I'm a fibber, but you get pie photos instead.

Yes, I promised chicken photos today. I fibbed.

The new chicks are still in their bin by my neighbor's house. For this, I apologize, but, well, here's my excuse for being a fibber.

I grew, bought and was given food. I needed to deal with the results of that. Really! Saturday morning found me staring at:

• pea plants that needed picking & shucking or else they'd dry out completely
• a trash-bag-sized-bag of basil
• a crate of strawberries
• a crate of apricots
• a fridge of beef that had been slow cooked
• a bed of spinach on its last legs
• a new pie mold from Williams-Sonoma to try out

So, I decided that since this weekend had cooler temperatures (highs in the low 80s), I could cook.

This project wasn't the first project, but it was the most exciting, so....

I got to try out my new pie mold from Williams-Sonoma!!

It was only $10, and seriously, it was far too cute to pass up. Would it work, though, was the question....

Having made many many pies in my life, I realized that without some bottom support, the filling in these pies would gush out without some support. The support needed to keep the bottom rounded. Since pie dough is pliable, it would likely sit flat on the pan, stretching out the less-strong lattice, resulting in lattice spilling out juicy contents.
I had thought for a while about how to make an easy mold. Then I realized it: Take a circle of rolled foil, and then lay a square of foil on top. The circle is reusable, but any juice that does fall out will hit the square, which is easily replaceable.

The first round, I used some of the strawberries I had. Not perfect, but definitely not a bad start. I remembered that in order to get pie dough to stick together, you have to wet the surfaces that you want to stick. So, before I pressed the mold down, I wet the edges of both molds. They stuck!
Not too shabby. As I got better with the mold, less spillage occurred.

See? The next set, of apricot "pieletts" turned out much better. I realized I had to stretch the bottom piece a little, and once I figured out how much, they looked a lot prettier.

And finally, blueberry! I had enough dough for 15 pieletts, and that was using my standard makes 2 big w/ lattice or 3 no lattice pie crusts.
Here are the blueberry ones, cooked. Much better on the spillage... and the pan in much need of cleaning.
All told, 2 pies of the 15 stuck to the foil on the bottom, so B and I nibbled at those. Two got sent over to the neighbors. and the remaining 11 were frozen. How they handle the freezing/warming up is to be determined....



On to other projects: My friend, Vince, bought me this delicious flat of ripe, farm strawberries. SO fresh. So delicious. The final strawberries of the season! They need to immediately be dealt with, since they were REALLY ripe.

VOILA! Chopped up strawberries. The chickens got the strawberry tops. :)
Next, I went outside to see how many peas were left. I expected to just get a handful, because, you know, I'd already shucked a bunch... Ummm... I got over 10 pounds. Crud! So, I sat, watching reruns of "Pushing Daisies" (swoon!), shucking peas.

Keep in mind that all these peas needed to be shucked because they were old and getting bigger. Luckily, I had already blanched and frozen about 12 quart bags of snow peas for future use.

End result? 9 baggies of 2-cups each of peas! Yes, that's 18 cups. Woo! I froze in 2-cup sections because then I'd know exactly how much was in there. 2 cups is often the perfect amount for adding to pasta or eating on the side. (esp for 2 people)
On to the basil. After plucking, I had an entire bolga basket of basil. And this is not fluffed basil. It is pretty packed. And heavy.
So far, I've gone through about half the basil, and I've frozen 8 or 9 quart bags. Each bag has more than enough for one meal.

And, I found apricots. Yes, that's a LOT of apricots.
Here they are, about 70% of them chopped and diced.
Unfortunately, I think I added too much sugar. So, I'm going to chop up the rest, add them to the syrupy concoction I currently have, and then can it all up.

I did not get around yet to the spinach. That's hopefully tonight!

Finally, I took the approx. 15 lbs of beef, defatted and shredded it, and then packed it into quart baggies. I surrounded the beef in beef broth (to help prevent freezer burn). The idea behind this (I'll let you know how it goes) is that now, if we feel like burritos, casseroles, enchiladas, etc etc etc, I just have to thaw a baggie. No precooking of meat necessary. And, I can be guaranteed that it will be tender. Hopefully, this will save a lot of time.

