Snowing Sideways...

Here in Western NY, Mother Nature scoffs at the calendar. What do you mean winter doesn't start until December 21st? Hah, like she holds to that! The temperatures have steadily made their way into the chilly range, and we've had the furnace on since Thanksgiving(albeit set only on 55 degrees). We have certainly learned why there are 8 huge wind turbines on the shores of Lake Erie, as the winds have been whipping steadily in the 30 mph range more often than not the last week or so, with gusts up to 55 mph. The company next door to where I work replaced their flag the week before Thanksgiving - it's already been ripped in half and is deteriorating rapidly.



Sunday saw four inches of snow covering the ground, but melting rapidly as the temperatures worked their way into the upper 30s. It did stick around enough for Pollux to play in it...



... and for the majority of the chickens to make their opinions known, as they glared disdainfully at the cold white stuff covering the ground.



My drive in this morning was rather uneventful, as apparently I'm adjusting to driving with a steady press of wind off the lake. It started raining last night, melting the snow and turning the back yard into a pond, and was still drizzling this morning on my way in. The temperature has dropped far enough since that it's now snowing, and the wind is kicking off the lake, making it snow sideways. The schools along the lake have closed school, anticipating a really nasty afternoon. Hopefully it'll wait until I'm home before really cranking into high gear!

The First Thanksgiving...

In our house, at any rate, and our first hosted Thanksgiving as well. We were lucky to have four guests come to celebrate with us; Mike's dad, Rick, his fiancee, Joann, his aunt Christina, and her girlfriend, Kim. Rick and Joann arrived around noon on Wednesday in the midst of a steady rain that continued the rest of the day. We spent the rest of the day prepping for Thanksgiving, mostly.

See...here I am working on the rolls ... I swear, there are more pictures of me cooking than I've ever had taken before!


I think we got the turkey in the oven around 10:30a(after a late breafast) ...that was one BIG turkey!



After that it was final prep time - peeling potatoes, setting the table, and putting out the snacks.





Christina and Kim arrived around 1pm Thanksgiving day, and shortly thereafter a pinball tournament commenced! Christina's the one getting some hip action into her play, and Kim's watching for pointers :)



The turkey arrived fashionably late(about an hour and a half!) and we finally got to sit down to eat! It was a good thing we put our so many snacks, or else the natives would have gotten even more restless than they did. The dishes were set out on the table, the turkey carved, and then we finally got to dig in.



Wouldn't you know it but all that work just tired us all out! Just about everyone crashed fairly early, appetites sated, and all the cooking even wore out the dog ;)



Happy belated Thanksgiving, All!!

It's all white inside....

Yeah, inside. We are working hard towards getting the dining room done, and there's drywall dust EVERYWHERE. In the living room, bathroom, kitchen, upstairs...that stuff is just downright pervasive. I think Mike's planning on getting the last of the sanding on the ceiling down today and priming it, as well as priming what remains to be done in the office. Tonight, hopefully, I will finish the walls that I've been working on. I know that there's a possibility I may have to do a smidge more mudding on the bay window wall, but the two other walls will be ready to be sanding smooth, so that's on my list.

We had hoped to get at least as far as getting the dining room primed by Sunday night, but that just didn't happen. We ended up having to make a trip to Lowes both Saturday and Sunday, which just ate up a HUGE amount of time. We're borrowing a ladder from work so we can get some of the stuff that needs done on the roof taken care of(it's 28' long - a full 7 feet longer than ours) and we got that picked up Saturday. Saturday afternoon I went up and got the flashing around the chimney sealed up(brrrrrrr), wasn't too windy on the ground, but 25 feet up, wow!

But, I did manage to remember more batteries for my camera...so I'll be able to post some pics here soon! We got some awesome shots of Pollux playing frisbee, using Mike's camera, and I need to upload those from my laptop. So, this is going to be a short post, and I'll get some pictures up later this week!

What a weekend!

Well, we are most certainly into the final wind up for Thanksgiving, and winter. Mike and I spent Saturday out at my mom's, cutting firewood and helping her with some stuff around the house before having dinner and a small belated birthday celebration. :) I think we ended up bringing nearly a full face cord home, and spent a couple of hours yesterday sawing, splitting and stacking it. Well, Mike sawed and split, and I stacked - Jen and chainsaws are not compatible!

