Aug 042012
 
I found a set of turkey cake toppers on etsy that I loved, but they were $80 and only 2 inches tall. I’m all about supporting artists and all that, but… $80 freaking dollars? And I wanted them to look like my turkeys.So I made my own. It was my first attempt working with clay since… middle school?
I think they turned out pretty cute!

Mikey wants a fedora so Mr. Turkey got a hat
I used Sculpey III (it was on sale when I bought clay, there was no research involved) in White, Black, Pewter, Leaf Green, Yellow, Deep Red Pearl and Sweet Potato. I used almost a whole one pound bar of the white, half of the orange and a little bit of the others. About $22 on clay total. If would have been less but I wanted lots of colors.
They were baked in pieces
Jun 122012
 
Most people have been talking about their weddings or children. I’m not married (yet) and I don’t have kids so those are out.

I’ve narrowed it down to a few.

One is this day

I told the story on this Wordless Wednesday post when I originally shared the picture

The others,

The day we found out we really would get Alfie. He was the only boy in his litter so we didn’t know until he was ready to go if we would get him. I remember yelling at work when Mikes mom texted me his picture with the words “he’s all yours! come and get him” we picked him up that night. He was so little riding in the truck with us! Now he hogs all the space he can squeeze out of us.

Another day, when we hatched our first batch of turkeys. It was the culmination of a years work, finally feeling like we got something right!

The last, when we got the girls to our home. Having Dorothy and Sophia has been a challenge (check out the link for a dramatic/traumatic cow story), but I love them and I wouldn’t have it any other way (Mike might though!)

Turkey Eggs

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Apr 182012
 
It’s the second week of the Leap into Spring photo challenge!
I somehow forgot about it so this week there are two Wordless Wednesday posts.
You can find my Daffodil photos here
The topics for this week are Easter/Eggs.
Due to my sister being in the hospital I missed out on Easter (I do have 3/4 of a blessed butter lamb in the fridge though!) so I went with eggs. 
The light is best on the front lawn. So second day in a row I’ve been laying on my lawn with a camera. Thank goodness I don’t have close neighbors!
This is a Royal Palm Turkey Egg, now in the incubator
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Apr 032012
 

Hi! I’ll start off with some good news. After almost a week missing, my turkey came back!

He’s a happy boy

In other news I’ve apparently lost my mind.
If I disappear this month I’m most likely hiding under a rock, just let me be please!

 Saturday Mike and I made the trek to Miller Nursery to get 10 fruit trees and some other various fruity things.
Sunday we replaced all of the electric fence (in the rain) in an effort to keep Sophia in the pasture.
Tomorrow I’m getting 10 guinea keets.

Sometime this month I’m getting the potatoes and shallots I ordered back in February.
And the asparagus, sweet potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes.
All that had to go in the ground plus the cole crops I started from seed.
Did I mention we haven’t put in all the garden beds yet? 

On top of all that I’ve got the regular chores with the barn.
And it’s time to get the turkey eggs in the incubator.
I’ve also got 2 ducks sitting on eggs and one chicken in the Witness Protection Program (we use our old chicken coop as a shelter for injured birds or as temporary housing for new babies) with a serious wound on her side.

Crazy. Crazy. Crazy.

But I bet you’re here for the new use for an old photo album right?

As you may know, we moved in last July. The landscaping was iffy to say the least.
So I’ve been buying plants here and there (I have a soft spot for clearance perennials) and trying to tuck them into a nice spot.

Problem is I buy a lot of really random things.
So I keep the tags for every plant, thinking if something is really awesome or survives really well I might want to go back for it. Unfortunately those tags end up ALL OVER the place.

Luckily a 4×6 photo album is the perfect size to keep them all together!
I write on the tags with a sharpie, some plants have 2 tags (oooh! fancy) and you can easily shove them in together. Great for gardener OCD!

Rainy Sunday

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Mar 262012
 

Ugh. It’s been a day and a half here!

