The Crooked Acres Jams are going fast (the hot sauces have already sold out!) – better jump on it if you’re interested! Like I said, once the stuff I have in stock is gone, that’ll be it ’til mid to late summer.
Fred recently put an ad on Craigslist to sell some of our eggs for people interested in hatching them (he also put ads on eBay and… somewhere else, I don’t remember where all he put ads). He did this a couple of times last year, too, and it’s kind of interesting how many people bought fertile eggs from us to hatch in their incubators.
Since he put the ad on Craigslist, he’s had people email him because they’re interested in buying chickens from us. We don’t sell chickens (we did it once last year and then both felt so bad about it that we vowed to never do it again), and he told them all that much. One of the people who emailed him, though (she said she’d recently lost her rooster) had a web page for her farm, and after Fred went and looked at her web page, he directed me to it, and once we saw that they have free-range chickens and have a setup much like ours, we decided that we’d be willing to sell one of our roosters to her.
Bob, to be exact. I like Bob, he’s a pretty rooster and he’s quite the stud, if his mating-flamenco-dance is anything to go by, but we’re getting to the point where we’re going to have too many roosters, and some of them need to be sent to freezer camp.
If we can find a happy home for Bob instead of eating him, I’m okay with that.
She and her husband were going to stop by and pick up Bob yesterday, but Fred noticed on Sunday that Bob had sneezed once or twice, and in the interest of full disclosure told the woman. She opted to not bring Bob home, but she may buy fertile eggs for us at some point in the future when her hens go broody.
I finally got to the bottom of the bucket of laundry detergent that I made back at the end of October, using this recipe. Basically, I got a six month supply of laundry detergent for about $39.
That kicks ass.
I made a batch of the liquid stuff over the weekend – the powdered detergent works great, but I have to use warm water to dissolve the powder, and I prefer to wash clothes in cold water to avoid whatever extra it costs in electricity to heat the water to warm.
I do more laundry than you’d expect, given that it’s just the two of us. There’s always something that’s been peed on, or cat beds that have gotten dirty (I can’t stand the sight of a dirty cat bed), or dish towels that have piled up. I mean, I don’t do a TON of laundry, nothing approaching the loads of laundry those of you with kids at home must do, but still more than you’d expect, probably.
Speaking of dish towels, I usually keep out two dish towels (one by the sink, one by the stove) and one dish cloth. In the morning, right after I put the dishes in the dishwasher away, I toss the dish towels and cloth from the day before into the bucket of dirty laundry in the laundry room. It may sound wasteful, but it takes about a week for enough dish towels and cloths to build up into one load, and I like having clean stuff to use.
Is that weird?
(“Yes, Robyn, that’s very weird. Are you not the woman who allows her cats to tromp around on the kitchen counters at Snackin’! Time! ?” Um, shaddup. I always wipe down the counters once Snackin’! Time! is over. Also, did I mention shaddup?)
I made cookies and a cake last Friday. When I asked Fred, Thursday night, if he had any baking requests for Friday, he suggested “A cake or something cake-y.”
That’s helpful.
Finally, I decided on a lemon pound cake that was pretty easy to make, and kind of tasty (though for the most part I’m not a huge pound cake fan), and best of all the pigs enjoyed the leftovers!
I also made chocolate chip cookies because I think I’ve mentioned in the past that these Cooking Light chocolate chip cookies are my favorites and I think they’re the best chocolate chip cookies EVER. But then I was reading BakingBlonde’s blog, and she was like “These are the BEST chocolate chip cookies EVEREVER!”, and of course that was a challenge to me and I had to make them so I could be all “Well, they’re okayyyy, but they ain’t ALL THAT!”
Except that they kinda ARE all that. They’re some damn fine chocolate chip cookies. I still slightly prefer the Cooking Light cookies, but these run a very, very close second. Also, they are magic pig-charming cookies, because for the first time ever, Fred lured a pig close enough to eat directly from his hand on the second day after we brought them home. That never happens!
Last thing I made was honey sugar cookies. Didn’t like ’em at all (the honey taste in a cookie did NOTHING for me), and Fred agreed. I didn’t even eat one entire cookie, and for me to not finish a cookie I’ve started eating, there’s got to be some serious dislike there. Luckily the pigs’ll still eat them!
If you’re a big honey fan and are dying for the recipe, leave a comment or email me, and I’ll rustle it up for you.
Good LORD do the hens get peeved if you act like you’re going to reach under them and take their egg. They want you to back the fuck OFF, and when they’re ready to vacate the nest, then and ONLY then may you take the egg. You got it? Good. Today this pissed-off hen won’t peck your eyes out. Tomorrow, she won’t be so nice about it.
Suggie appreciates that I made more room on and around my desk. Now he can really stretch out and take up TWO beds instead of one.
Previously
2008: Every now and then the finch would flap his wings and squawk indignantly.
2007: No entry.
2006: I hate spoiled rotten princesses.
2005: “4.2 billion,” he said suddenly. “Not 4.7. Because a regular signed 32-bit integer only goes up just over 2.1 billion – that’s 2 to the 31st power – and an unsigned would be one more power of two onto that, so–”
2004: Is it easier to write bad poetry, or am I just naturally a bad poet (and didn’t know it)?
2003: Let’s see whether or not I can give Lisa what she wants!
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Have you noticed that I feel like an idiot a lot?