We Know Why the Caged Bird Cackles

Every once in a while, one of the girls gets to cackling and screeching like something is trying to kill her. We think, "That must be one heck of an egg she's laying." Many times we are disappointed but not today! Today, Ramona laid a crazy egg and she did it with no anesthesia.

The Hair of the Hare

Having a bunch of animals leads to a great deal of animal-related chores. To be honest, Matt takes care of most of them, mostly because he is more patient and detail-oriented. One of those chores is firminating the rabbits. Firminating rabbits can be tricky because you have to settle the rabbit down in your lap or on a table, then run the firminator (a fur comb) over the rabbit to remove loose clumps of fur  Sometimes the rabbits find it soothing, but other times, they are very squirmy. Matt has perfected it so that both of our rabbits tolerate it grudgingly.

Whoopi usually does not shed nearly as much as Gussie. Gussie is a bulk fur producer. Sometimes Matt will hold a ball of Gussie's fur that is larger than Gussie is. Crasy! Anna has said in the past that she should spin Gussie's fur in order to make a sweater. Well, as you can see by the picture, Gussie is ready to produce a sweater's worth of fur!

The Cackling Countess

Summer has been a time for visits from friends and family, trips to a beach, the mountains and a lake, and a revolving door of chickens. You'll remember that in the early spring, Hazel was in need of being a mama. Well, she got her wish in the form of five little chicks. She raised them well for several weeks and then, fickle hen that she is, was through with them. Fortunately the chicks were well-integrated into the flock by that point and they blended in well, even without the protection of Hazel.

As time went on and the little ones grew, we wondered if any of them would be roosters. Well, one morning while letting them out, a little white puffball, Gigi's Bubby, let loose with a weak crow that sounded eerily reminiscent of Peter Brady's singing during the puberty episode of the Brady Bunch. Shocked by what I heard, I waited and sure enough, she (um, he) did it again. Uh oh, Gigi's Bubby would have to go! No roosters allowed in St. Louis.

A few days later, we heard another weak crow in the back of the yard. We all gathered around Gigi's Bubby to watch him crow, but unless he became a ventriloquist overnight, it wasn't him. Following the sound of the next weak crow, we slowly turned our heads to find Uncle Poodle in the corner of the yard with an "I can do this too" look on his face. He too would have to go. Our thirteen chickens would be downsized to nine with two hens going to our friend and colleague, Dawn Meyer, and the two roosters going to one of Anna's neighbors in Indiana. And then there were nine.

Our two adolescents, Countess Cora and Duke, are getting to the point where they should be laying eggs. With each passing day, we approach the next boxes half expecting to see a new kind of egg. Yesterday, we heard a long, drawn-out egg laying song from one of the hens. The egg, we thought, must have been a doozy because the hen went on and on. Eventually I walked back to the coop and saw Countess Cora standing in the doorway of the coop singing her little heart out. Could it be? Her first egg? Really? Matt looked in the box...nothing. Apparently Countess Cora does not understand how the egg laying song works; hens are supposed to trumpet their success after laying an egg, not announce that sometime in the future they will begin to lay. The beautiful Countess was faking us out.

Later that same day, Matt went to collect eggs from the next boxes. Because of various factors, molting being the most obvious, our hens' egg production has been down lately. We've only been getting between 1-3 eggs per day. We are hopeful that our younger tandem will begin laying and boosting that number. In any case, Matt found four eggs in the nest boxes, one of which was a pinkish tan. Odd, he could not identify which hen laid that one; it was not one of the usual suspects. Could it have been Cora? Could she have gotten the order backwards and announced the she will be laying within the next hour, gone into the nest box, and laid her egg? Can chickens be dyslexic about time?

Could this be photographic evidence of Countess Cora's accomplishment? We have pieced together the clues and are cautiously optimistic that she has started laying and that this will be her egg color. Matt wants to wait a few more days to make sure, which is a wise idea. If the Countess is now laying, then it begs the question: What say you, Duke?

To Crow or Not to Crow, That is the Question...

