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Have had grand daughter all day long.
0630-1900 hours.
1 tired Granny.
She's going to Aunt Sissy's tomorrow.
Whew!
We went to the country today.
She helped feed chickens, goats, Strawberry's brother Lucky.
She run and played till she couldn't no more.
On the way back to town, she finally slept for 15 minutes.
Strawberry has been a butt all day.
Maybe Granny will make it 2030 hours, but kinda doubt it.
 
Yard work but took the time to go to the gun range. Humans did not disappoint. Had started to zero a rifle in and a couple pulled up, and out jumped 8 "Little kids". I do mean little. Like between age 4 to maybe 9. Two of them immediately ran past the firing line. The joys of a public range. I packed and left. Bought some groceries on the way home and cleaned a rifle. LOL! Life happens.
 
Yard work but took the time to go to the gun range. Humans did not disappoint. Had started to zero a rifle in and a couple pulled up, and out jumped 8 "Little kids". I do mean little. Like between age 4 to maybe 9. Two of them immediately ran past the firing line. The joys of a public range. I packed and left. Bought some groceries on the way home and cleaned a rifle. LOL! Life happens.

And people wonder whats wrong with kids today!:rolleyes:
 
Cleaned up the scooter today, changed the oil, lubricated everything, got it ready for winter. The throttle cable was sticking so I took it apart and lub’d it, works fine now. This is the best $500 I ever spent here on the farm for working cattle. I’ll take one of these over a 4-wheeler or side by side any time.

I have about 40 acres of timber here on the farm that the cattle have access to. Physically its in 3 sections, by fencing its divided into 5. This little minibike is the best thing ever when it comes to searching for new born calves in thick timber. I’d rather ride a horse than a 4-wheeler but I’d choose this little scooter over a horse. It’s far more maneuverable than a 4-wheeler and I don’t have to saddle it. I wish it had a better head lamp though. Anyway, that was my project today.

Scooter 03 (8) am.JPG
 
Cousins came by and ordered on line supplies for the Amish School using our computer, and then we had a coffee break (talking and great homemade junk food). Mom's Mennonite Manor, where she lives, is now up to 40 covids. She's in her own apartment, and says she'll just stay put. Turned down the idea of getting a mobile home and putting it on our farm, so oh well. Made three cups of butter. Will be picking up 4 or 5 gallons of raw milk tomorrow to make more for the freezer. Gave Jayrod the cat and his two buddies he brought over the leftover buttermilk. Started working on the last bushel of apples for the dehydrator. Can probably load it another 3 times.
 
@LadyLocust here is the way we dehydrated the eggs and we did them raw :) .


Ingredients and equipment you will need -


- A food processor or hand mixer.


- A food dehydrator.


- A spatula.


- Baking paper cut to size and going partially up the side of your dehydrator tray or a dehydrator disk with a lip to line your dehydrator trays with to stop your eggs running through the trays.


- As many eggs as you wish to dehydrate. For us we used 12 x 70g barn laid cage eggs.


- A sanitised glass jar, 1 or more, with lids to store the dehydrated eggs in.


- Optional, but how we chose to do it is to put in an oxygen absorber in each jar to keep the eggs longer.


IMPORTANT safety information is you must dehydrate your eggs at a constant temperature between the temperatures of 57 - 63 oc or 135 - 145 F to stop salmonella poisoning and effectively dry your eggs.


1. Crack your eggs into a food processor bowl or hand mixer bowl and mix thoroughly until fluffy and well combined and pour into your lined pre - cleaned dehydrator trays. We found that 6 eggs per tray was ample for a thin layer and we spread it out with a spatula in an even layer.


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2. Put the lid on your dehydrator and set the temperature to dehydrate at a temperature of between 57 - 63 c for safety reasons listed above and turn it on. Take note of the time you start it as you will be dehydrating these for 8 - 10 hours. We found 2 trays of 6 eggs per tray took 10 hours to dry until the eggs were dry and crumbly. We used the power from the sun to run our dehydrator from our solar panels which is free.


3. If your food dehydrator is old like ours (a friend gave it to us) then I recommend you rotate the trays of eggs half way through so they dry evenly. We also found that breaking up the sheet of drying eggs with a spatula at about the 8 hour drying time through the drying process was beneficial to ensure even and more efficient drying.


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4. Once the eggs are completely dry and crumbly and properly dehydrated then pour them into a food processor bowl, put the lid on, and process with the blades on until they form a fine powder like this -


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5. Once you have a fine powder that you have created either in your food processor or herb or coffee grinder use a tablespoon measure and put it into a jar with a lid that has been sterilised. Write how many eggs are in each jar on the front along with the date of packaging on the jar. We used a tablespoon measure as one egg for reference.


