Washingtonians

[Rainwolf]

LOl glad you enjoy the jam!

btw it is Oregon Grape... it is not a real grape but a berry....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon-grape

My favorite jam and I normally go out and pick a few 5 gallon buckets full of berries each year!

I cannot rave enough about it, and was such a treat for someone who cannot eat bread !
I have never had Oregon Grape Jam...so it was a surprise how grapey it is !

Very good !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks again !!!

Also wanted to ask, was it jelly or jam...in other words, did you use whole fruit or have to strain & just use the juice ?

The Oregon grape berry has a large seed so we pulp the berry and remove the seeds.... I guess you could say it is a jelly jam?
We do the same with blackberry... remove the seeds but use all the pulp etc.... kind of like running a tomato through the mill that makes tomato paste.... everything but the seeds....

 

[mikeyb]

WOW! over 8500 pages in the Washingtonian forum, we rock this chicken thing (well, technically not me yet, I haven't received my backyard babies yet)! I was able to read the first few pages, and the last few pages, but there was a lot in the middle I didn't have time to catch-up on

I was very sad reading a few posts, but so grateful you were able to share. Newbies like me need all the info we can get, the good, the bad & the ugly

I am in the South Puget Sound's very own Tac Town. We just moved back home from Des Moines, IA. What a place! People were amazing, weather, not so much. We came back home to be with my family, we all just had to go through the worst thing imaginable. My brother, 32, committed suicide

May nobody ever have to go through that ever again.




My dog was my best friend when I was told the news 1,600 miles away. I didn't think dogs cried until then, he just leaned against my shoulder and bawled with me :0) such a sweetie-poo. My old boss had a golden-doodle that got preggers by the Australian Shepherd that jump the fence, he said "Ya want a dog?!"


^^^ Isn't he gorgeous! Anyway... I should have posted in Random Ramblings! We are a family who just adores living creatures, they are just so much more sincere than people. One day we will have that farm, but for now, we are stuck in a good sized lot in the city. WE! I keep talking about us and y'all just don't have any idea who "we" are! There are 7 of us total, Hubs & I with our 4 boys (yes, four of them) and our little Ellie, who turned a year last month, poor girl...all those boys! Our dog's name is Raider and we have a chinchilla names Scarface, she was the runt and had her ear clipped by a sibling, poor dear. So that's us in a funky nut shell!

Poor girl? She's going to be so spoiled by her brothers and dad you will have your hands full. LOL I judge this by the actions of my grandsons with their young sister. In return her brothers do no wrong!
Hello and Welcome aboard this rocket train called a forum.

 

[JennS]

Thanks...the lady that shipped them to me suggested that maybe the boxes had been set too near a truck exhaust pipe, and maybe this one ducked her head down or something...I don't know, I would think her comb would still be a little blue from that if that were the case...whatever it was happened later in the shipping, because two of the girls laid eggs before they died....

Wow, how awful! I'm sorry for your loss.

If only she could talk. Are the eggs fertile? What a shame, to lose so many rare, beautiful birds.

Jennifer

 

[TerrorBird]

My poor Muffet is trying to lay her first egg, but Pudge is staring her down, trying to get her shelf back. It would be nice if chickens could learn to like more than one nesting location.

 

[Chickielady]

My first hand experience with this was when my chickens hopped over the 4 ft. wire fence we used to have. When I saw them, I went running to open the side of the fence and get them back into my yard. When the girls saw me they started running towards me just as the neighbor's 4 month old lab puppy saw them and he went chasing. He grabbed my girl Juju in his mouth, I said loudly and firmly, "DROP IT!", reached through a space in the fencing with my hand on the scruff of his neck and he let go of her in a hurry. I told him "STAY" and opened my fencing to get the girls. Every time he flinched I gave him a verbal correction and he sat back down. Whew.

There wasn't a mark on Juju. Thank goodness for that boy's soft mouth. I could tell the way he was holding her in his mouth that he wasn't clamping down. I love Goldens and Labs, but I realize not all will react the same way. My Golden is fantastic around our chickens, but I wouldn't trust just any old retriever around my girls. That soft mouth is a phenomenon and it's interesting to me how they were bred for the purpose of carrying game back to the hunter unharmed but how it translates now.

My Golden, Gryffin, is a great dog who never counter surfs, but for some reason cannot resist butter and when I'm baking will cry until I let him lick the wrapper. I once lost two cubes of butter I had left on the counter to soften and later found an entire cube downstairs on our patio with only a dent or two where he had carried it in that gentle mouth of his.

The neighbors behind us have since moved out quite suddenly. I'm pretty sure the bank owns the house now. I sure do not miss those people, but I kind of miss that sweet lab. He was the most well behaved member of the household. I would have adopted him if I'd had the chance.

Sounds like he would have grown up to be a fine dog.
I had celery & peanut butter a few days ago...for my lunch.
And 1 stick left I just did not want anymore, so I gave it to my ding bat dog Jack...IT WAS HYSTERICAL !!!!!!!!!

First he "paraded" around with it, wiggling...then lay down & held it in his paws & licked every speck of peanut butter out...all the while licking it off his palate with his nose all wrinkled up.
He loves it !
It is a great way to brighten your day = Go give your dog some peanut butter !!!!!!!!!!

 

[Slinglings]

Sounds like he would have grown up to be a fine dog.
I had celery & peanut butter a few days ago...for my lunch.
And 1 stick left I just did not want anymore, so I gave it to my ding bat dog Jack...IT WAS HYSTERICAL !!!!!!!!!

First he "paraded" around with it, wiggling...then lay down & held it in his paws & licked every speck of peanut butter out...all the while licking it off his palate with his nose all wrinkled up.
He loves it !
It is a great way to brighten your day = Go give your dog some peanut butter !!!!!!!!!!

