When I was turning over the night droppings under the roost I found a very small, shell less egg. This is the second shell less egg, but this one had a rubbery exterior like I’ve seen in videos, but no yolk. It was only 18g! I recorded breaking it open, then I fed the whites to the dog; he has a stronger stomach.
My eldest wanted to try roasting acorns as we have post oaks and the yard is covered in thousands of tiny acorns. We also found a few white oak acorns at a neighbor’s as we read that those are sweeter.
We followed the instructions from The Farmer’s Almanac, and after shelling the acorns (we found pliers worked better than a nut cracker), did the cold water soak to remove the tannins.
While we were shelling, we found quite a few were moldy or had acorn weevil grubs. We threw out the black and moldy nuts, but kept the grubs. The chickens appreciated the treat.
After changing out the water a few times, we dried the acorns in the oven, but the “keep warm” option on my oven didn’t just dry, it started roasting the acorns, so I turned up the heat to finish roasting.
The acorns smelled amazing as they were roasting! We let them cool when they were chocolate brown, added a little salt, and tried them. No. Oh no. Definitely no. I can see how ground acorn could be a coffee substitute, it has a similar taste to coffee beans, but ours were dense and chewy, not at all pleasant to eat. So these go on our “only during an apocalypse” food list!
Since it is too cold to sprout seed in the chicken runs, I put out a bucketful of straw and threw in some scratch to give the chickens something new to do. Oh did they have fun! By the end of the day, all straw was evenly distributed in the run.
I found the cat.
No she isn’t floating. There is a window behind those curtains. The curtains go down to the floor to help block the cold from the open window. The window is open because that is her access to the catio. She jumped up there because she heard something outside. I guess this is a failed tail wrap, but it is awfully cute.
The last of my acrylic yarn stash! I just had bits and bobs, so made pom poms.
Pom poms are great for playing indoor “snowball” fights. They are also useful to get the attention of someone who is wearing headphones. Or just not paying attention. Not naming names (teenagers). I used my oops bag to hold the pom poms. I suppose some people use them in crafts. I like the throwing option.
And my stash is busted!! (Ok, ok, the acrylic stash. I have a stash of cotton and one of wool, but that is not the issue here.) Now back to spinning!
Critters and Craft 