Pics From The Farm

My two birds Tommy and Nacho made the 4 hour ride up to the farm. Nacho really liked all the sounds of the other animals. Tommy took a few days to get used to it. Actually on the second day there, Tommy started chasing my friend's cat around the house. She is one crazy bird. The cat Alley, often followed me around while feeding/watering the animals in the morning or evening.
Above is Kitch. He is the older of the three male horses and the most shy. Though you'd never know it from this picture. As soon as I brought out the camera he started posing.
The painted horse is Sasha, one of the girls. I can't recall the brown horses name. Sasha is a sweetie and always came over to get some attention when I was bringing out hay or filling their water.
This regal guy is a Muscovy duck. He also liked to follow me around while I took care of the chickens, baby chicks, and the roosters. Muscovy ducks don't really quack they sort of make a wheezing/hissing noise.
These are two of the four Runner ducks. They don't waddle. They just hold their long necks up high and run around the yard all day. They were hilarious to watch. When I first pulled my car into the driveway, 4 of the ducks kept running in circles around quacking.


On the sides are a couple of the roosters. To the left is one named Roosty. You can't quite tell how big he is from this picture.




The patchy guy on the right is about 1/3 of Roosty's size.









To the left is a pic of some of the girls running around after I let them out of the coop which keeps them safe at night.



To the right is a cool little chicken. Notice the fluffy feathers on her legs and feet. I think she is a Silkie.









There were two geese parents wandering around. This is their nest which is under the rabbit cage in one of the sheds. I didn't get a photo of them because the male got rather cranky whenever he saw me because he was protecting their eggs.

Since I wasn't at home, I had plenty of extra time to cook. Unfortunately, I did a pretty poor job of taking photos. Some friends came up to visit on the farm and cooked up a some pineapple tofu curry. Another night I baked teriyaki tofu. For breakfast a I made pancakes with egg replacer a couple of times.

When I stopped at WF in Portland, I picked up the latest copy of VegNews which has some VCTOW recipes. I cooked a couple of batches of cupcakes to share with people at the office or with my friends who visited. I took photos of the Jelly Donut cupcakes, but forgot to take pics of the chocolate almond ones. The batter from the donut cakes is amazing. I swear it tastes better than the finished product.
The first picture is of the cupcakes in the pan. The second is with a dusting of powdered sugar before taking them into work.

Here's two shots from my hike. I'm pretty sure that the tallest peak in the distance is Mount Washington.

Well, I've got about 2 weeks of your blogs to catch up on. I'll be visiting soon!

Suburban Computer Geek - Farm Sitting

Ok I haven't posted in awhile, but I do have a better excuse than usual. I've been away for over a week and a half farm sitting for a friend up in Maine. My friends were heading to wedding in Tennessee and needed someone to look after the animals. Unfortunately, I was without Internet at their house.

Portland is a little over an hour south of their home, so I could work out of our Portland office while taking care of the farm. None of the animals are raised for food, otherwise I'd likely have a real hard time with it if I could even agree to do it. They do collect eggs from the chickens, but they have plenty of space and wander about the yard, so they are indeed happy birds.

I'm not a morning person, so waking up at 5am with the roosters was a little painful for me. Though I did eventually get into the schedule. Before heading out to work I needed to check to make sure the chickens, ducks, roosters, horses, bunnies, and geese had food and water. They also have a cat. Their kids have a guinea pig, 2 gerbils, and some fish I had to check on as well. We had some warm days, so I'd often need to check again when I got home.

I'll post some farm pics for you, a few cooking photos, and a couple of shots from a hike I did near their house later on tonight.