Mrs. T

Mrs. Turkey, formerly known as Christmas, has gotten herself a repreeve from the freezer. She's laying eggs! One of two broad breasted bronze turkeys we purchased last year, she (obviously) turned out to be a girl. Mr. T, aka Thanksgiving, was..you guessed it. Thanksgiving dinner.

She is laying an egg every other day. And they are beautiful. Look at the size of that yolk!
Mikey swears they are richer in flavor than chicken eggs, but I think I would need an egg of each side by side to tell for sure.
My hens lay some pretty good sized eggs, jumbo or larger would be the comparison to store eggs. But Mrs. T's eggs are huge. I love the speckles.
Last night she decided she's had enough of the cold weather and wanted to come in for a bit.
She stayed in the porch all night. She loves being around people, so she was a happy girl tucked away. I'm sure being near all the food sacks helped her comfort levels a bit, too!

I propped open the porch door this morning (to the left of the shavings bag, just out of the picture) and thus far she has made no move to exit her new dwelling. But she has left lots of gooey presents all over the floor! I'm sure when I mix up the chicken feed (in that green labeled bucket next to her) that she will gladly exit.

While it's cute, and I don't mind too much, I hope she doesn't want to make this a nightly habit! She did survive the winter snow and freezing temps outside. She decided to use the dog kennel box we gave her as a nest box and doesn't bed down in there. Does her egg-ly duties and moves on. She deserved a nice comfy night, but my porch is a mess!

Update on the farm

Spring is trickling in here in Northern Nevada. Learning from years past I planed a few things for the garden that would do well with the still cool temps. It's those occasional warm days that get me in "the mood" lol, and a few days later we've got freezing nights and snowy weather.
The onions are doing awesome, potatoes are comining up nicely, and the corn is coming up now. The Onion chives that wintered in the garden are 6 inches high, I've already trimmed some for baked potatoes. The strawberry box is filling up nicely, a few of the plants are flowering already. This is their second year, so hopefully we'll get lots more berries, once I put the bird net over them so the birds don't get any this year. In two weeks or so I'll be getting the rest of the garden in-squash, green beans, peas, pumpkins. I might wait until the end of the month for the tomatoes and eggplant.

I've also been busy with my flower beds. The marigolds are huge already, with flower heads getting ready to bloom. At least 2 feet tall against the house. But upon closer examination I can't decide if they are in fact the marigolds, or perhaps some Poppy? I only planted a few Poppy last year, but I did let it go to seed. We'll see pretty soon, those flowers are gonna be out in a week or two! Daffodils and tulilps are getting ready too. I just planted some butterfly brush, trupet lilly and exotica bulbs. DH dug up some lilly of some sort that was growing wild in the pasture /field, so I got those in a better place. We'll be tilling in the pasture later this summer to make an arena. I sprinkled out some wildflower mix and old fashion flower mix.

The horses are shedding like crazy. I swear I get a few pounds of hair each time I brush them, which is at least once a day! It's getting to be time to wake up an hour or so earlier so that I can work horses in the morning before the kids get moving.

The chickens aren't much work for now, until we get the materials to build their permanent coop. But the modified dog house works for now. I can't wait until it's just a bit nicer so the turkeys can go outside! Two turkeys is a million times noisier that 13 chickens in a laundry room. They are growing like popcorn. Every morning when I turn on the daytime light I swear they have doubled in size from the day before. Their necks are getting so long!

Crochet has turned into more of an evening /break from the outside chores activity. I've completed 3 more wash-cloths, trying out different patterns and using up the peach colored yarn that I have no idea what to do with. Peach just isn't one of the colors that's very popular in my house. I've got the body of my robot done, with antane attatched to his head. I've just got to figure out his legs, and arms. Maybe I'll embroider his face first. I'm winging it, since I don't have the book this idea is from, but figured I could modify some other patterns I have. I'll post some pictures later.

Ok-I'm off to hang laundry on the line (yay!), and water all the things that need it.
;)