What A Surprise!

(An Old Liquor Bottle Would Make A Great Terrarium!)

Deep into a dead sleep, I hear this sound in my dreams.  At least I thought it was my dreams when my hubby said "hey, the phone" and I jumped up and ran to the phone it was 5:14 a.m. The robotic voice on the other end started talking about shipping and calling the post office, Oh my chicks are coming! I mumble to myself that I have to get in touch with the post office on Monday as I crawl back into bed.  We get up and start preparing to get ready for church, it's a little after 8:00 a.m., the phone rings.  I joke, it's probably about the chicks again, and I say hello and it is the post office.  They have my chicks already and what a surprise that was on a Sunday morning.  First, I wasn't expecting them to even ship until today, and then finding out they shipped on Saturday, I certainly didn't expect them until today.  For them to have arrived at our post office the very next day, well that is incredibly impressive. Way to go McMurray's Hatchery, you are the best!  My husband jumped in the car and ran up to the post office to retrieve our new babies.  I wasn't completely prepared, we were going after church today to buy an additional brooder light and medicated chick feed.  My other lights are being used and all I had on hand was laying pellets.  He gets home and we open the box to see the cutest, most adorable, colorful, peeping chicks.  My heart melted instantly, I fell in love and they are just precious.  I started giving them all a dipped beak of water and we packed them back in the box and put a heating pad around them with the oil heaters on in the bathroom, and left for Tractor supply straight away.  We had to miss church because of our unexpected surprise, and I hated doing that, but I really needed to get feed and heat on these babies.
Needless to say, I spent most of the day sitting on the floor watching these darlings play and eat and drink and chirp.  My son popped in on a break from work and said "you've been sitting here all day haven't you?" I laughed and said "no, I've done other things today!" He laughed and mumbled "yeah, right!" as he closed the door and left me to my maternal bliss.

I have come across a nice glass liquor bottle, and I am thinking of making a terrarium out of it. I just need to figure out what sort of plants to put into it, they will need to be small.  I look at it every time I walk into the kitchen where it is awaiting a good soak and cleaning.  I think the next time I go to town I will take a peek at Lowes to see what little plants they have to make my terrarium.  I am picturing a few of these bottles together on a shelf to really set it off. I need my drinking friends to save bottles for me!

 My flower bed is coming along nicely, my husband worked all weekend in the cold, getting the logs just right, and it's really going to be pretty when I get it planted.  We had some scary storms on Friday night.  I know there was a lot of devastation with storms and tornadoes recently, and my heart goes out to all that have suffered.  We didn't really have any damage, but I lost a lot of sleep sitting up worried and scared during the night Friday.  The storms and rain brought with it very cool temperatures and a lot of wind for Saturday and Sunday.  It was a hard adjustment after two weeks of warmth and sun.

Some yummy fun in my kitchen this weekend included:

I made a pork chop recipe Sunday that turned out quite well.  First, I marinated the pork chops in Worcestershire sauce and beer after rubbing them down with garlic powder, salt, pepper, and onion powder.  I let them sit overnight.
I put them in a glass baking dish and covered them with chopped onions and 1/4 cup of water.  I put foil over the dish and put them into a 350 degree oven for one hour.  They were so tender they were falling off the bone.  They turned out so well, I'm going to do them like this more often.

I also made a coconut custard pie type dessert.  That turned out really well too, I didn't feel like making a pie crust, so I mixed up 2 cups of graham cracker crumbs, 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 stick of butter and pressed it into a 9 x 13 glass dish.  I put 4 1/2 cups of milk, 1/3 cup of flour, 1/2 a bag of coconut (that is all I had), 2/3 cups of sugar and 1/8 teaspoon salt into a saucepan and brought that to a simmer where I added 6 beaten eggs and a good splash of vanilla, probably a tablespoon.  I mixed that well over low heat and then poured it over the graham cracker crust and baked it at 350 for one hour.  I let it sit for an hour before we even thought about eating it, and it turned out so well.  Really easy, simple and delicious for quick throw together dessert!