Eggs

Well those of you who don't have chickens, (You know who you are) may not find eggs very exciting, but Gramma and I do. Now that we can tell the hens apart we can figure out who lays what egg. Welsummer hens make this kinda easy cause thier egg color is unique to each hen. This is cool and exciting. Stop rolling your eyes. The only hard part was catching the hens in the nest box and when they got out so I knew who layed what egg. Lucy and Ethel's eggs are very similar, but Ethel's egg spots are darker. Alice has really tiny spots close together. Crooked Butt's eggs have an almost colorless spot on each side and they are different each time. Also her eggs are actually crooked. It's weird.

Ireland Day 5

Thursday 9/30/04
Got a late start. Heading to Tralee. Drove through "The Burren". It's a strange mountainous area that is made up of small rocks. It's actually more than one mountain. Lots of rock walls. Lots of ruins of castles and monk towers. We see lots of stuff to take pictures of but cannot take pictures because of the narrow roads with no shoulders and no place to pull over and traffic that tries to run you over. Very scary. We decided today that if we ever come back here we will take bus tours so we can see what we are driving by. Fences, hedges and stone walls keep you from seeing some of the stuff along the road. Also because you fear for your life while driving and can't take your eyes off the road. I do not exaggerate. Finally found a spot to pull over and take pictures after driving up the mountain on lots of switchbacks. Other tourists were there taking pictures of a cow next to the road. They thought it was a bull! Big difference. Got to the"Cliffs of Mohr". Magnificent. Hope the pictures do it justice. Drove south toward Tralee. Some parts of the road are good and others are scary. Gramma says she feels like she is on a scary amusement park ride. We got lost in Kilrush looking for the ferry road. Signs are good sometimes and not good othertimes. Made it to the ferry. That was fun. Got to Tralee. Went to the Grand Hotel. No elevator, smoky room, windows that face the roof in the middle where all the fans and chimneys and stuff are. Not good. Ate in the pub downstairs. Good food, except the best beef in Ireland seems to be equal to the most mediocre beef in the States. But the beer was good. Also we had lunch in Quiltey today at "Cooney's Pub". Good food. Had "Toasties" which are just toasted sandwhiches. Stay tuned, more to come.

Scratching Post.

For a long time Gramma and I have wanted to get some kind of scratching post for the horses. Ingrid is always scratching on the feeder or the barn posts or something. This is hard on her tail as it breaks the hair on the top of her tail. Everything we have looked at is either useless or too expensive. We have seen these brushes in different places but we have no sources to get them cheaply. Well when the Farmer Daughter and I took the pigs to St. Paul we took them to the Dodge Nature Center. A really cool place for kids to learn about farm animals. They had a couple of these brushes in a pasture and I asked the guy who runs the place about them. It turns out they used have a couple Fjiords and they were for them and the cows to scratch on. I mentioned that I had been looking for something like that and he asked me if I wanted one. For free! Seems he has a buddy that works for the city street dept. These are street sweeper brushes and when they get down to a certain diameter they replace them and Don gets them for free. Cool. So Friday our LEO son and our grandson Bubba and I went to the lake to put in the boat lift and when we got home they helped me put it up. (Thanks guys) It took Ingrid about 5 minutes to figure out what to do with it. It took Aksel about 2 hours, and most of that time he spent trying to eat it. Hopefully they will use it and Ingrid's tail will get better. Later.

Ireland Day 4

Wednesday 9/29/04

Drove to Cong today. Small roads, very narrow, very scary. I thought it would be better, but all the locals drive very fast. Not as good driving as I thought it would be. Went to Ashford Castle first. It was wonderful. Had an Irish coffee at the Little Cottage at the castle. Saw Cohan's Bar in Cong. Changed some in the last 53 years. The whole town has changed some in that time. Went to see the Castletown Station, and got lost twice. Turns out it is now someone's home so you can't see any of it that was in the movie. Disappointing. Oh well, that's life and after all this is "An Adventure". Gramma is scared a lot when we drive. Got back to Galway and stayed one more night at the Great Southern Hotel.

Free Range Eggs

Well the chickens have been out "Free Ranging" for several weeks now and the difference in yolk color is quite amazing. The lighter yolk in the picture is a store egg. Our eggs were this color before we let the girls out. No wonder free range eggs are better for you. More nutritious, 1/3 less cholesterol etc. I didn't mean to break all the yolks, but after I broke one and took pics, it turns out it was easier to see the difference if I broke them all. The difference is greater than the pictures show. Also they taste better. The girls are all grown enough now that I can tell them apart by their combs. So I named them now. Lucy, Ethel, Alice and Crooked Butt. Gramma doesn't like that last name but as you can see it fits. Bye.

