Even though they predicted a spectacular fall here in New England because of all the rain we had this year, I don't believe they factored in the September hurricane that stripped many trees of their leaves. I took this photo yesterday as I drove up to Kent, Connecticut. It's still beautiful, but you can see some of the trees are pretty bare. I was so high in the mountains that you can see some wispy clouds on the left in the photo.
Today I was heading out to the grocery store, but stopped to collect eggs from the farm before I left. I have a large galvanized pail in the yard outside of the fenced area that serves as a general water bucket for free-ranging chickens and my dog. As I was heading back to the house I noticed my dog looking into the pail. I looked in a saw a chipmunk, barely alive, and paddling slightly underwater with one foot. I quickly grabbed a piece of wood nearby and fished him out of the water.
Laying on the grill just after I fished him out of the water.
He was barely alive.
Poor little guy. He was barely holding on.
He's looking better, at least externally, now that he's a little dry.
I'm heading back up to Kent, Connecticut tomorrow. I'm going alone and will have some free time, so I'm hoping to get some good photos while I'm up there. This was taken on our last visit there.
Meatloaf, mashed potatoes & peas. The all-American meal.
I realized this weekend that I hadn’t made meatloaf in ages. I made some today, and I always make a double recipe so there’s an extra one for the freezer for another meal.
The ultimate comfort food for me and my family. My recipe comes straight from my mother, and it’s more like a really large swedish meatball than some of the more American-style meatloaf’s I’ve had. There’s no ketchup in the recipe. It’s not covered in BBQ sauce or bacon. It’s delicious to us. I always serve it with mashed potatoes and peas. One of my favorite ways to eat it is as leftovers. I warm a slice in the microwave and put it on tasted rye bread. Yummm.
Yield: 2 meatloaf’s that should serve 6-8 people.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add the ground beef and meatloaf mix to a very large bowl.
To this add the parsley and onion.
Then add the breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, seasoned salt, eggs, and heavy cream.
Wash your hands well, roll your sleeves up, and dive into the bowl with both hands. Mix it, mash it, squish it between your fingers.
Season with a little more seasoned salt and pepper to taste.
Divide the mixture in two as evenly as you can, and shape them into loaves.
Now I put one in a baking pan and wrap the other carefully in plastic wrap, label it, and stick it in the freezer for another day. If you’re feeding a crowd and want to use the whole recipe, still form two loaves. One giant meatloaf probably wouldn’t cook properly — the inside would still be raw and the outside would be dry.
Bake on the center rack for 75 to 90 minutes, or until the center reaches a temperature of 165 degrees. Remove from oven, cover with foil, and let rest for 10 minutes. Slice and serve immediately.
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On Friday I was cruising the CountryLiving.com website and they had an article on ‘Etsy Sellers We Love“. They listed 9 Etsy seller’s that all had cute things, but one made watched out of tape measures. One quick look at her watches and I could have slapped myself in the side of the head. Why didn’t I think of that when I was making vintage ruler and tape measure jewelry a few weeks ago?
I still had tons of the vintage tape measure that I used for the first project, so I dragged Jim to Michael’s Crafts on Saturday night before we went out for a quick dinner. Having spent little to no time in a crafts store before, he was fascinated by all of the stuff you could find there. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a small watch face with a ribbon bar, but I did find some grommets that I needed.
I had a really cheap Timex watch that I bought in an emergency once not long ago, and could put that to good use now. I cut the bands off of the watch, and assembled my new one. It really could use a smaller snap, but that was all I had and it was late on Saturday night when I was putting this together.
And while I was at it, I decided to make a tape measure wrap bracelet. I liked the bracelet on it’s own, but I’d bought this black leather studded wrap bracelet at Forever 21 recently when I was hunting for bangle bracelets for my Sweater Covered Bangle Bracelet project, and thought they might look good mixed together. I loved that.
Tape Measure Bracelet Mixed with a studded leather wrap bracelet I found on sale at Forever 21 a few weeks ago.
And of course, wanting a whole jewelry ensemble thing going on, I had to make some earrings to go with the watch and bracelet.
Vintage tape measure and vintage ruler earrings.
Another fun project for an inspired vintage look.
If anybody would like more tutorial style pictures on how to make the watch, just send me a comment or email.
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This escalator, in the Atlanta Marta station, was the longest escalator I'd ever seen in my life. I took the photo with the Instagram app on my iPhone.
My poor molting chicken.
About two weeks ago I noticed that one of my Delaware chickens was looking a little plucked. It first noticed the soft downy feathers on her bottom seemed to be showing some bare spots. When my friend Cyrena, was farm sitting for me last weekend when we were in the Catskills she sent me a panicked text message about her having a bare rear end. About mid-week last week I noticed some of her wing feathers seemed to be missing.
I wondered if she could me molting. It’s hard to imagine, but in my ten years or so of raising chickens I have never had one molt. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. My computer is in front of a window that looks directly out onto the farm area and I hadn’t seen anybody picking on this poor chicken. She’s one of the oldest, most senior chickens in the flock. Not that she’s “old”, but she’s been around a while.
