Tag: chickens

Tom Tom

The garden provided 5 pounds of tomatoes, 2 pounds of tomatillos, a dozen or so various hot peppers this morning. I quick decision that salsa at $5 a pint and large cans of pickled jalapeños at under $2 a can, that the peppers are better used in salsa than just being pickled. Another round of canning commenced.
The tomatoes peeled and diced, the tomatillos diced, onions, hot peppers and garlic chopped. Eight pints of salsa in the making.
Today’s creation is Tom TomSalsa.
Tom Tom Hot Salsa
5 lbs tomatoes peeled and diced
2 lbs tomatillos husks removed, washed and diced
1 large onion chopped (2 cups)
10 cloves garlic minced
12 jalapeño pepper minced
1 habanero pepper minced
1 Tbs oregano
2 Tbs cilantro
1 Tbs pickling salt
1 cup lemon juice
Place all in a heavy nonreactive pot, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Ladle hot salsa into clean, hot pint jars, seal with new lids, tighten bands and water bath process for 20 minutes.
Yield 8 pints

The shelves are being filled with garden goodness.
The pullets are laying more each day. We are getting 7 eggs most days from the 10 pullets and 1 hen. Broody Girl went into molt as soon as she quit being broody and hasn’t laid an egg in more than 2 months. I’m not too happy with her right now.
The Rainbow Ranger chicks at not quite 4 weeks old already weigh about 2 pounds each and have seriously outgrown the brooder. They are in a large dog cage with an attached run in the garage and get as much daytime outdoors as weather permits. They foul their cage daily. Can’t wait until they can go out to the chicken ark and run to live out their lives until mid October.

Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

September 2, 2014
Production and loss

We seem to have a reprieve from the rainy weather. This is allowing the deck maintenance to commence. Yesterday our handyman neighbor painted the railing and balusters with the semi opaque stain. Today he is rolling the stain on the front porch and given enough time will move to the back deck.

We are trying one of the new deck resurfacers on the back. That deck is uncovered and south facing, so it is fully exposed day in and day out. Perhaps the acrylic based resurfacer will hold up better than stains have.
Last night after dinner, I took table scraps to the chickens and every one came scurrying over for their share. Two hours later when I went back over to lock them in for the night, one of the March pullets was dead at the bottom of the ramp. There were no signs of trauma, there had been no signs of illness and no warning. Internet research was unhelpful other than to suggest that since she was young she may have become eggbound. I have only been getting 3 or 4 eggs each day for the past week out of two hens and 11 pullets, so perhaps she just never figured it to out.
I finished my Hitchhiker made with Rivulet Island Yarn in Peacock color. It is larger than the pattern as I continued adding points to use up the yarn. It is currently drying on the spare bed downstairs.

I am pleased with it and as the evenings are cool now, I’ll begin the cardigan out of Shepherd’s Wool in Great Lakes color to wear with it.

August 26, 2014
Rainy Sunday Musings

Again it rains! Everyday for the past 7 days. The grass is literally knee deep and too wet to mow. The decks haven’t dried to be able to paint. When I brought these in last weekend I had no idea they would still be on the kitchen counter.

These are my kitchen herbs for a quick snip when cooking and I don’t want a trek to the garden. They live on the south deck, just outside the Dining area French doors. Some winter over in the house, but not this early.
And then there were 4. . .

Last night when I went to lock up the girls for the night, there were 4 eggs. There are two 17 month old hens (1 not currently laying); three 26 week old pullets; eight 24 week old pullets, one whose comb and waddles are still small and pale. It has been 6 weeks since we were getting more than an occasional egg. I have missed them but have enjoyed a few this week with our fresh tomatoes and a few shreds of raw cow milk cheese.
Since it is rainy and wet, instead of mowing, I will process more tomatoes and tomatillos.

