26June2008
Posted by judith under: garden.
The garden is moving into full summer swing. We’re still picking enough lettuce for a salad every night, but that’s almost over with the hotter weather coming in. We have many, many tomatoes and peppers set on and growing well. I’m pretty excited about getting to taste some of the heirloom tomato varieties that we put in, particularly Brandywine. They’re supposed to be very yummy.
The potato bugs are still around, but their population is greatly diminished. I keep after them, picking them off at least every other day.  I think the impact eradication (bug smashing) program earlier this month really helped a lot.
I’ve added watching the tomatoes for stink bugs to my ongoing task list. These attractive but annoying bugs pretty much ruined our tomato garden last year. They latch on to young tomatoes and suck out juice from just under the skin. When the tomato ripens, there’s a corky white area at each place where a stinkbug fed. This condition is known as “cloudy spot”.  We had it very badly last year, since I did not figure out until too late that the spots were not a disease, and the pretty shield-shaped bugs were not my friends. Live and learn.
So far this year, I’ve found and smashed only a few. Like potato bugs, they are large, fairly easy to see, and slow, which makes it easier to catch them. Tomorrow is a tomato inspection day. We’ll see how many stink bugs I can have a negative impact on.Â
The corn and cucumbers that Skye and Gloria helped me plant are up. The poor seeds did get blasted with too much rain in the days after planting, so a few of them have popped up in odd places where the rain carried them, and a few did not show up at all. For the most part, it looks good!
Jeff and I did some staking this weekend. We got most of the bigger tomatoes taken care of, and strung a lattice for the first planting of beans. We still need more stakes, and have more to do.
Ooh, ooh, I almost forgot! We dug up two heads of garlic to see how things were going. They were still a little small, but in great shape and very tasty. The different varieties really did have distinct flavors, too. I didn’t really believe that when I read it in the catalog, but it’s true.
That’s about it, except for the endless weeding, weeding, weeding, weeding…
26June2008
Posted by judith under: Guineas.
On the chicken forum that I visit, the addictiveness of poultry ownership is a running joke.Â
We’ve only had chickens for four months now. We made only one order, did not go to livestock sales, went safely in and out of the feed store without purchasing any leftover chicks, and generally felt a little superior to those folks who were always bringing home “just a few more” birds.
Then we started to talk about getting some guineas. Only to keep the ticks and bugs down, of course. Strictly practical. Couldn’t hurt to check the web for prices. Hmmm…it looks like most of the websites are sold out well in advance. Well, there is a local hatchery. Maybe they’ll have a few extras after one week’s hatch has been shipped out to fill advance orders. We won’t get too many.
Twenty identical cute as the dickens, smart as a rock, guinea keets later…
Yep, I think we may have a little problem here. I’m sure it’s only a temporary insanity, a mild form of the disease. Â
Pictures to follow, just to see if I can drag some unwary blog-reader down into the whirlpool of addiction with us.
26June2008
Posted by judith under: Chickens.
So, all eleven of the rooster suspects turned out to be roosters, just as we thought. Watching them, particularly the Barred Rocks during the final week before their butchering, made it absolutely clear why they had to be gotten rid of.
Their lives were spent terrorizing each other and the hens. No single rooster could ever stay dominant, because there were too many. It was getting to the point of blood being drawn and hens hiding in the barn at night so they wouldn’t have to go to the coop and get attacked by multiple roosters. Just really ugly.
Now we have one happy, beautiful rooster and 4 hens. He’s even displaying some of those “good rooster” traits, like letting the girls eat first, and calling a hen over when he finds a special treat.  I hope he’ll stay this way. Since he now gets to live, he has a name: Henry.
I was going to name him something that would relate to “Miss Scarlett”, which is what we called him back when he was mostly red and we thought he was a girl.  None of those names seemed to stick. Rhett, Clark, Ashley…no.Â
Isn’t there a Miss Scarlett in the game “Clue”? If he was a Buff Orpington roo, I could call him Colonel Mustard (yes, it was Colonel Mustard, in the drawing room, with the lead pipe). But of course if he was a Buff, I would never have named him Miss Scarlett in the first place. I think I will save the name Colonel Mustard, though. I like it.
