Culinary Arts

Here are a few items from recent meals. First are Cat Head Biscuits (no felines are harmed in their making), awesome with butter and honey. Next is a fruit tart; the little tag says 'inspected by Tom', just in case you wondered. Then there are Fluffy Dinner Rolls, and finally, everyone's favorite, a delicious Spider Under Glass. Sadly, the photo just doesn't show the Spider to his best Googly Eyed advantage.

Tomato Time

Today is the Big Day! The Jiffy Pellets are fluffed up and the seeds are in, the tray is covered and in a warm, brightly lit place. Where at least one representative from the Flock 'O Felines will be sure to find it and add a charming element of entropy to my well ordered planting.

This year we'll have some new varieties to try. One is Jubilee, an OP yellow variety described to be tastier than Lemon Boy (truly?). Another is Tomande, a hybrid slicing variety with improved resistance and setting ability for our Coastal climate. There's also a new tomatillo, the name of which escapes me. Roma, Early Girl, and Celebrity round out the field.

A Fine Scottish Day

This the same place that we we're burning brush a week ago. It seems possible that we may have gotten more rain in the last few weeks than in the whole previous year.

Update: official rainfall today was 4.06 inches; the last similar rain event was October '07. There were also two tornadoes, and lots (as in 10 inches, a new record) of snow out west.

Anyone got a set of Ark plans?

No Scurvy!

Just to annoy y'all up north, here's some garden and orchard pics from this afternoon, in no particular order. The batch of lemons are Meyers, they are sweet enough to eat out of hand. There's some lettuce and broccoli that we'll be having with dinner tonite. That's a Marrs Orange, they're a very popular biannual and very likely to be found at your grocery right now. The giant rough yellow thing is a Ponderosa Lemon. One of them will make ya a lemon meringue pie and a pitcher of lemonade to wash it down with.

Chores in Progress

Some of the chores here can really be kind of fun. Cleaning up is one of them, at least if you get to use the right tools. Below you can see some action photos of folks hard at work, getting the back pasture presentable. Fire and accelerants are considered tools, right? The Donkey Department is always ready to help out, especially with the part about relaxing with a cold beverage afterwards.

Eggs-a-lent!

We have a couple dozen hens occupying Cluckingham Palace at any given time, so there's always plenty of fresh eggs.. Yard eggs are actually a lot different from store eggs, sort of like tomatoes from the store versus homegrown tomatoes.

Anyway, here's a typical batch-we're only getting about 6 - 8 per day right now. When we get back into Hot, the girls will lay more. First is a Jersey Giant egg; they are big black (or white) chickens that can get up to 15 or 20 pounds. They lay lots of big brown eggs.

Next is a Wellsumer egg; you've seen Wellsumers on the Cornflakes box. Their eggs are very dark, but are pretty much same as the others inside. This pullet only started laying this week, so her eggs will get bigger with time. This variety isn't quite as productive as some of the other types of chicken.

The rest are Aracaunas (Easter Eggers). They are actually hybrid chickens and lay all colors from blue to green to pink. The hens themselves are all different colors too, which is kind of entertaining, Easter Eggers never seem to get as tame as the other chickens, but the roosters are very gentle- that's a big plus, as an aggressive Rooster can be rather problematic.

The second photo is just your typical Chicken Blowing Balloom....

Rufus Da Dufus

Happy New Year! FSM apparently feels we lack adequate representation in the Canine Contigent, so he sent this fellow to join us. He's rather well behaved, at least so far. Fortunately he gets along with the Dynamic Duo and doesn't think of kitties or chickens as snack foods.

I'd like him to be an outside dog because we are infested with Bobcats lately. Our Donkey Department does a great job guarding the pastures but they can't patrol the yard, so it would be a Real Job, deserving of generous compensation, you know, doggie treats and such. Rufus has now survived three attacks by the Donkey Department and hopefully has figured out that canines are Not Tolerated in Donkey World.

Here's his mug shot, and one of the Complete Canine Contingent.