On April 12th, I went to our local library for some free tax help from the AARP. After gently chiding me for waiting so long file, Mary quickly filled out all the forms and our taxes were done. A funny thing happened about half way through the process, she looked over at me and said "If I said the name 'Dave Ramsey' would you know who I was talking about?" I told her I knew him better than I deserved. She laughed and kept on working. I asked her what made her ask me that question and she said that something in our paper work just screamed Dave Ramsey at her. She commented the paperwork was in good order (wow, if ours was in good order, I bet she's had a rough few weeks!). I told her that all of the stock sale info she just slogged through was part of what helped us to pay off or last debt this year: our mortgage. She was very happy for us. She was a graduate of Financial Peace University and was also at the Dave Ramsey Live event in Dallas back in March. She said that after FPU she realized for the first time that she could afford to buy a house, so she did.
This was my first experience being called out as a Dave Ramsey fan by a stranger and it was a great feeling. It is very encourgaing to meet others who have been motivated and had their lives change for the better through Dave's ministry.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Chicken update
We are in the middle of week 2 with our city hens... still no letter from the city, but the eggs are rolling in.
Here are the first two eggs we got, we have averaged 1 egg per day for the first week. Our three hens lay eggs in 3 subtlety different colors. The Auracana lays pale green eggs, one lays true white eggs, and the other one lays buff or beige colored eggs. In the bright sun, all the eggs just look white, but upon closer inspection, there are definitely three different colors.
The hens have all settled in nicely. At first we were having serious issues with the black and white hens picking on the orange hen, but that seems to have stopped. The first two days (before the run was built) the white hen especially would get her feathers all ruffled up and charge after the orange hen and peck at her. There was never any blood, but I got very tired of breaking up the fights. The poor orange hen would just huddle into a corner and wait for the abuse to stop.
Almost as soon as the hens got access to the open run, the fighting stopped. I"m guessing they were bored in the small coop and also vying for space. The larger run has lots of grass and dirt for scratching as well as piles of mulch for the girls to dig through.
The chickens seem to be afternoon layers, at least almost every egg we have found has been late in the day--even if I check all day long. I was home all day yesterday, sitting in our home office with the window open so I heard every little squawk and peep these girls made during the day. Mostly, they are very quiet birds. Around 4 pm, it sounded like someone was tap dancing on a wood floor and I went outside to see the orange hen in the nest box, scratching hard on the wood. I checked, no egg. At about 5 I left to pick up the kids from school with one last check of the coop for eggs, nothing. I got home 20 minutes later and hubby had collected 2 eggs, I guess they decided to lay eggs the second the van left the driveway.
Our friends chickens have also started to lay eggs, they went 1 week without a single egg. They suspected that the hens were in revolt because they were being terrorized by their lab and their 2 year old son--both would run around the coop to get a better view of the birds. Now the hens have realized that neither is a threat to them and started laying.
Here are the first two eggs we got, we have averaged 1 egg per day for the first week. Our three hens lay eggs in 3 subtlety different colors. The Auracana lays pale green eggs, one lays true white eggs, and the other one lays buff or beige colored eggs. In the bright sun, all the eggs just look white, but upon closer inspection, there are definitely three different colors.
The hens have all settled in nicely. At first we were having serious issues with the black and white hens picking on the orange hen, but that seems to have stopped. The first two days (before the run was built) the white hen especially would get her feathers all ruffled up and charge after the orange hen and peck at her. There was never any blood, but I got very tired of breaking up the fights. The poor orange hen would just huddle into a corner and wait for the abuse to stop.
Almost as soon as the hens got access to the open run, the fighting stopped. I"m guessing they were bored in the small coop and also vying for space. The larger run has lots of grass and dirt for scratching as well as piles of mulch for the girls to dig through.
The chickens seem to be afternoon layers, at least almost every egg we have found has been late in the day--even if I check all day long. I was home all day yesterday, sitting in our home office with the window open so I heard every little squawk and peep these girls made during the day. Mostly, they are very quiet birds. Around 4 pm, it sounded like someone was tap dancing on a wood floor and I went outside to see the orange hen in the nest box, scratching hard on the wood. I checked, no egg. At about 5 I left to pick up the kids from school with one last check of the coop for eggs, nothing. I got home 20 minutes later and hubby had collected 2 eggs, I guess they decided to lay eggs the second the van left the driveway.