The garden is giving. The rain causing the tops of the tomatoes to split. There are more Habañeros than we will ever need for hot sauce and salsa, I am going to experiment with drying some. A pinch of them dried and crushed will surely add a kick to curry or chili and Son#1 will use them.
But the flowers love the rain and it does make the weeds easier to pull between storms.

If it doesn’t stop soon, I will need a machete to get to the garden and the coop.
The chicklets are getting huge. They are 2 1/2 weeks now and going through 2 jars of feed and a gallon of water a day. I moved them temporarily this morning to a smaller brooder box long enough to clean the huge water trough that serves as their brooder. It is 15 square feet of floor space and looks too small for the 15 chicklets that seem to double in size weekly.

The most severe storm we had on Thursday evening damaged some component of our internet service. Our provider iuis a local coop with no weekend hours, so being on the internet or posting right now is an effort in frustration.
We love life on our mountain farm!

August 24, 2014
Olio August 16, 2014

Olio: A miscellaneous collection of things.

On Thursday, I returned our eldest grandson to his home. He had been with us since July 3 and it was a wonderful 6 weeks. He enjoyed playing with our dogs, learned to ride his bike, traveled to Florida with us to visit his Aunt and Uncle and cousins for a week, swam, had outings with Granddad to the batting cage and several movies. He and Granddad played catch in the yard and had batting practice. A few times, he cooked with me, learning to make his favorite blueberry muffins and getting some math practice with measuring and calculating which measuring cups would give him the quantity he needed. It was a relief to his Mom and Dad to not have to try to find summer care for him and figure out how to get him to and from that care when they both left very early for their jobs.

Yesterday after playing with his neighborhood friends, showing off to his Mom and Dad his new bike riding skills, having Grandmom take him to his guitar lesson, they all left at 9:30 last night on the Metro to Union Station to catch an 11:30 p.m. Greyhound bus to Virginia Beach, where he and his Mom will spend the next week with her parents. Our son will return home to Northern Virginia on the train tomorrow so he can be at work on Monday. His Mom’s summer job has ended and her school begins just before Labor Day. I returned to their house to spend the night before traveling home this morning. As I was avoiding the interstate and taking a leisurely cruise down the Skyline Drive this morning, I received a text from son saying that they were stuck in Richmond, VA, only a couple hours from their home and a couple hours from their destination almost 12 hours after leaving on the bus. Their 4 hour trip lasted 14 hours. There is something truly wrong with Greyhound’s business model that passengers with tickets can not have a seat on a leg of their trip. If they hadn’t had to disembark at the transfer station in Richmond, they would have been at their destination in the early hours, not the next afternoon.

After enjoying about an hour and a half of scenic drive, I got back on the interstate, so my 4 hour trip wouldn’t take all day and like Thusday, was again stuck with the semis.

I followed these two for miles and miles doing less than 60 mph in a 70 mph zone. Behind me was a line of at least a dozen more.

It is amazing how quickly chicks grow. These little guys and gals are a week and a half old. They can almost get out of the brooder which is a huge stock watering tank. I guess I am going to have to put a screen over it soon. They are all darkening and growing wing and tail feathers. The one center front is the one I named Chipmunk because of the dark stripes on his back when I uncartoned them from the Hatchery.

Egg production is picking up. The pullets are getting the hang of the laying bit. In the past 6 days, we have gotten 7 pullet eggs, so I know that more than one of them is laying. We also got 5 hen eggs, though Broody Girl is still insisting on empty nest sitting. This has gone on now for over a month. Perhaps I should get her some fertile eggs and just let her give it a go.

The pullet eggs are so small compared to the hen eggs. At least we are getting some again.

The garden loved last week’s rain, the tomatoes are ripening in the sun, peppers are swelling and I am nearly overrun with Tomatillos. I haven’t looked under the row covers to see how the transplants are doing, but they will have to be watered today or tomorrow.

My purple thick skinned grapes are ripe. Perhaps I should attempt some grape jelly.

