The cone of shame

Rog and I discovered a bad rash on Dia's belly last night. I took her to the vet today, and they think she just itched, licked, and chewed on an itchy area so bad it turned into a rash... she has some allergies, probably seasonal. So they gave her more antihistamines (she was on benadry), an antibiotic, and a wide spectrum cream. She also has to wear The Cone of Shame (a la, the movie Up)

She keeps running around and whacking the cone on things.

Persimmons

Being a couple with roots outside Indiana, neither of us understand the persimmon craze here. Everyone has a persimmon tree, and those who don't buy persimmon pulp from their neighbors. We are lucky enough to have two large persimmon trees in the backyard, so we inquired from friends as to how to tell when they are ripe. Everyone said they would ripen and drop right after the first frost, and to pick them up off the ground.

We've had several big frosts, and the most I get off the ground at a time are 5 or 6.

Yesterday I went out with an 8 foot tall stick and banged on the branches. Remember, we live on a busy road, so there are many people who saw me waving an 8 foot tall stick in a tree. This knocked about 10 off the branches. Here's all I was able to collect:


Here are the chickens eating them: (What the crap was I supposed to do with 10 persimmons?)


And a video...


But the story isn't over! Roger went out and shook the trees for me and we gathered about half a gallon! I decided to try my hand at cooking a staple Indiana persimmon dish... persimmon cookies. (Not pudding, sorry, I've had it and it's not very good.)

Without a cheese cloth or netting, we made pulp by squishing the fruit in a colander with a potato masher. True to the rumors (UNLIKE the rumors that persimmons will just drop off the tree) all that fruit made about 2 cups of pulp. We saved out the stuff in the colander for the chickens.





And here's the cookie batter:



And the recipe:
1 cup sugar
1 stick butter
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups persimmon pulp
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves

Bake at 350 for 12 minutes.

The batter was pretty gross, but happily, the cookies were tasty!

Hawks

It's not a raccoon. We've been setting the traps for about a week now, and besides the chickens and possums, we haven't had any luck. And two days ago I went to check on the chickens and I went into the lean-to (at about 5pm) and there was dead chicken with a HAWK standing over it, ripping it apart. I yelled, and it flew into the back corner of the barn and all I could think was a string of expletives mixed with the desire for a gun. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could but let it fly out of the barn.

Turns out, it is a federal offense to kill any bird of prey. Not that that knowledge would have stopped me if I had had a shotgun with me. I mean, it's killing my livestock!

The good news is, we've probably seen the last of the hawk for awhile... all the teenage birds are dead now, and the big birds are about twice the size of this hawk. The hawk was on the smaller side... perhaps a teenage hawk.

I'd like to get a rooster... a really mean, big, ugly rooster. But as it is, I think the big birds can hold their own... neighbor Bill says he saw a big bird chase off a hawk last week.

Chicken update and persimmons

First, some pictures of the chickens, because we haven't posted pics of them in awhile. They're getting large and heavy.





Also, we have two persimmon trees on the property. Neither of us being from Indiana, Rog and I have been baffled by the persimmon craze here. From what people have been telling us, we're supposed to pick them off the ground when they fall... they fall off the tree when ripe. Well, there's a very fine line between on the ground and ripe and on the ground and rotten. They keep telling us the fruits all fall off after the first frost... well, we've had two good frosts now, and the trees have lost all their leaves, but the persimmons are clinging onto the trees. Whenever I go out there to see if there are enough to bother picking up I usually only get five or six. Then I throw them in to the chickens. The chickens love persimmons, ripe, rotten, stepped on, whatever.

Here's a picture of the bare trees, dotted with fruits that just will not come down.