First goats, then bunnies, then turkeys…now chicks!
Here’s the first chick conceived and hatched on our farm. Congratulations go to the bantam for sitting so patiently. This is a half Araucana, half black sex link (Barred Rock/Rhode Island Red) so…s/he’s quite a mutt, chicken-wise. So tiny!
Small packages don’t get much cuter than this. Cheepcheep! Happy Friday….
Posted in chickens, etc.
About 90% of vegetable gardening is merely keeping your eyes open. I’d say another 5% is actual “work” and 5% is harvesting and storing but really, all that “puttering around in the garden”? It’s entirely necessary. It’s field work! It’s direct observation! Even with a glass of wine in my hand, I am WORKING, people.
And it is through direct observation that I realize my darned greenhouse seedlings are never ever gonna grow past the stubby 2″ phase unless I do something to stop the munching damage caused by the sowbugs. I can’t do anything about the sowbugs barring absolute war so…I employ a simpler strategy. In this instance, entrapment.
The caramel-colored blob is this year’s barrier method. And “OB” = “Orange Banana,” a delectable paste tomato.
Last year I mounted an office-supplies war with indifferent results (the greenhouse was open-ended thus wind-riven; these collars up and flew away if not simply apart). This year, I applied the stuff normally applied to tree whips (sapling fruit trees) to prevent girdling by other, equally hungry insects. [It's called Tanglefoot; it's a gooey waterproof paste of wax/oil; used to be made in Grand Rapids but like so many Michigan companies it's up and gone away.] Can’t say it won’t stop the bugs from decapitating the seedlings below the point of the goo, but it’s something. Now, I stand back and watch. And sip. And watch some more.
Posted in sweat
I have to remember that warm weather has an upside
The mercury in the non-greenhouse thermometer reached 86 degrees F. yesterday. You’d think it hit 106 the way we were carrying on around here.
I will readily, easily admit I prefer cool weather. We didn’t get to 90 all last summer and that was quite fine by me: canning was still a sticky endeavor (and considering I was canning food for 135 schoolchildren as well as our own needs perhaps “endeavor” is an apt term) but otherwise it was an enjoyable year. And now, well, now our blood is still thick and our entire aspect is crabby.
Case in point: Five hens are sitting on eggs and, when they come out for their daily water, food, dustbath and, er, bowel clearing session they create QUITE the ruckus in the yard. They cluck mightily and pick fights (!!) with everyone, and it appears to be catching. When not molested by broody hens, our other chickens stand droopily with heads lowered and wings out, trying to take advantage of any breeze. But once one gets a-squawking the others remember past grudges and the feathers then fly. This heat and humidity has caught them off guard too.
T-bell the goat stomps her feet on the milkstand. We got actual tears yesterday when our daughter realized her kiddie pool (six year old kiddie pool) had a hole, and her mood was only lifted when I told her she could spray ME with the hose. The dog keeps losing fur and I saw one cat wrapped around the base of a toilet at one point in the afternoon. And who wants to cook in this kind of weather, much less garden?
I suppose if we’d been eased into it instead of thrown in the boiling pot we’d have been less upset by how hot it was. Go ahead and laugh: we’re complete hot-weather wimps!
Posted in Uncategorized, weather
It’s a somewhat sad day around here because the goat kids are going to their new home. The family who is taking all three are also taking all the turkey poults that we’re not keeping. Lots, lots of babies going away, flying the nest…it’s freeing but still slightly heartbreaking, especially regarding the kids.
I/we fed Chip, the bottle baby, four bottles a day then three bottles a day then two bottles a day then one bottle a day until just this morning. Mama goat has mostly weaned the other two but sometimes they ambush her at night. Considering they’re all the size of your average Dalmatian, it’s hard for her to constantly fight them off. They’re all old enough and big enough to be completely weaned, so this move will only be a physical shift for them to make.
Of course for me this means my chore list has shortened and all that creamy white milk is mineminemine. And I have been a cheesemaking fool, going a bit nutty with my (no kidding) 6 gallons of milk a week. What’s another gallon or two now that I don’t have to feed Chip, or that T-bell’s not feeding the other kids? I’ll tell you what: two more gallons means 1.5 more pounds of cheese, added to the other 4 or so pounds. Yum cheese yum.
I will miss my bottle baby though. He was ONE creature in the extended farm family who was always glad to eat what I brought him.
Posted in dairy goats
Yesterday was a conference day at our daughter’s school so she got to spend the day at home with her dad. It was a self-described Nature Day.
Armed with a magnifying glass, they went to watch the ant colony at the Old Sitting Stump.