The weather feels like fall already. I shouldn’t get too excited, it will probably get hot again soon.

This week, we tackle power washing the decks to re-stain. I’m trying to figure out how we are going to keep the outdoor cats off while they dry and how we will get the dogs in and out. I guess they will have to go through the garage, but neither of them are used to doing that, so it may require leading them out on a leash til the decks dry.

Hubby took off early this morning on a ride on his BBH (Big Bad Harley) with the Hog Club from where his bike came. It is a ride to just get there, over an hour. They were going to have breakfast then ride into West Virginia. He texted me that he did go and that he was in West Virginia. I guess I will see him later this afternoon when he returns.

When I was in Northern Virginia to pick up grandson in early July, I bought some variegated yarn at a local shop. The yarn is one that isn’t available around here and I knit a Hitchhiker scarf from it. I decided that I wanted a cardigan sweater of the same yarn and returned yesterday to the shop to try to purchase it. Unfortunately, they didn’t have enough of it to make a sweater, but I did get a worsted weight solid that coordinates beautifully with it. As soon as the weather is cool enough to sit with the bulk of a sweater body in my lap while knitting, I will make myself a sweater to go with my scarf.

Though it is only mid afternoon, I am tired from my travels and contemplating a short nap. Life is an adventure!

August 16, 2014
Fall Gardening

The sunny day yesterday did not really happen, but it didn’t really rain either. It was only in the mid 60’s most of the day and partly to mostly cloudy, so a perfect day to garden.

Since eggs are a premium around here still, we went out to breakfast at our local diner. I have gotten 2 pullet eggs in the past couple of days. There are 11 pullets, so we are hoping they will all get the message soon. Their eggs are so cute next to the hens eggs.

After breakfast, we ventured down to Tractor Supply for pine shavings for the brooder and to replace the solar charger that is supposed to protect my garden and the chickens, but failed right before we left for vacation. When we purchased it, we only got a 6V solar charger. The batteries on them only last about 3 years and it probably needs a new battery, but Tractor Supply had a 12V on sale for a price I couldn’t pass up. It is mounted and charging to be connected after I return from taking our grandson home today. Our adventure yesterday also took us to our favorite local nursery for fall vegetable starts. Having grandson here, activities with him, and our vacation just got in the way of starting my own. Once home, a bit of grubbing in the soil with my awesome hoe and my hands, cleared two beds, weeded the bean patch where I realized that the gnawed off shoots were growing new leaves. Planted were 4 Rainbow Chard, 8 Broccoli, 4 Kale plants.

Once they were safely tucked in the soil and mulched with some spoiled hay, row cover was placed over them and the beans to thwart the bunnies and the cabbage moths. Perhaps we will get some beans this season after all. We have about 60 days until our average first frost date, so I am hopeful.

In recent years, I have been reluctant to plant radishes and turnips in our garden as they always seem to be attacked by the little white maggots. Recently I read that if you sprinkle wood ash in your furrow that they won’t be a problem. I hadn’t really saved any wood ash, but found a couple of cups worth in the bottom of the woodstove and added it to about a cup of diatomaceous earth and planted a row of red radishes, a row of white icicle radishes and a row of turnip seed as a test, sprinkling the mix in the row and on top of the covered seed. We will see if that experiment works, if so I will save more wood ash next year. This bed was also covered with a row cover to thwart the bunnies.

My son says I should sit out there with my .22 and dispatch them and eat them. Unfortunately, I don’t like rabbit and I couldn’t clean them if I succeeded in shooting one. I will continue to deter them with row cover and maybe once I get the electric fence charged to keep the deer and dogs out, I will string plastic bunny fence around the vegetable garden.

I couldn’t get cabbage starts at our local nursery, they were all sold out, but Lowes just got theirs in yesterday afternoon and a scored a flat of 9. This morning they were planted. , Now it’s time to thin the raspberries, harvest and preserve for the winter.

