More chickens, more injuries

I’m afraid that some of my new babies are mean little assholes.

I came home from work a few weeks ago to find one of my white marans chicks covered in blood with a degloved neck. She was a little over two weeks old. Her buddies caused this injury by pecking the hell out of her. Poor baby. Apparently once they see blood, they keep at it. It can get pretty nasty.

(BTW, do NOT look at "degloving injuries" under Google images - you'll be sorry!!)

I’m sorry for the graphic images, but I hope that this kind of info might help someone else whose chick ends up with a similar injury.

My first thought was that she was a goner. However, she seemed happy, so I wasn’t going to give up on her.

I separated her from the others and put her in a bin in our tub. I crushed up a tiny amount of aspirin for her water and put some triple antibiotic ointment on the wound. In hindsight, I wish that I had irrigated it with saline or watered-down betadine solution to get out anything that may have been in the wound.

She wasn’t thrilled with the antibiotic ointment and shook her head like a wet dog every time it was applied. I ended up wearing a fair amount of it each time I put it on. She also liked to scratch at the wound with her foot, which was just awful to watch. Ugh. I tried to put some nonstick dressing on it, but getting it to stay was pretty much impossible, so I gave up.

I applied the ointment every morning and evening. The entire time she was eating and drinking normally like nothing had happened. She kept flying out of her bin and pooping everywhere. NBD, just hanging out with this giant hole in my neck. She was also lonely and incredibly sweet. She peeped incessantly until you would hold her. Every time I would pick her up, she would run up my arm and nestle into my neck. 

One day I didn’t get a chance to do the ointment in the morning and by the time I checked on her at night, the wound had started to scab over. It had been 5 or 6 days, so I decided to leave it alone and let it continue the healing process.

The wound continued to scab over and heal. After she’d been separated from her tormentors (who were moved out to the new coop) for about 9 days, I decided to attempt a reintroduction. After all, as I mentioned - she was flying out of her tub and crapping EVERYWHERE. She had become quite the sweet annoyance. So I sprayed BluKote over her wound and the area around the wound to discourage picking and pecking. It didn’t go very well initially. The big meanies started pecking at her again and she made no attempt to get away from them.

So I grabbed a cat carrier and threw her in it inside the coop. That way they could see her, but they couldn’t get to her. Yesterday morning I went in to change her food and water and she flew out. She went up to some of the other chicks and started pecking at them and basically acting a little crazy. They seemed to be leaving her alone, so I crossed my fingers and went to work. When I got home, she was doing great. There were no new marks on her and she seemed like she was getting along with everyone.

So that is the happy story of our little white marans chick Lucky. We hope to have no more misadventures with the new flock of babies, who turned five weeks old yesterday.

New coop and attached run

We are hoping to officially introduce the big girls to the little ones this coming weekend. They have had supervised visitation over the last week and the little ones seem to know to stay out of the way. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we can get everyone into the same living quarters this weekend – before our trip. Although we don’t actually leave for Australia until next Saturday, we are leaving for NJ and a friend’s wedding on Friday.

Fortunately we have a small army to take care of all the critters. A book club friend's daughter is taking care of the critters, and if she can't make it either my friend or her fiance (who is the E.D. for the Humane Society) will stop by. There are a few other friends who have offered to stop by and check on things too. So I know that we're leaving our house and pets in good hands.

I’ve started to pack and have been making good progress. I had been having nightmares about forgetting things for the past few weeks, so I decided that I needed to take some action.

Exercise and diet have still been good - exercise moreso than the diet. I've had a few cheating days with the diet, but I've still been averaging at or under 50-70 net grams of carbs a week. I'm swimming one or two days a week, walking and doing the elliptical one or two days a week, and over the weekend, I used the post hole digger for a few hours. Let me tell you, that is HARD work. I don't think I could cut it if I had to do manual labor. 

My weight is still at a plateau, but I feel like I'm more fit and healthy than I was a month ago when the plateau started. I don't have any good recent pics of me, because I avoided cameras for the latter part of last year. For real. I felt huge and tried to stay behind the camera instead of in front of it. For my Wordless Wednesday post, I'll be posting some of the few recent-ish photos from the last year or two, plus a current mirror self-portrait. They're all the rage on Facebook, you know. Maybe I'll even do the pouty face!

