Losing the Rooster War

I have lost the rooster wars.  Bok’s Cocks is no longer a sham.  We have a rooster.

 I have to admit....he is a good lookin' bird!

This is King David.  I don’t know why he’s called that, other than the rooster was put into a ready-made hen harem and the name stuck.

I do know why we have a rooster.

I didn’t want a rooster.  I was adamant.  I don’t want to annoy our neighbors.  We have really nice neighbors.  I really like them.  They seem to at least tolerate us and all our foibles.  It’s a friendly peace.  Although we are on two acres, it is literally a “slice” of heaven.  Our property is long and skinny, which means our nice neighbors are actually pretty close to us.  Not close enough that we can see from our dining room into theirs.  Been there, done that, sold the house and moved here.  Roosters are noisy at really early hours.  We’ll see how it goes.  There is always a No Crow Rooster Collar (with optional bow-tie, of course) if it comes to it.

There are advantages to having a rooster.  Yes, they can be used as all-natural organic grain-fed alarm clocks.  Roosters are essential for expanding a flock the way God intended.  I have read that they ease the expansion of a flock if you do it unnaturally, like we did.  But most of all, they provide protection.  Last week we lost a bird to either a raccoon, and owl or Ozzy Osborne.  Since there is no other evidence of an aging, incoherent British hard rocker in our back yard, I’m going with the first two as the most likely suspects.

So, we’ll see how it goes.  Should I go sharpen the ax now, just in case it doesn’t work out?

Web Mistress

A Late Night Snack

As I illustrated in an earlier post, the new birds in the flock decided to roost on the fence rather than in the coop. This was amusing. Unfortunately, it was also inviting. See, someone decided the fence was a drive through and the birds were fourth meal. On her way to do chicken chores, the Web Mistress discovered a headless chicken and two piles of feathers. One pile was clearly from the decapitated bird, the other was from a second bird in the flock. The second bird was easily identified by the distinct lack of feathers on its tail. Closer examination revealed a one inch gash on her backside. Fortunately for her, a cut on the rear is not nearly as fatal as losing your head is.

Andy

Busyness on the Homefront

Firstly, I would just like to express how difficult it is to do much of anything on a computer that is missing the "E" key.  Toddlers.  Sheesh.

It may have been a quiet spring and summer on the blog, but it's been anything but that at home.  We purchased a homestead that came complete with a garage that had been converted to living space.  With the exception of the space carved out of it and finished as a laundry/utility room and the chunk that is now a shower in the main living area's bathroom, the room was a large, open blank space.  It's tall.  Being a former garage, the ceiling is nearly ten feet above the floor.  It's wide.  It was a two-car garage, after all.

You're counting the number of "E"s I've used, aren't you?  I know I am!!!

This wonderful blank space was designated to be our school room, so we wouldn't have to school at the dining room table as we did at our last house.  It was one of the selling points of a house that was clearly built in the 70s and last updated in the 80s.  And so, we put in bookshelves to house all our books and keep them from being either scattered about the rest of the house or stored permanently in moving boxes.  We put a table and chairs in to provide us with space to work.  We added the accoutrements of schooling.  Supplies, crafts, busy activities for otherwise uncontainable little brothers.  We put all these elements of a working schoolroom in around the piles of boxes that we didn't otherwise know what to do with when we unloaded the moving truck.  Boxes of Cub Scout stuff that had been "donated" by families as they graduated to Boy Scouts.  Boxes of memorabilia, both hobbies and remnants of family vacations.  Boxes of kid's art projects and evidence of their academic progress.

And so, we spent the first two school years in this house "doing school" at the dining room table.  The dining room opens into a sitting room space, and as the sun traveled across the sky each day in the colder months, we would follow it from dining to sitting rooms, until we ended each day by the front windows, computers and books and papers scattered from bins on the cabinet on the back wall of the dining room all the way across the dining table, the end tables, the couch, footstool and floor of the sitting room.  And we were distracted by EVERYTHING.  Outside.  TV.  Dog.  Food calling to us from the kitchen.  Dishes and other tasks begging to be done.