Our friends chickens have also started to lay eggs, they went 1 week without a single egg. They suspected that the hens were in revolt because they were being terrorized by their lab and their 2 year old son--both would run around the coop to get a better view of the birds. Now the hens have realized that neither is a threat to them and started laying.
Bee Removal--Midlothian April 14, 2010
On April 14th hubby and his pal drove to Midlothian for another honeybee removal. This was a much smaller hive and since they were in the soffit of a garage, the comb was almost perfectly sized for the standard size hive box. Hubby n'pal were able to trim the comb slightly and wire it into place on 4 frames from a super. (I'll have to do a post on bee hive components). This was a very small and even tempered hive from his comments. No one got stung.
The guys mentioned that the hive size had been greatly reduced, that they saw tons of disintegrating comb in the eaves of the garage and they brought home several combs that were completely empty except for a tiny bit of colorful pollen in a few cells.
Despite being small, these girls are working hard to expand their numbers, most of the comb was filled with brood of varying ages.
tiny brood
big brood
cutting down the comb to fit the frames
excess burr comb
wiring in the comb
The guys mentioned that the hive size had been greatly reduced, that they saw tons of disintegrating comb in the eaves of the garage and they brought home several combs that were completely empty except for a tiny bit of colorful pollen in a few cells.
Despite being small, these girls are working hard to expand their numbers, most of the comb was filled with brood of varying ages.
tiny brood
big brood
cutting down the comb to fit the frames
excess burr comb
wiring in the comb
Bee Removal--Arlington April 4, 2010
On Sunday April 4th hubby and his pal went to Arlington for a honeybee removal. While hubby likes the idea of keeping better records, he's just not that motivated to write here... but he did email me the following summary of this removal, which I will blatantly copy here.
hubby said:
"The bee removal was one of our hardest yet. They were between two floors (1st and 2nd). We pulled off the wooden siding to get to the bees from the outside. They were in the floor joists. We removed enough to see we couldn't’t get it all from the inside. We went upstairs and cut a hole in the sub floor. They were everywhere. It was probably back from the wall 4-5’ and the floor joists were about a foot across and about that deep FULL of comb. Easy two brood boxes full. Luckily we brought my vacuum and his because we needed it with all the bees we got. I’m probably going to go back later this week to suck up the few we missed. There were tons of drones so we might need to requeen anyway. There are tons of bees to make it successful even with a new queen. I haven’t talked that over with Lee yet. Not sure if he’s getting the hive or if we are. For as many bees as there were they were pretty tame. Lee got stung on the knee (think he squished one), I got stung on the chin because I needed to take my hat off and I let one in, and then I think I squished one under my arm (that one hurts). The family wanted to make sure we were able to save all the brood and every last bee. She got stung under the nose (she nearly cried) and she asked if there was a way that they could sting and not die. Almost laughed that even after being stung on the nose she was worried about one bee dying when we had up wards of 80 THOUSAND bees. I guess I understand, but still kind of funny. They had a kid about 11 or 12 that was really excited about suiting up and looking at the bees with us, until we actually opened everything up and he saw all the bees. He didn’t come anywhere close to the hive after his mom got stung. The dad was an Aussie and his accent was pretty strong."
end quote...
They guys went back to the home in Arlington on April 7th to catch the remaining bees. Hubby said that there were tons of dead bees in the house. He suspects that when they opened up the wall to get at the hive, the bees were able to get into the room, but not able to find their way out again. It is funny (and sweet) that with 80 thousand bees, these guys are worried about the death of a few hundred of them.