25 Things - The 2012 Year in Review Edition

It's true that 2012 is ending on a somber note for most of this country. The tragedy in Newtown, CT and the senseless shooting of two firefighters in Webster, NY didn't put most of us in the holiday spirit.

Because of all the dreary news, it's easy for me to overlook all of the good things and fun times I've had this year.  I've compiled some of my favorite trips/home project accomplishments/happy days from the past year (in no particular order):

1. I celebrated two years of marriage to my darling husband. 
2. I got a new job about 20 miles from home, which saved me at least 370 hours (that's 15 DAYS of my LIFE) and 26,270 miles of commuting this year (based on working 37 weeks, since I started working in March).
3. I started this blog. :)
4. Built a chicken coop and raised 10 chickens from peep-hood for fresh eggs.
5. Had a fantastic time on a cruise to the Bahamas - had the best snorkeling experience ever at Paradise Cove in Freeport.
6. My sister-in-law Colleen visited for two weeks over the summer and we had fun drinking too much wine, making zombie detours, parties, chickens and all sorts of stuff. 
7. Had an awesome day in Caroline County with some fabulous ladies (including Colleen) - alpacas, outhouses and tattoos, oh my!
8. Traveled to Rhode Island for a paranormal investigation of Rose Island Lighthouse... complete with a rather creepy and foggy ferry ride across Narragansett Bay to Rose Island. During this trip, I also experienced Connecticut style lobster rolls at Abbott's Lobster in Noank, CT, visited my cousin Heather (& family) in Boston and Jay's cousins in Naugatuck, CT.
9. Built a raised garden bed and started a compost pile. Sadly, the chickens destroyed most of our plants, but we got a lot of jalapenos and green peppers.
10. I purchased a canning kit, made and canned apple butter for the first time.
11. We finished our upstairs bathroom - drywall, tile, trim, and paint. 
12. Close to finished on our fourth bedroom - drywall, laminate flooring, and paint. Trim has been cut, it just needs to be nailed to the wall.
13. Finished the upstairs and downstairs foyer/hallways - drywall, laminate flooring (or refinishing hardwood) and paint. 
14. Finished the reading nook - drywall, laminate flooring, paint, installed banister & railing, AND scored 2 fantastic chairs at a great deal.
15. Finished the kitchen - ripped out and replaced previous tiling job, installed cabinets, sink, dishwasher (although it's still not hooked to power), installed laminate counters.
16. Installed exterior siding with R-5 insulation value.
17. Got a subpanel installed for Jay's to-be-built shop/shed/man-cave.
18. Had a great time at the Southern Summer Cocktail Party. :)
19. Had many fun nights with my book club ladies.
20. Making an effort to buy local, organic, and/or natural foods when possible- I'm now a regular at Nice Farms Creamery and Cedar Run Cattle.
21. Hosted a crazy fun party and featured aforementioned local food.
22. Participated in many happy hours at Harry's on the Green with some of my favorite ladies. Some of these happy hours turned into late night shenanigans. One such night ended with a potted petunia in the bottom of a friend's hot tub. Oops!
23. I survived the release of my first holiday schedule and planned the holiday party at work. The schedule was awful, but the party turned out great. I'm still getting compliments on it... mad props to Lorraine at The Milestone and Jimmy at It's Your Day DJ. They did an awesome job.
24. I began putting myself first again and started enforcing boundaries with people.
25. Celebrated Christmas quietly with Jay - we opened presents, feasted like Kings and watched TV all day.

Soon I'll be posting 25 goals or plans for 2013. It's not going to be a resolution list (although I imagine a few things are resolution-esque), but more of what I'm looking forward to in the next year.

I've also seen an idea that I really like on Pinterest... it's cheesy in some ways, but I think it's a great idea. Each time something good or fun happens in 2013, write it down on a scrap of paper and put it in a mason jar. At the end of the year, for Christmas or at NYE, open the jar and read all of the scraps. I think it's a lovely idea... even when you're feeling a bit blue, you can open the jar and smile at the great memories you've made. 

