Wordless Wednesday Dose of Chicken Cute

More photos below. . .

Saturday Dose of Cute: Really Lemony Lemon Bars Photo Shoot (The Whole Picture)

Really Lemony Lemon Bars recipe here.

More of The Whole Picture series? Here.

More chickens? Here.

More farm inspectors? Here.

© FarmgirlFare.com, where if you bake it, they will come.

British Invasion: Homemade Cornish Pasties & Favorite English Cookery Books

The dangers of outdoor food photo shoots (Cornish pasty recipe here).

I'm not sure why, but for some reason my recipe for Jamie Oliver's Cornish Pasties with beef, onion, potatoes, and carrots that I shared with you last fall has been one of the most popular posts on Farmgirl Fare for at least the past six weeks. (You'll find the top ten posts of each week listed over in the left sidebar.) Maybe it's pasty season.

What I do know is that these classic British meat pies taste delicious and freeze beautifully. I made a double batch during the tail end (ha) of lambing season this year, and hopefully next year I'll remember to make some at the beginning of lambing season because they're the perfect thing to have on hand for quick and easy dinners or hot and hearty (and portable!) lunches.

I defrosted the frozen pasties at room temperature and then reheated them in my beloved little Oster convection toaster oven (which I often use several times a day), but you could probably go straight from freezer to oven. If you're in a hurry or at work, you can gently heat them in the microwave. They taste especially wonderful when served with brown mustard and cold beer.

Everybody loves these traditional Cornish pasties, including Mr. Midnight.

This pasty recipe is adapted from Jamie Oliver's Great Britain: 130 of My Favorite British Recipes, from Comfort Food to New Classics, which is a neat cookbook. I bookmarked several other recipes to try while spending a couple of hours leisurely reading through it.

I have a huge cookbook collection but rarely use most of them. So in keeping with my word for the year—SIMPLIFY—I've been slowly sorting through my cookbooks, most of which still haven't made the move from The Shack to the new house, and donating a bunch of them to the small local (35 miles away) library, much to the delight of the librarian. Jamie Oliver's Great Britain is staying here.

More British cookbooks (including three for under $1) that made the cut below. . .

Sunday Dose of Cute: Prepare To Stop, Hay Inspectors on Duty

And they take their job seriously.

More photos below. . .

Wednesday Dose of Cute: Back At It

Our hay inspectors take their job seriously

More photos below. . .

Saturday Dose of Cute: Curious Cluck (and The Whole Picture)

More below. . .

Monday Dose of Cute: New Hay Inspectors

The Daily Donkey 120: Daphne Takes a Cool Drink from the Spring

© FarmgirlFare.com, where there are now 144 more bales of hay stacked neatly in the pole barn, and we are both still able to move—although that may change by tomorrow morning. Only about 625 bales (hopefully) more to go!

Saturday Dose of Cute: Water Inspection

The Daily Donkey 91: Gus Gets Special Treatment

© FarmgirlFare.com, where everybody on the farm wears many hats, and Topaz's all say Inspector: Water Inspector, Breakfast Inspector, Hay Inspector, Greenhouse Inspector, Chicken Treat Inspector, Outdoor Furniture Inspector, Beagle Inspector. . .

Wordless Tuesday Dose of Cute

The Daily Donkey 38: Hay Daphne


© FarmgirlFare.com

Saturday Dose of Cute: Chicken Food Thief?

Or Just Can't Pass Up A Cute Dish of Fresh Vegetables?

You never know with our Tough Tortie Topaz!

(click here to see all these posts on one long page)
1/21/08: How Topaz, Sarah Kate, and Mr. Midnight Came into Our Lives

1/29/08: Farmyard Kitty

6/20/08: Meet Our New Hay Inspector

8/18/08: Tractor Cat

9/4/08: Even Kitty Cats Need to Eat Their Greens

5/24/09: Sweet Strawberries & A Curious Cat

8/24/09: Happy Cat

4/29/10: On Little Cat Feet

5/31/10: Bringing in the First Hay

6/4/10: Double Identity Crisis

6/15/10: Hangin' Out

7/19/10: It's that Time Again

9/19/10: Cats on High

© 2010 FarmgirlFare.com, the veggie happy foodie farm blog where I used to have an enormous Airedale/Rottweiler named Rex who loved to munch on whole carrots as if they were bones. Every other dog I've offered one to since (assuming this was a nice healthy treat all dogs were crazy about), including Crazy Daisy just the other day, has given me the same puzzled/borderline disgusted look that clearly said, Why on earth are you holding this thing in front of my face?

