Stella's Social Club

[chiqita]

Sous vide!  Wow.

Baked my first Sourdough loaf in the Cloche, it was so delicious!  The texture was not dense but not as airy as sourdough usually is, I think because I substituted 1/3 white whole wheat for regular flour - but I refuse to eat bread that is not at least partially whole grain, and the texture was not unpleasant.  The starter is merrily proliferating in the only room of my house that gets above 64 degrees, I could probably bake every day with it if I had the time (or needed that much bread!).

A respite in temps here today, up to 27, then tomorrow and the next few days back down into the 0 range again - keep your chins up folks, only a few months until spring, and the new chickie season!  

The cloche was good for about 20 min discussion on Christmas day! Everyone had to look it up and exclaim. I'm glad the bread did well.

 

[The Sheriff]

Hey, is everyone keeping warm? My heart goes out to those suffering in the cold. We are in a drought year. Go figure.

Took a nice pic of my new Icelandic boy yesterday. Like most dark Icelandic's roos I have had he has developed a bit of white tail fluff. He is very pretty and so far an extraordinary boy.

 

[The Sheriff]

Can you believe I broke down and ordered Isbar hatching eggs? They should be here Monday. With all the molting and egg eating, my ability to expand my Isbar flock is about nil. I have two viable eggs in the incubator so I definitely needed more. Fresh blood can't hurt either.

Bjorn is about done molting but the girls look a little raggedy except the splash who just got over her molt.

 

[speckledhen]

He's handsome, Mary, the new guy and Bjorn, too.
We got another lamp fixture and another 250 red heat bulb in case the one on a critical area goes out, aka, old arthritic hens or the tiny bantams. Our prediction is for icy rain tomorrow, then low of about 15, then on Monday, it doesn't go up, only drops down to about 0* or lower. So, it will be wet, then plummet to arctic cold. I hope my older birds survive this. I don't heat my coops, but I do give heat spots to certain groups. No need for them to suffer for some principle. My almost 7 yr old BR hen, Amanda, can barely walk on a good, warm day with her severely arthritic joints so this must be very painful for her. The least I can do is give her a warm lamp to sit under.

 

[Happy Chooks]

craftiekids - I want to know more about your avatar picture. Love the green! I wish it would rain here so we could have some green!

Mary - that's not much tail fluff, I wouldn't worry about it. He's a handsome one!

 

[randerson846]

Hi I'm just wondering if there is any ways to get my hens to start laying again as they stopped for the winter and I would like to know how to help them start again thanks !

 

[The Sheriff]

We finished rerouting the roosts in coops 2 and 3 last night just before chicken bedtime. All chickens made it back into the coops. None in the nest boxes but three perched on the lip in coop #1 (Icelandics) and 2 on the floor in Coop #3. All of the cream leg bars and on bather have gotten the drill still the first night!

Here's nosy old Judge Judy checking things out.



Oh, and Tucker wants his own blog.

 

[crazyhen]

Cyn,
Your poor hens. This is one time my migrated hens are doing better here. We are to drop to the 20's but they can handle that. In the mtns of NC. I have heard they are to get freezing rain. Yuck.
I sure hope all is well with you in this terrible cold.

 

[craftiekids]

My daughter is playing outside with our little orphan Rudolph. My husband is the Forester over the Sandhills Gamelands in Richmond county NC. He trains and fights forest fires in the Gamelands and all over NC. He also trains forest fire fighters and monitors the trees & endangered species that live there. He was at his office in the woods and a lady came by with this little buck fawn whose mother had been hit in the road nearby. She didn't know what to do with him so my husband took him home for us to raise. I rescue horses, ponies, wild critters and keep a few chickens & ducks so he knew a fawn would be really cool for the twins and I. Rudy even tried nursing on our dog Piglet! She had just finished nursing a batch of pups so you should have seen her jump when he hit that nipple! It was really amazing how tame this wild creature became.

He also got great at navigating around our kitchen!

and Boy did our dog Piglet jump when he hit that nipple!
He loved playing outside with our twins and our dog Piglet..... He was a wonderful little man who got released onto the thousand acres of farm land behind our house. He came back a few times after we let him go and we still see him once each week or two with another bunch of young deer playing........ Thank you so much for asking! He was a true blessing for us! Susie Q

 

[drumstick diva]

what a great story. Piglet looks like she forgave him.