Tag: eggs

I’m getting too old for this!

The weather has been beautiful. Mid 50’s at night, great sleeping weather with a window open, 70 for the day’s high. Occasional clouds, some of them quite lovely.

Last night it was so beautiful outside that after I finished staining the garage doors with Mountaingdad and then finished the half wall on the garage that Son #1 didn’t have time to finish, we grilled out and ate on the back deck. I was tired and sore and needed some zen time, so I spend about an hour near sundown mowing in one of the back fields. It really is quite zen to ride the tractor and watch the goings on around you on the farm.

Today being a copy of yesterday, I began earlier to get the front and back walls of the breezeway stained. This critter with her brood of babies on her back watched from the stone wall nearby for quite a time.

While I was doing the breezeway, our handyman neighbor was staining the ceiling of the front porch and we worked together to get the front porch posts to use up the remaining stain mix that was made today. Once the additives are mixed in, it must be used within 6 hours. As we were working on that, I spotted another spider’s work.

It is spun to the contour of the A frame bird house. This is the best I could do to get a photo.

The only parts of the house left for me to stain are the front log wall, seen in the background of the photo above and the 8 windows that are in the areas that I have or will stain.

About 38 years ago, I separated my left shoulder on the second day of skiing with my hubby. We weren’t married then, though he says that my skiing for several more days after that injury helped him decide that I was the woman he had been looking for. I am a southpaw, so I work that shoulder and arm a lot and when I do, whether gardening or staining like I am doing now, that old injury makes my shoulder quite sore. I may need a day or two break before I tackle that front wall. It will take me several hours to complete. For now, I’m going to get cleaned up and go socialize with my friends at knit night. As a bonus, I have 4 dozen eggs to sell to them.

September 17, 2014
Mrs. Houdini and Romeo

Yesterday while working in the meaties pen, I watched Mrs. Houdini try to make her escape. She failed as Mountaingdad was coming over to see what I was doing and startled her back into the pen, but she was caught in the act. The gate is a common garden gate that has a wire fence inset in the galvanized pipe frame. The mesh is tighter at the bottom and larger openings toward the top and the mesh ends about a foot from the top.

She flew her heavy body up high enough to land on the bar below the top bar and then hopped through to freedom. The solution was easy to deal with, requiring a piece of the plastic chicken wire and some cable ties.

She now has to be able to fly about a foot higher and is too heavy bodied to be able to do that.

Earlier in the week, I contacted the farmer from whom I had purchased my dozen hens over the past two years and asked her if she had a young rooster or cockrell or would save me one in the spring so that next time one of the hens gets broody, I can let her sit and raise a brood for next year’s meaties. The Buff’s grow slower than the hybrid meat birds, but they are dual purpose birds with flavorful meat, so we are going to try to just use them in the future.

Tonight we picked him up.

Meet Romeo. He has arrived home just a few minutes a go and will spend the night in the dog crate with food and water and be introduced in a pen tomorrow. Ms. Farmer says he has a docile personality, he was very calm when we picked him up. She did say his tail feathers were a bit shabby as he has been picked on a bit in her barnyard. He was intended as a cull, but had too good a personality for her to do it and she is glad he has a new home where he can reign as king of the coop with a dozen ladies in waiting.

We continue to get 8 to 11 eggs daily from the dozen hens.

Lovin’ life on our rainy mountain farm.

September 12, 2014
Eleven and an Escape Artist

For the past several days one of the young Buff Orpington hens has been giving herself a free range walk-about. One day we let the rest out too. Somehow, she is getting herself back in by bedtime or if I put a special treat in the run. She won’t show me how so I can try to stop her and she is laying in the coop so she is at her own peril, though she is pecking every red tomato within her reach.

