Journal 2019

A periodic journal of homesteading occurrences here:  farm and land happenings, weather events.  Location, the Hilltowns of western Massachusetts.
Hardiness Zone 5B, rural.
Most recent dates and posts are to the top.

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December 23rd: Hoping all had a great winter solstice, and will have a wonderful Christmas.  I am looking forward to longer days and shorter nights, for sure!  Around 3:30 pm I awoke to howlings of coyotes.  Today there appeared to be a convergence of putative coyote paw prints out there.  Yes, I have a book that can help me determine what was hanging around out there – but the snow was not of the sort that kept good impressions.  However, the prints were much closer together than deer normally yield, and the marks were larger than the fox trends.  The tracks didn’t get right up to the chicken housings, but yes, they were around.

December 20th:  I hope that yesterday (Dec. 19th) is to be the coldest day of the month.  We went from a low of 1 degree F up to 11 degrees.  I’d brought the Welsummer into the basement as he has no fellow poultry to keep him warm at night.  (He’s still human-friendly even if he didn’t work out with the hens – have yet to put him in the freezer.  Yes, he’s in the dog crate which doesn’t afford a lot of space, but it is still larger than a battery crate).  Not sure what the cats make of him, but they are no danger to each other.  The chickens in the tractor housing did fine overnight – I’ve boarded up with plywood, tarp, bungee cords, and some pine chip bales to keep them toasty.   I’d do a hay bale or so but I can’t lift them things myself, and with the current snow out there, driving that back is not going to work.  (I can manhandle 30 – 35 lbs of feed out to the bin, but that’s currently my limit.  But I do note a year ago I wouldn’t have been able to manage that.)

Last Sunday I’d gone down late dusk to close up the hen house, and it seemed everyone was back inside.  I quickly looked around and didn’t spot any stragglers.  Early Monday, I went down to feed and water prior to a trip for a medical appointment.  Rounding the coop to get to the bin, I was startled to see Chickpea sitting atop the bin!  Evidently, since she’s the color of snow with a few flecks that could well be mistaken for the stuff no longer quite white any more, I’d missed her when closing up the coop the night prior!   So I guess the moral of the story is don’t count your chickens before they hatch, but do count them before you close their evening gate!  Apparently, any owls or foxes around couldn’t see very well here either…

Oh, medical notes:  My knee with the benign “dog” tumor was subjected to yet another MRI scan (along with my poor ears).  The main spot that was in there had “stabilized”, but there are a couple of potentially worrisome new spots in the musculature.  So, I was referred to a radiologist – appointment January 7th, at 10:15.  We will meet to explore that possibility, and what it will entail in treatments.  While I’m not a fan of that sort of treatment, things come on a balancing scale of pros and cons, measured with/against other types of treatments.  And non-treatment is not really an option.

It dropped back down to 6 F overnight, right now as I type (6:15 AM) it is rising to 9 F.  Another hour to daylight – but already roosters are crowing.

December 10th:  This is the anniversary of my late mother’s birthday (she passed way back on the Ides of March, 2001, so I don’t need sympathy notes).  But I do appreciate remembering her.  Back in the day, we always set up for the Christmas décor the weekend after her birthday.  Just seemed fair or something.  Of course, back when we were kids winter holidays really DID wait for mid-December!

A link I want to remember Map of Winter Snow Cover.  So that I rather know what is going on out there.  This is set for Massachusetts, but you can scroll around to adapt to your state.

Warmed up with tons of rain yesterday and overnight.  The rain washed the deck table clean, but there is still snow out there.  Tonight temps will plummet.  A lull right now, will go out late morning to shore up the chicken setups.   More later!

December 3rd:  The previous storm sort of blurred into a second storm that fell most heavily (again) overnight.  This is certainly a total accumulation over 24 inches, and I am guessing about 27 inches, looking at my deck table.

Monday morning’s snow load.

Tuesday morning’s snow load. As in, today. Same spot, though in portrait mode.  But you can see a glow of promise on the horizon, left!

Getting to the chickens this morning (I went a little late – had decided to fortify myself with a solid breakfast first, and call and postpone an appointment for today, then the snow plow guy came, and I had at least another call of a much more enjoyable nature…) was challenging, to say the least.  About half way down, my right boot decided it wanted to try to stay behind in the snow – with the bad ankle, I can’t wear tight-fitting boots – but I was able to keep it on until about 15 feet from the coop.  Well, then, I just went over there, one foot simply clad in a sock (carrying the boot).  At the coop, I was able to put that boot back on, using the coop for support, with most of the snow removed from the recalcitrant piece of foot-ware.  And, my sock.  I knew this was going to limit my time and so I simply took care of the chickens at the coop (more snow removal for access, feeding/watering them, tending to the bin (as well as to its access).

The chickens in the chick tractor – I was not going to get to them this morning, not without worries about that boot coming off again, and frostbite.  Indeed, on my way back to the house, the boot sucked down into the snow and came off again – maybe 50 feet from home base – I just chucked the thing up to the house and returned home shoeless on that foot.

I’ll be back out later this afternoon.  I have a pair of hiking boots that should stay on – they lace up, which the regular pair does not.  However, they’re not as high as the other boots.  But simply as long as I keep my toes dry, I’ll be fine – the temps are in the 20s F, not otherwise critical for the tasks to hand.  They’ll be high 20s as the day moves on.

About 11 or 11:30, the winds have now started pounding.  I need to find a better weather prediction service online – this is NO 15 MPH breeze!   Unfortunately, the winds have re-covered most of my trail down to the chickens already.

December 2nd:  Not sure how many inches of the white fluffy came down yesterday afternoon, overnight and into this morning – but a good estimate here, looking at my deck table, is something like 16-18 inches.  Snow still comes down, but it is lighter stuff and not adding a WHOLE lot to total accumulations.

November 26th:  Nearly everything posted this past month on the blog proper was largely written in October, and mostly planned for later.  I didn’t really feel up for things after Kat’s death.  I do try my best to have a Friday post each week, and this meant pushing things around here and there.  The cranberry liqueur is current.

Today is the first day I’m actually playing music here, since then.

It got to 53F today.  I put in some bulbs, but the daffodils will need to await tomorrow.  The ground there (where I plan to plant them) is north of the house, in shade, and still semi-frozen.  Tomorrow.

November 23rd:  I could watch chickens for hours.  Lentil is definitely a male – a silver-laced Wyandotte cross with an Australorpe, and evidently the Australorpe coloration is dominant.  He’s got a wonderful sheen to him that looks great in sunlight.  Anyhow, he’s at least twice as big as the Buckeye hen.  I let them out this morning and scattered a bit of food so the birds wouldn’t bother me while I was re-filling the feed bucket in the bin.  He began to bother the area that the Buckeye was feeding from – and she turned around and chased him a good 8 or 10 yards away.  Not having none of it, not from him!  You GO, girl!

Eventually, the barred rock (Roo) and Lentil will mature enough to come to a kerfuffle, or something much more serious than that.  At that point one of them will have to visit Freezer Camp – probably Lentil.

Got warm Thursday into Friday – Friday, before my car checkup, I dug up more cannas bulbs/tubers – most seem to have weathered the recent low temps just fine.  It started to rain / half-snow on my way home from the auto service place, and temperatures dropped rapidly.  After the rain, as  it was getting dusk, we began to have lots of wind here – and much of the town lost power for two hours or so.  I still have more cannas to remove, but I’m heartened that MOST of them are now in my basement.  They always make more tubers than I can find places to plant them come spring!

Synchronicity???  While driving to the car service yesterday morning, I was curious as to how my car mileage reconciled with the mileage for that next recommended tuneup (a sticker they place near my visor on the windshield after the previous services).  This is NOT a sticker I look often at, if much of, ever.

Car mileage as I was driving (over halfway there, so I wasn’t exactly entering their driveway – BUT it was when I looked):   96,754.   Recommended return for checkup mileage:  96,754. I mean…. exactly.  Cue in the theme music from Twilight Zone.  (It might have been a good day to play Powerball!!!)

The Coop House Inhabitants as of today:

• Fimbrethil (buff Orpington), hatched 5/2018, an excellent brooding hen.  Tolkien-name-inspired.
• Idril (buff Orpington), hatched 5/2018, went broody twice this summer, but very confused about what to do.  Tolkien-name-inspired.
• Buckeye – no real name stuck.   Hatched 5/2018.  Low on the totem pole when the first flock rooster was around, she’s only getting her feathers back now.
• Yin the Nauseating (black Australorpe).   Hatched 5/2018.  Excellent broody hen, who brought Chickpea into the world.  She’s NOT nauseating – her name is a play on something too complicated to explain quite right now.  (You can ask.)
• Yasukai (black Australorpe).  Hatched 5/2018.  A hen also low on the totem pole when the old rooster was around, but she’s turning herself around.
• Celeste (broiler, with part Australorpe heritage).  Hatched 5/2018.  She was bought as a broiler day old (un-sexed) chick, but wormed her way into my heart by being so wonderfully friendly.  She was also badly hen-pecked by the old rooster.
• Roo (Barred Rock, male).  Hatched 4 or 5 /2019.  Replaces the original rooster, who turned mean to hen and human alike.
• Chickpea (Silver-laced Wyandotte father, either Buckeye or Orpington mother), raised by Yin.  Hatched 2019.  I think she’s a pullet but she’s getting awfully big!  Named because she was such a tiny little chickpea when she appeared.
• Lentil (Silver-laced Wyandotte father, Australorpe mother – or, it could be Celeste?)  Hatched 2019.  Brooded by Fimbrethil, raised by Fimbrethil and Idril – Idril was still confused during the brooding stage…)  Cockerel.

November 19th:  Rain then snow overnight,and now it is all melting.  The snow wasn’t much at all – possibly 2 inches in some patches.

The five pullets from Tractor Supply are with Archie, the speckled Sussex cockerel/rooster, in the tractor.  I’ve added tarp all around, with extra bales of pine chips to keep them warm.  I’d gotten the pullets because some of the hens are eating their eggs – but while I should, I couldn’t get myself to remove all those hens… because, they won’t easily break that tendency.   I just go down to the coop early and often… when I can.  The new cockerel/rooster, Roo, a Barred Rock, holds down the fort in the actual chicken coop.  Where he has a flock of 6 hens, one pullet (Chickpea), and alas, one younger cockerel half-brother to the pullet (Lentil) who hatched out this past summer.   That future situation will be decided later.  Will depend on how they interact with each other — and the hens.

And yes, there will be at least two more coops placed here come spring.  A small one for quarantine, and a larger one for breeding more specifically.

The Welsummer cockerel/rooster who did not get along with the hens is being held separately, but this cannot continue.  I could not find him a new home, so Thursday or Friday he’s scheduled to meet the freezer.  No one wants a rooster who is going to be mean to any hens!

Another blast of snow flurries came through.  But things are melting again.

November 12th:  Full moon, but well hidden behind clouds and precipitation.  We’re having another “Arctic Bomb” – temps were 40 F when I woke, 2 hours later they’re now 31.  I did get to pull out more cannas bulbs in the rain until a few minutes ago – it’s raining/sleeting/icing right now.  I’m glad the ones I did pull out mostly survived the last “Bomb”.  (Rot or freezer burn is easy to detect.)  Predictions are for the low teens for parts of the next day or two.  I think the cannas closest to the house (which is much of what remains) should be salvageable  by weeks’ end.  Yes, I should have taken care of this before the first Arctic thing (which was indeed predicted), but I was still in shock over my friend’s passing.  Other things were seriously just less important.  (Recent recipes posted here had already been put into the line-up.  And no:  I DID keep up with the chickens and the cats.)

Chickens are well-fed, but no eggs when I went to see them at 7 am.

November 9th:  First snowfall over the 7th to the 8th, mostly just flurries that stuck anyway, atop a layer of frozen rain.  This wasn’t deep or a true issue, but a first local vehicle accident happened as a pick up truck overturned on black ice early the morning of the 8th.  Fortunately, no one had injuries they  evidently needed to worry about.

Today:  lowest temps were recorded at 15 F here.  This is really early in the season for such events.  My chickens are coping.  I was worried about the pullets, as they are still quite young.  I still need to dig the cannas and dahlia bulbs/tubers out of the ground for winter – which I would have done earlier this past week, but after Kat passed, I was alas unmotivated.  As soon as it is warm enough again, out they will come.  Many should make it.  I will have more fails than normal.  So it goes.

The second coop discussed below – this one mentioned on November 6th – probably won’t be obtainable.  Transportation logistics.  Pick-up trucks don’t have 10 foot long beds…

Missing Kat.

November 6th:  My good friend, Kat Hosinski, unexpectedly passed away November first. Like me, her plans had been to homestead somewhere in New England (she leaned towards Vermont or New Hampshire). She was an old college roommate, and we’d hit it off very well.  But with the vagaries of life and geographic relocations, we’d lost touch with each other – until I found her on Facebook 5 or 6 years ago.   And we discovered our future plans dovetailed with each other!  Her plans were bolder than mine are – she wanted to be totally off-grid, and raise Scottish Highland cattle along with pigs, sheep and chickens.  Unlike me, she hadn’t ruled out dairy, either.  I learned about her passing two days after.

