Posts
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Store Opens on Etsy
Just a very short, quick blog today to announce the Grand Opening of my store on Etsy.com. Etsy.com is a storefront for homemade items only. I picked up my yarn at the fiber show last weekend and have put some of it in the store. Please stop by The Icelandic Shepherdess Store and let me know what you think! I'll be putting some roving out there as well, so check back!
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Beets are yummy!
When I attended the Michigan Fiber Festival last month, one of the Icelandic Sheep breeders recommended giving sheep beet pulp as a healthy treat . Well, it just so happens, I have beets in my garden the size of cantelopes, so I certainly have enough to share! Here is a picture of the half I didn't feed to them next to an apple just for perspective.
I ran chunks of the beet and some old grocery store carrots that were in the frig thru the grater in my food processor and made a big bowl of shredded beets/carrots. I took it out to the sheep and put it in the trough I use for grain. There were 4 or 5 of them that absolutely LOVED it! Bianca, the white sheep in the middle of this picture, was the most enthusiastic about their yummy treat. Her chin was all red when she finally came up for air.
Here you can see in the background the girls who didn't find the beets as appetizing.
The girls didn't quite finish it all ... there was a lot of it!! So I took the left overs to the lambs and they weren't as enthusiastic, but they did manage to finish what was left over the course of the day.
Beets are good for people too! And if you've only ever had a canned beet and think, "YUK!" then I encourage you to purchase a bunch of fresh beets in the produce department. Trim the tops, boil for 10 -15 minutes and enjoy. They are very sweet and butter tasting. I promise you will think differently about beets. I also like to top a toss salad with some raw grated beets.
I ran chunks of the beet and some old grocery store carrots that were in the frig thru the grater in my food processor and made a big bowl of shredded beets/carrots. I took it out to the sheep and put it in the trough I use for grain. There were 4 or 5 of them that absolutely LOVED it! Bianca, the white sheep in the middle of this picture, was the most enthusiastic about their yummy treat. Her chin was all red when she finally came up for air.
Here you can see in the background the girls who didn't find the beets as appetizing. 
The girls didn't quite finish it all ... there was a lot of it!! So I took the left overs to the lambs and they weren't as enthusiastic, but they did manage to finish what was left over the course of the day.
Beets are good for people too! And if you've only ever had a canned beet and think, "YUK!" then I encourage you to purchase a bunch of fresh beets in the produce department. Trim the tops, boil for 10 -15 minutes and enjoy. They are very sweet and butter tasting. I promise you will think differently about beets. I also like to top a toss salad with some raw grated beets. From The World's Healthiest Foods here are some of the benefits of beets:
These colorful root vegetables contain powerful nutrient compounds that help protect against heart disease, birth defects and certain cancers, especially colon cancer.
The pigment that gives beets their rich, purple-crimson color-betacyanin-is also a powerful cancer-fighting agent. Beets' potential effectiveness against colon cancer, in particular, has been demonstrated in several studies.
Helps reduce total cholesterol and triglycerides and increase HDL.Beets' Betaine Helps Lessen Inflammation
People whose diets supplied the highest average intake of choline (found in egg yolk and soybeans), and its metabolite betaine (found naturally in vegetables such as beets and spinach), have levels of inflammatory markers at least 20% lower than subjects with the lowest average intakes, report Greek researchers in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Detopoulou P, Panagiotakos DB, et al.)
Monday, September 7, 2009
Being A Mom
If you are a mom, you can probably remember the first day your child got on the school bus or the first day you left them at daycare and that feeling of "letting go." Well, I can tell you that none of the compares to the day your child drives off in his first vehicle. A feeling of complete and total helplessness.
Ben is starting college here locally tomorrow and will be commuting, so he needed to have a vehicle. We did some shopping on Craig's List last weekend and Monday we went out to see a couple of them. He fell in love with the first one he saw, but we looked at a couple others and "slept on it" that night. The next day we went back and made it his. It's a 1994 Ford Ranger with a new motor and transmission ... and a Pioneer stereo (and speakers) that allows you to plug your iPod into it. That was the clincher. For some unknown reason, he decided at the 11th hour of shopping that he wanted a manual transmission even though he's only ever driven one twice. Are you sure??! Ok.
So we drove to the BMV with the seller, got the title transferred and new tags. Then I followed him home in my car. We were about 50 miles from home and I don't think I was able to breath much of the trip. When I saw cars tailgating him, I wanted to drive up beside them and sideswipe them into the guardrail. They are being idiots with no clue that the guy in front of him has only been driving for 6 months and just bought his first vehicle 10 minutes ago. (So if you are reading this, please don't tailgate ... it might be my son or another new driver.)
