Cooped up

Yes, I did take last week off. It was Christmas. We had a quiet dinner at home. I had a really busy semester and am compensating by not doing much of anything during my break. I sleep late and take naps. By Christmas, I the only thing I’d crossed off my list was cleaning my refrigerator. I thought of posting a photo because it was a thing of beauty, but it seemed like too much information, like putting up a picture of what you have for lunch every day.

We are welcoming the New Year with bitter temperatures. It’s still warm by North Dakota standards, a mere -3° in the morning, but the wind cuts right through you. We’ve had two snow events of about an inch each. The good thing about having solar panels on the ground is that you can go out and brush the snow off and continue to generate kWh. The good thing about having solar panels on the roof is that when it is below zero, you can resign yourself to not doing anything about the snow and put your feet up with a cup of hot tea and a lap blanket.

Anyway, I bundled up yesterday morning and went out to clear the panels with the temperature at -2° F and a brisk wind blowing from the northwest. Unlike the first snow, which stuck everywhere, the most recent snow had mostly blown off.

Solar panels before brushing

Our method is to put a soft brush on the end of a telescoping pole. This is as far as I can reach.

The brush on the solar panels up as high as I can get it.

Then I pull the pole toward me to brush the snow to the bottom of the panels (and onto my pants). The last time I did snow removal, it was marginally warmer, and only the snow directly beneath the brush would move, one 12” strip at a time. I was at it 45 minutes. This time, when I got the top started, often the snow on the whole panel would slide down, taking all the snow below with. I was done in 20 minutes. Good thing, too, because even wearing my most serious mittens, my fingertips were numb when I was done.

Solar panels brushed off and ready to generate some kilowatt hours

My most serious mittens

I am worried about the hens. We’ve been leaving them in the coop because even if we open the door, they don’t go out, and the coop stays warmer with the door shut. Literally cooped up, they get bored and start pecking each other. Poor Dorothy has no tail feathers left at all.

Poor tailless Dorothy

I found one of their toys, a Coke bottle with holes in the side, filled it with scratch grain, and hung it from the ceiling.

Chicken toy--a Coke bottle with holes in the side filled with scratch grain

I thought they would eagerly attack it, but instead they took to the roost and stayed there, mortified.

On the roost, afraid of the new toy. Juanita is third from the left; note that she looks less scruffy than her companions.

While I was watching, I saw Juanita pecking at Lupita. This would explain why Juanita is the only chicken who does not look hen-pecked. I reprimanded her severely. Fat lot of good that will do.

When I went out to give them their Sunday carrot peels, the Coke bottle was half-empty (or perhaps half-full), so apparently they have been entertaining themselves. I also ordered some pinless peepers with expedited shipping to help with the pecking problem. Stay tuned on that one. I hope Dorothy still has feathers when the pinless peepers arrive.

That brings us to my last post of 2017. Happy New Year!

Christmas cookie marathon

I didn't do a post last weekend because I didn't do much except clean my refrigerator. I contemplated posting a picture of my clean refrigerator, but I felt that no one would appreciate its beauty quite as much as I did.

Yesterday was our Christmas cookie marathon. I made the sugar cookie, chocolate sugar cookie, and Mexican wedding cake doughs in advance. Jane did the dough for the sour cream pockets and also made Tom Thumbs (coconut bars) and caramels. The caramels came out pretty soft. When I visited her Monday, we chilled them so we could cut them and wrap them in wax paper. Hilda prepped the pecan bars using a new recipe from America’s Test Kitchen.

I was up early making frosting. I made my usual buttercream frosting, debating in my head about single or double batch. I decided on a single batch, but left the butter out at room temperature so I could whip up more if I needed to. I made a new recipe for chocolate frosting using the recipe on the Ghiradelli cocoa package. It turned out rather runny. I put in some extra cocoa and hoped for the best.

At 10:00, Kate arrived with her cat, Gracie. Kate was leaving for Oshkosh that day, and I offered to set up a kennel where Gracie could lounge in relative comfort while we were baking. That would save Kate two hours of driving back to her townhouse to get the cat. Even though I explained the plan to Terry, he still suffered from the misconception that Gracie was going to stay with us until Kate got back after Christmas. Apparently he could not believe we would set up the kennel, complete with food, water, and a litter box for a couple of hours. “Why didn’t she just stay in her carrier?” he asked.