Today there were 11! There are only 12 layers and one still has pale small comb and waddles so I’m excited that maybe Broody/molty girl is over it. More than 9 eggs a day provide enough for our use, a dozen for the 2 neighbors that help us out and enough to sell to buy feed for them and the meat chicks.
Yesterday I opened the ark and freed the 5 week old meaties into their run. A few came out for a few minutes but they mostly hunkered down in the ark. Today I put half of their food out in the run in a dog feeding pan and as I went to put them up for the night, I had to lure them in with food. They were so active, it was a joy to watch them play and run and chase the grasshoppers that were fleeing the mower.
Today though mostly cloudy was delightful and I took advantage of the dry, cool weather to start the major fall mowing of all 30 acres. Because of the recent rains, I started around the house and worked out doing 3 small fields that only get hayed in spring and mowed in fall. The 2 huge fields, making up about 2/3 of the farm remain and we know we are facing hours and hours mowing unless our haying neighbor comes and brush hogs with his bigger more powerful tractor as he has offered to do. Though I don’t particularly like pushing the lawn mower or using the huge weed wacker, I do like mowing on the tractor.

September 9, 2014
Olio – September 5, 2014

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

The Rainbow Ranger chicks have exceeded 2 pounds each at 4 1/2 weeks, far outgrowing anything we have to use as a brooder. They are getting feisty with each other, chest bumping and pecking. They are mostly feathered and it is still warm to hot during the days and mild at night. They were requiring twice daily brooder clean out, had gone for a week without supplemental heat in the garage, so a decision was made today to relocate them to the auxiliary pen, confined to the chicken ark. We did concede to put a tarp over the sides and will keep our fingers crossed that we don’t lose them now. Again I vow to let my hens do the work of raising chicks from now on or we are going to have to build a bigger outdoor brooder with electricity so we can put the heat lamp in it.
The March hatched Buff Orpington pullets are almost all laying finally. We are getting 8 or 9 eggs a day and thoroughly enjoying having them again.
Between canning tomatoes and cleaning chicks, I have found time to finish my Hitchhiker scarf.

And spin and ply 383 yards of Merino wool into an interesting DK weight yarn.

Now I need to decide whether to sell it, or create something with it.
When we had a cool evening two weeks ago, I pulled out my Elise sweater I knit last year and determined that it pulled at my shoulders because it is just a bit too small for me.

I don’t have anymore of the yarn, nor do I want to reknit it as I have two other sweaters currently on needles and they are both shades of blue or teal, so I am trying to decide it’s fate. My options are to try to sell this hand knit sweater for little more than the cost of the yarn, to try to trade it for spinning fiber, or determine if there is a relative smaller than I that would like to have a hand knit sweater that has to be hand washed.

Last weekend, I broke my second tooth of the summer. The first required a crown and that tooth still hasn’t been finished, a temporary crown in place until mid week. When I called the dentist, they were able to get me in yesterday and fortunately this one only needed a filling repair for now. Being a molar, it likely will eventually need a crown as well. I have 6 already and lost one crowned tooth because of repeated gum infections between it and the adjacent tooth. I hope that with dental repairs and care, I will retain most of my teeth as my 91 year old father has.

It has been a good week and we continue to love our life on our mountain farm.

September 5, 2014
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
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 23, 2014

A few days ago in the pouring rain, we pressure washed the deck and porch in preparation for resurfacing them with one of the new deck resurface products. As the outdoor cats often settle on the front porch and have their supplemental food on that porch, it was all moved. One of the garage doors was open and the dog crate that is used to move the cats to the vet for rabies shots, used to transport chicks when they are purchased locally, but otherwise stored in the garage was sitting on the floor. We prepared to leave to buy the deck resurface paint and went to close the garage door. This is what we found. . .

This guy is our sickly male who is about 5 years old, much older than we were led to believe that he would live as he was born with Feline Aids before we rescued him. The healthy female bolted for the barn as soon as the powerwasher was started. I would give him access to stay there, but the 2 week old Rainbow Ranger chicks are in the brooder in the garage. There is an old window screen over the top, but that wouldn’t stop a dedicated cat.

In spite of the rain, or maybe because of it, we have had some spectacular sunsets. We would love to get the decks painted, but the forecast calls for one more day of rain before we finally get a period of dry days, hopefully enough to get the job done.

