B.Y.O.C

The whole of last week was spent in Athens, GA. A fantastic college town that has too many people and too much sprawl. This was my second trip to the Georgia Poultry Institute. Yep a week of chickens. Luckily this wasn't a Bring Your Own Chicken week, they are provided for you. Mine was not a local but a grubby little layer from a producer. It made me miss my work chickens, who like their in-house chickens are big for layers (all the good grub they can eat) and just a mass of soft white feathers. Trust me all birds are the same about their feathers, from parakeets to dirty little chickens, they want to PREEEEEEEEEN.
Of course the week before my outing, which is work but I'm not doing any work, we had a seriously early, seriously annoying snow.

I mean it was Beautiful but it was a major pain. Though I live atop a large hill and drive a small small car, I was the only one to get to work that day. Which lead to a little grumpy from me when I discovered an incubator full of unlabeled samples and undone work. I did not come to work until noon the next day. This lead us right into Thanksgiving, and then my weekend of work and Georgia. I feel like November has been a strange strange trip. Did I fail to mention the downed power pole, oh I did. The week before the snow storm we had a wind storm. It toppled the main power pole for our 50 year old building, and thrust us into the mid 18th century. We ran on generator power for a week while the powers that be refused to pay. Really, how long do you have to pee in the dark before you just give up and go home. The answer is, one week, because not only did we have snow and ice the next week we also had a full septic tank and couldn't use the "system". Tell that to the preggo girl at work. But enough.....

Today was dedicated to doing fun stuff. A Harry Potter movie marathon sucked my whole day yesterday. After hitting the grocery for apples, pears and these lovelies, I set about making butters! Maple apple-pear butter for gifts and spiced persimmon butter for me. I added limited water to the persimmon and allowed them to brown a little in the pan, then added some water and blended using the stick blender. I believe that I might try to roast some apples and pears to make butter next time. While the giant canning pot came to a boil I pulled the xmas decorations from the whole in under the house, and braved the second highest rung on the ladder for lights. Which look fantastic (no they really look like someone in their yoga pants and slippers put them up, because they did).

Mom and I went to get a little dinner on Saturday night, while dad was out hunting and Hub was relaxing on the sofa watching the Apple Cup. This was sitting there just waiting to be photographed. For non-NW'ners this is a dancing clam costume, check it out

Keep Clam