The Storm and the Corn

Last night we had some pretty good storms. I can't remember the last time I saw so much lightning on a continual basis. It made the inside of the bedroom look like we had a "Disco Ball" hanging from the ceiling. Lots of wind also.

It blew the double deck chair over.

It blew the patio chairs over behind the shed.

It blew down trees here and there.

And it blew down the corn again. I decided I would gather all the cobs from the stuff laying down and if it wasn't ready yet we would feed it to the boys.

Surprisingly most of the cobs were ready and ripe. Yay. Got a laundry basket full. We'll make some for supper tonight. There is still some corn standing and all the stalks that didn't fall over have cobs that are not yet mature. So we should still get some more. We are happy.

Here is a "Corn Dog". And you thought you could only get them at the fair.

The Farmer Daughter's

Today we went to the Farmer Daughter's. I needed to borrow her Bush Hog to mow the pastures as I let them get too long.

Here she is feeding "The Herd". These are not all of them.

She stands behind the gate to avoid being trampled.

Here is a pack of piggies.

Here is a pile of piggies.

Here is a passel of piggies.

One of the piglets has stripes

It's not dirt. It's reddish brown hair in stripes. If you look close you can see she has a stripe across her eyes and nose.

Very unique. And cute too.

Here is Sassy and her new filly and Barbie the miniature horse. No, that is not me on the right. Yes it is a horse's patootie, but it is not me.

Here is a kitty that Gramma was hoping would follow her home. Silly Gramma, Trix are for kids.

Morning visitors and food

Yesterday morning we had two cranes sharing the pasture with Aksel and Ingrid. I wish I could record the sounds they make and include them on here because they are unique. It's especially enjoyable on spring mornings to go out and listen as there are cranes, geese, turkeys, woodpeckers, ducks and all kinds of birds and frogs singing their morning songs. Add in a rooster crowing and you would swear your in a Tarzan movie.

Here are the two Marans eggs. The egg on the right is a Welsummer egg. We were surprised that the yolks of Simone's eggs were more orange than the other egg since the Welsummer eggs are darker than store eggs. Cool.

Here is the finished product. Home grown eggs, Guinea Hog bacon from the Farmer Daughters pigs. Doesn't get any better than this. Yum.

Last night Gramma made home made pizza. Here's the before baking.

Here's the after. She used the Bayou Mommy's "Super Secrect Pizza Sauce Recipe". Yum. We may never eat frozen pizza again. (Except for the two that are in the freezer now.) :-)

Simone's eggs

Yesterday and the day before I found a small pullet size egg in the box.

Lucy's egg on the left, Annie's egg on the right. It's much slimmer than the others so I was sure it was Simone's

But then I started to wonder why wasn't it real dark? So I thought maybe one of the other girls just had a glitch. As you can see it's lighter brown than the others, but no spots. So I looked back in my pics for the Welsummer's first eggs and they all had spots right from the start.  "GOOGLE!" Most Marans sites say the eggs will be darkest at first and then get lighter. (OH NO!) A few sites say they maybe lighter at first, then get darker and then get lighter again. Whew. So I guess we'll just have to wait and see what color she wants to make them. Either way I'm pretty sure they'll taste good. Think I'll go eat those two right now.

Another "Chicken Post"

If you're tired of chicken posts I suggest you go to another site now. Do not look at the pictures or read the text. Come back in a couple of days and see if I can write about something different. If you like the chickens, read on.

These are the new Marans. Sunday we went and picked up three new chickens. We got pullets so we could be sure of getting hens. We'll let them out with the others in about a month or so depending on how fast they grow.

 I made a removable panel between the two parts of the pen so that it will be easier to segregate and integrate when we get new chickens. Simone seems to talk to the new girls. It's interesting to watch cause the other hens just look at them and then ignore them. Must be a kinship thing. Gramma says she is going to enter our eggs in the County fair next year. The eggs that were entered this year were just plain brown eggs, no spots, no personality. The Maran eggs should be very dark and the Welsummer eggs as you know have cool spots on them.                                                                                                                                  On another subject, our sattelite tv was turned off Sunday morning at midnight. We are now on antenna only. So far neither one of us has shown any withdrawal symptoms, but I'm watching Gramma closely.

Cornado

Well if you read the "Farmer's Wife's" blog you know that on Tuesday we had some storms that flattened our sweet corn. Gramma and I watched from the window and the corn was swirling in circles before it went down prompting the FD to dub it a "Cornado" when we told her about it.

Wednesday morning.

When I got home from the lake on Thursday I pounded in a couple of fence posts and strung a rope between the two rows. Then I took some twine and tried to tie up most of the stalks. They were all still green as of yesterday so maybe they will be ok. Cross your fingers for us.

Driveway and patio

Yesterday the concrete guy finally came back to seal the patio. So I thought I would post some of the pics.

Pouring the patio.

You may remember I poured an exposed aggregate patio at Gramma B's house and also our house in Ham Lake. We always liked it so we thought we do it here. Back then they only used one size of rocks, but now you can pick from several. We chose the small rocks and are glad we did.

Washing off the cream.

Pouring the driveway.

Brother Kitty and my truck on the new drive.

Hard to get a pcture of how good it looks but we are very happy. And I didn't have to do it.

Before sealing.

After sealing. Not sure if you can tell the difference but it's now shiny and we really like it. Come over sometime and sit down with us and we'll make some tea, or not.