Well Shit

This week "Fraidy Mutt" is the lead off batter in the update. She has been an inside dog for over a year now, but she took to pooping in the floor Friday night. She got demoted to garage dog, where she once again pooped inside on the floor. So, there's that we're dealing with. Plus it snowed this week, so the title of the update was spoken more than once Saturday morning.
We had a very warm March and all the fruit trees bloomed, so we figure it will be slim pickings for jelly and pie this year, but we are optimists around The Acre so we will wait and see.
We are going to start the pictures off with a semi food related topic, our grill. Big Man bought a gas grill when the house was finished, it seemed like the thing to do. We hooked the grill straight to the house propane tank so we didn't have to haul the tanks to town every few weeks, the propane comes to us.
Prior to using the gas grill at The Acre, Big Man was given a Weber charcoal grill by Roland Gene "The Guru" Perry as a house warming gift when the house in The People's Republic of Maryland was closed on. Big Man used that same grill for over fifteen years, leaving it out in the rain/snow, and even gifted it to his neighbor when we sold the house and moved back to Virginia. The propane grill lasted six years, and it was porcelain coated.
Last week when we were grilling steaks, the handle came off the gas grill and Big Man figured it was just a screw came loose and it would be an easy fix. It's a good thing it did, because when we got to digging around in the grill to look for the missing screw, we found the gas burners had completely rotted. It's a wonder we didn't blow ourselves up. So rather than throw several hundred dollars at a grill that will no doubt be as sorry as this one, we went "Old School" and paid a little money for a grill that will probably last a lifetime.

Things that may go "boom"

So long, farewell....

Welcome

Cupcake wanted copper, Cupcake got copper. And Big Man isn't one to leave a grill in the box for years before he puts it together. Just saying

And getting back to the snow.

The snow really wasn't the bad part. It was the freezing temps that probably killed off the fruit trees this year. It was supposed to get down in the teens, but it only got into the high twenties. But the wind was off the hook. Like we said, we wait and see.

Cherry tree still has white blooms

Stunted, but not dead

Pear tree, with some frozen leaf damage

One of our rhubarb plants behind the hen house looks a little droopy, but the others that we dug up and split are still coming on strong. You can see there are still one or two breaking the surface. These did much better than expected, and rhubarb thrives in cooler weather anyway. Looks like a year of rhubarb pie and jelly.
One thing we know for sure, the celery we planted in the garden did not survive the cold snap, it's deader than a bag of hammers. So we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and start more for next year's garden.

The cold front has moved on and just in time, because our olive eggs and possible olive egging birds are due to hatch this coming week. We took them off the turner Saturday, due to hatch Tuesday. Plus we added another dozen guinea eggs to the guinea turner. A couple dozen more guineas birds should really endure us to our neighbors.

You know there is going to be some food stuff coming. We just can't say enough about our paprika chicken. If you have never had it, you should.

Cupcake wanted a chocolate pie for dessert this past week, so Cupcake got a chocolate pie.

And something we thought was kind of neat floating around the Faceplace this week was pineapple upside down pancakes. We had these Saturday morning.

Brown sugar/butter syrup

Soak the pineapple in the syrup, then add a cherry. Top with leftover syrup.

We ended the week with wings.
K&K