Anyway, Jeff just called him Henry one day, and it seemed to fit. He knows his name now, too, and even comes to us when we call.
So, there you go. A happy ending for us, for lucky Henry, and for the hens.Â
If not such a happy ending for the other roos, at least an end to strife. They had a great life, got to run around everywhere, and had the best quick, clean end we could give them. Thanks, guys. Hope you’re up in the chicken Elysian Fields with lots of hens. You treat those girls right, you hear me?
26June2008
Posted by judith under: Chickens.
Some new country dwellers, upon butchering their first animals for food, feel obliged to blog about how they now feel connected to the circle of life. Others go the educational route, posting carefully composed step-by-step photographs of the dispatching and dismemberment of a chicken, along with clear instructions on what to do at each stage of the process.
I raise a thank-you glass particularly to the step-by-step writers. Their instructions were very helpful. We even took the printouts outside with us. I won’t be dragging you back through the whole process, though. I’m sure you can find those web pages for yourselves with a simple google, should you so desire.
There are a few things about butchering chickens that no-one ever seems to mention, though.
- Blood splatters. Call me a city girl, but I didn’t really think of blood flying, more of blood draining. On the good side, it turns out that there’s nowhere near as much blood in a chicken as I thought.Â
- Thick skin. A chicken that is more than 12 weeks old when you butcher it is going to have a significantly tougher and thicker skin than the typical storebought chicken, which would have been killed around 6 weeks of age. Hard to cut, and not nice to eat.
- The “ick” factor was not as bad as I thought. Certainly there are innards, and yes, you do have to pull them out. Never having gotten involved with innards before, I had this vision of them as suspended in goo within the chicken’s body. I know that makes no sense at all. Instead, it turns out that they are quite self-contained and reasonably dry, except the lungs and kidneys, which really are kind of icky.
- A big thumbs up for early-morning butchering. If you start at 6 and are done by 9, there will be far fewer bugs to bother you and dirty up your nice chicken meat.
It was definitely worth it. The meat is very tasty, and the soup and stock are just wonderful. Next time, though, we’re going to buy broilers and butcher them nice and young. No more of this “guess the rooster” game.
15June2008
Posted by judith under: Chickens.
No, no, no…
No, no, no, I haven’t lost my mind. Don’t you all remember Dr. Demento? Yes indeed, boys and girls, way back when there was no cable or satellite TV, there was still entertainment.   Local television stations played the national anthem around midnight and then signed off, leaving only the noise of static and a black and white snow pattern on the television screen.
Left with nothing to do, teenagers across America went into their rooms, turned on their prized AM/FM radios (softly, so as not to wake their parents), and listened to the Dr. Demento show.  No, we did not have computers.  No, there was no internet. No, we did not have telephones in our rooms. No, there were not any cell phones. Just ourselves and a DJ with a fondness for obscure and humorous music.
There was the Flying Purple People Eater song, there was Weird Al Yankovic parodying every hit song of the 1980s, there was the Curly Shuffle. And of course there were two of my personal favorites: “Dead Puppies” and “Fishheads”.
Fish-heads, fish-heads, roly-poly fish-heads.
Fish-heads, fish-heads, eat them up, yum.
Once I took a fish-head to the movies.
Didn’t have to pay to get it in.
Fish-heads, fish-heads, roly-poly fish-heads.
Fish-heads, fish-heads, eat them up, yum.
All right, so it’s not Mozart. But it was pretty funny at the time.
So today, as I was standing there helping butcher chickens, I kept hearing the Dead Puppies song in my head.Â
Dead puppies…aren’t much fun.
No, no, no.
They don’t come when you call.
They don’t chase squirrels at all.
Dead puppies aren’t much fun.
Neither are dead chickens. But we got through it. I’ll write a legitimate butchering experience blog entry some other day, after I get these darn songs out of my head.
15June2008
Posted by judith under: Chickens.