Tom kicked over part of the stump to better see more of the carpenter ants, and disturbed a nest of voles*.
They’re very tiny as you can see. And our daughter told me they were especially fun to see under a magnifying glass.
So they put them in a jar to better watch them. And, while they were at it, they found some wild asparagus.
And later in the day, Little Edie the fearless feline flushed out a baby wild bunny. We tried to find its burrow but failed. Poor little thing. The little dot on its head says it’s still a nursling.
*Voles are my greenhouse nemesis as they loves themselves some seedings. They also are incredibly prolific. Sure, these little ones probably won’t make it but their mother will go on to have as many as 7 more litters in 2010.
Posted in nature
Pizza with goat cheese, green garlic coins, herbs and asparagus
Today’s Friday, one of my work-at-the-office days, but we’ll still manage to eat dinner at the usual time. How do I do this? While making toast this morning, my daughter and I mixed up pizza dough to rise all day is how. In other words, “forethought.”
I made two batches of pressed cheese this week. What the heck is that? It’s like chevre with more rennet and all the liquid squeezed out. Think “cheese curd squeak” with a mild, firm, unaged cheese, and you’re almost there. The first batch was herb-laden (chives, garlic, marjoram, thyme) and the second plain (just salt). Half of this latter batch went to school with my daughter for her to share with her class in the look-what-we-can-do category of school eats…it was mostly a hit. It’s goat’s milk cheese, after all, and thus it’s different than the bovine variety; I don’t expect children raised on the commercial kind to leap quickly into the homemade camp. But the bowl came home empty, so what do I know.
The other half melts well on the home-made pizza! I shredded it on my daughter’s pizza and left it chunky on mine. Asparagus, green garlic, some pepper…what could be better. (Oh yeah: outdoor masonry-oven pizza would be better. (Soon.))
Feta’s next!
Posted in fermentation
Chicken Patty is sitting again. And she’s cluckingly, spittingly mad. Doesn’t she look tough?
Amanda asked what one does with a broody hen determined to sit on unfertilized eggs. I had been hoping at least one of our 25 hens would get the urge: the clock is ticking as we do want some chicken in the freezer this year. This is our first year with roosters, too, so with hope the eggs, should someone decide to sit them, would be fertile. I had even gone so far as to secure the lease of an incubator when blammo! Everyone has the urge to sit.
Last year we had no roosters but Chicken Patty (our lone meat bird) went broody. Not willing to miss an opportunity, I let her sit on some duds for a week and THEN I stuck six day-old chicks under her, one at a time, substituting chick for egg. This worked! Jerusha and Johanna and Nice Rose are clucking around the barnyard today and their three brothers went to Freezerville. But I know this plan only works if you actually want more birds.
I have no direct answer for you, Amanda, but I am sure others will tell you in the comments. Eventually, this too shall pass…perhaps harvesting the eggs while wearing gardening gloves is an option. I have heard extremes like sticking the girl in a wire dog kennel, off the ground, and she’ll come out of her broodiness in a day or two. Me? I wouldn’t go that far, but then again I want a broody bird or three. Like most of chicken-keeping, it’s a matter of adjusting to their quirks (“Hey, my chickens are digging up my garden!” “Well then get them out of your garden!”) that I have found to be both fun and somewhat frustrating about having them around.
I suppose they could say the same thing about me. We’ve certainly got each other very well trained.
Posted in chickens, etc.
The bantams, true to their reputation, are broody little birds. Here, a Golden Sebright and a Mille Fleur d’Uccles patiently wait out their confinement in an old dog kennel. They’re sitting on about 2 dozen chicken and wild mallard (!!) eggs.
Chicken Patty says she wants to be the first meal coming out of the masonry oven.
And who in the world could take care of 17 children? I don’t wish it on Ruby so the majority of them are now under lights. She gets to raise the three we intend to keep.
And this little fellow has been living in and around my garden the last two weeks. Very shy, you gotta wonder how he got where he is. I explained it to my daughter this way: “Do you remember when you lost your first balloon when we were at the county fair when you were 3? Well, that’s probably what happened to this family when their little bird flew out the window. There’s nothing you can do but cry and watch it fly away.”
Posted in chickens, etc.
Last year, Mama Ruby the Turkey surprised us by hatching out one turkey poult and one gosling on Mother’s Day.
This year, we were surprised by how many: seventeen!
They all hatched on Thursday. This poult is still wet from the egg.
Happy Mother’s Day to all…it’s hard work!
Posted in nature
Just because I am brave, I decided to make a pressed, aged cheese for my third attempt at home cheese making.
