Klaussner

BC (Before Christmas) 2009 -

AC (After Christmas 2009) -

Out with the old and in with the new.

We finally broke down and purchased a brandy new sofa, chair and a half (similar to a love seat) and ottoman, hooray!

The decision to make this purchase was facilitated by a Christmas gift! Otherwise we'd still be using the old.

We walked through the store, checked out their offerings and mutually agreed upon, in short order too, the set and color, BAM, done deal! In stock and delivered a couple days later.

The old sofa, which has been around for ~15+ years, has been rehomed and being put to very good use.

All's well that ends well! And our ends, well they're well and comfy!

Farm Fresh Hankering

Working from home today. Had a lunch time hankering for some eggs. Put on the ole boots and trekked out to the chicken coop. Needed to shoo the Rhode Island Red pullet off the nest and low and behold, it was like opening a present at Christmas time, two freshly laid and still warm eggs.

Mmmm, mmmm good - BURP!

You just can't beat (again, no pun intended) farm fresh eggs, especially one's just laid! On sale soon...

Chain Link Kennel

Here are a couple pictures of the chain link fencing we're using to house and cage our pair of Muscovy ducks. If you look close enough you should be able to see the ducks too, just beyond the fence.

The duckies doing just fine and seem to be ill effected by the cold, snowy New England weather. They've managed to fly out of their cage, which is really a kennel, twice to date but didn't venture too far. They sat patiently in front of the gate versus behind it like the pictures show until I arrived with their breakfast and willingly in they went. It's about time to cut their flight feathers to prevent this from becoming a habit.



Drake (male) on top and hen (female) on the bottom.

Public Service Announcement

Too much of a good thing isn't alway good!

I'm just saying.

Fun Fact

Fun Fact!

Pomegranates are a good source of vitamin C and potassium.

Cheaper by the Dozen

Despite the short days and cold temperatures the pullets are finally beginning to lay, hooray!! Although, not consistently yet and not all from the same birds each day. There are seven ladies and we're getting from one to three eggs a day with some days none but again due to the current New England conditions this is to be expected.

The picture above shows an extra large egg in comparison to one that didn't even register as a small. There's one pullet that has been laying these extra large, monster eggs - yum yum! The small egg was more than likely the first egg laid by a particular pullet. This is normal and not to worry. We have the following egg scale that grades the eggs for us, although it's not an antique, it works just fine and the majority of our eggs to date are on the large to extra large size!

Once the girls begin to lay on a regular basis we'll be selling them by the dozen - interested?! You just can't beat (no pun intended) farm fresh eggs! They're no Egg Beaters either...

State Birds

Here is a cool 1000 piece puzzle that I got for Christmas. It has a picture and the name of each state's bird. It didn't take us too long to put this gem together and as you can see it just fits on the table with Florida it's own island of sorts. Next...

Find the Critter

Can you find the critter in the above picture?



Here is a better pic of our visiting Cooper's Hawk. He is sitting in the peach tree, which just so happens to be within a few feet of the previously posted 'Kill Zone". You can also notice a couple of our chickens cautiously watching this dude from the safety of their coop.

Kill Zone

A blanket of snow on the ground can be very telling. In many respects it give you some insight to the ongoings in your yard, aka a map; the visitors and who they are, what direction they come from, where and what they visit and how they leave.

For example, one walk around the yard and it's plain to see that the neighbor's dogs visit! Now one possibility is that their Invisible Fence® is not working. However, since they're inconsiderate my guess is that they simply can't be bothered to put the Invisible Fence dog collars on the animals before letting them out - but I digress.

OK, back to what I was saying - any idea what this is a picture of and who or what may have made it?

Well, this is a "kill zone" for lack of a better term. This is where a bird of prey, which I can say with a very high degree of certainty was a Coopers Hawk, took down it's victim/meal (bird). You can make out the wing marks in the snow, perhaps due to a bit of a struggle and, as one might expect in such a conflict, the blood stain of it's victim.

Interesting, yes?!

My next posting, another installment of "Find the", just might contain a picture of said Cooper's Hawk - Oh, the anticipation!!!

"Awnya" "Awnya"!!

So, I went to watch Stephanie's varsity ice hockey game Wednesday night. It was an exciting game. The Walpole Rebels carried the play for most of the game but unfortunately found they themselves trailing 2 - 1. With about a minute and a half remaining in the game Walpole pulled their goalie for an extra skater and with just 15 seconds left Walpole scored - the place went wild! They were fortunate enough to walk away with a tie 2 - 2.

NOTE: Stephanie got the assist on the game tying goal. She is also the Walpole Rebels girls ice hockey program's all-time leading scorer to date!!

On a side note - throughout the entire game, one of the dads was rooting and yelling words of encouragement to all the WHS girls. He was constantly yelling "Awnya" "Awnya". The name didn't sound familiar to me. I didn't know of any girl on Stephanie's team named Awnya. I checked the program they handed out at the door; went down the list and sure enough there was no Awnya. I was puzzled and thought to myself to ask Stephanie about this girl Awnya after the game.

All of a sudden it HIT me, daaaaaaah! He wasn't yelling Awnya, a players name, but rather "on yeah"! He was yelling to let the girls know that an opposing player was "on yeah" and to be careful with the puck.

It was a long day...

Fun Fact

Fun Fact!

The United States Census Bureau estimated that 36 million children between the ages of 5 and 13 trick-or-treated in the United States in 2008!

Snow Cover Visitors

With the recent snow fall mother nature dumped on us you can get an idea of some of the visitors that pass by. It's easy to see where the blanket of snow cover is disturbed and who's lurking around -

Here is a single bird's foot prints, just hoping along -

This is a picture of the ground beneath the post holding our bird feeders, which are shadows. You can see that we've had a lot of birds looking for a bite to eat in just a short while -

These are squirrel foot prints. Yup, we still have some of these varmits around -

These tracks were made by a deer. They come across our front lawn, across both our driveway and the neighbors driveway, their front lawn and into the woods beyond their house. It's been a while since we've seen the deer but as these tracks show, they're still out there...

Happy New Year!

2010

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous 2010!

The picture above is the vasilopita ("βασιλόπιτα"), also referred to as the dime cake, that JoAnne made this year and which was very tasty - my mother would be proud! Emilie and Ryan were the lucky ones who's pieces contained the dime, yippie!, which is said to bring good luck in the coming year.

*** Note ***
The name "βασιλόπιτα" comes from two Greek words: βασιλεύς 'king' + πίτα 'pie'.