Country Snoskred

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Collect Egg Cartons, She Said

6 Comments Posted on December 16, 2015September 24, 2015 by Snoskred

A few years ago a lady at work sent out an email asking for people to collect egg cartons. For what reason I cannot recall. It might have been for a kids arts and craft thing, or because she had chickens, to build a space craft, for soundproofing.. I have no recollection of the reason now. But the request stuck in my mind, and collect egg cartons I did. Visitors to the house have commented on the large amount of egg cartons residing here.

I remember taking in a stack of them in to the requester a couple of times, then I forgot all about the taking and just kept on with the collecting. Standing there in the kitchen this morning, I realised.. it has been exactly one year and six months since I was last at my place of work. I’m not going back. These egg cartons are never being given to that person again. What the heck am I still collecting them for? Are they just collecting dust up there?

Yes, they were collecting dust up there. I wiped the dust off before stacking them into a pile. I counted. There were 36 of them. 35 of them belong to Manning Valley Eggs. I am a loyal consumer. I have my reasons, they are extremely great eggs, nearly as good as our own girls.

Letting these collected egg cartons go was a brilliant feeling. :) Kthxbai!

country life, moving on, work

The Chicken Mind

11 Comments Posted on December 14, 2015December 13, 2015 by Snoskred

There are certain things you need to look out for when it comes to chickens. Terry from Henblog writes in her post diagnosing a sick chicken –

“The best advice that I can give anyone is this: know your animals. You should be so acquainted with their quirks and vocalizations, their greetings and their eating habits, that as soon as something is off, you know it.”

But sometimes, odd chicken behaviour has nothing to do with being sick, and everything to do with chickens getting an idea stuck in their mind. Broodiness is one such example. Above you see my two pekins in a broody mood.

The good thing about these broody hens – once I remove the eggs, pick them up and put them on the ground, they usually forget all about being broody and go right back to being normal chickens – until someone lays another egg.

There have been times when one of these two has an extended broodiness with and/or without eggs in the box. It can last a couple of weeks. I discourage it in hot weather, and I always kick the broody out when I go out to collect the eggs, so they can poop, eat, drink, etc. In super hot weather I try to go out every hour or so, to make sure everyone is doing ok.

You might recall the above photo from a Sunday Selections post – this is when Purple Comb got the idea in her head that she did not want to lay her eggs in the nesting box. This is not a new idea for her – she has done this for at least two weeks every year since we got her. One year she laid nearly 20 eggs in a hidden spot we did not find until we did some serious gardening. We still are not sure how long those eggs had been there!

Purple comb is not broody with these eggs – she simply lays them and gets on with her day. Once the egg is laid she rejoins the flock. When I go to collect it, she plays the “it wasn’t me, truly, I lay my eggs in the nesting box” game. Here she is, doing exactly that, while I tell her off, because I got dirty collecting her hidden egg!

She presently has three not laying box places where she will lay her egg – in that garden box, under the lemon tree in the garden, and she made a tiny little nest next to the gate leading out to their leaf pile. Before laying her daily egg, she roams separately from the flock – scratching around, hunting for that perfect item to take and add to her native nest(s).

Chickens are flock animals and when one removes themselves from the flock, that is sometimes cause for worry. In the case of Purple Comb, she has a purpose in her mind which is outweighing flock time. She wants to build the perfect native nest(s) for her eggs. Why she thinks a spot next to an old wooden gate and a drain cover is perfection, that is yet another mystery of the chicken mind.

Red Comb has been removing herself from the flock on super hot days, choosing a shady place to sit and dust bathe. She is not enjoying the hot weather. I make sure to give her cool treats and any day where the temperature reaches 30+, I put some cold water with ice spheres in it into the pen. Once I do that, she dust bathes near the cool water, and I see her drinking slightly more than usual. She will get a cold watermelon, tomato or blueberry treat.

She is still eating, still laying, still doing all the usual chook things. She just takes a break when she needs to. Once the heat of the day passes, she is back out roaming with the girls. I know her well enough to know that her hot day flock removal is not a huge cause for concern with her. She has never been quite the same since the hawk incident. She simply wants to be in the coolest spot possible when the heat is on.

