Our Life Together: A Little Taste of Spring

We had another mini snow event at The Acre this week, but we're still waiting for "the big one" to happen. We are afraid that after all the signs of a bad winter that we documented, and it's yet to happen, that we will be waiting until July to plant our tomatoes. We would rather get winter over with and jump into spring as soon as possible. Tractor Supply had their garden seeds out on display already, so we bought a bag full of seeds. We have the itch to plant.
There was drama at The Acre this week as well. Not so much AT The Acre as we had to go to town for it, but it gets a mention this week.
We were given a gift card for Southern States two Christmases ago. We have been trying to use it, but every time we go in the place, they treat us like they don't need our money. This week was the last straw. Big Man went to town to do some trading, and took our camp stove propane tank along to fill it up. The plan was to fill our propane tanks with the gift card, then go elsewhere for our propane needs when it was used up.
Big Man hit the parking lot and found the store empty of customers. He notified the clerk he needed the tank filled, and the clerk paged "the guy" to come help. Big Man stood around with one thumb in his mouth, the other stuck up his ass playing switch for almost thirty minutes without seeing anyone from the business. This entire waiting period was without other customers coming to the store, so Big Man packed up his tank and notified the people we would be taking our business elsewhere. After a verbal judo match and a request for a manager, Big Man got cash money for the remainder of the gift card. We shall never darken their doors again.
Now on to our regularly scheduled update. Since seeds are out and garden planning has begun, Big Man felt like bringing a little spring into our lives this week. He thawed out one of the bags of frozen rhubarb, bought a quart of strawberries from the market and made a pie. Store bought strawberries are OK for baking, but we sure miss our fresh from the garden strawberries. We will suffer through until spring.

This batch did not get mushy, maybe we're getting the hang of it?

Tastes like homemade love

It was just what the doctor ordered to get our minds right about the garden. But before the garden gets planted, we will turn our attention to hatching new chickens. We have been doing our research on breeding, and found out that we have the ingredients to hatch "olive eggers." We will be mixing up a brew to do just that. We consulted the Farmers Almanac and found that the best days to put eggs on for hatching will be March 22,23. All we need now is the chickens to cooperate. You can see the difference in the next picture.

We're simple people, excited by simple things

The one on the left is a blue, one on the right is olive. We currently have two girls who lay olive eggs. We want to try and get that number up over a dozen. The blue eggs have become a customer favorite at the roadside table. For the first time in six weeks since we've offered our eggs for sale, we managed to sell out. It seems like our girls are getting a word of mouth buzz going on, so it's time to expand our empire.
We have one bird that defies us at every turn. She insists on getting into the planter box and scratching the dirt out. We are either going to have to get good with it, or have fresh wings one Sunday. It could go either way right now.

The rest of the birds (the ones we don't want to kill on sight) have been getting a morning treat of boil in the bag rice. They look forward to it, and mill around the drop zone every morning patiently waiting.

And speaking of critters patiently waiting, here is Fraidy Mutt on Thor's day, waiting for her taste of steak.

"I sat and everything, now where's my piece of steak?"

We had a new breakfast on the menu this week. Every morning Cupcake takes the Kraken to school and by the time she gets home, Big Man has breakfast ready for her. One morning inspiration hit and a combination biscuit, ham and egg combo was made.
Big Man rolled out his biscuit dough thin, lined a muffin pan with the dough, then added sliced ham and a fresh egg, and then baked it. It was good, and easy to eat with your hands. We recommend it to anyone looking for a new twist on breakfast.