Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Our Indian Runner ducks


We wanted to do an update on our Indian Runner ducks.  Well about all We can say is " bless their        
hearts." We just feel so sorry for them. They are absolutely terrified of everything.
We purchased them. to forage for bugs on the farm. We were hoping they would help keep the slugs and the Japanese beetles under control, but so far they are yet to leave their pen. When they see that we have left the door open they run away from the door, loudly quacking bloody murder. They run as far away from the opened door as possible.  Making a small tight duck wad, they step all over each other, each trying to get closer and closer to the center of the cluster of seven ducks. If we circle around them and try to herd them out the open door, the poor things run from us and toward the open door. Then in an instant, they all at the same time seem to realize " OMG the door is open!!! The horror of it!!! RUN AWAY RUN AWAY!!!" The duck nervous breakdown is now complete. The poor things now make a mad dash to the door of their duck room in the barn,
 where they remain until they think all danger has passed. Just hiding out in the dark until had evil door is once again closed and latched. Once we decided to catch the ducks and place them out in the orchard, right next to their pen, BAD idea, the poor little soul we caught first, ran into the duck pen from the outside over and over trying to get INTO the pen. His misery was so sad. We don't know what we have done to mess up these poor little ducks so badly. It really is a shame, we so wish they could enjoy free ranging on the farm. But right now we are just hoping for some duck eggs. If you have  Indian runner ducks and have any ideas that might help please let us know.


Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Strawberry Biscuits

Strawberry Biscuits

3 cups of self rising flour
1 cup of sour cream
1/2 cup of butter melted
1 cup chopped fresh strawberries  You can use frozen if you want  just defrost and drain slightly
3 tablespoons of sugar

     Preheat oven to 450

     Mix chopped berries with sugar and set aside.
Combine flour, sour cream and butter.  Then stir the chopped berries with the sugar into the flour mixture.   At this point you can add a teaspoon of cinnamon, if you like,   Cover your baking sheet with parchment paper, these tend to stick because of the fruit and the sugar. Or you could grease heavily. This dough is to soft to roll out so we scoop up a heaping spoonful and drop the dough onto a cookie sheet. Then, bake the biscuits for about 20 minutes or till golden brown. They are wonderful with butter and strawberry jam.


The Bantams get cuter

We thought we would write a quick update on our Bantams. They are sweet little birds and we think have turned out to be very cute. We still need to get a pen built for them, we have them a small coop. We are going to add them a small pen next door to our laying hens  Remember, we bought assorted bantams, so we were really lucky to end up with four hens and only one rooster.  We also had no idea what kind of bantams we were going to end up with, but are very happy with our little ones. We have a polish, (Grands calls it a chicken in a hat) a frizzle, a barred rock, a sebright and  we are not sure about our rooster. If you have any idea what he could be please let us know. We will have to wait a while to see if we are going to get any eggs from our little ones. They are so cute we don't really care about eggs. We know they will add a lot to the farm and we are really enjoying them.  We will let you know when they get moved into the new pen and how they like it. Please enjoy the pictures below showing how much they have grown and changed. 
Puff with tiny hat
Puff with big hat

Baby Blair beginning to frizz


Blair fully frizzed


Our tiny, sickly, mystery chick...
...turned into a beautiful bird
Dottie with one dot on her head
Dottie with lots of dots


Our cute little Brownie...
...turned into a Rowdy Rooster!
One chicken is more spoiled than the others. Guess why.