I’ve discussed our little rooster and hen problem before. Each day, it is becoming a bigger rooster and hen problem. I’m starting to seriously think that the reason I can’t tell hens from roosters on 11 out of 12 of the straight runs is that ALL 11 of the darn things are roosters.
At all hours of the day I hear the squeaks and squawks of 4 hens getting chased and 12 apparent roosters fighting for position amongst themselves. The only good thing about this is that the hens have really improved their flying skills.Â
This weekend will be a butchering weekend if we can get our butchering setup put together. Knives, clean table, clean cooler, hot water, plucker, bucket, freezer bags, ice, clean water, bleach. The more I think about it, the more confident I feel that we can get it set up. The freezer has plenty of room right now, so the boys will fit right in. Then maybe our girls won’t look so nervous all the time.
Our BCOC continues to be the loudest and the most roosterish-looking, but I haven’t seen him try to grab one of the girls, nor have I seen him go after other roosters who do. Didn’t he read the book on correct rooster behavior?Â
The wise ones of chicken raising tell you that a good rooster treats the girls fairly gently. Gently for a chicken, at least. I don’t think any wine or chocolate is involved. He finds treats for a favorite hen, guards the flock, keeps any subordinate roosters in line, and makes sure that hens eat before he does. That’s how I was planning to choose my “keeper†rooster.
I don’t see the roosters doing any of these things, other than trying to keep one another in line all day long. Maybe because there are so many, no single one is able to stay in charge long enough to take on the correct rooster role.
This leaves me needing another way to choose a keeper. I’m starting to think that I may go entirely on looks. That means that we’d be keeping the Easter Egger roo (the former Miss Scarlett). He continues to get better looking as he ages, with multicolored iridescent feathers.Â
The rest of them, I can take or leave. I can’t even tell them apart most of the time, except for BCOC. Jeff is leaning toward a death sentence for all roosters, but I would like to have one around to crow.
It also doesn’t hurt that Miss Scarlett isn’t particularly big. We wouldn’t be missing much food by keeping him out of the freezer. Since I’m not planning to use these chickens as breeders for meat, I don’t have to concern myself with any skinniness genes he might pass on.
If he’s going to be the keeper, I will have to rename him. I thought of calling him Rhett, but I already have a hen named Red. Too confusing. He’s definitely not an Ashley. If he were a turkey I could call him Clark Gobble. Ah well, I’m sure I’ll think of something. After all, tomorrow is another day.
15June2008
Posted by judith under: garden.
For some reason this place is Colorado potato beetle heaven right now. Gardening has made me understand exactly why scientists in the Middle Ages believed that insects were created by “spontaneous generation†rather than normal reproduction. I always remembered that phrase from the first chapter of my high school biology book, and I’ll bet it was in yours, too.Â
Spontaneous generation, as I recall, simply means that insects pop up out of nothingness whenever conditions are right for them. So let’s see…last year, no potato plants and no potato beetles. This year, lots of potatoes and hundreds of potato beetles. Yes, it looks like an open and shut case of spontaneous generation to me.
Given the high speed with which the bugs pop up out of nowhere, our potatoes don’t stand for much neglect. Luckily, I did go into a potato-bug-larvae-crushing phase right before we started getting ready for company, and I also sprayed. When I went back out, not too many leaves had been eaten, though it was clear that the feast was starting.Â
Just in time, along came Gloria and Elizabeth, two of the newest members of the Ladies’ Gardening Team. Their enthusiasm for the crushing of icky squirmy garden-eating bugs is right up there with mine. Although they did make me pick them off the plants and put them on the ground for them. Wimps. Just kidding, thanks girls!
I would have to say that we sent upwards of 500 little orange larvae in various stages of growth to permanent bug heaven over the course of a couple of days. On the positive side, we didn’t find a single flying adult, although there were a couple who almost made it to that stage. And we found only one dried-out batch of eggs. I checked again yesterday after the Team members left, and there we only a few new little guys to crush. I’ll check again tomorrow after the ground dries out a little.
