Animal Crackers - Messy - Hay - Grapes

Howdy - 

A lot of fun going on this last week. Busy Busy Busy - First up is Old Miss Darlene enjoying her "Old People Food" as we call it. LoL... She LOVES it! As you can tell by her face!

Really enjoys it!  Oh Darlene ... that is not lady like! But she does love it and it is so good for her. Lots of minerals and vitamins to help her in her golden years.

 

Got a call that there was a small load of hay being baled. Yes Please! We always take advantage of any hay available. Gotta keep the hay barn full for all the fur children! 

And fresh cut hay is always a favorite around here!!! The three stooges were really into their breakfast.

But then there was Mallory who was really "IN" her breakfast! Fresh hay is very fluffy and soft though so you can't blame her.

Love that Crissy was just eating around her. mmmm fresh hay! 

My boy Sergio left his breakfast and was insisting on attention.  Really insisting.. Pushing the panels and making a lot of noise insisting! I'm coming Serg!

I love my little orphan guy! He is truly my big boy! oh and yes... I removed the hay from his nose. 

Then the other project this week that "we" tackled. 

 For over 20 years now we have talked about picking the wild mustang grapes that grow all over our road and property. You can't pick them until they are totally ripe. Well that is when everything eats them. And by the time we find them ripe they were pretty picked over - but gotta feed nature right? Well this last week Hubby came in and said its time for grapes! He grabbed two 5 gal. buckets and went grape picking! Now a lot of them are very high and you need a ladder. Not my place to be at all. But Hubby filled two buckets and then it was time to wash and make jelly!

Here is some of the jars from the batches we made in two afternoons. Takes time and lots of picking and stirring. Measuring and watching the clock. I was the assistant - this was Hubby's project. 

I love that we get to pull out the large pot! It was my Grandfather's. I never knew him. But my Grandma gave us the pot years and years ago. It was his Crawdad Boil pot. Or Crawfish... but around here they are Crawdads. Yuck to me, but some love them. But I am thrilled to be the keeper of the pot now and that it still has use! And the jelly... mmmm turned out so good! 

So do you can anything yummy? We've done a few kinds of jelly and jams over the years. We tried pickles a couple of times. And Hubby has done all types of peppers - he is never allowed to do Habanero Peppers again. Took forever to get the burning smell out of the house! WOW they were spicy hot! 

I'm more of the yummy fruit jelly type! And this grape is wonderful. 

Hope you enjoyed this week - and I do hope you have some special time planned this week with family, friends or fur children! 

HUGS and -

Animal Crackers - Please don't make fun of my Chicken Butt

Howdy -

Yes.. the title is odd.. but very true - Please don't make fun of my Chicken Butt!!

 
I have 7 Wyandottes - and 6 of them have these bright red bare rear ends. A few have feathers started growing and they protect them as best as they can... but there are a couple that are constantly "pecked" on. I have read that it is common... I am working on solutions. But about the time I get them to stop and they start filling in... it all starts over again.

Now you may say what about the one that has its tail feathers? Well that is "CB"... she was the start of all the plucking I think, then it was just a free for all with all of the chickens plucking each other. But I think "CB" has ducked and ran to save her "butt" that it now is stuck in a side ways position. And that is why her name is "CB"... "Crooked Butt"

I think I told you earlier in the week that we built a second chicken coop. The main coop is good, but a little small for 13 chickens... the Rhode Island Reds have claimed it and it is all theirs. So we built a second coop for the Wyandottes. They sleep outside (within their safe fencing) So when it got so cold the other night we had their own coop built and even had heat lamps installed in both coops. The Wyandottes love laying their eggs in their new house. Sleeping... they still are sleeping outside. I hope they will get use to their new hut and learn to sleep in it soon. Other wise I will have to go out a chase chickens and lock them in it at night and I really don't want to do that....

This photo is while hubby was working on the second coop... I sat off to the side and laughed until I physically hurt. They Chickens were all helping him in every way.... standing on his boards, or him, or his tools. Pecking on him. Always under his feet. But the funniest was he would gather up his screws for whatever part he was working on. He would reach for one and they would all be gone... scattered all around. Then they found the little bucket they were stored in WOW now that was fun they had over a hundred to pull out and scatter!! LOL

At one point Hubby glared and me and asked why I was just sitting there laughing, why wasn't I stopping them... Uh well it was too funny to watch!!

We were gone yesterday setting up for an antique show we are doing this weekend, when we got home it was just a little past "normal" dinner time. Like maybe 30 minutes... Crissy was one of about 20 goats that were making sure we were told that was not acceptable!!

Well If you remember a couple of weeks ago I showed you a photo of Peter and told you I really wished we could find him a new home where he will have some girls of his very own. Well a very nice couple that has purchased a couple of girls from us last year... they called and they came and picked up Peter - so now I am putting his brother out there.. Paul now needs his home and gals of his own... :0) 

 He too has that adorable bangs that curl on his forehead.... :0 )  Sweet guy. Doesn't have the blue eyes his brother does, but he has the gene and is a carrier for them.

As I was heading in the house I looked out a ways past the yard and saw Moxie, one of the outside three - She is the sweetest and calmest girl. Just a love.

They had already gotten their evening cookie, but I think Moxie was thinking that a second one would be really nice. I think Hubby came through and snuck her one... I saw him talking to her and heard him say ... "Don't tell anyone ok? " - that usually means he snuck some sort of treat to one LOL 

This is what Hubby's project was Thursday - 

We had to pick all the remaining tomato's from our fall garden earlier in the week. The cold front that blew in would have really done some damage to them. So they all were picked and it was way to many to slice and eat - we do eat a lot of them sliced with dinner we love them. But this was so many all at once so Hubby canned up about a dozen jars of salsa. I sure hope I can enjoy some too - but he was doing all the slicing and cooking, that worries me that this batch may be a bit warm for me. I think I will hide the last jar from Spring for myself just in case - it is what he calls sissy sauce. That is just fine with me too much heat just isn't tasty to me.

