Living Low Carb – One Minute Muffin

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In my search for low carb breads to satisfy that need for bready goodness, I came across this One Minute Muffin recipe on  Healthy Living How To.
The author, Vanessa Romero states that this she didn’t invent the recipe and that there are many variations that can be found on message boards in the low carb community.  I have seen several like this, but this one is my favorite.

I also add a teaspoon of nutritional yeast, which basically adds zero carbs to the recipe and I like the flavor and addition of B vitamins.  Using the nutritional ingredients on the products I had at home, I came up with a net carb of 2.4g.  This is excellent for keeping in my carb target.  I used a 4 inch ramekin and it makes a hamburger sized bun like the one pictured above.  It was almost too much bread after not eating any bread for the past month and a half.  It is great toasted to eat with my fried eggs and bacon. Yum!

Click the links or photo to get the recipe and check Vanessa’s site for more healthy living ideas.

Captured Moments – What prowls in the night.

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Yesterday I posted an update on the new fall chickens we are raising and that we lost one to a predator.  Hungry wildlife finds all the places we miss when critter proofing a coop. I reinforced the area around the mobile coop with heavy paving blocks and rocks.  The larger coop is more protected and I will be relieved when they are big enough to live with the older hens.  

I set up our game camera last night and checked on them periodically through the night too.  I wasn’t surprised to see a raccoon in the first clip.  I knew from the holes dug to get in the coop from the night before that it was something with small paws and strong., but I really thought it was a opossum.  The second video confirms my suspicions.   You can see the opossum walking on the other side of the coop.

 

  It appears about 3 seconds into the video below.

 

It appears that the reinforcing worked.  The young chickens have yet o learn to go into the top area and roost.  I am not sure why.  I see from the videos that I have a couple of areas that I need to work on today, just in case.   

Captured Moments – Fall Chickens – Update

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The chicks came home with us on August 25, 2017.  Our first foray into raising chickens in the fall.  It has been nice that keeping them warm has not been an issue.  I had forgotten how fast they grow.    Here they are on September 04, 2017 12 days old.  They are already losing the fluff and feathering out.

It didn’t take them long to decide they wanted to see the great big world outside the brooder tank. I got our old mobile coop ready and took them out there during the day when it was warm while I cleaned their brooder.  This was very different from the spring chickens we have raised.  I would need to place them in a kennel while I cleaned because it was too cold to take them outside.

They loved going into the mobile coop.  As soon as they were a bit bigger, I moved them there with a pet carrier filled with hay, so they could go in at night.  As they get bigger they will be able to climb into the roosting area.

Here they are September 28, 2017 . Thirty-six days old.  They have grown a lot and they are changing color.  The golden sex links are getting more color, kind of a reddish blond and cream.  The red sex links are turning a deeper red with some brown and black on their wings.  

This is the only one with a prominent comb at the moment.

I love the coloring on this one, a lovely golden color.

We can’t put the chicks with the older hens yet, they are too small and I have seen the chickens attack birds at the bird feeder.  We also read that this breed does not mix flocks well.  We will see.

Sad update:

Leave it to hungry predators to show you where the weak spots are in your coop.  The mobile coop doesn’t have much ground protection due to it being mobile.  The large coop has hardware cloth extending past the bottom, out two feet, covered in dirt and then large rocks.  This has kept the digging predators at bay so far.  Our little chicks were not so lucky.  We lost one of the red sex links last night some time.  The digging looked small, possibly a possum.  Our predators are possums, raccoons, and foxes.  I have spent the morning reinforcing the area around the base of the mobile coop.  I will be glad when the girls are big enough to go in with the older chickens.

Dragon Thursday – Dragon Chimney Pots

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Good morning

The nights are getting a little cooler for us in the Northern Hemisphere.  We start checking our heating systems and some will be getting their fireplaces ready too.  If you are lucky enough to have a fireplace , you may want to consider adding a guardian dragon chimney pot from Chimney Pot .com

 

This is one from a special order and Home Renovation contest

For more fun Dragon Chimney pots, visit their website.  

Also , a Google search for Dragon Chimney pots turns up a lot of great ideas.