So, once again the Ladies’ Gardening Team has come to my aid. First in March, we had the early planting team, and now in June, we’ve had the weeding and bug annihilation team. By August it should be time for the harvesting and eating team. Any volunteers?
15June2008
Posted by judith under: garden.
A few weeks ago, I was moaning about how my poor little raised-from-seed tomato and pepper plants looked like they were never going to make it out there in the cold, cruel world. What a difference a little time makes!
Those who read my entry about our visitors know that we’ve been a little busy these last few weeks. First with getting ready, and then with enjoying our company while they were here. The garden has definitely been lower on the priority list.
After our week or so of frenzied preparations, I was dreading the next time I’d have to look in the garden after the family arrived, figuring that my little plants would have been completely choked out by weeds.Â
I had not watered, fertilized, weeded or de-bugged anything in at least 10 days. Of course our ever-helpful rain made the watering part rather moot.Â
Indeed, when I went out to look there were weeds of a truly monumental and embarrassing size and quantity all over the gardens, and I was sure everything was all over.
But after I looked more carefully amongst them, it was clear that the tomatoes and peppers had quietly decided to stick around for the long haul. So, into the garden I went, dragging along any family member who was willing and able to weed, and didn’t have enough sense to hide from me. Particular thanks here to Elizabeth, who helped the most, though Gloria, Skye and Amber lent a hand too. Even Zander got into the act, doing a very fine job of nipping the bulbing tops off the onion plants, just exactly as I showed him.Â
We weeded out enough around the plants to give them a fighting chance, and now they’ve really taken off. We have tomatoes set on, peppers set on, and my former green windowsill monsters have transformed into the green garden monsters I hoped they would be.
15June2008
Posted by judith under: household.
These last two weeks have been incredibly busy. We’ve had a bunch of family visiting. A BIG bunch!
It’s been a lot of fun. Jeff and I were both working our regular schedules, plus he was actually working extra just because it’s a time of year when he has to. So we couldn’t spend quite as much time at home as we wanted, but it all worked out.
Everyone had a good time even though we had to provide our own entertainment. Walks in the woods and fields, a Bambi sighting, turtles, chicken watching, berry picking, rock picking, lettuce picking, garden weeding, bug crushing, target shooting, cooking, bird house building, a tree swing, and lemonade. What else do you really need to have fun, right? Oh, and a few snakes, ticks and spiders, of course.
The first few days, we had a total of 14 people here, 8 children and 6 adults. No, we did not all take turns sleeping in shifts in the 900-square foot house! We do have a 12×24 guest house, and between the bunk and trundle beds Jeff and I built, the one big bed, and the window seat, everyone in Steve and Jeannette’s family found a place to sit and lie down.
Andy and Marnie, camping veterans, brought a tent for themselves and Drew, Amber and Zander. Jeff and Andy decided to pitch it in the barn. That turned out to be a very good decision considering all the rain we had during the time they were here.Â
Marnie says it got pretty loud in there, though. The sound of rain and hail hitting the metal roof, plus thunder, lightning and high winds, was definitely enough to make sleeping a very iffy proposition on at least two nights.Â
Steve and Jeannette, Elizabeth, Gloria, Skye, Steven and itty-bitty baby Joyce got to stay longer after we all waved good-bye to Andy and Marnie’s family so they could get home to send Drew to summer camp.Â
That gave us plenty of time to just hang around and do regular things, like cook, weed the garden, plant seeds, play cards, talk and go for walks. It was really nice, not like the usual frenetic vacation where you have to be forever going somewhere and doing something.
Then there’s all the help that we got, from everyone pitching in with cooking, cleaning, and gardening, to Steve taking over the lawn mowing and fixing the front door, to Andy getting up on the shop roof to tar around every little screw hole. Thank you, everybody!
That’s it for now. A fine time was had by all, and Jeff and I are looking forward to when we can get together again. Maybe by that time the house will even be big enough to hold everyone!
25May2008
Posted by judith under: Chickens.
