Eobard and DIY

It was a week of doing it ourselves this past week. First, we caught Cupcake's serpentine belt beginning to fray. Spring time is oil and filters change time, as we're sure it is with most folks. Pops said changing the belt was a simple process, so we decided to roll up our sleeves and give it a go.
Funny thing about it is, Cupcake said the last time her serpentine belt needed changing, Big Man's "Outlaw" refused to even try to fix it, made her take it to a shop. We figure she traded up in her second life, because the new belt is on without professional intervention.

"Do you remember how this thing came off?"

It needed replacing, we think

Our second project of the week was a new flag pole at the family cemetery. Big Man donated one about ten years ago, but it was a collapsible portable type pole. We cemented in the stand, but the wind took a toll on it over the years.
Big Man designed a sturdy pole design for The Acre, and duplicated it for the cemetery, using the same cemented stand from the first pole.

Some assembly required

We do not have electricity at the site, so Big Man used a solar topper to light the flag at night. And it only took about an hour to assemble and complete.
And after all that DIY work, you have to have a hearty meal. One such meal was steaks. When Cupcake first moved out to The Acre, she said she only ate steak maybe once a year. Well, that changed pretty quick. This time out, we seared the steaks on our cast iron griddle, then grilled them for about ten minutes. They turned out way better than we expected. We will be doing this again soon.

Can you hear the "sizzle"?

With steaks, you have to have fried onions. We do anyway.

And fried green tomatoes. Because Cupcake loves them.

Coconut macaroons for dessert? Yes please. Cupcake outdid herself with these.

And because Cupcake loves her some orange marmalade, Big Man whipped up another batch over the rainy Saturday.

And, you know what orange marmalade is good on? Homemade bread. We made this loaf with a sketti dinner one night, and added a little fresh homemade butter. We're not sure why everyone don't make their own bread.

The last item this week, is nurd related. The birds we bought from Tractor Supply a month back have grown like little weeds, and the few regular readers may have remembered one bird was yellow in a batch of black birds. We can see now, it has reverse markings of the rest of the flock. Since it has reverse markings, and it's in a yellow suit, we've named it Eobard.
And for those who are not up to speed (see what we did there?) on nurd news, Eobard is the name of "The Reverse Flash" who wears a yellow suit, and has markings that are mirror opposite of Barry Allen's (The Flash). Hence, her odd name.
Hey, we're about to go all summer without new episodes, we will need something nurdy to talk about.

We ended the week with wings.
K&K

Butter and Butts

It was a rain out for most of the week around The Acre. Not a lot going on, but we did manage a couple projects, did some planting, and doctored some birds.
First off, butter.
Our faithful followers know we make our own butter, but we ran into a cost factor when we added up the totals. The last trip we made to Sams Club, we found heavy cream on sale for half of what Wally-World sells it for, and when we crunched the numbers, it comes out ahead. So we bought a big batch of cream, then froze it, and made butter as we needed it. Freezing cream did not hurt the process, but the fat and the milk separated, causing a longer process time for butter.
Last week we made our trip to Sams, bought our big batch of cream, but this time we made five batches of butter at one time, then froze the butter in packages. Now we open a pack of butter when we need it. It works out much better for us.

We keep our buttermilk too

Five pounds of butter and a half gallon of buttermilk. We did good

And we had a bunch of bananas going mushy, so Big Man whipped up a loaf of banana nut bread with them.

We made a pepperoni pizza one night, because the chirruns think ham and pineapple is just too exotic

Toward the end of the week, we did some landscaping and planting out front. We have tried for three seasons now to get our hands on weeping cherry trees. This year we found and bought the last three on hand at Lowes.

And a batch of jasmine to run up the front porch near our bedroom window.

And every year, Cupcake puts ferns out along the front porch, this year was no exception.

And for the "butts" part of the post, we had one of our lavender birds come down with a case of "pasty butt" which is a common thing for birds hatched in an incubator. People in the know say it's do to a lack of protein in their diet, and recommend a soft boiled egg mashed up after you clean their little bottoms off.

We got him all cleaned up, fed some egg, and now he's back to running and jumping and playing with the rest of the crew.
We ended the week as we always do. Wings.
K&K

Moths and Miracles

This week there was a swarm of moths released into the wild, and an Easter miracle happened (a few days late, but we're still counting it).
First, the moths.
As our few followers may recall, last fall Jake killed a nine point buck down below the house. He had the head mounted and paid for it out of his own pocket. This past week, the head was completed and he went to pick it up. When he opened his wallet, what we can only assume was a hoard of moths escaped into nature, so, we apologize for the uptick around outdoor lighting this summer.

And for the miracle. Two of our lavender birds hatched, shortly after Easter. After the first two batches failed to hatch, we did some internet research to see if there was some trick, or if we were doing something wrong. We read that if your rooster and hen both have tusks of feathers on their cheeks, the eggs will not hatch. Some kind of genetic glitch, and then those that do not have the glitch still have a 20% hatch rate, so leave it to us to pick the black diamond of breeds to try and hatch.
A day or two after Easter, two of our blue eggs hatched, and one of our black birds also hatched. So now we know that we just need volume for results, we've settled in for a summer of egg hatching.
Boomer needs to step up production.

On the normal stuff front, we did normal kind of stuff. First, we made a home made pizza using the leftover ham. Ham and pineapple pizza rocks with the smoked ham, sliced paper thin.

Then the girls wanted fried squash. When I say "the girls" I mean Cupcake and Fraidy Mutt. Both sat outside while Big Man fried up a skillet full for the first time this season.

Sprinkled with "Slap ya mamma."They don't make a "slap crazy granny"

"Hey, Big Man, you know I like squash, right?"

We made another gallon of laundry detergent (no idea why everyone does not make their own)

The mountain laurels out front have bloomed, and the smell is intoxicating. We've had our bedroom windows open, letting in the scent all week.

Our strawberries have bloomed, and we have our first green berry. We're kind of excited about all that.

And our transplanted tomatoes that we started from seeds have grown to the size we can safely move them outside to the garden. As soon as the frost threat is past, we will do just that.

We ended the week with an away game of softball for Kattie Grace. Auburn whooped two undefeated teams in an all day double header in Abingdon Va. It was a two hour drive both ways, but well worth the trip. Oh, and wings, there is always wings.
K&K

Easter Day

We had a big day around The Acre on Easter morning. We had the family over and put out a spread. We love to cook, and folks love to eat, so it all works out well.

Smoked Turkey

Corn Pudding

Real Mac N Cheese, not storebought with cheese sprinkled on top

We finally hit on how to boil fresh eggs. Store bought eggs are easy to boil, but fresh eggs have a tough membrane inside the egg that makes boiling and peeling a task. We found this idea on a Facebook hippie sight, and it works like a charm. Lots of boiled eggs in our future now.

Boil then dunk in an ice bath

Cooled egg into a Mason jar

Shake the Mason jar, the shell falls right off

Giggity

And on an egg related note, the chirruns hunted Easter eggs most of the afternoon.

And when they checked the hen house, they found "real" eggs.

And hen houses and real eggs made chirruns think about baby chicks...

And there was some shenanigans with Jake's fire suit. Little Henry looked like a Minion dressed up in hose yanker gear.

And we had a little bit of mugging for the camera.

All and all, it was a great day, everyone got their belly full and the chirruns seemed to be worn out, so we hope everyone slept well Sunday night. We know we did.
K&K