Meet the Farm animals

 As of today: 16 farm animals at High Tide Farm.  Each morning starts with letting the animals out of their overnight shelter and starting breakfast,  The day is theirs to enjoy life and then in the evening comes dinner, a little time spent with each one and then all get tucked in to bed with a good night story.  Not all are good listeners.  LuLu has been known to eat the pages of the book I read to her.  Ha Ha!  

Here they are:

Poppy and her mama LuLu - yes  Poppy is a goat not a cow

Poppy with a chicken on her back

Watching over everyone is Charlotte, a Great Pyrenees and guardian livestock dog

Baby Rose is interested in my earrings.  Rose is 2 weeks old in this picture but is now 3

Rodney is a feral turned friendly cat.  He gets along with everyone and is a funny little guy

LuLu (Eloise when she is bad - but she never is.  LuLu came with me from Denver and is now 8 years old.  She likes to hang out on tree stumps and in wagons.  Oh she likes her bedtime stories

Firecracker.  She's just lost her tail feathers and is beginning to molt but when she is laying she lays a beautiful blue egg.  Thank you Firecracker

Pippin.  I don't know where he came from - across the street i think- but figured out where the free meal was served and now is a part of the farm.  I've yet to touch him.   See the heart on his side?

Eclair - one of my newest flock.  Eclair is an "Easter Egger" chicken and is now at 5 months just starting to lay hr eggs.....a pretty blue one

This is Lily.  Lily is also a youngster.  She is a lavender Orpington and her egg is brown.

This is Croissant.  She is Eclair's twin but does have a look of her own.   She is quite a talker and when you hold her she will gently tell you a story....she waits for your verbal response and then she adds a bit more,  Her egg will be either green or blue like Eclair's

Bullet is my only male goat.  He has been castrated and is called a wether - no longer a buck.  He is very funny,  Don't you love his blue eyes?  He also has wattles (little pendulous skin under his throat) which add to his adorableness  Bullet weighs about 60 pounds.  The does weigh about 45

This is Lacy.  She is a golden laced Wyandotte chicken and lays a brown egg.  Lacy is getting old - about 5

Butterscotch.  Also one of my old girls.  She sometimes needs a little help getting out of bed in the morning but don't we all sometimes?  Scotchy  lays a blue egg.  She is an Aracauna.

Jolene.  She is a silver laced Wyandotte and lays a brown egg.  Jolene is the head hen in my flock

LuLu in the chicken yard

Rose today.  She is 3. Rose is a tiny goat even for a Nigerian Dwarf.  She gets pushed around a lot but has developed skills that keep her strong and happy.  She gets a little mixed up when she wants attention.  While the other goats in the herd nestle up to me when they want attention Rose gives me a head butt.  Just a little one but that's really not the way to ask for attention Rose

Meet Spiderman.  She had a different name at first but she started to look just like the first chicken I had in Denver.  Kate had named the chicken Spiderman and she was terrific.  This Spiderman is an excellent Japanese beetle catcher.  She will chase them around the barnyard and when they dare get low enough she grabs them.  Way to go Spiderman!  This chicken is an Aracauna and lays and beautiful green blue egg.  It's actually too bg to fit into an egg carton

Last but not least is Violette.  She is a lavender Orpington and has not yet started laying but soon.  Her egg will be brown.

Today's eggs: Spiderman's, Jolene's, Eclair's & Lily's

This makes a total of 1 dog, 4 goats, 9 chickens and 2 farm cats.

Life is good on the farm.  I'm a lucky girl to have these fabulous animals around me each day!

A Very Merry Christmas to all Old Fashioned Gingerbread and candy cane treats

 The packages have been sent to family members so it's time to reveal the 2023 theme.  

Gingerbread Man and girls..with a lot of old fashioned sweets.  An Old Fashioned Christmas.

