Berries and Herbs

We were pretty busy all this week. It's coming down to the end of the month, which is Cupcake's silly season every month. Lawman busied himself during the week planting a half dozen or so blueberry bushes, a few thorn-less raspberry bushes and a clothes line.
We start out with the big project we finished on the weekend, the new chick run inside the coop de ville.

Regular followers may remember that we had a four coop system working at one time. We started the chicks in a small plastic shed that had a tunnel to the first coop we bought when we started out with six birds (we were such amateurs) that had a fenced in run leading to the coop we built three or four years ago. As the chicks grew, we would move them from one coop to the next until they were big enough to fend for themselves with our grown birds. We would then move them, two at a time, from the big coop to the coop de ville. This caused drama on a grand scale, because the birds we moved insisted on going back to the big coop at night, so we had to carry them back again. Moving 50 birds at a time is time consuming to say the least.
Cupcake hit on the idea over the winter to build a small run inside the coop de ville where we could start the chicks, and as they grew they would know the coop de ville was their home and it would eliminate the carrying. Lawman drew up an idea of how to make that work, and we put it in to action this weekend. We started off with the leftover 2X4's we had from the roosting areas.

Of course, fifteen minutes into construction, Lawman was bleeding. It's officially spring.

We designed a box type run with hinged openings up top to allow access to food and water, and a flap style door to allow us access to the heater so we can adjust it to the growth of the chicks.

Then we used chicken wire to surround the box and run area under the nesting boxes to give the chicks some room to run and jump and play.

Charlotte is our broody girl, she's on top of a bakers dozen of lavender eggs that are do to hatch this coming week. She wasn't phased by the construction at all, she just kept on keeping on. The rest of the flock almost lost their minds. Who knew there was so much drama in a flock of birds?

Before we started on the run, we had to replace the battery in Cupcake's lawn mower. The Alaphageek family gifted us a Craftsman mower last year, and Cupcake claimed it as her own. The only thing wrong with it was a dead battery. We would jump start it and it would run/restart just fine, but the battery would die after sitting all week. We fixed that little problem, now it's smooth sailing. Another big "Thank You" to the AG family, we sing your praises every time we use it.

The old battery was original equipment Craftsman Die Hard with a stamp of 7-07, so it lasted ten years.
Our second smaller project this weekend was planters. Cupcake saw a DIY project a while back using burlap sacks and clothes baskets to make strawberry planters for your deck. She ordered some sacks and wee bought some really cute copper baskets from Target. We dug up our remaining strawberry plants from the garden patch to use in the first basket. We had to buy some more sets from Lowe's to finish out the rest.

We have a lot more room on the deck, so this week we plan on buying a couple more of the wire baskets and making at least two more of these. We love us some strawberries.
While we were elbow deep in dirt, we planted Cupcake's herbs in the deck boxes.

We had already thrown a few leftover lettuce seeds in one of the planters, and they have sprouted.

One of the last things Lawman planted was a clothes line. We found one on the cheap at a new farm supply store in Radford so we thought we would give it a try.

It's kind of low to the ground, just like Cupcake.
The food portion of this week is short and sweet, again, just like Cupcake. We started the week off with a boil.

After the boil, Pop needed a haircut. Lawman's barber shop opened for business.

Later in the week we brought back an old favorite, Paprika Chicken.

And to go along with it, we tried a new recipe for dinner rolls.

This is the recipe Lawman has been looking for. This one calls for eggs in the mix. It is the closest he's ever come to store bought dinner rolls so we're going to stick with this recipe from now on. We kind of dug into them as soon as they came out of the oven, so we ruined the "after" picture. We're pretty sure there will be another opportunity very soon.
We ended the week with wings.
K&K

Blizzard of '17

We prepared for "The Big One" to hit this week just like everyone else around the area did. We were left a little disappointed. It got plenty cold (-6) and windchill thrown in to boot, but the snow didn't amount to anything. It did get cold enough to kill our cherry blooms out back, so our first round of jelly this year will have to wait for the sweet cherry tree.

Being cold and windy like it was, getting outside to do stuff was put on hold. Free time inside the house usually means Lawman will be baking something. This week was no exception. First, he found a recipe for a three layer "magic cake". He followed the recipe but didn't have the pot the recipe called for to bake the cake in. He tried the bunt cake mold, but the cake was too spread out and the custard center didn't bake right.

Then Cupcake requested an old favorite that has been out of the rotation for a while. Schoolhouse dinner rolls.

As you can tell, Lawman started out cutting the dough as the recipe calls for, then gets distracted and "eyeballs" the size of the dough ball, which makes them bigger than they are supposed to be. They all got eaten, so nobody complained.
Baking usually involves a flour covered hand. A flour covered hand usually ends up as a bear paw mark on Cupcake's bottom.

