Duck for Dinner

We raised 5 drakes and 5 ducks in our flock this summer.  I should have butchered most of the drakes before Thanksgiving, but I put it off. I expected them to start fighting like roosters, but they never did. Then the turkeys were such a big job that I needed a break. Then there were deer to butcher.  This weekend I finally planned for some friends to come over and help me humanely dispatch my four extra drakes.  They cost a lot in feed and do not do much. It was not as bad as I thought it would be.  Helpful friends made it much easier.

I am keeping one drake in hopes that we will have some ducklings this summer.  My friend is giving us a pair of Muscovy ducks that I hope will be a good breeding pair as well.  They are a meat breed and we could raise their ducklings for eating.  The Khakis are really an egg layer type duck so their was not a lot of meat on each one.  We had one for dinner with orange sauce this evening though. It was delicious.

My Dash: Week 5

One of my brother P and my favorite early childhood memories is the huge bug.  It was in the Landau house and Aunt J and Uncle S were visiting.  While the parents were upstairs having a grand time we went down to the basement to check on something.  I remember that those stairs were in the garage. When we got down to the basement we saw a humungous beetle type bug.  We ran upstairs to tell the parents and guests. None of them believed us about how big it was.  Then they finally came down and were yelling about how huge it was. They said "Kill it!" or something similar. And then they searched around for something big enough to squish it with. Finally, Dad hit it with a hammer. I remember some discussion about how it must have been shipped in with some food from Africa or somewhere. Thinking back, we should have put it in a jar as a specimen and called our local county extension agency. I remember it being about the size of my palm with a greenish shell. Maybe something like this?

My Dash: Week 4

This week I have been reading My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell.  It is about a young naturalist (around 10 years old) who spends his days observing the habits of wildlife and collecting specimens on the island of Corfu in Greece.  It has me reminiscing a lot about my early childhood pets.  Until I was about 6 years old my parents did not let us get any official pets.  My brother P and I used to wander around collecting our own "pets" mostly spiders and other bugs.  We had several mason jars of them, but were not very good at taking care of them.  I remember putting 2-3 spiders in one jar together and being amazed that they began fighting to the death while we watched.  We also caught some salamanders and toads in the woods. Those were very cute pets, but they were too quick to really hold on to for long.

When I was 6 years old I fell in love with a tiny beagle puppy at the pet store. It was so small that it was sleeping in its food bowl.  I believe their were a lot of tears and begging until my parents understood that I really NEEDED a puppy. Of course, that pet shop beagle was too expensive and my parents found some puppies in the classifieds that were only 50$ each instead. I wanted to name my new beagle "Pup-pup", but was overruled and we named her "Pokey" after my dad's childhood toy.  I can still recall the smell of the soiled newspaper in the garage that I had to clean up while she was learning to do her business outside. I believe we let her stay in the garage a lot in the winter of her puppyhood, but after that Pokey was an outdoor dog.  I had dreams of training her really well, but she was very stubborn. We went to 4H obedience classes and I spent hours working on "sit" "stay" and "come" with her.  She never mastered "come" on command. She frequently escaped from her rope outside and I would have to go around the neighborhood looking for her.  She also had a hard time with "heel" and I have a big scar on my knee from being dragged down the road while she chased another neighborhood dog.  Eventually, when we were both a bit older and more astute, she learned "lay", "shake", and "speak".  She was always digging holes -- I sprained my ankle when I ran through one covered with snow. Once we made a video about her in the garage. It was called "Pokey TV" and mostly just had a nice song and some kids riding bikes in circles.  She was a bit like Snoopy and used to sit or stand on her doghouse, which had a flat lean-to type roof. It made a nice bench for us to sit on together and have a good talk and pet or brush her.

Pokey paved the way for a variety of other pets.  I got an aquarium one year for Christmas.  We filled it with guppies, sword tails, and midnight mollies - live bearing fish.  That was great except that every morning I had to check the tank to make sure that there were no babies swimming around, in danger of being eaten by their parents.  I had a little nursery pen that I would gather them up in until they were big enough not to be in danger. I also had to siphon out the tank every Saturday, which was pretty gross. We had several pet mice over the years. We made tunnels for them to play in out of various recyclables. For a school project one year my dad helped me make a large set of tunnels mounted on a wooden board so that the kids could watch the mice exploring. Most of the mice eventually got tumors and died.  We got used to that and I remember we began just letting them go in the field at the park when a tumor started.  My siblings eventually got their own dogs or cats as pets too, though I don't remember spending much time with those pets.