Last spring, I decided to reclaim my school room.  We would contain this debris field of schooling in a place where all the supplies (and more importantly, the printer) would be on hand.  There would be a place for everything, and everything would be in it's place!  I measured walls.  I drew on grid paper.  I dreamed up solutions.  I dug out all the scrap lumber from the garage (much of it donated by the original homeowner).  I pulled up a strip of carpet 52 inches wide in front of the window and started to assemble the frame for my window seat. 

I tore up EXACTLY enough carpet to install a closet, window seat and bookshelf.  This shelf replaces three shelves that had been on the floor along one wall.  Under the bean bags (a homeschool essential), is bare concrete.  Someday, it will be hardwood flooring.

One week after our school year ended, the school room project began!

I finished the last project 4 days before our current school year began.  After I finished the room, I looked at our table, covered with laptops and cables running across the floor, waiting to grab unsuspecting feet and send their owners crashing to the floor, and I thought, "I need a "computer bar"."

The room is not fully complete.  I have not finished pulling down the wainscot paneling and trim on two of the room walls and in the hallway.  I have not yet painted, as I discovered some water damage to the drywall under some of the paneling I did pull down.  I want a new light fixture to hang from the ceiling.  I seriously don't need a ceiling fan in here (it's the coolest room of the house, year-round).  I want to put bi-fold doors on the closet, but for now, the curtain will do. 

Picked up this fabric only because I liked it.  It turned out to be the perfect temporary door!

But it's a usable room.  Our school is contained.  It stays (relatively) clean and organized.  It's a working school room.

It's not my original vision of the school room (which probably would not have worked for my kids anyway).  It's actually a more flexible design.  It's not Andy's vision either.  According to him, it is sadly lacking a ping-pong table, which would have doubled as an excellent surface for doing school work.  But it's working.  And we are no longer a homeschool hurricane in the rest of the house.  The dining and sitting rooms have been reclaimed.  Or will be once canning season ends.   We are removed from distractions.  The kids actually LIKE to be here.

I was so excited to rehang some of our art that was still in its moving packaging. 

Whether you are in the public school, private school, homeschooling, or just in the work season of life, here's to an organized and productive year!

Web Mistress

A Murder Most Fowl

Well, the chickens are one big, somewhat tolerant family.  But not without controversy, intrigue and MURDER. 

Our ploy to slip the new birds in like a thief in the night started off ok.  Mostly, we were able to get them in while the old birds slept.  PERFECT!  Unfortunately, they all woke up.  No sanctuary city here.  Knowing there may be issues, the Web-Mistress and I were up early and able to intervene before there was any bloodshed.

We went back to the drawing board and asked the mighty Google what our options were.  This is where things got a little controversial.  A plan was hatched that only INS would love.  We jailed the law abiding citizens of the run and let the immigrants run free.  Well, we jailed most of the birds.  We weren’t actually able to catch the last bird and so that was the first to actually live side by side with the new birds.  Each day, we released another bird from the re-education camp and the pecking order would adjust. 

On day three, we went out to release the next bird only to discover 3 chickens and a corpse.  Bum, Bum, Bum…  Some wanted to sweep it under the rug as potentially a heat stress death but I saw the blood on the necks of two of those birds.  I say she got shanked in the big house but no one is talking. 

All the birds were released and they have settled into an uneasy pecking order.  The only issue we still have is the big girls stand guard at the entrance of the coop and this has led to the younger ones roosting on the fence.

Andy

A Growing Family

To those of you who don’t have adolescents helping to raise your chickens, you may not be aware that accurately identifying adult chickens is of great importance.  I, however, am blessed to be assisted with my chicken duties by one very opinionated junior adult who expressed her displeasure that all of last year’s birds are indistinguishable now that they have matured. There was only one way to solve this problem… with money. So off to the hipster, urban farming store to buy an expansion of the flock that cost many times more than the initial flock. This led to six shiny new birds of 4 different breeds which should allow for much easier adult identification. Very important. 