“What if she had to pee?” I answered. (It turned out she didn’t, but she managed to get litter in the water bowl anyway.)

Jane drove in shortly after we had the cat settled in. Hilda passed out aprons and towels to hang on the apron strings. Here is Kate, suited up and ready to go.

Kate with her apron and towel. By the end of the day, she decided she loved aprons. Very handy for hand wiping.

As we got organized, Hilda baked her pecan bars. We were intrigued by this recipe because it did not require making caramel as a separate step. Melting sugar without burning it always gave me anxiety. We had to start over more than once, let me tell you. Also, the base did not need pre-baking. It only went in the oven once, completely assembled. Here is the result. It tasted just like pecan pie.

Pecan bars

I started rolling and cutting the sugar cookies so we could get the frosting on in time to set up before Kate had to leave. Kate brought along her two cookie cutters, a penguin and a horse. I found that the penguin’s flippers and the horse’s tail and legs were points of weakness. After a few unfortunate accidents, I reverted to my tried and true Christmas bison with their stubby legs and thick necks. Much more structurally sound.

Horse/bison comparison. The more structurally sound shape is easy to discern

Kate put the cookies on the trays.

Cookies on the tray (including the "dog cookie" from the end of the chocolate cookies)

Hilda manned the oven.

Hilda takes cookies out of the oven

Jane took the cookies off the trays.

Jane puts cookies on the cooling rack

When the first cookies were cool enough, Jane started putting chocolate frosting on the bison and Kate started with the white frosting on the penguins, snowmen, and boys and girls. Kate was nervous because she was a frosting novice. We assured her that most folks just ate the cookies without criticizing the artwork.

Kate uses a pallet knife for the first time.

Aren't the penguins cute?

When I was done rolling and cutting, I prepared the colored icing in the piping bags. Kate learned to pipe frosting too. It was a day of growth experiences for her.

All frosted!

The Christmas bison get a wreath around their necks to make them festive

When the cookies were all frosted, we took a break for lunch. I made turkey soup with homemade noodles.

Two kinds of cookies were left, the Mexican wedding cakes and the sour cream pockets. We did the wedding cakes first because they were less putzy. When they were in the oven, I started rolling the sour cream pocket dough. Jane dabbed on a tiny bit of apricot or raspberry filling and folded up the corners. And the corners mostly came apart in the oven, but they will still taste good. We convinced Kate to stay just a little longer so she could take some with her. By this time, I had (typically) forgotten all about taking pictures. Trust me, they cookies were beautiful.

After Kate left, we cleaned up, packed our share of the cookies, and had a cup of coffee. It was such a fun day, and we have delicious things to eat. What could be better?

Pullets' first snow

Idalis has always had wanderlust. It may have started when she was a chick and spent the night in the feeder. The chicks are not supposed to spend nights in the feeder, of course, because we take the feeder out of the warm coop every evening so the meat chickens don’t grow faster than their legs can support. The top of the feeder is open, and once the layer chicks start to flutter (the meat chickens are always too bulky to leave the ground), they perch on the rim. We wish they wouldn’t because they tend to poop on the food, but a chick is gonna do what a chick is gonna do. One day, Idalis fell into the feeder and couldn’t escape. Hilda didn’t notice her in there when she took the food out. We were sure she would die of hypothermia when we discovered her in the morning, but she recovered nicely.

Whether this experience gave her a need to roam or whether the need to roam caused her to fall into the feeder in the first place is something that we will never know. As a grown up, she has figured out how to get out of the run and does it frequently. Terry says she is looking for a mate. I think his hypothesis is a projection of a common stereotype about men’s motivations. Usually as hens get bigger, they lose their ability and/or inclination to fly, but not Idalis. We tried clipping her wings to no avail. Hilda had witnessed her climbing up the fence and going through at the top, where the holes are bigger. Terry found a place in the fence where the turkeys chewed through the cord and fixed that. The next day, Hilda saw Idalis pacing in that area as if looking for where the hole had been. We thought the problem was solved, but she got out again, probably by jumping from the windbreak around the door to the roof and beyond. Hilda has also seen her and another chicken on the roof. Idalis never seems very happy outside. Terry has her trained to go back into the run as soon as he opens the gate. We can only hope that she will eventually lose interest in the world outside. You’d think she would have figured out that there isn’t any food out there.

