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Chooks and cooks

The middles are now 13 weeks old and the injured one seems to be recovering and was returned to the coop today with supervision to see if the others would leave her alone and they accepted her right back into the flock. Her injuries are healing and her feathers cover the injuries, so I think all will be well.

Since I lost one and have decided that the Olive egger will be culled in July, I returned to the farm where the rest of my Buffs have come from and purchased 3 pullets that are 15 weeks old. That hopefully will give me 14 egg layers by late July. If I keep Cogburn, my flock will be 15 Buff Orpingtons and will be a self sustaining flock as broody hens will be allowed to raise chicks for replacements and meat in future years.

All of my Buffs have come from the same farm, a year ago, 13 weeks ago and tonight. After talking with the breeder, I think that I can put the new girls in the coop tonight and let them all wake up together tomorrow. There are only two adults in the coop and they are as docile as the middles.

The Breeder lives in Floyd County, and the town of the Floyd has the best pizza restaurant around. The Dogtown Roadhouse has specialty wood fired thin crust pizza and many choices of microbrews. We left in time to enjoy our dinner there first with their Kitchen sink pizza and each having a different microbrew. The perfect end to a great week.

Life is an adventure on our mountain farm.

June 6, 2014
The King, the Queen, and the Evil Keeper

“I am the King of all Buff Orpingtons,” says he as he struts around his farm yard, bold and proud. “I would protect my subjects with my life.”

In reality, he is kind of a “chicken” so to speak. When trouble threatens, he is generally one of the first to flee the scene. He has even been known to dart into the garage and hide behind the ladders, while his ladies fend for themselves in the yard. He generally tolerates the Evil Keeper, as he must perceive her. She does bring his court food and water, but also, she separated his kingdom with a tall wall that he can see through, but can’t breech. When his kingdom was divided, the Evil Keeper put him on one side of the wall and left his Queen on the other side. How cruel could she be?

“I am the self proclaimed Queen,” says she. “No one in the kingdom lays such beautiful eggs as I. When the Evil Keeper erected the wall to divide our kingdom, she placed me in charge of half and my King in charge of the other half. Though I adore being in charge of all of the other Buff Orpingtons, including those terrible teenagers, who I must spend too much of my time putting in their place, I missed my King.”

“The Evil Keeper does not realize how sly and cunning I am. Each day when she would check on us and bring us treats, I would be visiting the other side of the wall with my King. Some nights I would fly back to bed with my subjects and to torment the teenagers, other nights I would choose to stay in the smaller Palace with King Cogburn and his ladies in waiting. My behavior baffles the Evil Keeper as she never knows where she may find me or where I may lay my beautiful olive eggs. Sometimes I hide them from her in odd places. One night recently, when I decided to spend the night in his half of the kingdom, she grabbed me from my throne, took a sharp implement and sheared my flight feathers from one of my wings. She is such a horrible keeper. Then she put me in the castle with my two grown subjects and all of those noisy teenagers. They are so annoying as their voices change and they are growing so fast that they take up so much more space in the castle. For the next several days, I was distraught as was my king. I paced the wall and he crowed until he was nearly voiceless. He still has 6 subjects to rule, but we want to be together. When the Evil Keeper isn’t watching us from that lush paradise she considers her domain and won’t share with us, I have been scratching in a soft spot near the wall and finally, yesterday my tunnel was large enough to allow my escape back to my King. My Buff Orpington subjects are too fat or too stupid to realize that they too can escape. Last night I was able to rejoin my King. But alas, the Evil Keeper blocked my tunnel and now I am stuck in the smaller Palace and yard and one of my subjects is studying to be the new Queen of the Castle. I fear my behaviors may result in my being banned to exile in freezer camp soon.”

What the Queen doesn’t realize, is that as soon as the teenagers are a few weeks older and the Palace hens are exiled, that Cogburn will rejoin his new Queen in the Castle and the Palace will be cleaned and prepared for 15 young subjects destined also for freezer camp.

June 5, 2014
Mountain Farm Morning

Where is the camera when you need it? I opened the back deck door to let the dogs out and caught just a flash of movement across the side of the deck. It’s size told me it was either a mouse or a chipmunk (the farmers up here call them ground squirrels). Below that edge of the deck is the retaining wall that son and DIL built during construction. It is a beautiful piece of stonework that gets covered each spring and summer with Hairy Vetch and Virginia Creeper. The doors out onto the deck are a full story above the ground, though the deck itself is only 3 steps up.