She will certainly be missed!  We’d been talking back and forth once or twice a week for a long time – Skype then phone (when my Skype went south on me).  We inspired each other to continue going onwards with our plans.  Currently, she lived outside of Denver, Colorado.  I’d actually hoped to have her come out here next May for a visit and such.  We even plotted out a consulting business together, but neither of us were quite ready to bring that into true actuality.

I keep thinking and saying… hey, you know…. ?  And listening to her “hey, you know…?”  That phone call.  We’d scheduled one for this past Monday, the 4th.  Was my turn to call.

And there now won’t ever be an answer.

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Other news:  I have a line on a $50 small chicken coop for 3-4 birds.  I am awaiting the photos of it.  The main difficulty is having a pickup truck to hand, and some strong arms to help at both ends of the route.  I could potentially rent a pickup at Home Depot, but I also really need the physical assistance.

The Welsummer cockerel formerly known as Kellogg is now removed from the coop.  He was abusing the ladies, although he’s still friendly to me.  Returning him to the tractor started a fight between him and the speckled Sussex, so currently he’s in the quarantine dog crate.  (This is why extra coops are a good idea.)  The Sussex is living well enough with some young pullets.  There were two barred rocks, and one ended up as meat last Friday.  The other is now acclimatizing to the hen coop, and will be released this evening.

I fear Lentil, born here last summer, is going to be a rooster.  We shall see.  Chickpea is definitely a lass.  I want new genetics here, so thus the barred rock… although if he doesn’t work out, it will be Lentil.

Meanwhile, I’m still shook up about my friend, Kat.  I can write, but it doesn’t mean things are going down well emotionally around here right now.

October 23:  Yesterday I went to hang out with, and help a friend who’d just had hip replacement surgery.  Came home after to put two hens into the fridge (then freezer).  I was also going to put one of the barred rock cockerels in there, but between being tired and the oncoming rain, I decided to wait on getting him.  Not a big deal, as I only do two or three poultry at a time.   The mature hens have an egg chain of process inside them, and last year I found a recipe for a Jewish unborn egg soup – Unlaid Chicken Eggs (Eyerlekh): In Chicken Soup– made it, it was great.

Anyhow, the buff Orpington of these two seemed to have exploded yolk all through her peritoneal cavity.  A recent dilemma I think.  Doing research – she shortly would have contracted peritoneal sepsis – if not in the process already – and would have died.  Likely painfully.  I’d noticed in the coop at late twilight as early as a night or two before, she roosted away from any of her sisters.  She seemed to be as active in daytime as the rest.  And even so — as recently as 7 days ago, she was the most eager to leave the coop during pasturing hours to go and explore, even if they didn’t have that opportunity!  Probably less often off more recently, since I didn’t know then I should watch her, and when they went out, they mostly/all went out…

I didn’t save her gizzard or her liver – or any of her tiny surviving eggs.  Or, obviously, that massive yolk explosion.

The other hen put down (basically because she had been henpecked severely) was a silver-laced Wyandotte.  Apparently very healthy.

Cat News:  They went for their checkup today at the vets. One or both has been urinating up a storm. Obi-Wan is a male American curl, 13 years old as of 9/11/2006.  Serenity (aka “Miw” online for ages) is female ragdoll, who will be 18 years old as of 11/11/2019.   Serenity was the one with the massive weight loss, so I asked for blood and urine work on her as a likely suspect.  I’ll be terribly sad if either are in kidney failure or in diabetic distress.  I love both terribly, and I do know cats (nor humans) won’t live forever – but please, not now!

Unfortunately, when they came home this morning, Serenity ran right over to the water bowl.

October 21:   The Welsummer has apparently made himself at home in the henhouse.   I’m still not letting him out, but right now five or six of his ladies (assuming little Lentil is a future lady) are out roaming the yard.  This afternoon, two or three more chickens will end up in Freezer Camp – the larger and more skittish barred rock, and the last of the Wyandotte hens.  If I can catch the small Orpington, she goes, too.  The new pullets are now housed out with the remaining cockerels – they actually went out the same day the Welsummer got removed to the hen house.  

The Welsummer has been officially named Kellogg, after the breakfast cereal which has an image of a Welsummer on the Corn Flakes box.  Mind you, I haven’t eaten cereal (cold types) for about 30 years, and I never liked Corn Flakes even when I did eat that stuff.  (I liked Shredded Wheat and Grape Nuts.)

He had a brief kerfuffle with one of the hens, but that was apparently just “getting to know you” shock, and not unexpected.  Right now it’s mostly Lentil and Chickpea trying to establish their place in the coop.  Oh, the speckled Sussex was out this morning, and came over to the hen house, whereupon both cockerels did their best to display to each other through the wiring.  I think Kellogg is very happy where he is!  (And to think he’d been a prime candidate earlier for a cull…  The day that the nasty rooster was put down, I’d even originally grabbed him for that day’s cull, but he looked at me with those sweet brown eyes of his, and I put him back – to grab the other Welsummer.)

October 18:  The final Welsummer has been selected to be the rooster in the chicken coop.  He’s going to spend a day or two in the portable chicken cage so everyone can get used to each other, before I release him there.  I have a flat pan above so that hens roosting won’t be, er, dropping down on him.  Once he’s released, they won’t be able to free-range for a bit because I’ll need all of them to know to return to current-coop-Home in the evening.

I’d wished for the speckled Sussex (potentially named “Archie”, but not gonna happen), but he was going crazy on the larger barred rock today.  (That latter chicken is already slated for the freezer.)

October 17:  The winds of autumn have come, along with rains that overflowed the chicken watering bucket.  Most of the leaves have scattered from their trees, so beautiful a scant 24 hours ago.

October 6:  Killing frost happened Saturday morning, the 5th.

A friend with a shotgun came over this morning and dispatched my rooster with one blast.  I plucked and butchered him, as well as one of the Welsummer cockerels whom I dispatched via the usual (jugular cut) method.

Shotgun area seemed to be the neck – it was hemorrhaging.   Plucking seemed to be normal on both sides of the bird.  But when I opened him up, the intestines, liver and gall bladder were in an uproar, and one thigh was hamburger with loads of shiny buckshot. I salvaged what I could.  Basically, the whole leg and wing on the other side, some back and breast meat on that side (but not getting to the rib cage, since I didn’t want to contaminate what I was able to collect by entering the body cavity), the drumstick from the shot side as well as the wing there.  The heart and the feet.

I am sorry he is gone.  He was a handsome silver-laced Wyandotte, and over the winter and much of the spring he was a well-mannered and generous rooster to both my hens and myself.  That began to change.  Rapidly.  He plays rough with his ladies when he wants to mount them.  And feathers have been plucked far far too often.  I do know there are “hen sweaters”, but most of my hens are not really wanting to be caught and held by me often enough for these to be practical. He has fathered two offspring, Chickpea (whom I suspect is a pullet) and Lentil (too young to guess).

The remaining cockerels are one Welsummer (pretty much mature now), two barred rocks, and one speckled Sussex.  One of these will become the new roo.

I need to go down to check the area where the old rooster met his demise – and pick up and dispose of any possible buckshot.  It’s lead.  I don’t want my flock eating it.

September 30:  Saturday I made a German potato salad for a pot luck, which was well-received.  The recipe will appear October 18th on this site.  It is fun to eat with people who love to cook!

The warmest day this week will be tomorrow, Oct 1st, so I’ve scheduled three more chickens to enter Freezer Camp.  It’s not that I don’t want to harvest in cold weather – I just don’t want to wear anything other than the specific t-shirt and jeans I’ve dedicated to harvest.  I don’t own a lot of jackets and sweaters suitable for slaughter.  On the docket:  A Wyandotte hen; and from the cockerels:  one or two of the Welsummer birds – and if just one, the cuckoo Marans.  (One of the Welsummer cockerels is officially a rooster – he’s been crowing for well over a week or two….)

Wednesday I will be joining a friend in Easthampton to put up quince jelly (or will it be jam?)

As for today – Interior domesticity in the morning, gardening and yard work in the afternoon.  Somewhere along today I’ll be making the dish for Friday’s blog upload.

September 27:  The days are less warm but are still interesting to enjoy outdoors.  Trees are turning color – red maple and to a lesser extent, the sugar maples.  Today has been busy – grocery run (TP, other necessities, and just a couple food-related needs mostly for a pot luck I’ll be attending tomorrow afternoon) and Tractor Supply run (cat food and wood staining supplies).  Three more chickens in the fridge:  a buckeye hen (over a year old), a buckeye cockerel, a Delaware cockerel.  I’ve also finished staining (second coat) a cabinet for my office, which is destined to hold photography supplies.  With the top surface that is visible to anyone – homesteading books.  (I now have three of those wonderful Foxfire books.  One is all cookery, and will live in the kitchen, but the other two span a variety of homesteading interests and needs.)  Otherwise, today: two loads of laundry.

September 25:  I’d marked some sugar maple trees last weekend, added three more in, just now.  I may decide not to do the one as it is a bit smaller in diameter.  I don’t need to overindulge this winter.  There’s one more area where I will mark, tomorrow morning.  That should do it!  (At least for the coming season.)

Staining furniture for the office.  I bought a pine unfinished cabinet which has two shelves – bottom will be the old (pre-digital) photos which eventually I’ll sort through, and the top shelf will be camera equipment.  Atop the cabinet will be a line of books, and I’m still mentally debating theme.

It has not dropped below 44 F since the nasty temps of September 19th.

September 19:   Woke up to 34 degrees F just now.  There is a light frost out there.  I may be harvesting everything today (except the delicata and some of the herbs, which will be able to stand it.)  We shall see.  At any rate, two chickens were dispatched on Tuesday, and I had planned on doing two more this morning – but not with the temps in the mid-thirties.  (Temps had not been predicted to get quite this low.)  I have other plans for later today.  Tomorrow I need to go back down to Connecticut, and Saturday I’ll be making quiche for the community center coffee get together.  But the afternoon will be available for two more cockerels, and I can do three chickens on Sunday morning prior to trash pick up.  That will leave 5 cockerels left to do, with an undecided number of hens (depends what baby Chickpea or baby Lentil turn out to be – boys or girls…  Chickpea is probably a hen as this one lacks much of a comb.  Lentil is still in “chirping” stage so too early to guess.)

If I freeze some of the basil in ice cube trays (with butter), I’ll need to freeze up chunks of ice some other way, for chilling down the water to cool chickens off after dispatching and plucking.  No, I didn’t see any point in connecting the ice maker in my fridge…  Still don’t, actually.  I’ll probably dry the tulsi to use as a tea.  Was already planning to make a miso soup today using some of the Thai basil.  Fortunately the temps will be higher for the next week.

Oh, last night around 1 am I was serenaded by foxes somewhere outside.  And a second time sometime later, but I didn’t look at the time then.  There was fox scat near the coop this morning.

Just ordered maple syrup-ing equipment. This weekend I plan on marking the sugar maple trees that I plan to tap.  Best to do this when I can still look at leaves.  Not all of my maples are sugar maples.  I also got the hydrometer so I can make sure that the syrup I make this coming March is up to proper standard, although I plan to stop the process earlier for much of my personal use – I’m NOT a sweet tooth.  (I do know that maple sugar water will not keep as well as syrup.)

September 15:  Let the remaining cockerels out to run today.  Not long after I noticed a hawk floating around, checking out the scenery/pickings.  So I went out on the back deck.  He’d by this point purchased himself atop a large boulder so he could observe the, er, takings.

I gave a spontaneous sort of a loud “nasty bird cry”.  I’ll try to record it at some point.  He jumped and flew away.  I paused a minute or two, and repeated.  Twice.

My chickens weren’t remotely flustered by the call.

Monarch butterflies – there were a fair number around when I went down to feed earlier.  Since I have wild milkweed, I think they were new hatchlings, ready to prepare for their migration to Mexico.  Yay, Monarchs!

The Delaware in the fridge was broken down for freezing yesterday – much easier than last year’s cockerels (which were broilers who were around three  weeks older – and faster-growing)!

The putative New Hampshire red was roasted last night for dinner.  Tasty but smaller than I would have desired.  Re-heated the rest of the roast for breakfast this morning.

(The innards and the wings on all these chickens are being reserved separately.)

September 12:  Lotsa rain today.  I opened up a local bank checking account which also provides interest on savings within checking accounts.  Since I’d been down to the old place two or three times each month (barring winter storms), I hadn’t changed from my old (and wonderful) Union Savings Bank, which only operates in western Connecticut.  I’m not dropping them immediately, but I am moving to another small but not vestigial-sized bank here in Western MA (it also covers some of north-western CT as well).  Logistics, ya know???

September 11:  Two cockerels met the refrigerator today.  The first was what I think was the New Hampshire red, and the second was the larger of the two Delaware birds.  I saved nearly every part – including the heads (these latter are not for me, but for a friend of a friend who has a family recipe for them).  I will be cooking the putative New Hampshire red on Friday (a whole roast, minus the wings).  The Delaware will be broken up and vacuum sealed for the freezer.