Stop taking pictures of me when I look like this!
I finally sent some photos of her to my friend Sue last night. She’s become my go-to person on chickens. She confirmed that yes, she was indeed molting. I was so glad it wasn’t anything more than that. She said she had 3 molting girls herself.
My poor molting chicken.
One of my friend Sue's molting hens. Lordy, this poor girl looks terrible!
It’s a regular loony bin here. I’ve still got two broody hens. One has been a sort of half-assed broody for about a month now. Every single night when I’m locking up the farm I find her in the dog house. This is not predator-proof, so I can’t let her stay in there overnight. So, I pick her up. Sometimes she is laying on an egg. Sometimes she has two under her, as somebody else laid one in the dog house that day and she rolled it under her. If she’s laying on any eggs, I pick those up along with her and put her in a nesting box in the small coop with the younger chickens and put her eggs back underneath her. She’ll stay on those eggs all night, but come morning when I go to let everyone out to eat, she hops right off of the egg(s), and spends half the day eating and socializing. But at lock-up time every night, she’ll be back in there again. This has gone on now for at least a month.
Then there’s Ash. This poor girl has been broody in a nesting box in the goat house for probably close to two months now. I have never seen her off of her eggs. And she’s not picky about what she’s laying on, either. Currently she’s laying on 4 real eggs, 3 plastic eggs, and 1 wooden egg. She is one determined girl. I’ve started feeding her a little bowl of food at feeding time so she doesn’t starve to death sitting on those eggs.
Ash is still broody in the goat house.
It’s not uncommon for one of the hens to lay a strange egg that has a bumpy surface instead of a smooth, normal egg. This weekend we got the lumpiest, bumpiest egg I’ve ever seen. Fortunately I discovered Jim was boiling it for his breakfast this morning before I’d had a chance to take a picture of it, so I dragged it out of the boiling water for this shot. It had a little crack in it from it’s boiling.
A lumpy, bumpy egg.
And yesterday we got one of the smallest eggs I think we’ve ever had laid here. I don’t even think my two favorite old bantam hens, Chow Mein or Mrs. Pocket, laid eggs this small. See photo below (center, far right egg).
A tiny egg was laid this weekend.
I took this a few weeks ago when there was a full moon. I'm not much of a night photographer, but I dragged my tripod out in the middle of the night and gave it a shot. The moon was shining through the branches of a big pine tree in our yard. I thought it was kind of cool.
This coconut layer cake would probably be considered my “signature” cake. It’s most of my family’s favorite cake, and the most-requested birthday cake I make.
I volunteered to bring something to my children’s fall Homecoming fair today. I tried a few different recipes this week looking for something new and exciting to bring, but nothing seemed right. I made a fancy brownie, but they were dry. I made a pear & ginger coffee cake that was good, but it didn’t rise that well. In the end I decided to stick with what I do best. And I decided to make two; one for the bake sale and one for us.
I originally posted this recipe last march. You can see that post by clicking here or on either photo of the cake.
Well, they’ve taken about 3 more months to finish than I anticipated, but I can finally say that the goat house and chicken coop are (almost) complete. The only major thing left to do is cover up those ugly cement posts that are holding the buildings up. They say all good things come to those who wait. I sure hope so.
And in case you didn’t notice, I decided to stick with the grey trim on the barn red. Given a chance to do it over, I probably would have chosen either white or black trim, but I wasn’t going to change it when it was half done. I’ll learn to love it.
I collected old tractor wheels for a while a few years back, always with the intention of one day hanging them on my barn. They are old pieces to tilling or haying machines I think. If you looked often enough on eBay, you could find them in all shapes, colors and sizes. All with wonderful worn paint and full of character. My husband of course thought I was completely bonkers. Wasn’t he shocked last year when they showed up as items for sale at Restoration Hardware! The very same vintage tractor wheels I’d been collecting for a few dollars each were now in a fancy store.
I got great satisfaction today in screwing the big bolts I’d bought for the purpose into the walls and hanging my wheels, finally, on my goat house. I think they look great. I need to get more of those small rusty barn stars I hung up on the soffit so I can put them around both goat house and coop. Maybe I can do a better job of centering them over the windows, too?
The front of the goat house.
The chicken house, 'silo chicken run', and goat house — finally complete.
I've bought a few vintage-style tin signs with hanging them on the coop in mind.
I guess I needed a level out there today too — I think that Fresh Eggs sign is a little askew.
I also had ready and waiting a big barn star for above the goat house and chicken coop doors.
The old coop looks so much better with it's the little facelift it got.
To add to the chicken's entertainment now that fall is settling in, I got two of these metal cage treat balls in addition to the yellow seed treat ball they already have. This one you stuff with lettuce leaves.
The yellow seed treat ball won by a landslide over the lettuce balls.