Last year as I was putting away my Christmas ornaments I noticed my gingerbread men were sort of "tired".  They had been taken out, displayed and stored in their boxes for over fifty years.  I decided not to store them in 2023 but to do some repair and freshening up.  

circa 1970

When I was a young newlywed I wanted to start my own ornament collection for my tree as all young adults like to do when they've moved out of their parents home. Because I loved to sew and because money was tight I decided to make these little guys.  I used a cookie cutter for a pattern and cut  out from velvet and brown gingham fabric scraps.  Then I appliquéd and embroidered the eyes, mouth and cheeks and apple buttons.  A velvet necktie and rick rack around the edge dressed them for display. I still love to hang these old ornaments on my tree each year.  They send my mind back to another happy Christmas time as so many ornaments do.  My friend, Jan, just recently described it as "my life's history is presented on my tree.  So true!

Usually my Christmas theme inspiration comes to me in October or November but this year in early January I knew what 2023 would be.  Gingerbread.  I decided to make more gingerbread men and share them with others:

Start with a set of gingerbread people - yes I have a few..  In my kitchen "more is more"

The originals are on the top and 7 new pairs of gingerbread fabric ornaments made from both old and new materials

white felt, "apple" appliqué , blue felt eyes, embroidery and vintage ribbon

As I decorated the tree I pulled out all the old ornaments that supported the theme of old fashion candy canes and ribbon candy, sweets like cupcakes and chocolate truffles.  Then I added gingerbread houses and candy cane striped ribbon

Here's a look at my tree:

Candy cane paper, gingerbread bags and boxes

Old fashion Christmas tree

Topped with a gingerbread girl  "Jellycat"

ribbon candy, candy cane ribbon, gingerbread garland - all sugar free!

Sweets on the tree from Christmas' past

Ribbon candy tree, Gingerbread nutcracker and a corner of my poinsettia quilt from 2006

And now for the cookies:

It's just fun making cookies: cut out cookies, decorated cookies, chocolate cookies and red cookies:

This year gingerbread men were a must. Then Ella requested peanut butter cookies with the iconic chocolate kiss on the top.  Red velvet crinkles and sugar cookies made the cut this year.  I first made a batch of each gluten free ( for my Denver family) and then an additional batch of each for others.  Really the G-F choice does not compromise the taste at all and I encourage everyone to try it.

Red velvet crinkle batter

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/231745/red-velvet-crinkle-cookies/

so pretty and delicious

Don't forget to let your cookie cutters go swimming in the flour before they cut

Red velvet crinkle cookies plus peanut butter kisses  Here's the recipe 

A village of ginger people    https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/230238/gingerbread-men-cookies/

And sugar cut out cookies candy cane, Royal Icing (with 1 drop of peppermint extract)  I use the recipe from Rose's Christmas Cookies book - secret ingredient is lemon zest but if you don't have that bible Allrecipes has a good one too https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/10402/the-best-rolled-sugar-cookies/

And finally it would not be a complete Christmas without including my High Tide Farm animals

A big wag, hug, nestle, cackle, and meow from all of us

The newcomers

Charlotte

The 4 funny goats......plus 6 chickens

And my favorite girls:

 Reina (16) and Gabriela(13)  Visiting from Seattle

Kate(16)  and Ella(20) - my Denver girls - on their trip to New Zealand

May this upcoming year be filled with love, adventures and joy in your lives

Happy New Year 💗

The Dog Days of Summer-

Here we are in the middle of the dog days of summer.  It is so hot and humid that my doggie has to come in during the high temperatures to stay cool.  Here is Charlotte definitely playing hookie from her duties as guardian to the farm animals.  It's too hot to ask her to stay outside with her double thick coat.  My kitchen is too hot to do much creativity.  Who wants to turn on the oven?

***For for pics of our "dogs" scroll to bottom of post*****

But what are the dog days of summer?  The Farmers Almanac sites from July 3 - August 11 - the middle of summer and when the temperatures are highest along with high humidity.  After a little research I found out that the "dog" is Sirius from the constellation Canis Majoris.  It seems that the bright star of Sirius appears in the morning sky announcing changes in the weather pattern......some good like flooding in Egypt providing water to the desert fields and some bad.....high temperatures and humidity.

But also in the Farmer's Almanac is the fact that most of the spring planting is now bearing its fruit and the vines and plants that once provided water and nourishment are drying out allowing  the fruit to reach  maximum  sweetness and announcing harvest time.  All the work from the last few months is now paying off.

