine bedding. We moved her and her eggs after dark. I was so hopeful.

She was not amused.

She pooped on her eggs in the new cardboard box nest and escaped back onto the old empty nest. She managed to knock four hens off their night-time roost in her mad dash back up there. Determined, yes.

The cardboard box nest wasn't right. The old nest felt right, even without eggs. Somehow I had figured she would be happy to be wherever her eggs were. I was wrong.

I gave her eggs back to her, she rolled them under her breast and glared at me.

I thought and thought and thought.

The next day was as bad as ever. She had only three eggs remaining by evening.

So we replicated the community nest. My sweet husband built a lip for the box, just right to match the one she wanted to sit in. We put it on the floor in the corner of the coop. Then he framed out a private space, stapled chicken wire all the way around it, and stapled a slanted cardboard lid to the top. I placed food and water in, put fresh straw in the new nest, and we waited for dark.

We snuck in, my husband held The Nest Queen while I moved her warm eggs. Then as I put her in the new space, we quietly watched and held our breath.

She pooped.

She tested one chicken wire wall, then the other.

She was agitated, and looked up toward her old nest.

She hopped onto the top of the replicated nest box and prepared to jump just under the high part of the slanted roof. It was clear she was about to escape her new private space. She had not seen her eggs.

I gently lowered her back down to the nest, and tried to aim her beady black eyeballs toward those shiny eggs.

She clucked.

Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck...

And she nestled into the new nest, beside her eggs, and one by one, she tucked those eggs under her beak and rolled them back into her warm place.

Cluck, cluck, cluck...

She sat, content.

Now her warm place is a safe place.

Today, convinced she is happy enough with her new nest, I climbed into her chicken wire enclosure with an egg carton in my hand. The carton contained precious cargo. I'm pretty flexible and have long legs. It was not easy. I was also just a bit concerned about getting out after I squatted down, because of how a cardboard flap kind of locks the lid down.

I took her three eggs and replaced them with nine fresh ones.

She didn't seem to mind.

So now we start over counting a twenty-one day incubation.

When my husband held her before we put her into the new safe nest, I took the opportunity to look her over. She had some poop stuck in the feathers on her behind. She has plucked her breasts completely bare, for better heat transfer to the eggs. The bottom edges of her wings, and the feathers remaining around her bare underbelly are thickly matted up with crusty dried egg, and even half an eggshell was still stuck there to her feathers.

I whispered, "She's a mess."

My husband smiled at me, "She's a mom."

Twenty-one days from now, the day I have marked on my calendar, the day I will be running to the coop every fifteen minutes to check on her if I can manage it, is Mother's Day.

It honestly is.

How perfect!

A boy's wish

I heard a sweet little boy voice from the back seat of our car.

"I want to buy that huge one for Daddy."


"I want to buy that really huge one for Daddy. For his truck and his tractor."

Right.

It was bigger than our car.

That little boy understands what a Daddy needs.

Fresh jalapeños

Last fall I experimented with something.

I had an amazing pepper plant that I harvested twenty-two green peppers off of at one time. The frustrating thing was that I pulled them all because we were to have a frost that night. I really wanted to leave them on until I had red peppers, not green ones.

Someone then suggested (luckily before our frost) that I dig the whole plant up and invite it into my home to be a houseplant.

All. Winter. Long.

Peppers can live for years in warmer climates. Who knew?

If I start this Spring with last year's fully grown plant, I likely will get my red peppers!

So I dug up my pepper. Then I looked over and saw one of my jalapeño plants. Why stop now? While I potted them, a sweet hen named Penny sat on my shoulder. I wish I had a picture of that.

I was warned not to expect them to produce fruit in the house, we just don't get enough light for that. The goal was to keep these plants alive until winter was over, and then send them back to the garden.

The jalapeño, particularly, has been a fabulous houseplant. It's leaves are small and dainty, and it doesn't insist on bolting straight up toward the ceiling like the pepper does.

And look what happened!


Yet that one wasn't the first. I was so excited about the first one I named him José.

José Jalapeño. It was a joke for my mother.

Oh, nevermind.

Neither of these two is José, either.


Oh, goodness! There is another tiny one above them!

But José, he has been hanging around for over two months now.

I rather like him. He brightened my dreary long winter, and gave me the joy of watching something green grow.

Somehow, in just the last two days he has become a really colorful character.


My relationship with José Jalapeño is going to come to an extremely delicious end very soon. Of that I am certain.

Also, I am certain you will not find a jalapeño fresher than José. It can't be done.