My mom used to give her dog peanut butter toast, peanut butter side up, so that it stuck to the roof of her mouth. It was hilarious

 

[Chickielady]

I have no idea if their lab is a pure-bred or not. Thankfully Rhodie got out alive. If I had not been out there, and saw the dog scoop her up, that might not have been the case. Their dog is not used as a retriever - it is purely a pet that belongs to a young girl in her early 20s. The dog spends most of his time cooped up in a small house.

My husband is a bird hunter. He's hunted with labs many times. He wouldn't trust a lab with our chickens, pure-bred, or not. I grew up with a black lab that was trained for hunting. Dogs have an natural instinct, but they also have to be trained to ensure that the natural instinct becomes a predominate trait. Our black lab had to be trained to develop his soft mouth. When he first started hunting, he tore a few birds up. Labs, particularly young labs, love to play and can tear apart things like crazy.

Our pure-bred French Brittany, who my husband had for 15 years, and was the son of Champion hunting dog, still required training to get him to point properly.

Many dogs in the USA are not utilized for the skills that they are/were bred for. In heavy residential areas like mine, they are pets that have very little land (if any at all) to run or play, get bored, and get themselves into a lot of trouble.

LOL...There is a black Lab sleeping in this dog house.
Cute huh ?
We have had many many hunting dogs...this lab line was the best.
I bought a yellow in CA about 6 years ago who was so toy-driven I gave her to the search & rescue people...she was nuts.
She would steal tomatoes, anything that looked like a ball.
She had no interest in animals, cats or birds, or whatever...but if I put a ball (especially bright pink) on the windowsill, she'd sit under the window & stare at it 24/7 and not move.
I swear she would starve to death...never took her eyes off the ball.
That is necessary for search & rescue dogs, but not worth a box of rocks for hunting/retrieving water fowl.



This is Maggie......beautiful dog !
But NUTS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So, yes, they are all different, different temperments, and drive.

 

[Chickielady]

Yeah, that's why I didn't quarantine her...I didn't want her to have to go from a box of dead birds, to being completely alone...wanted her to feel as "normal" as possible...can't risk losing her...

Here she is with the d'Uccle....

Man, I thought they were chicks !
So what you lost were grown pullets ??????
Man that sucks even worse !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She is beautiful !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Chickielady]

You can also duct tape pipe insulation to the posts. One on each side does minimize the gap.

My birds have eaten that stuff, just sayin'

 

[itsren]

CR and I have had a couple of pretty good chats during the time he was up here. One of the things we chatted about is how, if people don't understand the situation others are in, it is easy to make snap judgments about others here on the forum. Feelings get hurt. It doesn't end up being a positive place for anyone.

So, I thought I'd share a little bit about the yard situation I live with. I know I have had my feelings hurt on more than one occasion about critical remarks toward people who don't or are unable to grow large edible gardens. I have worked very, very hard to have the itty bitty garden that I now have. I have four 4'x4' square foot gardens, one 4'x10' asparagus bed that grow well. I have attempted to grow other plants without them being in the raised beds and they do not survive in the ground. I have studied permaculture for 4+ years and dream that someday I'll have land that will support that dream. Until then, I will continue to try to make do with what I have.

My entire 10,000 sq. foot lot is on what is known as glacier till. Basically, we live on gravel. We live on a cliff. A very large and well known gravel company mines about 1 mile down the road.

Here is a picture of a small portion of the gravel that I had to dig out of my four 4'x4' square foot garden beds. I would guess that this is only about 1/20th of the rocks that came out of those 4 small beds. The rest I have taken by wheelbarrow, load after load, and, with my neighbor's blessing, thrown over the part of the cliff that he owns. I got tired of loading and hauling the rocks over the cliff. That is why this pile still sits here. It is back-breaking, exhausting work to move rock in the quantities that we have.



I've been out in the front yard today trying to dig the rocks out of a front flower bed. I'm digging the rocks out, and amending the screened soil with chicken poop that I have collected in a garbage can. Here's a picture of the rocks that I have screened out of approximately 10 shovel-fulls of dirt. This should give you an idea of how rocky my entire land is.



Most of my neighbor's do not grow edible gardens. They grow grass, trees, rhododendrons and azaleas. They think I'm a little crazy for even trying. They walk by and remind me that I can dig all the rocks out and the rain is just going to cause more rocks to rise to the surface. They are probably right, but I'm stubborn, and I'm going to keep on trying.

We have trucked in top soil in hopes to get things to grow better. We have discovered that top soil that comes from the valley tends to be clay, and clay sitting on top of gravel creates flooding issues. I have spent hours upon hours trying to remove clay top soil from an area that now floods heavily on my side yard. The pictures in this post of my blog will give you an idea of what the flooding is like for a little bit of rain. http://www.imaginationgarden.blogspot.com/2009/04/building-raised-beds.html When we get a lot of rain, we get a lot of flooding - the whole side area where my raised beds are will completely fill in with water. And water has been known to spill through the vent and beneath my house.

In the first picture above, you can see a drain pipe that I now have to install in hopes to get the area to stop flooding. We can't rent a ditch witch, because it can't dig through our glacial till - so I'm going to have to dig the trench, the same way I dug an 18' x 1' x 2' deep trench through our front yard, to get it to stop flooding. The way I dug that trench was by hand - with a pick ax and a shovel.

So, I thought I'd share so you guys could see why I don't have a large garden - and why, what little garden I have takes a ton of work just to get it to grow. I'm going to continue on doing what I can to create the yard and garden that I dream of - which is why my blog is called the imagination garden. I can imagine the garden - I just have to get the rocks and soil to cooperate with my imagination.