Who knew. At least I do know exactly what donkeys think of broccoli and will never make that mistake again. The only vegetables donkeys want are carrots.

And for those of you wondering, Topaz is standing on a big metal gas tank that is parked near one of the chicken coops in the farmyard and that we've used once since I moved to this farm in 2000—about 8 or 9 years ago when gas was around $1.50 a gallon and suddenly started shooting skyward overnight, with rumors of it already having hit $4.00 a gallon in nearby towns and lots of price gouging going on.

We, along with everybody else in the area, drove into town and stood in a long line at the one and only gas station, patiently waiting to fill up every gas container we could find for $1.59 a gallon before they ran out.

P.S. Maybe next post I'll explain, for the sake of puzzled new readers, what the heck these ever changing copyright notices are all about and why they sometimes tend to go on for several paragraphs.

Monday Dose of Cute: Getting to Know You. . .

Sunday Dose of Cute: Sweet Strawberries & A Curious Cat

Topaz Inspects My Freshly Picked Breakfast

Just getting to know our Tough Tortie Topaz (aka 3T)?
1/21/08: How Topaz, Sarah Kate, and Mr. Midnight Came into Our Lives
1/29/08: Farmyard Kitty
6/20/08: Meet Our New Hay Inspector
8/18/08: Tractor Cat
9/4/08: Even Kitty Cats Need to Eat Their Greens

© Copyright 2009 FarmgirlFare.com, the juicy red foodie farm blog where we're just glad that farm cats don't like homegrown strawberries as much as the turtles do.

Monday Daily Dose of Cute:Meet Our New Hay Inspector

Topaz takes her job seriously

© FarmgirlFare.com, the scrutinized foodie farm blog where Topaz, who spent 15 months at the animal shelter before we adopted her last December (along with Sarah Kate and Mr. Midnight), decided to move outdoors and is loving her new life as a farm cat. She even rode around the farmyard on the hay trailer before I snapped this picture.

Oh yeah, and I lied — a brief explanation of the whole haying process will accompany the next photo, not this one. Plus I still need to get you caught up with the rapidly growing livestock guardian puppies (yes, they finally both have names!), the new bread bakery building, and some other stuff I'm forgetting at the moment. There are more recipes to share and lots of wonderful new cookbooks to give away, too.

Sheesh. How did I get so far behind? It's been almost a week since the last Daily Dose of Cute. And you haven't even met Sylvester the cat — or the cows! At least we had cake and cookies. That makes everything better, right?

Tuesday Daily Dose of Cute:Another Bear Inspection

Looks Like He Passed!

Want to see more stock dog scrutiny?
4/22/07: Dog Inspection
1/6/08: Stock Dog Inspection
4/7/08: Surprise Inspection

Other Inspections:
6/11/06: Cary the Hay Inspector
8/2/07: Wall Inspection & Farmgirl Inspection

© Copyright 2008 FarmgirlFare.com, the award-winning blog where the tremendous heat and humidity have been keeping us from taking any cute photos lately, but fortunately we keep a back-up supply on hand - including these pictures taken in the barnyard in April.

Monday Dose Of Cute

Surprise Inspection

© FarmgirlFare.com, the tip toeing (hoofing?) foodie farm blog where you never know who's gonna come sneaking up on you.

Farm Photo 1/6/08: Stock Dog Inspection

Daphne Is Very Curious - And Bear Is Very Tolerant

Welcome New York Post readers!
Click here for a brief introduction to this site.

Want to see more?
--There are all sorts of Lucky Buddy Bear photos here
--You're find even more dog photos here
--There are other photos of Daphne here
--And more donkey photos are here

© Copyright 2008 FarmgirlFare.com, the award-winning blog where Farmgirl Susan shares stories & photos of her crazy country life on 240 remote Missouri acres.

Farm Photo: 8/2/07

Wall Inspection





Farmgirl Inspection

It's hard to believe that Whitey's not-so-little-anymore chicks will already be two months old on Saturday. It's been so much fun watching them grow up, especially since I've never had a mother hen raise a flock of chicks before.

