Welcome to a Fly on the Wall group post. Today 13 bloggers are inviting you to catch a glimpse of what you’d see if you were a fly on the wall in our homes. Come on in and buzz around my house.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh…finally! It’s October and I can see light at the end of the tunnel. I still have some odds and ends to finish up – chores to be done before the snow flies – but things are slowing down and I’m able to spend more time playing in the kitchen. (Happy dance!)

I’ve baked some fall treats, much to The Man’s great satisfaction (garden and harvest make for a disappointing lack of “goodies”) but here’s something I’ve never made before! The smell of cinnamon, molasses, and oats was heavenly. Here’s what it looked like before I added the eggs, coconut oil, and molasses:

Mixing it up by hand in the big blue roasting pan.

Want a closer look??

Um….are those…worms?

Wait a minute. I think there might be a little extra protein in this mixture! Maybe it won’t be so obvious when it’s baked?

Eeeeuw, no, they’re still there. Just a little toasty now.

That’s okay – the ladies have no objection to their homemade “Flock Block”

So spoiled.

There are lots of recipes on the internet for Flock Blocks – a nice treat for the girls, especially in the winter when they’re stuck inside a lot and get bored. I pretty much winged my recipe, and it worked really well. They love it! If anyone’s interested, here’s how I did it.

Realistically, I can justify the expense and effort by considering it a “last meal” for some of them. I refuse to feed 20 chickens through the cold winter when I’m only getting four eggs a day…mostly from the 7 young hens. I’m afraid it’s time to do something about this situation. I’m heading to the coast to visit a Facebook friend I’ve never met before (squeee!) the first week of November, and hopefully when I come back there will be chicken in the freezer. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

October is when I get the urge to stock up for winter. I don’t know why; we’ve never been snowed in more than a week or two, but I can’t fight the compulsion to stock the shelves!

My neighbor and I went to Costco (a 3 hour round trip) and I spent an obscene amount of money on baking supplies. Ninety pounds of flour. Brown sugar, white sugar, powdered sugar. Chocolate chips. Nuts. Vanilla. Yeast. Cinnamon. Yep – I’m ready for holiday baking! Oh yes, and I got coffee and some basic supplies. My husband almost peed himself when he looked in the back of her truck and realized that everything back there was OURS. Know the best part? I forgot some stuff and she and I are making another trip next week. My list grows daily.

That neighbor, Pam, is so much fun! We think a lot alike, which is possibly a little scary. She had Starz added to her TV just so that I could come over and watch Outlander. I’ve read the series of books a bazillion times, and was dying to see the TV series. Bless her heart! It is even worth risking a mauling by her attack turkey to get to go watch it with her…and believe me, that bad boy wants a piece of me!!! He paces back and forth in front of the screen door, giving me the evil eye while I’m inside her house, then “escorts” me to my car. I hide behind her and get pretty creative with my defensive moves. Next time I go over I’ll take my camera so you can see what I mean!

Where we live, “open range” means keeping our fences mended and our gates closed during late summer to keep unwanted cows out of the yard and garden. If you live in an open range area, it is your responsibility to keep ranging animals off of your property. If you are in a closed range area, it’s the animal’s owners who are responsible. Oddly, the road in front of the house is the dividing line. The people across the way are in open range. We are not. But…cows don’t know this, so we keep our fence closed when cows are on the move.

Most of the time.

I honestly don’t mind it when the cows visit. They look great grazing on our hill, and make me wish we owned a few. But cows leave a lot of runny piles of poop everywhere, and because I leave the orchard gate open so the chickens can free range, the temptation to gnaw on the apple trees is just too much for them. The Man left the gate open and the cows came in and helped themselves to apples. I’d already picked all I wanted, but went to shoo them out of the orchard anyhow. Out of six cows, five of them “shooed”. The other one stood his (yes, this one was a young steer) ground.

Being the tough (cough cough) gal that I am, I picked up the hose and swung it his way a few times. He looked bemused.
He was not impressed.
Daisy and Otis had no intention of herding this guy out, so I picked up Daisy’s ball and lobbed it at the steer. For the record, I throw like a girl.
He was still not impressed.
Daisy did chase the ball as it flew in his general direction, but that just made him kick up his heels a bit.
He was most definitely not impressed, nor was he amused.
So I went towards him, swinging my arms and yelling. I stomped my feet.
He stomped his back and came towards me…not quite what I had in mind.

He won. Pffft. Those apple trees needed pruning anyhow.

It was dark when The Man got home, and apparently he didn’t understand my predicament.

Him: “Did you lock up the chickens?”
Me: “NO! There were cows in there.”
Him: “Did you close the orchard gate?”
Me: Giving him the look. “NO! There were still cows in there.”
Him: “Did you close the chicken door?”
Me: “What part of “there were cows in there” don’t you understand?!”

This from a man who is afraid to put his hand in the nesting box to get an egg if there is a chicken in there. Pffft.

Even though I know better (I’m sure these sites are gathering critical information from me like what my favorite color is and what genre of music makes me want to dance) I can’t stop playing those stupid quizzes on Facebook. I can tell you that I know almost all of the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody, my favorite decade is the ’80s, and my nickname is “Sunshine”. I suck at music trivia (unless it’s old country lyrics), identifying books by their last lines, and have forgotten a lot of the old “Friends” episodes. I’m terrible at anything that has to do with history. I’m warm, caring, and should have been a chef. There’s more…way too much more. I think I need an intervention!

In case you’re worried that I might run out of pumpkin for fall recipes, I can assure you…there are lots more where these came from!

The funny striped pumpkins are called “Lady Godiva” because they have naked seeds. – no shells. They pop a little like popcorn in the oven and are delicious. The pumpkin itself isn’t really worth eating, but the chickens and deer love it, so it’s not wasted. I harvested about 20 of these babies…and I’m thrilled. Such a yummy, healthy snack!

Lady Godiva seeds.

I’m very excited, because my sisters are coming to visit this weekend. One hasn’t been here in a couple of years, and the other has never seen the place. I warned them to leave their white gloves at home, but you know how that is, right? I have two days to get this place in shape. I’ve warned Lord Voldemort that if he comes this way he’ll be sleeping on a cot in the shop. We’re going to be looking at carousel after carousel of SLIDES. Slides from when we were young. And cute.  Sigh.  I should have lots of funny stories for you next month!

Buzz around, see what you think, then click on these links for a peek into some other homes:

Baking In a Tornado
Stacy Sews and Schools
Just a Little Nutty
Menopausal Mother
The Sadder But Wiser Girl
The Momisodes
Follow Me Home
Crumpets and Bollocks
Dinosaur Superhero Mommy
Spatulas on Parade
Someone Else’s Genius
Battered Hope