Since the comb and removal was such a mess from this site, they were not able to reuse much of the comb in the newly relocated hive. Our friends were able to extract 14lbs of honey from this hive. The honey was mostly uncapped, so it has a strong, raw flavor that is not like anything I have tasted before. Not unpleasant, but just very different. Hubby does not like it, but I'm still undecided. Undecided enough to use nearly half a small jar in my various cups of tea over the last 2 weeks...
hubby said:
"The bee removal was one of our hardest yet. They were between two floors (1st and 2nd). We pulled off the wooden siding to get to the bees from the outside. They were in the floor joists. We removed enough to see we couldn't’t get it all from the inside. We went upstairs and cut a hole in the sub floor. They were everywhere. It was probably back from the wall 4-5’ and the floor joists were about a foot across and about that deep FULL of comb. Easy two brood boxes full. Luckily we brought my vacuum and his because we needed it with all the bees we got. I’m probably going to go back later this week to suck up the few we missed. There were tons of drones so we might need to requeen anyway. There are tons of bees to make it successful even with a new queen. I haven’t talked that over with Lee yet. Not sure if he’s getting the hive or if we are. For as many bees as there were they were pretty tame. Lee got stung on the knee (think he squished one), I got stung on the chin because I needed to take my hat off and I let one in, and then I think I squished one under my arm (that one hurts). The family wanted to make sure we were able to save all the brood and every last bee. She got stung under the nose (she nearly cried) and she asked if there was a way that they could sting and not die. Almost laughed that even after being stung on the nose she was worried about one bee dying when we had up wards of 80 THOUSAND bees. I guess I understand, but still kind of funny. They had a kid about 11 or 12 that was really excited about suiting up and looking at the bees with us, until we actually opened everything up and he saw all the bees. He didn’t come anywhere close to the hive after his mom got stung. The dad was an Aussie and his accent was pretty strong."
end quote...
They guys went back to the home in Arlington on April 7th to catch the remaining bees. Hubby said that there were tons of dead bees in the house. He suspects that when they opened up the wall to get at the hive, the bees were able to get into the room, but not able to find their way out again. It is funny (and sweet) that with 80 thousand bees, these guys are worried about the death of a few hundred of them.
Since the comb and removal was such a mess from this site, they were not able to reuse much of the comb in the newly relocated hive. Our friends were able to extract 14lbs of honey from this hive. The honey was mostly uncapped, so it has a strong, raw flavor that is not like anything I have tasted before. Not unpleasant, but just very different. Hubby does not like it, but I'm still undecided. Undecided enough to use nearly half a small jar in my various cups of tea over the last 2 weeks...
Friday, April 9, 2010
Solar Oven Cooking, Trial I
Hubby bought us a Solar Oven last week. It arrived just before Easter, but it has been cloudy, or chance of rain-y since. Yesterday morning, as I was preparing a batch of beans for the crock pot, I discovered that my leftover ham bone was much bigger than I thought and I ended up with an extra cup of soaked pinto beans.
With only a 10% chance of rain forecast for today and the sky totally clear before sunrise, I decided to give the solar oven a go.
I sliced off a small portion of ham for each of 2 half quart jars and added 1/2 cup of soaked beans to each. I put used canning jar lids on and barely tightened the screw bands.
I put the solar oven in the garden and pointed it approximately south/southwest so it would catch the rays the hottest part of the day. Ideally, the oven can be roatated throughout the day to follow the main rays of the sun; not-so- ideally, I work away from home all day long, so I had to work with what I had. Start time... 7 am.
Fast forward many hours of work.. and at 5 pm I returned home to find the sun oven sitting in full shade and the temp gauge reading ~80F...ambient air temp. But it appeared that something good had happened during the day. The liquid at the bottom of the jars was a milky beany color and the jars were quite warm to the touch. I quickly moved the oven to a sunny spot in the yard and realigned it to catch the last 2 hours of sunlight of the day. Within 10 minutes, the oven was reading back up at 200F and within 15 minutes the temp was at 250F.
By dinner time at 6, I had to use potholders to lift the jars--a great sign!
I also saw that at least one of the jars had reached a full rolling boil and had even boiled over onto the tray.
Now the review, and very handy comparison with crock pot beans.
Both jars needed more liquid, and in fact, so did the crock pot... My extra large ham bone had partially propped open the lid of the crock pot and the top inch of water had boiled out, leaving hard crunchy beans in the top inch of the crock pot. I had to carefully scoop the crunchy beans off the top of the crock pot. I figured the same fate faced the beans that were left out of the water in the solar oven cooking jars, but no. Actually, the solar oven beans above the water level were tender and soft, not at all crunchy.
