Pure Randomness

Doesn't this look YUM'O! This was breakfast. It is a dump cobbler. (Read: I know, you are saying "Cobbler for breakfast!!" Hey, I am just weird like that.) I got the recipe from two of my favorite people: Mom and Lexie. Mom calls it a "super easy cobbler" Lexie calls it "dump cake". Either way ya scoop it (HAha) it is delishioso! This mornings concoction was made with peaches and raspberries I pulled from the freezer, and a yellow cake mix. I have made it with all sorts of different fruits but my two fav's are: Canned Cherries & Pineapple (recipe from Lexie) and Apricots *drooling*.

My Silkie hen, Fluffy is broody. She is so broody in fact she jumps from nest to nest whenever some other chick lays an egg. Yesterday the girls went out to gather eggs and came back empty handed. ???? Well, Fluffy was sitting on all 18+ of them. After a while, Fidget came in freaking out. Fluffy was off the nest! Both girls threw on coats and boots, grabbed the egg bucket and ran. They returned with armloads of eggs. The just grabbed every, single one in sight. This would be fine except, I had candled (see above: that is me candling eggs at the dining table) some eggs that I thought might be fertile, marked them with an X, and left them for Fluffy.

Dilemma number 2: I have an egg picker. One day while Inspector General (I was chewed out for not including the "general" part ) was cleaning up outside, he found a couple of eggs on the ground. He reasoned with self: These are who knows how old, I'll feed them to the chickens. *WHHHAAAATTTT!!* Well the hens went bazurk, and now someone is eating eggs. Arrrggg! Poor Inspector, he didn't know that this would happen. Well needless to say, I have got to root out the culprit.

Back to the armloads of eggs.......... All of the eggs the girls brought in were sticky as all get out and covered in a odoriferous mix of egg shell, egg, and straw. Nasty! I had to carefully inspect all of the eggs to see which ones had the X and candle them and see if they were still alive. Well I am no good at this new Farm Chicky stuff, I guess. They were all rotten. Even more NASTY! SOOO.....not only do I have a broody hen with no fertile eggs to sit on, I have 17 hens that like to use the same nest, I have an egg eater AND a passel of messy eggs, I have an Inspector who loves me enough to put up with it all. Who could ask for more?

More chicken news:
All of the first batch of chicks have fully feathered out now. The Welsomer chicks I got almost 2 weeks after the first bunch have not started feathering yet. I need to either make a bigger brooder or section off some of the hen house; these chicks are getting huge. It is pretty cute to see the Welsomers hiding under the bellies of the bigger chicks. The chicks seem to be getting along just fine, no pecking so far. The Barred Rocks are the calmest of the group, with the Rhodie's being the most rowdy. I am hoping that since I got these chicks earlier in the year, (as opposed to last years chicks in May) I will get some eggs in the fall. None of the chicks I got last year laid until this spring. If this years chicks start laying in the fall I will hopefully, have eggs to sell. The going price of a dozen, organic free range eggs, is $3. This would add up quick if I had several dozen to sell.

I am also going to try and put out some garden items at the Farmer's Market this year. I have wanted to do this for the last few years but it never comes to anything. So, goal for this year: Sell something at the Farmer's Market. I would like to offer some thing out side of the ordinary, slim pickin's. I have been thinking on what that might be and am looking at some interesting old heirloom veggies. I could even set out cut flowers and herbs. Last year I made the most amazing herb wreath with Miriam. I would love to make more this year and possibly sell some of them too.

I currently have a few aprons in the works and desperately need to make the time to finish them up. I cleaned up my sewing area yesterday with the hopes of pulling the Singer out. I have a watercolor quilt for my sis-in-law Mary, (promised as a Christmas gift in '06) that needs to be STARTED! Martha where are ya when I need ya?? *sigh* I have lots of other household things I would like to start work on. I bought all of that great home dec. fabric a couple of weeks ago and it's begging to be worked into new slip covers. I guess that if I wasn't a blogaholic, I could go deal with my fabricaholic problem~:(