Turkeys

Three days ago 4 turkeys flew into our pasture. There were 2 Toms (males) and 2 Female turkeys. The chickens were out of the chicken coop that day so of course they had NO IDEA what in the world those big gobbling things were.  11 of the chickens flew over the fence and into the woods. We have 21 chickens so we were sad that only a few chickens were left. Anyways we called some friends that live up the road and they said those were actually partly wild but kept as pets. Our friends that we called knew the people that the turkeys belonged to so they gave us the number to call them.  We did call them but they didn't answer the phone so my mom left a message just saying that we thought that there turkeys were in our backyard. They called back later to say that they could shoo them out of our yard or trees. Instead we just kept them.  They will not leave (or at least they haven't left YET!). Yes there still here roosting in the trees at night and in the pasture in the day.  Oh and the chickens all came back. So we haven't let them out, until today. Not a good idea the rooster and the Tom started fighting. Then the chicken went back in there coop afraid. The turkeys are so PRETTY! :)

An Unwelcome Guest

An Unwelcome Guest was in the chicken coop when we went to collect eggs. A SNAKE!! Gross I freaked out. I did get some good pictures though. We killed it with a hoe and a shovel. It was only a king snake though so it wasn't poisons.

Homemade Apple Cake

I helped my mom make homemade apple cake Yummy! Sorry the pictures are out of order.

Making Detergent

             Shredding the soap

                   Stirring the melting soap

                    Almost melted!

          The rest of the ingredients.

            Pouring the ingredients into a 5 gallon bucket.
                            Now stirring it. It is done!

Blueberry Jelly

My Mom and I made an attempt at blueberry jelly. It was really easy all you have to do is pick or buy the blueberry's.  We picked them. Then you mash them all up and add a little bit of water and let that come to a rolling boil. Then once it boils you strain it so there is no blueberry skins left. Then boil it some more. Put 7 cups of sugar in it stir until smooth and until it boils. Then pour it into jars and there you have it blueberry jelly YUM!! It made 7 little jars of jelly.

HONEY!!

Last Monday we went to get an extractor so we could rob some honey.  We bought the extractor and a few other necessities for robbing the honey.  Then we went home and closed all our garage doors so the bees couldn't come in.  Then brought the extractor into the garage so we would be prepared. This is what the extractor looked like.

We had to spin the honey ourselves. It took about 4 hours to do the honey.  The honey poured out this little spout in the extractor into a bowl. We had to uncap the honey so that when we put it in the extractor the honey would actually come out. Ha ha!

 Once the bowl was full we would get a strainer to get all the comb out.  Here is the finished product.

We got about 24 lbs of honey. We have a 16 ounce jar $10 and a 12 ounce jar $7. Bye!!

The Milker & Needle Craft Girl

Who's ready for a long post?! :)

Lily

Sunny

My job on the "BeeChick Barnyard" is milking the goat. I started milking Monroe, our goat, on February 20th of this year. I had to start since one of her "kids", Lily, died.

Before we ever had any animals (except rabbits, chickens and bees), we went over to a friends house to have a little field trip and milk her goat. 

I'm a pro!

Once I started milking, it went really smooth. Not to brag, but I was better than the girls. So, from there we decided I should be the milker.

I look horrible! I didn't know I was getting my pictures done that day! ;(

I've enjoyed milking. Some days I did NOT want to go out there to milk Monroe (I started milking in the afternoons which was better than the early in the AM). It started getting boring because she was is not giving much milk. Sunny keeps drinking it all! Mom can't make cheese with the amount of milk she is giving. I'm pretty sure I've stopped milking her for now. With Sunny still drinking Monroe's milk, Monroe shouldn't go dry. Once Sunny finally grows up and stops drinking milk, it will be worth our time to milk her and make cheese with all Monroe's milk.

I have gotten a little blamed for not getting much milk from Monroe. ;) ha! It's not like I can force the milk out of her! We're not sure if it's Sunny drinking it, or it could be Monroe. She may not be letting her milk down for me. We're pretty sure Sunny drinking it all, though.



Now for the long, but FUN, part!

I am also the knitter/crocheter! I taught myself to knit, about 4 or 5 years ago. My Nana had taught me some of crocheting. Whenever I tried, it did not look very good. So, I pretty much stuck to knitting.

Until either November or December of 2011. I taught myself to really crochet. I took what I knew from my Nana teaching me, and from books and I taught myself to crochet! I have to say, it is super easy. I picked it up really fast. I never thought crocheting was fun. Once I got started though, I didn't go back to knitting. I haven't really knitted anything since I started crocheting. Here's what I have crocheted or knitted since December of 2011.......