What I was unaware of before getting into the chicken business was just how much chickens hated each other. An established flock with outsiders is like ISIS at a gay bar. So you can’t just deposit new birds amongst the older ones.  You have to introduce them over a couple of weeks and then in the dead of night integrate them while they sleep. When they wake up they think the new birds have always been there. Talk about illegal immigration. Donald Trump would have a field day with all of this.  

Anyways, tonight is the night. If all goes well we should have one big happy family tomorrow. If not, well, you get the idea.

Andy

True Love

It seems only appropriate to write about love today.  And I mean BACON!  There really aren’t many better ways to say “I love you” than with bacon.  And we have been busy with bacon around here this winter. 

One Saturday afternoon around Thanksgiving, I happened to be lazily watching PBS which happened to be featuring some cooking show about smoked meats.  What I saw next changed my life.  The meat man was showing how easy it was to cure and smoke bacon.  It appeared easier than I ever would have imagined and I remembered that I have a smoker out back.  This led to some online research for a recipe and a trip to the butcher to order a pork belly.  Once I had assembled the ingredients I set about making my favorite food.

The sum is greater than its parts.

It is actually even easier than it appeared on TV.  Once I had combined my cure and rubbed it onto the pork belly, it went in the fridge getting turned once a day for a week. 

Ready to cure

A quick rinse and it was on to the smoker for 3 and ½ hours. 

Ready for the smoker

You can see the results. 

Makes my mouth water just looking at it.

I smoked it to an internal temperature of over 150 so it was good to eat even without frying it up.  Warm from the smoker, it practically melted in the mouth. 

I knew I had done well when the Web Mistress asked when we were getting more pork bellies.  While we have continued to make smoked bacon, we are also trying our hands at dry curing and other recipes.  My only worry is that my arteries won’t be able to handle this much love.

Andy 

Frozen Chicken

After a Christmas that felt more like Florida than Indiana, winter did eventually arrive.  Temperatures dropped approximately 70 degrees and brought a bit of snow from time to time.  When constructing our chicken coop, we purposefully did not put a light in it, expecting that our chickens would lay whatever eggs would be appropriate for the season and the weather.  On a sunny day, we bring in, on average, seven eggs.  On the third overcast day in a row when the temperatures have consistently stayed below 20, we bring in three eggs.  Honestly, on those days, I don’t feel like doing much either.  Egg production is down a bit, and we do suffer from bringing in the occasional cold egg, which we transfer directly to the egg bin in the refrigerator, simply to keep the egg from sweating due to the radical temperature change, which in turn, may disrupt the bloom on the egg and allow bacteria into the egg.

Additionally, we did not put a light in the coop so that our chickens would do another thing that God intended them to do in the winter: huddle together for warmth.  It’s not a matter of chicken comfort; it’s a matter of chicken survival.  Our property is entirely fueled and lit by electric power.  The power has been rather consistent since we moved in, but our power lines are above ground, just below the branches of a line of rather large Sycamore trees.  These trees keep their leaves very late into the autumn, but drop branches at every light breeze.  Our power lines run along the property line, and the trees are firmly within the boundaries of our neighbor’s property.  They all appear to be healthy, but they are large.  They drop branches year round.  A significant, localized power outage is a very real possibility.  If we have raised our chickens to be dependent on a light bulb for warmth, and we lose power on a very cold day, we run the risk of also losing all of our chickens.

This brings me to the idiot chicken.

There’s always one in the crowd.  The free thinker.  The independent mover.  The creative one.  The only one who tries to escape time after time, in spite of having her wings clipped three times, (once very unevenly, which MUST affect her ability to navigate in air).  Oh, Henrietta.  What are we going to do with you?

