Scruffy goes psycho

Five of my chickens went broody last month.  I had to bring Fusspot, my favorite lap chicken, inside for several afternooons because I was concerned about the temperature in the shed.  However, one of the eggs she'd been sitting on managed to survive without her.  It hatched last Friday, July 27th.  Fusspot is a full-sized barred Plymouth rock, but "Baby" is obviously a bantam, half rosecomb and half bantam Easter egg.  I think our rooster is too small to fertilize the big girls.  We really did not need any small unfriendly black chickens.  I don't know what I was thinking letting her sit on a small egg.

Two days ago, the kids saw Scruffy, one of our orange chickens, grab Baby by the neck and throw it around.  I locked Scruffy up in a dog kennel by herself.  Should have left her there.

Today I decided that Scruffy had had enough time to get over it, so I let her out.  She wandered over to the chicken shed, causing Fusspot to go absolutely ballistic.  After Fusspot viciously drove the intruder away, Scruffy wandered across the yard, and I thought it was safe to go inside.

It was fortunate that Karl had his window open, because he heard the loud peeping.  We hurried outside.  I couldn't find Baby at first, then had to hold it against my body while the hens went at it.  Karl went inside to get his sisters.  Fusspot finally decided to focus on her chick, and climbed up onto my arm.  Then the kids came onto the porch, frightening a rabbit, which ran right past me, causing Fusspot to jump and scratch my arm.

The kids eventually flushed Scruffy out from under the coop where she'd been hiding.  At that point it dawned on me that I could just lock Fusspot and Baby in the shed.  We chased Scruffy around for a while - kind of like a greased pig chase - and she eventually gave up and ran back into the dog kennel.  Whew.

bantam chicks

There were 17 eggs in all, I think, counting the crushed one. The chicks started to hatch two days ago. I found a little dead black one, then a little dead grey one yesterday morning. I moved the chickies from their cramped cardboard box to a larger metal tray, and when I went out yesterday afternoon another grey chick had fallen down in a crack and was peeping. I dug it out but it couldn't walk, and I expect that it is probably dead under one of the hens now. There are at least a few little black babies, and I saw one grey one with a white chest. It will be interesting to see what manner of mongrels they turn into.






































So much for this year's herb planter - the pullets have turned it into a dust bath.

Eggs again

When I went back out yesterday there were ten eggs under the tree. The Internet told me to put them in water to test them, and since they all sank to the bottom I boiled them and fed them to the kids. Haven't had any complaints, although one soiled diaper today smelled like something that had died. But there was only one egg in the coop instead of two. I thought "Oh no, now another one has found a hiding place."

I went out and looked under the tree just now and there were no eggs. Great, I thought. She's on to me. But then I looked in the coop and there were three eggs, one of them in the first nest box that they stopped using during the broody bantam debacle. Silly chicken.

Success

No sooner had I finished typing that last post, than a huge cackling arose from outside. I never did figure out what they were on about, but I noticed that Helga the Bantam Rooster was accompanied by only one of his three big girls. Since two of them use the same next box in their coop and the third one is all hidey, I deduced that the errant chicken had to be in her secret spot. I had already checked around the fence and other sheltered places, but I went out again anyhow, since a big ol' chicken is a lot easier to find than eggs that are the same color as the local clay. I finally found her under some weeds next to a tree and a stump. Now I'm probably going to have to go out and throw out a bunch of rotten eggs.

To complete today's grossness, I found the body from the crushed egg next to the chicken coop. It was a tiny little black thing, fully formed, but it didn't look old enough to have survived. At least the big girl didn't eat it. It's resting peacefully in a baggie in the freezer, waiting for the kids to come home from school. Blech.

Ewwww ew ew ew

We've been getting a lot of big chicken eggs since the last time I posted. There used to be three a day, but one of the girls has been hiding hers for the last couple of weeks. We have 2 1/2 acres of long grass, so my efforts to find them have been fruitless.

