Vintage Home and Farm

Just the other day we finally determined that all three of our ducks are males, and as fortune would have it, my incredibly resourceful husband then came across an ad on Craigslist for three free female ducks. He was the first to call about them. Yay! Yesterday I brought the new ducks home and put them in our chicken run.  All three are black runner ducks.  I'm still in awe over how quickly we ended up with female ducks! And that there are three of them to join up with the three boys!  The male fawn runner duck has shown great interest in the three females. Normally the three male ducks stick close together all day long.  I've noticed the fawn runner duck breaking apart from the boys to go over and check out the girls. Shall we play a little  Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On ? Adding the three girl ducks into the fold was easy-peasy.  There was no fuss whatsoever. I was amazed that the chickens seem okay with the addition to the flock. Perhaps the fact that there were three jo

Determining the gender of our ducks has had us confused for some time.  Today we finally managed to settle the matter.  But before I go further, I should explain how it is we came to have ducks with unknown genders.   Right after the Covid pandemic began shutting things down in the early spring, we decided to expand our flock of chickens and try raising ducks. But there was so much interest in raising poultry at that time that we had a hard time finding any. We ended up with "straight run" Khaki Campbell and Runner ducks.  Straight run means that the ducks come just as hatched and the gender of the ducks is unknown.  We went home from the nursery with four ducklings and figured that among those at least one would be female and would provide us with duck eggs. It seemed a reasonable assumption. Sadly, shortly after arriving home with the ducklings, we noticed one of them didn't look so good. It was too quiet and still and it passed away the very next morning.  We called th

We almost forgot to plant the garlic! October is the month when garlic goes into the ground and then it is harvested sometime around June or July, depending on your garden zone and how well the garlic is growing in your location.  Last year, our friends Dan and Debbie gave us several heads of garlic from their garden to get us started along with instructions on what to do.  Thanks to their contribution, the garlic did fantastic in our garden.   After harvesting our garlic, we learned that the little "bulbils" that grow on the top of the garlic scape (inside the flower) can be planted as well.  So this year we are going to try planting bulbils as well as full cloves of garlic. Most people only ever plant fully mature garlic cloves, which are the cloves that we normally eat.  Each garlic clove will yield a whole new head of garlic at the end of the growing season.  The little bulbils that are in the flower at the top of the plant can be cultivated as well, but these little bulb

If you love lemons, then you will surely enjoy this green tomato pie recipe. My mom and I came across the concept of green tomato pie back in the mid-1980s, when I began baking as a teenager and discovered a knack for pies. Who knew unripe tomatoes (also knows as green tomatoes) could be used in a sweet pie?  I was fascinated by the concept and have been evolving our recipe for green tomato pie ever since. Now that we have a garden every year and there's an abundance of tomatoes that will never ripen before the season ends, we're more determined than ever to find ways to use up green tomatoes.  Green tomato salsa (salsa verde) is another option.  But while there are unripe tomatoes, there must be a sweet green tomato pie on our table at some point in the fall. You can use any variety of unripe tomatoes that you have in the garden. The tomatoes that we grew this year were mostly Roma, and unfortunately they were rather small.  Also, any size of green tomatoes works just fine in

See eight rooms featuring knotty pine walls with white trim inside this unique home. In this e-book, you'll have the opportunity to peek inside a vintage Cape Cod house before, during and after renovation, as the family restored the home to its former glory. Only available on Amazon (for just a couple dollars),  click to download your copy  (for easily reading on iOS, Android, Mac, and PC using the  free Kindle app ).  See the book on Amazon .   Beautifully told story of a house coming to life by caring new owners. This House with Knotty Pine is so lucky to have a second chance at life, and to not have been painted over. When the family first began decorating this home that featured knotty pine walls with white trim, they searched and searched online to find photos of similar homes.  They weren't sure how to go about adding furniture, what fabric choices were best, and whether or not the house would look dark and gloomy with all their belongings in it. As they scoured the inter