It’s two degrees out.  The sky is clear and it promises to be a bright, sunny day.  As the sun slowly begins to float upwards in the winter sky, the first yellow rays fall on the chicken run.  There, perched on the 5-foot tall run fence, as if debating whether to fly on over to freedom, her feathers covered in glittering frost, roosts Henrietta.  Whilst the other seven hens huddle together inside the coop, where it is still cold enough that every cluck and squawk creates a tiny cloud as their breath hits the cold air, Henrietta remains committed to her perch on the run’s fence.  She spends an hour up there, basking in the bright bath of sunlight until the run is invaded by wild birds who are desperate for something to eat that is not frozen solid (which the remaining hens seem to willingly share, as there are chickens and blackbirds both pecking at the chicken feeder at the same time).

Hey, Chickie, can you spare a bite?

Soaking up the morning sun, the only source of warmth on a frigid morning.  Maybe she’s not such an idiot bird after all.

Web Mistress

Death From Above

As I was puttering in the kitchen, I caught sight of a flurry of movement out of the corner of my eye.  I turned to look in the direction of the unexpected activity to see a spread of grey and white feathers in the chicken run and eight brown birds hustling around the corner (which, ironically, is the wide open portion of their run).  I have just witnessed my first falcon attack.  Yes, death does indeed come from above.

Now, I don’t know what that raptor was thinking.  I get that it is a predatory, meat-eating bird, but my chickens are noticeably larger than it is.  I know these birds have keen eye sight, but maybe he’s far sighted?  Dude.  There’s eight of them, each one significantly outweighing you.  When the chickens startled and ran flapping for dear life, he quickly switched to retreat and flew across the yard to the opposite corner of woods.  He’s probably lurking in there, plotting his next move, and if he hopes to be successful, recruiting some friends.  Not that I want him to be successful.  I’ve come to kinda like the girls.  They live outside and they’re pretty low maintenance and they keep me in fresh eggs.

Once things settled down in the run again and the girls when back to pecking at the feeder and roosting on their favorite (and only) cinder block, I noticed the quantity of loose feathers that the falcon frenzy produced.  Thinking back to warmer days, I think perhaps this is not our first encounter with death from above.  Fortunately, all attacks have been unsuccessful.

Web Mistress

Nog

There’s been a tragic shortage of eggnog at our house this year.  During a typical holiday season, every time milk is purchased, so is eggnog.  Now, eggnog season lasts from Thanksgiving until New Years in this house.  Sadly, only two containers of nog have graced our kitchen this year.  Due to the avian flu and its accompanying poultry genocide, the cost of eggnog is roughly four times the cost of milk this year.  Not even a holiday budget can sustain prices like that for an entire season. 

It’s New Years Eve.  After a Thanksgiving full of gratitude (and eggnog), and a very Merry Christmas spent with family (but sadly, not a drop of nog), we come to this, the end of the holiday season.  If feels so incomplete without fighting off four children for my nog, tucked away in the back of the refrigerator in the hopes that the little boys are too short to see it and the big kids will be too lazy to move the gallon of milk in front of it.  Once egg nog is discovered, it is soon consumed.  Hiding the eggnog is a bit like playing “Elf on the Shelf”.  Where will it appear next?

Chicken slaughters and egg shortages are desperately sad things.  They hit close to home, because we have our own flock.  Wait….I HAVE MY OWN FLOCK!!!!  A quick Internet search later, and homemade nog making has commenced!  I think it’s not a coincidence that my house is consistently stocked with the four basic ingredients for nog.  I always have more than enough eggs because I have discovered that I lack the energy to sell eggs to anyone who lives farther away than next door.  I have a husband who only takes his coffee with sugar and heavy whipping cream.  I have three boys who think milk is an appropriate substitute for water.