I know Red Comb is still enjoying life and she still runs for her blueberry medals, even on a 40C (104F) day. In fact all I have to do is stand near the back door and there will be a chook frenzy, with all the girls running up to see if I am bringing them a treat. On hot days I only go to the back door if I am taking them something because I do not want them to get all excited without an actual reward.

The day she does not run up, excited to see me, that will be the day I know she has had enough and it is time for that dreaded journey to the vet. Until then, the blueberry medals and treats will be a daily event. Chooks are here for a good time, not a long time.

Purple Comb was eventually successful in hiding many eggs from me and she got another chook to join in. This is 5 days of 2 chooks laying their eggs in a hidden spot. This potplant was removed from the chook pen once I discovered this – it normally sat in an area I don’t always check, obviously! I only discovered it because I saw one of the chooks standing on the edge of the potplant.

I had noticed the drop in eggs and thought the heat plus mites and/or lice might be the reason. One of the broodies had a few red mites, I found. All the chooks got a dusting with the pest powder that evening, plus a dose of Ivermectin. The treatment is very effective, within 24 hours I checked the broody again and saw no sign of any pests. It was a few more days before I found these eggs.

It is a not so awesome fact of chicken life that chooks will experience these pests from time to time and it is always the first thing I look for when the eggs disappear. Usually dust bathing is enough to keep our girls pest free, except when they get broody because they do not spend time dust bathing. When it rains a lot, they also cannot dust bathe.

Mostly these things are carried by wild birds. While it might be an idea to discourage wild birds from hanging out in our yard, I also enjoy wild birds visiting. We have two bird baths which are quite the bird hangout on super hot days. Even if I took away the bird baths, the chicken wire on top of the coop does allow small birds to fly in, mostly pigeons but there is a willy wagtail who likes to fly in and eat spiders up high where the chooks can’t reach.

Chickens, country life, garden

Sunday Selections Week 49

15 Comments Posted on December 6, 2015December 7, 2015 by Snoskred

It is the first Sunday of the month, which means Garden Day here on the blog. It also means Berry Market Day, for those in Berry or perhaps Sydney who might want to drive down one Sunday. I myself have never been but I would like to go one time!

So how does the garden do? Obviously, the resilient and fantastic Portulaca are going great guns.

One of them decided to have an apricot and pink moment. I really love these plants. I bought some more this week, as well. Of those, I would like to mention this portulaca, which was found at Bunnings named “Christmas Colour” and was the expensive sun of $2.84. Your local Bunnings may have some, or none at all.

If you want to try Portulaca this is a cheap way to get a more advanced plant than the seedlings. Mine has pink and red flowers, I did not see any white there, though they may have had some.

The nasturtiums which were not fenced off, as expected, went a little bit downhill, while the fenced off one was quite happy. They are now both protected.

There have been a lot of leaves and bark falling from the trees – we did a big sweep up and rake last weekend, and the chook leaf pile has grown. The chooks are not so sure about this – firstly, it is very noisy, compared to their already well worked over by chooks pile. Secondly, it is a lot taller. I can always tell when they are brave enough to turn over the newer scary leaves. The noise travels.

The garden bed is a mixed result. The Brussels are taking off somewhat. The chard, not so much. The baby spinach did not do very well and I gave up and pulled it out. The chooks enjoyed it.

I suspected one of the reasons the plants were not taking off in this planter box was the location. There is a tree next to our property which means that spot is in shade from midday or so until mid-afternoon, then the shade kicks in from other trees, and this spot did not get as much sun as these plants would like.

I said to The Other Half – can you move the planter box? He said no, remember when we built it, I told you to pick the spot well because it would be too heavy to move later.

I said well, you really can’t go to Mars if you can’t move this planter box, with science. Pulleys and fulcrums and physics, and shiznit. I’m sure you can manage it, with science.

And manage it he did, with a sack truck and a crowbar. The Other Half can now go to Mars! We’ll see how it goes with more sun.

