moving on with thoughts of spring chicks...

The snow is falling, 14" is forecasted to fall overnight. 

Now that football is over for me I am left with a little bit of a void.  

If my Pats made it to the Super Bowl there would have been two additional weeks of football fun before the truly cold  hard reality of winter hit.  

The post season is such bliss until it isn't.  

It just wasn't in the cards this year.  

It is time for this New England chick to rally.  It is only January for cripes sake! 

I don't care what the ground hog says, winter is just long here, shadow or no shadow.

However along with the cold it is also catalogue time.  

Seeds, plants, chicks and bees, oh my!

Just what this chick needs to rally a snowy day away.  

We have a few plans this year.  We plan to get some additional egg layers.  

Our girls have hit the two year mark.  Their production just ain't like it used to be.

I had to.....(gulp) wait for it....

I had to buy eggs to make Christmas cookies this year!!!

Now I love my girls, but I thought we had an understanding.

Anywho, time to order some hens and decide on meat birds.

I have decided after last year that I will only order my chicks from McMurray hatchery.  

Last year we ordered our meat birds from Meyers and we lost 5 chicks out of 35 before 2 weeks.  

Some losses are to be expected but that was just too many.  

I have to honest, comparing past years, I just think the McMurray has better stock, gene pool I guess.  

I really know nothing about gene pools and stock.  All I know is my observations and that is what I believe.  I will also only go with Cornish Roasters.  The X Rocks are big, but I think the Cornish seem healthier and taste delish!

Though we only have the meat birds for 6 weeks from chick to butcher, it is a commitment.  

They eat, they poop, they drink ALL DAY!

That means lots of clean water, lots of food and lots of fresh shavings. 

They come home from the post office...

Oh they are so cute...

They then transition from "so cute" to sitting by the water or food all day.  Some of the bigger ones will try to position themselves between the water and the food for the least amount of movement to fill their faces.

The fateful day arrives.  I thank each of them before they get crated up, that is my job.  Calm is the mantra, we don't want any chickens stressed on the way to the butcher.

My Dad's dump truck is the best for this job.  Easy to load, easy to clean out.

We purchased the two large white crates at a ridiculous amount of money(I think $60 plus shipping per crate) My husband made the wooden one and then we improvise with the milk crates.  The white ones are the best because of the height.  They just plop down and don't try to walk around.

We wire tie cardboard on the tops of the milk crates.  We use the milk crates for the bigger meaner birds that might be aggressive or for smaller ones that might need a little protection on the ride.

It is a 25 minute ride there, which my husband does.  I stay back and clean the coop.  After about 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours they come home ready to be weighed, ziploced and frozen.  

We do rinse them when they get home before we bag them.

Being prepared is the key.  We have everything ready the night before so things go smoothly the morning of. Since it is summer we are also sure to have lots of ice for the ride home.

It is a lot of work but I think worth it. 

Time to get ordering, that 5:45am call will come from the post office before we know it. 

Ready for some football!

This New England girl is soooo ready for football tonight!

The rain is pouring where I live, about 45 minutes away from Gilette Stadium.  My house is like the calm before the storm.  Friends will be here soon, 

I am hydrating now cause there is gonna be some drinking and eating up in here!

One game at a time in the post season.  I am so excited we have made it this far.

The kielbasa is ready...

and we couldn't have a big game without these(thank you pioneer woman)

It is a little strange playing the Colts with no Peyton Manning.  Have I said how much

I hate really dislike Peyton Manning.  I really don't like any Mannings for that matter.  I even have a 

neighbor called Manning and I don't like her either. 

Now I know I sound like a hater, but we all have our own idiosyncrasies and 

this is just one of mine.

Here are more...

I am waiting for friends to get here.  Not too many, it takes away from the game and I miss stuff with too many people over.

Commercials are the time to talk.

None of my extended family will be at my house.  The Pats seem to lose when we are all together and they are all too superstitious to come over.  

I don't like beer but I will drink beer when football is on.

My kids don't like football but I make them watch a little with me anyways.

I really don't like the Saints (though I have a deep affection for the city). Their coach has

sneaky eyes.  Don't trust someone as far as I can throw them with eyes like that.