Tonight as I surveyed the refrigerator for dinner, I remembered about a quart of beef stew made earlier in the week and not wanting another meal of just stew, I added some vegetables and a crust and made one of my favorite comfort foods, pot pie. Usually I make chicken or turkey pot pie, but the beef stew was just too tempting.

Broody Girl finally gave up her empty nest sit, but she still hasn’t begun to lay. We are getting 3 eggs most days from the 13 hens and pullets. Hopefully, we will start seeing more eggs soon. The pullet eggs are getting larger, but as the only laying hen’s eggs are speckled, I can still distinguish who is laying. I need at least 3 extra dozen a week to break even on their feed, since we are also feeding 15 Rainbow Ranger chicks. The chicks are rapidly outgrowing the water tank we use as a brooder. I am at a loss about what to do with them. They are only 2 weeks old and still need a heat source. The chicken tractor is hardware cloth on the lower half and I can’t get power out to it or I would consider putting plastic sheeting on the lower half and moving them there. If any of my readers have good brooder pen idea for 15 rapidly growing meat chicks, I would love some ideas.

Most Saturday mornings, though not for the past few weeks, we travel into town, enjoy breakfast at Joe’s Diner, a local landmark then wander the Farmers’ Market for goodies. Today we were able to get potatoes, onions, carrots, and green beans (ours are still not producing). Some beef and pork from our favorite meat farmers and flowers for the table were scored as well. It is such a pleasure to visit on Saturday mornings and chat with friends, pet pups and supply with goodies we aren’t producing. Today was a bit crazy in town as this week has been move in week at the University and the town is bursting with new students and parents who are bringing or returning them to school. The summer of being able to eat at the local restaurants without a wait is over until Winter Break, but the energy they bring to the town is worth that inconvenience.

We love life on our mountain farm.

August 23, 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
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
Olio – August 6, 2014

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

As our last week with our grandson this summer is closing and since he was such a good traveler last week we gave him another afternoon at the Frog Pond, the public pool. He enjoys this outing. The pool has a large shallow circular pool with an island, an umbrella that showers water down and a small frog shaped slide then an attached deeper pool with two water park type tube slides into it. He slides and gets out, slides again, then gets into the shallow area and plays splash tag with other kids. Neither of us got in with him today.

Broody hen is winning. Yesterday, I repeatedly removed her from the nest, put bags of ice in the nest (she sat on them), and finally blocked off the nest (she moved over one). This morning, after I blocked off both of the ones she prefers last night, she had moved over yet another one and was sitting, puffing up and pecking at me when I try to move her. I have pulled her out of the nest and put her in the pen several times today and just a few minutes ago, I found her again, sitting on an egg. In the past 11 days, we have gotten only 2 eggs and she broke one of them.

Yesterday, I brought in several pints of jalapenos and pickled them for Jim, who eats one with nearly every dinner I prepare. There are dozens of Ancho peppers turning red, a pint of so of red cayenne’s, a handful of Habeneros. The Tomatillos skins are beginning to dry and split, showing the fruit inside.

This morning, our neighbor who has been gone for 2 years, having returned a couple of nights ago, came down to visit and say hello. He tried to help get my solar charger on the electric fence to charge the fence. The charger will shock you if you touch the connector with a wire, but won’t charge the braided wire that the charger requires. I sent him home with a grocery sack full of rainbow chard and several jars of various jams. He will be helping us over the next few weeks to get our porch and deck re-stained before winter.

Our eldest, father of the visiting grandson, will be here this weekend to begin setting up scaffolding and caulking between the logs of the garage so that we can begin staining again. Log homes require frequent staining until the logs have absorbed enough of the oil stain, then it can be done with less frequency. Knowing what we know now, though we love our wood house, we probably would not have built a log home, rather one that was easier to maintain.

The weather over the next few days is to be cooler and wet, so the final outings with grandson will have to be of the indoor variety.

August 6, 2014