Finally an update on the Penstemon – ours is called Sour Grapes.

This plant baffled me for some time, growing taller and taller but no actual buds appearing.

Last week, they finally arrived. It was worth the wait.

Would you like to join in with Sunday Selections?? The rules are very simple:-
1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title
2. link back to River at Drifting Through Life, somewhere in your post
3. leave River a comment so that she knows you’ve joined in and can come over and see what you’ve posted.

Also Linking Up With

Sunday Snap @ JibberJabberUK

garden, Sunday Selections, weekly wrap up

Our Grande Dame Chicken Rosie

22 Comments Posted on November 16, 2015November 13, 2015 by Snoskred

Rosie Rosecomb is the sister of a prize winning show chicken. When we first got her, she knew nothing about being a chicken. If I had to guess, I would guess she spent her previous life in a small enclosure with sawdust on the ground and a small amount of food and water available. She certainly had not lived in a flock situation before.

You might be able to spot it in the photo – her nails were incredibly long and so was her beak. There was the terrible time I tried to cut her nails – following the correct instructions – which resulted in a bit of a disaster as it was very difficult to spot the quick in Rosie’s nails..

Thank the deities for the internet, where I discovered step number 3. Lucky I had some corn starch handy! That was the one and only time I ever trimmed her nails – soon she was keeping them the right length on her own. The beak is also now kept to the correct length without any assistance from me. Amazing what happens when a chook can be a chook!

When Rosie arrived here, she quickly took up her place at the very bottom of the pecking order. She did not mind being there. She was just happy to be a part of the flock. And so the process of learning how to be a chicken began.

She started out by watching the other chooks. The first truly chicken-like thing she did was learning how to dust bathe. Chooks prefer dirt to any other ground surface, it is a fact. If you give them a grassy enclosure, they will not be truly happy until all the grass is gone.

Rosie took her time mastering the dust bath. She much prefers it to the *other* kind of bath she was used to, which would have been the water bath with soap and probably a hair dryer, to get ready for shows. Rosie does not enjoy water – she is always the first one to take cover when it rains and the last one to walk into a puddle on the ground looking for bugs.

When Redcomb was nearly taken by a hawk, Rosie was nearby to her. We are very lucky the hawk did not grab Rosie because everything I know about her personality tells me that she would not have put up a fight like Redcomb did. At that moment, Rosie became the look out chook. When any kind of bird appears in the sky, Rosie squawks up a storm.

Rosie was already a very talkative chicken – whenever I would see her, she would be making this little bup-bup-bup-bup noise. You can bup-bup-bup back to her, and hold a real bup-bup conversation. I have no idea what she is trying to say to me, but I always enjoy our conversations.

After Redcomb was lowered in the pecking order due to being injured, the two of them became very close friends for a while. They went everywhere together. They had happy bup-bup chats. They shared treats. Rosie would keep the look out while Redcomb explored the garden, looking for bugs. They are still friends, though not quite as close. Rosie made a couple of new friends once the Pekins arrived.

It was apparent to the Pekins that Rosie is a Grande Dame chicken. They took Rosie into their confidence and accepted her as an equal, even though she is considerably smaller than they are. This could be partly due to the fact that the three game hens look alike, and Rosie has black feathers like Lizzie does.

Rosie eventually stepped up to third in the pecking order with the three game hens at the bottom. This does not mean a lot to her general lifestyle, though it does mean she will take a treat and hold her ground if one of the Pekins tries to steal it from her. Rosie does not peck at those below her. She is not that kind of girl.

Rosie is always the first one to put herself to bed at night. She has laid one egg in her lifetime that we are certain of. It was the size of a pigeon egg. She is a very small chook so this was not surprising.

She always loves to tell the world one of the other girls is in the nest laying an egg. She is a lovely chook and I paid $10 for her, so she was also quite a bargain. She was worth every cent and then some. Watching her learn to be a chicken while I was learning about chickens has been an amazing experience.

I hope to have many more years of bup-bup conversation with this particular Grand Dame.

