I have found some frog eggs and, as an experiment have decided to observe and watch carefully their progress.  I found two clusters, I think they are wood frogs. One cluster I am going to feed fish food, the other greens, such as lettuce.  I got those two options off a website.  Let's see which food works better!

Instead of naming EVERY SINGLE FROG (I think there are more than 25) I'm naming them by cluster.
Group One: Virdi = green in Latin
Group two:  Collyridam = cake in Latin

The Virdis

The Virdis again.

Same as above.

Ah! These ones are the Collyridam.

Collyridam.

Left; Virdi Right; Collyridam

Virdi

Collyridam

Virdi

Collyridam

I have some pictures of our new Mama (Miss Hawk AKA Barbara), as well as some pictures of our not-so-new Mama, Snoopy the bunny.

Snoopy!

We've lent three of our little guys to so friends.

See the little guy in the food bowl?

There's two of them!!!

Here are some pictures of our goat, Maple.

Joining us as well, Birch the Alpaca!!

Birch and Maple are Best Budds.

ME LOVE BIRCHY!

Miss hawk came back, and, . . .

SNOOPY HAD BUNNIES!!!

We thought that snoopy was a boy but, as it turned out, snoopy in a girl! There are five baby bunnie, all alive and kicking! This Snoopy's first litter, so it's a little surprising that we lost only one of them! (originally there where six)


I will put some pictures up soon!!!!!!

Yay!

Willow

We're going to have to put Willow, our goat, down.  So, we got an alpaca and when she saw she was totally freaked out and jumped over her huge fence. She hurt her back and it was swelling, I don't know exactly what happened but, she can't feel or move her back legs. She won't be able to live a good live like that so we have to put her down. It's so sad.

WILLOW!

In memory of her, I place a star right here ---->  

New Animals!

• We got an alpaca and a cat! 
• The alpaca's name is Birch, and the cat's Rumble. They are very sweet.  
• I had to get rid of three of our five roosters. 
• Do you remember Miss Hawk?  Well, when we were on vacation and came back, she was gone. I will post some pictures once I get a new camera.

The Quail . . .

The first predator strike at our new house.  Both quail gone, only feathers left.  I have no idea what got them, though there has been some talk about a mean black cat in the neighborhood.  We have combined the pirates and the mama with three babies.

News!

We have no ducks. Instead we have a mama hen with seven chicks and a mama hen with three chicks.  They are Bantams, a small breed of chickens.  One of the mamas (the one with seven chicks) has a beard, almost.  She also is vicious!  The only reasonable name for her was Gold Beard and her pirates.

Gold Beard's pictures are numbers 1, 2, 3 and 6. 

"Hello?"

The Hen with three chicks are pictures number 4, 5, and 7.

"I am the ruler!"

"Run away! Run Away! Save yourselves!"

"Quit bothering' me."

I couldn't get any good pictures because Gold Beard (Pictures # 1, 2, 3 and 6) ) is very, VERY scared of anybody who comes close to her which is why she's vicious.

Buttermilk Cupcakes

Ingredients
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup buttermilk
Preparation
1. In a bowl, with a mixer on medium speed, beat butter and all the sugar until well blended. Add eggs and vanilla and beat on high speed until well blended.
2. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into another bowl.
3. With mixer on low speed, beat about a third of the flour mixture into butter mixture, then about a third of the buttermilk. Repeat to beat in remaining flour mixture and buttermilk, alternating in thirds. When all the flour is incorporated, beat mixture on medium speed just until well blended.
4. Fill paper-lined or buttered muffin cups (1/3-cup capacity) about three-fourths full with batter (about 1/4 cup in each).
5. Bake in a 350° oven until tops spring back when lightly touched in the center, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on racks 5 minutes; remove from pans. Cool completely.

Updating . . . Please Wait.

We have lost Latte, one of the chicks, and Friction, one of the adolescent chickens.

But . . .     We got a goat!
Her name's Willow and she's a Toggenburg Angora mix.  Along with Willow we also got some quails! We have a female quail and a male quail.

I don't have any pictures of the quails yet and we don't have names for them.  I'll get some pictures of the quails soon though!


We still haven't thought of the name for the two ducklings.

Gains and Losses

Losses:

We have lost the Mama hen, Fleck.  A couple days later we lost Plim and Ito (the first duckling we hatched).  We still have the not-so-newly hatched ducklings though.

Gains:

We have two new bunnies, Dandelion and Loppedy.  With other bunnies to compare with, we have figured out that Snoopy is a boy and Dandelion and Loppedy are girls.  I think I see lots of baby bunnies in our future!

Dandelion (Bunny, Girl):

Loppedy (Bunny, Girl):

Snoopy (Bunny, Boy):

White Hawk (Silkie, Hen, Chick):

Latte (Half Silkie, Rooster, Chick):

Cinnamon (Silkie, Unknown Gender, Chick):

Newly hatched (Muscovy, Duck, I think the one with the all brown head is a girl; the other one a boy):

Lost Some More

Pumpkin, Grandma Georgia and two teen-aged chicks (the ones we hatched) have disappeared.
Since we could not tell the teen-aged ones  apart we re-assigned names they are: Polly-the-Peanut, Fog, Friction, Puck and Pigeon.

Some new animals!

To keep the duckling (which we name Ito) company we got two other ducklings (even though they're more than a week older and twice as big) named Plim and Muck-Luck.  We also got two Silkies--one white named White Hawk and one brown named Cinnamon. We also half Silkie half something-else-we-can't-remember named Latte.

Just two days after we got the new animals two Muscovy ducks hatched!  They follow their Mama around like she really is their Mama Chicken.

Pictures of Freind's Chicks

Our friends just got some chicks!
She told me ". . . We put them in our old hamster cage while we clean the real one."
Along with that she sent some pictures.

Black Devil Cupcake

Black Devils

 Sent to me by a very special friend.

 

For 15 to 16 cupcakes you will need....

 

1 1/2 cups of flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup water

1 tsp vanilla extract

6 Tbsp oil

 

Filling

 

4 oz cream cheese, softened

2 Tbsp beaten egg

6 Tbsp sugar

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chip

 

1. In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa, sugar and salt.
2. In another bowl, combine water, vanilla and oil.
3. Pour liquid ingredients into dry ingredients, stir well.
4. Line muffin pan with cupcake liners.  Spoon 2 tablespoons batter into each cup.
5. Combine the cream cheese, egg, sugar and chocolate chips. Spoon 1 tablespoon filling in center of each cup.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes until toothpick comes out clean from batter portion of cake. 7.  Remove cupcakes from pan.  Cool on rack immediately.

 

 

 

 

Something we did the first time was to omit filling and instead sprinkled chocolate chips on top.  (we didn't have any cream cheese on hand)

Uptade on the farm

Abu and Mango have disappeared along with one of the ducklings. We moved the other duckling into the house so that he doesn't  become eagle food.

DUCKS--HATCHED!

Two ducks have hatched!  I have some videos of the second one hatching.  The two mamas are fighting over the chicks, I mean duckling (I'm so used to having chickens!). In some of the pictures you will see a chicken pushed against the wall while the dominant mama hen sits on the hatching duckling.

Do you see the chicken and the duckling behind the Mama hen?

Do you see the duckling?