I plan on 2013 knocking the socks off of 2012!

Wordless Wednesday - Holiday Edition

Last two weeks in photos

Piper aka Kitty Whore hard at work

Wine club. Er, I mean book club.

I hosted book club this month and made my Aunt Mary's French Meat Pies. They were a hit! Photos and my recipe to come soon. This photo I took for my sister-in-law Colleen to say that we missed her. She definitely should have come to partake in the festivities. Apparently we were extra loud and giggly past midnight. Sorry for keeping you up, Jay!

JT's kahlua cake was a hit. Sue couldn't resist grabbing a spoon and digging in. 

Kneading dough is great therapy

For the second year, we attended the Pealiquor Road crew's Thanksgiving Feast. I baked 2 loaves of french bread and an Italian whole wheat peasant bread to share with our friends. I used a new recipe for the french bread that called for only bread flour instead of the combination of all-purpose and bread flour. It was wonderfully crusty with a moist and chewy interior. I'm going to bake some more this weekend to go with the farm fresh butter that I just picked up from Nice Farms Creamery. 

Go ahead and put all of your eggs in one basket. The chickens will make more.

We brought eggs to our gracious hosts. 

Basket full of persimmon joy.

After dinner everyone goes for a walk (okay, we waddle) out to the golf course and collect persimmons from two trees. This year was the biggest haul of persimmons ever... there were 15 "grown-ups", 6 kids (all boys) and 5 dogs. It was utter mayhem and such a great time. Surprisingly, no one was injured! The persimmons are baked into bread for friends and family at Christmas. 

... and the persimmons jumped right out of the basket! Did you see that??

I'm blowing this up so you can see Angela's crazy eyes. Thanks, Instagram!

We needed painting supplies to get our last bedroom finished. 

We didn't crack open anything until the painting was finished, which was probably a good idea. The primer that Jay bought did a terrible job covering the drywall. We had to go over the ceiling three times until it was covered. We weren't as worried about the walls, because Lowes gave me the paint + primer product that I didn't ask for. So instead of paying about $75 for paint, we ended up spending $120. Oh well. Yesterday Jay picked up the laminate flooring for the room and ordered a ceiling fan that was on sale. The last bedroom will likely be done this weekend. We're planning to move the futon from downstairs up to that room... just in time too, because my in-laws may be coming to stay with us for a little while. Long and sad story there, and that's about all I can say about it. My mother left our house yesterday morning after a two week on and off stint at a temp job in Denton. So we are basically running a flop house these days. It will be nice when we get some time to ourselves!

Winter is coming, just like the Starks said it would

It's getting colder around here... these weird little balls of snow/sleet appeared on Jay's truck earlier this week. It's been below freezing the last two nights... 27 degrees this morning. BRRRR! I'm getting over a cold that I came down with last weekend. Still feeling a little tired and stuffed up, but I'm hoping to be over it by next week. We're taking a little 4 day trip down to Florida for our anniversary. I was really hoping to get to Key West, but we're visiting Jay's grandma while we're down there and she is in the opposite direction (we're flying in to Fort Lauderdale and she lives in Winter Park, near Orlando). The last thing I want to do on a long weekend is drive 14 hours. As it stands now, we'll be driving for about 8 hours. Oh well, at least we will be able to drive with the windows DOWN! :)

Sure we cut our own tree

With all of the insanity in our lives this week, we thought that we could use a little Christmas cheer, so we picked up our Christmas Tree on Wednesday afternoon. It's a Fraser Fir... I hate those other trees with the pointy needles. I don't like to be stabbed while I'm decorating the tree.

Our tree is crazy full and barely cleared the ceiling, despite Mr. Webby's assertion that it was only 7' tall. It's pretty close to 8.5'... you can't tell so much in the photo, but it is out of control. I will post some photos after we decorate it this weekend. Dr. Tasty, Esq. aka Dr. Tasty, aka Mr. Tasty, aka Mr. Draco is thrilled to have his tree back. He will be spending the next month lounging on the tree skirt and snacking on ribbons. I expect to find lots of bedazzled poop in the litter box.