The meat was the final beef that we bought 19 months ago. We had right at 100 lbs. Oy! But, it was all super cheap, grass-fed, and wonderful. But really, how much meat can people go through? This was the final push, and really, everything needed to be eaten. We were trying to figure out how to do it, since it wasn't as flavorful as the fresh stuff. This turned out wonderfully.

Now, I have decided that I will make sure to buy meat as I need it. There's a great butcher shop nearby, and this way, we actually cut down on our meat purchasing.

So, dealing with food was my weekend. But, as a result, I now have...

• Raspberry jam
• Apricot jam
• Basil Pesto
• Frozen peas
• Frozen shredded beef
• Frozen pielettes

Yum.

New chickens!

I saw an ad yesterday on Craiglist (seriously, how often do I use that phrase?) for silkie and frizzle chickens. I'd been keeping an eye out for them, so I jumped at the chance.

I can't take photos right now; they're in my neighbor's makeshift bin. This weekend, B and I are going to fix up a nice home for them. So, while they're in the bin, they're hard to photograph. But, I've found helpful photos, and I promise to take photos this weekend.

In the end, I got:

Two partridge (speckled) frizzle chickens. They will eventually look like this, mayyybe without as much head gear, but DEFINITELY the frizzle feathers:


How do I know they are frizzles? Because right now, they look something like this (their feathers are lighter-colored though):

I also got two partridge silkies!

And one red silkie...

And, finally, two black silkies!

I am still on the hunt for a white silkie. There's one about 70 minutes away from us, but I have not yet made myself that much of a chicken fanatic to drive that distance.

All the newbies range in age from about 5-8 weeks. Yay fully feathered and able to go outside! However, they are straight run... so I may have a few roosters. Eeeek.

In other chickeny news, my teeny buff orpington is doing very well, and she gets to go back in the coop tonight! She had been infected with northern poultry mites. This is pretty common and one of the reasons I inspect my chickens. The cure was pretty simple: Cover her in dietemacious earth powder. Because we've had hot weather, and I kinda stressed her out with her bug treatment, she's been in a nice cool box in our bathroom (bathroom stays colder than the laundry room). She is MORE than ready to go back outside. Picture lots of pitiful chirping.

And, this weekend, B and I are going to expand the pen of the chicken coop. We'd been pondering what to do with this area between the pergola and the coop... it just gets really weedy and bleh. Plus, it's shaded, so unless we want to plant shady plants or put down boring mulch, we're up the creek. Ahh, so we decided to just extend the chicken pen. $15-$20 (since I already have most of the other supplies), and the chicken pen will double in size. I'll fence off a portion of the coop for the newbies. Let them get bigger before introducing to the rest of the flock. This will take the pen from it's current size of 128 square feet to 256 square feet. Lucky freakin' bird brains.

Plus, the fence extension will not get the chickens TOO close to the pergola. I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable eating food under the pergola with poultry REALLY close by. :)

A preview of tomorrow's post

A preview of tomorrow's post:

Heh!

Silkie Chicken and Busy Kitchen

My kitchen is busy. It's a bit challenging, since it's hot outside so oven use is limited. But, I can do all the prep work!

Like.... this basil:
Yes, that's a TRASH BAG-SIZED PRODUCE BAG of basil.
There are easily 25+ bundles of basil like this one.
It's all getting plucked. The stems get fed to the chickens, and the rest get chopped up by me. Yes, I was watching So You Think You Can Dance. There was nothing else on, and it's a pretty entertaining show to watch when you're doing a boring task like pluckin basil.

In other kitchen projects TO BE DONE ASAP:

• Make raspberry jam.
• Pressure cook the last 8-10lbs of beef from our freezer, and then freeze the cooked, shredded beef (for easier use)
• Make pesto (see above) with the basil and try some with my garlic scapes.
• Test my uber-cool and exciting pie pocket mold.
• Finish shelling my peas and then freeze them.
• Pick, blanch and freeze my spinach.

I also need to make bread, but I have a feeling that might have to wait a bit, you know, given the list of other to-dos. :)

In other news, I've been on the look out for a silkie chicken. My husband reads this blog, and right now his eyebrows are probably up in his hairline. Yes dear. AND, I found someone selling some silkie chicks. They are feathered, so no laundry room chickens! And, I can move the portable coop up to near the other coop so they would be easy to care for. I get to go look this afternoon. They're really inexpensive for silkies, so here's hoping!