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Dehydrated eggs will keep in a cool and dry storage environment for 5 months - 2 years or in the freezer for 5 years or more. We are storing these in our cool walk in pantry but if we dehydrated these in bulk we would freeze them for a longer life.


Note once the jars are open you will have to use the contents of the jar or container within 2 weeks to a month and should be refrigerated. Here I would recommend what we have done and package the dried eggs in usable sized portions.


How to use dehydrated eggs in baking -


From our findings we found that 1.5 tablespoons of dried egg powder from 70g dehydrated eggs = 1 egg but from further reading most people only use 1 tablespoon of dried egg powder = 1 egg, except in cakes that will need the full 1.5 tablespoons.


How to rehydrate eggs -


Note that once eggs are rehydrated they can be used as you would normal eggs in any recipe but bear in mind these have to be cooked in a dish and never raw.


Rehydrate 1 Tablespoon of dried eggs with 2 Tablespoons of water, let sit for 5 minutes until eggs thicken and set and use for any recipe that calls for regular eggs.


Enjoy making and using your dehydrated eggs :) .
 
Update on yesterday is that we didn't cut the firewood and instead decided to split some of the firewood we already had cut. Unfortunately and I don't know why :dunno: but I decided to put the log in with my hand towards the wedge of the log splitter and split my finger open and then of course the pain caused me to drop the log which squished the other side of my finger too :rolleyes: . Bleeding pretty well by then after taking my leather glove off I head up to the house with DH in tow once he saw how bad it was and wash it to get all the timber dust off it. Then proceeded to go into shock so I sat on the floor for a while where DH helped me upstairs, put a bandaid on my finger and dumped me into bed until I felt somewhat normal again.

Well that was the end of yesterday afternoon so needless to say nothing else got done. We live and learn and I will keep my hands away from the log splitting wedge in future :) . A nice shower with a glove on affected hand later made me feel somewhat better.

This is going in my prepper how not to do things experience book :LOL:.

After a good night's sleep we got up early this morning and split another row and a half of ironbark logs and I rolled most of the logs to DH to split and while he was doing that I was stacking it in the lean to firewood shed we were in. I was fairly impressed and so was DH that I was keeping up and exceeding the pace that DH was splitting the logs at even with my squished and sliced finger.

Had a bit of lunch from our homemade bread and then I put on another loaf of bread to cook in the bread making machine and will put it in a bag for the freezer once cool enough.

Dinner tonight is rump steak and steamed homegrown vegetables.
 
Last couple of days I have sorted some of the garden beds and removed the winter plants and weeded them so half are looking much better. Being spring here I planted some more capsicum, cucumber and dwarf bush beans.

On Sunday we decided to make a kilo batch of half half strawberry mulberry jam and it turned out well but a bit runny so I will up the pectin by 25% next time. It does solid up in the fridge so not all is lost. Always good to add more to our pantry.

While I was awol we also dehydrated a dozen eggs for the first time and made egg powder using our solar power so I was happy that we succeeded. I purchased the eggs for $1.60 a dozen on markdown and thought if it doesn't work I haven't lost much.

DH has also been doing lots of paid gardening work which is good as his whipper snipper just gave up the ghost yesterday and started spurting fuel and oil and we think it is a cracked head. Looks like buying a new one is on the cards but it has done mighty hard work both for us and lots of other gardening jobs.

Round 1 of today we loaded up the ironbark logs at the back boundary of the property that we had cut up from fallen limbs and loaded them into the trailer to bring up to the wood shed. Hoping we might get time to cut them all this afternoon and stack them in the firewood shed.

I find you planting capsicum interesting, we use it with peppermint oil as a back rub.... Never thought of just growing my own....

? Whats as Wipper Snipper? Cracked Head, is it air or water cooled, do you have the ability to remove the head and have it magnafluxed at a machine shop, are replacement parts available?
 
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@UrbanHunter yes easy to grow capsicums or peppers I think you call them over there and they produce pretty well too so well work growing them and we find the California wonder ones to be great and you can save the seed from them to replant again from the red ones after drying.

Think you call them weed whackers or weed eaters over there ?. Over here in Australia they are mostly called whipper snippers or line trimmer and brush cutters.

With what we would pay to have the head magnafluxed it would cost more than buying a new one unfortunately. Some replacement parts are available but not a lot and it has done 5 years hard yakka so think it is time to retire it.
 
@UrbanHunter yes easy to grow capsicums or peppers I think you call them over there and they produce pretty well too so well work growing them and we find the California wonder ones to be great and you can save the seed from them to replant again from the red ones after drying.

