Avery the Escape Artist

Ian and I often discuss whether we think Avery is bored of living in her terrarium and if she has hobbies.  While the jury is out on our chameleon's boredom level, we have ascertained that she has at least one preferred hobby - trying to escape.  Avery will go weeks where she will look very content in her terrarium; she'll bask in the heat lamp, climb in the vines and generally look happy and healthy.  But every once and a while, it must be scheduled in her chameleon date book, that today is "Escape Attempt Day".  Yesterday was one of those days.  

In the morning, Avery tried to escape by digging her way out of the bottom left hand corner of the glass terrarium.  No luck.

At lunch, she attempted to climb out through the wire mesh at the top of the terrarium.  Again, not much success.

In the afternoon, she worked at pushing the locked door of the terrarium open in order to make her escape.  Unfortunately, no go on this front either.

Can you see Avery at the very top of the ficus tree?

Sometimes I do let Avery out (much to Ian's chagrin) to climb up the indoor ficus tree next to her terrarium; however, I have learned from experience that it is not a good idea to do this when she is in "escape mode".

Avery is escaping!  Uh oh!

When Avery is focused on escaping she isn't content to look out the window from the top of the ficus (which is what she usually does) but instead tries to run away across my office carpet (to some mysterious chameleon paradise, I suppose).  Chasing a runaway chameleon is a bit stressful, so after doing it once, I have not made that mistake again.

As such, Avery was destined to remain in her terrarium yesterday despite her valiant attempts otherwise.  Hopefully, today she focuses on a new hobby - Jedi mind tricks, perhaps?

Recipe: Ian's Steel Shot Stew

Ingredients:

6 goose legs
2 carrots
2 potatoes
1 sweet potato
2 stalks celery
1 large onion
3 cloves garlic (diced)
1 jar canned tomatoes
15 cherry tomatoes (optional)
10 brussel sprouts (optional)
corn nibblets or green peas (from freezer)
4 cups broth (turkey, beef, chicken or veggie)
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon rosemary
1/2 teaspoon thyme
3 bay leaves
salt (or fish sauce) and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Peel and chop all veggies into bite size pieces.  Put all of the ingredients into the slow cooker with the meat and carrots on the bottom and the sweet potato on the top.  Fill with broth until all the veggies and meat are covered.  Cook on low for several hours until the goose meat falls off the bone.  Add peas or corn during the last half hour so as to not overcook.

Beginning.

Middle.

End.

Notes:  

We use goose legs right out of the freezer.  There is no need to thaw but it means the stew must cook longer.  If you don't have goose meat, you could substitute stewing beef.

Feel free to replace or substitute any veggies or spices to suit your family's tastes.  We often use leftover garden veggies and whatever homemade broth we have in the freezer.

Be sure to feed all veggie scraps to your chickens or save them for ours!  They love fresh veggie scraps.

Helpful Hints:

This makes a hearty, delicious and healthy meal.  Best of all - it is super easy.  The only caveat is that when using wild meat, you must be careful not to chomp down on any rogue steel shot as doing so might mean an emergency trip to the dentist!

My Dog Ate My...Lottery Ticket?!

When you were in school, did you ever use the excuse: "my dog ate my homework"?   I never did, but apparently I should have!

Our miniature schnauzer, Emily, has the unusual (and annoying) habit of chewing on paper.  You name it - kleenex (she prefers used ones), receipts, sticky notes, grocery lists - she's not picky.  Whatever paper she can get in her mouth, she'll chew up into mushy little chunks.  Normally she only attacks paper that is near floor level - the contents of bathroom garbage bins are fair game, the paper recycling box in Ian's office, notes that have fallen off the fridge etc.  Yesterday, she went above and beyond, climbing onto the living room coffee table to secure her biggest coup yet - Ian's Christmas lottery ticket from Grandma.  Sorry, Ian's winning Christmas lottery ticket from Grandma.  By the time we realized what was happening the crime scene looked something like this...

And the culprit (as if we didn't know who did it) further cemented her guilt by having remnants of the winning Bingo ticket stuck in her eyebrows and beard.  But how can you get mad at a face like this?