If we move, I would have to think about what chickens I could take with me. Assuming we have a limit on how many, we'd probably sell the big coop, and I'd just take the pen with us (and make a smaller coop because there are fewer chickens). All of my chickens lay, so I think I'd probably want the brahma, salmons, and the silkies. They are, by FAR, the most entertaining, personable, and, well, ADORABLE.

The limit in typical city limits was 2-3 hens, but they're revising the limitations currently. That's assuming we end up in a smaller lot... I really think that we'll be on a quarter acre or more, so the limitations are much more in our favor (and possibly not applicable).

So yes, dear husband, I've thought about the consequences to my actions. :)

But seriously, aren't the silkies freakishly cute? I have some extra chicken wire. I think I'd fence in some areas with nasty weeds and throw some bird netting over the top. Let them weed my yard for me!

Potatoes... and more basil

Yesterday, I could not wait any longer.

There's on potato plant (of the 50+) that bloomed and looked to be on the downward slide. Wilty. Sad looking.

So, I decided to poke around JUST on one side of this weepy plant.

Holy shoot sherlock, there ARE potatoes in there:


Growing potatoes is always a bit of a mystery, wait-and-see game. You really want to poke around, but really, you just can't. You don't want to disturb the plant. So, you anxiously wait. Is there growth in that ground? The same mystery goes for carrots, onions, and garlic. WHAT IS DOWN THERE??

I made B poke around a bit when he came home. A few more fingerlings were found. I planted 2 fingerlings in the yukon gold bed, so I must have been poking around in that section, since I found a mix of potato types.

Exciting, huh?

And now, I have to go back to waiting.

In other fun news....
It is supposed to get to be 95 degrees today. My tomatoes and peppers are jumping for joy.

The thing is, we don't often get hot weather. And few people feel the need to have air conditioning, since (generally...) you only would use it for 1-3 days out of the year.

As a result of this not being our typical weather and also lacking AC, I had to spend last night and this morning preparing. SOAK all my outdoor plants, that way they have plenty of time to soak up the water before the heat of today. Fill up the chicken water bucket, and ensure they get fed early on in the day (so they do not have to expend energy eating later on). Put a watermelon in the fridge for the chickens to have a cold treat this afternoon. Shut all windows (except for the top skylights and the one crazy high kitchen window (they will let the heat out). Put teeny chicken in a bin (with a lid) in the bathroom (since the laundry room gets hot). Close shades in certain areas of the house. Drive to work. Ridiculousness.

Speaking of little hen, I gave the teeny tiny red chicken away. She went to a home with a small yard where should could be babied. Here, she'd have to worry about cats and cars and lack of fencing. But, I still have the one tiny buff orpington. I re-examined her yesterday, and I think I've discovered (FINALLY) the cause of her weakness: mites.

BLEH!

So, I figured out the type (northern poultry mites) and treatment (Diatomaceous earth dust) and I've covered the straw in her bin and really rubbed it well into her feathers. None of the other birds have any, and the northern type mostly remain on the bird (rather than in the coop bedding), so I'm hoping that I'm going to beat this pretty easily.

No, nothing is odd about these suckers. They occur pretty frequently, and I'm surprised I haven't had to deal with them before this. Such is life though.

Tomorrow though, the entire coop gets cleaned, new bedding laid, and this dust will also be sprinkled throughout the coop too. Just in case, you know.

And finally, I should have photos of my latest acquisition: Another trash-bag-sized produce bag of basil. Deliciousness.

Art: Acquired.

Oh Art and the Vineyard. You do not disappoint. We trotted over there on Saturday around 1, and then stayed until after 6. Oh lovely day. Sunshine, warmth, good people. My sister rode on the collapsed bike basket on my bike/trike. No injuries, she had fun, and man, I got a workout. Tossing an extra person's-worth-of-weight and pedaling on a single-speed, already-slow-because-it-has-three-wheels bike is a workout. We parked the bikes on the bottom of my work building, and then walked the 5 minute walk over to Alton Baker Park.

I, almost immediately, fell in love with two statues. They were two people, both wrapped in colorful shawls, with happy, content, peaceful smiles on their faces. Extra, crazy-large feet gave them nice stability. And, on top of one's head, there was a chicken, and on top the other's, there was an egg. Nicely themed, but not chicken thematic. I don't want crazy country chicken-themed stuff in my house. They were by Diana Cuyler. If you like them, you can email her at cuylerfarm@msn.com.