The Delaware was 18 weeks old.  If that IS the New Hampshire red, it was 17 weeks old.  Ideally, I would have started harvest of these heritage birds two weeks ago.

Saved for stock:  feet, wing tips, some of the necks.  (The friend of the friend will also take some feet; haven’t decided how many I’ll end up giving her.)  Saved for nibbles:  hearts, gizzards, some necks, and just for fun, I’m collecting all the wings together for a wing dinner or two.  Livers will be reserved separately for pate.

I will be doing two more cockerels Friday early morning, and another two on Sunday.

I have started to harvest the potatoes.  I’ve pulled up about a third of them on Monday the 9th – since they went in late, some are still small. But I got up the ones where it was evident the green above ground was dying back – since those are not likely to grow much further.  Already it looks like a good harvest, despite the small “new potato” sized ones.

Yes, the old house was sold September 5th!   YAY!  I will miss it in some ways (living there 26 years does give one some attachment), but I am glad I no longer have responsibility for it.  I did spend a few minutes thinking about how I’d do a renovation on the house proper, where I to stay there.

September  3: Just found out that the house closing is going to be on the 5th, this coming Thursday.  So I have to dash down tomorrow to remove my last bits of property, clean a few things, check the oil tank gauge and report it to my oil company & my lawyer, so I can get credited for oil still in the tank, and nab some more woodruff (which any new owner will probably consider a “weed”.  My last bits of property include the dehumidifier, which I’ve kept running for them.  And my tree lopper, which I’ve debated on and off about, but will retrieve.  I also have to hit Home Depot on the way to pick up two Carbon Monoxide detectors and leave them there for the new home owners – as I’ll be charged ten fold their actual cost at closing, if I don’t!  I’ll be doing some “broom cleaning” – some dust has settled down as per the last time I was there, and the fireplace REALLY needs the ash removed.  (I was surprised that the Home Care people who renovated and cleaned up ignored that!)

The cuckoo marans cockerel — in my FRONT yard! This brazen feller was the only one to show up here.

August 30: The Fed-Ex stuff got off without a hitch (the notary public is actually at the city hall), but at 2 pm I learned the pork share wasn’t going to arrive until Thursday (yesterday).  The cockerels I’d planned to harvest got a stay of execution.  They will end up being done on Sunday morning – trash drop off in my burg is either late Wednesday, or mid-day Sunday, and I just don’t want blood and feathers sitting around tempting anything, nor smelling up, say, my garage.

A friend’s friend wants the chicken heads.  Apparently a dish from her grandmother’s Old Country.  I’ll arrange for that.  She also wants the feet, so I’ll arrange for her to have some of those (I do use feet for stock myself).  I do try anything – I even ate rooster balls last year – but I’d have a hard time eating the actual faces I’ve interacted with while these guys were growing.  Although at this point I could make an exception for that nasty rooster that I have yet to figure out the safest way to render into the freezer.  (I’ve heard ideas… will let you know.)

Picked up the pork share (one half a porker, minus the things I’d asked to be smoked – which is still in process at the butcher facility) close to 7 pm in Andover, CT.  I got down early, and had dinner in a local eatery – wanted to miss the Hartford Rush Hour Mess.  By and large, I did.  Anyhow, they (the packing butcher) didn’t give me the heart nor the leaf lard that I’d requested.   The organizers of this “event” have been superb, however.  (We picked up our meat at their house.)

Drove home, got here a little after 9 pm, unloaded my coolers and recorded dates ON THE PACKAGES (butcher had neglected that), put them in freezers, made notes on paper, (went to bed) and this morning recorded what I received for my Excel  spreadsheet.  Bed by ten last night — which is late for me.

This morning, I also cleaned out and data-listed foods in the freezer attached to the bottom of my fridge.  I NEED places to put the chicken harvest!

August 28:  A run-around day that sprung out of nowhere.  Some documents to take to Fed-Ex TODAY for overnight delivery – and I needs must get them notarized.  This pertains to the old CT house sale.  This is a priority!  Finding a notary public will be a challenge – sometimes it appears they may be at Fed-Ex – more later when I know.  At any rate, the Pittsfield Town Hall should have one if all else fails.  THEN, I have to dash down to Andover, MA, to pick up my half-a-pig pastured share.  It would have been nice if the organizers had given a day or two warning.  But perhaps the butcher himself was delinquent on notification – the original posting had been for NEXT week on an unspecified date.  My main concern for this is Driving Home In Rush Hour Through Hartford, CT.  UGH.  It will be a two hour trip one way without traffic.   (PS, the organizers do NOT have freezer space to store more than their own meat.)  I will be driving down with two coolers with ice packs.

Egg status:  Only two on the 26th, 6 yesterday, and atm, none today so far, but it is still early to mid-morning.  Updates to come.  I’d planned on harvesting two cockerels this afternoon, but that’s now scheduled for tomorrow or Friday.  At least, unbeknownst to them, they are happy!  Also wanted to get the patio furniture restoration underway today – again, tomorrow or Friday.

August 25:  Suddenly, it appears, the hens stopped eating their eggs.  It is 11:30 am this morning, and there are six intact eggs waiting for me to collect them, and to thank the hens who laid them.  I’ll note that five of those eggs were still warm, thus recently laid.  No, Tiny Dancer the rooster still tries to attack but are the hens are apparently worried about their potential culinary fate?

I will figure this one out!

Trip to the Local Big Box hardware store this morning.  I’ve got supplies to refinish the wrought iron patio furniture my parents had since around the early 70’s more or less.  (My brother got one set, and I got the other.)  Eventually there will be a blog post about the process.  ATM the set is rather rusty and in need of TLC.

August 23:  Purchased chicks from Tractor Supply.  They come at a minimum of 6 chicks, so that’s what I brought home.  Three older buff Orpington chicks (reduced price, and a head start on growing), two Rhode Island white chicks, and a partridge in a pear tree, er no, one Rhode Island red chick.  All six are supposed to be pullets, and the Rhodies are newbies to life.  (The Rhodies are already named:  Cannellini, Urad Dal and Masoor Dal…  the legume theme started back with Chickpea and Lentil, natch.   Can’t tell the new Orpingtons apart yet.)

The current hens are trying to be giving me eggs, probably sensing the writing on the wall.  But I go down early and often to pick up eggs.  I’ll be away most of tomorrow; so I assume true colors will again show.  It is usually hard to break hens from egg-eating once they discover the taste.  (Can’t say as I blame them…)

Plan:  Keep the babies Chickpea and Lentil.  They will eventually run with the Tractor Supply pullets in the main hen house, and by the time any of them lay eggs, none will remember that these are tasty.  Save one of the cockerels (still to be determined) to become The Henhouse Rooster.  The ultimate fate of Chickpea and Lentil will depend on their genders – and on the selected Henhouse Rooster’s behavior should either of those two legume-named chickens prove to be male.  When the new chicks here can go outdoors, they’ll go to the main chicken coop (obviously just with the above-mentioned poultry).

And yes, the silver-laced Wyandotte rooster just gets handsomer, and more mean as time goes on.  He’s taken to attacking me even when he’s in the run and I am not… bouncing off the wiring of the run!  Obviously that doesn’t get him very far, but it is past time for him to go.  Any time I spend in the run to do things has to be plotted out precisely by me.  And yes, he’s riding his harem too hard these days (ten hens!).  I need to deal with this situation without harm to me or anyone who may help me – and make his last day as painless as possible, considering personal needs for safety.

Purchase a new coop to be placed closer to my back door (position has been determined – and I’ve found an actual inexpensive small coop I can order).  This would house the hens from the original coop that I am saving from the freezer:  Celeste, of COURSE.  She’s a friend, but she needs companions, both for socialization and for winter warmth.  Right now it is Yin and Yasukai (black Australorpes) and Fimbrethil (buff Orpington).  If those in this small coop eat eggs…. for Celeste’s sake, I’ll eat the loss.  PS:  both Yin and Fimbrethil were impressive broody hens this summer, AND good mothers.  Assuming they go broody next year, I can ask them to brood up eggs (assuming they’re not wanting to dine on them) from the main coop.   If otherwise, I now do have an incubator.

August 22:  I got five eggs on Tuesday with frequent trips to the coop.  Got 3 eggs yesterday, two trips in the morning and one in the evening.  I was out of town for ten hours during the balance of daylight.  I have until Friday to decide if I’ll be getting the replacement baby chicks or not.  See the August 19 details.  (But the rooster has to GO.)

Several good handfuls of cherry tomatoes last night.  A couple had split and were past prime, but were still savable.

My William’s Pride apples are ready for the plucking!  I see three of them there.

Cockerel Egg Recipe: cooking oil, eggs. If a bit of shell ends up in there, no problem. No dairy, salt, seasonings, etc. They won’t boycott their home if it isn’t gourmet.  Just bring to room temp after cooking, if serving immediately.

I made the cockerels their scrambled eggs (from old dirty eggs that I won’t eat myself, much less sell or give away).  Obviously, if I see something really wrong (one egg got composted that was old, dirty, and had a definite crack), even the boys won’t get that one, either!  Or if there’s something off kilter when I crack an egg open and look inside (hasn’t happened yet, I keep after the eggs).  After making – no addendums for the birds other than a bit of cooking oil – I allow them to cool.  I make 5-7 eggs at a time for them, although if there are seven, they won’t get the scrambled all at once.  I make up a batch once every 7-10 days for them.

PS, all things considered, I’m no longer giving scrambled eggs to the hens.

This HAD TO hurt…

There was an egg I got last week, that was extremely LONG and looked as if it were extremely painful to lay.  I feel your pain, little hen!  It actually turned out to be a double-yolker!  Thank you, my lady!  (I’d debated selling it but that only lasted mere seconds…)

The double yolked egg to the left. I actually caught Celeste in the act of laying the one to the right. Served fried last weekend. Thank you!

Oh, one of the speckled Sussex cockerels has alas gone missing. I am quite certain a hawk had a nice meal.

August 19:  I haven’t wanted to write here recently because it really disappoints me, but 1) Tiny Dancer, my rooster, has gotten mean and wants to attack me.  I did mention this below, and he is scheduled for the stew pot as soon as I get everything in place to do it as humanely as possible.  It is NOT acceptable for any animal to behave like this – unless startled or something, which he has not been.  He’s now done this within the confines of the run and  a couple days ago, within the confines of the coop.  It is now just a matter of getting everything in place, and in knowing he’s a LOT stronger than any cockerel that went off to the freezer last year.  AND he now has those rooster leg hooks!

2) Also, one hen discovered that a broken egg was tasty.  I’m now dealing with hens that now know eggs can be cracked open and be turned into a luscious meal.  One hen tells another… I’m now getting only two or three eggs a day from my ten hens.  I try to get down there every two hours but I cannot always do this.

I’ve made the decision that seven of these hens will be put into the freezer, and I need to buy a small hen house for Celeste and a couple of her friends.  I know eventually I’ll want another large hen house for a breed I want to raise up… but there’s no way I can put Celeste down into my freezer.  She has actually saved two eggs for me over the last three days… whether coincidence that she’s just laid them or not, I don’t know.  But she’s too friendly no matter what.  Hens are social, so I’ll keep her and the two Australorpes for the new coop.  If the new coop (which will be far smaller than the current one) will stand it, I may keep Fimbrethil as well, a good mother Orpington hen.

I will keep Chickpea and Lentil until I know genders.   If separated from the others they may not remember that eggs are tasty, should they prove to be pullets / future hens.  ATM Lentil is too small to be separated from her two foster mothers.  Both Fimbrethil and Idril want to mother this chick.  Even if Idril couldn’t get a clue about nesting boxes prior to hatching.  At night, all three huddle together to keep Lentil warm!

But that doesn’t keep the Orpington hens from wanting to eat eggs, nowadays…

A good thing about a small coop down the road:  can always be useful for nursing sick chickens if so needed.  Or for many other reasons.

This week, I may buy 6 baby chick pullets to replace the seven  egg layers (er, eaters) that I am needing to remove, from Tractor Supply.

Re the cockerel batch:  One of the Welsummers is attempting to crow, and another undetermined cockerel (he was hidden by their home) also did so.  One Delaware attacked me ineffectually, and so he’s destined not to be a breed I’m going to raise here. Amusingly, it was the smaller of the two – the other just looked on.

July 31:  There’s a possibility of another chick being present.  Will confirm later – Fimbrethil has gone through too much disruption already, what with Idril trying to horn in on the laying box early today, and pecking a bit at Lentil.  Lentil is still chirping, however, and Fim is very protective.  I supplied him/her (or maybe them) chick-accessible water.  No chick drownings or dehydrations on my watch!

One of the cockerels in the cockerel pen is trying to crow. I forgot how pathetic they sound when they first try to come into “voice”! Really sort of funny, it is.  I don’t know which one, but he will make it clear to me in a day or so.

