Our First Time

 Our first camping trip of the season jumped off this week. We made reservations around the new year for our near by KOA campground. It's our new base camp campground. Our first trip of the season, we always go someplace near by, just to shake down the camper to see if anything is broken, burst or burnt. Everything checked out so we're ready to make our next trip someplace new. Cupcake wants to show off her new bathroom decorations.

We got set up and the weather was great. Warm during the day, a little chill at night. Just enough to keep the bugs at bay. The next two days were a little different. We had rain, high winds, and sleet/snow. Serendipity came with the winter package, so all the tanks were heated. We ran the fireplace all night, and woke up to a fairly warm camper. We had to turn the furnace on, just to knock the chill off, but other than that we were very pleased with the way she held heat and didn't have any wind leaks.

We arrived on Easter Sunday, and to our surprise, the park was almost full. Lots of family types with children, on Easter break we assumed. Monday everyone rolled out and we had the place to ourselves. Until around 1700. Then the "Class A"motor homes came in for a one night layover, but we did have another Solitude join us.

We missed the sitting around and shooting the poop with new friends, but we took comfort in the main reason for the shakedown. Food.

We tried a new recipe every night except one. Our favorite camping meal is campfire pizza, and we had that one night.

"The Boy" stayed home and looked after The Acre while we were away, and he reported another fox attack Friday evening. He got a shot off at the new fox and found blood but no body. We decided to pack up and come home one day early, and we found we lost all of our hens and our rooster, along with one duck and one guinea. But since TB shot at the fox, we've not lost anymore birds, so fingers crossed.

Another good thing about coming home a day early was, the annual frog orgy. We look forward to it every year. There something soothing about watching several dozen frogs having dignified relations and falling asleep the mating call every night.

Cupcake 'dipped a toe' in the water, literally. But then the frogs started getting too close to the dock, and she didn't want frogs touching her feets.

We ended the week with a couple of naps, and a whole camper worth of laundry.

K&K

Garden Season

Mother nature gave us a break this week and we got to plow the gardens. 

While we were all about the garden, we planted four more fruit trees. Two apple, two more plums.

Not wasting anything, including sod. We used the sod to work on fixing the road down to the ponds. You may remember, the road we paid Cody to fix for us.

Cupcakes lilac started to bloom this week.

Speaking of things blooming, the cherry tree behind the house is covered in blooms. Fingers crossed for a good cherry season this year.

We had a checkup scheduled for both of us this week so Lawman whipped up a batch of banana nut bread cookies for the staff. They were a big hit.

For the nature loving folks who are repulsed by killing predators, stop reading here. You've been warned.

We started losing chickens last week. Cupcake was at the window and saw a red fox grab one of our girls right out in broad daylight. Lawman has tried trapping, calling, hunting, but has had no luck and still, chickens came up missing. Early one morning, it's luck ran out. Lawman just happened to be by the door when it came back for an early meal.

It grabbed one of our hens, but didn't make it out of the yard.

The guinea birds spent an hour circling it and pecking at it. They are not to be toyed with

We ended the week with an early Easter dinner, and a nap.

K&K

 

Happy Birthday Pops!

 Today is Pop's 80th birthday, the family all got together last night to celebrate over a meal, and we made sure to have the staff give a Latino version of "Happy Birthday"

The rest of the week seemed to involve trees one way or another. Early in the week it was warm, so Lawman got started on cleaning up the branches from our helicopter trim job we reported on last year. It was neat to watch, but they left the limbs for the land owner to clean up. Lucky for us, the brush pile in the pond had settled, so it needed fresh brush. We killed two birds with one stone.

Then it got cold and windy, which brought down a tree at the family cemetery. The down tree blocked the road leading in, so we had to get that cleaned up ASAP.

The trunk was so heavy it broke our tow strap. But Lawman said he's had it for 30 years, he figures he got his money's worth out of it before it gave up the ghost. 

Non tree related things for the week involved egg preserving. 

If you've never had ducks, allow us to give you a crash course in duck egg 101. If you need eggs, they won't lay. If you have too many eggs, they go nuts laying eggs. Over the holidays we needed eggs, and the rotten birds stopped laying, so our baking suffered. Now that baking season is over, we've got duck eggs coming out of our ears. We found a solution that we are giving a try. Lime water. 

The interwebs say if you cover fresh eggs with lime water, they will keep in a jar for two years. So we've started doing a two quart jar every week of duck eggs for use this coming holiday season. We look forward to reporting our results.

Mother nature threw her last (we hope) temper tantrum this week, going from hot to cold to snow to warm again. Maybe you had crazy weather too? We don't know.

Since we got snow on Saturday, Cupcake called an audible on 'steak and tater night' and made a big pot of chili beans instead. Lawman will never turn down a bowl of her chili beans.

And that brings us back to ending the week by celebrating Pop's birthday Sunday night.

K&K