I guess all those experiences with taking care of animals helped set me up for farming! Lots of work feeding, cleaning, and caring for the animals. It's probably also part of the reason why we are waiting until we have a fence to get a dog.  The kids pray almost every night "Please bless that we can get a fence so that we can have a dog like Zeke."  Zeke is our friends' in Utah's dog who came in to lick our faces to wake us up while we were staying at their house. We probably won't be getting any kind of hound dog though!

Recommended Reading: November - December

Sorry, I am very behind on sharing these...

1. One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus  -- An interesting story, based on a "what if the US government had made a different choice?" in regards to a peace proposal from the Cherokee indians scenario.  I always like a good historical fiction.  I was sad that this one seemed to be a bit more fiction than history.  Also their were a couple indian massacre type scenes that make it one that I would not generally recommend.

2. On the Banks of Plum Creek
3. Farmer Boy
4. By the Shores of Silver Lake
5. The Long Winter, These Happy Golden Years
6. The First Four Years    Lovely. All of the House on the Prairie books are wonderful for any age.  They are the comfort food of family read-alouds.

6. My Fair Gentleman
7. For Elise
8. The Sherriffs of Savage Wells
The three above are all "Proper Romance" novels -- meaning written by LDS ladies with clean story lines. I enjoyed them and recommend them as a quick getaway.

9. The Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler - The kids did not really get into this story as much as I thought that they would. Perhaps it is more an 8 and up book. I enjoyed it.

10. Caddie Woodlawn  -coming of age story about a healthy tomboy; big sister A loved this story and M of course loved the animal aspects of it.

Miss L's Birthday Party

We waited a few extra days for L's birthday party so that our baptism guests could all be part of the celebration. L's sister and cousins put on a special performance for her.  

The girls also made her a fondant cake. (In the background are the venison backstrap steaks that we had just cooked on the grill for dinner).

 She did not know how to blow out the candle.  She just kept staring at it. Finally, hubby had to help her so that we could get on with the party.

 I climbed on the back of our chair to get a broader view of the wild party -- 8 kids and 8 adults

 

 She received wooden blocks, stacking blocks, a bath toy, and a toy shopping cart.

Family Fun: Busy Builders and Bakers

I brought the young rabbits in for our visitors to hold.

 We did a lot of baking in preparation for the baptism. We made all the desserts: Texas sheet cake, two batches of rice crispy treats, 5 dozen chocolate chip cookies, 2 loaves of banana bread, and Nutella.

 The boys set-up some new creative car ramps and also played outside with the tractor.  Hubby got a "thumb" for the backhoe so that it can be used to carry and maneuver logs.

 I also put the men to work on some house projects.  We are doing a little spruce up in the laundry room.  I forgot to take a before picture.  Here is one we took while getting ready to move in, but it does not show the parts that we are working on.

On the wall above the washer and dryer were some funny flower wall stickers and an 80's style cupboard.  Here are the men carrying out the cupboard:

They also installed a new light in the entryway. As usual, they were too quick for me and I don't have a before picture.  This one is from the listing -- it was like this white paper disk light in the window dormer.

Now it looks like this:

 Grandpa J fixed some electrical outlets that were sticking out and is trying to get our fridge water station working.  It's so awesome to have experienced parents helping with all of our projects.

Baptism Day: Big Sister A's Big Day

 Big sister A got baptized this weekend.

 

We had a lot of family who came to visit for the event.   Gma S and Gpa J:

  Grandmama and Grandpa J

 

 Aunt S, Uncle M, and a whole bunch of cousins:

 A's two friends from primary got baptized Saturday morning as well. A lot of local friends came to support them on their special day. We had to have the meeting in the chapel since there were more than 75 people attending. We had a "light lunch" afterwords for everyone -- sandwiches, chips, veggies, fruits, and desserts.  Big sister A received a lot of nice gifts from her friends and family. I think it was a great day for her.

My Dash: Week 3

We lived on about a half acre lot when I was kid. There was a narrow strip of wood that divided our yard from the backyard neighbor's property.  My brother P and I played back there regularly. My dad dumped the grass clippings, fallen branches, and weeds back there. There was a lovely lilac bush in one corner, wild berries along the front edge and sumac bushes. Shortly after my best friend E and I watched "The Secret Garden" for the first time we decided to make a garden back there.  We made an agreement with my little brother P and her little brother M that they could have most of the woods, but I wanted the corner with the lilac bush.  We made a rock wall to divide the boys' and girls' sides with limestone rocks we found while digging out weeds. That made things look pretty and tidy. We planted some flower seeds, but I think it was too shady back there. We encouraged the plants already growing there that we deemed "pretty"and pulled out anything "ugly" and threw it over on the boys' side. There was an old stump for sitting on. I think we spent several weeks working on it.  The crowning piece was a sort of hammock/stick bridge that we made by cutting lengths of sticks that were approximately equal and lashing them together. I remember that it was sturdy enough to walk or sit on, but that rough edges of the thick sticks made it impossible to swing up on it without getting scraped. We had to climb one of the trees that we had strung it to in order to step on. Too bad I don't have a picture of it. I remember it looking kind of like this:

