Strange Hen eggs

My youngest son, Steven has about 30 chickens. A few young roosters that were given to him, but the majority are hens. The chickens are mostly young birds that are just starting to lay eggs. My son recently moved to my grandfather's house, and so the chickens also made the move. The chickens are free range during the day. One young bird, he doesn't know which one has  laid a couple of very large, more duck sized eggs. The shells are heavily wrinkled and bumpy. When the egg is cracked open, he has found an egg within an egg. I had never seen anything like that before, have you? So weird.
first time it happened...when the outer shell was cracked open it not only a egg and white, but another perfectly formed egg inside the big eggshell.
   egg within an egg that also had a yolk and white

A few weeks back while I was visiting Steven he found another big egg in one of the nest boxes in the hen house. (photo is below)

When Steven cracked open this egg, he found another egg within an egg, only the outer shell was empty this time...no yolk or white, but the egg inside was normal.
      Some interesting web sites dealing with egg problems , egg oddities
Just thought I would share this, because I found it strange but fascinating.

When I go to Steven's several of the chickens come running over to the car cackling to greet me and will follow me to the kitchen steps. Here are just a few of Steven's chickens. Steven has several different breeds of chickens. I love going into the hen house to gather eggs. I had to laugh when he first told me he was going to get chickens because he doesn't eat eggs.

below..is an old out building at my grandfather's house and in the back of the building what was the wood shed, Steven has made into a chicken coop. The coops white door is open.

Elaine

Recipe: Cranberry Cardamom Cake..updated 10.1.13

  

         Last week I took my dad to the bog to look at the berries. I brought along an old snap machine and cranberry measure and filled a old cranberry measure (6 quart) with cranberries.

I have been wanting to try a cranberry cardamom cake recipe that was given to me from a Finnish woman that I met this summer at the Lutheran Church in Barnstable.

I heavily greased a 12 cup Teflon Bundt pan with unsalted butter.

 after greasing the pan I sprinkled the pan with flour and discarded the extra flour. I didn't want my cake to stick to the pan.

The recipe didn't specify..so I sliced my cranberries instead of using whole cranberries. I wanted more cranberry to be distributed in the batter. Next time, I would add more cranberry to my batter.
flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom, and 3 eggs, milk and melted unsalted butter. ( I used farm fresh eggs that my son gave me from his chickens) I didn't use my big mixer, I just beat the batter by hand.
batter mixed, with added cranberries, ready to put in the Bundt pan
ready for the oven,,350 degree's for 50-60 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.
crushed cardamom seeds that I bought in a Finnish store when I was in Florida in March. You can buy cardamom whole or ground  in the spice aisle in the supermarket.
my cake is done and out of the oven, let cool for 10 minutes and remove from pan.
out of the pan and cooling on rack. Looks great, the cake didn't stick to the pan.
cake has cooled and then dusted with confectioner's sugar.  
slice of cooled cake. Yum, this cake is delicious, and I will definitely be making this cake again, and soon.

Ingredients

• 3  cups all-purpose flour
• 2  cups granulated sugar
• 1  tablespoon crushed cardamom seeds or 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1 1/2  teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2  teaspoon baking soda
• 1  cup milk
• 3/4  cup (1 1/2 sticks) margarine or butter, melted
• 3  eggs
• 1  cup fresh or frozen cranberries
• Powdered Sugar

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350º. Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt cake pan or Kugelhopf pan. Mix flour, granulated sugar, cardamom, baking powder and baking soda in large bowl. Add milk, margarine and eggs; beat on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Stir in cranberries. Spoon into pan. Bake 50 to 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Updated....10.1.2013

Decided to make this recipe again, as I read the recipe wrong. I only used a teaspoon of cardamon instead of a tablespoon. I didn't have ground cardamon, I had crushed. I also used more cranberries and added chopped pecans. Today, instead of a bundt pan I used a cupcake tin and a medium loaf pan. They both came out great.

While I had the oven going I decided to make homemade pizza...onion, red and green peppers, mushrooms, garlic, italian spices, italian sausage and pepperoni, and cheese. It was so good and the kitchen smelled so good.

Enjoy!
Elaine

Cranberry Harvest 2013

flooded cranberry bog with the picked berries floating and ready to be suctioned off of the bog into the waiting trucks to bring the berries to Ocean Spray.
ripe cranberries on the vine ready to be harvested

Fall has arrived. Nights have turned cool and the leaves on the trees are starting to turn brillant colors. Some trees are already losing their leaves. Apples are ready to be picked, along with pumpkins. The cranberries have turned a beautiful dark red.. That means it is cranberry harvest time for my family and other cranberry grower's.
empty vintage 6 quart cranberry measure and vintage hand snap machine ready for me to start picking some cranberries.  It takes 5 1/2 measures to fill a large cranberry box.  16 1/2 measure to fill a barrel that holds a 100 pounds. Years ago cranberries were hand picked off of the bogs. Can you imagine how long that must have taken and how back breaking that was.

Later..  the above 2 pieces of equipment were used to harvest the cranberry crop. Rows of pickers went in a horizontal line across the bog until the cranberries were all harvested from a bog.  Harvesting  the crop was work when you had several acres of bog to pick.
hand snapped measure of cranberries
metal rod/teeth of the hand snap machine. The berries are stripped off the vine with the metal teeth into the scoop.
    