I’ve made the decision that Tiny Dancer will meet the stew pot this fall.   One of the cockerels from the cockerel pen will take his place.  (They were purchased for the freezer, so we just sub out one for another – noting that Tiny Dancer will probably need a LONG stewing, as he’ll be around 18 months at that point.  It’s been suggested that if Chickpea or Lentil (his offspring) turn out to be male, I should replace him with either of them. I’d do that but… genetics.  Since I don’t know the biological mother for each… this could be problematic down the road.  Bringing in fresh genes this early on is not essential, but since I have a supply of fresh genes hanging out in the cockerel pen this year… We shall see.  However, if Chickpea or Lentil prove to be lasses, they’ll definitely stay.

The problem with Tiny Dancer:  He’s fine with me in the hen house coop and run.  He’s not fine with me outside.  He’s pecked me several times THROUGH heavy duty jeans. Drawn blood.  I do carry one of the hiking sticks with me, but sometimes my attention isn’t on him as fully as it “should” be – hey, I’m not down there just to walk around!   And while he’s protective of his harem, he does tend to grab one side of his preferred ladies a little too hard.  There are those hen “sweaters” one can buy, but they’d also trap in heat and sweat and grubbies.   Tiny is a beautiful bird… but.  There’s a lot more to being a head rooster than good looks.  Overall I like him, and I like that he holds back while others feed first, and that he has no problem with Chickpea running around – in fact, everyone has left Chickpea alone.  (Maybe Yin, that one’s foster mama,  knew how to wield a firm NO?)

Some light rain today.  Not nearly enough.   Fortunately, the heaviness of the air has dropped.

July 30:   Lentil is born.   He/she is a black chick, father obviously is Tiny Dancer (only mature male around), biological mama is either of the two Australorpes – or possibly Celeste, who is part Australorpe.  Foster Mama is Fimbrethil, a buff Orpington.  Idril is still trying to be broody, but she still cannot figure out where to nest.

July 28:  Two “husky cherry red” tomatoes harvested just now.  Mind you, this was a nursery-bought hybrid plant, not something grown from seed, due to the lateness of having a good garden space here.  Taste verdict:  Okay.  Wouldn’t turn them down. But not going to grow.  I do want heritage breeds when I do this next year.

Blueberries:  Some are ripe.  Local farms (lowbush) are now open for “pick your own”.  My highbush are coming into season.  I want buckwheat no-gluten pancakes Tuesday!  There’s real buttermilk here, as well as a good healthy yogurt.

Yesterday my friend Katie and I went to Black Birch Vineyard, and also “climbed” Sugarloaf Mountain (in her car).  Beautiful views to be had.  Great Moroccan chicken salad when we returned to her place.  Today, watered and irrigated here, did the usual chicken things, made sun tea.  Three loads of laundry.  Trying to unpack more boxes, now that all the furniture is essentially here.  Bunch o’ trash to d’a dump!

July 25:  The weather has broken – the last two or three days have been delightful here.  It is 54 F out this morning at 7 am, temps predicted to rise to a nice dry mid-70 level.  I have a pending offer on my house in Connecticut – all my fingers and toes are crossed!  Tentative closing date:  September 6th.

Delicata squash with morning dew.

Vegetation update:  As the row of baby bok choy is coming up, I planted a second row of them.  No sign of the other seeds recently planted, yet.  The purslane was supposed to be sprouting by now.  Planted a month ago:  no sign of the nasturtiums yet.  Those are usually vigorous little buggers (and great in salads, too).  The seed pack was a year old.  Cannas are doing fine, but their bed needs some weeding (on the docket for today).  The delicata and the pumpkins are doing fine – lots of growing leaves.

Suzhou Baby Bok Choy, from Baker Creek – new camera lens (Tamron SP45mm F/1.8 Di VC USD) Great for close ups.

Heritage cockerel update:  Definitely not maturing as fast as the broilers did (to be expected, of course).  They free range most mornings until early afternoon, unless I’m out of town.  This cuts down on the amount of feed I need to give them.  I feed them organic grower feed, which comes in 30-pound bags that I lug down to them, and dispense from the bin.  They also eat mealworms, kitchen trimmings (some are organic, most are not), and scrambled eggs from cracked or very dirty eggs my hens might lay.  (Cracked AND dirty end up in compost.)  The Delaware cockerels are the fastest-growing, which puts them in the running for one of the types I may be breeding.  The speckled Sussex birds and the lone cuckoo maran are the most inquisitive, and have taken the fastest to foraging.  This is a good thing, and both are definitely in the running, pending electro-netting them.  I’ve eliminated the New Hampshire Red – roosters are prone to frostbite of their combs, and the word I’ve since discovered is that the hens often like to hen-peck.  The buckeyes are small, but still in the running, as they are docile and they love chasing and eating mice that might decide to break in.  That leaves Welsummers (beautiful birds, and the next largest in size) and barred rocks.  (Although I don’t have Australorpe cockerels this year, considering the good nature of the hens I do have, these are definitely in the running.)  Anyhow, they all still chirp, none of them sound like “chickens”, much less roosters, yet.  Cockerels are currently nearly 11.5 – 12.5 weeks old.

Purple basil seedlings. Still not quite ready for thinning into microgreens.  Also new close-up lens.

Other updates: 6:30 pm, and it’s 74 F out there, still not humid.  Weeded the cannas and dahlia beds.  Fimbrethil and Idril are still broody.  Idril still doesn’t have this broody business worked out – she’ll nest in either the third or the fourth nesting box, whether or not there’s an egg there.  She can have the ceramic one – Fimbrethil has the clutch of six.

Taters make flowers. Hopefully they’re also making… taters.

July 20:  The heat index is predicted to go to 100 F or thereabouts today.  The air is still and immovable.  I watered my raised bed  garden over and above the call of duty around 6:30 this morning.  Oh, and yes, the elderberry tree got planted last Wednesday.  It got a great bolus of water, too.   My old home is on the market down in CT, and there will be an open house Sunday afternoon.  I won’t attend.  (It is not recommended home owners attend to begin with, for many understandable reasons… and I don’t want to be there anyway.)

Amazingly, the baby bok choy I planted is coming up!  No sign yet from the other seeds planted last week.  (The baby bok choy is in a different bed by itself.)

Amaranth (Chinese multicolor spinach), Purslane, Perilla (Kaori Ura Shiso), and two lanes of Swiss Chard (Barese). In the background, hard left: Delicata squash.

I hate this weather.  I truly do.  Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island:  Do you guys want an expatriate for weather-related reasons???  Northwest Territories???

July 19:  It’s 87 F in the shade outdoors.  77 F inside.  2020 is the year I install central air here.  This home is better-insulated than my past home (stick built in 1968), but the temps only “promise” to get into the high 90s tomorrow.   (I consider this a threat.)

I didn’t put in central A/C with the plan for this home, as I’d hoped I’d be able to install geothermal – which in this part of the world, would result in sufficient cooling for my needs.  The rebates for this sort of thing seem to have dried up hereabouts.  But central A/C of the more conventional sort will work fine.  I really don’t cope well in heat.   It’s not that I just don’t “like” it, but that I turn beet red with too much exposure.   And no, to all of you who’ve told me:  “You’re going to hurt tomorrow with that sunburn!” – nope, it ain’t sunburn.  It’s my signal that I didn’t evolve to live HOT.  Turning beet red is NOT a healthy thing.   Going on too long, it’s heat STROKE.  Meanwhile, yes, I do sweat up a storm.   Thursday (not really so hot, but I was doing serious yard work back at the old place) I was quite red, but was sweaty enough that I felt like I’d just gotten out of a disgustingly tepid shower.  But.  If you have – Red, no sweat:  Heat stroke.  Hie thee to a doctor! An ER!  911!  (Serious.  I do turn red, but if I stop sweating in the heat, get help…)

Tomorrow will be hotter, which is why I care about today.  I’m giving the chickens copious water (and shade).   I may take an A/C car ride out somewhere for lunch tomorrow.   We Shall See.

Other news:

My Old Kentucky Connecticut Home is on the market, technically.  A bit of a story there, but not really at least until Sunday/Monday.  If the place gets snagged up quickly, maybe I’ll even put in central A/C next week???  Well. Things like that generally don’t happen so fast!  Anyhow, I was down there Thursday to complete some “curb appeal” stuff.  I can see a lot more that I’d like to do, but y’know… whatever.  Realtor is fine with it, although I think he is not so fine with the home fixer guy he brought in, not being ready as of today.   But high humidity, as we certainly have now, means floor resurfacing will take LONGER to dry for anyone to walk on.

Idril and Fimbrethil are still broody. Fimbrethil seems to have latched on to the eggs, while Idril can’t decide which nesting box to be broody in, eggs  present or not.  You’d think she’d know by now – she’s been broody before. (Both hens are buff Orpington.)

A few days ago I re-established the irrigation system for the herb garden and the cannas section of my garden.  Just turn ‘er on, and let ‘er drip!   The raised beds recently established get watered by hose until the seeds recently planted sprout accordingly.  I’m plotting out their best irrigation pattern in the meantime.

I thought Celeste had gone broody.  Naw, she was joking or something!

The ordered seeds arrived. I planted some quick-growers and cold-hardy types a couple days ago, more later.

July 10:  Idril is broody again.  She now has a clutch of 6 eggs (and managed to roll the fake ceramic egg from an adjacent nesting box into the one she obviously prefers this round).  They were laid on the 8th and (mostly) on the 9th.

One of my ladies seems to lay her eggs with an extra coating of that protective stuff – I marked that one with a different color marker.  I want to try to guess the breed that lays that, if and when it hatches.  Idril won’t be getting any more eggs to lay – I’ll remove any excess daily.

There will be no more broody hens this year.  Well, to put it better, they’re not going to get to keep any eggs… Members of Idril’s clutch will possibly be given away to interested neighbors – especially the pullets.  Cockerels will be sent off to Freezer Camp when large enough.  This assumes they survive – “don’t count your chickens before they hatch” – I’ve discovered is a TRULY wise saying!

Last night the cockerels I’d ordered in got their first taste of grapes and of mealworms.  Mealworms went down quick and easy.  They took a while to figure out what to do with the grapes – it was funny watching several of the little guys run around with a grape in their beak, with maybe another cockerel trying to tackle at the pass.  Then they’d drop it and look around, grab it and go again.  Touchdown!  (At any rate, the grapes were all gone by morning.)

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Recently started a new food plan.  What I want to end up doing is dropping down to two meals a day rather than three, for two or three days of a week.  Longer term goal is to bring this to Intermittent Fasting, of the 16/8 variety, but right now I’m not focused on that.  When I do eat three meals, one of those will be SMALL.  Yesterday, that was breakfast – 2 boiled eggs and a handful of grapes.  Today’s was the small salad of snow peas, egg, grape tomatoes, leek, oregano, rice vinegar and Olea olive oil I brought to the Senior Center lunch.  I did take an inch and a half of the homemade brownie offered there.  Oh, and yes… I want veggies of some sort at every meal.

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Pumpkin seeds, delicata seeds, basil seeds – all sprouting.  Potato eyes are doing well, at least above ground.

July 3:  Second half of the year, already.  I spent last Sunday and yesterday down at my old home working on that elusive “curb appeal”.  Serious, exhausting work.  Ripping out pachysandra that had decided to take over the flagstones out back (we’d planted it 25 plus years ago as slope erosion control, and my, it LOVES  my back yard overmuch!  Pulling roots out from under each flagstone, and re-laying them down, and re-leveling flagstones where (probably frost heaves) they’d settled down too much, or had heaved up.

Then, I attacked the Rock Garden, which I fear I hadn’t done much with in the past four years, what with various leg and ankle events, and with the Build and the Move.  I’ve ripped out about a third of everything I don’t want there.  So far I’m leaving behind the oregano (not a very potent oregano, but), a trimmed back comfrey plant, a holly, the coneflowers, sedum (in one spot nicely cascading down the wall), woodruff, and the lone lily of the valley.   I’ll be taking the black hellebore, and some of that woodruff.  I’d like to find my bee balm… I hope to finish the job Saturday morning before heading to a party not far from the house – well, a lot close than to my Massachusetts home — and then be back the following Monday.

I got to my old house at 7:20 am. At 12:30 I was more than ready for lunch. Avocado salad, Housaku restaurant.

Extremely tired today.   Chicken tending (they got scrambled eggs), laundry, unpacking, some yardwork here at home – but frankly, not much energy for the latter!

June 27:  The last of my stuff has been moved from CT to MA.  YAY!  Well, I do have a leather chair out for re-upholstery (cats can be rough on things), but other than that, it’s moved.  I will be back down to gather up more woodruff, and to see if one of the bleeding hearts can be parted from the landscape.  Not everything is set up here yet, but will be.

My pantry is finished – I need to stain parts, and paint parts.  But the hardware and shelves are IN!

The last of the chicklets (er, cockerels) from the basement are now outdoors, and very much on grower feed.  As of Monday, they’ll be 8 or 9 weeks old, respectively (depending on group).  Last year’s broilers, geared for eating, would have been a lot bigger by now.  As mentioned before, I’m raising these up to see which breed (or two) I most want to focus on growing myself, without having to depend on hatcheries, so I’m not expecting these to grow as fast as ordinary hybrid broilers.

