Rhubarb Jelly

It was a typical week around The Acre. We picked enough rhubarb to make one batch of strawberry/rhubarb jelly. This added to the plain strawberry jelly we made last week.

Using the new juicer, we just dropped the stalks in and out came the juice.

We got four more jars of jelly. We're looking forward to cherry season next.

We made another cheesecake this week, and it once again had the Klingon symbol in the center.

We made a pizza for dinner one night

And a cast iron skillet full of dinner rolls on Thor's red meat offering night

Saturday we got the breakfast dishes cleaned up early then went out to mow the lawn. After we mowed, we went over to Pop's house and worked in the garden. Weeding out rows and staking up a row of peas. We planted a second row of peas while we were at it.
After we got the garden squared away, we came home and gave Fraidy Mutt a bath. She was really excited about it too.

Sometime during the day while we were busying about, the fox grabbed one of our girls from the yard, right next to the house.

There will be a foxxy fox update soon. Stay tuned.
On a critter related note, we saw a mommy deer with a newborn fawn out in front of the house. The fawn wasn't much bigger than a cat. We actually thought it was the fox when we first saw it run out of the woods.

We ended the week with a burger/dog cookout like the rest of the country did.
K&K

Very Berry Week

Regular readers may remember that we planted around two hundred new strawberry plants in planters for the porch. This week we had a bunch of them ripen up all at once. We picked a little over two gallons of ripe berries and did berry related things with them.
We bought a juicer early in the year and this was the first chance we had to put it to use. This thing is great, it removed the seeds. After the first round of cutting the caps off we just dumped the whole berries in the mixer. We can't wait to use it on the cherries to make cherry jelly. That will be next, but for now it's all strawberry all the time.

And we didn't waste the pulp from the first batch. We decided to make a strawberry cheesecake and we used the pulp to flavor the batter. It made the usual orange batter a nice pink.

 And to prove it was a great cheesecake, when we baked it we found the symbol for the Klingon Empire in the middle. That's just good cheesecake right there.

Qapla'

We enjoyed a whole lot of jalapeno peppers this week too. Cupcake even wanted some in the mac-n-cheese we had for dinner one night. But for starters, we enjoyed nacho's after we mowed the yard. Cupcake even brought out the Tabasco sauce to top it with. It was one of Lawman's proudest moments.

Then we made a skillet full of steak/egg/jalapeno/onions for breakfast

We are also getting new neighbors soon.

And last but not least, Pop reached out and touched another fox this weekend. One less chicken killer roaming around.
We ended the week with wings.
K&K

Varmints and Vegas Baby!!

This week we closed the book on the latest predator harassing our girls, and Cupcake trekked across country to Las Vegas.
We had to have her at the Roanoke Airport at 0600hrs on Sunday morning. We said our goodbyes and off she went. A short time later, Lawman gets a text saying the plane blew a tire on landing in Charlotte and was met by the entire fire department. Nothing like starting your business trip with drama.
Cupcake said she thought it was great that the fire department met every plane on the tarmac when it arrived, then she realized that was only for emergency landings.

Flat tires make for interesting landings

Las Vegas was an overpriced mess of a town. Smoking was allowed in the hotels and casinos, and the food was nearly one hundred dollars a meal everywhere. It's a town neither one of us want to return to.
On other family related business this week, Jake won an award from the fire department for responding to the most calls at his firehouse.

 Fraidy Mutt is in the dog house this week. Twice now, she's gone to digging in to our potted plants, digging out our banana trees one day, and the next time she got in to one of Cupcake's strawberry planters. She's a garage dog now.

After the first incident, before the banning

This is the planter she ruined, day after this was taken

Lawman got his new toy this week. He assembled his new mowing scythe and took it for a spin one day. A year or two ago, everyone was doing Crossfit. Then Lawman's pal Burk started his own version he called "yard fit". Next our Army Ranger pal Jason Parrotte got involved in "Soldier Fit". Lawman has taken it and made it his own with "Farm Fit". The actual inspiration came from another pal from school, James Kniskern, who uses his mowing scythe on a regular basis. Lawman got to thinking that you never see a fat Amish farmer, there is probably a reason for that.

There is a steep learning curve to technique

The joke is, he nearly cut his leg off a couple of weeks ago, this is exactly what he needs in his life. And speaking of the leg cutting incident, Cupcake removed the stitches from his leg herself this weekend. We didn't see any reason to worry a doctors office with such a minor procedure.

Before

During

After

We did another cheese cake this week, to celebrate Cupcake's triumphant return home.

And she wanted some fried squash. Lawman's girl wants fried squash, she's gonna have some fried squash.

Batter

Cast iron is how we roll

Our little chickens have started to venture out of the coop de ville, they are currently in the bushes behind the coop picking bugs off the brush. They are so stinking cute.

Which leads us to the varmint part of this weeks update. We've noticed our birds were getting attacked, and thought it was a coyote. Turns out that one afternoon while Lawman was on the porch with his leg propped up, he saw a red fox scoot across the yard, run into the coop de ville, and come out with one of our little birds. This spun Lawman into a dimension of pissed off he's rarely been in. So we kept the girls locked up for several days, denying the fox a meal. We learned later that he went to our neighbors house and was eating their ducks, but we digress.
After five days, Lawman let the birds back out of the coop to free range. He had no more walked from the coop to the house when the fox appeared and started chasing the girls.

The sad part is, our pet bird, the one we named "Boomer" was the last victim of the fox. Boomer was our lavender amaracuana and she was just so petite and cute, it broke our heart to lose her, but foxxy fox paid the price.

Lawman grabbed the M-4 and took his time since the fox was all out in the open. He pulled the trigger and heard "click" so lucky for us, his Army training took over, he slapped, racked and tapped into a new round, but by then the fox was on the move. Again, lucky for us a fast moving target is no challenge for him. Foxxy Fox had his last kill. We are currently salting his tail to hang on the door of the coop de ville as a warning to all the other critters who would do harm to our flock. There will be punishment for all predators.
And we ended the week with wings.
K&K