Spinach quiche

I had this bed of spinach that was getting ready to bolt so I decided to use some of it to make spinach quiche.





I like making quiche because it uses four eggs, and that is one good way to utilize some of the eggs from our chickens.





Also, I made my own crust, which uses the recipe (without shortening) from one of my previous posts.






And here is the finished product. A good bit of work, but not bad.

Update on the black widow

Recently, she got really fat so I suspected that she was getting ready to lay an egg sack. To get a better picture, I got really brave and stuck the camera lens into the top of the jar. Warning: don't try this at home!


Then today, when I checked on her, she (in fact) did lay an egg sack, just as I thought would happen. Now I need to either destroy the spider or get rid of the egg sack. I will probably just get rid of the egg sack. However, I have to be very careful, and make sure to wear leather gloves because black widows can be very aggressive when guarding their egg sacks. I will probably just poke something down in the jar (like pliers) and pluck out the egg sack.

Black widows

I found this one in my compost pile, not exactly in it but in one of the cinder blocks we use as a border around the compost pile. At first, I noticed the web. Then I started looking around and found the spider. We have so many black widows around here that I can now recognize their distinctive webs. Believe it or not, I actually found one in my garden bed one time. The bed was heavily mulched, and there was a small crevice in the mulch so the spider apparently took up residence. Why do I have it in a jar? Well, I have a strange fascination for the black widow, perhaps because their bites are venomous; and they have interesting markings. Therefore, sometimes I will catch one and keep it alive for awhile. However, I am extremely careful by wearing gloves if I catch a black widow. Thankfully, I have never been bitten yet.

Spider bites: First aid - MayoClinic

This will serve two purposes

This is something we put together with scrap material. Hopefully, it will serve two purposes: for one, we loosened the soil (and added some extra) so the chickens can have a designated dust bath. Unfortunately, they have been digging holes close to the house and dusting there. Also, I noticed that a hawk has been watching the chickens so this will give them a place to hide in the back yard if the hawk comes back around.