Mama Hazel's babies are getting all grown up.  She let them know after about 6 weeks that her first stint with motherhood had come to a close with some pecks to the hiney when they got too close to her scratch.   I know it's been a while since you've had an update about our little balls of fuzz, but it truly has been a busy summer.  Against my better judgement, since I know we will eventually have to get rid of some, if not all of them, we have given them all names (and those of you in the know have already figured out what happens to an animal at the Homestead once it gets named).  So, without further ado, I graciously announce the debuts of this seasons debutantes into Society...

Duke - The Golden Beauty

Countess Cora - Our Snow White

Persephone - A Ball of Energy

GiGi's Bubby - Clean Shaven

Uncle Poodle - Sportin' the Beard

They are about 14 weeks old now, and the burning question is how many are young ladies and how many are cockerels?  Duke is the gentlest.  "He" is a Buff Orpington, and the hands-down favorite.  A beautiful golden orange color and a very docile personality, he allows himself to be picked up and handled with only the minimum of feigned protests.  The Countess is second runner up.  We're not exactly sure what kind of chicken she is, but we think it is some kind of Brahma or Faverolle.  A lovely alabaster white with snowy feathered stockings, she will eat out of our hands and doesn't run when we reach for her.  Next comes Persephone, who we believe to be a Silver Laced Wyandotte.  Persephone is not only camera shy, she is also a firm believer of the benefits of avoiding "stranger danger."  However, the problem is that she considers EVERYTHING and EVERYONE that isn't covered in feathers a strangers, be it rabbit, dog, or person, including yours truly.  She is a terror to try and catch for any reason, and should one be so "lucky" enough to succeed in cornering her, she raises heck screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs, even if your are just trying to put her in the coop for the night.  The twins (Uncle Poodle and GiGi's Bubby) are small, but what they lack in size, they make up for in fluff and attitude.  The only way to tell these five-toed fireballs apart is that Uncle Poodle sports a voluminous beard while GG prefers to keep it clean (shaven).  We think (with a fair degree of certainty) that these two are some variety of Silkie.  Though they are the smallest chickens in the coop, they will fight with the big girls for any bit of scratch or food they set their beady black eyes on, much to the dismay of Ramona and Ursula who are used to going unopposed when if comes to the tastiest and juiciest bugs.

The only question that remains before we have to go about the business of "down-sizing" is how many of these darlings will be hens, and how many will have to crow... I mean go. How many will have to go?

I have my suspicions that one, if not both of the Silkies, may be boys because they are always challenging not only each other, but anything else that moves (including sparrows and their own shadows).  Just the other day I walked out to find poor Countess Cora stuck in a Silkie tug-o-war, with her leg in Uncle Poodle's beak and her opposite wing in the clutches of GG.  I know, I know.  A picture was very tempting, but I was afraid they would pull the poor thing apart so I came to her rescue before running for the camera.  Here is a video of the twins' sibling rivalry in the form of a jousting match.  Did I not mention that they were both avid fencers???

So, the game is now afoot.  How many of Hazel's babies will stick around and join the ranks of the laying and how many will have to go is the question on everyone's mind here at the Hartford Homestead.  

(PS-If you are interested in buying one of these dears, feel free to let Don or myself know through the usual channels!) 

Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose

So having recently re-built our deck, we found ourselves in possession of a lot (LOT) of old boards.  We carried them 2 at a time (20+ trips) out back by the dumpster to be claimed by the neighborhood pickers or to await their fate on large item pick-up day, along with a rogue TV and a neighbor's chest of drawers sans drawers.  The next morning, however, when I went out to feed the chickens, I noticed that our "work table" in the garage (an amalgamation of two plastic sawhorses and a sheet of plywood) was beginning to sway and buckle under the weight of a few bales of hay, a 50 lb. bag of chicken feed, a random assortment of tools, stacks of newspapers (for rabbit litter boxes), and loads of other miscellany (picture the show "Hoarders," but confined to 3 feet by 6 feet of table space).  I got to wondering what it would take to buy a new table that would be able to bear the brunt of the weight of our little homestead on its shoulders.  The answer... more than we were willing to spend.  Then I remembered all of the wood that we had at our disposal.  Sure, it was old, weather-beaten, stained by years of walnuts hurled by guerrilla squirrels, moss growth, and foot traffic; but to build a table that would inevitably get beaten up in the garage, did we really need shiny new lumber???  You guessed it.  Time to put our "less waste" talk into practice.  Enter the old deck lumber.

