Happy Place!

I have two happy places - Orlando (Disney & Universal) and Naples, FL.

This week, I am at one of them!

Have a great weekend - I am going to get myself some much needed Vitamin D!

The Sequester

I had heard about it, I had read a little about it, but it wasn't going to effect me at all.....or was it?

This week started the traffic controller furloughs...and guess who is traveling this week?

I need to read more!

White eggs!

I know to a lot of people, finding two white eggs in a coop is not exciting.

But to me, it is a celebration!!

In all my years of raising hens for eggs, I have always chosen brown layers and this year, I decided to try white leghorns.  At exactly 22 weeks, they are laying.  I got one white egg yesterday and two white eggs today.  So two of the three are laying (along with my red stars who laid the two brown eggs)!

Very exciting for me!!!

It is Violet Jelly Time

I know April is the time for Violet Jelly and I was reading one of my favorite blogs (Chickens in the Road) last week, and she reminded me that violets should be coming out soon.  Within five days, my violets started coming out and I picked them on Saturday.  On Sunday, my friend Kathy and I got together for our annual canning session!

Here are the violets seeping in the boiling water (which is used as the base of the jelly).  It is purple until you add in the lemon juice and then it turns a beautiful shade of pink!

 I wish I had a better camera where I could show the beautiful purple color of the liquid!

Then we canned four batches in pint and 1/2 pint containers.  Kathy and I each got 10 and that will last me for a while.

Here is a close up and because the color just wasn't coming out good, I decided......

to take a photo outside.  This way the color shows a little bit better!

It really is beautiful!

Spring clean up (hens)

We knew we had to clip the wings of the new pullets quickly.  They are very skittish and they tend to fly high.  We were a little nervous that they would get over the 10 foot high fence.

So, Sunday was Clipping Day.

The Red Stars were clipped last year and their feathers only grew in a little, so I didn't need to do much.  But there were white feathers everywhere, after clipping the three leghorns.

Lots of Prayers....

...For Boston and the injured and the people who have died.

Lots of prayers.

Yard Clean Up and a surprise.....

This Sunday was our planned day to take care of the yard.  It was a gorgeous day and the weather was perfect to spend outside.  The yard is now fertilized, raked, and cleaned up.  We did stick pick up (from all the storms), I pruned the mulberry tree and put down mulch.  I planted my tomatoes and my onions (in the house), to be transferred out to the garden next month!   Richard helped us all day and we got everything that we wanted to accomplished.  We even had the house power washed!

As I was raking the top section of the yard, on the opposite side of the chicken coop.  I saw a coiled snake.  All I could do was run like a lunatic and scream for husband (he was in the front yard)...I am so afraid of snakes so while I cried my eyes out, he got rid of it!   Maybe we weren't supposed to kill it, but I spend a lot of time outdoors and this was a big one.  It was about 25-30 inches long, thicker than a garden snake (about 1-1/2 inch diameter) and my son Rick thinks it was a milk snake.  Honestly, I think it was a copperhead but I don't care what the hell it was.  As long as it is gone.

Here are the markings:  If I have any snake experts out there, let me know your thoughts.  I'm just glad that the dog nor the chickens came across it!  

After careful examination of the CT Snake website, it is either an Eastern Milk Snake or a  copperhead.....we don't know...

Birthday!

This week is one of my best friend's 50th Birthday.

The eight group friends (we call ourselves a mental health group) got together as we try to do often (but never often enough!) and went out for dinner and then to my house.  I forgot my camera at the restaurant, so I will need to add pictures of dinner and of cake!

But this is us at my home later, eating and drinking more, and laughing......

You know it is a great night, when you can say you laughed for 5-1/2 hours and your cheeks hurt the next day!

Love you guys!

Easter

Here are a few pictures from our holiday (HOLY Day!)

These are the kids......My nephew brought home six friends from college; my oldest son had already gone to work and my youngest was still at college - it was too far to come home for three days!  But these were all the rest of the nieces/nephews/cousins!

Here are the adults taking the photos.

 These are some of the adults that were at dinner.  It was so cold not everyone came outside!

And this is my boy with the biggest chocolate Easter Egg that we could buy at the store!  And the chocolate was from Italy and it was so good.....really good milk chocolate (and I don't like milk chocolate!).

New additions

I picked up my three new Leghorns the week before Easter.  They are slowly getting used to their new surroundings.  My older hens are not too thrilled them.  The whole "pecking order" was driving us nuts, so we separated them a little bit until they get to know each other a little better.  

I should be getting eggs in about five weeks or so!  Only two eggs a day isn't cutting it any more.  So five a day would be better!!!