Our shipment from Meyer Hatchery on March 17th brought us eight chicks - 3 Easter eggers for my son, 3 golden buffs for me, a black star for one daughter and a golden-laced wyandotte for another daughter. Unfortunately, two of the easter eggers have started crowing, and we can't get rid of them because they were my son's birthday present. : p They're not really big enough to sire decent meat chickens, either.

My little grey bantam hen went broody a few weeks ago. The big girls were interfering with her nest, so I locked her up in the hutch inside the chain-link kennel where I keep the younger chickens. That did not go over well, and cured of her broodiness. A week or two later the little red hen disappeared, and now, long story short, they're *both* sitting in the cardboard box inside the hutch, on a huge clutch of eggs. It's so cute the way they fan out their little tails and growl when I point my finger at them.

Today I noticed the the grey hen was out of the cage, so I lifted up the angry little red hen to look at the eggs. One was crushed on one side so I took it out. I gently cracked it on a wooden stair until part of the shell fell open, and there was blood. Just then a Plymouth rock came up, took the egg from me, and ran off with it . YUCK! I decided I'd had enough of farm life for today and came back inside.

Another 30+ degree day, hopefully the first of many. I shooed the chickens out at 9:00.

When I got back from shopping around eleven, there arose a great cackling. I could only hear Helga the Rooster on the porch, but when I went outside I could hear the Plymouth rocks on the patio below, which had set Helga off. On of the big girls was perched on the chipper shredder casting all sorts of imprecations on the cat that was watching the show unfold through a sliding door.

There was indeed an egg in the nest box. It was bigger than I expected. Unfortunately my toddler got ahold of it and dropped it, but only a little of the white leaked out so I fried the rest of it and fed it to her.

Last night I looked at my chicken thermometer and saw that it was 12 degrees in the coop. Somehow the radiator had been turned off. The red hen was sitting on the floor by herself and didn't look at all well, so I brought her in and stuck her in a box for the night. This morning when I went to put her back I found another egg, frozen solid and cracked open, stuck to the middle of the floor. Got to put some fake eggs in their nest boxes.

Promising chicken inactivity

It was above 30 this morning so I went out and opened the chicken door on the coop. When they still hadn't come out at 12:00, 40 degrees, I went out to evict them. The little grey hen was in a nest box - first time I've ever seen one in there - and looked like she was having some kind of difficulty. I set some spaghetti on the porch for the banties, and Grey just emerged and flew up here. I can't wait to go see if she laid her first egg! It's about time. They're nine months old.

Fusspot, 11 weeks. Look at the size of that chicken.

New coop

I took out most of what was left of my retirement money after the stock market was through with it, allowed 1/3 for taxes, and bought one of these beauties from Horizon Structures. It was supposed to take 4-6 weeks, but when I explained my plight they got it here in one! It came with a roosting ledge and nest boxes already installed.






I caught the banties and put them in it the first night. I let them out a couple of days later, closing the door to their old dog kennel, and so at night they roosted on top of our chipper/shredder on our patio. I had to chase after them a little to catch them and put them in the coop. The last three times they've roosted on the air hockey table on our porch, peering into the front windows with their stupid little faces. It's a hoot.



Tonight I let the banties and the chicks mingle - have done that a few times. That mean ol' red hen attacks the chicks, but this afternoon I think they reached a sort of detente. I put the chicks in the coop and locked the banties out. They tried to perch on the chipper again, but I herded them away. I think they're back down there now. : ( I'm going to catch them when it's nice and dark and put them in with the chicks. I don't think they'll kill each other.



Here's Hermes last Sunday, at eight weeks.

I let the chicks out a few times in the last week when it got up above 60. The banties were very interested. Big Helga (the rooster) scratched his feet, lowered his wings, and did a little dance for them. Then he tried to jump one of them. The red hen tried to peck them. I drove her away. The grey hen would stay in the background clucking nervously.

The kids keep feeding them ornamental crabapples. Great fun.





Miss Fusspot at six weeks. I think it's Fusspot. It could be Sweetie.
















The banties discovered the porch. They make their rounds once a day or so.

Chicken news

My favorite bantie, the red cockerel, died after a few weeks from Marek's disease.