Chickens, country life

The Huskisson – Review

10 Comments Posted on November 13, 2015December 10, 2015 by Snoskred

~ image from The Huskisson website
~ the place was so packed with people it was impossible to get a decent shot ~

On a sunny Sunday in early November, we revisited one of our favourite local places to eat. They have this delicious pizza there which I was suddenly craving, friends were visiting, the timing seemed perfect. This place has a fantastic location as you can see by the images.

It should be noted, I previously reviewed The Huskisson @Tripadvisor on May 13 2013. In that review I mentioned some issues with the design of the place plus they were only using one till for food ordering.

~ image from The Huskisson website

On a previous revisit in 2014 I noticed they were doing some internal renovations and I had hoped these design issues would have been fixed. Sadly they were not fixed. People are still queuing across a walk way and there is still only one till. We ended up sitting near the ordering area. I had a great view of the pass and that was designed quite badly as well, with a staff member there the whole time moving plates around, trying to work out what food went with which receipt and then using a buzzer system to let people know their food was ready.

Design issues aside, the food is still fantastic here. The bruschetta ($14 for 3 pieces) is amazing. It has avocado on it! I’d never had it with avocado before finding that here and it is a brilliant addition. The bruschetta also has tomato, fresh basil, toasted ciabatta, and fetta. It arrives on a plate which has been drizzled with a gorgeously sticky balsamic vinegar glaze.

You can see the menu here. For mains, 3 people ordered fish and chips ($24.50) – they all said it was delicious.

The Other Half went for the Waygu burger ($19.50) minus the beetroot relish because he does not like beetroot.

One friend chose the Chicken Parmigiana ($23.50). I’ve had that before and it is very tasty as well.

But me, I cannot go past the Husky Pizza ($20), which has Danish salami, chorizo, roast chicken, mushrooms, Spanish onion, roast capsicum, olives, fresh basil, prawns, Napoli sauce, mozzarella cheese. In fact, the pizza was even better than ever before. They did something to the base and it was super thin, crispy, crunchy and just awesome. I will make a very large call here and suggest this is one of the best pizzas in the Shoalhaven. You can see the full menu here.

We did not have desert sadly but I took some photos for you, they do coffee here as well.

Our lunch was delicious and much enjoyed by all. We will return many times. If you visit and want a peaceful lunch, I recommend sitting as far as possible from the ordering area and the pass. If you want some entertainment, then I do recommend sitting near both of those things!

I will be doing a few more local food reviews with the holiday and tourist season coming up – important to note – We always pay for our food. Nobody pays me for writing these reviews. Sadly nobody asks me to review their restaurant/cafe/food place as yet. If asked, I will review a food place, but I will not accept payment for any reviews. I will review freebies or free items but I will always make it clear if something is free.

You might be interested to visit my disclosure page if you want to know more.

food, Huskisson, Jervis Bay, reviews

WW – Bee Hive

8 Comments Posted on November 11, 2015November 10, 2015 by Snoskred

blog housekeeping, garden, photography, Wordless Wednesday

Kitty VS Chooky

15 Comments Posted on November 4, 2015September 24, 2015 by Snoskred

Little Kitty is still a chaser of chooks if she gets the opportunity. When the chooks are free ranging she will watch them intently and hope someone opens the door.

You can see Red Comb is giving her the evil eye. And her proximity to the cat grass pot with the freshly raised sunflower seeds is why that particular plant pot now resides on the table out of reach of the chookys.

Chickens, country life, kitties

The Pittosporum Hedge

11 Comments Posted on October 28, 2015October 27, 2015 by Snoskred

This hedge at my parents place is at least 6 feet tall and it has grown to that height very quickly. If you want a hedge super fast, I recommend Pittosporum.

It could be considered a little boring but unlike some of the other hedging plants used (eg. Jasmine, Lilly Pilly) most people are unlikely to be allergic to it. :)

family, garden

Orient Point Bakehouse

11 Comments Posted on October 5, 2015September 27, 2016 by Snoskred

I belong to a local restaurant feedback group on Facebook. People post photos and text of their experiences at local restaurants. I pay attention and store away nuggets of gold for future reference. Such nuggets involve names of places that get good feedback regularly and photos of food that look like something I want to try.