We hauled some of the old 8 foot 2x6's BACK into the backyard and laid them out in the grass.  We cut them to sizes that we needed for the table we had in mind and with a little Palmolive and elbow grease, washed away years of abuse.  Although they weren't what I would call "good-as-new," they definitely got a little bit of a face lift.  Then, using some of the leftover screws we had from our deck project, we began assembly.  For good measure, we also re-purposed an old pallet we had leftover from a different project, and VOILA!!!

Not too shabby {chic} for a couple of weekend carpenters looking to save a few bucks here at the Hartford Homestead.

Deck Design on a Dime

When your deck goes from being a rustic and rugged backyard escape to being an obstacle course/death by 1,000 splinters torture device hybrid, you might want to consider an upgrade.  At least that's what we did.  Despite fancying ourselves rather tough and fearless (I mean, we've eaten Anna's cooking and lived to tell), we knew it was time for a new deck when every trip to the garage meant staring down the face of death (or at least its 4th cousin, twice removed--a sprained ankle).  But how can you help keep the costs of a project like this down when you are working on a tight budget?  D-I-Y, naturally.

While neither Don nor I are master carpenters, we are quick studies and since we were already feeling quite emboldened (coming off of our victory last summer in constructing a backyard chicken coop), we figured, "We can do this!"  Well, on second thought...

Our first step on this odyssey of woodworking discovery was to tear up all of the old lumber that was cracked, split, and treacherously uneven.  Heck, some of the boards weren't even nailed down anymore.  Okay, well I suppose that WAS a help to us in the long run.  This part of the process only took a few hours!!!

The next part of this construction project was to calculate exactly how much wood we would need to fit the dimensions of the deck we had in mind.  We wanted all of the boards to go in the same direction this time, unlike the last go-round.  Also, we came across a curve ball... in case you didn't know this, a 2x6 (the 2x4's more "robust" cousin) is not ACTUALLY 2 inches by 6 inches.  Rather, it is only 5 and a half inches wide. Math thinking caps on!  After we figured out how many 2x6s we would need (17-10 footers and 45-16 footers) it was off to the Home Depot and Lowe's to do some pricing.  Since this isn't a plug for one store over the other, I won't say which one we chose, but I will say that Home Depot charges $1 to make a single cut while Lowe's charges $.25 (or in our case, FREE!).

As tempting as it sounded to make 8+ trips back and forth to the store with no less than 5 feet of wood hanging out of the back of our Explorer, we opted to have it delivered.  It did cost $50 but it saved us a whole day spent loading and unloading our lumber and making right turns that would make a semi driver flinch.  So, bright and early (9 am), a very helpful gent showed up in our front yard driving a forklift with a pallet of wood just for us!

Our initial estimate of "This should only take around 3 hours" turned into 7 hours, 3 scraped up knuckles, and splinters galore.  The following pictures are pre- and post- renovation shots of the deck.   

             

             
 
At the end of the day, we stood back and admired our handiwork, thinking rather highly of ourselves, and contemplating the possibility of building our next house on our own.  HA! Got ya!  We still have a few more years to enjoy our new deck and the escape it provides here at the Hartford Homestead.

Chicken Rugby!

     For all of you soccer fans out there, the World Cup is finally here and you are glued to your TVs like a chocoholic staring through a Godiva storefront.  It's exciting!  It's exhilarating!  It's the WORLD CUP!  But...  The World Cup only comes around once every four years.  BUMMER!  What would you say if I told you that you could have the same excitement, the same fast-paced back-and-forth, and the same THIRST for victory every day in your own back yard?!  Impossible, you say?  Not if you have your very own Chicken Rugby team!  What?  How?  All you need is a flock of ever-hungering chickens and a little tidbit of their favorite morsel!  Heck, it doesn't even have to be their favorite.  It just has to be big enough that whoever gets first possession can't swallow it in one gulp during the scrum, and small enough that it can be carried around in front of the pursuing mob that forever wants whatever it is that the forward has!
     Here is a clip from the last scrimmage of the Hartford United All-Hen Rugby Team...