Diana was so nice and friendly. After walking about four booths further, I talked with B, and then I turned around and made an offer on the pair. She accepted, and said I could get them at the end of my stay, that way I wouldn't have to lug two statues around.

Each one is about 14" tall, with bases about 4" in diameter. I love them.

Happy face #1
Happy face #2.

We plan on clearing up the bookcase top a bit more, that way they are a bit more prominent. I was going to hang a shelf, but our funky cottage apparently lacks studs. Further evidence of this was my shelf of cookbooks crashing to the floor in a fantastic crash at 11:30pm on Sunday night. More on that in another post though... But, since I don't want these beautiful creatures destined to the same death as my blue mixing bowl (which suffered a breakage in the above-mentioned cookbook freefall), we decided to not hang a shelf, and instead, let them live on top the Expedit.


In other arty news, I finally found frames and hung up our Oregon prints. We asked for them in our Amazon registry-- they are really nice giclee prints. No, they're not matted, and yes, the frames could be much nicer. Some day, both will happen. But for now, they are on the wall, look nice, and are protected.


At Art and the Vineyard, we also picked up a few more fun prints. We got these two prints by Barton DeGraaf (website: www.frogswineandravens.com). They are just so colorful and funny that we cannot wait to frame and put them by the wine rack.

And the second one:
A little silly, yes, but meh. We love them.

B also got this one for his office. I think this is a bit laughable, since he often works with troubled people (including people with alcohol issues), but if this is what it takes for him to be able to do his job and do it well, then, well, he has every right to a print of froggies with beer.
B also got some pottery. I'm hoping this inspires him to make more pottery. He got this lovely teapot (which is great, since our old one broke and I cut myself on it the other day), and two mugs (not pictured). Please ignore my HORRIBLE fingernail polish job, as well as my unorganized-but-soon-to-be-organized spices.

I got another animal print for the house, and B got a few more animal prints for his office. More on them at another point. AND, while poking around on ETSY this weekend, I found a hopefully-fabulous idea that will give us three more art pieces on our walls and (hopefully) finish our quest-to-redo-the-house. More on them when they arrive!! Excitement.

So that was Saturday. Sunday, it was all about the BBQ and me consuming too much of my sangria concoction. Monday, I regretted the sangria. Oy. But not regretted too much that I did not fully and wholeheartedly enjoy Bobby McFerrin's performance at the arts center last night. Swoon! MAGNIFICENT.

And now, I'm going to try to work and not get drool on my office table by falling asleep. I dropped my sister off at the airport this morning. Airport (the large one): 2 hours away. Her flight takeoff time? 6am. I've been up since 2:45am, folks. I'm armed with a latte. Thank goodness for $2 any coffee drink Tuesdays.

Moneyyy!

Well, my lovely Moroccan poufs are gone...
Sold on Craigslist for a pretty penny. Goodbye, you four dear things. You are lovely, but you just don't fit into my house, and my husband is quite tired of tripping over you.

NOW LET'S GO BUY SOME ART FOR OUR WALLS!!!!! Art & the Vineyard, here we come!

The weekend of fun where we all went a tad mad

Woo. What a weekend of fun we have planned.

But. Busy. Lordy lordy, busy.

I have a meeting with someone at 3 today to check out something I posted on Craigslist. I have a meeting at 12:30 also. My sister arrives at 6:30 at the airport. A friend's celebration thing starts at 5:30. And right now, I'm at work.

Ummmmm.....

And somehow, in all that, I need to:

• Finish cleaning the house (and the gosh-awful bathroom)
• Organize the upstairs.
  
• Finish staining the pergola and screw it together (so no one kills themselves this weekend)
  
• Fix the laundry situation (and organize so we can use the laundry room...)
• Make a list of final things for B to get from the grocery store
• Pick up a few bottles of $3-$4 wine at Trader Joes (we can have some nice bottles this weekend, but I'm sorry, I'm using the cheap stuff for sangria).
• Swing by the bank to deposit a check and get money for this weekend's festivities.
  

