Shearing Day

Posted on April 15, 2024 by Donna

Here are the great photos that Al took of our shearing day on Saturday.

The shearing crew:

Here are the photos I took:

I prepared assorted foods from recipes I have collected and wanted to try.  It was sort of an afternoon tea that we had after the shearing was completed.

Here are the 1800 chocolate tarts (really yummy).

Here are the baked lemon puddings.

Here are the Yorkshire tea cakes.

There was also Paul Hollywood’s ultimate sausage rolls,

Scotch eggs,

cucumber sandwiches, 1747 Cheshire pork pies,

blueberry lime layer cake, Bakewell pudding,

and Banbury tarts (Grampa’s favorite),

The Earl Grey, lemon and blueberry cake and mini quiches didn’t really turn out well.  I had 4 different types of tea as well.

Here are my photos of the sharing:

Diddley

Vanessa

Harlen’s pretty wool

Hodor

Jemima

Diddley and Denise

Eliz brought over some chickens for me.  Here are Red Leghorn chickens, 3 roosters and 3 hens.

And 10 assorted chicks.

The sheep now sheared and back on the grass.

Apart from the sheep, a good time was had by all.

Posted in Farm, Historic recipes, NYT Cooking recipe, Recipes- farm | 4 Comments

Chicks and WEVL

Posted on April 12, 2024 by Donna

I had mail ordered some chicks from McMurray Hatchery as our 4 setting hens have only been able to produce 10 chicks total.  I had thought I had ordered them to arrive in 2 weeks when it was more convenient for me and our schedule.  But they arrived this morning instead.  I picked them up at the post office on my way home from work.  Here they are:

Another photo:

I decided to try to get the setting hens to adopt them.  I had consolidated 8 chicks with one hen. As those chicks are older, they pecked at the new chicks so I scratched that plan.  I divided them in half between our white turken hen and our mean black Araucana hen.  All were readily adopted as each only had one chick each after setting on eggs for weeks.  One chick arrived with a bent neck and did not survive.  I did try though.  I am hoping the remaining 26 chicks will do well.  The idea is that the hens will teach them some farm survival skills and also be fierce protectors of these chicks.  

In completely different news, today was the start of the spring fund drive for WEVL, my favorite radio station from Memphis.  We have supported them each year since we discovered them while visiting Memphis, but this year Tom called in during the fund drive, and we were announced by Lonny, my second favorite DJ behind Captain Pete.  It was so fun to hear our names on the air!  Do support public radio in whatever genre you prefer.  It is so incredibly important.  

I have been on a baking frenzy recently so that explains the items around our Sonos speaker in the kitchen.  

 

Posted in Farm, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Spokane Expo 1974

Posted on April 7, 2024 by Donna

I ran into this really interesting (to me) article about the 50th anniversary of the Spokane Expo.  They are planning on commemorating it.  I definitely have some Spokane sights on my bucket list so may need to get there this year for this.  My brother and I went to this Fair with our grandparents.  It is funny that what I mostly remember is singing American Pie along with the radio from the back seat as we drove there.  It is funny how childhood memory works.  I was the same age as William is now so it will likely be unexpected things that he remembers from his time with us too.  Anyway, here are photos that prove that we were there:

Posted in History, Trips | 4 Comments