My Dash: Weeks 1 and 2

My friend from co-op school posted a smart idea on facebook the other day along the lines of the poem "Remember the Dash" by Linda Ellis. She suggested that we write one personal/family history story each week as a way to get a jump start on our personal histories.  I am going to skip the "we lived here and I went to school there" part of things and just try to write funny stories from my childhood.  My kids probably already know a lot of these, but just in case we forget they'll be in print. Since I just heard about this I need to do two stories this week to make up for missing the first week of January.

Story #1:  One of my earliest memories was of being either in time out or sleep training. I remember being in my crib and thinking "I am going to try to cry as hard as I can so that mom will feel bad and come and get me."  
Isn't that hilarious?! What a first memory to have. It makes me wonder what my kids will remember about their sleep training and time-outs.

Story #2: When I was little I had a set of metal Shortcake chairs (child size) with red plastic seats and accents.  My younger brother P and I were playing in the basement of the Easterbrook house.  I was probably 6 years old and P around 4.  There were no other young kids in the neighborhood back then and we played with each other all the time. We played a lot and argued a lot.  On this particular day, I was so mad at him, I have no memory of why, that I picked up my Strawberry Shortcake chair and slammed it over my brother P's head. He screamed and cried and ran upstairs to tell mom.  She called the advice nurse or someone on the phone with Paul in her arms after telling me what a terrible thing that I had done and something along the lines of "you could have seriously injured your brother".  P then alternated between crying, smirking, and whispering slyly "Ha! You're going to jail. You're going to jail!" By that time I was crying more than my brother P was.  I have never lived that story down. My brother P still LOVES to tell it.

Lucky me, I actually have a digital picture of my brother and I when we were little. My dad has been digitizing all our childhood photos. Here is one from around the time he came home from the hospital. I was just barely 2 years old.

Family Fun: Christmas Lights and One Late Present

Over 650,000 lights are put up around the Washington DC Temple and Visitors Center every December. It is a gorgeous and magical sight. 

 Miss L especially loved them. We heard a lot of "look" and "so pretty". Totally worth braving the cold for.  We also wanted to go to the free concert at the Visitors Center that night -- bluegrass! The kids were assigned to watch the guitar players for cords that they recognized. It was a pain waiting in line for it, but the music was great.  I think it helps the kids to see where their guitar playing might lead.

 Drumroll! And here it is -- the big present that we have been waiting for. -- A Tractor!

 This makes me feel like a real farmer.  We got the lawn mower, front loader, and backhoe attachments.  There are a few smaller ones that we might add as time goes on.

 Hubby has been using it to dig out some stumps and gather the mass of leaves still on the ground. See that big pile in my composter on the right side of the photo below?  Those are from only a small section of what we have in the yard.

Christmas Day

We let the kids open their stockings before church.  I did not want to feel rushed. 

We had a special musical church meeting at 10 am and some cookies and treats afterwords.

Then we came home and changed back into jammies to open the rest of the presents.  Miss L is very hard to buy things for.  She has all the toddler toys inherited from the older kids. The main trouble is that she prefers to play with the big kids.  If they ignore the "baby toy" then she will too. That in mind, I found this learning car garage set that I knew her brothers would like too.

Brother S received the connectable construction site learning car set. These two gifts were from Grandma Suzy and Grandpa John.

Brother M is still into bugs. He received a bug playground and big guide book to insects of North America from Grandpop and Grandma Judy.

Big sister A likes history, but she always LOVES learning about Egypt. This Archeology Pyramid was perfect for her. Thanks Grandpop and Grandma Judy!

Quadrocopter from Grandma Suzy and Grandpa John. It's like a drone, only has no camera and was way less expensive.

More snapcircuits for my electrical engineer.

Miss L loves animals, especially cats.  She likes to pick out cat books from the library. She received these 2 cat books from Grandmama and Grandpa Jim.

New shoes for daddy --he selected them himself and I wrapped them.

The kids went to the dollar store with daddy this year and used their money to buy each other small gifts.  They were fun to open and cute to see their reactions to giving to each other.

Big sister A could not wait to start her archeological digging.

Hubby likes to surprise me with presents. I heard about the vintage nintendo remake from my sister and said that would be fun, but that I actually preferred the Atari. Those were the only video games that I really played.  

He bought this vintage Atari remake for me that has 100 games built into it. We have had some fun evenings playing it together.