I named the black hen "Big Helga" because she was the largest chicken and had male features.

Big Helga turned out to be a boy. A few weeks ago I murdered the other two roosters because they weren't getting along. I will always feel guilty, and I don't think I'll be able to butcher any more chickens. I'll still eat them, though. : )


Then on September 30th I got three day-old Plymouth rock barred hens:

(from left to right: Miss Fusspot, Hermes, Sweetie Pie)















Hermes at three weeks, October 23rd:





















Sweetie at five weeks, November 2nd:


















The pears are in fine form this year. Instead of letting them rot in huge piles on the ground, I've been juicing them. The kids love it.

ZOMG chickens

I got six chicks for my birthday, show-quality bantam rose comb somethingorothers. There are a pair each of three different colors. I really just wanted two well-behaved full-sized females for egg-laying purposes, but will have to make do. My blog will now descend into all things chicken.



The maple syrup, BTW, should be left as syrup. The candy I tried to make was a disaster.

Raspberries are forming now and should be ready for picking in three or four weeks.

My honeygold apple tree is dead. : ( Only one of the remaining trees has any fruit on it, which is probably a good thing. The blasted pear tree, of course, is teeming with little pearlets.

M is for March and Maple

Maple syrup season is nearing its end this year and I've remembered some things I forgot from two years ago and discovered some new things.

• Instead of keeping a pot going for days and adding to it gradually, I've been reducing ten gallons of sap a day into a daily batch of syrup. This yields from four to seven cups of syrup (this is box elder trees we're talking about). It's much lighter and clearer than the dark, redolent syrup I made before.
• Durr, heat the jars up before you put 220-degree syrup in them. I had the bottom pop off a jar and a quart of syrup went down the sink.
• I haven't been sterilizing the jars. I also didn't filter the sand out of the syrup. I'm going to siphon off most of the syrup from the jars, make one big batch, filter the sandy part into it, and re-can it properly in a canner.
  
• Directions say to heat it to seven degrees above the boiling point of water, which would be 219.7 here. Since I got a new thermometer that doesn't do tenths but also doesn't make me stick my hand in the pot, I'm just heating it up to 220. I think it should be thicker than the watery stuff.
• buckets are less likely to fall off if you hang them from the tops of the spiles, instead of using the hooks.
• Dry holes (3/8 inch) at the beginning of the season could mean that the ground is too frozen for sap to flow. Do not drill more holes hoping to hit paydirt (hope that big tree survives my hacking it full of holes)
  

I just cooked up a batch of carp bait and when it stops raining I'm going to try my luck with that. If I actually catch one and I can work up the nerve to fillet it, I'm going to go buy a smoker and see if [properly de-stunk] smoked carp is as good as I've heard. If not, guess I'll have to smoke something else.

Oh, and before the recipe disappears off the Internet again:

Carp bait

2 cups Cornmeal

3 tbsp Sugar

1/2 tsp Salt

1 pkg Strawberry Gelatin

1 tbsp Vanilla

2 cups Water

1 bag marshmallows

1) - pour all ingredients into a large bowl, mixing until dissolved.

2) - cook over a low flame, stirring constantly.

3) - while stirring, slowly add Marshmallows.

4) - continue until batch is sticky as glue & too thick to stir.

5) - wrap in wax paper, clean the kitchen, then get your butt to the river.

6) - use strong line, put on a slip sinker then tie on a stout hook.

7) - pinch on a piece of shot ~ 12" above hook (as a stop for the slip sinker). 8) - break off a hunk of the bait & mold it fully around hook.

9) - cast out & get ready for some hot & heavy action!

[obviously you don't put all the ingredients in; you leave the marshmallows for later, and a tablespoon of vanilla is ludicrous. I use a teaspoon. My past experiences have taught me that this stuff is too sticky to handle, so I rolled today's batch in thin strips in wax paper. When it's cooled I'm going to slice it and roll it in cornmeal.]