Beneath the deck there is loose rock tossed in to help with erosion and to keep the weeds down. I’m sure that it is a great hiding place for all sorts of wildlife, more or less protected from the cats. As I stepped to the edge of the deck to see if I could spot the little critter, the chipmunk scurried quickly across the deck and through a space I can barely stick my fingers through and down under the deck. They are cute, but destructive little critters, I hope it doesn’t take an interest in the Direct TV cable that is fastened to the front leg of the deck, travels along the lower edge of the deck then follows the flashing across between the basement and ground floor of the house to where it enters.

Breakfast prep was started as I put some of our fresh eggs on to boil for the pups and me. My morning ritual includes cleaning up their feeding area, two plastic trays on a bath mat to catch at least some of the food and water that the big guy slings around when he eats or drinks. His tray always has a cup or more of water and a dissolved kibble or two floating around on it.

Once their area is cleaned up I call them back in to eat, only as I stepped out to call them, leaning around the west end of the house from the front porch as that is where they always return to be let in, I heard a racket of turkey chatter and dog barks and spotted the dogs both chasing a wild turkey across the near hayfield as the hen took flight and landed way up in a tree on the edge of the field. Shadow once she stopped bounding, couldn’t even be seen in the tall hay waiting for good days to cut and bale. Ranger continued to stare longingly up at the tree where the hen continued to cluck. Hopefully they didn’t disturb a nest, but if it is in the hayfield it will suffer destruction as soon as Jeff comes to mow the hay. Finally I got them back in the house and breakfast eaten.

Then it was chicken care time. I filled the pans with mash, millet and sunflower seeds to take out to the two pens and just as I stepped out, I heard the rain moving over the ridge and through the trees in my direction. Raincoat collected just as a torrential downpour started. Chickens had to wait for it to subside at least a bit. We are in for a stormy day. A good day to sew, knit, spin, and read. Tonight is Knit Night, hope it isn’t storming too badly when it is time to leave.

June 4, 2014
Creative in the kitchen

This morning was thick and gray and so was my mood. I don’t know why, but I just lacked all motivation to do anything or make any decisions. I didn’t want to decide even on breakfast. Usually, I cook eggs or make oatmeal or grits. Even making coffee was a challenge. Rummaging around looking for something easy, I found a bit of plain yogurt that was nearing its expiry date, some strawberries that we bought on Saturday at the Farmers Market that looked like they wouldn’t last much longer, some bananas that are getting a bit ripe. Not wanting to throw any of this out, a smoothie seemed the solution. To the banana, strawberries, and yogurt, I added a tablespoon of peanut butter for protein, a half tablespoon each of Chia seed and ground flax seed for omegas and fiber and whirred it up in the magic bullet.

A quick nutritious breakfast. What is your favorite or most creative smoothie?

June 3, 2014
A benefit of Retirement

When I used to be employed outside the house, housecleaning and laundry always had to be done on weekends or in short spurts after work. This past weekend was spent in doing more enjoyable things, going to the farmer’s market, playing outside in the dirt and with two big dogs that live in the house, there is a constant need to vacuum and dust.

Today, while Jim went off on his motorcycle for a ride, I tackled all three floors of our house. Sweeping, damp mopping, dusting, cleaning and scrubbing, floors, tables, bathrooms, kitchen. It looks good, but I know that by tomorrow, there will already be dog hair and dust again.

The injured pullet is still hanging in there, but I am afraid she may still fail, her injuries are so extreme. She misses her siblings and perks up when I walk past her crate. There is no way that I can put her in with them. The Americana, in spite of me having clipped a wing, still is figuring out how to get from coop pen into the cull pen over a 4 foot fence. I don’t see anywhere that she can get under it, but she shouldn’t be able to fly over. If she is so desperate to be with Cogburn, I’m leaving her there until he gets moved back with the Buff’s.

June 2, 2014
The Good, The Bad and I’ll spare you the Ugly

THE BAD

Last night we went on a date night, that should be good, right? The dinner was fine. The movie we went to see had started 40 minutes earlier than the time we had noted, which must have been from the previous day and it had been playing for 20 minutes when we got there, so we picked a different movie that started at 8 p.m. We have only walked out of two movies in our 36 years of marriage, one because it was longer than we thought and we had to pick eldest son up at a concert when he was too young to drive himself there and the second one was last night. Think “Animal House” with more vulgarity and no humor. We made it only half way through the movie and got up and walked out.

It was late and I was a bad chicken keeper and I didn’t go over to close the pop door to the coop or the door to the chicken tractor and my gamble was an epic fail. An O’possum got in the coop, killed one 12 week old pullet and seriously injured another. I found a pile of feathers at the coop entrance, another at the run gate, and what was left of the pullets in the cull pen. I feel like a heel. I brought the injured pullet in, cleaned her wounds and put her in a large dog crate in the garage with food and water to watch her and see if she is going to heal or if we are going to have to euthanize her. I know predators happen, but this was preventable.

