Hummingbird Cake

  I made this cake last weekend (for Memorial Day I told myself). I got the recipe out of a book called "Derrick Delights".
   It didn't say what size pans to use. I used 8'' pans and took about 35 to 40 minutes instead of the 25 to 30 it said it would, so I'm guessing I was supposed to use 9''. Oh well, it's not like I have three 9" cake pans anyway. It also didn't have a recipe for the cream cheese frosting, so I used the one from my favorite Italian Cream Cake recipe. There is a printer friendly version at the end. I hope it works. It's my first time trying to make one.

                                                       Hummingbird Cake

3 cups flour                            1 cup salad oil
2 cups sugar                           1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. salt                               1 8 1/4oz. can crushed pineapple. (I used heavy syrup. 8oz. works fine)   
1 tsp. cinnamon                     1 cup chopped pecans
1 tsp. baking soda                  2 diced bananas
3 eggs


  Combine dry ingredients . Mix with eggs and oil until well moistened. Do not overbeat. Stir in vanilla, pineapple (I put the juice in too), pecans, and bananas (feel free to mush some of the bananas into the batter). Pour batter into 3 well greased and floured 9" cake pans and bake for 25 to 30 minutes at 350. Cool in cake pans 10 minutes. Remove and cool on rack thoroughly. (Be sure to do this or your cake may be too moist.)


I never liked cream cheese frosting until I started using 33% less fat Neufchatel cheese. It was too rich. I'd often get sick eating it. I was a little leery of trying it low fat cream cheese at first. Low fat, low taste, right? But this stuff is fantastic! I like to buy several packs when it goes on sale and leave them in the freezer until I want to use it. If you're going to make it into frosting you have to be sure it is completely thawed or else it won't fluff properly, but other than that it work out great. 

                  

                                                     Cream Cheese frosting

1 8oz package cream cheese              1 cup chopped pecans
1 stick butter                                       1 cup flaked coconut 
1 box powder sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Beat cream cheese and butter. Add powder sugar (a little at a time until desired taste and consistency are reached). Mix in vanilla. Stir in pecans and coconut. Spread on cooled cake.

Printer friendly version here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H92O7DRSAtbW2g5FVsGpCW6T-Z0b-QJjehTTMiBBgmc/edit?usp=sharing

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Gigantic snake

  "It looks like some Mockers are fighting a Blue Jay in the front yard." Mom said last Tuesday afternoon as she looked out the front window. "Oh, two Blue Jays."
   I looked out the window to see five Mockingbirds and two Blue Jays screaming and dive bombing something next to the front steps. I see a flash of white and ice formed in my stomach. Hoping I'm wrong I grab the binoculars we keep by the window for bird watching. "Shit, there's a huge snake there." (there were a lot of swears in there originally)
  "I'll go get the shovel." I shout running out the back door. I'd like to be able to say my thoughts, as I ran full out to the barn were of the danger the snake posed to the chicks or that crazy cat Blaze who had been stalking up to the snake, her tail twitching with annoyance, but for the most part my thoughts were just a hysterical repetition of 'Snake!' and 'Shovel! Get the shovel.' I'm not good with snakes, they scare the daylights out of me.
   It was over six foot long! I looked it up in 'Texas Snakes: a field guide' by James R. Dixon and John E. Werler, (it was the first snake I've looked up that looked exactly like the pictures.) It was a Rat Snake which makes sense since according to the book their favorite foods are birds and their eggs and they often climb trees to eat them.
   That's a terrifying thought, finding a snake that size right at home slithering around in a tree, especially with some of the trees needing trimming. This snake might have just finished raiding a nest. So, if you see a bunch of birds causing a ruckus in your yard it might be a snake and a giant one at that.      
 
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Three little hatchlings

   As you might have guessed from the title of this post three of the eggs hatched. We might have had four, but the first little chick fell out of the nest at some point after we checked that day and Mohawk hopped out to sit on her (hopefully a her), and apparently it long enough between her hopping off and mom and me checking on them for the other chick, who had only chipped a small hole in her egg, to catch a draft, because she didn't make it out of the egg.

  3 out of 8 isn't the best results, but we were a little haphazard about putting eggs under Mohawk. Truthfully, we didn't think she'd see it all the way through. So, we ended up with eggs due to hatch a week apart. Oops. And we probably shouldn't have left her in the henhouse. Next time were going to be more careful, put all the eggs under her one day, and move her to the brooder house that day.

  But on a lighter note These are some cute chicks. As you can see two of them are black with white/pale yellow spots. The larger one is the oldest who we are calling handful. She barely has any white on her, just a triangular bib and a white butt. She runs circles around Mohawk and likes to sit on her back, sometimes she hitches a ride on Mohawk's back when she is walking around.

  The little brown one (we call her a calico) is the second hatched. She came out of a blue egg so she is one of the Ameraucana girl's. She is more sedate and if you look closely looks like Grandpa Munster or a opossum. We call her Grandma Munster and sometime 'possum. She only sits on Mohawk when she's sitting down so; far hence the more sedate.


  The youngest has the most white on her and has those cute fluffy Ameraucana cheeks; which makes her head look gigantic. She hatched last Saturday and seems kind of slow, but that's probably because we're comparing her to chicks that are much older. So far we're calling her 'little bit'.

Mohawk did not like the camera one bit, and ended up attacking it. By the way Bats Bizarre is having a Memorial Day sale. Use coupon code MEMORIALDAY for 10% off your purchase. Discount  doesn't include shipping cost.
     
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Getting your flock though a sizzling summer

    It's summer which means thermometers around the country are hitting the ninety degree marks. (and higher.) So I thought for today I'd talk about ways to help your chickens beat the summer heat.  
  Two years ago we last nearly half our flock within three days to heat stroke. We developed a cooling regimen and after implementing it didn't lose a single hen. It's pretty much the same thing other people are advising, but the more people talk about it the easier it is for people to find this life saving advice. So here's what Mom and I do when the temperature rises into the 90s and above.

  The first part of the process is: ice. Lots of ice. 
-Put ice cubes in their water.
-Hang plastic grocery bags filled with ice in your chicken house. Especially around the nest boxes.
-Save your empty milk cartons. Fill about half way with water, leave in freezer until completely frozen, and place in chicken house.
-Put those ice pack you get with some coolers in your chicken house.

Water
-Make sure they have lots of water. Some people advise putting electrolytes in their water, too.
-Spray your chicken house and the area around it with water.
-If one of them looks very distressed, wet its feet. Doing that actually saved one of the girls.

Cooling stations
-Put boards, we used 1/2 plywood, at an angle against your chicken house so your chickens can get in the shade and still catch a breeze.
-Spray the plywood and the dirt under it with water.
-Scatter ice under the boards.

Treats
-Give them frozen bread
-Freeze kitchen scraps the night before.  

Check them often. Especially in the hottest part of the day.

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