Life is an adventure on our mountain farm.

August 14, 2014
Noah, we need help.

Please send Ark plans. Today is our 5th straight day of rain, often heavy. This rain allowed only that the scaffolding be erected over the weekend, no caulking done to allow the staining.

It is the 5th day that harvesting in the garden has been difficult to impossible.

The chicken pen is so deep in mud that my muck boots sink a couple of inches each time I have to enter the pen. I would clean out the coop and throw the soiled hay over the mud except that it won’t stop raining long enough for me to uncover the hay to put clean dry hay inside. The older three of this years chicks are now 24 weeks old and I am hoping for eggs soon. To encourage them, I put fake eggs (golf balls) in the nesting boxes. Broody Girl is still being stubborn and has managed to move two of them into her box so she is sitting on 3. I move them back and she relocates them again. She is sure being stubborn about being broody.

The new babies are thriving in their brooder.

The rain has done nothing to help the lake at Mountain Lake. It began to leak a few years ago and went totally dry for two summers. Geologist and soil scientists studied the lake bottom and attempts to repair it were made. The lake partially refilled last summer after the repairs were made, but mother nature had other ideas and the lake is only partially refilled and lower this summer than last.

August 12, 2014
Vacation

On July 27th, we packed the pups off to doggie camp, loaded the car with suitcases, guitar and amp, bike, ball gloves and a cooler and headed south. Grandson and I in the car, Jim on his motorcycle for his first major road trip. We headed off for a weeklong visit with our daughter and her family. We haven’t seen them since last Christmas and grandson hasn’t seen his cousins since last August. We had booked a hotel room about halfway there, a bit over 400 miles. It took us longer to make those miles than when it is just the two of us in the car as we stopped every 110-120 miles to reconnect with each other and for Jim to have a chance to get a drink and walk around for a bit to give his sore parts a rest. Once at the hotel, the guys took a dip in the pool, we found a Mexican restaurant catering to the Mexican population and had a good dinner, then back to let grandson ride his bike around the parking lot to let off some steam.

As the temperature reached 100ºf that day, I’m not sure if he was letting off steam or making steam.

Visiting was active for the three grands, with biking, Lego building, Light saber battles, reading, soccer and baseball, a beach visit, a day at Busch Gardens in Tampa. The Busch Gardens day was hot and humid, but everyone from the 2 1/2 year old to the 70 somethings found rides to ride, shows to see, snacks to eat.

Riding a camel on the carousel. We rode it about 5 times and she never would get on a horse that went up and down.

Sunday we started our return journey home, leaving early to try to miss the afternoon rain showers. Again stopping every couple of hours to reconnect and spending a night in a hotel a bit more than half way home. The afternoon arrival was greeted with a delightfully cool house that had been closed up with no A/C on, temps in the upper 70’s, a deliciously chilly night in our own bed.

My stop at the neighbor who chicken sits for us, revealed that she didn’t get a single egg, I’m glad I took her two dozen on our way out and brought her a pound of Orange Blossom honey from Florida. My visit to the coop, I found a still broody hen on one fragile egg that she broke when she puffed up and tried to prevent me from moving her off the nest.

This morning, she got a surprise as I removed her from the nest and put re-freezable ice packs in her nest and the next one over. She is nearing 22 days of broodiness on an empty nest.

Later this week, a delivery of 15 Rainbow Ranger meat chicks will be delivered and we will begin raising them for 11 weeks.

The heavy straw mulch on the garden has kept the weeds down. There were a few over developed squash and cucumbers that got fed to the chickens, more harvested for us. Lots of peppers that I need to process today. Basil that needs to be pulled and dried. Yellow wax beans pulled and dumped in the chicken pen. Bunnies or deer got in the garden and ate most of the new green beans down. I will cover them today and see if there is any recovery. There are three beds that need some fall crops planted before it is too late.

This morning, grandson and I went to pick up the pups. They seem to be glad to be home.

