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Sunday, May 31, 2009

Why Chicken Eggs Didn't Hatch

I have about 8 chickens and a rooster. I thought everything was going fine. I had about 40 eggs in the nest and then about 60 days ago a chicken starting sitting all of the time on the nest. I kept saying to my husband, what are we going to do with that many baby Chic's?
Well after about 28 days I started to wonder what was going on. I knew that the babies should have been here. I had even gone to the feed store and got the special feed for them. I was checking that nest about 10 times a day. Well after 60 days and still no baby Chic's, I knew something was up. I am not that experienced with chickens. That same day, the chicken must have figured the same thing. She stopped sitting and went to live in the other chicken house.
Today I went out to clean out the house and get rid of the eggs. My husband said lets break open some of these eggs and see if any of them have started to develop. Nope! Not any, they were all rotten and nasty. I found out that chicken eggs will rot. If the chicken doesn't sit on the eggs within 26 days then the eggs will not develop, they will rot instead.
Lesson learned the hard way.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Au Gratin Potatoes

Ingredients

3 round white potatoes
4 tbs. butter
2 tbs. flour
8oz. brick of mild cheddar cheese
1 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tbs. dried mustard
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400
In a glass baking dish add some non stick spray. Wash and slice the potatoes thin, add to the dish. In a medium sized sauce pan add 2 tbs. butter, melt on low heat. Add the flour and stir. Add the milk and stir again. Add the cheese and stir constantly until all melted. Add the onion powder, garlic powder, dried mustard and stir. Dump over the potatoes. Now slice up the remaining butter and lay on top of the potatoes. Add salt and pepper. Place in the oven and cook until tender when poked with a fork. And brown on top.
About 30 minutes.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Staining Trim Boards Sucks!

I have been staining trim boards all week. I hate it! Ask yourself do I really want to use stain? Paint would be sooo much easier.
I started out with 3 inch pine boards. I do not like actual trim boards. They are too fancy for me. I picked the best side of the boards and sanded them with a fine sandpaper.
Well then I thought, where am I going to stain these at? I didn't want to put them up and then do it. I knew if I did that, then I would end up with drippy stain running down my wall. So I decided to stain them before I put them up. Another problem, where would I put them to stain them? I ended up laying them all out on the floor. I did this in the room that I have been working on. So it really didn't matter if I got some on the floor. I am laying carpet in that room this weekend. But, I thought where would someone do this if they didn't have a room like this? Anyhow, so when I first started staining them it was working okay. Then I was running out of room. The boards took up almost all of the floor space. So there wasn't much space for me to be able to put the stain on. I ended up holding them up and staining the sides first and then doing the front after. It has taken forever. I have been working on them for 5 days. I am just starting with the poly. The poly is hard to see when the boards are flat on the floor. I can't tell if I am getting any runs or not.
If I lived in any other house, I definitely would have used paint. That way I could put them up first and then taped off my wall and just gone to town on them. But unfortunately, in my house painted trim boards would have looked really dumb.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Raising Turkeys Can Be Too Much Of A Project


