Feather Collection

It started with me thinking they were pretty.  I collected feathers dropped by my birds from time to time.  Then I found where one guy was selling them for $1.25 each.  Crazy.  So, I thought I would try.  I never posted them, I just felt plan silly doing it.  Selling chicken feathers??? 

I had a lot of feathers...a LOT of feathers.  I had so many they were starting to weigh down and crush those on the bottom.  One or two grace my hat.  They're special.

 My basket, now empty, sighed in relief.

What do you do with a bunch of feathers?  Yes, they're gorgeous, and many are sentimental, (Merlin, George), but what do you do with feathers??  You make a feather tapestry for the wall.

Take material (an old sweater I bought for a dollar at a yard sale), cut it to one layer thick and sized for hanging, and start poking feathers in it. (those are from Bluefoot)

I got better at it as time went on

The white are mainly Pekin duck, the grey are guinea and Tom, the golden laced (Wyandotte) are from Bluefoot, and the shiny on the right are from the various roosters.
Hang on the wall for easier access.

 Add the Royal Palm turkey feathers....

I can continue to add to them as the years go by, and their numbers increase.  We have a great deal to process tomorrow, so I will probably restock my supply.  I know to most this must seem stupid, but I think it's pretty and a wonderful way to remember all my birds.

I just made my own pastrami

Bit of background-We don't go out to eat.  There's only so many ways I know to fix beef, eggs, and milk.  So, I am constantly looking for new ways to fix things.  We don't do roasts, we just don't like them.  I would always just slow roast and BBQ them.  But that can get old.  Egg sandwiches for lunch everyday gets a bit old, and lunchmeat is not cheap!  So, I decided to figure out how to make my own, and I did.

1-I used a tip roast, 3 pounds

2-I didn't trim any fat off, as there wasn't really any to trim, but you will need to trim down to 1/8 inch if needed. 

3-Put in a bowl of water and add salt.  I used 3/4 c Kosher salt and I don't know, 2-4 quarts water?  Place this is the fridge for 7 days to 3 weeks.  I did it for 8 days and it was perfectly salted.

4-When its time is up, remove it from the fridge and bowl, rinse it off, and make the rub
RUB:
3T freshly ground pepper
2T ground coriander (I ground it fresh from what I grew.  Coriander is cilantro seed)
dash of cayenne (not really needed)
1T paprika
1T veg oil
good sized tsp of chopped garlic without the juice (I use store bought pre-chopped)

Rub this all over the outside liberally.
Wrap three times in alum foil and seal WELL!

5-Bake at 240 degrees F one hour per pound (although I'm sure there's a minimum)

6-When done, place in the fridge over night

7-The next morning, pour off the juice, unwrap (rinse the foil to use again-do NOT rinse the meat) and plop in on the cutting board

8-Slice THINLY (OH the smell, the SMELL MWAH ha ha ha ha haaaa!)...ahem, sorry...

It was very tasty.

My animals are weird

(All pics are thumbnails that you can click on for the full size.)
My dog really likes melons...that's weird.

My dog likes to ride Booger-that's even weirder.

My ex-pet bantam rooster liked to say howdy through the window.

Daphne (female duck) is presently molting.  Poor thing.

My pet spider

WHY does someone like me have a pet spider???  Well, I learned from a nice young lady that these spiders are nice to have around.  (This one resides next to my kitchen sink)
And eats bugs

(There really is a dead insect in there)
But the funny thing is, this spider is not maintenance free.  I didn't know this, but spiders poop.  And I have to clean his poop almost every day.

My pet cow loves a good horn scratching.

And my turkeys are just asking to be eaten. (you think the bird poop on your car is bad?)

(I throw in this last one just b/c it's pretty)

The dark side

We were invited to a party yesterday!  Arlis did NOT want to be sociable.

Mya just wanted to play

And at the last minute I made my costume.  I went as Morgause (pronounced Morgose) from Merlin/King Arthur.  Here is a good pic from the show

And here I am

Poncho for a cape, letters and envelopes for "chain mail", and knee high moccasins (not worn at the time of the pic).  My chain mail was real good too!