She is eating a little and drinking water, and she moves around a bit in the crate, but she is so pitiful.

THE GOOD

This morning, after dealing with the mayhem, we drove into town for breakfast at our favorite local diner, then on to The Farmers’ Market. Today was customer appreciation day, so some vendors had give away goodies for their regular customers. For the past couple of years, Jim has given me a Flower CSA from our favorite local organic farmers, Stonecrop Farm. We have had to miss a couple of bouquets each summer due to travel, so this year, we decided to just buy a weekly bouquet on the weeks we are home and flowers are available from them. We purchased a bouquet, a few veggies that I’m not growing and got a bonus baggie of micro greens as a gift.

Yellow poppies, pink peonies (mine won’t bloom) and two different dianthus colors with mint and wheat stalks. Quite a stunning bouquet to put on the dining table.

After our return, we took turns wearing ourselves out trying to start the big commercial Stihl weedeater for the first time this season, always a challenge. I finally gave up and went back to weeding and spreading the mulch we bought a few days ago, when with sweat and swearing, Jim finally succeeded. When we were both were hot and worn, we took a break and made a Lowe’s trip. I was short 4 bags of mulch.

A decade or so ago, my Dad made me a little wooden decorative wheelbarrow. It has lived at a couple of houses now and is usually filled with flowers in the summer and pumpkins and gourds in the fall with a mum. It had fallen into disrepair, so before we left for Lowes, I repaired it and decided that a couple of flower baskets needed to be purchased to fill it as well. At the Farmers’ Market, I added a few more herbs to my collection and they needed pretty pots for the deck as that is where the bulk of my herbs live.

The front of the house, the perennial bed in the breezeway alcove are weeded and mulched, the herb collection is potted up except for the fennel and one lavender that will go in the garden tomorrow when I have the energy to move again. Jim has weed wacked the culverts, the well head, around the house and around the trees and shrubs on the driveway hill. I pushed the gas powered mower and cut the front and back yards. When I thought I was done, I decided that the last flower bed, a small one that started out as a nursery bed by the side of the deck also got weeded. We are spent.

Dinner is “Mustgo,” ever had it? It is the leftovers in the fridge that must go. Tonight’s Mustgo is left over pot roast, pork tenderloin and a huge new salad with micro greens and green onions.

The house and gardens look great. Now we rest.

May 31, 2014
Spinventory

I’m on a spinning roll. As soon as I finished the Random Colors Merino last night I started on a top of Romney that has long color gradient.

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It starts with yellow and moves through sunset colors to midnight blue.

After reading a Yarn Harlot post quite a while ago, I have wanted to try to spin a long color gradient yarn and I found some lovely tops at The Homestead Hobbyist on Etsy. After dividing the top down the middle lengthwise, I spun two bobbins beginning with the yellow and ending with the midnight blue.

The result after plying today is a skein 136 yards long of light worsted yarn, named Midday to Midnight. What else could it be called.

Once it was finished and I was rummaging around in my fiber basket trying to decide what I want to spin next, I decided that I really should put my inventory on Ravelry in my notebook. If you are a knitter or crocheter, please feel free to browse, http://www.ravelry.com/people/Mountain-g-mom, maybe something will catch your eye. Some of my yarn is for sale at Greenberry House in Meadows of Dan, VA, some I still have here and can’t decide whether to use it or sell it too. At least, I now know what I have on hand, well most of it, there is a sampler of fiber that are tiny hanks that haven’t been spun or inventoried. They will likely be added to my Funky Fiber yarn that will some day become a knitted throw. I didn’t decide what to start. Perhaps I should finish the Tunis with the Finn X Jacob and have that yarn ready to knit when I get out of the spinning mode and want to make the Rib Warmer for fall.

May 30, 2014
Olio May 29, 2014

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things

Today’s harvest, a bowl of fresh eggs and a basket of chard for our dinner.

The beautiful Merino roving became this lovely 125 yards of Navajo plied yarn. I can’t decide whether to make a scarf out of it or put it up for sale. It has been soaked is currently drying. It seemed appropriate to Navajo ply it as the book that I am currently reading is

Navajo Autumn, R. Allen Chappell

The morning was humid, but not too hot, so some more of the breezeway flower bed was weeded and more mulch applied. A few more mornings and that task will be complete. The afternoon turned stormy, thunder, lightening and heavy rain showers, so the garden is getting a good soaking, but no work in it.