From the hens I currently have, I lean to Australorpes, with the buckeyes in the running.   From the cockerels, the buckeyes appear to be the smallest – a downside, and they also lay medium rather than large eggs.  But the hens seem most eager to forage efficiently, and I also got them because 1) they are great mousers should I ever have a rodent problem, and 2) their breast meat is supposed to be more “dark” in flavor than most breeds – a selling point to my taste buds!  The Welsummer and Delaware cockerels seem to be growing faster than the others (and they are beautiful birds), so that’s a potential.  (I don’t have Welsummer or Delaware hens.)  Of the hens, so far one Australorpe and one Buff Orpington have gone broody.   My buffs, from my supplier last year, do not seem as friendly as their reputation allows, but each hatchery will develop “genetic drift” in their breeds, which will also affect temperament.

Chickpea, the little chicklet who has silver-laced Wyandotte and buff Orpington background, is still thriving under the tutelage of Foster Mama, Yin (black Australorpe).  Gender still uncertain.  I’m hoping it’s a pullet!

June 23:  Happy  Belated Midsummer!  Days start growing shorter… And I haven’t remotely finished planting!  (Logistics…)

Last stuff to move up will come here on Tuesday – no more U-Haul’s!  It had been two trips with 10-foot bed U-Haul trucks.  One, I didn’t feel confident driving a larger 20 foot truck, and Two, I had to shift boxes in destination areas of the house prior to the unloading of the second set of furniture, which would have taken even more time away from the lives of those who helped me at this end.  I thank friends at my destination – Paul, Kelley, Blake – for their assistance in unloading and squirreling things away here.  Anyhow, Tuesday I go back down, and collect some plants from the old yard, take a chair in to be recovered (ah, leather and cats!), and snag up a last few items to toss in the back of the car.  A couple of things I’m deciding whether to keep or not.  (Leaning towards “not”.)  House will be on the market by July.  I have a Realtor and a lawyer, and repairs and painting are being completed.  There’s nothing that can be done for a steep driveway or that dysfunctional kitchen, however.  Maybe it will be bought by people who do take-out most of the week.  (I was storing platters and such in the third bedroom…)

Anyhow, even the ten-foot trucks proved to be a severe annoyance to that right ankle with pins and a plate in it.

Yesterday I woke to dry, 59 degree Fahrenheit temps, nice, refreshing, light breeze, sun!  No rain!!! My kind of weather!  T-shirt, even!  Today also promises to be wonderful weather-wise – and I don’t have to go any further than the town dump (aka transfer station) today!

Drove down to CT yesterday afternoon to meet with a couple friends, and the three of us drove down to Queens, NYC, to dine with other mutual friends at their house.  Much as I love them, I am SO glad I don’t live in a metropolis!  (I did live in NYC from age 2 to about 12.)  People drive like maniacs down there, and there are just too many of them in a specific locale;  and having open space — even if just to admire, farming or not — is a value not to be dismissed lightly.  At any rate I got home about 1:30 AM this morning – the last hour of my drive I counted three open establishments and one that looked like it had just closed – a Dunkin Donuts, a gas station, a VFW hall, and that motorcycle dive which seemed to be doing its 1 AM wrap up as I passed by.  I’m sure The City That Never Sleeps was still going strong!  PS, I’m certain a nap will have to happen this afternoon.  As I woke at five as usual… 😦

Despite the occasional inconvenience, I love my rural life!

June 19:  It’s only 63 F out there, but it’s already sweaty.  That’s because the relative humidity is 89%.  Bleah.  (No, Florida was never an option for retirement.)

All 8 birds that arrived from the hatchery on May 1st are now out in the chicken tractor with Goldilocks.  I took them out in batches, let them stay in the chicken carrier until evening, and then released them.  (This carrier can house 4 cockerels of the size mine are at, for a short period.)  This so Goldilocks could get used to them.  And in the evening, everyone goes to sleep.  She seems to be adjusting and leaving them alone.  I put her food where I usually stash it – in the middle of the tractor.  I put the cockerel food between the tractor wall and the chicken carrier, and I cover the top of the carrier – so no one poops down on any cockerels that might be awaiting their turn to acclimate.  When Chickpea (Yin’s foster baby) is big enough), I’ll be returning Goldilocks to her coop with her real cohort.

Speckled Sussex cockerel, out in the tractor last evening, as I released him from the chicken carrier.  He’s seven weeks old. 

These cockerels are developing great combs.  The Delaware was especially willing to be petted this morning.

The six younger cockerel chicks are still in my basement.  They’ll go out in turns of three each next week.  I’d been marking their feet to tell them all apart.  Will re-mark again before they go out.  Maybe the older cockerels have large enough feet I can use those adult chicken leg bands?  (Don’t think so — last summer’s crop mostly lost theirs when I did them early.)

Note as a reminder:  I’m doing these various cockerels to determine which one or two heritage breeds I want to be raising up in order to help further their line – where many of the roos will end up in the freezer, and most of the hens will be layers.  I certainly didn’t need to order more layers yet – ten is plenty, though I may cull a few of the existing, as I think my hen house is just slightly over-packed. Safe from elimination (real life Survivor???) are the rooster (Tiny Dancer), the two hens that went broody (Idril – buff Orpington and Yin – black Australorpe), as well as Celeste, my super friendly ex-broiler with Australorpe in her background.  Probably Goldilocks (golden-laced Wyandotte) and probably the buckeyes.

Just to show it’s not all about chickens here:

Backyard improvement accomplished by my landscaper. The extra rocks and such on the back door stoop boulder are gone now, and gravel has been put down to keep things from growing up. Sunlight doesn’t make this area the best for plantings – I will eventually plant in front of the four posts furthest away. More important is for me to finish staining!  IF it ever stops raining!

Oh, found this Monday whilst sorting stuff for moving:

My parents’ old recipe box, mostly handwritten on index cards (some are typed). Plus a couple other pages of recipes – Thanksgiving turkey stuffing and gravy, and Christmas butterfinger cookies.

June 16:  My little chick with the injured/bad foot had to be put down.   This morning I found her/him barely moving around, not very hungry, and definitely not thirsty.  The chick was a bit more chill to the touch than the other chicks.  So, I did the merciful deed.  I knew last week he/she was going to have to go to the pasture in the sky, but I hoped it wouldn’t have had to be as soon as today.

Considering the stress level of the chick, and the fact this bird seemed to be in the beginning stages of  shutting down, I did not save the meat.  So, I will never know the gender.

For a long time, that chick was able to move quite well to get away from hands reaching in, or towards the food and water – just as fast as the others, though much more awkwardly.  I believe this chick, as she / he gained weight, found it much more difficult to perform basic functions.  Which is why I knew last week that the time was quickly approaching… it came a few days faster than I expected.  It was sad to say farewell.  After all, it was he / she who first made me a chicken grandmother.  Farewell, Footy, RIP.

The dog kennel I bought for the chicks will not fit through the door of the chicken tractor.  Well, I have a chicken transport crate, too.  I’ve placed the four largest chicks in it, will bring it down before dark tonight, and set that in the tractor, which is currently occupied by Goldilocks.  I’ll let it sit there 24 hours without releasing the chicks, so that Goldilocks can get used to the chicks.   I’ll open the gate of the carrier in the evening, when chickens get sleepy.  I’ll keep repeating with three or four chicks at a time until they are all moved in.

Picked up a fennel plant, and ordered Wildroot Organic Mycorrhizal Fungi Concentrate (containing 16 species of endo and ecto Mycorrhizae inoculant powder).    My raised beds are pretty sterile, I figure they could do with a blast to get green things going.  I’ll spray douse the beds appropriately.  And as I dig in the herb bed by the house and find worms, I’ll transplant them over.

June 15:  Thursday and Friday, I brought up and unloaded stuff from the old home.  More about this will probably be posted on the blog proper. Today, planted Yukon gold potatoes in one of the raised beds.  Yes, late – but I didn’t have the beds until very recently.  As in, less than a week ago.

Setting up for putting the new cockerels outdoors in their run.  Heritage cockerels definitely grow more slowly than their broiler (or especially their Cornish Cross counterparts) but I’m still investigating which breed or two of heritage birds I really want to raise here.

Planted basil seeds – five types:  (in order from house view, left to right)

Italian Large Leaf (the typical basil variety)
Spicy Globe
Thai
Dark Opal (a purple-leafed variety)
Holy Basil/Tulsi  

Also, squash and pumpkin seeds planted… they’ll get low-tunnels in fall, since the planting was unavoidably LATE.

June 12:  More work on the landscaping; and the four raised beds are finished.  Last weekend I planted the first tier in the behind-garage-south-facing garden plot:  dahlias and cannas – including the yellow cannas Scott gave me, and a variegated leaf one I picked up locally last year.  Upper tier just got weeded out now, and I’m ready to plant that this weekend.  Could start now, but other things underway…

Herb garden:  Planted Italian oregano, rosemary, lavender, garden sage, Thai basil.

As for the raised beds… My first plantings will be Yukon gold potatoes.  And my squash seeds (the latter will require a  low tunnel in the fall, due to season lateness.)

Spent Sunday/Monday down in CT doing clean up work, and bringing out anything lift-able I wanted from the basement, den or garage.  Arranged for a U-Haul to rent to bring furniture from there up here on Thursday – a ten foot bed truck.  (I’m not really feeling copasetic driving anything larger than that – managed well with a Budget 9 foot cargo van the last time, so I figure one increment larger is fine here!  But not keen on backing up any (relatively) large rig.  Which even included that cargo van…  fortunately I don’t plan on backing anything up!  (Large vehicles, not computer data…)  Drive Forward!  At any rate, this week the folks I’ve hired have presumably trashed anything in the bottom of my old home I didn’t want and marked accordingly (or salvaged what they want for themselves.)

Goal tomorrow is to bring up, in order of importance:  the master bed, the upright freezer, two dressers (one is a donation to folks who are just setting up their own home here, and are able to help me unload), living room wall unit, green marble top table for use in the master bedroom.  If I can fit it in, I’d like the dining table and/or the glass fronted triangular breakfront that I absolutely adore, but really would be in angst if the glass breaks.  I’ll take whichever logistically works better.  U-Haul rents out the padding materials.  Friday, my friends will come over and help me unload and set up.  Then I drive back to CT, return the van, and go to the house and collect EVERYTHING out of the kitchen freezer and Anything out of the kitchen fridge that I want to keep.  (The latter seems just to be some Kate’s of Maine butter and some mustard.)

Chicken news:  I plan to put most of the basement chicks outdoors in their own run Saturday morning.  The ones I’d ordered to replace due to death – will wait another week.  As for my first on-site hatched chick – I’m afraid I will have to put her down.  (I’m just guessing it’s a “her”).  That’s the one with the bad foot.  Last week she was able to scurry around ignoring her bad foot as fast as the rest of her cohort, but as of yesterday she no longer can do so efficiently.  It’s not that her foot/leg has worsened in itself – but that she’s growing, and has gained weight doing so.  That foot is no longer able to help her scurry, and her good leg/foot cannot deal with the added burden.  It tries, and she tries.  But she’ll never be able to forage, and as her cohort grows (and his/her body grows), she or he will no longer be able to compete or thrive with them.

Chickpea and FM (Foster Mama) are doing fine, and FM is very protective, as is appropriate.  I don’t let either of them out to forage when I open up the gates… and FM seems happy with this.  Chickpea is still rather chickpea-sized, after all.

The hens and rooster ranged very well through the back yard this afternoon.  I’m pleased, as I hope they found loads o ticks to gnosh on.

As far as life goes:  Everything seems to happen at once… Alas.

June 7:  Baby Chickpea (the little chick still with Foster Mama in the coop) is doing well, and FM (aka Yin, an Australorpe) is being an attentive mother.  SO weird and amusing watching that little ball of fuzz running around between the big hens and the roo, and not get stepped on, chirping up a storm while FM does the Mama Chicken Cluck thing.

On Wednesday, the landscapers arrived; they flattened out the back area under the deck, and did some stonework.  Yesterday they worked on setting up the raised beds; there will be four.  I’m plotting what to plant this season – some things will be a bit late but we’ll see how they do.  I may end up doing some low tunnels over at least one bed to extend the season for the veggies that take longer.  At any rate, one bed will be perennials.  More Asparagus (see below), Rhubarb, and the like.  I plan to do one bed with squash (that’s the one that will need the low tunnel), and will also be planting a variety of greens, potatoes, tomatoes, and other things I want to eat.

I’m weeding the garden (mostly herbs) to the left of the house.  The Lady’s Mantle I transplanted last year is doing well, and the Asparagus had a good showing for a first overwintering (I didn’t eat any, that MAY start next year).  Wormwood (great for bruises) is doing well, too.  Tarragon returned, Oregano vanished, needs to be replaced.  Horseradish, of course, returned.   The Strawberries are flowering, at least some of them.