"Obama is the anti-christ! Pass it on!"
"Make 59 copies of this in the next 3 seconds, or your family will be wiped from earth's existance!"
"Dan Radcliff loves goats with his horses!"
"Lyndsay Lohan beats puppies!"
"The government is really made of Martians growing us for food with our own tax money!!  Pass it on!!"

Granted, they weren't in all caps with different colored fonts, but you get the idea.

Marcus wore his outfit...yet again.

See, with the cape over his head, he's the Emperor, with it off, he's Darth Vader again...

The cool thing about the party, I did meet up with a fb friend of mine, Nichole, who had helped me with foot rot before. 

So, while the kids played outside

...she helped me learn about my wool. 

We carded some.
 
, and she showed me how to spin on her nifty wheel.

After much trial and tribulation, a gorgeous skein was had (I really like the color mix) (sorry it's sideways)

 She gave me some of her beloved wool already carded and dyed with plants and such.

 I've already knitted all the spun wool together, and played with some of the carded.  I enjoy knitting from carded without spinning.  I really like the lanolin that gets left on the wool too.  It feels really good!  In order to knit without carding, you have to be pretty comfortable knitting to begin with.  Then, pull of a strip, and pull the strip as needed to even out the "rove".  I haven't quite figured out the optimal way to join new roving when the strips run out yet.

 Pull that top bit out as a strip, twisting it a bit if it makes you more comfortable.

Some of what she gave me was "pencil" roving.  It kept breaking on me, so I let Marcus play with it.  I believe I can card it later into full roving if needed.

He's made "warming socks" and "warming woolen pillows" that he puts in the oddest places.

 (See it down his shirt)

I'll post the "scarf" I am knitting with what wool I am currently blogging about later.  Currently, I am getting familiar with different fiber thicknesses, compositions, etc.  And the scarf will be awfully wonderful as far as I am concerned ;).  No matter how many different colors, thicknesses of yarns, or big tufts of fluff stick out.  I also plan to make a peg loom ASAP and make a tuffet or something similar.  AND...I found a cheaper drum carder by a brand called Brother, but I will probably buy hand carders first.  Oh what fun!!

Homemade soap IS cheaper

FYI-Here is what I did to make sure

My recipe:
1c Borax
1cWashing Soda (just recently available in my Wall-Mart)
1 bar soap grated
Use 1 Tbsp per load

Sometimes I use more-hey, we farm.  But I would use more of the store bought stuff in those cases too.  Now, a little background.  When I go to the store, I use the calculator on my phone and actually divide price by uses, and NEVER pay attention to the little store labels that tell how much per ounce, etc.  I do this for coke, TP, food, EVERYTHING.  You'd be surprised what the better deal is.  So, I'm using the cheapest laundry detergent at the store that I'm willing to use (some brands will fade or eat your clothes.  I don't use those)

I have a digital scale, a chemistry background, and a soap making background.  I make my own soap, and tally up how much that cost me per bar.  I weigh how much a cup of this or that weighs and divide it into the total package weight, and that into the price.  Add it all up and divide by the total number of uses I get (using weight) and here is what I found:

Store bought: 19 cents a load
Homemade:  7 cents a load.

Three loads a week will save $18.72 per year.  Not a huge amount, but at least this way, you know it's cheaper without having to guess.

My complaints for the day-there's just no comparison

I had an interesting day today.  A relative gave us just enough Dollywood tickets, so we took Marcus today.  Arlis and I complain about Dollywood, for several reasons.  One is that it costs just as much as Disney World and is far less in quality.  But I decided not to blog about that.

Then I thought I would blog about my short journey to get food at DW only to see there are no healthy weighted people anymore, children acting like rabid monkeys are no longer an embarrassment to their parents, and parents with $2000 cameras will force their child to pose most uncomfortably in the hopes of capturing that "perfect" shot.  Not to mention that my food wound up being molded and I had a hard time returning it.  But I won't blog about that.