Captured Moments – Fall color – Blanco Gardens

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Good morning,

I had the pleasure of visiting my sister of the heart in Blanco, Texas yesterday.  we always make time to visit Blanco gardens.  Amelia had some beautiful fall flowers. The red and yellow gerbera daisies were some of my favorites.

Also this beautiful pansy

If you get a chance, stop by and say hello and pick up some fall color for your garden.

Blanco Gardens

Address: 500 Main St, Blanco, TX 78606

Hours:

Saturday 10AM–4PM
Sunday 10AM–4PM
Monday 9AM–5PM
Tuesday 9AM–5PM
Wednesday Closed
Thursday 9AM–5PM
Friday 9AM–5PM
Phone: (830) 833-2433

Coffee Monday – Tully’s Coffee Shop Advertisements

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Good morning,

I was meandering through Pinterest, looking at coffee pins and saw this cool coffee advertisement from Tully’s Coffee Shop

 Then I found this one

I love the concept and find the art style and the colors very appealing.

I have never had Tully’s coffee.  They appear to only be on the west coast .

Love their ads though.  🙂  

Captured Moments – Texas Spiny lizard,old bricks and memories

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Good morning

We have been working on a house in Austin and one afternoon we arrived to find this lovely Texas spiny lizard sunning on some old bricks in the yard.  The bricks are reclaimed from the chimney of the house.   The house was built in 1925.  When one of the previous owners modernized the house, they took out the heating stove. It did not appear to have had a fireplace, but rather a hole in the bricks for a pipe from a wood burning stove.  The chimney had been walled in and was this small, square, floor to ceiling outjut in the corner of the living room.  The house had not been taken care of  when we purchased it and needed major repairs, this was how we discovered the old chimney.  When we first reclaimed them, a neighbor of ours, Robert Burns, took them to use in front of his house along the street.  After he sold the house and the new owner remodeled, the new owner knowing that they had come from our house, returned them. 

Captured Moments – Texas Thistle

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We have several varieties of thistle growing in our area.  The main one is Texas Thistle Cirsium texanum  (of course 😉 )

The Texas thistle grows 2-5 feet tall, without branches, or sparingly branched near the top. The numerous leaves are alternate, 4-9 inches long, smaller on the upper third of the stem. Leaves are green above and white below, with a woolly texture on the underside. The irregular lobes have spines at the tip but few elsewhere on the leaf. There is 1 flower head to a stem, with no ray flowers but numerous disk flowers, which are deep rose-lavendert.

Bumblebees work the flowers when they mature.

Thistle seed

Captured Moments – Trying something new – fall chicks.

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Good morning,

Most farm stores sell day old chicks in the spring.  It takes about five months to reach laying age, so if we buy in March, we can expect eggs starting late September.  It is still cool here in March and the need to shelter the chicks and keep them warm is crucial even without us reaching freezing temperatures.

In the last few years, one of our farm stores has started carrying chicks in the late summer.  It wasn’t until this year that we decided to give it a try.  We bought six chicks, three golden sex links and three red sex links.

This is what the chicks are sent home in.

Arriving at their new home

We had their home ready, a stock tank with cedar shavings, water, chick feed and a warming light.

They seemed to like exploring their new home and would all run from one end to the other.

We knew we would have to rearrange the food and water as they grew.  We also found that being summer, we did not need as much of a heat source to keep them comfortable.  The chicks will let you know if they are too cold or too warm from where they go in relation to the heat source.

We have cats.  So we needed a good cat proof top.  We had an old Ikea frame we have kept for years (we keep everything it seems, never know when it will come in handy, and it did) It fit the top of the tank perfectly.    My husband added some stops to keep it from sliding and hardware cloth.  Since it is not very cool, we can set the heat lamp on one end on the wire.

One of our cats is fascinated with the chicks.  They didn’t seem to be afraid of him.

Settled in for Cat TV.

Here they are at four days.

So far, I think I am enjoying the fall chicks more than the spring.  Our temperatures are still hot in August and do not cool until late October and sometimes later.  These girls are growing fast and will move into the small mobile coop soon.

Updates to follow. 🙂