Speaking of fruit,

Speaking of fruit, apple season has been over for some time. The honeygolds were small and spotty. The cortlands were all wormy. But the firesides, the ones I had to cull way back, were large and gorgeous. I think I picked about five. : |

There are lots of pears again. I didn't pick very many, maybe one bagful. Instead of worrying about getting the grit out, I boiled the heck out of them and used the juice to make jelly, once the sediment had sunk to the bottom. Only it didn't jell. Maybe I boiled the juice too much. I'm going to have to go back and empty all the little jars and try again. I also have some juice sitting in the fridge that I need to process.

End of tomato season

I've picked about one billion little yellow tomatoes. After my attempts to roast them failed (they tasted nasty; maybe the seeds or maybe the metal pan), I rediscovered the dehydrator. I dried several batches by cutting them in half and scooping out the seeds before I hit upon cutting crosses on the ends and squeezing out the seeds. It goes a lot faster that way and takes up less space on the racks. It's also fun to make puking sounds while the seeds squirt out.

Now I have lots of baggies full of little cornflake-looking things. There is still a batch waiting to be done; I'm just waiting for them to ripen a little, plus some of the German pink tomatoes.

It was threatening to freeze today (I think maybe it did) so yesterday I went out and picked all the green tomatoes I could stand. I have pickled all but a few of the large ones that I left for Mom to fry. I made some of the cherry tomatoes the traditional way, using the recipe for normal-sized tomatoes out of the blue book (bay leaf, garlic, dill). Right now on the stove there are three "special" jars: one with a teaspoon of sugar added; one with a teaspoon of Splenda; one with a T of sugar, crystallized ginger, whole allspice and angostura bitters. There are also two quart jars with the larger tomatoes. I put a chopped-up ancho chile on top of one, and plenty of seeds.

There are still my hanging tomatoes that I wheeled into the garage. They have fruit on them, but no blossoms like the ones outside do (or did). Who knows, maybe it didn't freeze and I could be picking tomatoes for another month. Ugh.

Next up: a billion tiny pumpkins. Will also add a picture of the one massive German pink tomato.

Oh no. They're forming.

The earliest Blondkopfchen cherry tomatoes are about to ripen.

The two that I planted in the box with the pumpkins are struggling to survive, but holding their own. They don't look like they'll have much of a yield, if they last long enough. One actually had a prematurely ripe fruit last week.

The five that I put in upside-down hanging planters are pretty measly. I guess they needed bigger planters so they could get more nutrients.



The six that I put in the rocky border in back of the house (not counting the runt that has turned into a little bonsai plant) have gone INSANE. I've tried to stake them up, but it's too little too late. In some cases I can't tell where one plant ends and the next one begins. My fingers are still yellow from the pollen from today's efforts. There are going to be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of tomatoes. Good thing I bought a pressure canner.

I do love the smell of tomato plants on my skin. It's like perfume to me.
(those yellow dots are blossoms)



The pink German tomatoes that I planted in their own box are plodding along and occasionally churn out an unremarkable fruit. I've been sticking the flesh in the freezer to make sauce out of later. It's up to about six quarts so far.




The pumpkin plants are completely out of control. They make the yellow cherry tomatoes look like a topiary. It is now impossible to get to the spigot without stepping on leaves, and our electric meter is about to be compromised. Some of the pumpkins look ripe, albeit very small. I need to read up and learn how to tell when they're ripe.



The apples are coming along, but some of the trees are covered with fruit with holes in it. I've given up on fixing that for now. I think I got rid of all the webworms, though.



We got two okrums [sic] off the one plant that survived, which is also being strangled by pumpkins. I forgot until now to check for more. They're probably all stringy now. Must plant more next year, and put the pumpkins far away somewhere.

The massive raspberry plant to the west of our porch has gone into its growing stage and is spreading out across the landing of the staircase. I need to go restrain those things the next time there's a break in this week-long thunderstorm.

J is for July and Jam

I just canned two gallons of wild raspberries, mostly as jam (9 cups raspberry sludge to 6 cups sugar). I canned three jars of just the crushed berries, but they look frothy and may have leaked because I didn't soak the lids first. The jar filler I got yesterday has been a big help - it reduces spillage and helps fill the jars up the right amount.


