Rainy Days and Baking

It is raining today and what better thing to do than fill the house with the warm aromas of wholesome home cooking.  As you know I love making old fashioned recipes, tweaked to make them healthier and a few weeks ago I was lucky to find a recipe book that was printed in the 1970's at our local Easter Fair for $3.00.

I decided to make a slice with the most beautiful ingredients - dates, walnuts, lemon rind (our own lemons), our gorgeous eggs of course, rice bran oil instead of butter and 1/4 cup of sugar instead of the 1 cup asked for in the recipe and organic flour.  It is such a pleasure to cook using fresh, wholesome ingredients, the mixture smelt great even before it went into the oven.



 
I also found an intriguing dessert recipe from another book that I thought I would try.  It is a baked rice dish with crushed pineapple, sultanas and nutmeg.  Once again using our eggs as you can see from the beautiful colour. 

 
OK the rain has stopped and the chickens are clucking, sounds like they would like to have a chat so I am going out to say hello. : )

  
See you soon everyone, including you GG! : )))                                                                                                                                                                   

Mandarins and Passionfruit

Tony and Chelsea you are coming home just in time, I just went to check on the chickens and while I was there I picked a lovely mandarin and shared it with Jet and Esmeralda and then a sweet passionfruit that I shared with Ruby.  There are delicious!

I tried to trick the chickens into not all using the same nesting box by putting two porclain eggs in a separate box.  After about two weeks there was a third egg in there!  Now they don't have to cue up to lay a egg. : )

The chickens are so funny!  They are really scared of kangaroos.  They go mad and I run out to see what all the noise is about and I can never find anything but they are very obviously upset and nervous.  After awhile I hear a kangaroo hopping off through the bush and then they are all fine and can continue with their day.  

Chickens getting ready for bed, they have plenty of room but like to all roost together.

Enjoy your last few weeks in Mexico guys, we have enjoyed your photos so much, what fun! 

Chicken Update

Yesterday Jet, one of our beautiful Australorps, laid her first egg!  Hurray!  There was a bit of jealousy from Abbey at one stage when she "removed" Jet from the nesting box but it all settled down and now Jet has been elevated to the prestigious position along side Abbey as our champion egg layer. : ))

Apart from this, the chickens have been enjoying life.  The rain has stopped so there has been plenty of dust baths and foraging amongst the sweet potato vine.  They love eating the leaves of the sweet potato vine also which gives them plenty of vitamins and minerals.  You should see the colour of their egg yolks - very bright yellow as you can see from the colour of this lime dessert.

Jet and Esmeralda are great friends and are rarely apart.  It is obvious now that Esmeralda is about three weeks younger than Jet.

         

The chickens love their daily yogurt and oats and wait around  their outdoor area every day for it, then they are happy and their day can begin. : )

Bedtime is still a ritual but they all manage to sort themselves out and roost in their designated areas, after one last meal!

  
Have fun in Mexico guys, we really loved those gorgeous seaside photos.  ♥♥♥

                                                                                

                                                                                    

The Big Wet

Well after 1674mm (65.9 inches) of rain in the first three months of this year, the chickens are looking for some sunshine (as are the rest of us!).  At every opportunity they lie in the sun and try to have a dust bath, not so easy when everything is so wet but they persevere. 
                                                   

 The new perches we put in their coop.

    Skeeta in the lemon grass.

Our mossy driveway, lucky our car tyres keep it from getting slippery.

Our rainforest is enjoying the rain, of course! : )

The creek under our bridge loves the rain.

The chickens under the passionfruit vine on a sunny day.

   Jet and Esmeralda

      Enjoying some sunshine.

We put up some new perches for them in their coop so they have more areas to get up out of the rain and dry off.  They have all managed very well and don't seem any worst off considering the weather.  Must be the oats mixed with yoghurt I still give them everyday. : )

Have fun in Mexico guys!  Don't forget to write! : )))

This Weeks' Other Random Photos

 Our black bamboo - Timor Black

The chickens are not impressed - the bush turkey is coming to visit. :)

Giant bromeliad - Alcantarea Imperialis Rubra

                   Fruit slice - using rice bran oil instead of butter in the pastry - lovely ummmmm!

A work in progress - I'm making a wallhanging out of traditional Cambodian scarves (Krama) we bought in Cambodia.  I have cut them up and I am in the process of positioning them so the work is harmonious - the online dictionary describes harmonious as "having component elements pleasing or appropriately combined" - nice.   I still have scarves to add.

This Week's Random Photos

I sewed a bed of Clucker Tucker - a crop the chickens can browse when it is fully grown.  Skeeta and Ruby thought they liked it already!  A fence is now protecting the seeds. : )

A tree stump on our property showing a springboard notch, more proof we are not the first to live here.

       Beehive ginger.

    Happy Leo!

Our blue bamboo - Bambusa Chungii.

     Tropical Frangipani

Dusk

Dusk is a lovely time of day in the chicken enclosure.  I sit with the chickens and enjoy the stillness as day passes into evening.  The sky turns pink or some other soft colour and the chickens have a last forage before bed.

They really enjoy my company and a couple of them will sit with me, very close, and chat quietly, pecking at a passing ant or a grass seed while they too quietly enjoy the remnants of the day only to look up disapprovingly as a noisy flock of Rainbow Lorikeets fly overhead also on their way home.

Then all of a sudden, mostly when I am half way through telling them something very important, they will get up and leave!  All five of them will head to their pen chatting and fussing and the correct order of roosting must be followed.  Interestingly enough, it is the head chicken who insists on being the last to settle in and the Australorps, the newest arrivals, are always the first.

Skeeta heading home

Wind vane on top of pen.

Always time for one last feed.

Last night's full moom.

Have fun in the snow guys, only a few weeks to go!  : )