Kitty Whore is unimpressed.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Aunt Mary's / Great-Great-Grandma Plant's French Meat Pie

I am so incredibly excited to make this recipe! My Aunt Mary made it for me several years ago and I've been after her to get me the recipe ever since.

I'm planning to make it this weekend to try it out, then again for book club next Friday.

Here is some family history on this pie, which I found incredibly interesting:


Great Grandma Plant's French meat pie has potatoes, onions and pork sausage and of course spices. I never make it the same way twice, but will be happy to send along the recipe. I use either Gwaltney or Jimmy Dean, but whatever you like is fine. Nancy uses turkey sausage, but I have never tried that. Mom used to bake the pies about 20 minutes before freezing them. Aunt Marge taught me to put the cooked filling in the crusts and freeze them without baking them. That is what I do now too. Aunt Lorraine used the sausage mix as stuffing for turkey. It seems everyone does their own thing. I rarely make fewer than six at a time. It is wonderful to have them on hand for breakfast, lunch, supper and hostess gifts. Believe it or not, Grandma Grande made the pies and used her attic to store them. It was / is cold in Minnesota, but I sure would not trust that. I often wondered how she froze things because her ice box freezer only held about 2 trays of cubes and maybe a small steak. Now you have a little family history to talk about over the pies.

Love it! I'm pretty sure that I could have stored those pies in our house just a few years ago. There were days that you could see your breath inside. So happy all of that is over. :)

On to her recipe... once I make it, I will post my version.

The recipe for about 3 9" pies is as follows: 1 and 1/2 pounds lean pork sausage, 1 large chopped onion simmered with the pork for about 15 minutes, 6 medium potatoes or a little more, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp cloves, 1 tsp sage, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp savory or poultry seasoning. Break up sausage in a frying pan and brown with the onion. Add the spices and chopped potatoes (my mother used to grind them, but I julienned or chop them in about 1/2 in chunks.) At this point you can cover the pan and cook everything together until the potatoes are done, but an easier way is to put the whole shabang into a roasting pan and bake it covered untill the potatoes are done, stirring once in awhile. You will probably need to add a cup of water to keep it from sticking before starting the baking process and more as you go if you note sticking. Bake at about 350 degrees. It takes about an hour. While the filling is baking set up your pie pans. I use Pillsbury ready mades, but your favorite will be fine. When the filling is done, let it cool a tad so it is easier to work with. Then divide it among the prepared pie shells, put on the top layer and flute. Let the pies cool at room temp unless you are serving them right away. If you are serving them right away, prick the top crusts, and bake them at 400 degrees until the crusts begin to get to the degree of done you want. It will pobably take about 30 minutes, but watch the edges. If you are going to freeze them, prick the crusts, and after they are cooled, cover each tightly with Saran wrap and then a sheet of foil. Place in freezer and they will keep a year or longer. To reheat, place in 400 degree oven for about and hour (cover the edges so they do not burn. Enjoy. 

This weekend I'll be making pie crusts and taking a trip to Cedar Run for their delicious sausage and whatever else I can get my hands on. I'm planning to make my own pie crusts with a combination of butter and rendered duck fat, we'll see how it goes. I'm hoping that the duck fat in the fridge is still good from the last time I cooked duck. If not, I found a place in Easton that sells it.

Looking forward to a tasty weekend! :)

Friday was awesomesauce

The day began with eight ladies and two babies at Outstanding Dreams alpaca farm.  Levi and Liam (the babies) had a great time gallivanting with the alpacas, although Liam was not happy that Meghan wouldn’t let him down to crawl around the pasture. Babies + alpacas = cutest ever.

The alpacas were so soft that I had to buy some fiber at the farm store… so I guess I need to learn how to knit/crochet. The girls tried to convince me to get some alpacas (you can raise up to 10 on a single acre). I think that we need to buy siding more than a $5,000 animal – those adorable critters are expensive!

I stole some of these photos from the Caroline County Tourism page on Facebook. Our buddy Christina (who works for the tourism board) took us to the alpaca farm and the place with the crazy outhouse guy who is obsessed with hoes.

