Potatoes are Flowering

Wandering around the garden this afternoon I noticed that out potato plants are flowering…

Arn’t they just the the most delicate and pretty white flowers?

Homemade treats for dogs and cats

Homemade treats for dogs and cats 

Taken from the book “The Natural Way for Dogs and Cats” by Midi Fairgrieve – isbn 0-85207-344-5 

2 tablespoons bran/bran flakes (eh wheat, oat or rye) 
2 cups wholemeal flour (eg wheat, rice, rye etc) 
1 heaped tablespoon brewer’s yeast (if no yeast allergy), or crushed vitamin B complex tablets 
1 cup wheat germ 
2 teaspoons blackstrap molasses (1 teaspoon for cats) 
1 tablespoon vegetable oil 
30g butter (cats) 
1 teaspoon fish-liver oil (cats) 
water 

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and add enough water to make a firm dough.   Shape the dough into small, flat biscuit shapes and bake in a moderate oven for about half a hour until dry and hard. 

The biscuits will keep for at least a week if stored in a cool, dry, airtight container.   All of the above ingredients can be bought in health food stores.   (Substitute wheat bran and wheat flour for an alternative grain if you suspect an allergy to wheat). 

These make a really healthy biscuit and are also a fun treat for children to make for their pets.

The Chicks are doing fine…

Just an update to say that the chicks are doing fine and to post a few pictures.

The Lemon Cuckoo Pekin chicks, picture taken yesterday at 21 days/3weeks old, I know for definate that I have one boy out of the 4,  his comb and wattles are much more pronounced and a brighter shade of pinky/red than the others… he is the lighter coloured one of the 4 hiding at the back, 2nd from the left

This lot are not keen on being photographed, they keep turning their backs on me  

They are feathering up nicely too, notice their pom pom-like tail feathers, they looks a tad punky at this stage

The little black & partridge pekin chicks are doing fine too… they are a week younger than the others, but coming along good too.. unable to tell if they are boys or girls yet, but have a sneaky feeling that the partridge is a boy.

The little black one is my daughters favourite, and out of all the chicks is the only one that has a name so far.. 

Its been given the name Pingu, because it looked like a wee penguin when it was only a couple of days old, eventually all the white fluff will disappear and will be a solid black colour with a bottle green sheen to the feathers, just like Grace and Gloria.

Chocolate Chip Flapjacks

I fancied making something different today… something that would go nice with a cup of tea.   I had a rummage through the cupboards to see what ingredients I had then flicked through a few cookbooks… decided to make Flapjacks!

p.s. (Picture to follow soon – theyre in the oven as I type this)

Ingredients :

• 115g / 4oz butter, plus extra for greasing (I used Stork)
• 60g / 2 1/4 oz Caster Sugar
• 1 tablespoon of Golden syrup
• 350g / 12oz rolled oats (I used Porridge Oats)
• 85g / 3oz plain chocolate chips (I used a bar of plain chocolate chopped up)
• 85g / 3oz sultanas (I left out the sultanas my lot wont eat them so doubled up on the chocolate)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C / 350 Degrees F / Gas Mark 4.   Lightly grease a shallow 20cm / 8inch square cake tin.
2. Place the butter, caster sugar and golden syrup in a saucepan and cook over a low heat, stirring constantly until the butter and sugar melt and the mixture is well combined.
3. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the rolled oats until they are well coated.   Add the chocolate chips and the sultanas and mix well to combine everything.
4. Turn into the prepared tin and press down well.
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.   Cool slightly, then mark into fingers.   When almost cold, cut into bars or squares and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Selling Cards……

I got an email today from my niece, Emma, who reckons I should sell my handmade cards online….. now this seed has been planted my mind was working overtime.  How/where/etc etc…

I have an Etsy account, but It’s not set up to sell things… the downfall there is that you have to list items in $ dollars.

I also opened up a Folksy account, but for some strange reason, I can’t for the life of me uploads any pictures.

My third option is Ebay.. yes I have an account, yes it is in full working order, it’s hooked up to Paypal to accept payments etc etc… great I thought, i’ll go for Ebay, stick one card on it and see what happens…

So there we have it… thanks to Emma, I have now listed a card on Ebay… which card? 

This card I made it last week for the Dawn McVey Colour Challenge…

 

 Here is a link to ebay where my card is listed

Sending Warm Fuzzies..

It’s been an absolute age since I’ve made any cards, and thought it was high time I made some more….

I follow quite a few card making blogs, and over at Dawn McVey’s Blog she runs a weekly colour challenge… a perfect opportunity to get the creative juices flowing again

Here is the card I made …. the colours to be used are Chocolate, bright pink, cream and Kraft.

More Chicks

We had another batch of chicks due to hatch this week, 6 eggs shared under our 2 broodies Gloria & Grace…

I bought the hatching eggs off ebay at the same time as the other eggs that hatched last week and I have had a real poor result only 2 hatched out of 6 eggs… the other eggs had nothing inside but yolks/whites so take it they were infertile ones.

That aside we have a lovely little black chick and the other I think might well be partridge.. here they are…

Its really hard to get a clear picture of them as they never stay still … this one is a bit blurry but at least it lets you see the wee black one..

Chick Update….

Just thought I would do an update on the chicks… 4 out of the 6 eggs hatched, there was nothing in the other 2 eggs, I can only guess that they were not fertile.

Here is a picture of our 4 cute little babies and Brenda, their mum.

They are just lovely and it is a pleasure to have them around… my 2 teenagers have been spending rather a lot of time just sitting watching them :-)

Oh Baby…..

Just look what I found this morning when I went to check on Brenda Pekin

Soooooooooooo….. cute

In fact I was excited that much that I took a half days holiday from my work just to be at home… just incase I missed aything :-)

When I got home at lunchtime I went out and checked Brenda and she now has 2 chicks hatched with one egg just pipped and 2 still waiting to do something.

I shall report back later on this evening…

Mother Hen over and out! LOL

 

p.s. nearly forgot… they are Lemon Cuckoo Pekin Bantams

The Tale of the Cat and the Cat Biscuit

Today,  I bought a brand new bag of  IAMS cat buiscuit… 

It was left on the kitchen table waiting to be put away into the animal food cupboard…

Take one very sly and sleekit birman cat….

Who sneaks into the kitchen when nobody is looking…. jumps up onto the kitchen table and proceeds ……….. to pick

and chew………

and shred the bag open with his claws…..

Until he finally reaches the tiny little brown nuggets that he craves so much!

Why do cats feel the need to do this ?!?!