That's my story and I am sticking to it!

All I can say is Go Pats!

Clearly you do not know me...

I am noticing a trend.  I pretty much only instagram pictures of food and I have been only blogging about things that totally irritate and or infuriate me. So, why would this post be any different?

We have opened our home for 8 weeks to an exchange student from Korea.  He is a 15 year old boy.  I already have one of those(a 15 year old boy) so I don't know what I was thinking.  After the first few days and the novelty of a new place wore off, two 15 year old boys is not double the fun.  All of that is for another time.  My issue this evening is with the two women who came over from Korea with the group of students.   If I had a douche bag jar, these two twits would owe it and owe it big. 

My son put it best when he said, "they look at you and smile and say yes, but I really wonder what they are thinking in their head."  Well I will tell you what I think is in their head and it includes an 'F' and a 'U' and probably some other derogatory phrases.  

I will give a little background,  these biotches didn't get off on the best foot with me.  In the first week when we had our student, he had a cold.  He was taking LOTS of medicine from Korea.  The third evening he was with us, he passed out.  I called Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb and explained my concern for his medical status. They determined, over the phone that he was 'fine' meanwhile I am trying to care for this kid who is 'fine' but then informs me he is going to start vomiting.   I later spoke with a representative from the school who told me that they had a kid last year from Korea who had medicine from Korea and he was taking too much and not following the instructions on the label, which posed a problem.  

I asked TD and TD what is in the medicine the kid is taking.  I explained that I will need to tell an EMT if I have to call an ambulance.  I also explained that I have friends with small children and I have a dog, what if one of them were to get into this medicine? I need to know what it is.  Most of all, I wanted to know what it was because it is my house and out of respect for our home I felt we simply had the right to know.  Guess what?  After numerous requests and 8 weeks later, I still have no effing idea what the medication is.

While we have had this student we have completely changed our schedule.  He has after school tutoring everyday.  That means a later pick up for him.  We have been available to bring him anywhere he has needed to be.  We have celebrated his birthday with him and Korean New Year.  We have brought him to museums and snow tubing.  It was my youngest son's birthday yesterday.  He goes to a different school so he has been on vacation.  He wanted to go into Boston.  I thought that would be great and we could get our exchange student into the city too.  As a result, he missed his after school tutoring.  

Now my kids never miss school.  Maybe one or two days a year.  Because of all of the weekend snowstorms we have had while we have had our student, many of the things we wanted to do were cancelled.  We decided that Friday, after lunch we would dismiss both 15 year old boys from school for the last museum we wanted to bring our student to and my son who is on vacation wanted to go to as part of his school vacation.

Well I see TD and TD tonight.  They say to me, "We know you want to take Ahn to a museum on Friday but we don't think so." They go on to say "he has missed tutoring twice so he can't go."  Now this kid came half way across the world.  I feel like an afternoon at a living museum(Old Sturbridge Village) would be a great way to round out his stay here in the states.  So this is where the title of this blog comes in 'cause clearly TD and TD do not know me.  So I say, "Well then you won't mind keeping him with you until 8pm when we get home that night."(they are usually done with the students at 4pm) Then, ever so politely, they start speaking Korean to each other right in front of me!  Like I wasn't even there!  I think they were maybe saying, "What the eff, how are we going to be able to go out to have fun for our last Friday night in the states if we are stuck with this kid?" 

Shockingly they thought that it would be a good idea for him to go after all.  I felt like saying, "Excuse me? What? Oh your an idiot? That's what I thought you said." Obviously I did not go on a rant, I kept it under control and polite, but Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb, clearly you do not know me, but I know you.  I have your number.

I will be honest, I don't really feel this experience has done much to endear me to these people.  Maybe I will feel different in the weeks after our student is gone, but for now I just don't know.  I would love to hear other peoples' experiences with exchange students.

The storm that just keeps on giving...

The snow began to fall Saturday...

Cut to today.  Trick or Treating cancelled until Friday.  Our town is old school, you trick or treat on Halloween, no changing the night.  Except this year.  Still half of our town is without power.  We have been blessed that we got our power back on Sunday... Yes just in time to watch the Steelers run circles around my boys.  What a train wreck... Speaking of train wrecks...