Here is a side by side comparison:
crock pot beans are on the left and Solar beans are on the right. Both are perfectly cooked through and tender, the crock beans have a bit more fat and flavor (they also cooked with about 2lbs of ham bone, skin and fat) whereas the solar oven beans only got about 3 oz of ham meat per jar. The darker beans on the left were kind of hard due to being cooked above the water line (apparently, I was not successful in picking them all out). There were NO crunchy beans in the solar oven jars.
In conclusion:
1) beans in the solar oven were cooked to perfect consistency
2) beans in the solar oven above the waterline fared better than beans above the waterline in the crock pot
3) flavor of crock pot beans was better, but only due to the huge ham hock
4) solar beans took NO ELECTRICITY to cook, nada.
5) crock pot beans cooked all day on high in the crock pot (wish I had a way to measure how much electricity it took...)
Next time for solar cooking:
1) bigger jars
2) more water in the jars
3) Solar oven located in a place to get full afternoon sun (not the garden, apparently)
4) not too much to add, I am SO very pleased with our first solar cooking experience. I usually don't hit it right on the first try, but I could not imagine a better first attempt at something so novel.
Now, my next effort will be... Solar baking
With only a 10% chance of rain forecast for today and the sky totally clear before sunrise, I decided to give the solar oven a go.
I sliced off a small portion of ham for each of 2 half quart jars and added 1/2 cup of soaked beans to each. I put used canning jar lids on and barely tightened the screw bands.
I put the solar oven in the garden and pointed it approximately south/southwest so it would catch the rays the hottest part of the day. Ideally, the oven can be roatated throughout the day to follow the main rays of the sun; not-so- ideally, I work away from home all day long, so I had to work with what I had. Start time... 7 am.
Fast forward many hours of work.. and at 5 pm I returned home to find the sun oven sitting in full shade and the temp gauge reading ~80F...ambient air temp. But it appeared that something good had happened during the day. The liquid at the bottom of the jars was a milky beany color and the jars were quite warm to the touch. I quickly moved the oven to a sunny spot in the yard and realigned it to catch the last 2 hours of sunlight of the day. Within 10 minutes, the oven was reading back up at 200F and within 15 minutes the temp was at 250F.
By dinner time at 6, I had to use potholders to lift the jars--a great sign!
I also saw that at least one of the jars had reached a full rolling boil and had even boiled over onto the tray.
Now the review, and very handy comparison with crock pot beans.
Both jars needed more liquid, and in fact, so did the crock pot... My extra large ham bone had partially propped open the lid of the crock pot and the top inch of water had boiled out, leaving hard crunchy beans in the top inch of the crock pot. I had to carefully scoop the crunchy beans off the top of the crock pot. I figured the same fate faced the beans that were left out of the water in the solar oven cooking jars, but no. Actually, the solar oven beans above the water level were tender and soft, not at all crunchy.
Here is a side by side comparison:
crock pot beans are on the left and Solar beans are on the right. Both are perfectly cooked through and tender, the crock beans have a bit more fat and flavor (they also cooked with about 2lbs of ham bone, skin and fat) whereas the solar oven beans only got about 3 oz of ham meat per jar. The darker beans on the left were kind of hard due to being cooked above the water line (apparently, I was not successful in picking them all out). There were NO crunchy beans in the solar oven jars.
In conclusion:
1) beans in the solar oven were cooked to perfect consistency
2) beans in the solar oven above the waterline fared better than beans above the waterline in the crock pot
3) flavor of crock pot beans was better, but only due to the huge ham hock
4) solar beans took NO ELECTRICITY to cook, nada.
5) crock pot beans cooked all day on high in the crock pot (wish I had a way to measure how much electricity it took...)
Next time for solar cooking:
1) bigger jars
2) more water in the jars
3) Solar oven located in a place to get full afternoon sun (not the garden, apparently)
4) not too much to add, I am SO very pleased with our first solar cooking experience. I usually don't hit it right on the first try, but I could not imagine a better first attempt at something so novel.
Now, my next effort will be... Solar baking
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Even Further down Crazy Lane
We have some new arrivals in our family that take us just a few steps further down the crazy path... But first lets recap all the ways we are endearing ourselves to the neighborhood:
1) slowly getting rid of lawn and planting edible plants instead
2) keeping 50,000 flying,stinging insects in small wooden boxes
3) storing stinky rainwater in giant plastic barrels
4) hanging my families socks and undies out in the sunshine for the world to see
5) composting every scrap of organic matter in a big smelly pile
So why not add squawking, pooping and mulch decimation to the list too...