May 29, 2014
Crafty Wednesday

Since the spin in last weekend and the completion of the Tunis/FinnXJacob yarn, I stalled on spinning for a few days. Last February, just before David took his stock of Green Dragon yarn and roving to Hawk’s Nest, he had the most luscious hanks of Random Colors-Merino for spinning. He sold every last one of the ones he had made but since they were so popular, he made more for his shop. A couple of weeks ago, I purchased one to try and it is so delightful to spin. The one I purchased has rather muted colors, maroon, teal, camel with shades of lighter colors that blend into a wonderful single. The Merino is so soft and the fiber is long enough to make the drafting smoother and consistent. The colors of the single are interesting on the bobbin and I can’t decide what to do with it to not dilute the beautiful colors. It could be Navajo plied, but that significantly reduces the yardage of finished yarn. I’m afraid that plying two bobbins of it together will muddy the finished yarn. Maybe I should ply it with a solid, fairly dark neutral. The hank of roving is 100 grams. My single is fine, so the yarn is going to be lightweight.

Spinner readers, any suggestions?

Tonight is knit night. Jim is taking his motorcycle over to the dealer to get his Tour Pack installed and I am a bit leery of taking my car as the other day it acted as though the starter motor may be failing. I guess if it does, I’m only a few hundred yards from the Honda dealer and Jim can come get me after knitting in his car once he gets home on his bike.

May 28, 2014
Retired Means

Tired again, and that is what I am. Bright and early this morning, Jim left to ride to Charlottesville avoiding the Interstates to meet our youngest son and his family who drove there from Virginia Beach. The ride took him more than 3 hours, but he got to have lunch and a visit with them prior to starting his ride back on a different route, still avoiding the Interstates. I drove his monster SUV into town and had breakfast with him then we went our separate ways for the day. My first stop of the day was to Lowes to stock up on a few plants and a lot of bags of mulch, though not nearly enough. Three years ago, once the final grading was completed at our house, we set about to landscape. One of our shrub purchases was one that we later found out, should not even be sold in this planting zone and it did not survive the first winter. The others were Pygmy Barberry and Dwarf Nandina and they did fine the first winter. To do this landscaping, I first had to move all of the grape iris that I had been given in a trade and the English Daisies that I bought from a local friend and had planted on the front of the house. They had multiplied and were divided into beds on the east side of the garage and in the bed created by the east side of the house and west side of the garage, bounded on the south by the breezeway. That bed has been planted with shade loving perennials toward the breezeway and daylilies, iris, and daisies toward the front where they get more light. When we did the landscaping, we put down weed mat and heavily mulched that area, but the ground cherries, plantain, dandelions, wild geranium and chickweed thrive in there.

This past winter after a cool wet summer last year, nearly did the Nandinas in. I was ready to dig them all up when I noticed that though they really look scraggly, they are putting out new growth. The dead shrubs were well spaced to add 3 new Pygmy Barberry shrubs. When I got home with the car full of goodies, the short handled digging tool was brought out and I sat down and inched my way across the full front of the house, weeding and digging out all of the misplaced wildflowers, planting the three new shrubs, and mulching the entire bed.

With potted flowers at each end of the two beds, a fresh hanging plant on the shepherds crook, the spider plants hanging from the porch, the front looks presentable again. Though some weeding was done in the breezeway bed, it was sprayed with a vinegar/Epsom Salt/Dawn detergent mixture to hopefully kill back the tender weeds then more mulch will be added to that bed as well.

The tomatoes and some of the peppers finally made it into the garden today. While I was at Lowe’s, I picked up a few heirloom peppers that already had some size on them to get things going. Some of the exotic heirlooms that are starts will be added as soon as they are more than an inch tall. A row of heirloom Tomatillos was also planted and the entire veggie garden was soaked down with the sprinkler since we aren’t getting rain for a few more days.

After a late lunch, the same treatment was given to the east side of the garage bed, and a shrub was divided and planted on the front corner of the garage. I hope it survives the move. Tomorrow, more mulch will be purchased and that bed will be given a new layer as well. It appears that the Iris need to be divided again. I don’t like to throw them away, but everyone up here has beds and beds of them in their yards.

My final task for the day was to put the American Flag on the banner pole between the garage doors. It seems only fitting since it is Memorial Day. After a dinner prep of a slow cooking pot roast with vegetables, a long hot shower and scrub, I’m sitting on the porch with a glass of iced tea, resting and waiting for the wayward traveler to get home and see my efforts from the past two days. I love it when my labors show and everything is neat and tidy.

May 26, 2014