My Grandfather started me out with a couple of baby turkeys. I fell in love with them. In fact I didn't even know that I was getting them. I got a phone call and my Grandfather said. Go look in the box on your deck. So at first I didn't know what I was going to do with these strange little things. But, I wasn't long figuring it out. I wrapped them in wash clothes and rocked them in a rocking chair. That is right, I said that I rocked my baby turkeys. They were so homely that they were cute. I kept them in the house in a box with a light on them for months. Until I figured that they were big enough. Everyone kept saying those turkeys need a pen outside. But I just didn't think that they were big enough. So I kept rocking them. It did get to a point when they had to go outside. They got so smelly and yucky in that small box.
I named them Cuddly and Fuzzy. My grandfather had a mansion built for them. At least it would be considered a mansion as far as Turkeys are concerned. This is when all of my problems began. I had some people over for supper one night. We were all out on the deck eating having a nice time. One of my Turkeys walked up to me and got on my lap. It was so embarrassing, as if that wasn't bad enough, he then started making a sound very similar to the sound that a cat makes when it is purring. I had a really hard time trying to explain to my guests why my Turkey was doing this. Okay so you are probably thinking that is funny. But, let me tell you how bad it got. My Turkeys would get on the deck and stare at me through the window of my kitchen. If I did not notice them they would tap on the glass. If I moved they moved to the other window and did the same thing. I would have to put them in their pen when I was going for a walk. They would follow me all over town. People started calling me the turkey lady. Every where I went people were asking me about these birds.
Of course my Grandfather is just loving all of this. Every time I see him he is laughing. Asking how are those turkeys doing?
Then it all changed with the delivery of another present from my grandfather. He brought me a female turkey. That was it! My precious Cuddly and Fuzzy turned on me like you would not believe. They would fly right up and try to bite my face. They would chase my 5 year old son all over the driveway pecking at him. They were always looking for a fight. The female turkey changed their mood. It was all about fighting and challenging everything for her.
I stopped getting company because my turkeys would attack anyone who came over. People in my town started referring to my turkeys now, as guard turkeys.
So one day I went to help a friend. When I got home, one of my turkeys was missing. I do not know if an animal got him, or if my neighbors were tired of him. About a month later a fox got my other male turkey. I still had the female though. And, she was sitting on a bunch of eggs.
So needless to say, it all started all over again! I always have been a sucker for punishment.
Could you resist that cute little face???

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Home Style Lasagna

Ingredients
1 box lasagna noodles
1 tbs. cooking oil
16 ounce container cottage cheese
1 egg
4 cups mozzarella cheese
1 lb. hamburger
45 ounces of Ragu Chunky garden combination spaghetti sauce (or any kind you like, make sure you use exactly 45 ounces though)

In a large kettle or stock pot, cook lasagna noodles add the oil to the boiling water while cooking ( leave the noodles a little bit under done) and drain. Do not rinse. Set aside to cool.
In a frying pan, cook hamburger and chop it up while cooking it. Add the sauce and warm through. Set aside.
In a mixing bowl add cottage cheese, egg and 2 cups of mozzarella cheese. Stir together. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Time to layer the lasagna. Preheat oven to 350
Add 1/4 of the sauce in a 9x 13 pan and spread around. Add half of the box of lasagna noodles. They will be a couple of layers thick. Now add the mixture from the mixing bowl and spread around. Add the rest of the lasagna noodles. Make sure you use the whole box of noodles or your lasagna will be runny and nasty. Now the rest of the sauce. Put 2 cups of mozzarella cheese on top.
Bake for about 30 minutes or until bubbly in the center.

I am famous for my Lasagna around these parts. Everyone always asks for MINE!!

Doggies In A Blanket

Ingredients

6 hot dogs
6 slices American Cheese
1 package yeast
1 cup warm water
1 tbs. sugar
2 tbs. oil
2 1/2 cups flour

In a large mixing bowl, add yeast and water, stir together well. Add sugar, oil and flour. Stir until well mixed. Put some grease on your hands and kneed the dough until smooth. Put a towel over the bowel and let set for 1/2 hour.
After dough has set. Preheat oven to 350. Take out a 9x13 glass baking pan and grease the bottom lightly. Divide dough into 6 even pieces. Put a piece of the dough in your hand and roll it out like a long snake. Lay it down in the pan and flatten out a little. Lay a hot dog on the dough centered. Break a piece of American Cheese in half, and lay on the hot dog, use the whole slice, it just fits better broken. Fold the dough around the hot dog, Do the sides first and then fold in the ends of the dough. Make sure the dough is sealed well, so that the cheese doesn't come out when cooked. Repeat until all hot dogs are wrapped. Make sure they are all seam side down in the pan.
Put in the oven and bake about 1/2 hour or so. Until the dough is lightly brown. Do not over cook.
Serve with french fries and some spicy mustard for the doggies!

