Yesterday, the Hatchlings and the Orphans were playing nicely together so I let the most gentle Marans out of “Time Out” to join them. She was very kind to them and last night she perched on one end of the perch, the Hatchings and Orphans on the other end after hubby and I had to catch the Orphans and send them up the ramp.
Today has been extremely wet, but the hen and the pullets came out, mostly staying near or under the coop during most of the day. Late this afternoon, Mama Hen was let out of “Time Out” and she is no longer exhibiting the mama behaviors. She didn’t try to separate the hatchlings from the others, didn’t hover around clucking. Tonight, all 5 pullets cooped up and perched together on one end of the coop the two hens together on the other end of the coop.
Tomorrow, another hen will be released, and if things still seem calm, the remaining hens will be released one at a time, hoping for peace in the yard. The orphans seem less intimidated each day.
It looks like one of the hatchlings might be a little roo. Not a very pretty bird, but a rooster here as long as it is only one would be welcomed. They do help protect their hens from hawks and showing them treats.
After some frustration with this experiment, it looks like we may have added 5 more birds to the 6 adult hens. I hope egg production picks up.
Twelve years ago, we began talking about adding a dog or two to the farm. Hubby wanted an English Mastiff. I had no idea what they were, but he found a litter due in December in Pennsylvania. When they were 8 weeks old, we drove up and picked up our 22 pound puppy. Two weeks later, driving up again to purchase a beautiful German Shepherd pup. They were best buddies, but unfortunately, the German Shepherd, who we later found out had come from a disreputable puppy mill, developed Canine Wobblers and at 16 weeks, due to her paralysis and a heart murmur, she had to be euthanized. Later that summer, we purchased another German Shepherd pup but they never truly bonded like the first one did.
Today we had to say goodbye to the big guy, he far outlived the life expectancy of a giant breed and was the best gentle giant in the world.
It is such a tough decision to have to make, but this was the last gift we could give him.
Life on the farm continues with the saga of the hatchlings and the orphans. The orphans have been in a wire dog cage in the coop for a couple of weeks and in the cage in the yard during the day Yesterday, I left the hens penned in the run and let the orphans out into the yard. The hatchlings can still escape the run and the 5 of them played nicely all day, but if the orphans got near the run fence, a hen would lunge at them. Today I repeated the same procedure and decided that the best option for now is to put the hens in purgatory, AKA the chicken palace, AKA timeout. I left Mama Hen with them and she promptly separated her littles from the orphans, but didn’t attack the orphans. Tonight the 5 littles and Mama will have the coop and for a while, the run of the farm without interference. Eventually, I will release the hens one at a time to rejoin the littles in the coop. I hope it works. Egg production is minimal right now anyway.
My intent has been to be a bee keeper, not just someone with a hive or two sitting down the hill in an electric fence enclosure. These bees came to me via local purchase in the spring and were diligently set up with the idea of being successful this year. Then bursitis in my left shoulder, followed by a ruptured bicep also the left (my dominant side), then the heat. The bees have basically had to fend for themselves, though I did do one hive inspection, finding old larvae and low population in one hive and no evidence of the marked queen, and new and old larvae and much higher population in the other hive, but again, unable to find the marked queen. I closed them up and hoped that the first hive had made a new queen before the marked one took off with her helpers.
Yesterday, my bee keeping, spinning friend offered to come over today and help me do an inspection. Walking up to the hives, we weren’t hopeful with the first hive, but found eggs (which I can’t ever see), young and older larvae, capped brood, some honey, and some stored pollen, but not enough. The amount of brood is hopeful that the new queen is doing her duty to build up the population before it gets cold. The second hive is thriving. We pulled a lot of drone larvae off for the chickens, it is about time for the workers to kick the drones out anyway. We pulled the queen excluders, and decided that since there isn’t enough honey stored for winter, that I should begin feeding them 2:1 syrup that they can cap and store for winter. Next week, it is supposed to be cooler, so we are going to treat both hives with Formic acid pads to kill off any mites before it gets cold.
Not a single photo was taken today, but the hives are set up with an empty box on top to hold two quart jars of syrup per hive. A need to purchase a 20 lb bag of sugar on the list as I used all that was in the house. Four quarts of syrup are cooling on the counter and I’m waiting the the thunderstorm that came up to pass so they can be taken down and put on the hives.
After we were done, both hot and sweaty, we visited over a cold lunch of Quinoa salad that I had made this morning, then picked her a few gallons of apples to take home. Though it wasn’t as hot as the past week, it was still plenty warm in long sleeves, long pants, boots, hood, and gloves.
My appreciation of her help can’t be explained enough. With the difficulty of lifting the heavy boxes and the inability to see the eggs in the cells, it is great to have her younger eyes and greater strength.
