Hello and thanks for stopping by for the word of the week.
This week our word is mudpuppy. According to the website Active Wild (linked below) the common mudpuppy is a large salamander found in North America. A few interesting facts about the common mudpuppy are:
It is also called a waterdog.
It lives in fresh water including ponds, streams, lakes, rivers and canals.
Unlike most amphibians it never loses it’s gills.
Upon reaching adulthood it continues to live in the water.
They are mostly active at night and they do not hibernate during the winter.
They are carnivorous and will eat just about anything they can catch including insects. larvae, worms, mollusks, small fish and their eggs, other smaller amphibians and spiders.
They can be preyed upon by large fish, crayfish, turtles, water snakes, and the North American river otter.
For pictures and more information check out the below article.
I have never actually seen a common mudpuppy though there is a chance that they may live in our pond.
I have however seen what we will call an uncommon mudpuppy. This uncommon mudpuppy does not have gills, and while he might visit fresh water sources he lives on land. He is very active during the day and prefers to sleep at night. He doesn’t hibernate during the winter but is most recognized (as a mudpuppy) during the spring.
We have had very spring-like weather this week – so much so that I did some work in the garden. As far a I can remember this is the earliest in the year that I have worked in the garden.
Thyme
After pruning last year’s dead foliage off some of the plants and raking dead leaves from their winter resting place I discover that the thyme is growing green leaves
Oregano
as is the oregano
Sage
and the sage.
It’s not only the herbs that are coming back to life. I also spotted dandelions, winter cress and some other UIP’s (unidentified invasive plants) which means that before long the weeding will commence.
In addition to my work in the prayer garden my husband fluffed up the straw mulch in the garlic bed in order to assist the shoots that are beginning to emerge from the ground. We also raked out the straw that was blanketing the strawberry bed and discovered bright green leaves forming on the strawberry plants.
The chickens have been loving this weather. They spend most of their days out scratching and pecking finding bugs and grubs and bits of green vegetation. They did however think that seeing me or walking towards their coop was their cue to fall in line.
Others came running to greet me.
I didn’t have any treats or table scraps for them but they were satisfied when I scattered some scratch on the ground for them.
I then went on to gather eggs – a full dozen that day. 🙂
We have come a long way since December when we were getting one egg every three or four days. In November our flock went through a late season molt. I didn’t take any pictures of the molting hens because they looked so pitiful with their half naked bodies and new feathers poking though their skin that I felt sorry for them. Molting takes so much energy from the hens that they stop laying during that time. It was some time in early January when egg production gradually began to pick up again.
In December, for first time in 5 or 6 years, I ran out of eggs. Thankfully in the spring of 2020 my sister and her husband started their own flock and by fall their hens were laying well. Chickens don’t molt their first year so they did not experience the egg drought like we did.
It was strange a strange feeling, and we had a good laugh, the day I called my sister and asked “do you have eggs?” The tables had turned. For many years she had been calling me every couple weeks and asking “do you have eggs?” I couldn’t have been happier when she replied “how many do you want.” 🙂
It is time to consider adding to our flock so that our egg supply will continue through this upcoming winter. Perhaps rather than buy chicks we will allow a hen or two to brood some chicks. I’ll let you know what we decide.
I like the word conundrum because not only is the word fun to say (or maybe I’m just a little weird eccentric) the definition, a riddle, pun or puzzle, can be fun as well.
Here are a couple examples:
1. A poor old farmer had three roosters. One was a beautiful, robust, golden color, Buff Orpington; the second a prize winning Rhode Island Red; and the third an scrawny old leghorn.
Which one laid the golden egg?
2. If a plane crashed on the boarder of Canada and the USA where would they bury the survivors?
(answers at the end of this post)
Currently we are dealing with a bit of a conundrum in that the dog eats the cat food and the cat eats the dog food. It is a puzzling problem but we haven’t considered this too big of a problem since they do not fight over the food, none of them gotten sick, and they all seem to get enough to eat. I told my husband I will worry about it if the cat starts barking or the dog starts meowing. LOL!
Do you have a conundrum you would like to share? (go ahead make me laugh) Did you get the answer to my two examples?
Answers: 1. None of them – because roosters don’t lay eggs. 2. They wouldn’t bury survivors (those are the people who live). 🤣
I was looking for a bunny hot pad pattern when I came across this Easter basket pattern. It seemed simple enough so I decided to give it a go. They did work up very quickly. I think these will be just the right size to fill with Easter treats for the grandkids. I added the color trim on the ears to differentiate between Jackson’s and Addy’s.
It’s been a couple weeks since I finished my second big winter project. I have just been negligent in blogging about it. This project is a rag quilt that I made for our bed.
This quilt was more involved than the t-shirt quilt I made for my daughter because for her quilt she supplied the t-shirts and selected the flannel that it would be backed with. Also our bed is queen size so this quilt is larger than the one I made for her.
For our quilt I started with selecting the materials. It took several trips to the fabric shop before I had all that I would need. Our bedroom is done in blues and browns so I decided to stick with (mostly)those colors.
Fabric for quilt topside
Fabric for quilt underside
One of the reasons it took so many trips to the fabric store is because I didn’t really have a plan. So I took so measurements then drew it out on graph paper.
I decided to do an on-point design (the squares line up on a diagonal) and to use 12 inch squares. Once I knew how many squares I would need, 72 squares for each layer, I finished buying fabric. The quilt would be three layers but for the middle layer I planned on using an old flannel sheet set that I had so I only needed to buy enough fabric for the top layer and underside.
It wasn’t until I had purchased all of my fabric that I added the colors to this chart determining the actual pattern. This project actually involved a lot of math. You’ll notice some of the squares have different colors in them, these were changes that I made in the design and the inner most color was the correct one.
This chart was my road map throughout the cutting and sewing process. I would have been lost without it.
When cutting the fabric I layered the three fabrics together then made my cuts.
After I had all 72 squares (x three layers) cut it was time to start sewing. I sewed the layers together by stitching and X across each square.
Then I began piecing and sewing the rows together according to my chart.
In the above photo I was almost at the halfway point.
When the sewing was finished (above) it was time to start clipping the edges as in the photo below.
Clipping the edges was probably the longest part of the project with most of the edges having six layers of fabric to clip through (the outside edges had three layers) but the task was made a bit easier by using these small snip-type scissors that I purchased on one of my trips to the fabric store.
Once all of the clipping was finished it was time to wash and dry. This causes the edges to ruffle. While the quilt was drying I stopped the dryer every 15 minutes to empty the lint filter. The first few times it definitely needed to be emptied. There was less lint the last couple of times I emptied it but still enough to clean it out.
I’m very pleased with how it turned out and my husband was wowed. He has commented several times on how much he likes it and how warm it is. 🙂
I like the design on the underside as well so reversing the quilt is always an option.
Don't Eat It! Soap and Skin Care 