Fall weather has settled in with gusto in the last week, with wicked cold winds blowing off the lake and churning up waves, as well as stripping the leaves off the trees. The chickens are loving their expanded digs, though the high winds have kept them rather close to shelter. The weekend was clear and cool, with temps down around 30 overnight with heavy frosts, and highs during the day of around 50. We still haven't kicked the furnace on, but we did finally gave to the need for heat last night. Mike built the first fire of the year in the woodstove in the living room, and in short order we were roasty toasty in there. Made me realize how cool the house has really been of late. I think we were somewhere in the neighborhood of 52 degrees inside both Saturday and Sunday...definitely cause for some heat!

I think we're going to end up investing in a programmable thermostat. Would definitely help keep the gas bill down when we finally do kick the furnace on. Depending on how much sun we get, I don't know how much heat we'll have to run, to be honest, until the temperatures really dip. Though, one of the guys from the floor today mentioned a good side of this steady cold - it's dropping the temperature of the lake fast, which should help us out with snow once the winds shift.

I can't believe how rapidly time has been passing though. The more I think about it, the more I realize that come next Friday, I'm off for ten days...which, ordinarily would be cause for celebration, but in this case is rather nerve-wracking! Mike's dad and fiancee will be rolling into town via train on the 20th, and staying until the 24th, and his aunt and her girlfriend will be coming in Thanksgiving morning.

We have sooooo much to do in preparation. When I talked to Mike at lunch he was sanding drywall, trying to see how much more mudding he had to do before we can prime and paint. I know that I'll be working on texturing the walls this evening, and probably every evening until it's finished - once that's done it'll be prime and paint the walls as well. Well, I'm sure we're do the whole job all at once. :) I can't wait to see what the final result is!
Slowing getting more egg customers...though right now we're in excess of 6 dozen ahead of 'em! Ah well, we'll get there. Definitely will have plenty of eggs for deviled eggs come Turkey Day :)

Hmmm...lemme think...what else is going on....oh, something kinda cool for me...I was made moderator on a discussion board I belong to this past weekend. Considering we're all a rather well-behaved group, not sure how much moderating I'll be doing, but it's nice to have people I respect have that kind of confidence in me. The board is called The Green Branch, and I've included a link in the sidebar if anyone wants to drop in and visit. We touch on all sorts of topics, but the board is described as a "Politics, news, sustainability, self-sufficiency, alternative discussion forum". You can read some of the posts without becoming a member, so take a look and see what you think :)

I love three day weekends...

:)

I had Friday off again(gotta love a company that gives you a day off for your birthday, in addition to your normal vacations days!), though thankfully, this time butchering wasn't on the todo list. We spent a good portion of Friday running errands, making a trip to Target, Home Depot, Sears, and Premier Wines ;). We made the trip to target to get laundry supplies - Mike's been struggling with what we thought was psoriasis for the last three years, but Friday morning we discovered similar spots on my stomach. Well, as psoriasis is far from a contagious thing, we're thinking that it's contact dermatitis, and more than likely related to either our detergent or liquid fabric softener(Mike's voting for the later). So, we picked up our old brands of both, and hopefully we will see a reduction in the rashes soon. While we were there, we tried to pick up a new pair of jeans for me. Well, apparently, Target isn't taking the growing waistlines of Americans seriously, as there were only two styles of jeans available, both ugly, for plus size women. I was rather disappointed by that. So, we went to Sears, and I managed to find a decent looking pair of Levis. At one point I had found a website selling American made jeans - I need to try to track them down again. Though, hopefully come next summer, we'll know the area well enough to get back to yardsaling.
We picked up a hot water heater blanket at Home Depot, as well as drywall mud and screws, and a few other odds and ends. We had planned to pick up our paint for the dining room, but while there we rethought our plans for that room, and are currently working on texturing the walls and such, and will probably end up getting the paint either this weekend or next. I picked up a box of wine(yeah, you read that right...a box) at Premier - I had gone in intending to get a bottle for the weekend, and while wondering past the cooler, decided to give Premier's brand of wine a try. I figure, at least I won't have to deal with oxidation issues with the box, and it'll last a while! Mike's taking to calling be "Bubba J", after Jeff Dunham's hilly billy character(search for Bubba J on YouTube - there's a few clips...if I get a chance to go through them at home I'll find one with the "box wine" reference ;)).

