What we've been getting ready for....

This is why I haven't been around much. We had to get ready. It showed up late on Thursday nite. And stayed.

The White Death is here. By the end of the day this hill was covered in snow. In reality we didn't get that much snow. But the bitter cold temperatures had me in a tizzy. We had some very cold wind chills and at this writing, late on Friday nite, we are headed below zero.

The dogs loved the cold and snow. Especially our little snow face. Zander doesn't have his undercoat just yet so we could tell when he started to get cold. But Kai didn't have one hoot for the blowing wind and snow. She loved it and didn't want to come inside.

Everyone else was confined to quarters. Even the barncats. If the wind hadn't been blowing so bad we would have let everyone out. But as it was, there wasn't any reason to be outside. Last winter we would have been lucky to only have 16*...but the animals just aren't just used to this cold. We had a beautiful 50* day earlier in the week!

We were really glad we took care of the extra roosters earlier in the week. Having that gang of thugs locked in with the hennies all day would have been a disaster. And the roos would have been fighting all day.

I gave the hens some extra rations, some special snacks, and some hay to keep them entertained. Their water didn't even freeze so I knew they were warm enough. The ducks and geese were doing just fine but I made sure they all had fresh straw so they had somewhere dry to stand. The meat chickens were just fine, they had a couple heat lamps.

Debbie the goat seemed like she was a little chilled. We fixed her up with some B1, molasses, and Nutri-drench. Of course, they had a little extra bagged food, warm water, and all the extra hay they could eat.  Oddly, it was exactly at this time last year that we also had to fix her up. This pattern seems to be repeating so I'm thinking that it has to do with her pregnancy. Nibbles and Dahlia were just fine and didn't seem cold at all. We put up some tarps around the goat house to give them  more protection from the wind which seemed to come from a strange direction. Later in the day Debbie seemed to be just fine.

The weather guy is just now saying we've got another cold day on Saturday and another really cold night. Looks like Saturday will be more of the same. Everyone will be inside - including me. I've got sloth and can hardly move off this couch.

Happy Saturday everyone! Are you keeping warm?

Mean Roo Stew

I make a mean roo stew....

...and by that I mean that I make a dang good stew. And I make it out of mean roos. Mean Roo Stew.  At least thats what my pal "J" calls it.

We've spent the last couple days "inviting" most of our extra roosters to dinner. Too many roos make for a bad barnyard situation. First your hens will be afraid to come in to roost at nite since the gang of thugs will be waiting for them like a bunch of hooligans outside of an all girls school. Next, its loud, annoying, and occasionally dangerous to have too many extra roosters. And last, you're feeding a bunch of  laze-abouts who may or may not be made of the right stuff to justly strut in the yard.

Unless you have small kids you should have a couple roos in your hen yard. Unfortunately roosters can jump kid-eye-height, talons out, kicking and flapping.  And you know how that ends.  Even a good roo has a bad day so it may not be worth the risk to your kids.

A good rooster will take care of the hens and throw the kind of chicks you need. He's call the ladies in at night, show them where all the good eats are, and protect the hens from intruders. That's what makes a good rooster like this one....

... he gets a pass on 'rooster day' and stays.  See how he sticks close to the girls? And he's nice and beefy. We love the Light Brahma roos for the big meaty, yields and how beautifully they dress out for dinner.

Remember that ridiculous group of ill-hatched chicks - the ones that hatched one chick at a time for a couple of weeks?  They had the most interesting collection of colors and patterns you'd ever seen. Finally they were getting big enough to sort themselves out into factions and different groups. Some of the roosters are starting to emerge as leaders - and some were volunteering for our latest Rooster Day.  So we had a nice collection of volunteers and we also dressed a couple of the creepy meats we got in the fall. But don't worry Ginny, your little hen is doing just fine. In fact, she is stunning.

That's Black Jack in the center - he runs a tight ship. I hated his brother but I like Black Jack just fine.

Our current rooster crew includes Black Jack, Red, Mr. Tibbles (my fancy salmon faverolle), and one of the iterations of light brahma roos from the lineage of Big Pansy. I think we are on "Nekkid Pansy" because we finally got a bare legged brahma rooster. We have another group of roosters who will be shown to the pot sometime in the next couple of weeks. Most are the young salmon faverolle roos.. except, you know... um.. not that Occupy one. He chose his own fate when he refused to come in that night.

Not too long ago we sent a salmon faverolle roo to glory in a pot of noodles.  He was extremely mean - but those tend to be the most delicious ones. And for a small bird I have to say the meat yield was amazing.  But the quality of the meat was what sold me. Mr. Tibbles will always have a pass but I can't wait to dress the rest of those salmon roos.