June 2:  Photos here taken Friday, May 31:

This is a male barred rock chick, 4 and a half weeks old.

We’re still pretty much having a cool spring, which is fine by me, although a little less rain would be welcome.  Currently it’s 60 degrees F at 8 am.  I’ve been weeding when I get the opportunity.

This is Idril’s and Tiny Dancer’s baby chick, about four and a half weeks old. It’s the one with the bum leg/foot – the neighbor who fed them not long ago named this chick “Footy”. Okay. Footy works.

As noted, I do have a few chicks a week younger as well (to replace some deaths in the first batch ordered).  I didn’t photograph them this go-round.

At any rate, I’m mixing them up in the two brooder boxes now – the older ones are only a little larger than the younger.  I’ve marked the younger on their feet with a magic marker, so I can keep track of whom is who.  (Bands are a bad idea right now – legs are growing too fast.)  This is so they get used to each other when they all go outdoors together.

I’m fairly certain this is one of the New Hampshire reds. Neat coloration. Also about four and a half weeks old at the time of photography.

This morning, they’re getting scrambled eggs – some extremely dirty but perfectly fine otherwise eggs, scrambled up in just a touch of oil.  The rest of the scrambled batch will go out to the layers in the coop.

Just flushed a hawk out of the undergrowth as I went down to feed the hens (scrambled eggs, shredded carrot).  Guessing a Cooper’s hawk, from the coloration, but not enough  time to snag a photo.  Mine was apparently an adult.  Cooper’s hawk ID page.

At any rate, the chickens aren’t leaving their run until this afternoon (I want them to lay their eggs indoors as Easter Egg hunts aren’t always fun…)

May 28:  New chick status.

Father: Tiny Dancer (silver laced Wyandottte). Broody Hen: Yin the Nauseating (black Australorpe). This doesn’t mean she’s the mother of any of the following, but there are only two black Australorpes here.  Well, there’s Celeste, the hybrid who looks like one.

5 eggs. All hatched chicks (living or dead) were found in nesting box.

#1 – hatched, pecked to death at neck region (looks like an Orpington) No black spot on head as has been seen on others. 5/27

#2 – found dead (looks like an Australorpe). Didn’t examine this one closely, more mangled. 5/28

#3 and #4 – began pipping out at the same time. One was predominately Australorpe (#4), the other predominantly Orpington(#3).

#4 didn’t finish pipping out. Died in the shell. 5/28. No fault.

#3 (arbitrary number here since both #3 and #4 started pipping at the same time) is currently as of 2:45 pm alive. He/she looks Orpington, but like the only chick from Idril’s clutch, has a black spot on the head. Seems healthy. 5/28

#5 – I suspect this egg won’t even try to hatch. Leaving this here until Wednesday, potentially Thursday.

Temperatures today low 50’s, with rain starting early around noon.

Potential maternal backgrounds can only be: Australorpe, Buckeye, Buff Orpington, Silver Laced Wyandotte.   Paternal can only be Silver Laced Wyandotte.

May 27:  The first of Yin’s clutch hatched out this morning.  Sadly, I found the chick dead.  It was a full hatch, but the chick had been pecked in the neck region – the body was laying in the nesting box, so I wonder if Yin (a black Australorpe) had been confused, and did it in.  No rigor mortis had set in. The actual mother appears to be one of the buff Orpingtons (based on the color of the down), this would be either Fembrethil or Eowyn, since it will take Idril a bit longer to get back to egg-laying after her own broodiness.  The four remaining eggs remain warm.  Day 21 is actually tomorrow for these eggs.  I will keep an eye out, perhaps Yin is not meant to be a mother?  Or maybe she saw some fatal problem and put the chick down?  Or another bird jumped in??  Oh, PS, the feet on this bird appeared normal, unlike the little one in a brooder box in the workshop.

At this point, my little one (Idril’s and Tiny Dancer’s love child) maintains her/his will to live and fight , but at this point the foot problem has solidified enough that there is no more physical therapy to help the chick.  If this is a rooster, he will be culled when I harvest the meat birds.  (Sooner, if the need arises.)  I have a rooster for the hens, and should I decide to replace him – not planning on it!, I’d like to have one not of the same genetic stock as the home grown ones, right now.  If a female, I have a tough decision to make, but I suspect that she’d have a rough time free-ranging.  We shall see.  I have a LOT of empathy with anything that has bad knees/legs/ankles, cuz that also describes me… But there’s no reason for any animal to suffer – it will depend.  It will depend.

The neighbor who sat for my chicks and chickens that past weekend helped come over and spray the hens who needed it with Blu-Kote.  I’d been doing it in the past, but two people really really make a difference – the holder can fan out the feathers and the other can spray.  You obtain better coverage that way.  She also brought me red dahlias to plant, and I gave her red cannas to plant.

Just went down and randomized the chicks.

What I mean by this, is that until right now both the first week birds and the replacement birds were in separate brooder boxes.  Didn’t want the older birds lording over the smaller ones.  BUT, I do want them all to be friendly to each other before I toss them outside.  I marked the 6 newer birds on their feet with blue Sharpie ink (to keep track of), and tossed all the birds into one box (the one I use when I’m cleaning out the brooders).  Randomly reached in and grabbed chicks to disperse into the two brooder boxes.  I will repeat this process every two or three days (box cleanout time is perfect for this).  I want them not to be unfamiliar with the cockerels they’ll be absolutely living with, when they go outdoors.  Yes, I included the foot-problem chick in on this, too.  Chicks do have a pecking order, but it’s likely less pronounced now – so I want to avoid problems by socializing these randomly together at this point.

Hmm, lots of vibrant chirping coming up through the heating vents right now… Adjusting?

I have an indication that one of the silver laced Wyandottes is thinking about going broody.  NO.  Just no.  It’s just a tinkling of an idea in her mind, and I sweep up her eggs.  Logistically, not now.

Update, 11:30 am:  Went down to treat hens to some lettuce.  One of the four remaining eggs is trying to hatch itself out.  I see just enough to think it will be a dark-feathered chick.  I’ll be baaaaack!

May 20:   I spent the entire day Saturday without seeing any of my chickens even once.  Why?  Friday I drove down to Maryland for my 90-year-old uncle’s birthday celebration.  What a fantastic choice!  The party was on that Saturday, and a load of other relations were there.  None of them actually live near me, and family is definitely important.  You know, even though I’ve overnighted elsewhere from my home here on a few occasions, two days ago (18th) was the first day I was gone so long I couldn’t check on the chooks at all, since first starting doing chickens in early May 2018.  Yeah, I need to get out more!  I left Friday and returned yesterday evening.

I wish to thank local poultry-raiser Noreen for her hand in dropping by and taking care of the Chicklets and the Layers while I was out.  The Chicklets especially need daily / twice daily attendance, and having someone who knows her way around Gallus gallus domesticus is good to bring in when one has to go out.

Yesterday when I got home – first day of the year where outdoor temps were higher than my preferred indoor temp.  Yes, I will be getting central A/C sometime soon!   Just got to get my rear in gear on detailing that!

May 15:  It snowed on the 12th for Mother’s Day, somewhere close to two inches by the time I woke up the next day.  I understand it’s not usual, but it will happen.

I’ve been letting the hens out a couple hours at a time – I don’t want to encourage Yin, who is broody, to stay out and away from her eggs.  Tiny Dancer (the rooster) took two or three pecks at my legs on Monday – the second I actually kicked lightly at him.  No he is NOT going to be the Dominant Critter here on the farm.  The third time was when I went back out to work on the alternate housing “tractor” – putting up the wind/sun tarp for Goldilocks, who will be moving into it later today.  She’s been henpecking many of the other hens – pretty certain it’s her as she’s totally unruffled, and Idril (also unruffled) had been too busy being broody until recently – as Yin is now.

Anyhow Tiny Dancer did another swipe at me then, just seconds before a gust of wind flapped the not-yet-secure tarp around, scaring all the poultry back.  He was fine after that.

Tuesday I didn’t let them out because I was headed early morning down to Connecticut for the day.

Today, Wednesday, I let them run free range.  On my way back up here (about 30 minutes prior to typing this) he took a vicious double jab at my left leg – and actually drew blood with one of those hits.  Through the corduroys  I’m wearing.  I firmly (not harshly) pushed him aside with the hiking stick.

Although it is no longer winter (I hope!), I do like to have at least one of those hiking sticks with me as chickens are worse than cats when it comes to getting underfoot – sometimes I need to gently move them aside for balance (mine) and not wanting to step on them (their) reasons.  Twelve chickens can get underfoot more rapidly than can five (the number I had at my max) cats!

Tiny Dancer’s fate will not be decided until A) the new chicks from the hatchery grow up and B) if his behavior modulates.  I can deal with him not being friendly – and he’s never been aggressive inside the run or coop towards me.  He’s absolutely fine “indoors”!  A long winter may be something he needs to deal with now that he free-ranges once again.  He’s got a month or thereabouts to decide.

The surviving chicks from the hatchery are all thriving.  My little home-grown one will likely always have a splayed leg and I will simply have to see how well he/she adapts to it as to this chick’s future.  Full of spunk, and while awkward, gets her or his fill of the water and feed.  There’s been improvements noted (I got some good PT/physical therapy advice), but she/he still walks on the dorsal-ish side of that right foot.  Just somewhat better.

If this chick proves to be a cockerel, I may have to cull.  Even if I do replace Tiny Dancer (far from making a decision yet), I need a fully-protective rooster steady on both legs.  I don’t have the winter coop set-up to have more than one roo over-wintering.  Eventually I’ll expand, but not ready yet.  Not sure yet at all what this will mean if the chick proves to be a (female) pullet.

Yeah, I’m attached.  The little feather-ball still lacks a name, but I’m attached.  Maybe because I can more than empathize with having leg issues myself???

May 8:  The little chick born here had curled up crab feet and has a splayed leg.  I managed to splint the better foot successfully, but am still working on her(?) bad right leg.  She’s fighting, which is good.  And there are incremental improvements.

Replacement hatchery chicks, six.  Delaware, Buckeye, Cuckoo Marans, New Hampshire Red, Speckled Sussex, Welsummer.  All male. Some appear redder than normal due to red heat lamp pushed inconclusively to the side.

I lost a bunch of the ordered chicks, close to half.  Could have been the postal transit weather, or the new setup for heat not being as optimal as one might like.  Or something.  The company sent me 6 new chicks which arrived today and whom all seem to be doing well – but I’m not going to count my chickens until they hatch (oh, wait, they did that) until a couple weeks go by.  At any rate, whatever happened to the initial batch of chicks has not affected Idril’s love child, although they’ve been housed together (well, with some – I’d split them into two groups essentially because I didn’t want my home-grown chick with feet and leg issues to be mobbed, and chicks that dropped came from either group).

Idril decided to stop being broody on the 6th.  Hey, yay, I can give the coop a good good cleanout!  Nope.  Yin, a black Australorpe, has stepped into her place, and is now broody.  She has four eggs and I don’t plan to have her set any more than that.  This time, the eggs she has were all put under her (or laid under her) in a 24-25 hour time period.  That’s fine.

Big ole hawk was out circling my back forty this afternoon.  Gorgeous bird, but I don’t plan on feeding him what he probably desires.

Weather has been perfect yesterday and today.  60 F right now.  Yes, folks, that’s perfect, with sun.

May 2:  The dual-purpose, mostly-heritage cockerel chicks arrived yesterday.  I put the hatchling from my own crew in with them, but decided that was too much stimulation (16 co-habitants???), so overnight she(?) stayed with five others and the rest went down to the actual brooder.  There was one really weak chick that I kept up with her in that lot.

She’s doing okay although I am trying to rectify her toe/walking issues with bits of cardboard and cuttings from band-aids.  As seen on the Internet…

However, just now, I had to cull the weak one.  He was chirping but obviously in distress.  While yesterday he was simply smaller than the rest (and a bit unsteady), this evening he was markedly smaller and mostly flipping over on his back.  His feet were fine, so no excuse on that end.

I used the method detailed at How to cull chicks to do the deed.  Essentially, but read the link – CO2 generated from baking soda and vinegar combined in an enclosed container, driving out oxygen.  I’m sad.  And yes, I do mean for the new arrival chickens to become meat for dinner, but I want them to have but that one bad day… after enjoying life.  And I did come to the conclusion that a pair of sharp scissors will be much more humane in the future.

April 30:  Snow on Saturday April 27th, we had fun with our Maypole while it snowed.  It didn’t stick, however, but the day was cold and dank.  I have one lone asparagus stalk, and onions that I didn’t pull last year (they were awfully small) are coming back up.   The wormwood is looking good, and I have a really neat leafy thing that I apparently planted last year – no idea what I put there!  Daffodils are stalks, have yet to flower here.  Note:  chickens don’t like sweet potatoes that much but will eat them when they have to.

Yesterday, the 29th, woke up to frost on the ground.  The last, one hopes!