It rained pretty much all day though, so we took it pretty easy. We did a test run on the wall texture Friday afternoon(that worked well, so we did a good chunk of the front wall Saturday), and tried to watch The Prairie Home Companion Friday evening. Ack. What a disappointment. We bailed about 35 minutes in after being prostitized to the entire time.

Saturday was nice, though. I managed to sleep in until almost 9, and Mike got up and took care of all the animals for me. For my birthday, Mike set up the worksurfaces in my craft room for me, and it looks awesome!!




The right side and middle of the U are made up of the closet doors that we pulled out of the office - their 32 inches deep and 72 inches long, and on the left side is my rolling table that Mike made me a few years ago. All in all, I now have a ton of room to work, and all of the stuff that's currently being stored in there can slide underneath and out of the way until we figure out where it's going to go longterm.
What's going to be really nice is that the chicken's yard is right out the window in front of my sewing machine, so while I'm working in there I can watch them, too. Bonus!

For dinner Mike made me Chicken Parmesan :) Yummmmmmmmmmmy! It was awesome...I think it might be the best batch he's made. We have leftovers for tonight too!




Yesterday was a beautiful, though somewhat blustery day though. I think the winds were somewhere between 10-15 mph steady, with gusts up to 25, and it was chilly enough that we had cold ears! We expanded the chickens yard for them, pushing back into the woods and extending it out further from the chicken house. They love it! We used a deer fence from Lee Valley - what awesome stuff! fairly strong, and nearly invisible at a distance. We took them from a 100 foot perimeter enclosure to a 230ish perimeter, with nearly all of the new stuff under the trees to protect them from hawks and such.

We had our first frost last night - a fairly heavy one that had me out scraping my windows this morning. At 7:30 is was 29 out, and 56 in the house. We're trying to hold off on kicking the furnace on - thankfully, last night was the coldest night in the forecast, so if the sun comes out the house should warm up nicely.

Fall is definitely here though!

Fall is here...

I don't have pictures yet - haven't even taken any, though I definitely need to, but Fall has definitely arrived here in Western NY. Every where you look, there's oranges and yellows and reds and golds and every color in between. Our grand pine in the front yard is beautifully framed by maples and oaks, its low, swag like branches vibrant and green against the flaming backdrop of the fall foliage. The yard is a riot of colors, and the chickens are in heaven. Opening the gate releases a flood of feathered fiends bee-lining for the blanket of fallen leaves, and soon they are rustling through them, looking for goodies.

Our weather has been alternating periods of crisp, cool fall temps, and indian summers. And rain, lots of rain. The month of October has seen highs of 85 degrees, and lows of 45, and we've received 2.76 inches of rain. And we're not done yet. While today and tomorrow are supposed to be dry, the rain will be returning for the weekend, with the forecasts predicting somewhere between a 60% and 80% chance of precipitation...with our proximity to Lake Erie, I have a feeling we'll be working inside the house, instead of out.

It will be cool though, so dinner this evening is going to be turkey and rice soup(made from a salvaged whole turkey breast - slightly freezer burnt- that we found in the freezer), and I think I see corn chowder on the menu for this weekend. Last night we had spicy mini-meatloaves with broccoli, and we'll be having the soup tonight before heading to a defensive driver course being offered by our insurance company - gotta save money any where we can, and the cost of the class will be offset the first year of the class's three year effective discount.

So, that's it for this week - kinda laid back I think. We were going to go out to my mom's for firewood, but the rain has squashed those plans, so that'll be next weekend, I guess. We might tackle the installation of the wood burner on the second floor - need to get a reducer and some flue repair cement to do that...not really expensive, but the repair costs are starting to add up, and we've still got a fair bit of winterizing left to do. Ah well, the joys of home-ownership!

And so it's done...

Well, the deed has been done. Turk was butchered this morning, and, thankfully, it wasn't as bad as I had expected. We dropped her off around 8:15, and went off to have a cup of coffee courtesy of the gentleman doing the deed. Apparently he has a deal with a restaurant owner in town for when people like us come in from out of town to have him process poultry. So, we passed an hour and a half, and when we returned, our turkey was ready to go. She dressed out at 24 pounds!! Mike was thinking she'd finish out at somewhere around 16, and I was expecting 20ish.