In the meantime I'm gonna cook down this pot of mean roo stew until the stock is rich and thick and the meat is tender and delicious. Should be ready soon. Now I just need to make some biscuits.

Happy Tuesday everyone! Anyone else got a mean roo who needs to go to the pot?

Breakfast and The Bubby

Whatcha having for breakfast? A dry bagel? Cereal bar? Nothin'?  This is what we had....

.... that's right. That's our bacon and our egg and look at all that lovely hash. The house smelled like breakfast heaven.

So we had an eventful weekend. If you're over on facebook then you know that we had a puppy-emergency.  On Thursday morning our Zander woke up fussy. By Thursday afternoon he woke up from a nap and his little muzzle was swollen and it looked like he had half a golf ball in his mouth. As soon as I saw it I called the best dog dentist in 3 states and had booked an appointment for the next morning. What an ordeal!

Amid speculation that his sister, Kai, had shoved a green bean - or a Barbie shoe - up his nose, we left our Zander in the able hands of the dental vet. It turned out that he had broken all 4 of his canines and they had become infected. The swelling was from a very badly infected upper canine. After an hour of surgery on Friday he was right as rain. Saturday morning we got our pup back and everyone was happy. Well. I mean, I had a nervous breakdown but I'm recovering.

We were shocked by all of this and wanted to know what happened? How could all of his canines be broken? The vet wasn't particularly surprised at all. She said we just have a big rowdy pup - with tiny, hollow, baby teeth. Too much force exerted on too small teeth = broken teeth. The big concern - aside from the infection - was that the bad baby teeth would impair the proper development and growth of the adult teeth.

To be sure we reported the first broken tooth to our normally Good Vet who said it was no big deal. Our Good Vet said that as long as he wasn't in pain the adult teeth would push out the broken tooth.  We agreed with this logic because it made sense since Zander's adult teeth would be coming in soon.

Originally I wanted to just take him to the dog dentist and really wish I would have done so.  The crippling dental bill was my tax for not following my first instinct.  A good lesson to always follow your gut. Had I taken the pup directly to the dentist with the first tooth she probably would have saved him from this infection. And he probably would not have needed all four canines removed. Lesson learned.

But all's well that ends well. Our "bubby"*** is back to full speed and this never even slowed him down. The big news was how big he is!  He weighed in at 55 pounds on Friday. At 4 months. Wow!  On the way home we stopped for a coffee and there was a woman with some kind of small "hand dog." I was gawking and she proudly said her little rat.. I mean.. dog was 4 months old. And yes, I was compelled to tell her that my dog craps bigger than her dog. Luckily she laughed.

That's the story here. We are going to try and get back to normal.  Such as it is.

Happy Monday everyone! Any one else have a nervous breakdown over the weekend?

***Why "bubby?" Well, everyone around here has a nickname. We called Kai "Curly" or "Wiggles" and we randomly started calling Zander "Bub" as in " Hey Bub! Whatcha doing?"  So now he's The Bubby. Who knows where I get this stuff.

Winter eggs

No lights, I put them all to bed at dusk, and no special layer mix.... and look! An arm full of eggs!

The ladies are still workin' even in the dead of January.

Happy Friday everyone! Anyone want a fried egg sandwich?

Snow Face

We finally had our first "real" snow. Zander loved it.

Snow face.

Happy Wednesday!

Smoked Duck Rolls & 12 Spice Sticky Finger Ribs

Dinner last nite was so good I couldn't even take a good picture.  May I present.... Smoked Duck Egg Rolls and 12 Spice Sticky Finger Ribs.

I mean to tell you this one was a hit right out of the park. Wow!

Don't tell The Big Man, but it is a fact that I have not-so-secretly been in love with a man named Tom Douglas for many years. Tom won't remember me but I shook his hand once and he made me laugh. And his restaurants have been the backdrop of several of my life's key events. Including the very last meal I had as a resident of a city which I used to love... I had octopus hash for breakfast. Yes, breakfast. Octopus. I'm not even kidding.  It changed my life.

But his books! My goodness his cookbooks are extraordinary. One of my favorites is Tom's Big Dinners. This beautiful book is where I learned how to make Sticky Finger Ribs. I even ordered his special Chinese 12 Spice Rub with Love... five spices just aren't enough for this chef and that is for sure. 

The fact is that you can't get Chinese five spice mix in an Amish town... and buying the ingredients separately was extremely expensive.. so I had to order from Amazon.com. Throw in a few more 'must have's' and I got free shipping (yipee!).  I originally wanted the five spice to make a specific roast duck... but when I saw the 12 Spice Rub with Love... I was drawn back to my not-so-secret love. So I made the ribs.

