The Art of Blowing Out an Egg!

My dad taught me how to blow out seagull eggs so we can hang them in our house. In his house he's got Murr eggs that are blue with black specks on them. They are really pointy at the top to keep from rolling off the rocks. These seagull eggs were blown out and I made soup with the egg insides. It was good egg drop soup! Seagull egg drop soup!

The way I do it is I have a really sharp knife, and I dont use the point part of the knife, I use the blade, to go round and around the end of the egg. Seagull's have really thick membranes in their eggs so I use one of those snazzy wine bottle openers to break thru the membrane. Then I do it on the other side, then blow it out. They make nice little things to hang in your house. Someone told me that hanging seagull eggs and ptarmigan storage stomach's is good luck.

Turkey Jerky

This April I hope to get maybe seven turkey's. I want to raise them April thru November, just to butcher them for Thanksgiving. It would be so nice to have a fresh turkey for once. I am planning on getting some old igloo's (the loading containers airlines use) from Alaska Airlines and turn one into a turkey pen. I've read a lot about turkey's and everyone says "turkey's are dumb, they can kill them self by drinking water"... wow. They must be really dumb. But, they taste good, right?

In this picture my daughter Clara was so scared of the turkey's, maybe because they were on a table and higher than she was. Coltrane wasn't scared of the Turkey's, just Clara! This was at the state fair in Palmer, AK. I thought it was funny that we had chickens and she's fine with them and when we came around the turkey part of the livestock showing she just got really scared! I think she even started to cry after this, because I was trying to get her to see that they weren't going to get her or anything, they are in cages!

Bethel Chickens

These chickens live in Bethel at John's sister Sharon and brother in law Tad's house. They have a tall coop with a roll out nest box. I'd like a roll out nest box someday but think that the eggs stay a little cleaner in my nest boxes with a bunch of hay in them. Tad also had a goose then, I don't know if he still has her, but she was loud and aggressive! Geese are like watch dogs, so I hear... I got my own little watch dog, Minni! :)

Monkey Around!

I thought this was an awesome picture opp, we went to Bethel this summer to fish camp with John's family and the camp next to theirs had this up in their drying racks... cute eh?

Pancakes for Chicken

My chickens like pancakes! Well, they like anything!

Google Analytics

Probaby NOT a waste of my time...

I've been spending HOURS reading posts on www.backyardchickens.com its a Chicken Forum and a place where if you have a question, someone has an answer. I found so much cool information on here and some really cool pictures. I also found some stuff about cold weather coops, and for it being WAY below zero this past two weeks my chickens are doing a lot better than what was expected. I think if I could just post questions and answers on that forum ALL day I probably would. Today I was looking under the tab of chicken egg production, or something like that and I clicked on the topic of HUGE EGG and MAAAAN it was a big egg... they said it was "an egg inside of an egg" I wish they would have posted a picture of the egg inside of an egg. I also saw a picture of a funky looking egg with like starbursts type of patterns on it, some kind of genetic mutation or something. Anyway, if you're bored and want to learn about chickens (and dont take anything to heart because I read on there that chickens cannot and will not produce eggs if the weather is below zero and you dont have an actual heater in your coop, hello? I'm living proof!) check it out!

Chicken Momma!

http://community.adn.com/adn/node/147056

Read and retain! :)

crack for me

Puppy breath is like crack for me... call me a weirdo but I think it smells good!

HELLO DOWN THERE!

chicken butts. They have fluffy butts to keep their eggs nice and warm. I always tell all my visitors to my chicken coop "touch the feathers by their butt, they are so soft!" Its because I can't believe it myself, soft butt feathers! :)

Egg Cartons

stamping fool!

YAY my egg cartons came in today, well like I said earlier they came in on Friday but the Post Office wasnt open yesterday so I got them today. You know what the sad thing was? I didnt even have a yellow slip in my box today, I just knew they were there... The postman said "wow, you must be psychic!" I said yep, special skills! haha

So I'm stamping all my cartons so I dont have to bring out those stamps again. I'm getting pretty tired of it too... I would ALMOST pay someone to do this, like 5 bucks? :) I'll post pictures later...

Naqu! (cross-eyed)

That's how my eye's were after making the stamps for my egg cartons! I did a little research on stamps and realized that I didn't want to throw down 50.00 PLUS shipping (and you know that since we're international I'm sure it would have been like 30.00!) ;) on a custom made stamp, so I went to Office Max this last weekend while we were in town and bought a "make your own stamp" kit. It comes with LOTS of little letters that you have to use tweezers to put on the stamp. I have to have the FDA food warning label on my egg cartons and it's quite long, so I had a lot of tweezing and squashing of letters to do. Plus, I ran out of "e"s and "o"s so I had to improvise. :) I'll post a picture when I get my egg cartons on Tuesday since tomorrow is a holiday and the post office will not be open. It was ALMOST worth the extra money to just get a stamp made but I think if I stamp ALL my cartons on Tuesday I wont have to use them until I need more cartons. Just a word of advice if you're going to make your own stamps, take frequent breaks to look across the room or far away so you don't become NAQU like I did.

Minni!

This has NOTHING to do with chickens but its just as cute!

This is Minni after a bath! :)

Egg Carton Express!

I went shopping online a couple weeks ago to get some egg cartons since the chickens are laying about 10 eggs a day and I came across some really good deals, 32.70 for 120 cartons!! With FREE SHIPPING! YEeeah! So I went to check out and they asked for the shipping address and all that fun stuff, then a new page comes up, 40.00 for International shipping! WHAT!? We arent international? Or are we? So I called the number on the bottom and some girl answered, she sounded like she was like 10, I asked her why Alaskan's have to pay international shipping. "Because you are international." What? Aren't we part of the United States? "I dont know, all I know is if you want it shipped its going to be international and you have to fill out paperwork" WHAT? for some egg cartons!? "yeah, international shipping since you are in Alaska" What high school did you go do? because last time I checked we were part of the United States. "Ma'am, if you want these cartons to be shipped to Alaska you need to pay for international shipping" Do you have a supervisor? "no". Okay end of conversation. :)

So I trashed that idea of getting the egg cartons shipped to me, and called Dean's sister Lorraine. Lorraine is super cool, she's got chickens, goats, horses, mini-horses... all that fun stuff! She lives in Roy, WA. THAT is in the United States! haha. So I had the cartons shipped to her and she so kindly went to the post office and shipped them to me!! :)

So my egg cartons are ON THE WAY! YAY! Its a good thing because right now the chickens are laying about 10 eggs a day and we've been eating lotsa eggs. I would much rather sell them to make some money back for the feed and all that stuff. AND, for the people of Kotzebue to enjoy my awesome eggs. (well they are my chickens awesome eggs) Anyway, be patient I will soon have some cartons of my own to sell my eggs in.


PS, for those of you wondering why I couldnt just sell them in the cartons that I saved up from buying eggs at the store? I could get in looooootsa trouble. I would LOVE to think that everyone out there is my friend and wont do that kind of stuff, BUUUUT you know there are a few people out there that would LOVE to see you get eff-ed over so I'm covering my own...

$#!+ Shoveler.

Some days I'd rather shovel sh*t.

Some days I don't want to deal with real life problems, so I go shovel sh*t.

Some days my head pounds from all the trouble in this world, so I go shovel sh*t.

Some days I just cant come up with that money to pay that bill, so I go shovel sh*t.

Some days people seem too much and too needy, so I go shovel sh*t.


I'm not saying shoveling sh*t will save the world, but it sure saves my sanity, some days!