I’d read about Cronuts on lots of different food blogs with interest, so when someone posted about locally available cronuts at the Orient Point Bakehouse, I added that place to the very top of my list. Before we could organise a visit, they closed for a months holiday.. and I counted the days until they reopened. We headed down there *early time* on the very first Saturday they were open.

I ordered the Iced Salted Caramel ($5.50) – it was quite spectacular and perfectly balanced. That caramel on top was fluffy and very special. The Other Half chose the Iced Mocha (seen below, $5.50) – I tried it and it was packed full of chocolatey coffee flavour goodness.

While we were waiting for our food, I began to worry that the cronuts I saw on the counter – initially 6, now down to 2 – were the last ones available! I spoke to a staff member and it was as I feared, so I asked if they could be put aside for us.

I felt like the cronut might be too much sugar for my still yet to awaken stomach, so to eat I chose the bacon and egg roll with tomato relish. People. I’m not kidding. This is by far the best egg and bacon roll I have ever experienced in my lifetime and I have had quite a few. The bacon fat – which is normally something I remove as much as possible – was perfectly rendered – not chewy, not noticeable, just very tasty.

The tomato relish was the element that lifted this from normal to extraordinary. It was vinegary, tomato packed, flavourful, and zingy. This was quite large – that bun is about the size of a hot dog roll – and all for the teeny sum of $5.

Deeply satisfied and with cronuts in hand, we left. I was so full from breakfast that the cronuts waited until 3pm coffee time. And I thought the bacon and egg roll was good. There are no words for how amazing this was. Topped with whipped cream and a gorgeous blueberry jam, and dusted with CRISPY sugar, I am very glad this place is only open weekends. If it were open weekdays, I might be tempted to cruise down and pick one up on a regular basis.

There are two important things to know before you head off to this place –

1. They take cash only. I’m not sure how I knew this because it does not say anything on the website about that. It might have been reading reviews on the web. This is somewhat normal for our local area but I do find it to be a negative in this day and age, I will not lie about that.

I rarely carry cash myself and I was not sure there would be an ATM down there. We had to make a special trip into town to get enough cash before we headed down that way. While we got out of there for just over $30, some of the menu items are more expensive, so my advice is to bring more cash than you think you would need.

2. The place is quite small with limited seating so if it is packed you may have to wait a little for a table or get take away. They have some tables out the front as well if the weather is sunny.

They do have a sample menu available via their Facebook page with some pricing.

This was our first ever visit to Orient Point, which is a sleepy coastal village on the NSW South Coast. We will be back regularly. I’m thinking once a month will allow me to try many menu items before spring and summer are over and also not be too calorific for my present lifestyle. How will I choose something other than the bacon and egg roll? I’m not sure.. :)

I have heard these guys are moving to Culburra Beach sometime this year, so make sure to check the address on the website before you head over. :)

food, Orient Point, reviews

Sunday Selections Week 40

19 Comments Posted on October 4, 2015October 4, 2015 by Snoskred

I think for the foreseeable future, we will make the first Sunday of the month Garden Check In day. The Dianthus in our older planter pot from 2014 are flowering again.

About four weeks ago we did some new planting and two weeks ago I posted this update post.

The flyscreen wrapped garden box is doing very well. We’ve had a praying mantis which has been hanging out on top of it.

The sunflower seeds have turned into tiny plants.

The Nasturtiums are having a wonderful time in their new home. The chooks quite often stand on the hardware wire but they do not eat the plants. In a couple of weeks I will feel secure enough to take this ex-kitty door off.

As you can see, the jasmine has climbed high up the arch. It is smelling awesome!

Next time I will show you the progress of some new plants we have purchased, including my first ever succulent – Portulaca. Here they are as I was buying them in the garden centre.

And a close up of the Portulaca. There were 6 seedlings in here.