You remember that I made smoked duck egg rolls awhile ago here... I used Tom's recipe for sweet chili sauce (in the book he uses it for his Crispy Shrimp Rolls). The ribs were a snap. Just rub on the rub, let sit in the fridge for several hours, bake in the oven for about an hour, then finish under a broiler with a stunning glaze. Then I made a quick fried rice. Easy peasy.

The best part about our dinner was that it was fun, easy, and many of the ingredients came from our yard. I smoked the duck a while ago and had it waiting for me in the freezer. And the ribs were from our recent hog harvest. I used a package of our small "baby back" ribs - I'm not even sure if that's what they are really called... we just ended up with some smallish ribs while we were doing the cutting and packaged them as such. They were perfect.

The prep was easy but there were a several steps. But making egg rolls is fun tho, so it doesn't seem like work. And I was happy to use some chicken fat for the stir frying and some tallow I rendered myself for frying the egg rolls. All the ribs really needed was for me not to burn them. The sauces came together in a couple minutes.

When we were done - we were done. I mean to tell you there are not a lot of leftovers and both of us are full and happy.

Who says you can't get good Pac-Rim Fusion Asian style food in an Amish town... for heavens sakes just go ordered up some ingredients and make it yourself.

And Tom, if you ever read this, thank you for everything. Really. It made a difference.

Happy Tuesday everyone! Now run right out and order one or both cookbooks and some Rub with Love - you'll fall in love too.

Go watch the house

The first thing I did after we bought this property was to tell Dog#1 to "Go Watch the House." So he did.

He went out on the deck, sat there, and commenced to Watch The House. Titan didn't just meander out and flop down - he intentionally marched out there, took up a strategic vantage point, and watched. Good dog.

The other day Kai and Zander were goofing around inside a little too vigorously. So I told them to "Go Watch the House." So they did.

Zander was a little nervous at first, and the weight of the responsibility seemed a little much for such a young pup to bear. But then he sat a little straighter, held his head a little higher...and watched the house.  Good dogs.

I think they are watching the goings on in the barnyard. But Kai takes this very seriously. She's not just laying at repose... this is her guarding stance for the house. She always sits in the same way in the same place. No fooling around. Since we got Zander she's taken on a new role. She's not so much the goofy puppy she was just a few short months ago.

Bringing Zander into the pack has really given her a push into a different position - with other jobs. She's been helping me round up the chickens at night and I've even sent her outside to "go bark at something" - which is normally Titan's job. She's also spending a lot of time with Zander - to wear him out - and mostly to teach him how to behave.

Even tho we give our big dogs a "reverse time out" so they can get some peace from the pup all of the dogs still spend a lot of time together.  Aside from being cute and getting lots of rest, Zander's most important job right now is to figure out how to be with other dogs. All of the dogs will learn to work together as a unit - and also separately as individuals.

Now that the bad weather is on us and there is a lot less time to be outside, so we are working with the dogs to learn more difficult commands. And they are learning to accept commands as individuals in the middle of a group.  This gives them a lot of mental stimulation - and keeps our tight ship running smoothly.

For instance today we played fetch with two balls. Lucky got to fetch the ball assigned to him and Titan got to fetch the other ball. Kai and Zander don't understand the fetch thing - but they like to run with everyone. This actually helps the learning process. Ti has to focus on us to see when he gets to fetch - even tho The World's Most Annoying Little Sister is bouncing all around and Zander is trying to bite his tail.

And then within all this activity the dogs are sorting out their pack order. Sure Kai can run with Ti to get the ball, but she can't grab it or get in his way too much. If she does, Ti puts her in her place. She has to respect the order of the pack. And no one, and I mean no one, ever jumps up on us to get a ball. Even little Zander has learned that good dogs sit and then they get toys (or food or loves). Zander likes to carry around his own ball and show the other dogs. But he's also started to bring it for me to throw for him...when he isn't rolling it down the hill to chase.

When we are done playing fetch we all go and get a drink and the dogs have to give up the toys and head inside. As we are walking in they look to me for their assignments, "Ti, you can stay out", "Kai and Zander go up on the deck," "Lucky come in the house." I do this by looking at each dog, saying the command, and pointing for them where they should go.

Zander has really learned this well. At first he'd just take off running. But after I stomped after him and carried him back like a sack of potatoes a couple times.. well.. he figured out just to pay attention and learn the commands. He's also learning to look at me for direction. This is great - I'm already working with him to learn hand signals and not just vocal commands.

We are also working on individual commands in the house. I'll instruct which dog or dogs may come out of the gated dog area and into the living room or the kitchen. This way I'm not trampled by a herd of dogs....and they respect that we "own" the house. 

Learning to function both as a group and also independently is really important. This enforces that we are the boss of them, refines their discipline,  and also helps me get my work done. "Lucky go and scoot that chicken in, Kai stay here with me."

Good dogs.

Happy Monday everyone! Did you all survive New Year's eve?