Nor will I blog about our adventure on the Blazing Fury where I acted the fool screaming, "It's Thomas!  He's gone maaaaad!!" and then Marcus jumped on the tracks to cross them when we got off and made me more mortified as everyone, including us, was terrified he got electrocuted.  Not a scratch.

I also won't blog about our last visit to my in-laws where I learned my sister-in-law is attending a "coupon class".  Not only did it startle me that it exists, but I was showered with coupons and information I don't think I will ever understand about spending and saving and combining and sales.  I looked like the husband sitting there with a bewildered look upon my face while the wife tried to explain something simple to her, impossible to me.

I think I was actually going to blog about us being food snobs.  We would never be rude or complain to the cook/servers...but...I still feel awful knowing for a fact I am a snob about something.  We want a nice night out, to go out to eat or something.  Well...we just don't want to.  We grow our own beef, chicken, and lamb and trust me, the thought of eating grocery store meat is nauseating.  Dine out isn't much better.  I always try to get the fish or salad or something new or hard to make or something like that.  My husband actually says (he's a steak man btw), "No, not there.  All they have is steak."  Dine out steak just doesn't make the cut any more.  Produce is pretty good though.  We wound up eating at BK and then getting shakes at Arby's.  We spent $20.  It's been so long since we've eaten fast food, we now know to just go to a restaurant or buy a pizza.  It's probably less toxic and costs the same.  Fyi, I would much rather mix Nestle into Booger's milk than drink another shake any day.  There is just no comparison.

Turkeys ahoy!

I never wanted turkeys.  And I'll be honest, they're about the ugliest things I've ever seen.  But Arlis's brother wanted our old tractor tires, and Eldon traded us his turkeys and guineas.  He had to get rid of them, they were getting too close to the street, and going into neighbors' yards.  So off we go, 60 miles west, to get a truck load of poultry.

We decide to take a load to the dump since we're having to drive the behemoth anyway.  It's closed.  Soooo....we add another hour to rid our truck of horribly smelly garbage.  It's time to go shopping, and we thought maybe prices/selection would be better in Algood, so we decide to do some grocery shopping while we're at it (when going to town, do it ALL).  Nope, high prices....sigh.  Bought them anyway.

Get to Eldon's and drop off the tires.  At this point I realize we only brought one pair, and we try to make a plan to bring the other set later.  Now, he free ranged his birds, but was getting worried as they were going towards the street and bothering his neighbor.  He, less than gracefully, put five Royal Palm turkeys, and one dark breed of turkey in a good size cage for us.  We set it aside and go for the guineas.  They don't like being caught....at all....it was so difficult it wasn't even funny.  That being said, we got them, loaded them up, and mannerly got out of there as half the day is now gone (we left the house before 9) and it's a LOT hotter than you would have thought.  Poor things were not happy.

Since we were in town anyway, we had to visit as many relatives as possible.  We also had 10 panting birds in the truck bed.  So we quickly visited and got home late afternoon.  (At this point we're all running on reserves as breakfast has long left us).

When introducing new livestock of any kind, there are certain rules to follow.  We keep our poultry cooped up for a few days, then in the run, then free range.  That way a pecking order can be established, and they know where home is.  We let everyone out into the coop while the chickens were out ranging.  We then took some pics

A few days of being cooped up (and a good wing feather trimming) led to a few days of being allowed in the run.  Below is a vid of our new birds being allowed in the run for the first time.

A few days of that led to free ranging.  We were fearful, but other than one small mishap (one of them tried to roost on our front porch railing), they took themselves back home without help.  The extension office told me to use guineas for my potato beetle problem.  I'll let you know how that pans out.

Btw, all that old moldy hay has been wonderful.  Not only does it supply our birds with bugs, and cats with mice, but the shrooms that grow on the stacks are eaten within SECONDS of the chickens being back there.  They LOVE the wild mushrooms.