Let's see - what's been going on?
Nic has been making good use of the new fire pit as a feeding station for the girls....
(nic on fire pit.jpg)
A few weeks ago we went to No Longer Big Gay Jason's baby shower up at his in-laws place in Halsey... Somehow we got the bright idea to brew 10 gallons of something big in hopes of giving it to his son Christopher on his 21st birthday... He and I had the Impy Stout we made last October (wow - that is TASTY stuff) but wanted to do something specific for the baby shower...
So I took a friend's Sno Cap clone and imperialized it and we ended up brewing it up there out in a field... and just to make it more fun there was a request for me to do some grilling, so I did two pork tampenade roasts on my Weber... I will NEVER NEVER NEVER again take beer and dispensing gear, everything needed for a grill session, plus everything needed for a 10 gal brew session on the road again... Just WAY TOO MUCH logistics and packing of the piddly little stuff... And after all that, no pictures... Oops!
We also survived the annual Brew Club campout up at Clark Creek... Wow - that place is just so perfect for us... lots of great food, great beers, a new record in our fund raiser, Nic made blueberry pancakes, I made wings Fri night and Belgian Braised Beef Saturday night... lots of raffle schwag for all and a good time!
Oh, but wait!! Here's the Big News!!
WE GOTS EGGS!!!
Not a lot of eggs, but we got 'em!!
The morning we were getting ready to leave for the club campout, Nic was in back doing chores while I supervised, and lo and behold she stumbles across a green egg sitting out by the garden shed... Woot! Woot! She let out a yell for sure... It's official - We be chicken ranchers now!!
Proud Wanna-Be Mother (eggs1)
We were soooooooo excited to have eggs that we actually briefly toyed with the idea of staying home from the club campout!! But sanity set in and after some mutual prodding, we loaded up our stuff and off to the great outdoors we went...
We went looking around for other eggs - who knew how long they had actually been laying - and Nic found three more in the corner of the chicken run...
Egg Cluster (eggs3)
They say chickens start laying around 18-24 weeks and I had been meaning to put either fake eggs or at least golf balls in the nesting boxes, but just hadn't got around to it... we put a golf ball in each box, along with the already laid eggs (didn't know how long they'd been there and weren't about to eat them)...
Sure enough, as of the next morning (and as far as we know, ever since) the nesting box on the far right seems to be The Place for doing their business (eggs that is)...
We were doing about two eggs a day since getting back from our campout, and once had 4, but the last couple days just one... I think it's the sustained hot weather...
Pretty darn sure it's the two Buffs doing the laying so far...
So incredibly thrilled with our first egg that Nic decided to blow it out for saving for posterity...
Mmmmm - is this an attractive picture or what??
(nic blech.jpg)
Nic made a run to Boise for the better part of a week to spend time w/ Mandy...
While she was gone, we had accumulated enough eggs that I took a shot at making my so-called world famous frittata... I broke all the eggs in to a bowl and of course they looked perfect, just smaller... It didn't look like I'd have enough so I added two more 'regular' eggs, and took a picture for comparison....
Can you tell the difference? It's there, just not as dramatic as I would have thought...
(eggs in bowl.jpg)
Last weekend I brewed up 10 gallons of my Brown Ale for some early fall enjoyment (got that big party coming up) and whilst doing so, smoked up a rack of ribs...
(mmmm ribs.jpg)
So, now everybody is pretty much caught up!!
Until next time...