The schedule has had a soap making day floating around it for several weeks. Today was the day to begin for this year’s supply. My potter friend who loves my soap asked for a batch, Son 1 needs about 20 bars for personal use and gifts, hubby and I are each on our last or near last bars of our preferred ones.
Because it is a home football evening at the University, we went into town a bit earlier, got breakfast and supplied for the week at the Saturday Farmer’s Market, and because of the football game, all of the parking near where we wanted to begin our daily walk is off limits, we headed to a more distant portion of the trail and got our walk in. With those daily tasks completed before noon, the Orphan chicks were moved to the outdoors for the day and the kitchen set up to begin the soap making production. Three of the batches were the same scent, so they were done first as it didn’t require significant clean up between batches as long as I tared out the scale before measuring the oils and fats. They all go in loaf molds. The fourth batch for the day using the sheet of round bar molds and is for me, so I didn’t care that a little bit of the scent from the other batches would blend in with my Eucalyptus and Tea Tree which is my favorite, and that batch was also made and the four batches are curing overnight. Tomorrow, if they are sufficiently cured to unmold and cut, two more batches will be made. The molds are all currently in use.
Tomorrow’s batches will make 6 done for this year’s use and all of the equipment will be again packed away until more is needed. With no shop and no markets, less is made these days.
Soon there will be a hands on class at the museum. I need to find another emersion blender before then and order molds that won’t come back to me after the class.
The garden is a mess, the two pumpkins vines have taken over and what isn’t under their leaves are weeds. The zucchini finally quit, the cucumbers are scarce, but there are many pickled in the refrigerator. The tomatoes have produced well but many were lost with a period of rain and then being away for 4 days. A bucket full is awaiting attention on the kitchen counter. It will be turned into sauce this afternoon and what isn’t used for dinner will be frozen in quart freezer bags as I still haven’t the drive to can this year. The Tomatillos are producing fruit but it is rotting on the vine or getting eaten so only 1 have been brought in. The peppers are still not doing much.
I did get away last weekend for an annual fiber retreat in beautiful Black Mountain, NC. The group was on the smaller side due to some folks that had to drop out at the last minute, but I did meet some new people and look forward to seeing them again maybe at Hawk’s Nest in February or next year at Black Mountain.
A morning walk while there an encounter with a very tolerant hen Turkey and her three poults.
Once home, the Mama Hen has started making her 5ish week old chicks get up on the roost at night. The two orphans spend the night hiding behind the feeder and waterer and the day roaming the coop. They have only ventured out twice and both times have been attacked by the flock of hens. Today we purchased a wire dog cage and I put them in it where they will be seen, but protected. On nice days, I will pull it out and put it in a shady spot in the yard and hopefully eventually they will be accepted or will at least be big enough to defend themselves.
The daily social media memory photos show lots of produce, much canning done and being done. The garden is slower this year. There were plenty of zucchini, enough to get tired of them. Enough cucumbers to ferment 3 quarts, quick pickle 2 half gallon jars, and plenty for daily cucumber salads or slices in green salads.
There were probably 3 1/2-4 gallons of tomatoes that I put in the freezer until there was no more room in the refrigerator freezer for them. I failed to core and cut out bad spots before I froze them, so this afternoon when I prepared to deal with them, coring and paring bad spots on frozen tomatoes was a challenge. Freezing them does allow for easy peeling. Once peeled and cored as well as possible, they were put on medium heat in my largest pot and cooked down for about 5 hours. Not wanting to haul out the canner at 8 p.m., the seasoned sauce was ladled into quart freezer bags, a couple wide mouth pints for freezing, and 2 regular mouth pints to use for dinner tomorrow night. That puts 5 3/4 quarts of pasta sauce away for winter.
The gallon of tomatoes that were harvested yesterday, were cored and bad spots cut out before they were put in a bag and frozen. Maybe when there is another pot full of tomatoes, some will be canned for shelf stability. The peppers are very slow, the plants are still small. I may have to purchase some jalapenos to make a batch of Rotel style tomatoes. Year before last the pepper was poor, last year there were plenty for canning, freezing, and using in sauces.
Tomorrow, two small eggplants will be fermented or made into Caponata.
As for the remainder of the garden season, the Tomatillos are beginning to ripen, though the first half dozen were spoiled on the plants. The pumpkins are taking over the garden. The vines have been redirected to the point that I am going to have to cut the ends to slow them down and just let them form whatever pumpkins that they will produce. Cucumbers will be harvested for fresh consumption and fed to the chickens. The peppers will hopefully produce more fruit in the next 7-8 weeks. It would nice to can some and make Salsa Verde and Tomatillo simmer sauce.
This time of summer always makes me feel the garden is all weeds and finding the vegetables impossible. And I get frustrated with the whole vegetable garden idea, especially since we have such a stellar Farmer’s Market twice a week.