Think you call them weed whackers or weed eaters over there ?. Over here in Australia they are mostly called whipper snippers or line trimmer and brush cutters.

With what we would pay to have the head magnafluxed it would cost more than buying a new one unfortunately. Some replacement parts are available but not a lot and it has done 5 years hard yakka so think it is time to retire it.

Okay, got it... I was thinking of a much larger piece of equipment....

I just wasn't thinking about peppers as capsicum, I just need to convert mine into the rub... cool.
 
I'm up, dressed(including teeth), toiletries taken care of too.
Strawberry has been walked at 0600 hours.
Drank pot of coffee while she was being walked.
Loaded the car with grand daughter's belongings to take back to her dad's house.
Put shoes in car to return to Wal*Mart again.
Strawberry went to kennel like the good girl she sometimes is.
Dropped of baby shark blanket, grand daughter's "work" computer to her dad's house.
Exchange shoes,.
Picked up grocery order.
Was home by 0745 hours.
Everything put away by 0800 hours.
Just got the perpetual dab of dishes to do.
Strawberry and I have walked since I got home.
Crocheting on Baby Reign's Bunting Bag for Christmas.
Already made her hat.
Have to figure out supper.
Sipping on second pot of coffee.
 
Popping in for 2 seconds.
First~ a funny I thought y'all would get a kick out of. At lunch today, Hubby told me that bacon is like the color black. I said "huh?" He said, Yea, it goes with everything. We both cracked up.
Second~ this past weekend, I stopped at an estate sale & found a piece of castiron. Not any great brand or anything but was only $10 - before and after:
Pan 1.jpg
Pan 2.jpg

I didn't have one this size. It's about 4" tall.
 
Prepared for my property tax appeal scheduled for tomorrow.
Spend time testing our communication equipment.
Chicken chores.
Cut down some small trees and drag the brush to the burn pile.
A large stem from a year ago mostly had burn below grade. Fill stump with dry branches and try to burn the rest of it below grade.
Get the mail.
Take a shower before supper. I smelled like wood smoke for some reason.
 
Installed the removable axle I machined yesterday and it seemed to work OK. My brother and I made some adjustments to the skip hoist but eventually that 480 pounds of concrete was too much and resulted in flexing of the frame and causing interference. Since there were two of us working we limited the load to 180 pounds. We moved 112 (6720 pounds) bags into the basement with him loading the skip hoist up top and me stacking it in the basement. After moving the cement mixer into the basement which let us break down the skip hoist (mile stone mark you) and close up the basement doors. No more stray cats using the basement as a cat box (Yeah!)

My brother and I then brainstormed a bit. First figuring out how to get his police lights installed in his newish vehicle as well as a siren. Then we discussed options to help out my son and his family get their furnace replaced. It went out last spring and a repair guy convinced him it was too old to repair. The furnace was the original installed in the modular home he has. I could not find a model number on it when I looked and the repair guy found burnt wires as well as only one of the 4 heating elements still functional. It depends on what my son and his pseudo-wife decide but we (my brother and myself) MAY escape having to do the replacement. I would prefer it that way but if comes down a question of my g-daughters living in a house heated by space heaters, I will do what I have to do. The eldest it now 12 and approaching the age when peer pressure and the potential of being called trailer trash... I will do what I to do.

Tonight we meet with our money guy to plan when and how we are going to navigate the dark waters ahead of us and THEN I will watch the debate.

Ben
 
Yesterday- Went to Salvation Army senior sale and other thrift shops. Tractor Supply for hard dog food, Lowes to see about a small chest freezer--too high. Went to a different vet to see about rabies shots. She will give 3 year where our local vet says "it isn't their policy to do that". Will save us some money!

Had an electrician friend come over and found out that my electric range is shot. Circuit board is high price.
Went today and bought a new one at Sears. It was on sale and no interest for 12 months. You know I will have it paid off before then. It won't be here until the end of the month. Electrician will address power issues before it gets here, I hope. House was built in the 60's.

Company moved to their new place last night, mostly. I washed sheets in guest room today. Haven't done much else. Guess I will go to Church this evening.
 
... Electrician will address power issues before it gets here, I hope. House was built in the 60's.

...

I purchased my house from my grandfather's estate. It was built 100 years ago and electricity was added. That generation saved money every time they had a chance. As I was working the get the place ready for The Princes to move into, I discovered they had cut the power cord off an electric range and used the outlet for the range to power a distribution box in the back cellar. When I discovered that, I yelled up the stairs to warn The Princess I was going to kill power to the back of the house and then "un-plugged" half of the house.