Friday, May 15, 2009

Are You Really Ready If The Power Goes Out For A Long Time?

We have all seen these emergency kit lists everywhere. They are in the event of an emergency, all you would need to survive. I think that they are missing a lot.

What if the power goes out at your house for a long time. Do you have what you need? Can you do your dishes? Can you bath? Can you eat hot food? Do you have heat in your home? Can you flush the toilet? Can you do your laundry?

This is what I do. I live in the country of course. I have found I can get by with or without power. It doesn't make any difference to me. I have to work a little harder without the power. But with or without power I still can do all of the things that I need to do.

I happened to think of this because the power was out at my house for a long time today. Due to high winds.

In your emergency kit. You have a gallon of water per person. That is great you can use that for anything that you are going to drink, or make food out of. But, you still need to be able to have water for other things. The first thing that I do when my power goes out is, I get every container I can find, buckets, kettles whatever is handy. Then I put them under the eaves of my house. That is a great place to catch rain water. Do not drink rain water!!! But use it for everything else. If you don't have a good place where the water just runs off of your eaves, then you need to put a board on the roof and then a bucket underneath. If it is winter time then, Go outside and fill all of your container with snow and then bring them inside.

Make sure that you have a cooking source. Here are some that I can think of. A wood stove, a propane kitchen stove, a barbecue grill, a hibachi ( mini grill), a camp stove like a Coleman stove, a fire pit outside, you can make a fire pit by stacking bricks or rocks if it is an emergency and you have not planned ahead. Then just take the oven rack out of your oven and lay it on top.

You are going to use this cooking source for almost everything. You can warm the rain water up in a kettle on your cooking source. Dump it into dish pans and then wash your dishes. One dish pan for wash and one for rinse. You can warm it up and take a bath. Lug it into your bathtub and bath. If you don't have enough water for a full bath then just dump some in a bowl and sponge bath. And of course you can cook anything on it. Even if it is a barbecue grill. Just put the pan or kettle right on and turn it on high.

Now flushing the toilet. It is going to take about 3 gallons of water to flush your toilet. So I just wait until it has to be flushed. Get a big bucket, and put 3 gallons of water in it. Dump all of it really quick into the toilet and this will flush it. Do not dump it slowly, because it won't work.

Laundry, if it has been a long time without power, you are going to need to do laundry. Dump a load of wash into your bathtub. Then put in a cup of detergent and enough rain water to cover it. Let it set over night. In the morning, go over each item with a scrub brush, and swirl it around in the water good. Now drain the tub. Bring in enough rain water to cover it again and make sure everything gets rinsed good. Now ring everything out and go hang it on the clothes line. If you don't have a clothes line, then hang up some rope between trees, or hang it on the shower curtain rod.

Now if it is winter time, you are going to need heat. Once again any of the cooking sources can be a heat source. If all you have is an propane oven, then you need to close off all of the rooms except the kitchen and stay in that one room. If it is something smaller like, a propane camp stove, or a hibachi grill, then decide what room it is going in and close off all of the rest. Even if you have to hang up tarps to keep the heat in one room. Now if your cooking source was a fire pit. You are going to have a problem in the winter, and need to be thinking of another solution.

It is a lot of work, but when times get tough, the tough get tougher!!!!

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Be Carefull When Painting With A Dark Semi Gloss Paint

My son wanted his room painted dark mallard green. I refused to paint the whole room that dark. So I decided to paint most of the room a pale green and then just one wall the dark color. Well this was a newly sheet rocked room, so I started with the primer like I always do. Then I did the pale green it took 2 coats and looked beautiful. Now it was time to do the mallard green. I put on 3 coats and there was still some places that looked lighter then the others. I just went around and just put a 4th coat on the parts that looked lighter. It turned out very nice. But, I think if I had put on a 4th coat of paint all over it would have still had spots that were lighter then the rest.

