Rachael Eliker's Blog, page 60

Slice of Heaven

We've been ready to put in a garden for a while but with all this April Fool's spring weather we've been having, Mother Nature obviously wasn't. So, we waited until a day after Indiana's official frost date before putting in the plants and seeds. One of our favorite places!Luckily for us, there's an awesome nursery just a few miles from us and we're all practically kids in a candy store. There are thousands of plants in their giant greenhouse and it's a treat to walk up and down the aisles, ch...

Cute Chicks

Licorice has her game face on.Guess who's broody again! This good little mother hen (the girls call her Licorice ) has decided the weather is good enough to sit on a clutch of eggs in an attempt to hatch out some chicks. So far, at least one is her egg, but she's borrowed five others from her nestmates, so there's a potential to have six different mixes of chicks. Plus, we'll be sticking some fertilized blue Easter Egger eggs under her once we get our hands on some.

Twenty-one days and countin...

Free Floor!

Voila! The new nursery floor!The nursery was one of the first rooms that I completed, and by completed I mean 90% done. The walls were painted, the window replacing a door to nowhere was put in and the trim was put up but, the floor, well, it was still the horrible, cheap, linoleum that I'd spilled paint all over because I knew that it would eventually be covered by carpet. An important aspect of working on a fixer upper is the ability to be flexible. There's only one thing that will make me r...

Heaven Is Cheering You On

Click here to read, watch or listen to all of Jeffrey R. Holland's talk, Tomorrow the Lord Will Do Wonders Among You.

Grain is Greener

Stoney coming in for a sliding stop at his breakfast. Whoa!The grass has started poking up and though Dancer's still plenty fat (she never has trouble over the winter), old man Stoney gets a little ribby-looking by the time spring rolls around. So, he gets the pleasure of grazing the tender green grass all by himself. The only thing that can tear Stoney away from baby grass is a bucket of sweet, crunchy grain . He'll come running across the pasture once he hears the rattling sound of it hit h...

One Pan Cheesy Chicken, Broccoli and Rice

This is the first time we've had this version of this recipe (my mom made one when I was growing up that I also love). What's great about this one is that it's a little lighter/less creamy but still flavorful and since we used leftover rotisserie chicken and leftover steamed rice, it literally took ten minutes from stove to plate. It's definitely going on the rotation!

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, finely diced
1 pound leftover chicken, cut into cubes or shredded
2 cloves gar...

Let There Be Light

The itty bitty lettuce just starting out.It's been several months since we set up the aquaponics tank in our mud room and ever since, Jack has been reading up on it, tweaking the water pH, feeding the fish a variety of food and keeping the water comfortable for them. Even with all those things practically perfect, we were missing one thing: light.
Lettuce gone wild.I think I underestimated just how important the right kind and the right amount of light would help the plants. Jack rigged togeth...

Work and Fun

Smiling by the daffodils.Today marks the end of spring break, and like so many from the years past, we were able to accomplish a lot with the help of visiting family (I'm not entirely sure why they keep coming back--we really work hard when they're here!). The decent into madness...starting work on the kitchen!Last year, it was the master bath and the mud room, the year before, we'd just bought the house, so it was major demolitions and cleaning in preparation for projects...one spring break,...

Save Me, Sisters!

Our quite impressive australorp rooster.When our neighbor started out our flock in Indiana by giving us three chicks, who all turned out to be roosters, we picked the little guy on the bottom of the pecking order and butchered the other two. That little guy has filled out nicely and is now a hulking, protective king of the farm. Or so he thinks. Usually, he's pretty docile when it comes to being a rooster. We've had some crazy ones in the past who'd go out of their way to pick a fight, but thi...

C'mon In, Stoney

Petting Stoney on the way out to swing.Part of Stoney's job is to keep the grass grazed down, so I don't have to do so much of the mowing. Once in a while, I put him in the backyard where he nibbles around the garden boxes and the fenceline when he's finished with the center of the yard.
C'mon in, Stoney!That means when the girls go out back to play, they're met with a friendly face who's more than willing to come inside. "You have any more?"I hope the girls appreciate that they're living my ch...