I’ve been working on my super awesome project for the last two days.
Hopefully I’ll have it done and ready to share by Tuesday when I have help putting it up.

Got a bit side tracked when a neighbor stopped by to tell me my turkey was down by her barn.
Cut to 1 hour traipsing trough the woods looking for the hen.
Almost caught her once but then she got away.
We lost her about 1/2 mile from the house so I’m hoping she’ll hear the toms (all 4 are gobbling up a storm these days) and make it back.

So far we’ve been incredibly lucky with predators. We’ve lost one duck and 2 polish hens that refused to go in the barn at night, preferring the life threatening strategy of sitting in the middle of a field.

Who wouldn’t come back for this? Check out that beard!

I’ll keep you updated!

Jan 112012
 
click to enlarge
Two Royal Palm turkey poults from last years hatch (four if you count the two in the eggs). Once they hatch you leave them in the incubator until they dry (it’s around 99 degrees in there!). This was a major high point in turkey raising. Turkeys are notoriously hard to breed, hatch and brood.
We hatched out 17, but had a massive (incredibly depressing) die-off. We still don’t know what caused it but we were losing one poult a day for over a week. We ended up with 8 survivors. That was really a low point in our farm adventure.
It’s such a roller coaster, you never know what will happen.

Please Check out my 100 Follower Necklace Giveaway! 

Farm Girl Friday

Dec 172011
 
Last post was a bit wordy. Making up for it with this recap of our Christmas cards for the last 5 years!
This is Bubbles. She was our bearded dragon. She lived in a 75 gallon fish tank next to our bed and liked to stare at us. She wasn’t against wearing fun hats either. She also liked to take long walks on the quad at school. She lived to be 10 years old (pretty good for beardies).
Here we have Matilda (in the house) and Jeeves Fluffywhumps. They were ‘rescues’ we got when we lived in Syracuse. They still live with us. 
This is Rita as a baby. She later ate all of those window clings. We still have her (obviously).
Our card from last year. This took about 500 shots. Almost broke the camera in the process. Incase you were wondering, you shouldn’t drop an SLR. We still have them at the moment… 
***If you know me in real life stop reading!!!***
Merry Christmas Everyone! 
Click to make larger for all the details
We stepped it up a bit this year, went with the 5-shot collage card. (Got them at Walmart because they do 1-hour and well… time management is not working this year). 
Starring: Alfie the Reindeer
Also Featured:
Gobbles the turkey. 
The two of us (not the most glamorous folk) with Alfie and Rita Beast.
Alfie is now an internet celebrity! Well, that’s what we told him. He just continued to chew on his ‘floppy’ (what we call his fleece toy). Thanks to The Cottage Market for featuring him!

 
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Funky Junk's Sat Nite Special

Nov 242011
 
Happy Thanksgiving All!

This is my beautiful boy, Gobbles. He is a 1 1/2 year old Royal Palm turkey. We currently have 13 RPs. We started out June 2010 with 22 turkey poults. 11 RP and 11 Bourbon Red. In the end we lost one poult, 2 went to friends of mine, 14 went…. in the freezer and 5 stayed with us.

A younger Gobbles and his four ladies.

I’ve been through a lot with these critters. They started out as day old poults in my mom’s garage. They moved with Mike and I to the small house we rented. Then finally with us to our new home. They predate the cows, chickens, ducks and alpacas.

Checking out the chickens. We keep the chickens separate for health reasons. It’s also the reason we may be discontinuing our turkey raising. He was really interested in the white ones.

Mean looking hen sitting on some eggs

We had some hens pretty serious about brooding but they never hatched anything.

We did a bit better with the incubator. These are freshly hatched. Turkeys are notoriously hard to breed, low fertility and hatch rate makes this a pretty good turn out for first timers. We hatched 15 but lost a bunch to unknown causes. We ended up with 8 to raise for… the freezer.

Another picture of my pretty man. Ignore his broken tail, it’s grown back now but I can’t find a better picture.