Another way they cut corners was to do their own house wiring. I discovered they had wired a another fuse panel using the "shunt" in the old 60 amp service entrance. Translating... The only thing protecting the fuse panel was the wires coming off the pole.

Ben
 
The 6 hens are 2 1/2 years old. They've gone from their peak of 5 eggs a day to 1 a day. Today I put the last of the feed in their feeder. Feed will last them till Saturday. Local butcher went out of business a few years back, wife will not eat them anyway. Saturday I'll have to decide to feed nonproductive hens though the winter or cull them.
Might call the extension office and see if they know of anyone wanting them ???
 
Chickens and dumplings!
 
Husband had a dr appt this morning, a trip to the pharmacy, and then mom called and wanted to be picked up. We took her to lunch to the Amish Place (she had pie), back to our place, where she talked and I peeled more apples. Took her along to pick up raw milk for butter making, and she thought my favorite cousin was her aunt (my cousin's grandma) who has passed many, many years ago. She called her Aunt Deemie, and talked about times she remembered with her. Amish solar guy came and installed solar panels on our garage roof that will be used for charging batteries. We have two hooked up now. They will be used with inverters to plug in medical equipment when we lose power. Mom stayed for dinner. Granddaughter went to work, and Grandson to Bible study (there's a girl there he likes, so doesn't miss a Wed night). A covid case reported at the elementary school, and a case at the middle school. Not good.
 
I made a fresh batch of 'cream of anything' soup base mix. I have one can of cream of mushroom soup in the pantry so I figured a dry mix would work as a replacement with the holidays coming.

I also ordered a fresh bag of cat food and case of canned cat food for the evca tote. While placing my order I decided to put the cats on a timed feeding schedule. They were on one years ago but Alice would push everyone out of their bowls so I stopped. I need to dig out the individual bowls I have somewhere then slowly start making the changes. Tonight I will put up the communal bowl so no one overeats at night.
 
I purchased my house from my grandfather's estate. It was built 100 years ago and electricity was added. That generation saved money every time they had a chance. As I was working the get the place ready for The Princes to move into, I discovered they had cut the power cord off an electric range and used the outlet for the range to power a distribution box in the back cellar. When I discovered that, I yelled up the stairs to warn The Princess I was going to kill power to the back of the house and then "un-plugged" half of the house.

Another way they cut corners was to do their own house wiring. I discovered they had wired a another fuse panel using the "shunt" in the old 60 amp service entrance. Translating... The only thing protecting the fuse panel was the wires coming off the pole.

Ben
@Neb , We were told that they had dead wired the range into the wall. There is no plug or outlet. There will be before the new one arrives, though!
My house is 130 years old and the electrical has had various work done on it over the years, but could probably stand to be completely rewired. There is an old fuse box in the kitchen and a breaker box on the side of the house. In the hall closet upstairs is something that looks like a junction box.
Neighbor, whose house is a twin to mine, (built at the same time, same builder, for same family) had to replace his hot water heater about a year ago. That cost $3,000. But, with codes, electrical had to be upgraded before the water heater could be installed. By the time he was done, he said it cost him $11,000. I have no idea what electrical was done.

A family purchased a home in the 1970's, for $3,000, in a poor substandard suburb of Denver where people got paid on Friday and bought whatever building materials they could afford and built their homes by hand, with no building codes or inspections. Many of these homes were built on cinder block footings. Some people have chicken coops that are built better.

This family never had trash service, so glass bottles were dumped in the back yard for ever. Metal was recycled ($). At some point in time, they had something happen and could not pay some bills and lost the house. I am guessing they didn't pay their taxes, and someone else did. Someone else became the owner of the house and they became renters in same house. Family were probably not very wise when it came to money and life. At some point, less than 10 years ago, this city decided to do better and the inspectors began knocking on doors of rental homes in this suburb, saying they were there to inspect, and renters let them in. Houses with utilities not up to code were condemned. Many homes were condemned, because there had never been a standard set by the government of this city. This house was condemned. After living in the home for almost 40 years, family had to move. They never had money. At some point the man of the house had died and mom worked part time at Burger King. I was told that the electrical in the house was scary, not even close to any code, ever. The owner of the house sold it, and that required everything be brought up to code. A big roll off was brought in and filled with glass from the yard. A family who purchased this property would not let their children play in the yard because of all the broken glass.
 
A family who purchased this property would not let their children play in the yard because of all the broken glass.

The place we lived in back when Juju was born was the same way. Broken glass and metal everywhere. I use to walk the yard with the garage roller magnet to pick up the metal scraps and rake the dirt for glass. I still didn't like Roo playing out there without doing a check first.
 
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