Introducing, Cedar, the squeaker

This squeaker's name is Cedar. Robee said he never gets to name the babies so this one was his to name. We still don't know if it's a hen or a cock so I just say it, for now. I might have mentioned in some post that the nest mate to this one died. I still feel bad about that but it happens.

This baby is almost 4 weeks old but it is as large as my other two I hand fed who are almost 3 months old. That's what happens when a human gets a hold of an animal; over feed and over weight. I really don't think it's over weight, just a lot bigger than a normal, pigeon-fed baby would be.

It is finally out of the office as of Sunday. Getting way to big for the box and starting to crawl or fly out of it.

The crap all over the front of it’s chest is the liquid bird food I've been feeding it. It is a messy process each time but at least I'm not having to force feed the bird into it's crop. That was scary every time I fed because there was always a chance I was going to miss and shoot food down the wrong pipe. After that, death.

Hopefully we won't be feeding any more baby pigeons. That season should be over for the year. Today I'm cleaning out the pigeon coop (finally) but first have to run to the store for a gas mask to prevent me from getting Pigeon Breeders Disease. Boy, does sound like fun or what?

Symptoms of this lovely health issue CAN include but are not LIMITED to: wheezing, and dry coughs that shake the entire body as well as chills, sweating, aching, and fatigue. Ooooo …. goody goody. I can HARDLY wait for that to hit me.

 

The great thing is that I don’t actually have to be working with just pigeons to get this. It’s also know by these other names: bathtub refinisher's lung, mushroom picker disease, mushroom worker's lung, laboratory technician's lung, pituitary snuff-taker's lung (what in the hell is that?), plastic worker's lung, epoxy resin lung, maltworker's lung, maple bark stripper's disease (a really good reason NOT to move to cold Vermont), bagassosis, wheat weevil disease (dang, and I love weevils so much- especially in meatloaf), farmer's lung, ventilation pneumonitis, and cheese-worker's lung.

I feel SOOOOO much better about shoveling pigeon sh*t now. Tons.

15 Years and Counting ..... Down? Up?

Better late than never I suppose.

On September 6th, 2011 -- Thomas Robert Dale and I (whatever name I go by) were married for 15 years.

15.

I'm still shocked by that number. I feel like its only been five years. I know that's not possible because ... well ... I can still do math ... most of the time.

Obviously, the first bit of math is the glaring one ... my baby girl is 14 years old.

The second is that I'm nearing upon the age of Forty-Freaking-Nine years old. WTH?! When did this happen?? When did I turn my mom's age?

So, if we do The Math .... 2 + 2 = Yeah. We've been married 15 whole years.

Have they all been lovey-dovey and romantic and roses? Nope, Nope and Nope. Honestly, the first few were shaky to say the least. Even though we started popping out babies right away, it was still weak.

Things got better once we moved to St. George and found ourselves depending on each rather than family or friends; that can be more hindrance than help at times.

Then we moved to Washington and found that we can be really good friends with each other. In fact, he's now my closest friend. As it should be.

We've never not had kids with us; from day one, there has always been a child in our couple-dom.

How will it be in four and six years when Felix and Robee are off on their own adventures in college and we'll actually be all alone with just each other?

I predict that it will be ................


A-FREAKING-MAZING!!!

I, for one, cannot wait to sail out on our own adventure, just the two of us, being friends. By then, most of the animals will be dead and gone and we can be a little less tied down to do some things we really want to do.

Until then, however, I'm going to continue being the Mom-taxi for the kids, the go-to babysitter for the grand kids, and zoo-keeper for the mini-farm.

Here's to 15 more years with Thomas. As we age together, we begin another adventure with silver hair, wrinkles, poochy stomachs, creaking joints, and laugh lines.

My wandering Mind has another victim

The garden has finally been growing. We’ve had some great weather (thanks Mother Nature – AFTER school starts) and so the veggies are doing great.

I have three favorite vegetables that I like to plant and eat: cucumbers, tomatoes, and beets. I really do like all the vegetables I plant, but I adore those three. I adore them so much that I planted 10 Sweet 100’s, 20 beets and seven or eight cuke plants.

I’m always excited when I see the beets start to come in. When I was young, I only ate canned beets, which are good, but nothing compared to fresh beets from the garden.

I have found beets are a great and easy produce to plant. You can plant them in the early spring and have beets to pick from June until early October. They can handle cold weather (except severe freezing), which makes them a good long-season crop.

They're versatile. You can cook the beet (bulbous part) and the greens as well. Cook the beet greens as you would spinach. They're very sweet and yummy.

Beets are also an excellent source of folate, potassium, and manganese. There have been several studies that show that beets have anti-cancer benefits and fiber-related benefits. The combination of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties in beets makes this food a highly-likely candidate for risk reduction of many cancer types. Well, yeah for that!

FUN FACT:  An estimated 10-15% of all U.S. adults experience beeturia (a reddening of the urine) after consumption of beets in everyday amounts. I'm not one of the 10-15%; I can eat beets all day long and never pee any other color but what you’re supposed to. However, The Spouse IS one of those select groups who DO pee pink/red after eating beets. He has a funny story about his first discovery that he was one of those lucky ones, thinking that he was going to have to run to the emergency room after seeing red after using the bathroom.