Based on my limited Internet research into eggnog, proper nog contains an element of alcohol, which not only flavors it, but also preserves it.  True nog should be prepared two weeks before consumption, and made with the freshest eggs possible.  Well, I got the egg part right.  Next year, maybe I’ll try making my mom’s springerle (dutifully pronounced “SPRIG-a-lig” for my entire life) recipe and some traditional eggnog.  Since they both need to “mellow” for a while.  Ooh, those sound good together.  How long until next Christmas?

Have a wonderful New Year’s holiday and a blessed 2016!

Web Mistress

Mud Hens

We were told that no matter how large your chicken run is, the chickens will eventually destroy every living thing on the ground and it will become bare dirt.  To our credit, it did take them most of the summer and fall to achieve this.  But now, the chicken run could easily be mistaken for a pig pen.

Winter weather is upon us, and soon the calendar will match.  The chicken run has become hard packed dirt. Except where its soft, gooey mud instead.  Which, of course, is the area between the gate and the coop.  That, coincidentally, is also the area most frequently visited by people, because that’s where we walk through to collect eggs and feed and water the chickens.

Ramshackle shed.  It should fall in on itself soon....

About a month ago, when the first of the soaking fall rains fell on the grass-less coop, Andy dug out some stepping stones from behind the ramshackle shed and laid them out in a path from the gate to the coop’s nesting boxes.  Brilliant!  No more tiptoeing through the mud, anxiously trying to avoid splatter and face planting at the same time!  The chickens think the stepping stones are brilliant too.  There are obvious signs that they spend significant amounts of time on the stones.  I’m not sure which is more slippery:  mud or chicken poo.

Our chicken waterer is basic at best.  It’s an off-the shelf inverted container over a red tray gravity feed system.  Why are all the chicken feeders red, anyway?  I digress.  Fall rains and mud season meant that every time it rained, the mud would splash up into the water tray, making a bigger mess.  I located a larger patio stone behind the ramshackle shed to put the waterer on.  Problem solved!  Sorta.  It still gets muddy.  But I now suspect the chickens are cleaning up in the thing or something.  At least it takes a bit longer to get really muddy.

The pig, I mean, chicken pen.

We now collect a fair number of muddy eggs.  Egg collection is a timing game.  If you check too early, there won’t be anything, or you’ll have to check multiple times.  It’s muddy in there!  I want to limit my trips!  If you wait too long, the chickens will have walked back in and stood or sat on the eggs, covering them in mud.  Freshly laid eggs in a clean coop are beautifully free of mud, chicken poo, and mostly just need to have a little bit of bedding knocked off.  Muddy eggs are, well, you’re never entirely sure if it’s just mud….

Yesterday I noticed for the first time that the chickens have managed to get mud on their neck feathers.  I have no explanation for that one.  And I am NOT giving those birds a bath.

Web Mistress

Chicken attack!

Cleaning the chicken coop is a necessary task.  We configured our coop with roosting bars that are easily removable and a side door for easy access to make the task easier.  I suppose that if the chickens were enjoying a little time outside the run, say, wandering the yard for worms on this damp, foggy day, it would be an easy task.  But cleaning out a coop with chickens in the run is a lot like folding laundry with a toddler.  They all want to get in the coop just as you are trying to clean it out, and they insist on standing on those removable perches just when you want to pull them out.  They walk through the, um, stuff you are trying to clean out as if to say “here, let me make a bigger mess for you!”

It’s damp.  I want this done quickly, and before the fog progresses to a drizzle and then an all-out rain as predicted for later today.  I open the side door and immediately discover “an egg of indeterminate age”.  The egg is down low between the roosting bars, so it is not visible from the nesting boxes.  Since on any normal day, we only open the nesting boxes to gather eggs and ignore the rest of the coop (give the girls some privacy!), it is impossible to know how long “egg of indeterminate age” has been sitting there.  Although, in all honesty, it was a pretty clean egg, so it was probably laid today.  However, over the months we have enjoyed these birds, we have occasionally found eggs in the leaves near the run fence, in the dust bath hollows they have made for themselves along the garage foundation walls and in other random and exposed places.  For the sake of not eating spoiled eggs, we have a blanket policy to not eat “eggs of indeterminate age”.