I chose the semi gloss because in a little boys room, I know the walls are going to get very dirty. We burn wood too, so this is the only way to go for us. I can just wash the walls down each Spring and they are like brand new.

I put up a John Deere tractor border around the pale green part. It looks beautiful. Now I need to get up the trim boards and lay a carpet. My job is never done with my old house.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Rustic Hash

Ingredients
3 large russet potatoes
4 tbs. olive oil
2 tsp. seasoning salt
1/2 tsp. pepper

Scrub potatoes well, leave the skins on and dice. In a heavy skillet ( I like cast iron ) heat the olive oil on medium-high heat. Add the potatoes, seasoning salt and pepper. Watch it close to make sure it is not cooking too fast. You want it to be slightly brown on the outside and tender when poked with a fork. Cook until done, stirring often.

Variations

Onion Hash: Peel potatoes first and add 1 chopped onion. Use regular salt instead of seasoning salt. Use butter instead of oil. Can use leftover potatoes for this kind.

Fancy Hash: Peel potatoes first and add 1 chopped onion and a chopped colored pepper.

Deer Meat Steak Sandwichs

Ingredients

1 lb. Deer Steak
1 onion
1 green pepper
1 package of fresh sliced mushrooms
8 ounces of mozzarella cheese or American cheese
2 tbs. real butter
1 tbs. Worcester sauce
1 tsp. seasoning salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1tsp. mustard
3 tbs. Mayonnaise
1 package of sub rolls or hot dog rolls

Preheat oven to 300
In a heavy skillet melt butter, add Deer steak chopped fine, add onion and green pepper sliced, add sliced mushrooms. Then sprinkle Worcester sauce, seasoning salt, and pepper on top. Saute until meat in cooked through and brown.
Cut bun up the side and place on a baking sheet. In a bowel mix the mayonnaise and mustard together. Then spread on the buns. Now add the meat mixture to the buns and top with the cheese.
Put in the oven and bake until the cheese is melted.
I like to serve this with rustic hash.

Cheese Popcorn

Ingredients

1/2 cup hot air popcorn or 2 bags of plain microwave popcorn
1/2 stick of real butter
2 slices of American cheese
salt

Pop the popcorn. Put the butter into a coffee cup, fold the cheese in 4th's and lay on top of the butter. Put the mug in the microwave for 1 minute. Take out the stir. Dump over the popcorn and add salt to taste.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Deli Cheese Ends Mac and Cheese

Today I am cooking up something good, and cheap.

Ingredients
8 ounces of deli cheese ends ( assorted kinds)
1 lb. box macaroni
1 1/2 cups of milk
2 tbs. butter
2 tbs. flour
1tsp. onion powder
salt and pepper to taste

Cook macaroni, while macaroni is cooking, get out a heavy saucepan medium sized. On medium heat melt the butter, add the flour and stir together. Reduce heat to low. Add the milk, onion powder, salt and pepper and about 8 ounces of deli cheese ends stir constantly until melted. When cheese is all melted pour over the cooked and drained macaroni.

I served this with spam browned in a cast iron frying pan and asparagus. My 6 year old son who likes nothing, loved this meal.

Give it a try!

Monday, May 11, 2009

Refinishing A Bedroom Door

O.K. today's project is this old nasty bedroom door. I started by using an electric palm sander with a fine sandpaper on it to sand off all of the old finish. Then I wiped it all down with a acetone paint thinner. That just took any small amount of old finish off that may have still been there. I checked the door for small holes and then filled them using a small putty knife and a tub of Elmer's wood filler. I let the filler dry and then sanded again on just those spots. I sanded until all I could see of the filler was what was just in the old hole. Then I wiped it again with a dry rag to take off any small particles left from sanding.