I've been taking lots of photos, but I seem to have gotten a little behind sharing them (so what else is new?). I've been sorting through them all and figured I'd just randomly post some of my favorites, like these two, which were taken back on June 24th. This is the chick that started out pale yellow. They sure don't stay small and fluffy--or even the same color--for long. Feathers simply appear out of nowhere.

All seven chicks are doing just fine, but a lot of the photos aren't very good. Baby chickens do not like to stand still.

Just tuning in to Whitey Watch? Click here, then scroll down to the bottom to begin back at the beginning.

© FarmgirlFare.com, the rapidly growing foodie farm blog where Farmgirl Susan shares photos & stories of her crazy country life on 240 remote Missouri acres.

Farm Photo 4/22/07: Curious Critters

Dog Inspection

Lucky Buddy Bear is half English Shepherd and half Australian Shepherd, and his favorite thing to do is work, preferably with his sheep.

He loves them all, but this time of year it is obvious that little lambs hold a special place in his heart. Bear would like nothing better than to have bouncing babies around all the time.

For the past six weeks or so, the entire flock has been penned up in the barn and the adjacent half-acre barnyard (well, the entire flock minus The Dirty Dozen, aka Studly Do-Right Jefferson and the wethers). This is for two reasons.

One, it keeps the sheep from munching down all the new spring grass before it has a chance to grow (instead they're fed bales of hay and grain treats several times a day). And two, it makes it much easier for us and the moms to keep track of all the new babies.

Unfortunately we only have a couple of days' worth of hay left, so everyone will soon be out happily eating sweet green grass with The Dirty Dozen (who were let loose a few weeks ago in order to save on hay). This means that frequent hikes out into the fields to do sheep-checking and lamb-counting will start taking up large chunks of my days.

But back to the barnyard.

Each night all of the moms and babies are locked in the barn so that hungry predators have a much harder chance of getting at them. The gateway separating the farmyard and the barn patio is about four feet wide.

This means that every single evening (usually before I get my dinner), 79 woolly creatures must be convinced to trot through this narrow opening. And every single evening a pack of baby lambs refuses to do just that, either because they simply haven't figured out The Nightly Plan or they're just too busy racing around having fun.

This is by far Bear's favorite part of the day. Once the majority of the sheep have been lured into the barn with a bale of hay, the two (or three, depending on if Joe has been roped into helping) of us spread out and attempt to move the babies and any straggling moms into the barn.

It feels a lot like you are in a life size version of one of those hand held games where you have to get all the little metal balls through some itty bitty opening—and inevitably there is always one stubborn ball that refuses to comply.

Unlike me, Bear never loses his patience. You won't catch him yelling, "Well you wouldn't be crying your head off for your mother if you hadn't run back out into the farmyard you little trouble maker!" or "Turn! Turn! TURN!"

No, at times like these, Bear is in his element. He gives me a patient smile that says, "We'll get this last one in, don't worry." And eventually of course we do. Then I tell Bear what a great job he did, and if he could stand up and give me a high five, I have no doubt that he would.

Bear knows that the sheep need to maintain a healthy respect for (and slight fear of) him, but he also knows that the baby lambs must learn early on that he is friend rather than foe.

Lambs are naturally curious, and so when they sneak over to check Bear out, he lays on his back with his paws in the air, as this puts him in the most submissive position. He lets the lambs sniff and inspect him all they want, and he never moves a muscle. And when they and their attentions wander away, he rolls back over, stands up, shakes himself off, and grins the biggest grin he possibly can.

Current Lamb Count: 39. Number of lazy, hungry farmgirls who ate their dinner (grilled homegrown, grass-fed, Angus T-bone steaks; warm and crusty pain au levain; and freshly picked spinach and mesclun salad) before tucking in the sheep tonight: 1. Number of stock dogs who didn't hold that against her: 1.

© FarmgirlFare.com

Daily Farm Photo 6/11/06: Baby Is Cary on the Job

Hay Inspector samples the harvest

There's a lot more hay in the barn than there was yesterday morning, but we're not done yet. There are 100+ bales still on the trailer, a large swath of cut hay laying out in the field, and two extremely weary hayers who slept in and are now racing the coming rainstorm. But the hay looks better than it has in years.

It even passed inspection.

A Year Of Daily Photos Ago: Cluck, Cluck, Cluck

© FarmgirlFare.com

Daily Farm Photo 3/3/06: Lamb Inspection

Skinny Chip checks out one of the little attention grabbers

© FarmgirlFare.com