Also, yesterday, my first chick, a silver-laced Wyandotte x buff Orpington F1 cross, hatched.  She* doesn’t walk very well.  I hope she grows out of that.  22 or 23 days of “gestation”.  She’s currently indoors.  Find out more on today’s blog post.

•   (I am assuming gender here.)

April 26:  This morning two breakfast yolks were noticeably more golden than the third.  Now that the hens are getting outdoors, they’re beginning to reap the benefits.  Or, just maybe, those hens had snacked on more kitchen carrot discards than the last bird… I’d planned on making an omelet, but this golden-ness prompted me simply to pan fry them sunny side up.  (I cover the top of the skillet so that the whites cook all the way.)

Carpenter and his buddy came yesterday to fix my back door to the deck.  Took them four hours, and while they are functionally done, it’s not completely done.  They’ll be back later in May.  (It got too dark to work, and it was already after 8 pm, and I’m sure they wanted to go home for dinner!  Yes, and I wanted them to go home for dinner so I could cook my own dinner without having to have them drool while they worked…)  Yes, they weren’t appreciative of the original job on this door.  But considering four hours for two people… gonna be an interesting bill.  (Old Chinese curse, allegedly:  “May You Live in Interesting Times!”)

IF my eggs that Idril is brooding over hatch, this may well start to happen tomorrow.  I’ve potentially found a home for future hens that I may not be able to house here – someone local who has done chickens often in the past and has the facilities.  I’ll also provide them a future rooster — I mean, this is all assuming I have even a semi-decent hatch rate.  Just gratis, simply because poultry really need to be appreciated.

Guests coming tomorrow:  Serving snacks, make it yourself sandwiches (or lettuce wraps) including chips, dips, and a veggie platter. Of course, anything I found that someone might want to put in their sandwich… .Mid-day:  oatmeal/dark chocolate chip cookies plus sparkling cider.  Dinner:   Vegetarian track is a Chickpea Stew that I plan to post here down the road.  Omnivore track is a locally-farmed crock pot Beef Brisket that follows more or less a recipe I’d posted a few years ago.  Sides:  Salad greens with choices of the dressings from the recent Japanese salad post and a couple decently-ingredient-ed supermarket ones, mashed sweet potato/white potato/onion casserole, riced cauliflower, and the last-minute thin stalked asparagus.  Dessert is supposed to be strawberry and blueberries set in dark chocolate. (Just realized I may not have enough of the chocolate for that…  Being rural, driving that far for ONE ingredient is obscene.  May have to punt…)

April 24: The Raintree Nursery fruit tree bundles have arrived.  I’ll keep them protected and watered until they can be planted in May.  Five apples, four plums.  I see they now have pears for order in a bundle, but I think I may hold off.  Much as I also want them, we have to get the new orchard area set up with what I’ve gotten already.

Last Friday I discovered that Idril was nesting in the wrong box, and that her eggs sitting in their correct box were cold.  However, she’s been on them since, as far as I can determine.  I’ve reconciled myself to the possibility I may have a less than perfect hatch rate, and that perhaps they might not hatch at all.  We’ll see.  I really didn’t need the quantity she’s been sitting on, especially since I do have those dinner chicks on order.

April 15:  Taxes were mailed out last Friday.  Yay, team.

Idril has a total of 11 eggs under her.  I relented and let her have two more.   It may be there is too long a period between the first “due date” and the final, but we’ll worry about that later.  I’m not really wanting 11 new chicks running around (especially since I’ve ordered 15 intended for meat to arrive about the same time these do).  We shall play this by ear.  PS, I finally entered her name into the spell checker… 

The hens are free-ranging when I am home and the weather permits.  They love it.  Idril gets out, too – I think she needs the protein from any grubs or (one certainly hopes) ticks she may find.

On April 13th, the last of the snow finally melted.  (I don’t consider the piles left behind by snow plows in these assessments. Though those are gone here, too.)  This doesn’t mean it can’t snow here again this spring.  Just sayin’.

April 9:  Final egg enrolled in the Idril Broody Scheme.  In total, five of hers, 4 others.  Eggs should start to hatch on April 27th, or so.

April 8:  On April 5, we got an inch of snow late in the day into evening. It melted by mid morning on the 6^th.

On the 5^th, I went down to check the chickens, and Idril’s egg was cool to the touch. SO… I collected it. By the next day, however, the two eggs now sitting in her nest box were warm to the touch so I left them. She’d also been the last to go down to the food, so maybe she’s taking the job more seriously.

On the 7^th, she’d laid another egg (I am assuming these are hers, as she only seems to leave the nest to eat (and presumably, to drink)). Apparently, and nicely, she also appears to leave to poo.

Here’s Idril! Brooding on the state of the world!

I used a black magic marker to label these three eggs as 07 – for the date. Two of them might be a date off (as in 06), but one day is not critical. I gave her another egg from another nest box, shaped differently, and labeled that one as 07, but with a teal magic marker. It was still warm, having recently been laid by some other hen. I figure she can collect eggs until, say, the 9^thor 10^th, at which point I’ll remove anything she’s laying after that – so that her clutch will all hatch out within a few days of each other.  And, as of this morning, she’s gotten herself another egg!  Five in her clutch so far – it’s early morning –  (there weren’t any volunteer eggs in the other boxes, either for me or to be given to her).

This is fascinating!

Meanwhile, I’m starting a mindfulness eating program. For the first five days, pick one meal a day to eat without any distractions, and essentially pay attention to the aromas, textures and tastes of what you are eating, without thinking of the things you need/plan to do that day (the latter is not easy). Don’t bolt the food, but chew (over easy eggs don’t really “chew” however), and let it take its time. Today was the first day. It took 15 minutes to eat the below:

It’s a free 5-Day program at https://www.mindfulmealchallenge.com/  I suspect it will be a good jumping off point for some other mindfulness practices I’ve lapsed from.

They suggest that optionally, at the beginning, photograph the mindful meal of the day, and see how long you relax over it. 7:11 – 7:26, 15 minutes. Eggs, cabbage, bell pepper, mung sprouts, turmeric, ground pepper. Coffee.

High temp on the 7th (highest of the year to date) was 63F.  As of 9 a.m. today, there’s still some snow at the back end of Blueberry Grove.  I planted container strawberries, and decorative pansies yesterday.

4:30 p.m., on the 8th:  Three more eggs enrolled with broody Idril.  One is hers, two I gave her from eggs laid in other nesting boxes.  She will get (or keep) a final egg, to make this nine, tomorrow.  That’s plenty for her first broody cycle!

April 4:   Idril has apparently gone broody.  She is essentially the dominant hen and she is one of the buff Orpingtons.  She’s lying all flattened over the nesting box she’s chosen as her own.  This morning, no sign of anyone wanting to hang out with their eggs.  I went down to Connecticut for the day, and found her like this about 30 minutes ago.  This is a first.  I debated discouraging this, but then… well, it’s April.  When the fledglings  hatch it won’t be winter.  I’m getting plenty of eggs anyway.  Let’s just see what happens… and a Wyandotte/buff Orpington cross could be pretty spectacular looking.

April 3:  I thought I’d posted here Monday, April Fool’s Day, but apparently I fooled myself.  Last snow to date that stuck (only an inch or so) but I felt it was Mama Nature’s way of saying:  Spring??? April Fool’s, suckah!

Didn’t get electric fencing up yet, that will be NEXT Tuesday.

But the hens and their roo now get out often.

Today’s goal:  prune high bush blueberries (while the chickens roam around me).  Will have to happen after I come back from generic car service appointment.

Addendum.  I got back here around 3:30 pm.  High temps today reached 55 F, although the temps are now dropping back into the 40’s.  Despite a prevailing breeze, it’s now getting to be a joy to run with the chickens.  I pruned two of the highbush blueberries (the largest – Grandfather Blueberry – is well over ten feet tall).  The other highbush blueberries are still surrounded by snow, and I figure they can wait a week.  As a friend suggested, save the woody trimmings for the very least using in the grill or future smoker.  Why not try it???  At any rate, the chickens decided not to roam as far as the blueberries with me.  They’ll work their way up (or down, geographically) to Blueberry Grove someday.

I’m in the coop, having just changed out their water, and taking a photo from the coop door out into the chicken run. That’s Goldilocks, my one and only golden-laced Wyandotte hen. Beautiful bird!

March 28:  The hens and rooster went outside of their coop and run for the first time since mid November.  Well, slight exaggeration, as they often step out for a few minutes when I go to the storage bin.  At any rate, the snow is quickly melting and there’s plenty of areas for them to begin foraging like normal chickens.  (I could have let them out on the 27th, but I wasn’t home until evening.)  After about 50 minutes, they were all ready to go back in, except for Idril – so I put them back in, went out to lunch, and returned.  I am hoping to set up the electric fencing on Monday.

March 23: Mildly accumulating snow from mid afternoon March 22 until about 7 am this morning.  Hoping I’m recording the last of this for the season.  High winds right now, so I can’t say how much – 3 inches or so?

Thursday the Rabies Clinic came  to town, and at the Firehouse they vaxxed our dogs and cats for $10 a pop.  Both Serenity and Obi-Wan have spanking new rabies certificates, which I will drop copies off at my vet’s next time I’m down there.  Got to meet a number of local dogs and cats in for the same as we lined up.

Cheesemaking supplies came in.  I’ll start that activity up in April or May.

On other homesteading notes, I need to push on the quail housing thing, so I can order quail.  I’m also ready to prune the wild/naturalized highbush blueberry shrubs, one of which is more of a tree than a shrub, once the weather permits.  The landscaper will be here sometime in April as well.  I really want to get the raised beds going.

I’ll be down at the old digs often this coming week to get that going for sale.

March 21:  36 degrees F and snowing.  Not accumulating, of course.  Last accumulating snow was March 10th, and I hope it remains such, but predictions look like otherwise.

Yesterday we welcomed in Spring Equinox, along with the Indian celebration of Holi, a lunar calendar celebration that falls on the full moon.  Which was glorious last night (when I got up to exercise my kidneys).  Welcome, Spring!!

March 7:  This morning I woke to a solid minus 7 Fahrenheit.  I am fine with plus 5, when going out to the chickens, but this is just a little too much.  Will wait for an hour or so before replacing their ice with water.  They’ll also get lard treats to keep them healthy.

Yesterday was my niece Heather’s birthday.   She resides in sunny Florida with her husband and son, where minus degrees are unheard of.  (I wouldn’t want their summers.)

March 1:  The month that comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion.  Let’s hope not.

Just ordered from Raintree Nursery:  1 kefir lime plant, to replace the one I killed through negligent homicide this past winter.  It was tucked away in a place where I didn’t see it…  1 mini dwarf apple orchard (5 trees).  They’ll go out back near the one surviving apple tree I’d gotten a couple years ago while the house was being constructed.  1 plum orchard (4 trees) which will go in the front yard.  Both the apples and plums need to be around other apples or plums of differing varieties so they can happily cross pollinate, making nice little edible apples and plums for me and guests to enjoy.

Either tomorrow or Sunday, I’m starting up a Whole 30 reset dietary plan.  30 days without grains, dairy, legumes, faux or over-processed food, added sugars, alcohol.   There will be two meals with planned exceptions (I’ll be dining with others at their homes).  Can’t wait forever for a 30 day spot without food-oriented social connections… Hey, the original time I did this, I was still putting milk in my coffee, and figured one tablespoon of dairy a day wasn’t going to hurt me.   I’ve since weaned myself off of dairy in most coffee (mostly because I don’t do much other milk anyway and was tired of wasting the balance of the containers).  Oh, PS:  All the recipes for March and a few for April have already been made and written up back in January or February.  Because I figure if spring ever arrives, I want to get OUTSIDE.  This means you won’t always be seeing Whole 30 recipes this next month.  ….but several will creep in, in the future…  (Ooops, there’s been a delay on program start, more when I do start it!  Meanwhile, I’ll do largely Paleo eating, anyway.)

February 27:  Weather Updates:  Sunday, Feb 24:  Severe icing.  This was a storm that was supposed to turn into all rain, but up here in the Hilltowns, it was nearly all ice.  Didn’t get out to the chickens until about 2:30 pm.  We lost power for a few hours.  Temps did finally rise up so that this last layer melted.

And on Monday the 25th, temps were a little below freezing, but the Wind, oh the WIND! Gusts reported in places in excess of 65 mph.  I don’t have a wind gage here, but I am on a hillside, so I probably hit that once or twice.  We lost power again for a bit.  (Generator coming with spring – well, after mud season.)  The wind ran through Tuesday (the 26th), but gradually were diminishing.  Chickens did not want to go into their run on Monday, wonder why??

ATM, the 27th, it’s 4 degrees F out there, but calm.  The snow that’s out there is a solid sheet of ice.  I am so glad I have those spikes to put on my shoes, and that I have pre-formed footprints to walk to the coop in.  (And pre-formed holes for the hiking sticks.)

Note regarding quail:  I’ve seen a lot of good cage designs, but am working out the best way to cement these things into the ground.  In winds like Monday, they’d blow over!  Obviously cemented in posts, and a flat table top, and some way to secure the things to the table top (just NOT getting on my hands and knees to do daily quail maintenance)!

