the new additions have arrived!

and i don't mean beans.
it is still too cold to plant any of my beans, my tomatoes, or my dill.
but it is giving my time to get the beds in even better order.

i've been on the hunt for dandelions and pulled quite a few out that were larger than heads of lettuce you'd find in the grocery store! they also appear to harbor slugs at alarming rates (and worms, oddly enough), so i'd better pick up some cheap beer and drown the fuckers.

the new chickens arrived: heloise & beulah are rhode island reds—adorable little redhead chickens; odette and isolde are gold-laced wyandottes, i.e., black & tan fluffballs. i love their colors. heloise is the noisiest, continually peeping, chasing the banty's and trying to peck their fluffy toes. the grown chickens make the newcomers look like absolutely tiny fluffballs.

the other night i attempted to make whipped cream with left over half and half, which failed and now i am trying to turn it into impromptu milk-eis, like cheap ice cream, by freezing it and blending it a few times throughout the proccess. it has actually turned out really well and super tasty, and tonight i will be eating it with some tasty strawberries.

dinner turned out well, sloppy butternut squash manicotti and asparagus that was actually tasty, so chalk up another new food on my list. the transition away from being a picky eater is a fun one. i made up some buttermilk honey salad dressing that contains apple cider vinegar, again, i'm trying to use up the buttermilk (necessity is the mother of invention.)

tonight i am making banana bread with left over bananas from work. i like putting bran flakes into my banana bread to make it healthier. the recipe requires 1 1/3 cups of flour, the 1/3 cup i use bran. the taste is not compromised in the least. (i learned this trick from a tasty banana muffin recipe.)