The season seems to be over for the wild berries, although I'm still getting a few stragglers that I'm throwing in with the "tame" berries and Loganberries. The two-year-old stalks, the ones with the berries on them, are dying off so that the one-year-olds can grow faster. Unfortunately, the berries on them are shriveling up before they can ripen. I wish they'd knock it off.

I discovered too late that the white stuff all over a few of the red raspberry bushes was not bird poop, but rather a substances that the branches produce. It explodes with a crack when disturbed, spreading sticky white powder. This makes a nice hiding place for tiny white moths and very very teeny white grasshoppers. At least they flee the scene, unlike inchworms. But the less said about that the better.

I'll have two gallons of the red raspberry mix soon. Not sure if I want to make more jam, as we still have a few jars left over from last year.

A week or two ago I was out picking berries with Katie when a rabbit ran at us full-tilt, just turning at the last second. I looked at where it had come from just in time to see a gorgeous mink running into a brush pile, which in turn coughed up another bunny. Jerry just discovered that this was all the product of some bizarre mink liberation army:

http://www.nocompromise.org/news/990810a.html

Thanks, folks.

I checked on my apple trees a few days ago, and learned the hard way about web worms. They killed a branch on one tree, and when I pulled off a leaf full of them, one of the little bastards bit me. Or tried to. Its mouth wasn't really big enough to make much of an impression. I did end up cutting the top off of the fireside tree because if was drooping over even when tied to a stake. The apples look bad, but at least they're organic.

Damn robins

DH put our fake owl up on a stake a foot away from the cherry tree. Then I wrapped a bird-proofing net around the tree. They still ate all but three of the cherries. I can't find any strawberries either. I fear that they fell victim to tiny bunnies. Now I've got to find some way to keep ants off my raspberries. I'm trying to stay organic, but I'll still probably have way more berries than I can pick or store.

The okra I was going to plant all shriveled up except for one plant, which is not long for this world. The okra planter has been taken over by two miniature pumpkins (DH bought them), two of the Blondkopfchen cherry tomatoes, four sickly cauliflowers that came free with our new chipper/shredder, and a purple bell pepper that Mom got for my birthday. I also nuked the maple saplings and other weeds in the western section of our rocky little "back yard" and put seven more cherry tomatoes there.

The maple trees and undergrowth were getting out of hand so I got a Patriot brand electric chipper/shredder. I've spent the last week clearing things and grinding them up. It works great. I had to leave one pile of branches out in the yard because some stupid baby sparrow fell out of its nest and took up residence in the branches.

Return to life

It's June and things are blooming all over Wisconsin again. We have more wild raspberries than ever, but the "tame" raspberries were attacked over the winter by bunnies. The little bastards also killed an apple tree and chewed the bark off of other trees. I thought the blackberry was dead too, but later some sickly leaves turned up.

Our young apple trees are covered with fruit, one to the point that it is in danger of breaking. I removed 100 tiny apples and it still leaning way over. I'm going to try to stake it, but it's very tall and thin so I may eventually have to cut the top off.

I transplanted the blueberry to the south of the house because it was turning yellow from the shade. I bought it a friend, but soon learned that you don't put plants right in front of the dryer vent. It seems completely dead, but I'm going to wait before I toss it to see if any of it survived.

We got four (five, actually) pink German tomato plants to put in the tomato planter. The little yellow cherry tomatoes last year were just too much to deal with. But now I've discovered that the cherry tomatoes reseeded. There are several clumps of tiny plants, maybe 60 or more in all. I've got to dig all the little brats out of there
and relocate them.

The tomato box also has lamb's quarters. I'd read about that and hoped that I could find some growing in my yard, and they finally showed up this year. Yes indeed, they do like disturbed soil. I'm letting them stay there for the time being. I've tried some in omelets and they taste great.

Another big reseeder was my peppermint patch in front of the house. I just ripped out about a gallon of babies and there are still plenty to go around. I have the plants I took out boiling on the stove right now.