Now on to Shore Good farms. The owner Jack is born and bred Caroline County. Jack loves his hoes and outhouses, but his real passion is to use his farm to educate kids about growing vegetables and gardening. He has a large amount of acreage on his farm, but the part that we visited is farmed strictly by hand. Jack can hoe his entire farm in 16 minutes.

Here is a blurb from the agritourism website:

Take a step back in time to Shore Good Farm, a heritage farm located in Preston. Shore Good Farm highlights Caroline County’s rich agrarian history, featuring an unmatched collection of antiques and heritage artifacts from yesteryear, fresh-cut flowers, artisan carpentry including vintage outhouses and chicken coops, the plumpest blackberries on the shore, old-fashioned kettle corn and more!  Jack Stieff also runs his peanut roasting operation on the farm, offering 15 varieties of his signature peanuts.

We all became 12 year old girls when he started talking about the proper way to hoe a garden. He told us that all you need to grow vegetables is a small area of land and a good hoe. Now, lots of people tend to use big hoes, but Jack likes to use small hoes. You’ve got to make sure that you keep your hoe in the ground. He showed off his mother’s hoe and had all of us take turns holding it. “Yep, that’s a light hoe.” Cue us giggling like little girls and making “Your mom’s a hoe” comments.

Jack is a purveyor of moonshine and tall tales. He doesn’t trust the government and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him on Doomsday Preppers someday.

Here he is greeting us when we pulled up – we caught him in the outhouse, of course:

Some more pics at Shore Good Farm:

Sadly, the blackberries weren’t ripe enough to be picked, because as Jack said, “That Mother Nature is a hussy!”

We’re planning to go back after Mother Nature wises up and cooperates with Jack. I’m looking forward to talking to him about his chicken feed. He makes his own and according to him, he gets 14 eggs a day out of his 10 chickens. Tall tales, indeed.

We found ourselves famished and thirsty after the farm visits, so we headed to The Market Street Pub for some deliciousness. I was too hungry to take any pictures of our food, but I did snap a shot of our Orange Crush pitcher.

After the pub, we bid adieu to Meghan, Sherye, and their babies and headed over to Black Anchor Tattoo to get some work done. Sara now has Harry Potter stars behind her ear, Jamie got a peace sign behind her ear (there was a DUDE – SWEET moment at the tattoo shop, which was hilarious), Angela has a gorgeous pattern going down her spine inspired by wrought-iron gates, and I now have this (inspired by my dad's photo on the right):

It looks pretty gross in that photo, because it was newly finished - irritated and weeping. I’ll post another photo when it has healed. I have to say that it hurt way more than I remembered tattoos hurting, and it took a little over two hours! After the first minute I was thinking, “I wonder if it’s too late to get him to stop.”  I’m very glad that Angela ended up getting her back done at the same time, because it was nice to have someone to suffer with. Sara and Jamie’s tattoos were done in no more than 15 minutes. Lucky girls.

I still have to get the Sagan quote added. I didn’t like the layout that the shop did with the words going through the butterfly's wings, so I’m going to go back once it’s healed and figure out a way that we can work in the quote around the tattoo or maybe to the side somewhere.

After tattoos we went to Harry's on the Green for some tasty drinks, plus delicious fried pickles and green beans.

As if all of that fun wasn’t enough, we also had book club on Friday night. Wine, cheese, and tasty noms. It didn’t go as late as usual, probably because the book (Still Life by Joy Fielding) was awful and most of us were exhausted from our busy day.

Saturday brought more shenanigans at the 2^nd annual Southern Summer Cocktail party and we also got a bushel of crabs on Sunday. It was a crazy fun and busy weekend and now I am completely worn out.

I can’t wait for a 7 p.m. bedtime this evening!

Cooking, Alpacas and Tattoos, oh my!

My visiting sister in law (Colleen) is quasi-vegetarian, so I decided that I should try making some veggie dishes while she's visiting. Colleen made an amazing veggie pizza the other night, with scratch pizza dough. She used pesto instead of marinara sauce, feta cheese, mushrooms, onions, black olives and I can't remember what else. It was delicious and filling. I'm going to get her dough recipe and experiment! I can't wait until we have some ripe tomatoes so that I can make some tomato and pasta sauce. 