Luckily, Ian's winnings were only $3 and not a million or that would have really sucked seeing as Em chewed off the part of the ticket with the bar code needed to redeem his winnings.  However, Ian was quick to point out that $3 is enough to buy a new fishing lure and consequently Emily now owes him a lure.  I hope Ian is prepared to be paid in snuggles, cuddles and licks instead because I think the odds of Emily heading to Canadian Tire to get Papa a lure are slim to none.  

Now thanks to the Gael Glen Farm version of Myth Busters, we know it is possible - if a dog can eat your winning lottery ticket, I am positive she can also eat your homework!

Sherlock Holmes Investigates the Pond

With a bit of a thaw over the last few days, we began to wonder what was going on with our koi pond.  We could see only one soft spot in the ice from the pond heater where there should have been two.  Until this point, we suspected that the second pond heater was just covered under the thick layer of snow we had received, but when we could easily see one heater but not the other, I began to get suspicious.  I sent Sherlock Holmes, aka Ian, to investigate.

Detective Ian beginning his investigation.

The pond is deep enough not to freeze completely; it is about four feet at its deepest, which gives the fish room to swim around throughout the winter.  However, in order to help the koi fish make it through several months of subzero temperatures alive, we use two 100 watt pond heaters from November through to April to keep a section of the pond's surface from freezing over completely. This is to allow gas exchange;  otherwise, the CO2 from the fish and frogs' breathing and the breakdown of organic matter like old lillypads and autumn leaves creates something close to an anoxic environment where oxygen breathing creatures struggle to survive.

While some casualties are inevitable - last year we lost at least seven frogs and a few fish - I started to get worried when it looked like only one heater was working and I saw some dead fish floating around the hole.  Due to the size of the pond, two heaters are recommended, so it was time to figure out what going on.

Only one hole with some dead fish floating at the surface.

Detective Ian started by shoveling the snow off the surface of the pond and quickly figured out the problem.  Only one of the heaters was plugged in!  It looks like when the heater froze in the water, it managed to get pulled right out of the outlet and consequently stopped working.

Ian shoveling off the pond to see what was going on down there under all the snow.

A slushy mess of pond heaters and dead fish.

Unplugged?!

 This was a relatively easy fix.  While the cord wouldn't reach the outlet, we used an outdoor extension cord to make up the last few inches and voila! With everything plugged back in and a few more days of above zero temperatures, both heaters are back in prime working condition.  Sherlock Holmes solves another farm related mystery!

It was 8:15pm and I hadn't caught anything yet...

Ian here with a fishing report!

The Shack out in the foggy abyss

It was a slushy/wet evening out there.  The walk out to the shack was fraught with possible soakers as the water and slush was pretty well all the way up to the top of the rubber portion of my Sorel Boots.  Walked out carefully figuring if I got my feet wet it would make an uncomfortable night.  Lots of ice, so no issue with safety but I was in my trusty floater jacket just in case.  After a few hours of nothing but a dinky perch, I had complained to a few people by phone that I was skunking it up big time.  My fire was starting to go out and I wasn't going to put anything else into the stove.  I was disappointed.

I was on the phone with my buddy in Cornwall when one of my tip-ups lit up.  I went out with the phone, told him it was a biggie, I landed it (it was hooked perfectly), and then went into the shack and saw a slight tug on my pickerel rig..  Whammo, reeled 'er in and landed another fish.  LING!

It all happened within 15 minutes and kept my streak of no skunks in 2013 alive.

17 inch fish!

One real nice 17" walleye and a 15-16" ling (not pictured).  The walleye actually was just like the ones we get in Thunder Bay -- I was thrilled.

Also, biggest walleye I've caught in the last 2-3 years I think from the Ottawa river.

More to come!

Ready for the Fish Crisp

Ian at home just before cleaning mr walleye

Blue Eggs

We have had a surplus of blue eggs on the Farm this week.  Unfortunately no robins' eggs yet - spring isn't quite here but instead we have blue eggs from our Ameraucana hens and from Kate, our half blind Indian Runner Duck.

