Can Win if you Don't Play

This week we got a notice from the good folks at the Virginia Lottery. We've been invited to the headquarters in Richmond next week, so there has been a bit of a distraction around The Acre this week. We won't be in a position for Cupcake to quit her job, but we will be banking some cash and might even have enough for a new vehicle in the near future.
But back to regular goings on, we worked in the garden mostly this week. We had over fifty tomato plants in the grow room downstairs, and they were getting too tall for the cups they were in. We went ahead and planted them this week, and used a trick we learned from Pop in his garden.
We bought six pieces of hog wire, and used cinder blocks to elevate them off the ground, held in place by metal fence post. This gives our tomatoes, cucumbers and peas a place to run straight up and hopefully keep the chickens from getting at the fruit of our vines.

After planting the fifty plus tomato plants, we decided we needed more, so we bought another six and still might need a few more. We will update the plant situation as details become available.
We have been keeping our egg shells and crushing them up. Tomato plants love calcium so we added a handful of eggshell to each hole before we planted the plants.

And we planted our rhubarb plants that we started from seeds over the winter. We had half of the back fence dug out and we planted our established rhubarb roots that we dug up and split. Cupcake wanted to dig up the other half of the back fence and make the whole thing a rhubarb garden. So that's what we did.

Existing rhubarb garden

Fresh dug rhubarb garden

Add two wagon loads of cow manure

Plant and cover to keep the chickens out of it

Cupcake's lilac bush bloomed this week, and we love the smell.

Jacob squirreled out his truck with new lights for the fire department.

One food post we managed to take pictures of, we did another boil for dinner one night. Big Man even whipped up home made cocktail sauce, which was a big hit.

Fraidy Mutt liked the smell of it too.

We have dignitaries visiting The Acre this week, we hope to have a couple of food related pictures next week.
We ended the week with wings.
K&K

Projects and Pizza

This week Big Man had to start mowing. He's one day closer to burning the Junk Deere to the ground, so there's that to look forward to. That's about the only good thing about mowing season but what can ya do?
We start off this week with wing sauce. Everybody knows we sign off each week with wings. This requires Big Man's soon to be world famous wing sauce. It's a little different each time he makes it, because there is no set recipe. He just goes down the isles of the local market, picks up anything that looks spicy, and tosses it in until it tastes right. We get a couple of months worth of wings from a gallon of sauce. This week we had to can up a fresh batch. We're sure "The Beamer" will approve.

We did do a little wood working with the leftover Coop Deville wood. Cupcake has been wanting two small tables like the one we use to sell eggs on. She wanted them next to our grill and camp stove outside, so Big Man stepped up and put the screws to some scrap lumber. It would be a whole lot more professional looking if we had access to "The Outlaw's" woodworking tools, but he's batshit crazy and it's really not worth the drama for a couple of outside tables.

It's like a little puzzle

The first time we used the new tables, Fraidy Mutt gave us the seal of approval. Apparently the table is at mutt eye level, and when Cupcake went outside to fry up Saturday morning bacon, FM grabbed the entire package of raw bacon off the table and scarfed it down, wax paper and all, before Cupcake could stop her. So, she's back in the dog house and is working on three weeks without her Saturday morning pancake treat.

"I did bad, Bunk"

Speaking of pancakes, we went a little nuts this week, and made chocolate pancakes. And Jake likes chips in his, so he had chocolate chocolate chip pancakes.

And Jake requested a home made pizza this week. We've been a while without making a pizza, so it was good to keep sharp.

Other food related items, we made hobo packs on the grill one night.

And we still beat our meat.

Thor's Day red meat offering

We ended the week with wings.
K&K

Coop Deville

This week we made a major upgrade in our chicken game. Unlike some people on Cupcake's side of the family who claim to have chickens but don't, then claim to build a two story hen house when everyone on their friends list knows it's a load of horse shit, we actually do own chickens and a lot of them.
Our favorite server at Dude's Drive In planted the tiny acorn that grew into this mighty oak. She mentioned one day that she cleans her chicken coops once a week. This tid-bit rattled around in Big Man's head for weeks. We could only conclude that the only way one could clean a coop once a week would be to have a floor in the coop. The last coop we built did not have a floor. It did what we needed it to do, but in heavy rain or snow the bedding would hold water. And cleaning it was only done maybe four times a year.
Big Man drew up plans to remove our current run, and construct a coop in it's place that had a floor, but the plans would have required the purchase of a nail gun. Cupcake put that idea in the "things that will never happen" group, so we went back to planning stages. Our next idea was a pre built shed, placed as far from the house as possible. We had the perfect spot under a large pine tree in the corner of the back yard. There was a slope to the yard that would come in handy.
We shopped around and found a local company that would special order a shed for us, so we had them construct us a shed with the double doors facing down the slope, and an extra door to allow us access, with cross windows for ventilation.
We ordered the shed the first week of April and didn't expect delivery until May, but we got the call that it was in and being delivered Thursday. The delivery guy showed up alone, and we were curious how one guy could set up a shed the size of ours. He did it with the use of what may possibly be the coolest trailer ever known. Long story short, the shed is in place, alterations have been make and we are up and running.

Pre alterations

Egg production central

Ready for bed time

Old school security

Rain/Snow hatch

We designed the roost ladders so that can be lifted up, and we just sweep the straw out the doors and into our wagon we pull behind the 4 wheeler. No fuss, no muss. We are excited for our birds, but the down side to this plan was moving the chickens. We had to wait until dark Saturday night, then carry them two at a time to the new coop. That was twenty or so trips up and down the hill. Yardfit workout, as our pal Burk would call it.
We had another project this week that has ties to the chickens. We started sunflower seeds in our egg shells. We save our egg shells, mostly for grinding up and putting in the garden, but we have seen several people are using the shells for starting seeds. Apparently sunflower seeds do extremely well in shells, so we gave it a try.

We started some store bought seeds, and some from our giant sunflowers that we save. This will be our fourth year reusing seeds from the year before.
On the food portion of our update this week, we start off with Pop's birthday. He wanted a boil dinner for his big meal, and it has been a while since we did one. It turned out really well and it was quick and easy to do. We may have to start adding this to the rotation full time. We use potatoes, corn, sausage, shrimp and crawfish, so there is something for everyone in it.

Last week we added our Weber grill to the cooking lineup, this week we broke it in for Thor's day of red meat offerings.

First time fire

And last but not least, we joined forces with others in the community to raise over $3,000 for the Floyd County Fire Department. They had a fund raiser bake sale this weekend. Big Man whipped up a buttermilk pie and a chocolate pie while Cupcake made 100 of her soon to be world famous preacher cookies. We love baking, and when it's for a good cause? Well that's just gravy on our grits.

We ended the week with wings.
K&K

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