Another inside project was another gallon of laundry detergent. Someone has a problem measuring a tablespoon of detergent.

We did the standard issue corned beef and cabbage this week, just like we're sure everyone else did? So we didn't add pictures of that, since everyone's looks pretty much the same. We did start our cabbage plants, which is a St. Patrick's Day tradition. We also started six dwarf banana tree seeds. They are supposed to be great for cleaning the air in the house, so we are looking forward to seeing how they do.

The pepper plants we started last month have sprouted and are doing well.

We ended the week with wings
K&K

Smoking Ribs

This past week we found a batch of meaty beef ribs at our local Wade's Grocery. Lawman enjoys smoking meat, so it was a good fit.
We started out by rubbing them down on Saturday and leaving them in the refrigerator until Thor's Day. Our red meat offering to the God of Thunder

Another food related item this week was a treat for the chirruns. Cupcake found a hack to use canned cinnamon rolls and cook them on our new waffle iron. It was a quick snack that Kattie Grace and her Padawan seemed to enjoy.

And we have been sending packed lunch with Kattie Grace to school, one of the items was fresh fruit and a fruit dip. Cupcake found a recipe for home made fruit dip, and anyone who follows along with our day to day, we love home made anything.

A couple of small projects this week. First, Jake put together three pieces of furniture for Kattie Grace's bedroom.

And second, we have a broody hen in our flock. She has been quite possessive of the eggs the other girls lay each day, and it became a battle of wills every afternoon to collect the eggs. We decided over the winter that we wanted to add some more lavender Amerucanua's to our group since "Boomer" was the last of her tribe. We looked for hatched chicks but the breed is so rare we could not find a hatchery that would sell sexed birds. We bought a dozen hatching eggs and decided to let Ms. Broody have those eggs to hatch. She's happy now and leaves our hands alone when we collect the daily haul from the coop de ville.

We end this week with a concern. Our cherry bushes started to bloom last week. They are calling for temperatures in the teens this coming week, and a possible blizzard. We are afraid we are going to lose our first jelly opportunity.

We ended the week with wings.
K&K

Haunted Hotel

This entire week, we were in Nashville for Cupcake's job. Lawman tagged along as chauffeur and armed security so we had to have Pop look after our girls.
We drove down Sunday evening and checked in to the Hilton. We got the keys and went up to our room, but the keys wouldn't open the door so Cupcake decided to leave Lawman with the bags while she went back for new keys. Leaving Lawman alone will lead to a security scan, lay of the land, egress routes and defend-able high ground. He was looking out of the hallway window when he noticed what appeared to be a tombstone in the front of the hotel. Being Nashville is a civil war town, we figured it was some type of historical marker.
The next day, Lawman went to checkout the marker and found it was in fact a tombstone. Turns out there is an entire cemetery in the front of the building. A Google search found that the family who agreed to sell the property to the hotel chain would only agree to the sale if the hotel left the family cemetery alone, so they built around it.

Sunken/Unmarked

While we were there, we brought a few comforts of home with us. The last time we were here, we tried the cut rate coffee that came in the room. It wasn't fit for human consumption. This time we brought real coffee with us.

And part of Lawman's duties was to keep Cupcake looking sharp. She was the only person in the office with military creases in her dress shirts.

Two days in to our stay, we got a weather alert on our phones. Turns out a tornado was blowing through town. The storm passed one ridge over and hit the area of Cool Springs. We saw the cloud go by from our room.

The downside to being gone for a week was food. Eating out every meal was miserable. We tried a BBQ joint, but it was nothing like Lawman's BBQ. We tried a hamburger joint that was nasty, plus the girl taking orders/making the food sampled the food off of everyone's tray. Every. Single. Tray.
The first thing we did when we got home was make a homemade pizza. We even skipped our regular Dude's burger.

Sunday we learned that the flu bug had invaded Brother Kevin's home and Pop was going to stay home instead of making his Sunday night trek to visit. We skipped our usual wings and made a Philly pinwheel and had Pop over for dinner.

Our one project for the week that we did squeeze in was a new plant. Cupcake bought Lawman an olive tree for Valentines Day. It was delivered just before we left and we got it into a pot. We hope to have fresh olives some day.

And we also got a fresh shipment of real coffee when we got back.

Five pounds of whole bean. That should last us a couple of months.
When we got back we changed the camera cards and found our predator pals were still hanging around the property. We didn't lose any girls that we can tell, but several traps got sprung while we were gone. Saturday was move/bait/set new sets.

K&K