We have one more week and a half with grandson and I will return him home. The weeks have gone by so quickly, but it has been a delight having him with us.

August 5, 2014
Olio – July 25, 2014

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

Phone saga continued. . . after numerous visits to the cell phone store, learning that they are retail outlets with zero authority to do anything but make a phone call; agreeing to accept a “Network Extender” refurbished with a monthly discount to help pay for the thing, knowing that it probably wouldn’t work since we don’t have high speed internet with our phone co-op, just DSL; receiving the extender (a new one 3X cost, not a refurbished one) 10 days ago; hooking it up to have service, maybe, if you were sitting right in front of it; receiving our bill (still no reliable service) and there being a charge for a new extender, no reduction of cost; we took both phones, the extender, and a major case of attitude back to the store yet again. This time, the poor young man on whom we unloaded, was very sympathetic, knew what to say to customer service and finally got our contract cancelled without penalty. Another couple of hours in the old provider’s store that we knew had service on our mountain and we have new phones, and amazingly, service.

Now reality, this was probably all my fault in the first place. I wanted an Iphone, the provider we had didn’t have them; my service with this provider was good here in the mountains, but spotty when I went to babysit in Northern Virginia a few times a year. I didn’t get an Iphone when we switched, the service was better in Northern Virginia, but the two times we had a crisis here, we couldn’t even call each other within shouting distance if we had both been outdoors. Back with the original provider, they do now have Iphones and I got one. Hubby got the next generation of the phone he had and liked and we can make and receive calls on our property, up our road, and in our house. I will suffer spotty service when I travel to have a phone at home.

Broody hen is still being difficult. I put plastic buckets in her two preferred nesting boxes, there are still 4 others, so she is hunkered down just outside of the boxes. She tried to peck me when I shooed her out the pop door and got a swat for doing so. Our egg production is less than one a day right now. I know that in a few weeks, we will be overrun with eggs once all 13 girls are laying.

On Tuesday, both pups had a new vet visit. When we first got them, we took them to a vet in our county, but it was 18 miles in a direction we rarely go. We tried to switch to a vet that was much nearer us, but they didn’t carry the Trifexis that we had the dogs on for heartworms and fleas, so we switched to one about 18 miles away in a direction we do travel, but he is nearing retirement and has a new younger vet part time in the office that we did not care for. During the time we were using him, our pups decided that they wouldn’t willingly take Trifexis. Surprisingly, the big guy, the English Mastiff would let me force feed his, the much smaller German Shepherd would have no part of it and nothing I did would trick her into taking it. During this 14 months or so, the vet nearest us retired and the two vets that took over his practice, are great as well as doing house calls if necessary. They switched the pups to Sentinel and Nextgard and both dogs will take them willingly. Win/win!

The garden is more or less stalled due to the hot weather. There are lots of tomatoes, but none of them are turning red yet. There are some peppers and I will likely have to pickle another jar or two soon. Chard is thriving, but grandson doesn’t like it. Berries are done. We don’t like the yellow wax beans and the green beans are just sprouting. There are a few white scallop squash and an occasional lemon cucumber. There will be dozens of small Seminole pumpkins come fall and it looks like a stellar crop of yellow and white sweet potatoes. Two beds are awaiting some fall greens in another couple of weeks. This fall, the raspberry bed is going to be dug out, a reasonable number of shoots moved to the orchard and that bed prepped to return to part of the vegetable garden, there just wasn’t quite enough space this year with blueberries, raspberries, and grapes occupying about half of the garden beds. The huge multibin compost structure is coming down, it is actually falling down, so it will be pulled down, the compost spread and a compost pile initiated. That area will continue to be utilized for the vegetables that spread so viciously throughout the garden.

Any photos that I had taken are on the SD card of the old phone and haven’t been transferred to the computer or the cloud to add to the new phone and blog, so just words today.