I'd also like to:

• Haul dirt to fill the 3 garden beds that need filling
• Plant the rest of my boxwoods
• Plant the rest of the seeds that need planting
• Possibly build a trellis for my cucumbers (that are getting bigger and bigger)
• Pick raspberries from next door and make jam (before they fall off because they're overripe)
• Shuck peas, blanch and freeze
  
• Buy 3 vine plants to put on the pergola and hang baskets
• Bake about 6 dozen cookies (dough already made) for the BBQ on Sunday.

In short, the "I'd also like to" list is not going to get done. I'm thinking that maybe, I can get the garden beds taken care of on Saturday morning. That's if the pergola is finished. If not, that takes priority.

I had 17 boxwoods. I've planted 3. I have a box ready for 3 more. I have 4 big buckets. What to do with the remaining 7? I'm honestly considering putting them in tubs for the time being........ Or putting 4 around the weeping willow. Hmmm...

What I've been up to...

I traded some peas and lettuce to get a yard guy to mow our lawns. They were so tall that there are now a few dry patches. We're hoping that, with love, those go away!


The pergola is nearing completion. I ran out of stain. SIGH! But that's all that's left to do: stain and screw. We've also been painting our patio set. Chair on the far right: not painted. The other two: sporting black paint. Loving it. We were out here last night with the fire pit. Please excuse our empty wine bottle.


The chickens are almost all introduced. There are three older hens left to go! I decided to give it a day or two break before introducing another one. There are four older red birds in here right now, the older barred rock, AND the 8 "babies." They're not really babies anymore... as they are all almost four months old.

And on to the tomatoes. I know. This looks like something from the old computer game Myst. But hey, I am NOT going to spend money on FIFTY-TWO tomato cages. Eventually, I'd like to make myself some nice tomato cages, but we don't know where our next home will be and what type of backyard it will have, so for now? I'm making my cages.
We had a LOT of dead laurel branches that my neighbor had taken down. I tied them in tripods and then added some wood. They seem to be doing quite nicely.

It may look a bit chaotic, but it WORKS. And this makes me happy. I need to clear the area of some weeds (the forever-tasking chore), but the tomato plants are still 52 for 52. One is looking a bit tired, but the rest are pretty darn great.

B is working on creating a nice rose garden. Each plant will be in a nice adobe pot, so that's easy to take with us. We had two roses on the deck, but they were just not getting the sun they needed. So, we've moved those two, and, so far, we've added one more. The one is called "honey dijon." LOVE IT. There's a smoky/dusky redish rose I'm trying to find, so that'd be a great next addition.

Meanwhile, back in the house, I managed to score a new table set off craigslist. It's a tall, pub-style table. It has four chairs, but, with our new set-up, we can store two in the one area. This is GREAT, because we can put our briefcases and other things ON the chairs. Fabulous to give things a home.
Here's the actual table. We're still mid-organizing, but it's already a LOT better than before. A LOT.

I'll have to take a photo of it, but I actually got around to moving the wine rack yesterday. When your wine rack holds 144 bottles and is half full, this is a chore. I moved everything, and then I sat down and LABELED everything too. I've organized it by white and red, as well as by the winery we belong to and all other wineries. I put the winery, year, and type on each bottle lid. I am very happy with the result. I also put all my empty bottles that I'm saving for my homemade wine in the bottom of the rack. Perfect! Now, I just need to make my malbec... Maybe next week. And, when our case of Syrah comes from Orfila in November, we'll be ready!

In other news... my sister is visiting... TOMORROW! eeek. Gotta fix things up. It's going to be a crazy weekend. Sister arrives, then there's a party with a friend, then there's breakfast on Saturday morning, followed by Art and the Vineyard, followed by BBQ on Sunday and Bobby McFerrin on Monday. Wow!

I need to clean the deck and finish the pergola for the BBQ, but I want to enjoy myself on Saturday, so those things need to get done, by, um. Tomorrow. Still, so exciting.

Bring on the fun

Man, oh man.

This weekend, there is Art and the Vineyard. http://www.artandthevineyard.org/ Also known as "The Pacific Northwest's Premiere Art and Wine Festival." We have been the last few years and we've dubbed it pretty much the best weekend of the summer.

And then, the following weekend? The Oregon Country Fair. Woodstock meets Oregon forests. Hundreds of arts vendors. Homemade food. Bands worthy of rockingoutness. Time to bring out the tie dye and handmade skirts. http://www.oregoncountryfair.org/

Heh.