You Capture - Fresh

Knoepfle Soup - Part II

Missed Part I? Get caught up by clicking here.

If you recall, we're working on our soup broth. At the moment our Sunny rooster has just started cooking in a bunch of water with some celery and onion.

But we need something more.

In order to make the broth really great, it needs a bay leaf or two, a bit of salt and pepper, and some really yummy smelling, dried, home grown parsley.

A strange but wonderful thing to add is just a splash of apple cider vinegar. The vinegar extracts calcium and minerals out of Sunny's bones as he cooks. It makes for an extra healthy broth.

I want Sunny to cook for a full hour, until he is good and done. Roosters are notorious for having tough meat, although you wouldn't know it with this home grown guy.

Next up is lots of potatoes. The recipe calls for two medium potatoes, but doubling it I probably I use seven or eight of them. Funny math, I know.

A fully cooked Sunny and the bay leaf come out, and the potatoes go in.

One thing I truly hope for in this life, is that I learn from my mistakes.

I aimed more carefully this time.


I also added some season salt and a bunch of chopped up green onions.

While the potatoes cook, get ready for knoepfle!

Guess what? The chickens have another contribution for our soup.

Head out to the coop and grab two beautiful, fresh, brown eggs. No doubt you'll find them underneath The Nest Queen. Retrieve them very carefully.


She won't touch me, but I believe she might possibly peck you!


She's been getting more and more cranky lately, and sitting on that nest longer and longer. It bet it won't be more than a few days and she'll be The Nest Mama. Once she becomes a little more determined I won't take her eggs away anymore. And that is so very exciting!


Anyway, watch your fingers. Her beak is sharp.


While you're out there, be sure to tell her what a good mama she is going to be. A little positive reinforcement never hurt, right?

Was that enough adventure? Let's finish up later with Part III.

Knoepfle Soup - Part I

I decided to document my process of making Knoepfle soup. Food is not something I usually take photos of, so this should be a good exercise. Pictures and recipe, that should make a nice blog post, right?

For some reason God only knows, nothing I attempt to do ever goes as planned.

Yeah I know, we're just making soup. What could possibly go wrong? If you've followed the blog for any amount of time, you know me better than that.

Buckle your seat belt.

The recipe says to use half a chicken, cut up. I don't have half a chicken.


Well, Hello Mr. Sunny rooster. You will do nicely. This, my friends, is a real chicken. He sang and scratched and caused all kinds of trouble with the ladies.

I'm doubling the recipe for my two halves of a whole Sunny.

Cut up a bunch of celery, and a bunch of onion. The very best onions are the ones from a neighbor.


Then you dump it in your BIG pot with a Sunny rooster and 8 Cups of water.

However, when I dumped my onion and celery into the pot, I was paying more attention to my camera settings than my soup pot.

Luckily my celery was on top of my onion in the blue bowl. Can you guess what happened?


I actually missed the pot and dumped celery all over my sweet little girl who was playing on the floor underneath me. Don't worry, the sound of celery hitting her in the head alerted me to the problem rather quickly.

I didn't lose too much celery.

Oh, the bean?


Yeah, she's just fine. She ate the celery. Look closely at her chin.

So perhaps we should all have hard hats when we make Knoepfle?

Part two coming soon, I promise.

Procrastination and a Fritz update

This post feels so disjointed to me. I started writing it three days ago, then Wednesday I ended up with a miserable high fever which knocked me flat on my behind. I still have a headache. I never get headaches, which is suprising considering my life with these little ones. Anyway, here you go.

My husband was gone all last week. There was one thing he wanted me to do while he was gone. By that I mean, in addition to my usual job of keeping our children alive which is the bare minimum of my successful day.

I'm a fairly good mom. All three of my children are still alive.

I was supposed to look over our taxes, which my patient husband had completed, and check for any mathematical and/or stupidity errors.

Remember, I had all week to do it.

So I reorganized the living room.

That project was actually necessary for the baby's survival (which is an important part of my job as I just mentioned). The little bean had begun attempting to take flight lessons off the back of the couch. She thought it was funny. I did not.

For safety reasons, the couch is now backed up against a wall. Problem solved, except that it meant I also had to move two chairs, scoot the large playroom area rug over a bit, and generally vacuum and extract toys from underneath every piece of furniture in the room.

Why do a job except to do it well, right?

I dusted the corn soot off the baseboard and window trim. I sorted through the kids books, replaced batteries in a few much loved toys, and even vacuumed underneath that big playroom rug. I'm not sure that we have ever vacuumed under there. Now we have.