Our chickens are now old enough for the roosters to begin crowing. In my chicken-raising innocence, I thought for sure that by now we’d know who the girls were, and who the boys were.
It’s just not that easy though. Let’s run down the chicken roll-call. There are 16 chickens. 4 of them are Easter Eggers, chosen for their ability to lay eggs in snazzy pastel shades of green and blue.Â
For these, we deliberately ordered pullets (that is, girls).  But I think we may have a ringer. Yup, roo comb, roo tail, roo attitude. This is not a typical female color pattern for an Easter Egger, either. We had named this chicken Miss Scarlett…now what will we call him?
 Â
Here’s one of my pretty Easter Egger girls for comparison.
Aww, so cute. Doesn’t she look refined and ladylike?
 She has none of that stalking around the yard roostery-ness.
But the Easter Eggers are not really that confusing, genderwise. It’s the other chickens that I can’t figure out.
The confusing chickens are our six Barred Rocks and six Buff Orpingtons. They were ordered as straight-run, which means they were not selected by gender.  One might hope to have six males and six females, although it is quite literally the luck of the draw as the hatchery employees chuck them into boxes for shipping.
One of the Rocks is definitely the Big Chicken on Campus (BCOC). He has a distinct voice and a bright red comb and wattles. We’ve seen him crow, we can pick him out of the group, we know he’s a boy, no problem.Â
Other than the problem created when he starts to crow at 5 AM, of course. Plus the problem when wild turkeys wake up and start gobbling back to him: “Oh, yeah, you think you’re hot stuff? Well, I’m about six times your size, buddy, so stay out of my woods!” But anyway, those aren’t the problems I’m concerned with right now.
The problem is that we have at least one other Barred and one other Buff crowing too. . We’ve heard them, and we’ve seen them. But they don’t look different enough from their non-crowing brethren and sistren for us to be sure that it’s the same ones crowing from day to day. For all we know, each chicken is crowing occasionally.
So I went out to various chicken websites. Yes, there are entire forums dedicated to chickens, including breed and gender guessing forums. After a careful review of the available data, I have come to these amazing conclusions.
If it lays eggs, it’s a hen. If it doesn’t, it’s probably a rooster. On the other hand, it might be a poor-laying hen. If it’s a young chicken with a big comb and wattles, it’s probably a rooster. On the other hand, it might be an early-developing hen. If it crows, it’s probably a rooster. On the other hand, it might be a crowing hen.
Here are some of the other non-useful tips I’ve picked up:Â
- Barred Rocks with black markings on the front of their legs are girls. Sorry folks, all ours have black markings, including the identified rooster.
- Barred Rock chick boys and girls have different markings in the fluff on their heads. Nope, all ours looked pretty much the same.
- Boy chickens have a taller, straighter posture than girls. Well, I’d have to say this is true of the Easter Egger that I think is a rooster. For the rest, no difference I can see.
- Male Barred Rocks are lighter or silvery-colored, more like white chickens with black barring rather than black chickens with white barring. Uh-uh. BCOC is one of the darkest we have.
- If you hang a chick upside down by its feet, a boy will struggle and a girl will be passive. Sorry, didn’t try that one. I think it would lead to trust issues, don’t you?
- And then, of course, if you really, really want to know, you can pick them up and look at their rear ends. First of all, good luck with that. Second, I don’t want to know that badly. I prefer to be lost in speculation.
So this puts us in a bit of an awkward position. The extra roosters are supposed to be killed for the pot around sixteen weeks for these breeds of chicken. This gives them a nice and happy life and allows them to get big enough to be worth eating, while not letting them get so old that they are tough. But the hens can’t be expected to start laying eggs until around 20 weeks. Figuring out just who is laying the eggs will be another whole adventure, anyway.
Right now the chickens are 14 weeks old, and we’re not sure who is who. Two of them just started a crowing contest out in the barn. I can tell that one is the BCOC, but the other one sounds as if he’s strangling. And of course if I go out there, they will stop, and the whole group will look at me like: “What are you doing here? And by the way, did you bring any treats?”
Chickens. You gotta love ‘em.
I give up.