We had half an inch of snow on the ground Saturday morning. It was 16°F with a brisk north wind blowing. I opened the door of the coop, and Idalis burst forth, as she usually does. Another hen looked out the door and went back in the coop. Idalis was taken aback by the snow and huddled in the corner of the windbreak where the ground was bare. She wasn’t sure what to do next. She walked along the boards at the bottom of the windbreak and then dashed back in the coop.

Idalis works her way back toward the coop door, trying not to walk in the snow

The rest of the girls mulled around inside while I did the chores. I figured they would venture out sooner or later. It’s winter. They need to get used to it.

Hell, no! We won't go! It's cold out there and there's white stuff on the ground!

Even though they will not walk in snow, snow on boots is irresistible. Here is a photo of Rose pecking the snow on my boots. What goes on in the tiny little brain of a chicken? They could have all the snow they wanted if they went outside!

But this white stuff on your boot is delicious!

Later in the morning, I saw the girls outside pecking at the scratch grains I’d spread when I was out earlier. I thought that they had trampled the snow, but Hilda told me she had swept for them. That’s right--she swept snow for chickens. She spoils them rotten.

Cutting Christmas trees

We cut Christmas trees Saturday. Jane, Pat, and Nancy came up for trees, dinner, and Mexican train. Jane didn’t get a tree because her cat, Skippy, has an electrical wire fetish. It seemed strange to cut the trees while wearing light jackets, sort of like when Jane and I took a Florida vacation in December years ago. Palm trees and plastic snowmen. The trees looked a little peculiar this year. Due to a bad winter some time ago, the trees had normal growth at the top and bottom, and stunted growth in the middle. “Hourglass” is not normally a desirable shape for Christmas trees, but I find it has a certain charm. They are, after all, free-range trees.

Terry had a small, normally shaped tree picked out for Hilda. It was too young to have been through the bad winter. It was a Fraser fir with short needles. Hilda and Dad do not get on ladders anymore and will only decorate what they can reach while standing on the floor.

Hilda with her tree

Here are Terry and Pat getting ready to cut Pat and Nancy’s tree. This tree and ours are Concolor firs, which have longer needles. This is our first year with Concolors.

Preparing to cut Pat and Nancy's tree

And here they are with it.

Pat and Nancy with their tree

This is our tree during the cutting…

Terry cuts our tree while I pull gently to the side to keep the saw from binding

And after.

Our tree--look at the top on that baby! We had to cut most of it off.

We went inside to play several rounds of Mexican train before it was time to begin dinner preparations. It gets dark so early now that we had to cut the trees at 3:00 to be sure we had time before dark. Geez.

We were all in merry holiday spirits, and the discussion was lively. I interrupted play about 4:15 to calculate when we would need to start the ovens. Jane had brought take-n-bake bread. Nancy was roasting carrots, parsnips, and apples. Of course these two things needed different times and different temperatures. Before it was over, nearly everyone had volunteered to start the ovens. It was hilarious.

“Whose turn is it?”

That was followed by a lively discussion of who had played which domino, and who had been last.

Nancy got her vegetables in the oven. Hilda excused herself to put the finishing touches on the shrimp étouffée. I ran downstairs to put the bread in my oven so that it would have time to cool (according to package directions) before dinner was served.

At 5:30, the buffet was ready.

The dinner buffet

This is my dinner, plated. I haven’t had much experience with parsnips. I found that I liked them roasted.

Plated dinner

We finished the last 5 rounds of Mexican train after supper. Hilda made decaf, and we had very small pieces of Reine de Saba. The last time I made it the serving size had been two almonds. This time we only had one. We were all so full!

Reine de Saba cake--serving size is a wedge with one almond.

We decorated our tree Sunday night. Mom and Dad started decorating Sunday afternoon, but ran out of lights and had to drive to McHenry today to get another string. Our tree looks like this:

Our decorated tree

Pat and Nancy sent a photo of their tree today.

Pat and Nancy's decorated tree

Let the holiday season begin!