Now it is time to decide paint, or stain? Easy decision for me and this old house. I know that paint is going to look very strange with my rustic decor. So a trip to the local hardware store and I decided on Special Walnut stain. I love it!! It looks great, kind of dark but not too dark.


Now, I have found that when putting stain on, it is easiest to use a sponge brush. They come in all different sizes and are cheap and easy to use. When using stain they keep the drips off of me, and also I have better control of how much stain I am putting on and where it is going. I just dip the sponge brush into the stain and work it in slow. Watching very closely for drips on the door. If there are any drips, I just lightly run my sponge over them, not adding any pressure to the sponge. I can control the amount of stain going on at once by the pressure put on the sponge.

It takes about 6 hours of dry time on this stain. But, I have found times that it took longer. After about 6 hours I just touch it, if it feels tacky I wait longer. After the stain is good and dry, I run a drywall sponge on the fine side, very lightly over the surface, and then wipe in down with a dry rag again. I do this in between every coat. I put 3 coats of stain on.

Now I am ready to polyurethane. Another choice, it comes in satin, semi, or high gloss. I go with the high gloss. I will need 3 coats of this also. I put it on just like the stain only using a clean, new sponge brush. It has 6 hour dry time also, maybe longer.

I realize that I need to replace the door knob now. Maybe something in a nickel finish, or brass. I need something a little different. So another trip to the hardware needs to be scheduled. But that will have to wait for another day.

Of course looking at the dry times you may have guessed,that this took more then one day. It was worth it. The old door looks almost new, but better then that because it is old it has character.

You may be thinking there is no way I am going to add that many coats. But I have found that it makes the door very washable. Being washable is a big thing in a house like mine.

Spicey Spaghetti !!

Ingredients

1 package Hillshire Farms Kielbasa
1 large onion
1 large green pepper
1 small package sliced fresh mushrooms
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp. chili powder
2 large cans of tomato sauce
2 tbs. oil
You are going to need to start this first thing in the morning and put in crock pot!

I start by cutting the kielbasa into wheels, then chop the onion and green pepper. Mince the garlic, and slice the mushrooms if they are whole. Add the oil to a heavy skillet ( I like to use cast iron, but whatever you use will be fine as long as it is heavy) Heat the oil and then add the kielbasa, onion, green pepper, and garlic. Saute until the kielbasa gets brown. Add just a little bit of water in the pan at this point, and scrape the drippings on the pan with a spoon until it looks almost like a dark gravy.

Add this mixture to the crock pot with the chili powder and cans of tomato sauce.

Turn on low and simmer most of the day. Let it cool a little while for better flavor before serving.

I like to serve this sauce on cooked angel hair pasta, add a green salad and french bread for a beautiful meal. Also add Parmesan cheese to each serving.

This was my grandmothers recipe. Yummy!!

Am I just a housewife?

I am just a housewife some people would say. I am a lot more then that. I am a homeschooling mom, a cook, the cleaning lady, assistant treasurer and Sunday school teacher for teen girls at church, I love to do crafts and most of all, I am famous around this small town for doing weird home projects.

My friends call and ask "So what is today's project?" So I thought why not write a blog about it. Each day I will write about what is going on, what I have done for a project and how it turns out. It should be interesting.

I believe very strongly that there is nothing that a housewife can't do if she wants to. Let me tell you about my biggest project. My house, I bought a house 3 years ago. It was built in the 40's, rumor has it that the mafia built it as a hunting camp. I don't know if that is really true or not. I just know that I loved the house and had to have it. Now this is the crazy part. My house was in horrible shape. It was all moldy and I gutted it out and have been redoing it slowly. I do it as I have time and as my purse will allow. I don't want to go far in debt, I just want to do a daily project until it all gets done. I work on this place so much that I have been mistaken as a contractor in my small town.

My favorite place to go is Home Depot!! That is a project in itself to find what I need and then to load it on the pickup and to unload it when I get home.

A housewife's job is NEVER done!!!

enjoy!