Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[FlyRobinFly]

Really hoping the weather cooperates Saturday so I can get the carport frame and, tarp on it, erected for the Silkies covered enclosure. Then get their pallet coop built. I am pretty sure that our Black Silkie is a rooster and hope he doesn't start crowing until I can move them out to the coop(at least 3 more weeks until they are feathered out anyways). My DW is gonna name him "Kung Pow" and pretty sure that all the rest will be named after Chinese chicken foods(since Silkies originated in China, and I have not yet told her that part, hahaha)

I guess if the black Silkie is a boy he can be "General Tso" then!

 

[FlyRobinFly]

This is my sourdough holiday wreath - or at least, my first one, just out of the oven. This was a test, so after we taste it, I will know better what to change.I think some seeds on top would be nice. Hopefully, I will have one good enough for our gift on Christmas eve to our dinner hosts. Also adding some truffle oil and some homemade duck and rabbit pate.

This looks absolutely stunning and very tasty!

If you have a recipe, I would love to give it a go.

ETA: just read on and saw the link and recipe, thanks Kate!

 

[FlyRobinFly]

My MIL sent me this for Xmas:

That is so cool!!! Merry Christmas Sara.

 

[FlyRobinFly]

See we are NOT ALLOWED to have WHITE eggers. DW's rules.

What?! I thought it was you that turned your nose up at white eggs, not her!

 

[FlyRobinFly]

Might as well share my finished item today: stitch markers with a thingy to keep them from getting lost. I rebent the clasp after this photo, and forgot to re=photograph; it went out in a box lined with black Baaachus wool, which I also should have photographed, oops.

Love the greens on this. We have a lot of talented craftspeople on this thread.

 

[Sudsy Chick]

Quote:

I'm so sorry you lost precious birds. I have never seen a possum on Whidbey Island but I do know raccoons will remove the head and crop of chickens. Leaving the carcass. Great Horned owls will take off with birds and bantam ducks and eat the head and crop. I've seen it happen. It's hard dealing with predators. There are so many. I have electric fencing set six inches from the ground surrounding my coop. Birds go in at dusk.
I wish you success in figuring it out. Truly sorry. I've lost more birds to predators than I can count. I keep them in the barn when I'm not out with them these days. I used to have a dog years ago that was good at watching over them...Until he killed one and tasted it one day. He was ruined as a chicken watching dog from that day on.

Dawn, I'm so sorry! I don't know how well possums climb but I've watched racoons climb our 6' cedar fence with ease. I hope you can figure out a solution. It seems like we've had a lot of people plagued by kills this month. I fell bad for everyone, and hope mine are as secure as I think they are.

Thanks to everyone for their kind words and wisdom. I'm glad I'm home after today for two weeks so I can go after the racoon or whatever it is, and talking to my husband about a long-term solution.

 

[FlyRobinFly]

I lost princess buttercup last night. I think whatever scared the girls a couple weeks ago was back. (If you recall - I had to go get Frodo from the neighbor's yard(s) as she was so scared.)

I found her partially eaten when I got home last night. Just the head/neck area, I am pretty sure that I scared off the predator in the middle of dinner, I was only gone an hour.

Oh no Dawn! How awful to find a headless body like that. Hope you can get rid of the predator.

 

[hallerlake]

Quote: Sure We should have you for dinner when they visit next, she loves giving dinner parties and they're interesting people

I actually have something from my FIL for Scott, we need to get together sometime so he can pick it out..it's a long story very briefly~ My FIL is a b&w hobbyist photographer and Scott mentioned that he liked some of the photographs on our walls~ Last year my FIL made 8 boxes of his best prints and gave them to 8 different people, with a letter explaining what he would like done with the prints. We are supposed to send the prints out into the world, to whomever we see fit. He just wants the photos to exist, he doesn't care who has them Only one is a duplicate of a print that we have and I'm having trouble parting with the rest to be honest, but I'm not supposed to keep them! ...Maybe one will speak to you. (and maybe I can talk FIL into making me a replacement print LOL) It should have occurred to me to give you a print when you were here, but it simply didn't cross my mind...they're in a box and I never think about them. (I know this is all off topic, but saying all of this publicly will hopefully make me do what I'm supposed to do..sigh.)
Thank you for thinking of Scott. I'm sure he'll love it.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Might as well share my finished item today: stitch markers with a thingy to keep them from getting lost. I rebent the clasp after this photo, and forgot to re=photograph; it went out in a box lined with black Baaachus wool, which I also should have photographed, oops.

Love the greens on this. We have a lot of talented craftspeople on this thread.

Thank you. The young lady (the same one who got my fleece, and who has had a year to make mine look good, coming as it did with repeated hospitalizations) wanted "bright lime green" and this was the closest my collection of random beads came. Well, I have given water to everything, hay to everything (the last bale of orchard grass is so fine and green and soft that they don't have left-overs for bedding, they eat it all) feed to everything, peanuts to those who like peanuts, almost installed the new doorknob (need to put the tiny screws in the face plate but ran out of battery in my power drill). I still need to put the Christmas tree in and go grocery shopping. And my sister came to download pictures to send to be printed at Costco which I did some tweaking on for stuff like true verticality and highlight detail, and so my nephew unloaded my two bags of play sand (one doesn't waste a trip to Home Depot,, after all) and did the mortise chisling for me. And I am so tired I can't quite see straight. We've got to go to Del's tomorrow, and cut my bangs, which have developped a strange boxlike configuration like unto Franklinstein, or at least Hermann Munster.

 

[Totalcolour]

Quote:

Thanks so much for the recipe and the link. I have their book (Artisan Bread) but haven't looked at it in quite a while.
The bread recipe I use has only 1 lb. of flour, 12 oz. water and 1/4 C starter, so I'm thinking my loaf would be considerably smaller. But that's ok for me. Do you put it on a cookie sheet or maybe you use a baking stone? Water?

Is the oil for dipping?

I put it on parchment, on a cookie sheet. I wanted a slightly softer crust so didn't use the stone, but it baked crisp anyway!

You use butter (or oil) in the recipe, but the flavoured oils are for dipping - YUM!

Maybe sometime in the new year we can swap some starter?