Then came the larger hand scoop
large vintage wooden hand scoop and large box of berries. This larger scoop was used to harvest the berries from the bog. Still very tiring after a day of picking.
After the scoops, came machines where all the berries were picked on dry bogs.
Darlington picker held a box on the back that the berries that were beat off the bog went up the conveyor belt and dropped into the box. The boxes were then taken off of the bog in a wheeling off rig. The box were then trucked to the plant for processing.

The bigger and heavier Western Picker. The teeth were different, and this machine the berries were stripped from the vines, went up a little elevator and dropped into bags in the back of the machine. The berries were then taken off the bog, sifted to remove vines and then boxed and put on a truck to take them to the Ocean Spray plant.

Picking Machines used on dry cranberry bogs to harvest the crop.
Western Pickers


Now we mostly flood the bogs and use a riding machine that reels on the front beat the berries off of the vine. The bog is flooded and you don't have to worry about cold, frosty nights, as the bog is covered in water. The berries have 4 hollow chambers inside and float to the top of the surface of the water. The cranberries are then corralled with booms and then suctioned off the bog into a truck to be taken to the plant.
machine that is now used to wet harvest the cranberries. The reel on the front of the machine beats the berries off of the vine
my brother, Richard running a wet picking machine

The inside of a cranberry has 4 hollow chambers with tiny seeds, because the berries are hollow they float to the surface of the water after they are knocked off of the vine.
close up of inside of a cranberry and it's tiny seeds


corralled berries
 
suctioning the berries off of the bog into the truck
Cranberry harvest has come a long way. It is still hard work with long days, 7 days a week until all the bogs are picked, but so much easier than 100 years ago.
Bella patting Cocoa's tail. Cocoa is Kelly's dog.
Bella was afraid of Cocoa until and then she loved him and was petting and hugging him all afternoon.
    Saturday 9/28/13 was a beautiful, warm and sunny day. My niece, Kelly and granddaughter, Bella sitting on a large rock watching the cranberry harvest.
corralled berries and cloud reflection on the water of the bog
frog in the bog ditch 

These are just a few of my harvest photos. I hope you enjoyed them. I will most likely share more photos as the cranberry harvest continues. I have more cranberry photos with info on my picture trail site.cranberry bog album
also another website for you to view
history of cranberries and how they grown

Elaine

So Sorry

It has come to my attention that my blog has been hacked. When you are reading my blog or looking at photos another screen pops up and redirects you to another page. I have contacted blogger, but haven't received a response on how to fix this problem. Urrghh!!

I am so very sorry that this happened and if anyone was turned off, I truly appologize, but it was beyond my control. Darn hackers!!! I can't believe that some get their kicks doing stuff like this. If the page you are looking at changes to another screen, hit the back button immediately or close the new page that pops up without opening it.
I am now in a quandry of what to do about my blog...shut it down or start a new one. If anyone has any suggestions on how to fix this problem, I'd love to hear from you if this has happened to your blog. I'm not sure how I can transfer my blog content to a new blog, and how difficult that will be. Again, if you have done this in the past please leave a comment to tell me how you accomplished this. Do I just try and copy everything to a disk?

 Barbara, thanks for letting me know that there was a problem when viewing my blog.

Elaine

Walk to End Alzheimer's

Yesterday, Saturday, September 21st,  I participated in a Walk to End Alzheimer's in Plymouth. Over
1,200 people participated in the walk. There were two options for the walk..a mile or a 2.2 miles. We walked the 2.2. Our team of 3, raised over $1,600. Between donations online and checks and cash..I raised $590.00. You can visit my personal walk page
Walk to End Alzheimer's banner

start of walk under the balloon arch in Pilgrim Memorial Park at the Plymouth Harbour waterfront...near Plymouth Rock and Mayflower ll.

our team...my s-i-l, Terry, me, my cousin, Cheryl in the back.The wind was really blowing when this photo was taken.

 Plymouth harbor with commorants sunning on rocks in the harbor

Mayflower ll  

  The Promise Garden 

Garden of flowers. After the walk we all looked for our personalized flowers in the Garden of Flowers that had been planted after the walk started. There were 4 colors of flowers. Blue..I have Alzheimer's, Yellow...I am supporting or caring for someone with Alzheimer's, Orange...I support the cause and vision of a world without Alzheimer's, Purple...I have lost someone to Alzheimer's. I took a yellow flower for my mom, and a purple flower for my Grandmother. We all wrote a message on the flowers. After the walk I brought my flowers to my mom.

 It was a gorgeous day. A little windy which made it perfect for walking. Our team consisted of my cousin, Cheryl, my sister in law, Terry and myself. We raised over $1,600. Over 1,200 people participated in the walk. It was a great day. We already have plans to walk again next year.

Our cranberry season for 2013 started Thursday, but I didn't get to see the first day of our wet harvest.

My husband had been in the hospital for 8 days with a very large left lower lobe pneumonia, and my 89 year old aunt had been in the hospital and then rehab so I have been busy, doing a lpt of running from my parents, rehab and hospital. I brought my aunt home around noon on Friday, and later that afternoon my husband. Tom still has pneumonia, but he is doing much better, but will continue on antibiotics for another week.

Elaine