Is it spring yet?

I don't think we had a winter. It didn't ever get cold enough, and here we are in March. It's not over, yet. Not until Easter will things be sort of safe. My Orchids are blooming, though, which is really nice...

I have four of them, two of which have opened up. They're three years old. My two year olds are looking like they might throw out a couple of flower spikes any day now.


Much has happened since the last post. I had back surgery and the recovery has been slow. I had a microdiscectomy at  L-5, S-1. I'd been having left leg pain, and now that's gone. It's just slow healing of the  surgical site. Four weeks out.


During my surgical leave, I've lost a few hens and my rooster got attacked. We don't know if it was a couple of dogs that run through the area now and then, or if it was a hawk. Either way, the rooster almost died. He's been in a small pet carrier for almost two weeks, healing a large wound on his back. I think he knows how I feel!


I tried a day back at work yesterday, which didn't go as well as I thought it would. The morning was all right. The afternoon, not so much. So, I'm home today and will try again Monday.


I have some lovely peacock photos to share. They love the grey truck...

The peacock is three years old this year. He still has four hens that follow him everywhere. So far, no problems with this crew getting eaten by the stray dogs. This is the longest we've kept a peacock. They're pretty vigilant around here, always watching for trouble. They even warned the chickens about a hawk that was watching them one day. I didn't see it, but Kip said the cock made a huge scene.

The chickens have continued to lay all winter, so we have an abundance of eggs. I'll have to start doling them out again at work.

The weather is kind of dreary today. Supposed to be warmer over the weekend, which will be nice. I can get out and walk and get my back better.

Will be taking delivery of a Mini-Cooper sometime in the next couple of weeks. I'll keep y'all posted. :)

Car won't start?

I have a car with one of those handy-dandy "push-button start" thingumajigs, which is real neat. It has a fob which I keep in my purse. When I approach the car, it senses this fob and illuminates the side lights and unlocks the door when I touch the handle. When I get in, I put my foot on the brake and push the button and it starts right up. When I arrive at my destination, I push the button to turn it off, and when I get out of the car, I hold the door handle and it magically locks all by itself. In my mind, by using this fob, I appear to be really cool and sophisticated...

What happens when the battery dies in this fob? I found out the other morning on my way to work.

For the past couple of months, when I'd get to work in the morning and turn off the car, a warning message would show up on the dash that said "KEY LOW BATTERY." So I thought, well, I need to replace that battery one of these days...then I'd get out and go to work and not think about it again until the next morning, when I'd tell myself, again, Well, I need to replace that battery one of these days.

I stopped at a gas station Tuesday morning to get some gas on the way in to work and when I got back in to start the car, I pressed the button and the dash warning said "KEY NOT DETECTED." No start. No nothing. My heart started pounding. Well, I thought, This fob has a key tucked into it. I'll just pull that out...
Well, it does have an actual key in it. The thing is, there's no place to put it in the car. That key is there to unlock the door! Shoot! It was 6:10 and I'm sitting in Laurens, due in Anderson at 7:00. Oh God. I thought about calling Kip. I thought then, Well, what's he going to do? Come pick me up and take me to work? Then what? Come get me later? No, no, no, that won't work....I rambled through my purse and found my SMART PHONE! Fortunately, this was ONE morning that I remembered to bring it~~many mornings, I run out of the house and leave it sitting in the kitchen....BRAINS! Come on, Google....my hands were shaking, people at the gas station were looking at me, wondering why I wasn't moving....

"Start Lexus key fob dead"...I stumbled upon a forum and in the fine, fine print, there's a man who posted how to get out of this predicament.

"Place the fob next to the start button. The light will turn green. Start your vehicle."

It worked. IT WORKED! Turns out, the battery is there to transmit signal from this chip in the fob to the starter mechanism. The chip itself requires no battery. Oh, sweet baby Jesus...Panic attack diffused,
I was, once again, on my way to work, albeit a few minutes late. And here I'd been considering terminating my internet capabilities on my phone.

Hatching in Winter

My one female African Goose has been laying eggs for a couple of months now. She's laid over 15 eggs. The problem with this is that it's cold out and she's not sitting on them. She's hollowed out a nice nest and all, but she apparently doesn't know what to do with all of these eggs. I waited and waited for her to figure it out until, finally, something started getting them. One day I had 13 eggs, then there were 10, then she'd lay another one, and the next day I'd find shells and 7 or 8 eggs. I took up two of her most recently laid eggs and put them in my incubator to see if they were even fertile. These geese are only 7 months old and it's unusual for them to start laying so soon, let alone have viable eggs.

A week later, I candled the eggs and found that they had little goose embryos in them!

I checked the eggs again on Tuesday, the 29th of November, and found that one had pipped the shell and was squeaking at me. The baby hatched out Wednesday morning sometime. When I got home from work, this is what I found:

 Well, I didn't find him on a paper towel in a box, but you know what I mean...

 He's still drying off from being in the humid incubator.

I put one of Sunshine's doggie toys in with him so he wouldn't be so lonesome.


He's so smart already. He took to that toy and I've found him snuggled up under a wing, sleeping.