Ireland Day 3

Tuesday 9/28/04

Gramma had to work today too. I was going to take the ferry to Inishmor, but found out I wouldn't get back til 8PM. So I decided not to go. Walked around the rest of Galway. Put a lot of miles on my feet the last two days. Raining again today. Still enjoyed walking around the city. All of the old part of town has narrow streets and all the buildings are hooked together. Most of the shops, pubs and hotels were built in the 16, 17 and 1800's. Everyone has been very friendly. Tomorrow we drive to Cong where "The Quiet Man" movie was made. (One of my all time favorites)

Ireland Travels

Ireland Day 3 Monday 9/27/04

Walked around Galway today. Raining. The Normans took the territory from the O'Flaherty family in 1234 and built a wall for defense in 1270. There is still two parts of this wall left and it seems hard to believe that I touched a man made thing that's almost 800 years old. Also went to the Church of St. Nicholas which was built in 1320 and is still in use today almost 700 years later. You can walk around the church but part of the path is tombs, so it's kind of creepy to walk on someones grave. I went inside and there were people in there praying so I didn't take any pictures inside. Ate lunch at O'Flaherty's and ate supper there too.

Chicks. Moved the new chicks into the garage yesterday as they were getting too big for the plastic bins. They seem to grow as you look at them. Be down in the coop before you know it.

Thursday I finally got the new boat in the water. There is an 8 hour break-in on the motor, but basically the first 2 hours are what count. I got an hour and 45 mins. in before it got so windy I had to get off the lake. So yesterday Gramma and I went to the lake and put in the dock and finished the fifteen mins. left of the break-in. We are very happy. 60 horse motor that trolls down like a 5 1/2. Fabulous. Drove from the lake to the Farmer Daughters house to pick up the post hole auger. Now I will get started on the deck. Gramma is happy. The Farmer Daughter is gathering turkey and duck eggs to put in her incubater and starting today we are saving our chicken eggs for her to hatch. Hopefully she will post some pics of this on her blog.

Ireland day 2
Sunday 9/26/04

Going to breakfast. Stayed in bed for almost 12 hours. Drove to Galway. Getting used to driving on the left. Stopped at Athlone for lunch. Ate at O'Neals Pub. Gramma had a Guiness and I had a Carlsburg. Good beer. Staying at the Great Southern Hotel in Galway. Beautiful. 4 seperate rooms. Bedroom, sitting room, and 2 baths. Hotel built in 1845. We went to bed about 9:30 and I slept till midnight. Can't sleep anymore. Gramma goes to work tomorrow so I am off on my own. Probably walk around Galway and maybe take a boat to the Aran Islands. Country side looks a bit different than I thought it would. By Dublin there are lots of trees. The farther West we went the trees got less and less and the rock walls got more and more. Pretty country. Towns are are pretty neat too. All the stores and pubs in the small towns are hooked together with small alleys here and there.

In 2004 Gramma and I went to Ireland. Seems like a lifetime ago. Gramma had business there through her work and I went along to keep her company. I kept a little journal of our adventure and I decided to put down here. Hope you find it interesting.

Saturday 9/25/04 Day 1

Arrived in Amsterdam about 12:00 PM, 1 1/2 hour layover. Arrived in Dublin 3:00 PM, rented a car and drove to the hotel. Very Scary! Driving on left steering wheel on right. Roads are very narrow. Hotel on the East Coast by Dublin Bay of the Irish Sea. The hotel is the Pormarnock Hotel and Golf Links. The hotel is nice. Also very old I think. The golf course is a links course and very scary looking. Deep roughs and deep circular bunkers. Our room overlooks the 1st tee. Our room faces Southwest and in the distance we can see what looks like mountains. Didn't know there were mountains here. Had to eat in the room as there were weddings and things going on and everything was crowded. Exhausted.

Tilling the Soil

Well we finally got some much needed rain last night. We have been under fire bans for awhile. For the first time since they have been keeping records we didn't get any snow in March. What? Yes folks that is correct. Amazing. Even without rain the "Boys" have been tilling in their pen. Loosening the soil, digging up the rocks. They are good. Want to rent them to till your garden? Let me know. All natural, no pollution from gasoline engines and they fertilize as they go. Pretty cool. Didn't get the boat out yet. Maybe Thursday. Tomorrow I go with "The Farmer Daughter" for more pig wrangling. Taking some to St.Paul and picking some up in Montrose. It's like recycling, get rid of the old, pick up the new. Did the last duck the other day. I'm not doing ducks again unless I'm hunting them. Pain in the butt. Lots of meat though. I found my little journal that I wrote in when Gramma and I went to Ireland. I think I might put it on here a bit at a time, I think you might find it interesting. If not, oh well. Remember "It takes 43 muscles to frown, 17 to smile and 3 to pull the trigger".