As an aside, when we were at the BMV waiting in line for the tags, there was an older man there with a walker renewing his license. He couldn't hear the woman instructing him through his vision test. She was literally yelling at the top of her lungs so the man (and the rest of us) could hear her. Don't you think that people who drive should be able to not only see, but to hear as well? How will they know when there is an emergency vehicle approaching? How will they hear someone honk a horn if he's about to pull out and get hit? Just made me wonder.
So here is Ben modeling his new truck. Please keep him in your prayers.
So, Ben got his truck, Colton had to settle for new sneakers as his mode of transportation. We went last weekend to my favorite sneaker outlet store. I took him about 6 months ago and he'd grown from a size 12 to a size 13. He tried on a pair of 13's and they were too small!! I had him try on another brand in case they ran small ... nope. He wears size 14 shoes! Amazingly they did have a few pair in that size. They were having a buy one/get one 1/2 off, so we got two pair and did have to have the other one shipped from the warehouse. Ben's feet stopped at size 12 and he's about 6'1" , so I wonder if Colton is going to grow into his feet and be taller than Ben. Ha! Wouldn't that be the payback he's been waiting for for 14 years!! Here he is modeling the new sneakers.
Our other mode of transportation on the farm are tractors of all age, color and model. The older ones need to get "exercised" regularly to keep them running ... I won't make any comparisons to people here. So I was walking across the lawn and received my own personal parade ... Ben on the 1949 John Deere Model A (which is for sale by the way) ...
Preston on the 1940 John Deere Model B...
and Colton on the 4-wheeler (ya, I know it's not a tractor, but it goes a whole lot faster!)
On the topic of farm equipment, Preston gave the hay baler a complete overhaul, replacing worn parts and fine tuning moving parts. He cut one pass of hay a few days ago and we baled 10 bales yesterday just to be sure it was working properly. It did well and sounded a whole lot better. So now I'm back to my watching for a 4-5 day stretch with no rain.
Ben is starting college here locally tomorrow and will be commuting, so he needed to have a vehicle. We did some shopping on Craig's List last weekend and Monday we went out to see a couple of them. He fell in love with the first one he saw, but we looked at a couple others and "slept on it" that night. The next day we went back and made it his. It's a 1994 Ford Ranger with a new motor and transmission ... and a Pioneer stereo (and speakers) that allows you to plug your iPod into it. That was the clincher. For some unknown reason, he decided at the 11th hour of shopping that he wanted a manual transmission even though he's only ever driven one twice. Are you sure??! Ok.
So we drove to the BMV with the seller, got the title transferred and new tags. Then I followed him home in my car. We were about 50 miles from home and I don't think I was able to breath much of the trip. When I saw cars tailgating him, I wanted to drive up beside them and sideswipe them into the guardrail. They are being idiots with no clue that the guy in front of him has only been driving for 6 months and just bought his first vehicle 10 minutes ago. (So if you are reading this, please don't tailgate ... it might be my son or another new driver.)
As an aside, when we were at the BMV waiting in line for the tags, there was an older man there with a walker renewing his license. He couldn't hear the woman instructing him through his vision test. She was literally yelling at the top of her lungs so the man (and the rest of us) could hear her. Don't you think that people who drive should be able to not only see, but to hear as well? How will they know when there is an emergency vehicle approaching? How will they hear someone honk a horn if he's about to pull out and get hit? Just made me wonder.
So here is Ben modeling his new truck. Please keep him in your prayers.
So, Ben got his truck, Colton had to settle for new sneakers as his mode of transportation. We went last weekend to my favorite sneaker outlet store. I took him about 6 months ago and he'd grown from a size 12 to a size 13. He tried on a pair of 13's and they were too small!! I had him try on another brand in case they ran small ... nope. He wears size 14 shoes! Amazingly they did have a few pair in that size. They were having a buy one/get one 1/2 off, so we got two pair and did have to have the other one shipped from the warehouse. Ben's feet stopped at size 12 and he's about 6'1" , so I wonder if Colton is going to grow into his feet and be taller than Ben. Ha! Wouldn't that be the payback he's been waiting for for 14 years!! Here he is modeling the new sneakers.
Our other mode of transportation on the farm are tractors of all age, color and model. The older ones need to get "exercised" regularly to keep them running ... I won't make any comparisons to people here. So I was walking across the lawn and received my own personal parade ... Ben on the 1949 John Deere Model A (which is for sale by the way) ...
Preston on the 1940 John Deere Model B...
and Colton on the 4-wheeler (ya, I know it's not a tractor, but it goes a whole lot faster!)
On the topic of farm equipment, Preston gave the hay baler a complete overhaul, replacing worn parts and fine tuning moving parts. He cut one pass of hay a few days ago and we baled 10 bales yesterday just to be sure it was working properly. It did well and sounded a whole lot better. So now I'm back to my watching for a 4-5 day stretch with no rain.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)