So as to not lose my momentum (and risk getting rained on), rather than deal with the egg on the spot, I stick it up on top of the coop roof (which is wavy in a way that perfectly holds an egg and prevents it from rolling off).  My usual egg-gathering spot, my front sweatshirt pocket, would be a very bad idea as leaning into the coop to scoop is likely to result in a very yolky pocket.

And so I clean the coop, lifting roosting bars and dumping the chickens off that decided to roost on them only when I attempted to remove them.  I scoot chickens out of the areas I am presently trying to clean as they insist on gathering in the one spot I am trying to scoop out.  I am down to the last corner of the coop when I hear the sound of a walnut rolling down the coop roof and feelit hit my back and roll off as I reach the furthest corner of the coop, most of my torso inside the coop as if I am being eaten by a hen house.

Ah, yes, Henrietta has jumped up on the roof of the coop (again!) and pushed that “egg of indeterminate age” right off the roof and onto my back.

Ungrateful hens.  Clean your own coop next time!

Until the next homestead catastrophe,
Web Mistress

Victory

How appropriate that on Veterans Day there was a decisive victory in the war on digging rodents.  While I may have mistakenly referred to the varmints as gophers in a previous post, make no mistake, I was out to repel the invaders.  So, off to TSC we went.  We returned armed with some lethal looking mole traps.  Now, the Web-Mistress had researched these traps online and they seemed to get good reviews (despite the fact that several reviews seemed to come directly from the company as the claims seemed a bit too good to be true) so we set them out and began the process of waiting and moving traps.  It is a good thing she does her homework as I would have tried an easier and less effective set and forget method.  This routine has continued for the past week as we have worked around the traps on other projects in the yard.

A look at the whole operation.

After no real success, I returned home from a busy Veterans Day hunting and collecting food, car washes and other ways businesses feel the need to thank veterans not expecting to find anything out of the ordinary.  In fact, when I saw the trap had been sprung, I figured a kid had bumped it as we had already had several false positives.  So imagine my delight when I pulled the trap and found a dead mole who looked to have been snapped in two.  That will teach them.  I reset the trap and am now just waiting to see if that was just a smaller battle or if I have indeed won the war.

Happy Veterans Day

Andy

Trouble on the Western Front

It seems like my allies, aka neighbors, have decided to abandon the fight against evil.  Namely my neighbor to the west has done nothing at all to curb the dreaded gopher that wrecked his yard.  Predictably, his appeasement of this vile varmint has led to its blitzkrieg across the border into my yard and is wreaking havoc in my backyard.  This is outrageous!

Rightly, the Web-mistress has shown herself to be an apt deputy minister of war.  We were recently at Cabelas when she decided to see if that fine establishment carried gopher traps.  She specifically told the helpful staff member that she was looking for traps the offending gopher would not survive.  No catch and release here.  Unfortunately, that is not the sort of trapping they supply.  Not to worry, Tractor Supply Co. has what we are looking for.  As an aside, we learned within a couple of months that if you were looking for just about anything for the homestead, that was the first place to try.  I can’t even tell you the number of times an internet search would lead us to TSC for some random project.  We have gotten to the place where that is just about always the first place we go and are seldom disappointed.

Anyways, we will mount a critter defense in depth.  I will let you know how things turn out.

Your minister of defense.

Andy

Snake Attack

Today, I heard the most dreaded words on the homestead.  “Dad, there’s a snake out by one of the trees.”  This was matter of factly delivered by the 4 year old.  Surprisingly, there wasn’t a hint of fear in his voice.  He sounded downright excited as he told me it was a garden snake.  Foolish child.  So like any self-respecting father, I acted interested and told him to show me.  Don’t kid yourself, going out to find a snake was the last thing I wanted to do.  In fact, if this had turned out to be some sort of misidentified stick, I would have been overjoyed.  If not that, then maybe I would be lucky and either the snake would have slithered off or my son wouldn’t remember where he saw it.  No such luck.  Wisely, the other two boys had stood watch over the snake while the third had come to fetch dad.  Drats!