Back to beets - this is how I cook my beets: washing the beet, I cut off both ends and then cut them up into quarters and put into medium glass pan, drizzle with olive oil and adding whatever spices I like (for sure pepper). Then in a 400 degree oven, roast them for about 30 minutes.

You can also steam them for about 15 minutes which will hold in more of the nutrients.

I was making some beets the other night for myself. I was excited to bite into the red, sweet beet rather than eating the cardboard pizza my kids were eating.

So I got my lovely beets all ready for the oven. I knew I had about 30 or 40 minutes to just walk outside and look at our one apple tree. I had been looking at an apple for the past week and wanted to see if it was ready to eat. I would be right back.

 

Here is some cooking hints for cooking beets:

 

Don't - whatever you do - DON'T put them in the oven and go out and pick apples, feed the goats the apples, wander down to the pond to look at the trout, walk up to the garden and turn on the water, eat cherry tomatoes, gnaw on a cob of corn, feed the dogs the slug-chewed zucchini, water the greenhouse tomato plants, stroll back to the barn, look for eggs in the coop, check on baby pigeons and feed them, ponder the night sky while sitting by the fire pit debating if you should start a fire, realize that it's a school night and kids have to get to bed, skip with the dogs and go back inside the house, and as you're walking past the oven and wonder why it's so hot, you open it, only to find your blackened, toasted, roasted, burned beets that you were going to have for dinner. Time? 3 1/2 hours later. I put them in at 6:30 pm and took them out at 9 pm.

 

 

Don't do that; they're not very tasty. Just a bit of advice.

Goodbye Summer. :(

Yes. That’s a sad face. Sad, sad, sad face.

I have whined all summer long, along with the kids, about how awful our summer was here. I still love the Northwest, but I’m really not happy about how the season panned out. If I were a Republican, I would blame it on Obama. Ha!

My last post was 11 days ago. So let’s see what happened between then and now, eh?

 

Stinky Dogs

Porter Rockwell, also known as Old Man now, had a birthday on August 3 and turned 13 (91 in human years). Old man decided to climb into the fire pit and pull out a charred log to chew on for the afternoon. Maybe he’s missing some mineral in his diet?

Nice and clean and smelling like lilacs …. and wet dog. Hard to cover that smell.

 

Chainsaw Art

We went to a town festival (I love small town festivals) and bought at an auction, this chainsaw bear bench for the fire pit. Albeit functional and fun, just doesn’t seem like something we would buy. Which makes it even more fun.

 

Heart, Hands, Health, Head - 4H

Felix, Tyger the Goat, and I attended a 4H Meet and Greet at the WSU (not Weber State U, but Washington State U) Extension. She was there to represent and encourage kids to join 4H, possibly in Fiber Goats since our member numbers have dropped. We were sure it would be lame but turned out to be a lot of fun. And Tyger only pooped once in the truck which was great.

 

Pow Wow Wow Wow

We FINALLY attended the Festival of the River at the Stillaguamish River in Jordan Park. Since we moved here, I have wanted to go but there was always something else going on. There was food, games, vendors (Felix and I bought some beautiful handmade earrings) and a Pow Wow that was amazing. Sadly, there were loud bands playing on a stage in the far field and it was hard to hear the Native drums and chants.

 

The Farm

I am now feeding two more pigeon babies. The mom laid the eggs on the floor and typically, they die since the other pigeons will peck the babies to death when the mom leaves the nest to eat. Sometimes though, I have a feeling that Felix likes to bring me the babies even if there might be a chance that they will live in their nest. This is the youngest I’ve ever tried to hand feed. The syringe feeding seems to be working with them as well as the older babies. Just call me The Bird Whisperer.

However, they almost died last night. I got home late and was too tired to check on them and then took the kids school supply shopping and didn’t go to feed until 8 pm. In that time, they moved themselves out of the warming light and one was stiff and cold and the other barely moving. Working fast to warm them up under the light and then getting some warm food in them is the only way to save them. Thankfully, they’re doing better this morning. Now call me The Almost Bird Killer.

 

Second Degree Black Belt Test in Ocean Shores, Washington

This was a nerve-racking test. In front of a panel of 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Degree BB Masters who are critiquing every move. Ugh. If I hadn’t stopped my hair loss this spring, I’d be bald now. It was crazy.

Ocean Shores is a coastal town directly west of Seattle (as the crow flies; not as I-5 drives). It’s a struggling tourist town set in the middle of depressed former logging, railroad, and crabbing towns. It reminded us a little of Long Beach where we used to live except that it wasn’t quite as nice. The town was a little too far in to reach by foot; Long Beach’s boardwalk was right next to the beach and quite accessible. It made us want to drive right to Long Beach to visit! It was nice to smell the ocean again.

 

And that’s the end of August in a nutshell.

School will begin in six days. We bought clothes and supplies. I guess we’re ready for the new year.

Sigh.