This past week, the hay team finally got the hay down and baled. A few scattered thunderstorms have the underlying grass greening up again and there are two small bales set aside for my use in the chicken run and garden.
There was still part of a large bale from two years ago that I couldn’t handle alone. Last time the local 16 year old grandson was here to mow, he helped me relocate what was left of it into the garden. This afternoon, after having spent a couple of hours over the past few days weeding what I could, the gas mower was pushed over and the wider paths were mowed, another couple of hours of weeding and a lot of wrestling, managed to stand the bale on end so it could be unwrapped and thick layers of the old, spoiled hay were applied over the mowed area and an idle bed. There is a small core about 14″ in diameter left and a little more path area that needs to be mulched with it, but the heat, sweat, and prickly skin ended the project for the day.
The beans are nearly done, cucumbers are beginning to come in enough to ferment a couple jars of sour pickles, pumpkin vines escaping the huge bed they are in, the tomatoes too close together are a tangle of branches and vines with fruit, but probably not as much as I would have gotten if they had been properly spaced and staked. The zucchini are producing baseball bat sized squash overnight, though it was supposed to be a compact small garden variety that produced smaller squash. Tomatillos are showing lots of blossoms and fruit, and some peppers are developing, though those plants will wait for it to cool off some to really shoot up and produce. Each trip out to the garden results in more notes for next year. I should remember from year to year, but still make the same errors. There is really more garden than I am comfortable with at this stage of life. Perhaps one of the beds will become the thornless blackberries and raspberries heavily mulched and get them out of the plastic half barrels. They would produce more fruit if they had more room. The asparagus when they aren’t 6 foot high ferns are going to be boxed to make weeding around them easier.
I would love to have taller raised beds with thick wood chip paths, but that will never be.
My photo memories show a lot of produce had already been canned by this time of the summer. This garden seems to be slower to provide.
After Mama Hen initially took to the chicks we bought her to round out her family, she decided the two little Midnight Marans were hers, but the Americaunas and Easter Eggers were not. For a couple of nights after the divider netting was installed, I could get them back under her, but after a couple of days, it was obvious she wanted no part of them and didn’t want them near “her” chicks. The 4 light colored chicks managed somehow to get on the other side of the net from her and the other hens were okay with that, but not motherly to them either. The divider net was pulled down so they had the run of the coop and for two nights, Mama Hen put her 4 in a nesting box with her and the other 4 huddled together in an adjacent nesting box. Fortunately, I guess, it has been very hot and they have done okay.
Today, she urged her 4 little dark chicks out of the coup into the run and ultimately farther away from the coop over toward the relative shelter of the grape arbor and wood pile.
She does her best to keep herself between the chicks and me, but I did catch this photo. I tried putting one of the Americana’s that is more darkly marked down near them and she ran her off and tried to peck her. And one of the very light Easter Eggers must have followed her out of the coop or fallen out of the coop and was hiding in the Comfrey plant nearby, loudly protesting.
It looks like she will raise 4 and I will raise 4. The light colored ones are now safely in a large dog crate with wood chips, food and water in the garage.
Next week the temperature is supposed to drop back to something more comfortable for humans and I may have to add one of the heat tables in there with them for a week or so. The 6 we bought seem to be of different ages. The Americana’s look like they may be a week older than the Easter Eggers and Midnight Marans, and they are almost a week older than the two she managed to hatch. The Americana’s are almost feathered out and have long feathered wings. When the Easter Eggers are about 6 weeks old, I will try to reintroduce these to the coop or put the dog crate out in the run or yard so the hens can readapt to them.
Three of the chicks we purchased are going to the friend that gave me the eggs when they are old enough. And with any luck, the remaining 5 will add to our flock to be egg producers late fall or next spring.
As previously mentioned, almost half of my flock of hens were killed off by predators this winter and early spring. A Coopers Hawk got a couple, a raccoon another couple and one just disappeared, all I could find was a pile of feathers. Then one of the Easter Eggers quit laying at molt last fall and never started back up over the winter or this spring. I didn’t know which one of the two, until about 26 days ago when one of them decided she was broody and there is no rooster here. Usually when they get broody, they are put in time out for several days with no nesting box and it breaks the brood. Since the flock was light, I asked a friend with a rooster if I could buy a dozen possibly fertile eggs from her. She offered them for free and they were tucked under Mama 24 days ago. On day 21, one cute little almost black chick emerged, then another dark, but gray one overnight. One other tried to hatch but died in the process and she still sat. It appeared today on day 24 that was all we were going to get.
On our way home from an appointment in the city, we stopped at Rural King and purchased 6 nearly week old chicks to give to her in place of the eggs that obviously weren’t going to hatch. Two Midnight Marans, two Americanas, and two Easter Eggers and of course, I failed to take a picture of them.