Today, he's three days old. I hold him up against my neck and he wiggles around until he's found a perfect spot to sleep. I took him to the goose pen yesterday and showed him to his mother. She was interested in him, but I was afraid to get him too close. I know that if baby chicks are given to a hen who hasn't hatched them herself, she'll kill them, and I don't know about geese. I'm going to keep him here and hopefully integrate him into the flock when he can fend for himself in the spring.

Here he is this morning:

 I bathed him in the laundry sink yesterday and put him back under the warming light to fluff out. 

Very sweet!

The newest addition from the woodshop

This piece took approximately 4 weeks to put together. It's a gorgeous walnut sideboard made by my terrifically talented husband.

It's so shiny, I kept getting glare from the sun coming in the window. I wasn't using a flash. Left: Detail of the walnut veneer.

 Bell-flower inlays, all done by hand.

 This is a Hepplewhite sideboard.

I can't wait to see what's coming next from the woodshop!

Woodworking around the house (part II)

Most of the tables in our house were built by Kip. As well as the bedroom furniture, my computer desk, end-tables, side tables, and sideboards. He's working on another Hepplewhite style sideboard now. I'll post pictures of it when it makes its debut in the house...


This is a high-boy in Kip's office. Gift wrap is stored here. :)

 Details on the high-boy, all done by hand.

This is the ball and claw foot on one of the chairs in the foyer. I am amazed at the skill he has. He is self-taught.

This is his chair at the kitchen table. He even wove the seat.

  This is the table that sits next to my chair near the fireplace in the kitchen. He also made the box that sits on top. It's a Mancala game.

Here's the Mancala he made for my son Nicholas, the master champion of Mancala...It's made of walnut.

A lovely mahogany table behind my chair. I keep magazines and a candy dish on top.

The top of the table.

A cupboard. As you can see, I use it to store just about everything.

 Side-view of the cupboard:

 Detail of the cupboard:

Below is our kitchen table. He also made both end chairs.

This is the mantle in our den. Beautiful work. We have 4 fireplaces.

This is the foyer. He built everything in it, including the mirror frame and stair rail.

This is the mantle in Kip's office.

A cabinet in our dining room...

A corner cabinet in the same dining room:

The dining room fireplace mantle. All carved by hand.

My dresser. He also made the jewelry box on top, and the heart-shaped box on the right side.

Detail of the heart-shaped box. He gave that to me for Valentine's one year. I asked him why he didn't engrave a message. He said, "Isn't it evident what it means?" 

I'll post some more in a day or two. There are many other pieces, but I have to go make dinner now. :)

The Merits of Woodworking

For many years now, my husband has been building furniture in his "spare time." I do not know how much  of this "spare time" he had while maintaining a practice as a general surgeon for thirty years (one of only 3 and, at times, 2 in the whole county), but the results are beautiful nonetheless. There was a hiatus for a while, during which he trained our draft horses, kept our garden, grew gorgeous flowers in many flower-beds around the house, built a cabin, worked on patients in surgery and in his office, and completed many other tasks which are evident on this blog. Since his retirement last August (2010), he has had a little more time for building furniture again. Here are just a few of the items that make our home unique...

 This is the secretary that sits in our foyer...

It took him about 6 months to complete.

Some of the detail work: 

 The chair below, he made sometime back. It is absolutely beautiful. Last month, he completed it's twin,

 and here is the match to make a pair.

What's so special about these chickens?

Many months ago I purchased some eggs from an ad I saw on Craigslist. I'd been looking for some Black Copper Marans chickens. They're an old French breed and the chickens themselves are very expensive. Some websites offer a pair for upwards of $300, which I found a little hard to swallow. The hens lay dark, chocolate colored eggs, a very exciting prospect for me. The Americaunas I have lay blue, green, and sometimes pink eggs. That just wasn't enough!
I hatched 8 eggs from the 12 I purchased. Not too bad a hatch rate. The shells are harder than average eggshells and some of the chicks died while trying to get out. Unfortunately, I was away at work while some of the hatching was going on, and I couldn't assist them. Anyway, 5 of them were roosters. I ended up with 1 hen out of the bunch. A couple of weekends ago, I traded out 5 roosters and gained another hen and a better stock rooster.
This morning, I was rambling around in the chicken palace and thought I'd just take a peek into the nest boxes where the Marans live....

 Four gorgeous eggs! I was not expecting them to lay this year!

For color comparison. Top left is a cream colored egg from a mixed-breed hen, top right is a pale-blue Americauna egg.

The Marans egg coloring is a result of color pigments being deposited onto the shell before it is laid. The younger the hen, the darker the coloring. The bottom right egg is just about perfect, although I'm quite pleased with all four of them. I think they're beautiful!! 

Goose Egg

There is a lot to report here from the farm. A little over a week ago, we welcomed Ethan, Kip's second grandchild and first grandson, to the world! His eldest daughter, Anna, Olivia and Ethan's mom, is doing well. Olivia is a big sister!
Today when I got home from work, I found this little blessing in the goose pen!

I don't know how the Mother Goose will do, but hopefully she'll sit on some eggs and we'll have a few more African Geese on the farm!