Down Home(stead) Cooking: A Tongue-in-Cheek take on a "Hearty" Meal that was Offal-ly Good!

     Since we have went "paleo," a lot of things have changed in addition to simply "what" we eat. We have also been trying to source our food from reputable local growers and suppliers (the "who and where") that raise their products in a sustainable and/or humane way (the "how"). "Why?" you might ask... Well, in addition to ensuring that our bodies get all the nutrients that they need from fresh foods, we are also feeding our minds, souls, and consciences by knowing that we are helping to minimize the negatives associated with factory farming and the inhumane way animals are raised for slaughter. We are impacting our environment, too, by not buying into the rampant use of chemicals and hormones, and we are doing our part to eliminate the carbon footprint associated with shipping goods grown in Mexico or other distant locales cross country to the Midwest. But I digress...
     Fear not! This post isn't going to be about me getting on my soapbox to try and sound superior in any way to the "what, who, where, why, or how" anyone else goes about living their life. If I can share my experiences and knowledge and maybe inform, that's AWESOME! but for now, I just want to tell you the story of a dinner with friends here at the Heartford Homestead.
     Since we are now getting our food (more specifically, our grass-fed beef) from a local farmer, the culinary world has opened up her bosom to share with us secrets that were once well-known to our parents and grandparents but have since been forgotten in this world of commercial conformity. When Don was placing the order this Spring for our cow and the farmer asked if we wanted the organ meats, in my fervor to adopt and support this new "waste-not-want-not" caveman lifestyle, I excitedly said yes, envisioning all of the wonderful, exotic meals I would fix for my friends and family to choruses of "This is the most DELICIOUS thing I have ever tasted!" and "Having tasted this, I could die tomorrow with no regrets!" Well, it wasn't until we got the beef home and I opened the box that the reality of what it truly means to waste not hit home.
     Don isn't the most adventurous of eaters and Anna is even worse so I knew I would have my work cut out for me. Upon first glance, the heart looked like a deflated meaty football, the kidney looked like something that might have popped out of Ash's chest in the sci-fi classic "Alien," and I could have sworn that I saw the tongue twitch in an attempt to slither right off the counter. Now, I'm not trying to make these sound more appealing than they were, if that's what you were thinking :) I'm trying to give you an honest account of a first-timer's impression of cooking with organ meats.
     
   
    

     My challenges for this mission, if I chose to accept it, were:
a.) Getting Don and Anna to try something that you wouldn't find on the menu of a traditional steak and/or burger joint.
b.) Making these foods that are known to have powerful and distinct flavors palatable... nay, delicious to the average food critic.
 c.) Convincing myself that I could perform what was, in my mind, a bovine autopsy in my little kitchen.
Well, you all know I am not one to shy away from a challenge :)
     My first step in embarking on a culinary odyssey the likes of which I had no prior experiences to draw upon was, as usual, GOOGLE!!! Where is the fun, the skill, the challenge in looking something up and copying them? Good question. The art comes in sorting through the recipes, the YouTube videos, and the blogs and finding the ones that seem promising before switching them up and making them your own. So, after a week of research (well, a few hours of research and a week of psyching myself up for the grizzly and bloody task that lay ahead), I was ready. My goal: Pomegranate balsamic beef heart kabobs and Southwestern beef tongue fajitas. However, upon taking one last inventory of my ingredients before I began, I must say that my confidence was shaky at best.


     I'll spare you the details (if you would like info on my recipes, feel free to ask) and get right to the good stuff.  I had invited our friend George (who was living the bachelor life for a week while his husband Todd was out of town) over for an intimate Garden dinner party of four that was rounded out by Don, Anna, and yours truly. We settled out on the back deck after the heat of a typical Saint Louis Summer afternoon had given way to the breezy cooler embrace of evening. The fajita filling (tongue, tri-colored bell peppers, onions, garlic, cilantro, cumin, and lime to give you a few of the ingredients) was sauteed and warming in the oven, infusing the kitchen with the aromas of a little cantina on the beach somewhere south of the border. The heart kabobs were slow roasting on the grill and I was as ready as I would ever be. You know what they say-"No guts (he he he), no glory."
     Now, here is were I got a little sneaky.  I may have forgotten to mention to my guests that the menu included extraordinary fare.  When asked, did I lie? Of course not! I was completely honest with them all-Beef fajitas and Beef kabobs ;) I'm a bit of a stinker from time to time. BUT I know my audience well, and I wanted their honest opinions of what I had fixed and not what their minds told them they were tasting in a cloud of thoughts that included "I've always hated liver" and "This is going to taste disgusting." So, I gathered the kabobs from the grill and served up the first course, took a bite (YUM!) and waited with my heart in my throat (pun intended), for the feedback.  George and Don were both a resounding YES! Anna (the archetypal hipster wanna-be), never one to act impressed or excited about anything that doesn't come from the scy-fy network or reddit.com, remained fairly quiet but ate two skewers so I counted that as a success!

 
     Okay. Phew. With one victory under my belt, I stood up from the table and walked into the kitchen to collect round two with a bit more swagger in my step, confidence running through my veins and "We Are the Champions" ringing in my ears. I collected all of my fajita fixin's and returned to a table that was waiting to be impressed. I served up a hearty helping of tongue fajitas all around and waited for the applause. 
      The first bites were taken and I knew the cheers would come at any moment. The second and third bites came and went and I was still left waiting for the inevitable pats on the back and exclamations of oral bliss. It wasn't until the fourth and fifth bites were swallowed that it dawned on me... it was a SUCCESS! Their silence was a unanimous vote that rather than waste time telling me how wonderful I was for putting together such a delicious meal, they would rather not take time away from eating. I was on cloud 9 and the rest of the meal came and went, concluding with cinnamon sugar churros and vanilla ice cream as we watched the sun set over the trees.
     My first attempt at cooking with organ meats will go down in my books as a undisputed victory.  I can't wait to try even more recipes and see what else I can turn from a "Gross!" to a "Please, sir, I want some more." I must say that the kidney is the one that scares me the most, but stay tuned and I will let you know how that turns out the next time I decide to throw together a not-so-mundane dinner here at the Heartford Homestead.

   

Easter at the Homestead

Easter has come and gone and now the only thing between us and Summer is 5 more weeks of school (as in teaching), 2 more weeks of school (as in dragging my tired behind to Pastry School every night until 10 pm), and Memorial Day; but I'm all in favor of not rushing it. Well, once school lets out, that is.  Right now is the best part of the Spring time. The days are getting longer without being unbelievable hot, humid, and unbearable as is the wont of Summer in "the Lou." Most of the winter clean-up is done and everywhere you look you see a blank canvas, full of promise (and empty spots that need to be filled with plants from the clearance racks at Lowe's). One's imagination can run wild thinking up different planting combinations, what new veggies to try and grow this year, and how to get anything green to survive (not thrive, just survive) in the chicken run since they destroy every living thing that they can reach with beak or claw. Literally, there is an 8 inch wide swath of dirt just outside the fence of their run because that's as far as their necks will reach as they put their heads through the fence openings and creep forward.

  

                   Part chicken, part vulture                                           Ursula and Miss Money Penny
                             all eating machine!                                                       working for their salad!

We spent Easter Sunday not doing much of anything, and by "not much of anything" I mean a little bit of everything.  We woke up and took care of the morning chores - feeding the rabbits, letting the chickens out, feeding the chickens, and drinking coffee (I know, it's not the longest list, but it's a good starter). Don went out to check on the first round of eggs for the day, and lo and behold, it seems the Easter Bunny paid us a visit after all!!!

Our Easter bunnies appear to have enlisted the
help of the chickens in crafting our Easter bounty!

After trying to convince Don that they actually came out of the chickens that way, I settled for freaking out the neighbor by showing her our purple egg! (She actually fell for it I think, for half a second or so) We had a laid back breakfast of poached eggs and, you guessed it, MORE coffee, and enjoyed a few crosswords on the back porch. While we were planting the last few columbines we picked up at Lowe's on Saturday, our friends Kamie and Gayle called to see if it was ok to stop by with their daughter, Gracie, to see the chickens, bunnies, and Hazel's baby chicks, who won't be babies for very much longer apparently. They are SOOO big already!

A little bit later they were at the back gate so we took a not-so-deserved-but-very-much-needed break to kick back, have a drink, and visit. Kamie, Gayle, Don, and I sat around drinking coffee and chatting (about chickens, as well as the numerous business ventures Kamie has planned for me this summer-YIKES!), and Gracie was off like a flash. Now, if you think that little girls are full of energy, multiply that by ten and you would be right about Gracie. She was so excited to meet the baby chicks that she made it her day's mission to catch each one no less that 5 times. The chicks were less than thrilled about this arrangement, but were good sports (with the exception of an occasional ear splitting "CHEEEEEP") and gave a wonderful chase.

Gracie, VICTORIOUS, after catching her
5th and final chick, Persephone (for the third time).

After she had spent a fair amount of time ensuring that the chicks would sleep well tonight, or pass out from exhaustion, she turned her love and attention to the bunnies. It was great to see someone else get as much joy from our bunnies and chickies as I do, and the whole afternoon was an entertaining game of "cat and mouse", or should I say "Grace and rabbit and chicken".

Gracie getting kisses from one of our Easter bunnies, Whoopi.

When her moms convinced her that she needed to take a breather (more for the animals' sake than for hers), she began talking with Kamie about getting chickens and which two of Hazel's babies were going to be hers. While Gayle is not a fan and has yet to be convinced that there will be any chickens living at their house in the near future, Kamie and Grace were deliberating on which two chicks they were going to take home.

Gayle with Persephone. This chick loves CHICKS!

They settled on Duke and Tootsie/Dandelion. I didn't have the heart to tell them that Duke is Don's favorite, a brilliant golden orange, and will be staying with us if "he" turns out to be a "she." He was dubbed a he because the Polecat said he looked like a "Duke," and the name stuck; plus, he was the biggest of the chicks.

Duke (on the far right), with Mama Hazel, Persephone, and Countess Cora.

So that is how we spent Easter here at the Homestead-soaking in the sun and hanging out with some dear friends. Before signing off, I guess now would be a good time to ask for help with something. Since we are relatively new to this chicken business, we thought it would be fun to enlist help to figure out which of these birdies are going to end up being pullets (little girl chickies) and cockerels (little boy chicks). I know it's hard to tell now, but feel free to leave comments here or in future posts as the babies get older and let us know what you think. Hey, take a guess if you want! I'm being optimistic and saying that 4 out of 5 will be pullets, but knowing my luck, we'll have five little roosters running around, here at the Hartford Homestead!

Spending Easter with Gayle, Kamie, and Gracie,
with Ramona photo bombing the family portrait.

Lily Bug's Tea Party

Spring is wonderful. It’s a terrific time for getting outside, enjoying the sunshine, working in the yard, and what else? Having a tea party, of course! Yes, you heard me right, a tea party! I guess I should explain before those of you who know us well start picturing Don sitting at a little table, drinking out of a tiny cup, and eating petit fours… and before you die of oxygen deprivation due to hysterical laughter.

"I love crumpets, but I simply detest scones. Meh meh meh."

A little while ago, our good friend, Melissa, mentioned that she wanted to bring her kiddos over to the Homestead. The weather was getting nice and her little girl, Lily (aka-Lily Bug), had been after her for some time to take them to the petting zoo. Now, for those of you who live in the St. Louis area, you know that we have a wonderful zoo here in the city that is very family friendly and a great place to spend the day. However, this is not what Lily Bug was talking about. Nope. To her the petting zoo is Mr. Matt’s and Mr. Don’s house, and that is fine by us because we love when they come over and spend a morning or afternoon with us. So we made plans for the very first Saturday after Spring announced that it was here to stay. 

I knew that the little ones liked the bunnies and chicks. Well, "like" might be too strong of a word. They love the rabbits, but as for the chickens... let's just say that Lily is intrigued by them (from afar), and Connor looks at them as one would appraise a funny looking alien that hasn't yet shown interest in world domination or body snatching - a curiosity that warrants nervous laughter, feigned indifference, and then beating a quick path in the opposite direction. Lily loves the IDEA of the chickens though, and has me chase down each one in turn so that she can pet it. When presented with whatever chicken happened to be the slowest, however, she gives them a couple "air pats" and then immediately requests an audience with the next one in the queue. Both adorable and a good form of cardio...for me and the chickens, that is.  

Since I knew they were coming over, I thought, "Why not make it a special occasion and throw Lily Bug her very own tea party?" So I started thinking up just what I was going to make. I was already baking something special for a friend of ours who recently celebrated a huge milestone when her son, Nate, learned how to tie his shoes (you know who you are, Stacey, and CONGRATS!!! again), so I knew I could make extra. "Extra of what?" you might be wondering. I’ll tell you! I came across the coolest Spring themed sweets I had seen in a while in the form of cupcakes topped with sparkly sugar mums made out of marshmallows (definitely NOT paleo, but these were for Lily, not Don, so it was ok).

Marshmallow Mum Cupcakes

You can use any cupcake recipe you want and then go to town decorating them. I would say they are quick and easy, but really, they’re just easy… cutting, dipping, and placing those little flippin’ marshmallows takes a fair few minutes. Here are two links that describe how to make the flowers if you’re curious—http://www.ivillage.com/mums-word-cupcakes/3-r-139100 and, of course, http://www.oprah.com/food/Mums-the-Word-Cupcakes (because how could anyone come up with something cool and not see it pop up on her website?).  I added to these gems a Lily-Bug-sized pineapple upside down cake, and a fresh berry and Amaretto custard parfait-thing, and called it a done deal. 

The Tea Party Spread

Melissa asked if her mom could come, too, because she wanted to pick our brains about raising chickens. She is seriously considering adopting a few of Hazel’s babies and wanted to witness this spectacle for herself before plunging head-first into the crazy and addictive world of chickens. SURE! The more the merrier, plus I would love to see Hazel’s chicks go to a good home.

Saturday rolled around and in between kickball and yard work, Don and I got everything set up. Melissa had said they would get here somewhere around noon, and if you know the bestie at all, you know that they arrived promptly at 3. :) The guest of honor was accompanied by her handsome and charming escort (little brother Connor), Nanoo (that is what grandma LeBrot is called since Connor can’t say Nana yet), and the bestie (Melissa). They walked into a scene that was not quite as exciting and whimsical as the one that awaited Alice after falling down the rabbit hole, but I like to think that it was quaint and charming in its own right (hey, what do you expect when you’re dealing with the "Matt Hatter" and the "March Hair-less"). We didn’t even have tea, but found out that water and juice work just fine in a pinch. Lily loved the cakes (well, the marshmallows anyways) and Connor gave the custard 2 thumbs up.  Nanoo's favorite was the pineapple upside down cake and informed the bestie that it was going home with her!

The cuteness factor is off the charts! Ridiculously adorable.

"Why yes, I would like some more custard, please and thank you.
And don't be skimpy with the strawberries!"

Nanoo getting a picture taken with HER cake.

"Tag, Gussie!  You're IT!

We enjoyed the blue skies, ate tea party goodies without tea, talked about school, family, gardening, kickball, and of course…chickens.  Nanoo is wonderful - so sweet and kind, and it was great to have someone to talk with about the chickens who was excited to learn. Normally, after a few minutes, Don’s eyes sort of glaze over and I know he has been chicken-ed out. The kids got to hold (or at least I got to hold for them) each one of the new chicks, as well as a few of the big girls. Lily played tag with Whoopie (one of our bunnies), and picked daffodils, while Connor and Gussie (our other bunny) became best friends. All in all, it was a full afternoon of visiting with good friends, eating good food, enjoying the outdoors, and watching the little ones run (well, run and wobble) around and play in the yard. In my opinion it was just another perfect day here at the Hartford Homestead.