Blue egg.

Different breeds of chickens lay different coloured eggs.  When we purchased our one day old chicks in the spring of 2011, I made sure to choose poultry varieties that lay uniquely coloured eggs.  No boring white eggs here at Gael Glen Farm!

One of the breeds of chicken we keep here on the Farm is Ameraucana chickens, sometimes called Easter Egg chickens, which hail originally from South America.  Our Ameraucana hens are straw coloured, easily identifiable by their ear muffs and beards in the facial area and, as I'm sure you've already guessed, lay eggs with slightly blue-coloured shells.

Ameraucana hen.

Kate the Indian Runner Duck.

 Female Indian Runner Ducks also lay eggs with a blueish shell.  Our duck, Kate, is a finicky layer.  She lays every day for a few weeks, then stops, then starts again.  She hasn't laid an egg since the summer time but, low and behold, she started laying eggs again two days ago.  Kate's eggs are distinguishable from the blue chicken eggs because they are a slightly different shape - more cylindrical then egg shaped - and their shell has a smoother, almost satiny, feel compared to a hen's egg.  Another clue is that Kate does not lay her eggs in the nests, she always lays on the floor of the coop, usually in the same spot each day.

Kate's egg laying spot on the floor of the coop.

Duck egg (left) vs. Chicken egg (right).

Duck and chicken eggs are slightly different inside the shell too; though if you were fed a duck egg and weren't told that was what you were eating, I bet you wouldn't pick up on the difference.  Duck eggs have a larger yolk than chicken eggs and less, though thicker, egg white.  Duck yolks are also creamier than chicken yolks.  My Mom loves to use duck eggs when making soft boiled eggs for breakfast since there is so much delicious yolk to dip her toast into.

Duck egg (bottom) vs. Chicken egg (top).

We're glad Kate has decided to start laying eggs again.  We're not sure exactly why (I think it might be the increasing amounts of day light) but we won't look a gift horse in the mouth, or a blind duck in the hoo ha, as it were!

Snail Deterrence = Epic Fail

There are a few things you should know about our Betta fish, Theodore.  First of all, he lives by himself in a tall fish tank in Ian's office.  He is not a neighbourly fish and likes his solitude so he can run his tank by his rules.

Theodore in his tank.

Second, Theodore's favourite times of the day are feeding time when he gets five to seven floating Betta fish pellets and anytime I come to visit him.  I know this because he always swims towards me when I talk to him and wags his tail happily.

Theodore.

Lastly, Theodore is quite the comedian; though, I don't think he means to be. Theodore's comic tendencies stem from the fact that he HATES snails - with a vengeance   While Theodore's tank is free from other fish, there are approximately seven tiny snails that inhabit the space with him.  They pre-date Theodore's arrival to the tank but that doesn't seem to matter a lick to Theodore.  He still absolutely hates them.  

The snails are tiny.

Ian and I were chatting in his office the other day when I noticed that Theodore was especially agitated.  It seems that two snails had crawled part way up the tank walls and he was not pleased about it.  He had got himself all worked up and was doing his darndest to scare the snails down to the bottom of the tank where he had decided that they belong.  

When Betta fish get angry they "flare".  That is to say, they push their gills out into the water from inside their gill slits (where they normally are) to form a sort of lion's mane around their face.  This is supposed to make them look scary.  Then the Betta fish charges whatever is annoying them.  You can usually make them do this by showing them their reflection in a mirror.  But in this case, it was very clear that Theodore's irritation was directed at the snails. 

Betta fish flaring.

Poor Theodore seemed a bit overwhelmed though; I think perhaps two snails was too much for him to handle all at once.  He was all flared up and would dive bomb one snail and then regroup and then dive bomb the other snail and then repeat over and over and over.  Sadly for him, neither snail paid him the least bit of attention.  They just slimed along the wall on their merry way.  Don't tell Theodore but it was hilarious.  The poor fish kept up his offensive attack for a good 10 minutes until I think he was completely exhausted and absolutely no further ahead.  Can't we all just get along?