I had help with the selection, though. When asked, my daughter said “Either feta or cheddah,” laughing. I told her the cheddar had “delayed gratification” written all over it, as it should age at least 4 weeks before cutting into it. And I chose to make cheddar because, unlike feta, I had all necessary ingredients.
A pressed cheese requires a press, of course. I have a somewhat thrown-together setup made mostly with things found around the house, including weights from Tom’s fitness area and some pans from the kitchen. The mold itself is entirely easy to make at home except for the small fact that PVC pipe (which is what mine is made from) is sold in 10′ lengths and there is no way I would ever need that much. Of course you can use anything else, too: an empty BPA-free can, say, with both ends cut out. The follower is simply a piece of maple 1x wood cut to fit inside the pipe. (I purchased both this press and a larger one from Caprine Supply as even I am known to throw the rare dollar at convenience.) And I punched a pie tin (downward, no sharp ends inside) to drain the resultant whey. There’s another pie tin below it that holds the punched tin aloft by four mason jar rings.
I told you it looks thrown together: the drainage system, left, and the final pressing, right, w/ 30 lbs. in the pot. That’s another mason jar acting as a plunger. The white thing is the mold, and you can’t see the follower, and yes, those are washcloths soaking up the resultant whey.
You won’t need the jar rings after the first pressing. Towels will do. And: anything you can do to stabilize the weights is helpful. I did the first pressings on the floor in case the darned thing wanted to tip over (and it did) but…now that we’re on the last pressing the weights are safe in their pot atop the counter.
This cheese did take a good part of my day to make, but it was more busy work (checking temperatures, etc.) than active work. It gets pressed under different weights for a total of 28 hours, then it gets to dry (covering the outside with salt), then waxed, then aged in the cellar. Sounds like a lot of work but…good things take time.
Posted in fermentation
Time to stop and smell the wisteria
I’ve come to like this time of year. Sure; it’s spring and there’s much to love in terms of all the natural and botanical shows going on…the weather is fine, the breezes ruffle the curtains and the mosquitoes are not yet out. Why in world would I ever have a problem with spring, then?
I think you know the answer: it’s called PlantItNowItis.
With the Mother’s Day holiday looming, most northern gardeners have task lists as long as their arms, and they’re plenty frazzled. (Everyone not in the north: Mother’s Day is the unofficial/official Start Gardening day.) How many times have YOU lost your planting shovel this year? (Me: twice.) But I am somehow less flappable, more sanguine about spring. I can pick and choose my tasks, with some being of course more front-burner than back-. What’s my secret? The season extension offered by the greenhouses, of course. It’s taken away a lot of my seasonal panic by giving me, frankly, a longer growing season.
(people! remember, I am a greenhouse/hoophouse evangelist, so…buy my snake oil or not as you see fit!)
Anyway, I have had time to attend to other things, like cleaning OUT the greenhouses of their winter contents and general tidying-up…all tasks that have eluded me on previous May 5ths.
Behold the reconstituted mailbox, for example, and the netting covering the now-open ends of the new greenhouse. Always, a dry place for gloves, tools and lettuce-bags.
And no tomato hornworms this year, I swear, nor any cabbage butterflies! (One makes such oaths and it becomes more realistic if one installs netting, you see, as the holes are too big for the adult moths to fly in and lay their eggs on my precious ‘maters and broccoli.)
It’s these little things, and taking (finding, making) time to do them, that make me most grateful. If I find I have time, then what better place to spend it than puttering around the gardens with my family? Thanks, greenhouses, for adding to our quality of life as well as our diet.
Posted in greenhouses, sweat
It’s 2:40 behind…
I’ve figured out the secret to getting more time in the garden!
It’s simple: let your garden clock get blown down in a rainstorm and let its back fill with rain.
Way back when I felt that every minute spent away from our toddler was a huge motherhood sin, I installed a cheap kitchen clock on the garage wall within full view of the gardens. And it’s been a wonderful clock. Thriftily, it uses one double-A battery per year, and its time has been reliably accurate (to my dismay: when I needed more time it didn’t give it to me, of course). I noticed it had wound down last week so I took it down (I can jump to reach it), replaced the battery, then I never bothered to find a ladder to reinstall it. (I didn’t have time to, you see.) So of course at the first puff of wind it fell off the sill where I had placed it and then got drenched.
Now, it keeps completely wild time! When I took this photo, it was noon. Garden time, right? Too bad nobody else lives by it.
Posted in weather
Glad you came to visit!
Got something to say? Email me at fastweedpuller at gmail dot com.