After preparing and eating dinner, while the hay team worked at teddering the hay that was finally mowed today, the coop was cleaned and a “nursery” built at the door end to allow Mama to get them old enough to go up and down the ramp into the coop that is a couple feet off the ground and then the fun began, trying to round them up and get them into the nursery with water and chick starter/grower and isolated from the other 6 hens and their laying feed. They have a space two nesting boxes deep and the width of the coop with one of the two perch bars exposed. That leaves 4 nesting boxes and the rest of the two perches for the 6 hens at night.
Once I thought I had all the chicks moved, I shifted a very agitated Mama, who willingly adopted the 6 new babies to add to the two she hatched and one was missing. As you can see, I can not get in the end of the coop where they had been and was trying to find the missing chick through the egg door which further agitated Mama Hen as it opens all 6 nest boxes at once. The very quiet Easter Egger was finally located and moved in with her siblings and adoptive Mom. I left them to calm down, release the hens who had been penned up while the mowers were here.
Here is Mama Hen with two of her adoptees, a Midnight Marans on the left and an Americana on the right. One of the little barn yard mutts that she hatched in the middle. The rest are hiding under her, wondering what on earth happened this evening.
Now off to shower off the chicken coop cleaning dust and doctor the scratches from trying to move the hen and from the edges of the plastic chicken wire I was using to separate them off. Nothing like a little excitement on a sticky, hot evening.
This week, the garlic was pulled and is curing in the garage. The late potatoes were planted where the corn failed and the pumpkins in the middle of that bed are growing well. The first zucchini were harvested, it is a compact variety and the squash are about 8″ long and an inch in diameter, so not likely to overwhelm. The green beans are flowering and some small beans are developing.
This afternoon when I went to harvest peas for dinner, I realized that the vines were drying, so I began pulling them and harvesting the peas. After dinner, the rest were pulled. A couple hours of shelling peas, blanching, and freezing and there are about 8 or 9 cups in the freezer, added to about 5 cups of sugar snap peas, and a quart of carrot chunks.
The first basket full.
Headed to the freezer.
Yesterday at the Farmer’s Market, a few quarts of peaches were purchased as we did not get any from our trees this year, and a batch of a favored Peach Sriracha sauce was made and canned for the shelves.
We have a broody hen, she has been sitting the daily eggs for a couple of days. One of my friends has a rooster and gave me a dozen of her fertile extra eggs which will be tucked under her to see if she will raise some barnyard mutts to add to or replace my older gals, and maybe provide a rooster to help protect them.
As successes and failures occur in the garden, and as I age and wish for easier gardening, notes are being made on the plan to remind me for next year. I will plant only sugar snap peas and will make sure to trellis them. The variety of shelling peas planted this year is advertised as free standing, but they were a tangle of 5-6 foot long vines, only harvestable by pulling the lot. It did make for a huge compost pile between the pea vines and the weeds that were hidden within the mess and between the bed and the comfrey. Next time I have a strong helper here, the pile needs to be turned. Last year the tomatillos and cucumbers were a mess, so this year the tomatillos are caged like tomatoes and the cucumbers have a trellis. I followed the Square Foot gardening plan which says a tomato plant only needs 1 square foot. I put 3 in a 4 foot row and 6 in a 4 X 4 square and they are too close together. Son 1 made an A frame trellis for his tomatoes a couple of years ago and I think that would help with spacing and harvesting later.
I now have a 4 x 4 foot bed and a 4 X 8 foot bed idle. In mid July or the first of August, a winter’s worth of carrots, spinach, and chard will be planted there. I am going to figure out how to make cold frames or a mini greenhouse to cover the greens and the carrots will have a thick layer of straw layered over them when freeze threatens.
The apple and Asian pear trees are heavy with fruit. The deer are beginning to come and nibble at the lower branch fruit, but there will be plenty too high for them to reach for us.
This year, I pruned all of the lower branches from the grape vine so the vines are about 4 feet off the ground and they are heavy with fruit. I need to shield the grapes from the deer and then decide how the grapes will be used.
It was difficult to get motivated on the garden this year, but it is nice now that food is coming from it. The last of the spring carrots and the second planting for radishes were harvested earlier this week.
It will be nice if we get some potatoes and pumpkins to store, and carrots that can be pulled as needed this winter. Adding green beans to the freezer as they mature, and having greens in a cold frame or green house to have fresh will make it worth while. I’m still fighting a battle with the Creeping Charlie and to some extent the Smartweed, but less than a month ago.
The riding mower was finally repaired and yesterday afternoon, the remaining grass was mowed. This week is true summer, with temperatures in the mid to upper 80’s and rain predicted only as scattered thunder storms. Maybe our hay will finally be able to be mowed and baled.
Two days ago, I went to my friend’s house and helped them extract honey. That was a new experience and came home with a couple of quarts of very dark delicious honey.
Cabin Crafted 