Welcome Horton Hens!
The as-yet-unnamed trio are expats from my in-laws farm in Bells. 'Blackie' and "Whitie" (not their real names) are part of the mean girl group of hens my MIL was given. The original 6 hens were deemed too mean and uncivilized to live with her existing flock of 50 pet chickens. One of the six mean girls we butchered and ate last year, the other five came home with us on April 2nd to live a city life. We were also able to scam her out of one of her pet Aurachana chickens. Wait, you say, the math just does not add up... five plus one totals six chickens, but I only see three in the picture. It gets even better, we convinced some friends of ours they too needed to keep chickens in the city... so they got three, we got three and this area of North Dallas just got a bit crazier.
Hubby has been very busy building a great chicken-hutch-house for our new girls. It is framed out with split cedar 2x2s, has 1/4" wire sides and bottom, and a hinged front door leading to a 5x8x5 foot run built with 2x4 welded wire. The main part of the house is sturdy enough that if this whole chicken thing does not work out due to city regulations we can use it to house rabbits.
So why, if they are smelly, messy, and possibly illegal in our city, would we want to do this?
EGGS! Within the first 24 hours of city life, one of our three hens had laid the first egg. We also want this to be an experience for the kids on where food comes from. Since he helps collect eggs at Grandma's house, boy sort of knows that eggs come from chickens, but now it will be a daily thing (we hope).
We also want to use this as 'practice' for when we can get out into the country and have some room to raise a bunch of chickens for eggs and meat. Like so many of our endeavors here in town, we hope to work out the kinks in these small scale systems so we can go with confidence into full blown production when we have the opportunity.
1) slowly getting rid of lawn and planting edible plants instead
2) keeping 50,000 flying,stinging insects in small wooden boxes
3) storing stinky rainwater in giant plastic barrels
4) hanging my families socks and undies out in the sunshine for the world to see
5) composting every scrap of organic matter in a big smelly pile
So why not add squawking, pooping and mulch decimation to the list too...
Welcome Horton Hens!
The as-yet-unnamed trio are expats from my in-laws farm in Bells. 'Blackie' and "Whitie" (not their real names) are part of the mean girl group of hens my MIL was given. The original 6 hens were deemed too mean and uncivilized to live with her existing flock of 50 pet chickens. One of the six mean girls we butchered and ate last year, the other five came home with us on April 2nd to live a city life. We were also able to scam her out of one of her pet Aurachana chickens. Wait, you say, the math just does not add up... five plus one totals six chickens, but I only see three in the picture. It gets even better, we convinced some friends of ours they too needed to keep chickens in the city... so they got three, we got three and this area of North Dallas just got a bit crazier.
Hubby has been very busy building a great chicken-hutch-house for our new girls. It is framed out with split cedar 2x2s, has 1/4" wire sides and bottom, and a hinged front door leading to a 5x8x5 foot run built with 2x4 welded wire. The main part of the house is sturdy enough that if this whole chicken thing does not work out due to city regulations we can use it to house rabbits.
So why, if they are smelly, messy, and possibly illegal in our city, would we want to do this?
EGGS! Within the first 24 hours of city life, one of our three hens had laid the first egg. We also want this to be an experience for the kids on where food comes from. Since he helps collect eggs at Grandma's house, boy sort of knows that eggs come from chickens, but now it will be a daily thing (we hope).
We also want to use this as 'practice' for when we can get out into the country and have some room to raise a bunch of chickens for eggs and meat. Like so many of our endeavors here in town, we hope to work out the kinks in these small scale systems so we can go with confidence into full blown production when we have the opportunity.
Potatoes Mulch layer 1
On April 4th, the potato plants were up enough for me to add the first layer of hay mulch.
Here is one of the little potato sprouts.
I noticed that the blue potatoes I planted later than the rest (March 5) were up first. They were also a lot leggier when I planted them.
Here is one of the little potato sprouts.
I noticed that the blue potatoes I planted later than the rest (March 5) were up first. They were also a lot leggier when I planted them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)