Today I found a video on You-Tube on how to determine the sex of chicks by their wing feathers. This is much easier than the other method which you probably don't even want to hear about. They have to be about four days old for their wing feathers to be in. The hen feathers grow faster and are in two layers, a longer one and a shorter one. Top pic rooster. So Gramma and I checked them all and we're pretty sure we have five hens and one rooster. We are happy. The one we believe is a rooster is the one that we thought might be from the start as he is a little different in color. He has no white by the eyes and all the others do, and he is just slightly darker on his front and underside. So we will have to wait until their combs start growing to be totally sure, but it looks like we got lucky. We may have to put Frank in the freezer cause he has become a bit more aggressive lately. He attacked me from behind the other day and I had to give him a couple of good kicks before he quit. We have been circling around each other ever since and he hasn't done it again. I don't want to do it till after the B.R. kids get here so they can see him. Maybe we'll keep him in the coop while they're here. Hoping to try out the new boat tomorrow if it isn't too windy. Later.

Well on Monday we went to Cloquet to get the new chicks. We met G. G. Gramma and my perfectly proud piggie preferring sister in-law for lunch and shopping. I went my way and the girls went theirs. Works good that way. The Wal-Mart in Cloquet carries guns and ammo, but not as much as the one in Little Falls. The one in Elk River has no guns or ammo that I could find. I wonder what they are afraid of. Interestingly the W-M in Little Falls has no self-checkout lines even though it's one of the newer ones and one of the largest. What do suppose that means? We got the chicks home and all are well. Got 6 not 8 like I thought. Gramma does the business end, I just do the food-in, food-out end. They have feathers on their legs. Down the outside of the leg and all the way down the toe. Neat. Don't know if you can see in the pics or not. One chick is a little different from the others and we're hoping he's a rooster and the others are hens. (Cross your fingers please.) Yesterday we got the biggest egg we ever got. Weighed almost twice as much as the others. Double yolk of course. Can't tell in pics but when I got it out of the nest box the spots were a purplish lavender color. Really cool. Ate it for lunch today. Check back again for more new and exciting news.

Easter

Happy Easter. I hope it was good day for all. We went to our son's for brunch today, and our favorite daughter in-law put out a wonderful feast. We even got some leftovers for the boys. They are happy. Some of Sue's family was there, including her Grampa , so it was nice to see them again. She roped her brother into making pancakes, and I definitely think he could have a second career at I-Hop. Our farmer daughter came, although a little late, but she had to deliver some pigs on the way, so it was understandable. They had some of our homemade syrup and some store bought pure maple syrup and I was a bit surprised by the difference in taste. It was made in Minnesota too. Probably has to do with soil and stuff. Glad we live where we do because I think ours was much better. I'm not prejudice or anything, but I'm sure I am correct, and we don't even have sugar maples. Tomorrow is the chicken run. Looking forward to it. I'll post some pics. Bye.

The Farmer Daughter

Hey. I forgot to mention that today we got to watch our oldest daughter (the horse,pig,chicken,cow,turkey,duck,dog and cat farmer) get interviewed on a tv news show. It was pretty cool. So a newspaper, radio program, and tv news has done a story on her present situation. What next? TV Movie of The Week? "The Wive-inlaws of Morrison County." The everyday struggle of two women trying to survive the ups and downs of todays economy without any bailouts or stimulus money. Hey. I'll watch.

Chicken Adventures

We have been letting the chickens out in the afternoon the last few days. So far they stay in the barn or just outside the door a couple of feet. In the pic they actually went around the corner. I think they wanted to be closer to the pigs cause they like to watch each other and the boys were outside. I think they will get braver as times goes on. They put themselves away when it starts to get dark and the hens go back in to lay their eggs. We haven't bought eggs for awhile so that's good. On Monday we're going to Cloquet to get 8 more chickens. We want a few more hens for laying. Never know what you're getting with some breeds cause they are colored the same. These will be Black Copper Marans. I don't know why they're called that cause copper isn't black. Go figure. We're meeting G.G.G. Gramma for lunch so it will be nice to see her. She's going to come down when the southern part of the family comes up in May also. We got the permit for the hay shed today so I hope to get started on that soon. The guy that does the permits has some Belgian draft horses and they are having a horse drawn plow event on the 24th of this month and plow his fields. We missed last year but we're going this year. They had quite a few teams last year, even some mules. Should be fun. That's it. Be good. :-)

First official post: Pig pics

I don't know if I'm doing this right or not. This post is especially for my sister inlaw who seems to have a passionate penchant for pictures of Perky and Pinky and all things porcine. Anyway the first pic is the boys getting along and eating some grain I put out to try and get some pics. The second one is actually a food fight. The last one is what it means when you see the words "Pork Butt".

Our farmer daughter called today to let us know that her sow Gilly finally had her babies. 10. No wonder she looked like she was going explode. Just waiting for pics now. Like to figure out how to just caption each picture so I'll just play around with it I guess. Th-th-th-th-th-th-that's all folks.