Strawberry Garden

I am on a mission to create a unique garden area in front of my house. My goal is to find unusual containers to plant edibles in.  The first planter is the wagon I rescued and re-purposed from mom and dad's house. This wagon was left by the previous homeowners and dad had relegated it to the back of the property with other dead, dying, or otherwise decrepit pieces of equipment. Since I love all things red, I just new it would have a great life at my house...I had considered planting watermelon in it, putting red and white geraniums in it, something cutesy and country. After visiting with my sister and seeing how well her patch of wild strawberries were doing, I decided to go on a wild strawberry search on my property and see if I could get a good patch started. It didn't take me long, literally it took me longer to walk down the hill than it actually dig up and transplant the strawberries. I love this little planter bed. I will need to add some garden mesh over it to keep bunnies and deer out, but for now it is good. The next planters are some old enamelware coffee pots without the inside pieces. Those are screaming for geraniums and a prominent placing on the steps up to the deck. Since it is a rainy yucky day, I think I will venture into the garage and search for the camping box....

Ranch Dressing Recipe

Anyone who LOVES ranch dressing, this is for you. My kids have ranch on everything. Country Diva has ranch with a little of anything else on the side. I think she sneaks in and drinks it straight from the fridge....

Here's my recipe-

1 cup skim milk
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 cups mayonnaise (I use the kind with olive oil, only bought when $2.50 or cheaper)
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons onion powder (or a wedge of onion chopped super fine)
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 1/2 tablespoons dried parsley
2 teaspoons dill
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon seasoning salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

1. In a glass measuring cup mix the milk and the lemon juice. This creates a very thick liquid used instead of buttermilk.

2. In large mixing bowl combine mayo, sour cream, onion, garlic, and other spices. Stir well. After the milk and lemon juice have sat for a few minutes, stir. Add to mayo mixture. Mix thoroughly with a whisk.

3. I store this in a mayonnaise container in the fridge- more to keep it camouflaged than anything. This recipe will make more than the 30oz jar will hold, so you may need another jar. Quart size canning jars work wonderful. It must be kept in the fridge. This is super thick, like a dip, so you will be able to thin it down to the consistency you prefer.

Hope you enjoy it! I did a cost break down and per ounce, this cost half as much as a 24 oz bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch at Walmart. That's what is important to me! Having the ability to make it myself gives me the option to add that extra kick of garlic or dill or what ever I am going for. Maybe if I add more onion Country Diva wont like it as much.....hmmm.....I may be onto something here.....

Chicken Cure!

We took Pipsqueak, the market chicken with a vision problem (insert joke here), to the vet a few days ago.  The vet put some chicken droppings under the microscope to see if she could identify what we were dealing with in our flock. BINGO! Coccidiosis! This is a parasite that does nasty things to a chickens insides. So after a $30 fecal test and a $12 medicine picked up at the feed store, our chickens are on the road to recovery.  Having lost 4 birds and being told that Pipsqueak probably wouldn't make it through the night, I am so relieved to have everyone healthy again. Pipsqueak is doing fabulous! She answers to her name and follows me around the yard. She is kind of a flaky bird, not it the absent-minded sort of way, she has dandruff or whatever chickens get. I am guessing it's because she doesn't know how to take dust baths since she can't see what the other birds are doing.

Pipsqueak

The goats...the goats are great. They are put up into the back yard every day to mow. It is taking them a long time to get the yard trimmed up really well. We might have to break out the weedeater. If there weren't so many rocks we could use the mower, but I just don't feel like replacing any windows right now.

Clementine likes to jump onto the barbecue by the back door. Cute now, but when she is full grown-- we will need a new barbecue.  We picked up a bag of diatomaceous earth for chickens and goats. This bag of fossilized diatoms is supposed to help get lice and mites off of the animals. We plan on making a dust bag out of an old pillowcase to dust the goats. The chickens will get a top of the line pit for dust baths. We picked up a bag of play sand to mix with the DE. We are planning on digging a hole about the size of a small plastic wading pool to put it all in. Hope all of the chickens are as excited about this as I am!

Chicken de-population

Well, it's been a tough week to be a chicken around here. There is something, viral or bacterial, going through the coop. One of the black sex linked chickens the kids had for their 4-H project, died on Sunday night after a few days of being unable to stand up. We think that could have been caused by Marek's disease. Not totally sure though. We took her out of the coop and quarantined her in the garage in a dog kennel for those few days, hoping to nurse her back to health. We completely cleaned the chicken coop to remove any bad germs that might be in there. All of the feeders and drinkers got washed in bleach. The coop got sprayed down with disinfectant. Yesterday I went down to the barn to get a shovel so I could do some gardening. I went to the coop to talk to the chickens and saw our 2 buff orpingtons dead on the floor of the coop. I called Old Goat over and he took the birds out, no sign of injury. It looked like they just fell over dead. So we replanned our day. No gardening for me. No fencing for Old Goat. We got all of the chickens out of the coop and proceeded to strip it out again. We whitewashed the inside and put in two windows for more ventilation. Supposedly the lime used in the whitewash kills bacteria. While down there I noticed one of the gold laced Wyandottes not running around like the other birds. She just stood there all hunched up. She didn't fuss when I picked her up like they all usually do. We decided to quarantine her just in case. She came up to the garage and went into the dog kennel. I mixed up some whole oats, cornmeal, flax seed, and sunflower seeds for her to eat, noticing how boney she was. No fat or muscle anywhere. Just skin and bones. I put a little apple cider vinegar into her drinking water. She drank some water, but I couldn't get her to eat. After dinner I cut up a mango and took the pit out to her, hoping she would nibble off some of the fruit. This morning I went out to check on her and she was dead. It is so frustrating not knowing how to help your animals.
I made a vet appointment and I am taking Pipsqueak in to get checked out. It appears she has a vision problem. Hopefully this Avian vet will be able to give me some information on what is happening and what I can do about it. I just don't want to lose the entire flock. Today everyone looks healthy and lively. No one is hunched over. No one feels like skin and bones.
Country Girl said she was ok not doing market birds, since we are one short for her pen of 3 for fair. The golde laced was Country Boy's show bird. Luckily we have another gold laced to take her place.
In August when we go to fair we will have the two goats and 8 chickens- 2 show birds and 6 market birds. At this point I just hope the birds are all still alive come fair time....
Today, I will finish my garden project and get the seed starts out of the green house and into their container garden since they have outgrown their little soil pods. No sense losing the garden as well as the chickens....

 The windows are salvaged from an old camper. Gives the chicken coop a very stylish look....

The goats really appreciate the viewing window. Now they can check on the chickens without getting stuck in the pop door!