In between changing diapers, feeding kids and gathering eggs, that was basically a full day project.

The next time the thought of taxes went through my head was also the same unfortunate moment that I noticed a carpet beetle larvae crawling up the baseboard in our sun room. Gross. If there is one, there are more. How many more I am going to keep my little secret.

Let's just say, I carefully peeled up the tiniest corner of that yucky carpet to see what kind of floor was underneath.

And then I peeled it some more.

Like some really amazing dark chocolate, I could not stop myself.


I ripped the whole dumb thing out. Good riddance carpet beetle larvae!

The baby laughed.

The three year old said, "Oh MOMMY! You shouldnint have done THAT!"

The five year old said, "What did you do?"

I said, "I wonder what your Daddy will say?"

Of course, then I had to pull up the carpet padding, vacuum, pull staples up, and vacuum some more. I wasn't sure what tool I needed to get those nail strips off the floor. They were stuck tight.

Anyway, in the spirit of procrastination and distraction, I want to tell you a little story about this tool. A tool that is mine, and one I actually did use in my carpet beetle larvae removal project.


You see the rust?

No? Of course you don't.

This little tool of mine, it is a handy one. Someone else likes to use it too.

Once upon a time he used it in late summer, and then it disappeared. It was gone all fall, the entire long winter, and finally turned up the next spring, as rusty as anything. And not for lack of searching either, believe me!

Any idea where it was hiding all that time? The one place we never thought to look?

The garage roof, of course.

There is still some rust on it. And even though I'm glad to have it back, it just hasn't been quite the same since.

I did finally look over our taxes, ummm... after my husband returned safely home, and I did indeed fine one minor error, but it didn't change any of the final numbers in any way.

Alright, I know the truth is that you read all this way just for the news regarding Fritz. People, it's good stuff. It made me laugh out loud, and I hope it does the same for you.

Ready?

Let me simply give you this, which is as close as my foggy brain can recall how it was told to me, "King Fritz did scare our other rooster enough that he flew the coop and the dog ate him."

And that was the end of the Leghorn.

Seriously, I am wiping tears from my eyes. I am so glad I did not axe that guy.

Easter egg

I got a surprise today, a strange and unusual one.

My husband walks in the house with a grin on his face, and something in each fist. He holds his closed fists out towards me.

"Pick one."

"You found me some frogs?"

He smiles even bigger.

"Pick one."

I pointed to the one on my left, which was his right.

I chose wisely.

In his right hand was a very tiny egg.



Now, I haven't noticed any the Barn Swallows back yet this Spring, and I can't quite remember what their eggs look like. Yes, I'm cruel like that and destroy any nests that I determine are too close to my coop. Chicken health over prime Barn Swallow real estate in my book. You know what I mean, right?

Anyway, this egg was really small. What else could it reasonably be?

"Where did you find it?"

"In the dog house."

"What!?"

"Underneath one of your hens, I'm not sure who, one of the Barred Rocks."

"Right. Of course. What in the world."


I once found an egg with no shell, but I didn't write about it. At least that one was in the coop where it belonged.

Welcome to my Funny Farm, people. I could not make this stuff up.

And so I present to you, what I swear must be the world's smallest ever chicken egg, in all it's amazing glory. You may have to look closely.


I am just absolutely in love with that photo. Thanks for asking. Feel free to gaze upon it as long as you like. Don't tell me that baby egg is not totally adorable peeking out from between the two grown up ones.

Also, still retaining a few useful traits of the laboratory scientist that I once was (like being compelled to label everything in the fridge with the date it was opened), I knew exactly what must be done with this egg.

I got out my handy kitchen scale.

First I weighed three normal chicken eggs, which were also freshly collected.


They were all 61 or 62 grams.

The midget?


It weighed in at a whopping 9 grams.

Are you just the least bit curious what was inside my Easter surprise egg?

Don't hate me, but I'm saving it for another day.

I am, however, fairly certain of what we'll find when we do whack it open.

What do you think is inside my fun little dog house egg? Leave me a comment!

Watch your feet

It's best to know the truth when dealing with these nasty creatures.

Really, they're busy plotting against us all. And if you're not careful, those evil tractors will knock you right off your feet while smashing your head.

Yes, smash. Like an egg.


Who knew they could be so disagreeable?

Yet there is more.

When sunbathing on uneven ground, there is only one thing worse than small biting insects.


Yeah, they're sneaky alright, and I don't believe that is an affectionate gesture represented there.

Apparently tractors get real grumpy when they sit around unused for a few days.

You Capture - Feet