As I approached, my oldest son declared that it wasn’t venomous.  Now, if you can’t tell, I HATE snakes.  They creep me out.  Needless to say, I have never done much research about them.  But what I am experienced with are children, specifically my own.  For those of you either without kids or whose progeny are too young to understand trust me when I tell you that they can smell fear a mile away and will eat you alive.  This knowledge led me to ask my son how he knew it wasn’t venomous in a tone that implied that I had the answer and was checking to see if he was correct.  He instantly told me the shape of the snake’s head clued him into this detail.  Apparently, if it were venomous it would have been shaped like an arrowhead or something.  Anyways, he sounded authoritative and since I had nothing else to go on I told him he was right.

Why don't they look afraid?

After confirming the fact there was a snake as well as the location I headed off for some work gloves and a stick.  The last thing I want is a snake snooping around my hens.  I am not sharing eggs with creatures that have no legs.  And being that I am just a big kid at heart, I know that every situation is improved if you have a stick.  Really the only thing I was missing was the wood chipper from Fargo.  Always seemed like a good way to disposed of snakes. 

Upon returning to scene, I was informed by my boys that they had diagnosed the creature with either narcolepsy or death.  Hey, things were starting to look up.  I managed to get the snake on a stick so the kids could see.  Once they were satisfied and pictures were taken, we deposited the now clearly dead snake in the nearby corn field.  I handled that thing like a champ.  I hated every minute of it but at least they think dad is alright.

Andy

Two Of Every Kind

This being the first year here on the homestead, we didn’t quite know what to expect.  We moved in late in the summer last year so we missed several of the seasons.  We quickly learned that we had missed the flooding.  When spring rolled around the rains came.  With the rains came an old man named Noah.  Just kidding.  But an ark might have been useful when we saw what the draining in the area did.  When we get a good rain, the back yard floods the last 30 feet of our yard out to our woods.  In the middle of the flood is a pretty fast moving stream.  As the water receded I attempted to keep the area mowed.  This really means that I had a tractor pull in the back yard, complete with mud and ruts.  Uber glorious unless you want grass.

The after effects of a spring rain

For inspiration as to how to deal with this problem, I turned to my neighbor.  He has dealt with the same issue on his property by extending his woods 30 feet or so closer to his house.  Brilliant!  Now all I need are some woods.  That like water.  Lots and lots of water.  It turns out those trees do exist.  I have purchased and planted 8 bald cypress trees.  I have concerns about one of them already.  But 7 appear to be going gangbusters.  We will see how they do come monsoon season, but I think we might have a winner.

Andy

Et Tu, Thor?

As loyal readers will know, I have been defending the homestead from all sorts of disasters this year.  There was the marauding rabbit which had to be dealt with.  We suffered through heavy wind damage as well as unusual amounts of rain.  (Unfortunately I have not been able to lure a herd of deer to the garden for their summary execution)   Through it all, we were blessed to eke out a handful of crops.  But I recently began to notice half eaten tomatoes lying around the yard.  Our garden not being fenced this year, I was curious as to the culprit.  I caught him last night.  It was the official dog!!!  He even shamelessly wandered into the house with tomato on his breath.

This first betrayal was compounded this morning when I rolled him out for our morning run.  We set off for an easy seven miles but I noticed he had no heart for it.  For the first time ever, I had to drag him along.  A little over a mile in he pulled off into the grass lay down and look back at me to say he had gone far enough!  HE QUIT ON THE RUN!?!?  I was beside myself.  We jogged back to house and I put him up.  That lazy pooch slept for most of the day.   The Web-Mistress did some research and found that tomatoes are bad for dogs and can cause lethargy.  My dog didn’t run this morning because he had a tomato hangover.  I am at a loss.  It is one thing to get your tomato drink on, but you have to be willing to deal with the consequences.