I haven't taken pictures, but our green bell and jalapeno pepper plants have just started to go crazy. We have six each, and I think by this weekend we are going to be up to our necks in peppers. One of my coworkers said that you can blanch and freeze them. 

Our zucchini plant has a ton of blooms on it and I imagine that we're going to be really sick of zucchini by the end of the month. 

So in light of all of these things, including Colleen's visit, I looked up some veggie entrees.

I found this Tex-Mex Summer Squash Casserole on Eating Well: http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/tex_mex_summer_squash_casserole.html

We'll be making this slightly different, using a mix of zucchini and squash (which are practically the same anyway). Instead of using the canned jalapenos, we'll be using fresh. I think that we'll also throw in some black beans. The next thing I'm going to make is an enchilada-style chilaquiles recipe that I also found on Eating Well.

 

INGREDIENTS

• 2 1/4 pounds summer squash, quartered lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise (about 10 cups)
• 2/3 cup finely chopped yellow onion
• 1 4-ounce can chopped green chiles
• 1 4-1/2-ounce can chopped jalapenos, (about 1/2 cup), drained
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• 2 1/4 cups grated extra-sharp Cheddar cheese, (about 7 ounces), divided
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup mild salsa
• 4 scallions, thinly sliced, for garnish
• 1/4 cup finely chopped red onion, for garnish

MORE HEALTHY RECIPE IDEAS

• Easy Mexican Food Favorites
• Vitamin C-Rich Recipes
• Tasty Taco Recipes

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

• EatingWell's Tex-Mex Dip
• Tex-Mex Pizza
• Tex-Mex Baked Potatoes
• Tex-Mex Stuffed Potatoes
• Tex-Mex Taco Salad

PREPARATION

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Coat a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with cooking spray.
2. Combine squash, onion, chiles, jalapenos, salt and 3/4 cup cheese in a large bowl. Sprinkle with flour; toss to coat. Spread the mixture in the prepared baking dish and cover with foil.
3. Bake the casserole until it is bubbling and the squash is tender, 35 to 45 minutes. Spoon salsa over the casserole and sprinkle with the remaining 1 1/2 cups cheese. Bake, uncovered, until golden and heated through, 20 to 30 minutes. Sprinkle with scallions and red onion.

TIPS & NOTES

• Make Ahead Tip: Cover and refrigerate for up to 2 days. Reheat, covered, at 350°F for about 40 minutes. Garnish just before serving.

Oh, and did I mention that I made mayonnaise last night? I used Alton Brown's recipe. I think that next time I'll use less oil and/or another egg yolk. It tastes good but it's a little runny. I'm planning to use it to make the potato salad for a party we're attending on Saturday. I think I'll also use my homemade mayo for egg salad. 

I have to figure out what to make for book club on Friday. 

Friday is a busy day - we're visiting the Alpacas at Outstanding Dreams Farm in the morning, followed by Shore Good Farm, where we will pick blackberries and check out custom outhouses. After our busy morning, I'm sure that we'll have worked up an appetite, so we'll then go to The Market Street Public House for a tasty lunch. After lunch, we'll do what everyone does on a sunny summer afternoon - get inked at Black Anchor Tattoo. After body art, we'll either run home to prepare our food for book club, or go to happy hour at Harry's. 

At book club we will probably drink wine, show off our new artwork, and play with babies, because the book for this month wasn't all that thought-provoking. As a matter of fact, I think that my I.Q. went down while I was reading it.

My first ink in over ten years will be in memory of my dad. I've wanted to get a tattoo to memorialize him somehow. I'd been thinking of getting some sort of bird, but I came across a photo that he'd taken and have decided to have it recreated.

The photo is discolored from storage, but it will work for my purposes. Around the photo will be a quote from Carl Sagan, (from his book Cosmos) one of my dad's favorite astronomers/physicists/science champions.   

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.

Dad hated tattoos, but I think that even he would appreciate this one.