Some of the garden planted itself.  This single scarlet runner bean sprouted so I gave it a stick to climb on.  The pods have now dried and the beans are ready to harvest.  The beans are such a beautiful color.  And don't worry the pods are given to the goats.  They are dry and crispy and the goats consider them potato chips.

The Satsuma plums are ripening.

I planted blackberry "sticks" and they are starting to ripen

I planted shallots for the first time this year.  When the top green spikes start to wilt and fall to the side they are ready to harvest.  I see caramelized shallots in my near future:

I also planted sweet onion starts - about 50 of them  and they are ready to pull as well.  Last night I grilled two along side my Halibut.  Yes there are apricot preserves and jam on the shelf behind...June's project

Lava flow tomatoes ripening on the now brown vines 

I did plant a variety of pumpkins--most of them are still on the vine but the funny one with peanuts on the skin - "Galeux D'Eysines" started on its own producing about 500 square feet of vines and these 4 large pumpkins.  The largest one weighs about 25 pound and produces the sweetest of pumpkin pies and muffins.  The orange one is a Cinderella  "Rouge vis d'Etampes" and the green is "Jarrahdale"

Yes all of this for  4 pumpkins

Here is a "Jarrahdale hanging from the squash trellis.

But my new adventure was planting a melon patch.  I started in March clearing a space about 10' by 10 " and enriching the soil with compost..  I built up mounds with furrows in between and installed an irrigation system that would flood the furrows therefore avoiding watering from above which can cause mildew to the plant.  Of course no proper melon patch is complete without a dozen or so sunflowers:

Here was the tricky part:  Most melons take about 90 days to develop after 7-14 days for the seed to germinate in 70-90 degree temperatures.  It was cold and wet this spring and not warm enough for the seeds to germinate until Easter weekend.  April 8  But just as the weather cooperated I didn't feel like planting seeds.  In fact I didn't feel like doing anything.  COVID   In spite of feeling awful I planted 4 rows of 12 different varieties before climbing in bed for 3 days.  

Today 114 days after sowing my melon seeds I picked this melon from my patch and ate it for my lunch.

It is a French melon: "Petit Gris de Rennes"  You can smell its perfumes 5 feet away. It is amazingly fragrant and the orange meat is so sweet.  Pairing melons with salty or cured meats and fishes is amazing so this melon draped in prosciutto was perfect.

French melon "Chanterais" hiding under cover.

You can tell a melon is ripe by looking for a scar on the vine end.  The scar is telling us that the vine is about to pull off of the fruit.  It should also smell amazing.  

Petit gris de Rennes cut open....must save some seeds for next year 

Cantaloupe

So much for the melon lesson.  Just choose one that smells divine from the stem end cut open and eat.  No cooking recipes this months.  The kitchen is just too hot.  Dog days.

The sunflowers have all nodded their heads.  This one will be fed to the goats and chickens tonight....maybe I'll save some seeds first 

Rose loves to clean up the garden vines and sunflowers 

But I still have some garden growing.  Next month: green beans, butternut squash, berries, nectarines,  lots of herbs, eggplant, more zucchini, cucumbers, haricots vests, beets and then time to plant again

Enjoy your dog days.  keep your  cool

Share your DOGS:

Rudy's dog days in Manhattan Beach

Rudy is a Morkie

Bullet, Rose and Ella downward dog days

Georgia, Kate and Eddie in the dog days in Denver

Georgia is a Goldendoodle and Eddie is a Newfoundland Poodle

Fiona, Finn and Tiegan dog days

Fiona and Finn are Blue Merle Collie litter mates

Zeke's puppy days in the pool ( 2 minutes after returning home from the groomer)

Zeke is a Giant Schnauzer

Louis' first dog (puppy)  days in Los Angeles with his PaPa Andrew

Louis is a Lagatto Romanolo

Opie - Charlotte's main buddy.  Opie is a rat terrier and right at home here at High Tide Farm during the dog days of summer and all year round

Bear...our dog day friend we see every day on our morning walk

Bear is a Newfoundland

Charlotte on her skim board - dog and beach days