Chicken Update

Well it has been a while since I've updated you on our chickens. Let me tell you they are growing very quickly and now look more like hens than chicks. We have now moved them to a larger coop where they have access to both indoors and outdoors.

This coop was built by the previous owner. My mother-in-law suggested I find an old board and paint the words "The Coop" in black and hang it above the door. I think that would look really cute. Maybe I'll do that this weekend.

Inside the coop

The coop's yard

Here are the girls now!! Quite a bit bigger than the last time I posted pictures!!

Oktoberfest

This past weekend my in-laws, sister-in-law, a couple from church and myself (my DH along with my brother-in-laws were on a boys church camping trip) spent the evening at the Oktober fest. It was a lovely drive through the countryside to a town about 1 1/2 hours north of us. Apparently this town is converted for one weekend into Oktoberfest. Several of the stores are rented out for the weekend so that merchants can set up shop in there!

We had a wonderful time wandering around listening to music, eating and we even did a little dancing. There are several things that we discovered while we were there...

~They have great food (sausages, fried mushrooms and onions, fries with bacon, chives, and cheese, doughboys filled with cream or raspberry filling, marionberry ice cream, apple cake with butter sauce to name a few.) Believe me we didn't leave hungry.

~The Hokey-Pokey and Chicken dance are staple polka songs. My in-laws had never heard of the Chicken dance so I taught it to them. The groups played more than those two songs but we heard those two at least 4 times.

Here's some pictures from our evening.

I did take a video of the dancing but I'm having difficulty getting it to post. If I can get it to work I'll post it!

Cally

We have finally decided on the name Cally for our new dog. Cally is a shorten version for a local Indians tribe. Both my DH and I think the name fits her better than Sioux. It has been amazing to see how much better she is doing since we picked her up from the pound on Saturday. She now walks up and down the deck by herself. (That is something that we have had to teach her to do.) Since Saturday she has had three accidents on the tile floor but yesterday and today she did both of her businesses outside. Believe me this lady is very happy about that!!! The biggest change is she is going on walks with me off leash up in a field by our house. She will either walk right next to me or go out a little distance and then stop and wait for me to catch up to her. Yesterday a very loud motorcyclist drove by and she freaked out and took off running. She disappeared out of sight and I wasn't sure how far she had run. I called her and whistled for her and a few seconds later her head comes around the corner and she looks at me a little sheepishly. I called her again and she came running up to me!!! She has made huge improvements from when she was in the kennel!!

It has been funny to watch because Cally really hasn't been taught that much. We are had to or are having to try and teach her how to go up and down steps, eat in a bowl, walk on a leash, check to see if the glass door is open before walking through it, how to come when she is called, that its okay to bark when someone comes into the yard etc. Poor thing really does have much of a clue in some of the small things.

We did have one scare on Monday when Cally met Monk and Jasper. Jasper has been sticking his nose over the fence trying to meet Cally. I've been trying to keep an eye on that because my DH did say Jasper really doesn't like dogs. Well Monday afternoon Cally was in the corral with my DH and I as we were moving chicken into a larger coop. Cally had no fear of Monk and Jasper. They were sniffing her and she was sniffing them. The problem came when she brushed up against Monk's back leg and he kicked out. That scared Cally who accidentally ran into Jasper's back legs and he kicked. Cally caught that one and she took off running. Well, Jasper then took off after her. I started yelling for Cally and Jasper while running after them. (Let me tell you the two of them can run fast!) They took off into the other corral where Cally finally turned and barked at Jasper but by that time Jasper "ran" her over and she sat on her back legs yelping. By this time my DH, who had been in the chicken coop when the incident happened, came running and scared off Jasper and picked up our poor Cally. (Apparently if Cally had run to us or not run at all Jasper won't have gone after her but when she took off running he thinks it as a game.) We were both so scared that she was hurt real bad. My DH looked her over and on her back hind leg she has several hoof size pieces of fur missing. The whole incident literally scared the pee out of her but fortunately nothing was broken. She was just shaking like a leaf as DH carried her out of the corral. We were able to get her to walk on it and except for being scared she seems fine. We are so glad that, that is all that happened!!! And of course my DH and I thought this whole thing might sent her back into her shyness but it surprisingly didn't!!! We almost wonder if it bonded us even more because she sees us as someone that will protect her!!! Cally now growls and barks at Monk and Jasper whenever they come close to the fence she is at. I think she now has a fear and strong dislike for them!

She really is a sweet dog and we're glad that we brought her home!!!

Foster Parents

Well, after some talking my DH and I have decided to take on the role of foster parents. We filled out the paperwork and were able to take home our little girl this afternoon. She is 9 months old and is very shy. She didn't have much human contact in the past so she is somewhat resistant and almost scared to be touched. We have discovered that once she is being held she starts to calm down and seems to be enjoying it. Both of us would like to make her a permanent member of our family but that all depends on how she responds to us and those around her. Unless something major changes I can't see any reason why she won't stay!

Here's a picture of our new baby! Isn't she beautiful!

(I had you going didn't I?! :)

She was one of 13 dogs rescued from property where the owners were being evicted. She is an Australia Shepherd who the pound named Berry. When we went to visit the pound she was so shy that she wouldn't come out of her dog house without the worker basically pulling her out. She has been around other dogs but not around people. She doesn't know how to walk on a leash and the only things she had to play with was a bucket of water. Both my DH and I fell in love with her but were unsure if she would warm up. We decided to take her as a foster dog with the intent of adopting her. She was very scared on the way home and was trying to hide on the floorboard of the truck. After awhile we were able to get her back on the seat and she seemed to enjoy the ride. Once we got her home we placed her in the kitchen where she will be able to hang out with me during the day. Our plan is to have her as an outside dog but until we get her use to people we will keep her in the kitchen (tile floor).

She really is a beautiful dog and we are excited about having her. We are hoping everything works out so that she can be ours. We are already thinking of an alternate name for her. We are thinking Sioux but haven't settle on that for sure! I'll keep you posted on her progress!

Applesauce

Can it really be two weeks since I last posted. I'm finding that hard to believe but when I think back onto all the different things that we've been doing I can believe it. In the last two weeks we've had company over, been company several times, cleared, scrubbed and sealed the deck, front porch and carport, attended a weekend history conference, went to the State Fair twice, had company spend the night, attended the church picnic and in between all of that I did some baking and cooking. Gosh when I look at all that, I realize why I didn't have time to post!

One of the fun baking projects I did in the last two weeks was make applesauce. We have several apple trees and my husband and brother-in law (DN) picked a good amount and I spent the afternoon making applesauce. (A special thanks to B. Shubin for sharing her yummy recipe with my family!) Here's some pictures of the process!

The recipe calls for the skin to be removed but since the apples are so small I decided to leave the skins on!

Here it is cooking and getting mashed up!

Once all the apples were cooked and mashed, I placed them on rack (actually its my cookie cooling rack:) and moved the mixture around so that the apple skins would stay on top and only the sauce would go through. I had a lot of skins left over and I didn't have the heart to just throw them away so I saved them and my DH and I have been eating them. They are very yummy!!

I then bagged all the applesauce into quart size bags and put them into the freezer to save for this winter. In all I made 1 gallon and 1 quart of applesauce!!! There still are a lot more apples to make applesauce out of so I have a feeling I"ll be working on this project for a while!!!