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I brought home some ‘ready mixes’ from the shop last night – crumble, sponge, and cookie mixes, you know, the sort you add an egg or some milk to and hey presto you get something delicious after a few minutes. While tea was in the oven David decided he wanted to make the choc chip cookies up.
He seems to have a genuine interest in cooking, always telling us what he is due to make in Home Economics in school, so I prepared the ingredients he needed and let him weigh out the butter and explained the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon to him. For about 80p we got 8 rather large choc chip cookies out at the end of it, with an oven that was already on for our food. That’s not bad huh? He was mighty proud of himself as he allocated each of us two cookies! Yes, I know we should be making these things from scratch, but with the box being less than a pound and us only having a certain amount of time in the evening, it is much better to go down this route. Plus, the simpler and quicker it is, the more likely we are to keep the children focused on the job in hand.
Jessica’s turn this evening. I bet she picks the chocolate muffins to make rather than the sponge!
Just a quick follow up on the whole “cleaning the chickens out over the weekend” malarkey. Iain very kindly donated most of his Sunday to helping me after my start on Saturday. We cleaned out the new chicks (which are quite a lot larger now), letting them join the main population now. They kept very much to themselves in the enclosed run, preferring to hide behind the feed bins rather than stretching their wings in the big outdoors.
We then cleaned out the guinea pigs who have had a 6 foot long run outside most of this year. I tend to think they would do ok outside over the winter too but erring on the side of caution we moved them into the normal cage and have them now in the garage. They will have more company there as the children are in and out of the garage all the time. So far they have paid more attention to the poor gps in those few days than they have in the past 6 months!
With two cages/runs now empty in the enclosed area our intention was to save space by doubling them up. We then noticed that there seem to be two distinct groups of chickens. The originals plus a couple of hand picked others, and then the two we got at the last fair and all the new chicks. The second group do not go anywhere near the nest boxes in the shed, preferring to stay outside at night. They have taken over the space created by the two cages and seem quite happy to brave the cold. It is said that they don’t mind cold but don’t like drafts. This run is more or less enclosed on all four sides and as I don’t force them to stay out they must find the accommodation to their liking!
And to finish off this tale, I found three bread crates abandoned in a car park a few months ago. I knew I would find a use for them sometime so hung on to them. We have now added them like nest boxes to the ‘shelves’ of the cages. You need to see the photo to work out what I mean. So far they have also been a big hit with the ‘outsiders.’
I do have an update on the red mite problem. I’ll post about it tomorrow. . .