February 15:   QUAIL UPDATE:   Rather than getting 50 day old hatchlings, although that is still an option assuming I can find a local person to share at least half of them with me, I have found a source for fertile quail eggs that I can buy by the dozen.  With a predicted hatching rate of 70-90%, I’ll probably order two dozen, each dozen to come in separate weeks as a lot of what may nefariously happen to fertile eggs might happen during shipping.  NO, they will not be ordered to arrive before May.

I’ve found a good incubator that will hatch out eggs from quail to goose size, with good recommendations.  This is a gadget I want, anyway.  Cobbling together their brooder in my basement will be easy.  Right now I’m surfing around looking for some reasonably easy DIY quail hutch projects I can get underway sometime in March, before I order.

When adult, they’ll be housed right outside my basement back door, on a platform I can easily access.

Goal is to raise for both meat and for eggs.  The eggs are wonderful both in sushi dishes, or hard-boiled and pickled in a variety of pickling choices.  No, I don’t plan on making mini-omelets.

February 11:  My project right now is to ready the future pantry for a contractor to come in and construct it.  I’ll be calling a nearby one to see if he’s still got time (possibly, since it’s winter), and I have another name if he can’t do it.  I want wood shelves and a counter, no cabinets, and have sketched out the preliminary design.  So, I’m hauling everything that I’ve stored in there out, to find new homes (some temporary) for stuff.  Everything had been in boxes on the floor:  foods, paper towels, cleaning equipment – okay brooms and the like hadn’t been in boxes… Meanwhile, since the root cellar now has all (well, nearly all) its shelving, I’ve been bringing the grains, pseudo-grains, legumes, and rice pasta collection down there.  I do plan on getting one more metal shelving rack system for the root cellar, which will bring this to a total of four.

Actually, paper towels and cleaning equipment can remain in the future pantry until whichever carpenter actually comes here to do the work.  Then that stuff should be in the garage.  Which I want to re-organize in some upcoming warm, non-rainy day we have, by hauling everything out to the driveway to begin again.

Part of the issue was getting tired of not knowing where my Asian packaged goods food collection was.  Oh, bits here, bits there… so I re-organized a couple kitchen upper cabinets for that.  Easy to find, assembled by culture, and at eye level.  (Liquid sauces, oils and vinegars remain in the condiments drawer by the range.  Spices mostly on spice racks.)

Like reading a book: far left, dried mushrooms (to be in future pantry), generic Asian, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesion/Filipino, Korean/Japanese/seaweed. Bottom shelf, Indian subcontinent, Mexican, Middle-eastern and Moroccan.

I did consider putting metal racks in the pantry, too.  But they come in pre-formed lengths and depths, and that will not really work for the pantry.  I also want a shelf over the upright freezer (which stands at 5 feet), and I finally hope to get slots for my pans and platters, which should really sit on edge for accessibility.  (Something my GC apparently forgot to follow through on in the kitchen proper…)

It is predicted we will be snowed in Tuesday into Wednesday; Friday I plan to go to Connecticut and spend the night doing some major work, since it will be warm enough I won’t need to baby the poultry ice, er, I mean, water.  Schlepping down for just a few hours at a time doesn’t seem to be working out all that well.

4 eggs total yesterday.  None frozen.  Only two eggs today.  Likewise, however, none frozen.

February 5:  My late father’s birthday would have been today.  He passed away at age 91 in November 2014.  He came to visit my land twice, but well before I built anything on it.  I’m sorry he never got to see this home at least under construction.

Weather has been a Ferris wheel.  For a couple of days recently, we’d bottom out at minus 10 F.  27 F felt downright balmy.  Right now it is 48 degrees; earlier this morning I was able (finally!) to clean out the “clean out” drawer under the roosts in the chicken coop.  Frozen poop just doesn’t even allow me to open that drawer!  I’m wondering if I should switch to a t-shirt today…

Chickens are doing fine, but only 3 eggs in the past 24 hours.

The winter treads for my shoes work well enough in mud, too.  I have a combo of ice and mud and semi-mushy snow.  Tomorrow temps will go back down, and back to snow, but I like the moments of change here now.

The spikes dig in somewhere between a quarter inch to a half an inch.  DON’T wear indoors!

I am really looking forward to spring.  I don’t mind a bit more snow, but I am really DONE with that sub-zero Fahrenheit stuff.  And I know places out in the Midwest had it much worse than us.

One thing though – living here, I’ve come much more in tune with the cycles of nature, of the day and night balance, and the signals of seasons.  Not a bad thing, not at all.

January 22:  The storm ended up not being what it had been cracked up to be.  No complaints here!

About a foot of the white stuff fell here.  Then, the temps plummeted.   They reached a low of minus 13 F / minus 25 C Monday morning, ie, yesterday.

The cold was worse than the precipitation up here, although down in CT the stuff had turned into freezing rain as it fell, then as a semi-solid sheet of ice.  So, my old digs had about 5 inches of stuff, with that sheet of ice.   (I had to go down last night to check my forced hot water heating system after a power outage earlier that morning.  Fortunately the power was not off long enough to make me a mess.  Another reason I am glad I have forced hot air heat here in MA.  May be less efficient, but works fine, and any burst system will only spew hot air around.  A lot easier to clean up after!)

I’d never met minus 13 F before (this included wind chills in the minus 30 F / 35 C mark), but still had to go give chickens some liquid-phase water (and their feed, but it was water that was critical).  I can bundle up effectively, but definitely need to up my game on doing this.  BTW, the chickens were fine in their protected coop, but 3 of four eggs laid that day were cracked from freezing.  I must have come upon that other egg shortly after it was laid!

January 19:   Prepping for a Big One.

Prediction:  over two feet of snow is scheduled to be dumped upon us overnight and through most of Sunday.  If it’s less than that, the “less” will be taken up with ice, so having the “more” is probably better, since we’re not going to be able to avoid the path.

Since my Internet is satellite, and my cell service provides maybe some text occasionally, I’ll be non-communicating Sunday almost certainly.  Overnight after the storm, temps will plunge to about 0, and that’s Fahrenheit.

Chickens:  Bringing them a whole new pack of pine chip shavings, storage in bin.  Bringing down an additional 25 lbs of their food for the bin.  Since I can’t store their water down there – they don’t like “solid phase dihydrogen oxide”, I’m filling water containers up here in the house should my power go out – probably  it won’t but since I won’t be driving anywhere for a bit, better safe than sorry.  For both of us.  (Well, there’s always wine, but they’re not old enough for alcohol.)  A snow shovel is down there, and their broom will be brought back down later today.  Their oyster shell and grit containers are prepared for their near-future needs.  Since the new freeze-proof water pan won’t be in for a few days, I will be picking them up a new pan later this morning.

Me:  Car will be IN the garage, not left outside.  Dump run this morning is scheduled.  All devices will be charged – not that I can use them when the satellite and phone goes down, but… I can read the Kindle!!  Grill will be covered.  I know where the charcoal and matches are, and I’ve food that doesn’t need cooking in the event the lights go out, too.  Flashlights / lanterns available.  All of Christmas has been taken down – I’m speaking of those outdoor lights; the tree had left the building a while ago.  Compost will be composted before this starts – want to minimize my wading through snow to just performing  chicken errands.  I picked up 40 lbs of rock salt earlier this week; need to move it to where it will be most useful.

NO, I am not picking up the stereotypic milk or bread – I don’t consume hardly any of either even without snow.  And there’s leftover milk anyway from last weekend’s house guests.  Plenty of TP here for half a year.

I’ve done bigger ones (Indiana, ’78, and a couple nor’easters in CT) but I’ve not been responsible for chickens before.  It’s also a lot longer to walk to neighbors, now.

January 18:  Equipment fail.

With winter, the chicken waterer buckets freeze up at their port of water exit, since that’s narrow.  Whether you use the nipple system or the usual hanging waterer.  So, I’ve resorted to kitty litter pans (new and virgin of course).  Add hot tap water, let chickens drink, and refurbish whenever the temperature indicates it will freeze.

Well, when you try to remove the ice so you can re-fill it, and the temps are at, say, 6 degrees F / 14 C, the plastic those things are made from are not hardy for that purpose.  Yesterday, one of mine broke apart completely, shattering in the cold, whilst I was trying to remove a layer of ice so I could add their water.  Chickens aren’t fond of trying to drink frozen-phase liquids… wonder why???

I have stopgaps until the new pans arrive, but I scratched my noodle, and recalled that back when I was a career scientist, we had nifty pans and other containers  that held dry ice (frozen CO2/carbon dioxide – a negative 109 F / negative 78 C) or liquid nitrogen (negative 320.4 F / negative 196 C), with no ill effect to the container.  Ahem, I now have a couple on order.  Not that I’ll ever be providing liquid nitrogen to them, but I know my new containers won’t break due to the cold temperatures we are apt to get here.  Or, say, anywhere else on this planet.

You don’t want something deep, but you do want a pan big enough to water your chickens.  Get a couple.

January 10:  I’m getting ambitious for this coming year.

Chickens:  All my layers are happy and healthy, and I believe I have a good number of poultry in their coop, so unless things change, I am not ordering any layers this spring.

My eventual goal is to have a self-sustaining chicken setup here, so I do want to check out the dual purpose, and mostly heritage, poultry breeds for meat production.  I found five breeds I wanted to try, that would/should also be good for laying (when I try that later).  So, I ordered 2 males of each from Meyer Hatchery.  Cool, but… they told me it was a $30 shipping fee for ten, but if I raised my ante to 15, they’d be shipped for $15 in shipping.  I went for the latter.  Two males of each:  Barred Rock, Buckeyes, Delaware, Silver-Grey Dorkings, Cuckoo Marans, Speckled Sussex, Welsummers.  One New Hampshire Red.  I know that most, if not all of these, will take longer to reach maturity than the broilers I ran last summer.  But I’m wanting to raise up my own poultry down the road.

I’ll need to build a secondary chicken tractor between now and then, since 15 cockerels in the original tractor is overkill.  This will be fine, just need to get my plans in place during this season when the snow flies!

Egg holder for unwashed eggs. Do have the thing tilt so you are safe if a little too much pressure is on the wrong side. (Ask me how I know…)

My other goals this year (that relate to homesteading):

Raised beds.  I’ve plotted out what I want to grow, and how to do crop rotation, and that one of those beds will be perennial (obviously no crop rotation there).

Quails.  I’ve found a hatchery that will sell me 50 straight run.  I’d love to find someone in town who will take the extra 20-25, since I really don’t want 50.  I’d house them almost immediately outside my back door (leaving room for my planned greenhouse.)  Working on this.

Buy a homesteading tractor.  I’ve got the Yanmar in mind.  A couple models in mind, but more later.

Plot and design for four-legged livestock.  At the moment, I am serious about Shetland and/or Soay sheep, Kiko meat goats, mohair goats, alpaca.  They cannot happen this year… they need housing, fencing, perhaps a livestock guardian.  This is a year for intensive research, not actually bringing them on board.  It will obviously not be all of the above, but the options for what I do get are open.  At least one or two of the above would be for breeding, raising up my own herd.  (NO DAIRY! NO PATIENCE!)

I also want to keep the option open for feeder pigs, it is really NOT practical to raise up pigs on a small farmstead.

Maple syrup.  I have a lot of sugar maples on this property.  Some that are relatively more easily accessed will be tapped NEXT winter for the syrup, and even for maple water.  I am not a fan of sugar in any form – I go through about 5-8 ounces of maple syrup a year – but I could sell some and keep some around for my own usage, and it would be a lot better than regular sugar anyway.  I do love the flavor:  if properly refrigerated, maple water (not concentrated down to the 1:40 necessary for syrup, but tested to a tasty but less sweet level) would be a lovely taste treat.  Yes, this would HAVE to be frozen, or similar, until use.  At any rate, I’ll be marking the appropriate trees this coming September.  I’ll even look into birch syrup, why not?

Honey bees:  More for fertilizing my crops than for actual honey, but, hey!  This would not happen this next year, but I’ll certainly plan for this, as well as for native bee habitat.  The latter may well actually happen this coming year…

January 3rd:  This morning I went out to collect eggs.

One thing with freezing weather is that in addition to a regular water feeder in the coop, I have a kitty litter pan with water… pour in hot tap water a couple times a day and it won’t freeze so fast.

This morning I found a new treat… an egg laid into the kitty litter pan of water; the water was lightly frozen on top.

Hmm.  It did have a longitudinal crack so I tossed it, who knows what got inside.

Water, my dear birds, is NOT a place to lay your eggs.  You are NOT salmon who fight your way upstream to lay ikura for me to sample!

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I’d been wondering about my rooster.  He was either celibate or shy.  I found out yesterday on a mid-day hen-house check that he’s just very fast, wham bam thank you ma’am.  Yasukai, my small Australorpe, barely noticed.

I hope in the spring… but not until spring… one or two hens go broody.  The likelihood is for hybrid offspring, as I’ve four breeds here.  Will be interesting.

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