A Work In Progress

Some of you may know that we are in the process of remodeling the house that used to be Shane's grandparents. We have been working on it for a while now....like.......almost a couple of years. We have been trying to do all  that we can by ourselves. It has been an experience, to say the least.  I wanted to give an update on how it's working out.  The home is an older block home; made out concrete blocks.  The interior walls had an old outdated paneling hung over them, that we took down.  We also knocked a wall down that was between the dining room and living room.  This opened it up quite a bit!  You can see in the photo below what it looked like prior to the drywall work.  Check out that green wall that had been hiding under the paneling for who knows how many years.  Minty :)

This past week my mother in law was out of school for the Thanksgiving holidays (she's a teacher), so she came over to give us a hand.  The drywall was finished and primed, so she and I were in charge of getting the wainscoting boards stained and  a coat or two of poly.  We opted for a "natural wood" look, so I picked a lighter shade for the stain. I tell you, I don't want to go through the process of trying to pick out colors for anything EVER again!  It is so frustrating for me....I can never make a decision.  ( By the way, we had summer weather the whole Thanksgiving holiday week.  It was in the 80's.  Can you believe it?)

After we worked on the planks we'd let them sit on the saw horses for a while under the lights until they were dry enough to handle. 

Then we'd take all of the planks and lay them on the floor in other rooms of the house to let them dry for the rest of the time.  The stain took 8 hours while the polyurethane took about 4-5 hours.

Below is a photo of the same room with the boards in place.  There will be a chair rail put on top of the boards and the windows will be cased in with the wood.  We are going to get a new fan and definitely a new front door, but for now it's just a work in progress.

This is a shot from the other side of the room that has the chair rail added.  It is really turning out nice.  It's pretty neat to  see that what you've envisioned come to be.  

Hopefully we'll make more progress through the remainder of  the year and be able to move in by Spring of next year!  My fingers are crossed very tightly!

Today's the day to reflect on all that we should be  thankful for. God has truly blessed our family more than we deserve. 

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends and family near and far!  God Bless You!

Crock-Pot Cornbread Dressing

For those of you that have been asking for the recipe for crock pot dressing, here it is:

4  cups of deboned chicken ( I usually cook a chicken in the rotisserie and use the meat from that; store- bought rotisserie chicken would be easier!  )

6  cups of cornbread crumbled

9  slices of white bread torn into pieces

1  small onion, chopped in the mini food chopper ( I don't like the big hunks)

3  stalks of celery, chopped in the mini food chopper ( again, I don't like the big hunks)

3 1/2 cups of chicken broth ( I have frozen chicken broth stored for this) or you can use 2-14oz. cans of chicken broth.

2  cans of cream of chicken soup

4  large eggs

1/2  tsp pepper

1/4  tsp salt

2  tsp ground sage

Mix all of these ingredients in a large (very large) bowl.  Then put it in a greased 5-6 qt crock pot.  Then cut up 1 stick of butter into "pats" and arrange on the top of the mixture.  Cover and cook on low for 7 hours or High for 4 hours.  Stir well before serving.  

Ever since I have used this recipe, it is the most requested dressing...... It stays so moist!

Pinkeye

We have 2 commercial does that we are having to treat right now for pinkeye. I thought it would be a good idea to put a picture up for those who may have never had to deal with it. When we first had goats, many of them were purchased from the stockyard. Several of them would have pinkeye and end up needing treatment. Long ago, we quit the "stockyard" goat buying and haven't had one case of pinkeye until now. There's a saying we have here at our farm. " Well, now we know.  Live and learn. "

If caught early, sometimes pinkeye will be present itself with a reddened eye and drainage. It may have a few patches of the white cloudiness on the cornea.  Below is a photo of the doe with the worst case. Her cornea has actually turned opaque white. You can also see that there is drainage around the eye.

  

Add caption

We have isolated the does in a cattle trailer from the rest of the herd. We have sprayed their eyes with a warm saline solution to remove the drainage. We are treating them with LA-200 5cc/100lbs SQ (subcutaneous-which means under the skin, not in the muscle) injections. Previously we have used a Gentamycin ophthalmic spray without giving any injections. The LA-200 has been recommended to us by the vet. You will have to check with your vet to see what is recommended for you to use as treatment, if you should ever have to deal with this. 

I wonder if any of this stuff will count towards keeping my nursing license current??  I could just see myself saying, " Sure, I've continued to practice nursing, I am a mom and live on a farm."  What more can I say, it has come in real handy!

Anatolian Shepherd Pups.....and A Colt Too!

I finally made it out to the pasture to get a few photos of Jael's new pups. She had made a den under an dead tree that had fallen over this past summer. They were so funny. When I walked up to  take the photos, those little pups barked and growled at me like they were big massive dogs. I couldn't help but chuckle because they are just big ole balls of fur right now.

They have started coming out from under that tree with Jael in the pasture a few feet away. The pasture they are in has some of our newly weaned heifers and our bucks. Jael is an extraordinary LGD. I'm glad that we are able to raise our pups out in the pasture with all of the livestock so they are able to "learn the ropes" from Jael. We are also expecting pups from one of Jael's daughters, Cheyenne, any day. Cheyenne has super LGD instincts like her mom. We expect great pups from her as well.

On guard

We have a neighbor right down the road from us that also has goats, but no LGD.  He said that he believes coyotes a getting some of his goats.  We do have quite a bit of coyotes in our area, but since we've introduced guardians to our farm, we haven't had an issue.  Check out this post here to see what  LGDs can do to unwanted predators in the pasture with their goats.

Below is an updated photo of Dixie's colt.  He is almost 2 months old.  There is a lot more of  the black showing through his coat than when he was first born.  I'm not sure how long it takes to find out their true color, but he is a mixture of colors right now.  He is also very dusty in this picture.  It's dry as a bone around here, and those horses love to plop down and roll in dirt.  It's so funny to see such a big creature wallowing on the ground.  My mother in law said that for each roll they do on the ground, add $100.  She said growing up, they would say that however many times the horses rolled from one side to the other; that would equal how much they were worth. 

2 months

Pickle What?

I have been up to my ears in bake sale preparations this week. We are winding up the Fall Festival King and Queen competition this weekend and bake sales were a part of it this week. I've learned a lot about what kids like to eat and drink this week. I saw a lot of kids running around with cups that looked like this......

You may wonder what is it just like I did.  Whatever that was in those cups was "gold" to all of the children because they flocked to a specific table that offered these for sale.  Can you guess what it is? 

This, my friends, is what the kids so fondly referred to as pickle pops.  Frozen pickle juice.....I mean who would've thought it?  So for today's bake sale, I did what any other bake sale mom would do.  

Pickle pops

 I sold 2 gallons of pickles yesterday and was left with all of that juice.  After seeing all of the mayhem over the pickle pops, I wasn't about to waste that juice by pouring it out.  Oh no, my freezers are full of trays of frozen pickle juice.  They were selling it for 25 cents a cup.  These cups are like little Dixie cups. Those two gallons made about 65 cups.....Whew!

Hallelujah this is my last day!  Each day is designated for a different grade.  Since I have TWO children participating,  I am a little "scatter-brained" these days.  I could be like another parent that has 3 children in it, all the while expecting my fourth in a couple of months.  Bless that mom's heart......She should get a medal!