Peppermint Patties

Posted on March 24, 2012 by

Reblogged from Rachel's Cottage House:

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I’ve been thinking lately…of candy…

Over the weekend I figured out a recipe to make my own fabulous Reese’s Cups. Boy was I impressed! My brothers stopped by to sample them, and they were gone within hours. In fact, my one brother, Garret, was so impressed that he made an order for the Reese’s Cups so that he could have them at a get-together he was hosting. 

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Was just browsing other blogs and I came across this. I noticed a "reblog" button and since I was thinking "I have to try this!" ... posting it to my blog so I can share sounds like the perfect solution!
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Our forwarding address

Posted on February 13, 2012 by

Well, it’s up!

The walls are a little bare over there, but we are officially moved in. Now it’s time to start unpacking and sprucing the place up!

Our new address is http://www.Organic-Homestead-Heart.com and I hope to see you there!

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Plans for moving along

Posted on February 10, 2012 by

Thanks for your patience everyone. It’s been a crazy month … although it’s barely February, the geese are in full swing and I have one setting a nest (I had another one but she had to be moved and has since broken off), I have a litter of growing bunnies (and unfortunately lost another litter to a leak that sprung overnight during a rainstorm) and have five more litters due anytime, two broody hens setting tight, ducks that can’t decide WHOSE eggs they want to set on, two doe goats ready to kid any day now, and muscovies poking around trying to decide where they want to raise their families (and one muscovy that mysteriously disappeared … I HOPE she’s off safely setting, which is the most likely scenario).

It’s been BUSY!!!

And my promised post about sprouting had a little … err … incident. Major spill in the feedroom mixed too many things together. I can still feed them, but I can’t sprout them. So off to the feed store to buy about 1/4 ton of grains, and now I’m all set to go again. I have the grains measured out in glass jars in the kitchen, ready for photos (just add water!), so that post will be up soon. :)

In the midst of all this, I’ve been doing a lot of other online work, since that’s where a good part of my income comes from. And I’ve decided … things are coming along. This blog was meant to be an experiment, and I WANTED to do it because it’s all very close to my heart … but I’ve decided to spring for my own domain. Once it’s all set up (hopefully within a day or two) I’ll post the address here, and get that one started. I’m going to try to do re-directs from here as well, since this one is pretty new anyway. I’ll probably keep some very minor posting up here as well for a short time, so I won’t just disappear.

I’m not sure if we’re even going to HAVE a real winter here … the garden is needing attention to with everything starting to grow. Busy busy busy, but that’s what homesteading is all about!  (Haha, can you tell the farm is calling me, even when I’m here online!? Always something to do! And I’ve got some really cute craft stuff going on too, for one of my other blogs, but I’ll be sharing those things on my new site as well. Hope to see you there!)

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Happy New Year, Happy Birthday, and wagging doggy tails!

Posted on January 2, 2012 by

OK, just ONE doggie tail, but when it’s in motion, it seems like a lot of tails!

I just wanted to check in really. The holidays have kept me busy — not busy as many folks are, but for Christmas I decided to cook a huge turkey and all the trimmings — dressing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, gravy, corn on the cob, yeasty rolls, fruit salad (I’ve been corrected that mine is not a “salad” but “ambrosia” … I like that name too!). And a brand new recipe for an old favorite, chocolate chip pecan pie.

The pie actually turned out a lot more like the old Mississippi Mud pie at Po’Folks if any of y’all remember that. It’s definitely a keeper.  I’ll share it here too, I promise, and see if any of the pics came out. But it’s not really what I’d call a pecan pie, so this year I haven’t had one of those yet. I still have a lot of pecans left, that’s as good an excuse as any to bake one!