July 25, 2014
Let the Outings Begin

One week ago, right about now, we left Vienna, VA, grandson, son, daughter in law, and me. We have had grandson solo since Sunday afternoon. His daily routine here requires guitar practice, Kung Fu practice as he is missing those lessons this summer, a writing assignment and a math assignment as practice for weak skills and reinforcement for those skills that he does well. I supervise those practices first thing each morning right after breakfast unless the writing requires a library visit.

We told him that he would have some basic chores to do here at the house each day and for that, we would give him an allowance so that he has some spending money. He can earn extra money by going above and beyond his required chores. He is only 9, so nothing is too onerous or too difficult. We also told him that while he was here, we would do a series of outings and that with cooperation with his practices and chores, he could earn extra outings. Some of the outings planned can be repeated such as the county pool, batting cage, movie date with granddad. Others are ones that will only be done once, such as the one we did today. We drove to Roanoke, the nearest city, about an hour from home, leaving to be there at lunch time. The market square hosts a farmers market many days each week and we caught quite a number of farmers there today. On the market square, there is a hot dog counter and we though it doesn’t stand up to our favorite one from Virginia Beach, it was a delicious unhealthy lunch, followed with healthy purchases of fresh corn, tomatoes, potatoes and a watermelon. One stand had baked goods and we purchased a whole grain breakfast bread full of fruit, nuts, seeds and not too much real cane sugar.

After our lunch and the market we drove a few short blocks to the Virginia Transportation Museum. This was a fun adventure, bringing back many memories for me as I used to ride a Norfolk and Western train from Norfolk to Farmville to and from college. On display are locomotives, passenger cars, cabooses, old wagons, handpump firetrucks, and a trolley car. Inside the museum is a huge O gauge train set up, displays on bus transportation, train history, and air travel. It was a fun couple of hours spent with our grandson.

Back home, the last of the peas were harvested and the vines pulled for the chooks. The peas were shelled and cooked with the corn and some left over kabob beef and pork tenderloin for dinner. Once the clean up was done, some garden weeding and harvest of 76 heads of garlic, now drying for a day or two outside before the stems are clipped and they are moved to the wire shelves of the root cellar to finish drying.

That part of the bed will be cleaned up and planted with a second planting of bush beans within a day or two.

I love when the garden is producing and the local markets have produce that either we don’t grow or don’t have in ready in our garden yet.

I’m loving life on our mountain farm.

July 10, 2014
Pens, Dogs, and Chooks

Yesterday the sky grayed and the wind picked up, cooling the afternoon enough to tackle the outdoor chores. We had purchased a 50 foot roll of welded wire fencing on our way home from errands. One of our only town businesses is a hardware store. When we moved here, it was really aimed at farmers and was more a farm store. The owner sold it to return to farming and the new owner changed the focus to a more traditional hardware store, I guess to compete with Lowes and Home Depot two towns over in Genericia (our eldest son’s name for it). Unfortunately, he couldn’t complete and as he no longer drew the farmers, they went to Tractor Supply or Southern States two smaller towns over the opposite direction, he is going out of business. We got the fencing for a discount.

Once the day cooled, I pounded in the remainder of the T posts, strung the welded wire fence, securing the meat/cull chick pen. The chicken tractor still needs repair. I started installing the T post insulators to string the electric fence, but realized that the welded wire fencing wasn’t tight enough and the 2″ insulators were not long enough to hold the electric wire away from the welded wire fence. This morning, we bought a bag of 5″ insulators but as soon as we got home, the rains started so the installation will have to wait for another day. The rain was very necessary, so I can’t complain. We have had a high percentage chance of rain for weeks, but have gotten almost no rain.

Hopefully these measures will make the chooks secure from the 4 legged predator that got the 3 birds last week. With the freezer camp event on Friday, our egg production is way down, getting only one or two eggs a day until the new girls start laying.

A pen beside a pen and real gates. “Got treats?”

July 9, 2014