My MIL arrived today for an indefinite period of time.  She lives in western MA which was hit very hard in the storm.  No phone or power up there for who knows how long.  It has been quite the roller coaster of a ride since last week. She has had a very difficult time believing she was scammed and still I think wants to believe that her ship has come in.  She has been entering all kinds of 'sweepstakes'.  Spending over $100 a month on these bogus sweepstakes that you send in $5 here or $9.99 there.  They are the kind of 'contests' that take your information and bundle it with others and sell it to scammers.  She also 'invested' in this green company for a gas additive.  She was supposed to be getting $1000 a month after her initial $4800 investment...guess what? That one didn't pay off either and all it has left her with is a maxed out credit card.  We are doing a subtle intervention while she is here to get her out of this cloud she has been living in that she is going to win a million dollars from all these scams and schemes.  It is a sad situation for her, but she is a competent adult.  She is not and elderly person with dementia.  She has made her choices and now has to live with them.  For someone who will use a tea bag twice to save money, I just don't understand how she has literally thrown money away at these scams. Enough about that.

This is what I woke up to Sunday.  I didn't get out early enough to get those beautiful snow covered tree pictures.  The snow began to melt so quickly that my 9am the snow had melted off the trees. It took a little longer to melt off of my mums.

Looking at the top of this photo, it looks like a beautiful fall day with the leaves turning. Look at the bottom and it is any given January day in New England.

This is my favorite tree in my yard.  It is a maple and always has the most beautiful color this time of year.  It was short changed this year and most of the leaves were lost in the storm.

Trees and snow are great, but what I love most of all is the sight of a kid in a snow suit going out to enjoy great adventures in the snow.  It really brings me back.  I have great memories of many snow filled days followed by hot chocolate with tons of fluff plopped on it.

Trick or Treat?

No power...
8" of snow...
The day before Halloween.
I have lived here all my life,
never snow like this before Halloween.
Luckily we have a gas stove,
perked some coffee this morning.
Will be listening to the Pat's game on the radio.
National Grid is saying it will be days
before we get power back.
Didn't we just do this not even 60 days ago?

Coop Keepin' in the Rain and in the Snow

This week we got a lot of rain, cold and heavy rain.  We have been spoiled with good weather. 
The coop seems so far away in the cold rain(really it isn't but...)

 The girls just watch as I stand in the rain filling up their waterers...I think it is going to be a long winter doing this...good thing we have some time before the snow...

We are also on egg watch...we know with the days getting shorter our girls may not start laying just yet but they are 19 weeks old.  PC got the basket out for luck and wishful thinking...

Then just after the rain stopped...

We got our first snow on the coop and all over our Halloween decorations.

Big Bossy didn't know what to make of the dusting of white stuff...

Well Bossy, the weather man says we are getting 6" of the white stuff tomorrow...

The joys of New England weather.

Put a log on the fire, bake something good and I am making Pumpkin Soup.

a lovely weekend in New England...

I had high hopes to do a post about my beloved Pats.  We had a family gathering today to celebrate some birthdays.  When the Patriots are playing that just means double the fun.  We all love football and love to watch it together.  I will save my blog on my family and the Pats on another more joyous day considering the spanking Brady got with 4 interceptions...ouch!

My oldest was off to Block Island for the weekend with scouts.  That left the three of us so we went apple picking.  I am working on my photography skills.  They aren't great but I am learning you just have to keep shooting and get the feel for different settings and lighting.

We went to Stowe Apple Orchard. They have a lot going on there.  Horse rides, mining for gems and arrowheads, hay rides and other fun stuff for the kids.

 

It has been a late season for apples around here.

We picked Mac's. Just nothing like a Mac right off the tree.

 I love to take pictures like this.  

It confuses some people who think they should be posing for the picture.

Our day's take a bushel of Mac's for $20.

I made apple dumplings when we got home, they were so good.

A post on that to follow. I am thinking of a new

post 'In the kitchen with the chick'.

From now through Spring I cook and bake a lot.
 The leaves are just starting to turn.

    

 

My boy had a blast with the corn cannon.

 and mining for arrow heads...

It was a beautiful day.

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend.