A New Calendar

You might recall the previous advent calendar I made.  If not, check it out here.  I sewed up little felt envelopes and clipped them to a ribbon with mini clothespins.  It was cute but there were some flaws in my design.  For one it is too small for more than one child.  Sometimes I don't have the energy to do an activity so I wanted the option to put candy or small toys in the envelopes.  Unfortunately the envelopes were too small for more than one candy/toy and I now have three kids.   Then the clothespins all broke so I needed to come up with something new.

Here's what I came up with.

I bought the drawstring bags from Etsy and 25 yards of gingham ribbon from Ebay.  The numbers are written on with a black fabric marker that I picked up at the fabric shop for a buck.

We do 31 days because I don't like the anticlimax after gift opening on Christmas Day.  I want the season to be about more than presents and extending the holiday until the 31st with the advent calendar helps with this. 

As for activities we have a bunch of cards printed out with a picture and description of what to do.  Things like;  build a snowman, decorate sugar cookies, make Christmas crackers etc.   Some are dependent on snow so we just switch those out for something else if the weather isn't cooperating.   It's a lot of fun and we look forward to it every year.

What's in your advent calendar?

Peanut brittle, peanut brittle, have ye any nuts?

(Holds brittle up to ear) Yessssssssssss.

Candy making is really easy.  It requires few ingredients and little effort.  The key to success is a candy thermometer.  You can get a decent one from any dollar store.

This was my first time making brittle.  Every year it's on my to do list and every year I don't make it.

All you need to do is mix together in a large pot; 1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup corn syrup, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 cup water.  Heat to medium until sugar is dissolved.  Add 1 cup of peanuts, clip on your thermometer and heat to 300F or until a drop of the mix turns into hard brittle threads when added to ice water.

Almost ready.

 When it's done, take it off the heat and add 2 tbsp of butter and 1 tsp of baking soda. Mix it in well then pour onto a greased cookie sheet.  You will need to spread it out a bit.

Let it cool and then snap into pieces. That's it. If it's a gift, put it in a nice box or glass jar topped with ribbon.  If not, eat it up before the kids see it.

A Cute Little Bench

Here's another Kijiji before and after.

$12.  A little yellow but in great shape.

After a little sanding and paint.

It's going in the yet to be reno'd front foyer.

I have my eye on another piece of furniture but it's about an hour east.  Maybe I'll come up with a reason to be out that way.

When you have Eggs

Make meringues.

They are super simple and require minimal ingredients.

You start with;

2 fresh, room temperature egg whites
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 cup of sugar

Add the egg whites, salt and cream of tartar to a bowl and start beating.

Whirrrrrr.

 Beat until soft peaks form.

Like these.

Start adding the sugar a little at a time, beating in between additions until the peaks become stiff and the meringue is shiny.

Limey mumbles something about "Dante's Peak".

When it's ready, you scoop it into a piping bag (or a Ziploc) and pipe little meringues onto a parchment lined baking sheet.  Pop them in the oven at 180F for however long it takes to dry out.  I forgot about mine for 40 minutes or so and they were ready when I checked. 

*Don't make these on a humid day.

These are good as is but you can play around with the recipe a bit.  If you add food colouring or flavourings, up the tartar amount or the meringue will be too wet and the peaks won't hold up.  You can also add crushed candy canes to the piped meringues for a festive touch and/or dip them in melted chocolate once they are done.

Meringues whip up really quickly and this recipe makes about 24 small candies.  The kids were sneaking them all day so I'll be making another batch to stick in the freezer for Christmas.

Enjoy!

Goat Update

I noticed that I only had one post about the goats so I dragged Limey outside to distract them long enough to get some photos.

Robin

Kissy, kissy.

Always playing with the animals.

Barney and Lily up front.

Unless Barney is shooting blanks I can pretty much guarantee that the girls are pregnant.  I'm looking forward to fresh goat milk in the spring.  Mmmm goat cheese, yogurt, ice cream...

Next on my to buy list?  A manual cream separator, an antique one would be fab.  Anyone want to sell me one?

That's Some Pig

Checkers is about 14 weeks old now and she is huge! Not only does she get all of our food scraps, she also gets the neighbour's scraps as well. I think new egg customers are a little unnerved when they step out of their cars to a screeching pig nosing at the paddock gate. She won't stop until you oblige her with a good scratch on her back.

Leap Pig?

Back for a snuggle.

Gotta love a belly rub.

Try Not to Freak Out

Yummy.

What are they?  They are scrumdiddlyumptious little mealworms.  Although I'm sure humans could eat them, we won't be.  They are for the chickens, or lizards if we had some.

You can buy 100 mealworms from a pet store for about $5. It doesn't amount to much so if you're serious about feeding them to your chickens, the financially responsible thing to do would be to breed them yourself. Which is what we're doing.

You take your squirmy worms and dump them into a high sided container (like a small fishtank) with a bunch of wheat bran and a cut up potato. I change the potato out once a week and add more bran as I see it depleting.

The wormy thing (larva) turns into a pupa which then turns into a darkling beetle.

The beetle lays on average 500 eggs, which starts the whole cycle again.   Once the new larva hatch we'll start feeding some to our chickens. 

I bet you're feeling hungry now aren't ya?

A Minimalist Christmas

I've scaled the decorations back a lot this year.  I think it's because I only have two finished rooms to decorate and they are so pretty as to not require a lot of embellishment.

Aside from the baby's stocking, I didn't by anything new this year.

Running out of room.

Jar, ribbon, epsom salt, candle.

Pine cones stolen from last year's wreath.

We're getting a real tree for the first time ever this year.  How soon can I get one?  I know if we cut one down we can get it sooner (cuz it's fresher), but the nearest farm is an hour away.  So how long will one last that I buy from the grocery store?

First Snowfall

It's finally starting to feel Christmassy.   Temps fell to -4 last night.  Things warmed up this afternoon and now it's snowing!

Oh what's this?

Wimpy chickens.

Expanding the Coop

As predicted, we've become addicted to chickens. I'd heard that chickens are the gateway drug for farm animals and it's true.

Limey finally finished expanding the coop. Here's a pic of it before it was lifted into place.

Room for even more chickens!

The chickens are very friendly now.  Whenever we walk into the paddock they follow us around pecking at our legs for some scratch.  So maybe more demanding than friendly.  One Good is the worst.  She follows Limey out of the paddock to the barn.  When I'm out there she walks between my legs.  I nearly face planted into the mud today because I tripped over her.

She had to photo bomb the shot.

With the four girls we grew from chicks, we now have eighteen layers.  Only the larger fourteen are laying and we're getting on average ten eggs a day.  I'm hoping to add another 22 hens to this flock. 


We sell out of eggs every week so hopefully we can find some new layers soon.

Email me if you have some for sale!

Biggest one yet.  Can't close the carton.

Wood Purists Beware

With the exception of the grey weathered stuff, I'm not a lover of natural looking wood.  I blame oak kitchens and the ubiquitous pine panel basement.  Which is why when I see wood I'm moved to paint or stain it a non-wood colour.

I did the dining room table grey and dry brushed it with white.  For the writing table I wanted to do something a little bolder.

 

I stained it with Minwax water based wood stain in "deep ocean". I had been thinking about using this colour on my future kitchen cabinets so I thought I'd do a test run with it on the desk. As usual I faltered a bit after the first coat. Once the second coat was dry I concluded that the colour was perfect.

Now I just have to send Limey upstairs to drag out my heavy behomoth Kenmore sewing machine to place on top.

Shopping on Kijiji

I really love Kijiji (like Craigslist).  It's especially awesome for finding inexpensive and unique items if you're furniture budget is very small. 

Like this for example.

It's an unfinished solid pine writing desk. Never used. $100. If I didn't use my Mac for watching movies I'd use this as a computer desk. Instead I'll be using it as a sewing machine table. Because as much as I love the treadle, I still need my electric machine.

If the kids go to bed with minimal fuss tonight, I'm going to sand and stain it  so I can post a picture tomorrow.

What do you think of my find?

Seriously?

Mutant triple yolker...again.

Two Become One

I've merged the posts from Rose Cottage onto this blog and will be deleting the old blog.

The posts from the old blog are tagged "Rose Cottage"  if you want to read up on what we did in Northern Ontario.  Just click it under the labels column on the right hand side of the page to get the list of posts.

A Chick Update

They are fuzzy little chicks no more.  Of the 8 chicks we bought, we got 4 roos and 4 hens. They've really taken off in size in the past two weeks and will be going outside as soon as Limey expands the coop.

Here are some pics of the two Ameraucanas.

The hen.

The roo.

I think we're both addicted to birds now. I want to get some blue and splash Australorps and I'm still searching for a trio of Buff Orpingtons. We're also discussing getting other birds such as turkeys, quail or pheasants.

We're going to need more property at this rate!

Babies!

Exactly 31 days after the Doctor and Donna did the horizontal tango, we found Doctor Donna babies in the hutch this morning.