And today is my birthday! Happy Birthday to me! I went to “the City” LOL. To a big natural foods store, looking to see if I could find anything good and curious what people pay for the farm-fresh goodness,  I was shocked! By my calculations, I have about a million dollars worth “on the hoof” out there. Then again, they expected to get $20 for just a slice of a muscovy duck’s breast. I don’t think I could actually SELL a muscovy for $20 a pound. But here I am eating like a king, then again I already knew that.  Fresh eggs, meat, milk, veggies … yes we are spoiled out here in the country. :)

And my wagging doggy tail. One of the main reasons I’ve been so busy. I’m not sure if I posted about it here, but my sweet German Shepherd, Ryker, has been having a rough time of it. It seems he wasn’t digesting his food and almost starved to death, even eating 10 cups a day. But thankfully with my background in natural health, and the wonders of the internet and the world of info out there, I was able to piece the puzzle together and he’s back on the road to recovery. That has been one of the best holiday gifts yet … he just turned two years old and I was nowhere near ready to lose him!

So, I’m still here, and today is the last day of “my holidays.” I always give myself January 2 as a holiday tacked onto Christmas and New Year’s week, since it’s my birthday. I’ll be back to regular tasks tomorrow, so you can expect to hear from our little farm more regularly again!

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Merry Christmas & Llama Kisses!!!

Posted on December 20, 2011 by

Merry Christmas!!!

I know it’s early, but I just got this back from Jack at Pet Photo Fun and I thought it was SUCH a cool idea for a Christmas gift, that I decided to share it early. There’s still time to get one for someone on your list! Jack can take a photo of YOUR choice and make it say any message you want, his turnaround time is fast, and prices start at only $10. OK, commercial off, and Jack didn’t ask me to say that, but I loved his work so much that I wanted all my readers out there to have a chance to order one too!

I just love this, and I can see Misti saying this! At least on a good day, like one with cool weather that inspires her to prance around, or anytime she gets the treats she’s always begging for.

I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. :)

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You can lead a duck to water …

Posted on December 16, 2011 by

But you cannot make them splash!

The dabbling duck duo

Actually, my ducks love to troop out to the temporary “pond” created by all the rain we’ve been having, and splash happily away. Spying them through the window, I think to myself, “Now’s my chance!” I snatch up my camera and sneak outside … and they immediately notice me and make a mad dash for “shore” tumbling over each other in their race to get to me  in case I have food.

That’s the trouble with being The Bringer of the Food … the animals NEVER act naturally when I show up with a camera.

I think I’ll be needing duck-blinds, but for a whole ‘nother purpose!

After three days of trying, I FINALLY got these shots. Enjoy!

(Oh, and please excuse the wind noise and the camera shake … I had to zoom from quite a way back to get the video … the next video when I stepped closer is, as usual, all the ducks leaving the water to stand around my feet!)

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Geese goings-on

Posted on December 13, 2011 by

The geese obviously can’t read a calendar.

They usually don’t think about breeding until around January, but — well, let’s just say things are getting very noisy and a lot of wing-flapping is going on around the pool these days. I don’t even have all the breeding pens set up, but at least goose pens go up quickly. I just hope I don’t end up needing more than 4 pens.

At least this gives me a good start on identifying the ones I had some doubt about. Last spring I knew who every goose was, and could easily tell the adults from the babies. I was planing to band them all (mostly to better identify the babies, since I hadn’t yet gotten to know their personalities well) then suddenly, everyone changed!

The goose with the gray feathers (Playgirl – named because she claimed the two biggest ganders as her own and refused to settle down and set on eggs for a LONG time) … Playgirl lost her gray feathers and turned all white. The babies lost their fluff and their moustaches, and one of them grew as large as his father and looked exactly like him. So I could still tell most of them apart, but not all. Add to that my lack of confidence in being right 100% of the time when I sex geese, and I was left without knowing for sure who my planned breeding pairs were. So, I had to raise most of the remaining babies in order to be sure I didn’t sell any of my breeders or send them to the table.

They are all banded now. I can’t find commercial bands big enough for them, so they have as assortment of brightly-colored zip ties fastened on one or the other leg or both. In watching how they interact now with breeding season coming up, I’m much more able to identify who’s who.  I think pretty soon I’ll have their names/behavior matched back up with the birds, and I will know who needs to be paired off, and who needs a private nest, and who is likely to need her eggs to be fostered to the ‘Scovies, and who I can sell to the lady down the road with the lonesome goose girls.

It will be good to get back to business as usual, and not have this stampeding herd of geese running around out of control and mostly unidentified. Next time, the bands go on early!

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