So, we have a HUGE turkey for Thanksgiving....I think I need more company ;) But, it's definitely doubtful that we'd raise our own turkey again. However, the area that we went to was absolutely breathtaking. Who knew that the Attica prison would be in such a picturesque setting. We both were wishing we had brought a camera, as the leaves were showing the most phenomal colors, and I wish we'd gotten a picture of the prison, with its casilated turrets and copper peaks and weathervanes.

Tomorrow we're off to my mom's to cut firewood and attend the haunted hayride that my aunt does every year. We'll take our dog with us(he loves going to Gramma's) and we'll let the chickens out before we leave.

Oh! The chickens...I almost forgot. We are getting an amazing number of eggs from them. We have six Buckeyes and nine Easter Eggers, and have been getting at least ten eggs a day from the group, with the last few days seeing daily totals of 13 and 14. We are definitely getting buried in eggs! We're taking a dozen to my aunt, and two dozen to my grandmother, hopefully that will have us at a little more manageable level. We met our local mechanic, and he helped Mike get the exhaust pipe tweaked to where it needed to be for free, so I took a dozen down to him yesterday. He seemed to appreciate the return of generosity and is definitely a character.

A Beginning....and an End...

Well, I never thought I'd do a blog, but, what the hell, right? So, here I am, with my own little place of the web to just ramble and ramble and ramble....scary thought, isn't it? But, hopefully, this will help me keep friends and family up to date on the goings on, and perhaps help me keep track of what day of the week I'm on! I'll probably post fairly frequently to start, just to update everyone, and then just do once or twice a week...unless things really get crazy! But, I think my first real one will be on just one subject...

Tomorrow is the day we take the turkey to the butcher. On April 3rd of this year, along with our shipment of chicks, we got 8 small turkey poults. Why? Because coworkers who had discovered we raised our own chickens for eggs and meat asked if we would raise turkeys for them. Well, we were interested in doing so for ourselves, and so we took the plunge.

Curious, striped, and social, they fascinated us with their little personalities. We lost one within the first 24 hours, to a chill, and another in 48. Four days later we lost a third. Raising turkeys was proving to be a great deal more challenging than chickens.

But, after than, things settled down, and soon we were moving them out to the chicken house. A few weeks of brooding saw us lose yet another to a chill when we had a cold snap, and we were lucky not to lose more. And so we were down to four. By this time we were fairly certain we would not try raising turkeys again. The weather warmed, and as the grass sprung up we created a yard for the poults and chicks to venture into.


And they grew...and grew...and grew. We lost one after three months, then the heat wave in July took another two. And so we were left with one. We had determined not to name the turkeys, make the butchering too hard, but soon the last turkey, a hen, became TurkTurk. She followed us like a dog around the yard, came running when called, and pipped happily when we came to visit. It wasn't long before we knew that butchering Turk was going to be very, very, hard. She made the trip from Southern Ohio to our new home south of Buffalo safely and well, and willingly made her home with the chickens in the old garage in the back of our property.


And so...we finally realized that there was no way we could do the deed ourselves. After five months, a roadtrip, and Mike having to nurse her back to health after the heat took her two comrades, we finally were honest and decided to look for someone who would do it for us. It took a while, but finally after giving our number to someone, who gave it to someone, who posted here and there that we were looking, we found a gentleman who butchers poultry on the side. And the day has arrived.

Tomorrow morning, Mike and I will get up, and settle Turk into a box for the trip. About a week and a half ago, while trying to keep up with her chickens, she hurt her left leg. We think it probably is just the toe, but since then she's been pretty well confining herself to the chicken house. The fact that she's not happily tooling around the yard has made the necessity of the trip tomorrow easier to bear. We can't stand to see her unhappy.

So, that's what we're doing tomorrow. I've taken the day off so that both of us can go, both to make it easier on both of us to have company, and as a tribute to a bird who's come close to being a pet.

We'll never raise turkeys again. But we will make sure to give her the honor she deserves, as the turkey, truly, is a noble bird.