The chooks have been getting plenty of free ranging time, and Kitty Supervisor is on the job. I’ve kept that pot on the table for a couple of weeks to make sure the sunflowers get a decent start without a chook eating them incident, but that meant the cats could not eat the cat grass. It was good for the cat grass because they had been chowing down on it, and it needed a break from kitty teeth! ;)

Kitty Supervisor can watch them down here from a side window which is good, because they like to venture down here to some very old lawn clippings and leaves which were left here for a couple of years to turn into bug filled mulch – AKA happy meal time for chooks! There is a gate which shuts this area off if and when new clippings are left here – however that has not happened in some time, the bag catcher is broken.

Weekly Wrap Up –

Daylight Savings starts today here in Australia. Normally this is my favourite time of year because in previous years I have suffered from SAD – that is Seasonal Affective Disorder – however this past winter I did a lot better than usual. I’m crediting the evening candle show, an LED light changing shower head, and LED lights throughout the house for that improvement.

So today I am a little bit sad to be saying goodbye to 5-6 hours of candle time a day. I’ll still be burning candles of an evening and I think that is a long term change for the better for me, it will just be candles for a shorter amount of time each day, and more time outside in the evening for plant watering and chooky chores.

In scheduling news, I already have two posts scheduled for 2016. All my Wednesday posts are written for the rest of the year, and I am scheduled out to November for the other blog days. I like to write ahead, and sometimes posts come up that are time sensitive and the other not so time sensitive posts get pushed out further.

There Was An Incident –

Grumpy is extra grumpy this week. She did something to her eye – we are not sure what happened to start it off, but she was squinting a lot and somehow her bottom eyelid was turning in as a result. After making a vet appointment for Monday we were trying to get some photos to show the vet because we could fix the eyelid – turn it out the right way – and sometimes it would stay fixed for a decent length of time, so we could not guarantee it would happen when we were at the vets with Grumpy. Happy did a little photobomb.

I did manage to get a decent in focus shot which showed the vet everything she needed to see, plus after I showed her the photo the eyelid started to turn in while we were there. That was the last time it turned in and I hope it never happens again!

Ever since Grumpy had that terrible Kidney Shutdown of 2014, she has not been a fan of vets at all. The only person that can hold her when we are there now is The Other Half, and he is the only person who can hold her when she needs to be medicated – which she has needed twice a day this past week for a tablet and ointment in her eye.

We went back to the vet on Friday for another eye dye and blacklight look. It seems like progress has been made, not just on the eye front but also a trip where the only thing that happens is dye in her eye might help her a lot with her vet fears.

We’ll keep up the ointment for another 7 days then take her back again next Friday. This time Happy will go along for a check up as well. I fully anticipate that once the vet finds her melty spot, she will lie down on the table, purr a lot, and ask for belly rubs. :)

The Martian –

The Martian Official Website

We went to see The Martian this weekend. I’d started reading the book a few months ago. The book was something I knew The Other Half would deeply love, so I made him start reading it – and he finished it before I did! That is the fastest he has ever read a book in his lifetime.

I read the book again this week in preparation for seeing the movie and loved it just as much the second time. I was curious about a few things – would the movie begin with the same line as the book, which contains a pretty serious swear word? That would be fine in Australia but I really cannot see the US audience enjoying that. And how would they handle the night soil stuff?

The truth is, I suspect this might be the best space movie ever created, or at least a tie for first place with Apollo 13. Yes, there was some swearing. Yes, there was vacuum sealed poop. Yes, I did cringe at the whole poop thing being a germophobe, but I actually cringed more at Mark performing surgery on himself. There was nothing in the movie that I did not deeply enjoy. Matt Damon was brilliant as expected, so was everyone in it.

So if you have not read the book and you like science, space, Matt Damon, NASA and/or movies set in space, go and see the movie. If you like the movie, read the book. The movie runs for 2h20m, and it felt to me like it went for 30 minutes maximum. Sephyroth wrote about The Martian too. Beware though his post contains some spoilers if you have not seen it.

garden, Home, kitties, movies, Sunday Selections, weekly wrap up