Hope you have some fun planned for this weekend. The weather is suppose to be gorgeous here. After a near freeze this week, Sunday it is suppose to get to 87 degrees!  As they say if you don't like the weather in Texas just wait a few minutes and it will change.

Have a blessed wonderful weekend -
HUGS

Me and My Space - Paint, Collectibles and A little Jam

Hello Sunday - Bringing back one of my old post days, you seemed to like me showing off a few of my old things last week. So I thought I might on Sundays try and show you a few things we (Hubby and I) have been working on that week, and/or show off a few of my treasured pieces around my house.

The main project we started this last week was jumping in head first into re-doing furniture in our house. Now we never tip toe into anything we do. We dive right into the deep end. Last winter we painted our house inside. Was Sage Green... was tired and worn, so we went with a new color and did Taupe. I love it. But the furniture that we have in the Living Room and Dining Room. Well it all was purchased from a small unique furniture store in town, and it all matched. Something I had never had and thought we would like. And honestly we did... but when the green left the furniture well.. the cream color somehow turned yellow. And the more we lived with it, the yellower it got. So last weekend we were talking and decided that it was time for another change. And from that decision over breakfast we now have plans for 7 pieces of furniture. LOL Told you we dive...   I did some surfing and reading and found a paint that sounded interesting. We went out and found it in a small store in town and since then have been back two more times for more colors! Diving here...

First here is one of the pieces in my Living Room that we just finished. (We meaning I hold, move things and support Hubby while he is doing. He is a bit of a control freak when it comes to standards of painting. I don't pass.. so he does it.)  Anyway... here is the before

 Sorry the photos STINK! The lighting in my Living Room is not good at and for some reason every photo I took is a bit grainy... but I think you can still see it.

Ok.. now you may not see it, but to me, this thing is WAY yellow. All the furniture is this same color. And we are really tired of it. It is still great solid wood furniture, just boring. So... We went and did this to it!

AFTER

I LOVE IT! It is Chalk Paint with a wax coat over it. So So So happy with how it turned out. Again Sorry the photo are so bad. LIGHTING IT HORRIBLE. Anyway this is my Flow Blue cabinet. Well, it has lots in it actually... Flow Blue, Feather Edge, Iron Stone, Iridescent Glass, and so on and so on. But we call this the Flow Blue Cabinet.

We painted it with this...

Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. In Duck Egg color. A pretty soft light blue. Have you heard of this paint? It isn't everywhere. But if you google you can find it in more and more places. I got mine at HERE at a cute little shop called Woodland Cottage. This paint is so freaking awesome! Covers amazingly, water based for easy clean up, will paint and stick to just about everything. (I am trying to get Hubby to do our steel front door too!) But the bestest thing... NO PREP work. Yes... NO SANDING to get it ready for paint. Just dust it off.. and paint! It really covers amazingly. It is a flat "CHALK" finish when done. But they have wax that they sell that you put on over it that gives a warm sheen and that fabulous vintage feel to it. And they have another wax "Dark Wax" that you can use that really gives a totally antiqued darkening feel! (We did the donkey cabinet with that... I'll show it next week)  Google this stuff... it ROCKS!!

The paint colors can be mixed to make lots more colors. I think there are 30 available. But you can lighten and darken shades. You can take a little and add water to create a wash.. So you get that we are impressed with the paint right?

But after all of that... This on the can is probably one of my favorite things...

Ha! Hubby didn't think it was that funny.. Oh well, I am easily amused sometimes.  I'll show off other pieces each week as we do them... that will show of a lot more of the colors as well - LOL told you we DIVE into things.

Thought I would mention another thing that was a new thing for us this week... One little comment about how store bought preserves just taste like sugar. And how good some home made would be. From there I ran across a display while waiting for Hubby at Lowes... and then here was my kitchen counter Thursday -

Now I probably should let you know we tried Canning 25 years ago just after we married. Nastiest Limp Pickles I have ever tried to eat. We threw away every bottle. So trying again was a bit scary to me. But we Dove in... First I made the Strawberry Preserves... my favorite flavor. Followed the instructions and it didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would, and soon we had 9 8oz jars cooling on the counter. Next morning we opened up one for breakfast.. OMG! SOOO good. So Friday afternoon we jumped in again and did the Peach Preserves...Hubby's favorite flavor. Now we had quite a few peaches. And once all cut up... well enough for 3 batches.... so it took a bit longer, as we did one batch at a time to not mess anything up. But in the end we had 8  - 16oz jars and 9 - 8 oz jars cooling! And yesterday morning we popped open one of them.. OMG! SOOOO good! Don't think we will be buying store bought any more. Now I am planning our garden and LOTS more canning!

All right Collectibles - To end up today I thought I would show you two of my favorite Donkeys from my almost 10 years of buying everything donkey....

I have had these two guys for quite a few years. And I was thrilled when I found each of them. They are late 1920's - 1930's Fisher Price Pull Toys. The Donkey ones are pretty hard to find. Especially in such great condition. They are all wood, with rope tails and Leather ears. Jack's ears don't stand up well.. but hey he is old.. LOL  I think it would be really hard to force me to pick one favorite from all my treasures. But these two guys would be way up on my list for sure.

Hope you enjoyed today's post... a little bit of "Me and My Space"

Have a wonderful day  - HUGS and