Here’s hoping tomorrow returns some normalcy.

Andy

A Fall Favorite

As the calendar turns to fall, I want to take a minute and talk about the crop which exceeded expectations.  Of course, I am referring to my pumpkins.   When I was building my garden boxes this spring my brother asked if I was doing a pumpkin patch for the kids.  When I told my daughter we put in pumpkins I was met with a squeal of delight.  So naturally, I was sure they would turn out horribly.  Whether not producing any fruit, or despite what was advertised, producing mere pie pumpkins I set the bar pretty low in my mind. 

Almost ready...

The plants spent the better part of the summer taking over my yard.  There were hundreds of blooms which fed my fear of too many small pumpkins but as summer waned, the many gave way to the few and I was left with one pumpkin per vine.  Much to my surprise I have already pulled in three that will make fine jack o lanterns and are already on display out front.  The biggest of the bunch is still ripening on the vine and for good measure a couple of more fruit are developing, although I doubt there is enough season left to see them ripen up.

Fall is a great time for corn mazes and pumpkin patches.   Having our own in our yard has really helped me appreciate the close of summer as we welcome the harvest with the arrival of fall.

Andy

The Great Escape

It turns out that one of my chickens is a HUGE Steve Mcqueen fan.  Over the course of several weeks, she plotted a daring escape plan that eventually led to her getting out into the yard several times a day.  While initially amusing, with the amount of dogs and other critters in the neighborhood, it was not the safest way to pass the day.   

The Web-Mistress grew tired of constantly chasing her back to the coop and eventually decided something must be done.  When I arrived home from work on Tuesday I was met by the backyard butcher and a pair of scissors.  She confidently described how easy and effective the process of clipping a chicken’s wings was and since we had previously marked the runaway bird, we set about the task.

Everything went according to plan and appeared to be done painlessly.  All good!  Over the fence the bird went and she dropped like a rock.  It must have worked!  The next day I got a call from home.  Steve had yet again flown the coop.

Looks like another trip to solitary.

Andy

Spoiled Chickens

Life gets pretty busy on the homestead, especially as a new school year gets cranking.  The overlap between school winding up and the garden winding down can be a bit insane.

We have pickles.  Lots of pickles.  The last of the garden-variety (non-pickling) cucumbers have been plucked from the vine and pickled, and all three varieties of cucumber vines have been cleared out of the beds.  About half of the boxes are now empty.

The corn is done.  Unfortunately, we missed the peak and the corn had begun to dry on the stalk.  Once the official dog decided that those cobs looked like toys, it was time to take action.  Corn was rescued for another use and the stalks are cleaned out and drying in the brush pile for the next bonfire.

The sunflowers that son #2 selected and planted have bloomed, faded and begun to be picked clean by the birds.  While I enjoy watching birds as much as the next person, I have bird-related plans of another sort for those sunflowers.

The fall-bearing raspberries that have been giving us meager fruit all summer long are beginning to bear fruit in earnest.  We did not expect many berries this year, but I have been picking, rinsing and freezing those raspberries a (small) cupful at a time, and I anticipate that I will soon have enough to make the raspberry jam that Andy has been pining for all summer (he’s just not into that cherry jam I canned earlier this summer).

Raspberrycicles

I enjoyed a spectacular tomato canning fail.  I managed to turn twelve pounds of tomatoes into one single pint of tomato juice.  I was attempting to make tomato sauce.  Live, learn and buy a food mill.  And maybe a pressure cooker.  I’m watching the current batch of still-green tomatoes on the vines with anticipation….

Not one to waste things from the garden, I have been drying and freezing those overripe corn and sunflower seeds.  I have approximately 15 cups of dried corn kernels and sunflower seeds in the freezer, waiting for the dreariest of winter days to treat the chickens.  Those girls are so spoiled.  But at least the corn isn’t.

Web Mistress