Today's Take - 3/18/15

Whoopsie - birthday mania sort of got in the way of my posting for the past few days. But we're done with that until next month, when the birthday crazy train comes back around. In the mean time, I'll try to hold up my end and faithfully record the Hollow's happenings. :)

The plan I had for putting my slacking Ameracauna hen in the chicken tractor? That didn't happen. Instead, we put the 8 new laying hens that we just bought into the tractor and set them to work tearing up weeds for us. I think the results speak for themselves -

Day 3 - the tractor has been moved twice.

Not too shabby, eh? In addition to the yard work, they've laid us half a dozen eggs so far as well. Pretty good considering that they just went through a pretty dramatic life change.

On the same day that we got the new layers, we also got a mated pair of ducks from the same farm. The drake, "Tombo" is a beautiful I-have-no-idea-what-breed, but, in the way that good looking fellas so often are, seems to be a bit of a jerk. Whereas his lady love, "Kiki" a Black Swedish, is sweet as can be and a faithful layer of huge, pale blueish-grey eggs.

Between Kiki and the 'scovy girls suddenly deciding to lay, we've abruptly gone from no duck eggs at all to 4 per day. And in August/September, our 6 Khaki Campbell ducklings should begin laying as well. That's the thing about farming - you can go from feast to famine and back again just like that - which is why we don't take a second of it for granted.

For the record -
*Duck eggs - 5 (must have missed one yesterday!)
*Chicken eggs - 6

In the garden -
*Bill weeded 8 beds
*I planted 4 short rows of Watermelon radishes, with the plan to start 4 more in a week's time
*The peas we planted about three(?) weeks ago are finally starting to poke their heads up!

Today's Take - 3/15/15

It was a rainy, blustery day today, very fitting for the Ides of March. I really hope that the weather settles down soon, so that we can re-open the farm stand, as the eggs are piling up quickly, with even more layers coming on board starting tomorrow. :)

We're picking up 8 new-to-us laying hens and 2 ducks from a fellow farmer who recently sold her farm. That means that we will potentially be getting a total of 16 chicken eggs and 4 duck eggs per day very shortly. Exciting!

The timing is perfect, since the South South Direct Sales Farm Map just came out, and this year, we're listed. With our little farm stand now literally on the map, we're looking forward to getting more traffic, meeting new neighbors and selling them some of our fantastic eggs.

For the record -
Chicken Eggs - 6
Duck Eggs - 2

Today's Take - 3/14/15

I was beginning to wonder if our Muscovy girls were ever going to give us an egg, when viola!, Bill found a small nest of three eggs in a pile of loose orchard grass hay in the goats' milking shed. The milking shed has been the place that the Muscovies have been hanging out whenever they manage to break out of the duck yard, which is a very regular occurrence. I should have known they were up to something!
Shortly after finding the first three, we found another egg in the duck house. Yeehaw!

The goods!

We're going to try these tomorrow, as none of us has ever tasted a duck egg before. I've been told that frying them is slightly trickier than a chicken's egg, as they can get overcooked and rubbery pretty easily. I think I'll scramble them this first time around. I don't want to take a chance on cooking them wrong and souring us all on eating duck eggs the first time out of the gate.

For the record -
Duck eggs (woohoo!) - 4
Chicken eggs - 6

Today's Take - 3/13/15

Nothing much (again) today, just three eggs, all of them brown. Hmm.... someone... or rather, 5 someones... are slacking!

I know that one of my slackers is Bedelia, a 2-year old Americauna hen. Even on a good day, when I get a blue egg in the nestbox, I can always attribute it to our only other Americauna, Snow White, who I see in the nest box each and every morning. I haven't seen Bedelia in the box a single time yet this season. I suspect that she is laying, but not where she's supposed to. I have a plan to test this theory, starting tomorrow, bright and early. Bwahaha!

Bedelia, our suspected shirker.

Snow White, reliable provider of beautiful blue eggs

Here's what I'm thinking - I have a flower bed that I need turned over, ASAP. I also have a brand-spankin'-new used chicken tractor that just so happens to be a near-perfect fit for my weedy bed. So, Bedelia and a brown egg laying pal (or two) will spend the day working the flower bed for me, during which time they will also hopefully lay a few eggs. If I end up with a blue one at the end of the day, it'll confirm my suspicion that Miss B is actively laying, just nowhere that I can find them. Exactly what I'll do with that information, well, I haven't got that far yet. ;)

Anyway, today was a three egg day. Hopefully tomorrow, the laydies will step up their game and give us a half dozen or more. A chicken lady can dream.

Today's Take - 3/12/15

Not so much in the way of taking today, rather, Scarlet and I did a little putting.

Carly-girl helped me plant out 3 1/2 dozen or so Yellow Rock onion sets. Hedging our bets just a little, we kept back about half a bag of the sets to put in in a week or two, weather depending. They already went in a good 4-5 weeks late, what's another one or two? The worst case scenario for having planted them late is that we end up with a lifetime supply of onion greens instead of bulbs. Doesn't sound too bad, all things considered.

The stinging nettles are almost tall enough to start nipping, and the Muscovy hens should (hopefully, maybe) start laying any day now. We'll have a really interesting quiche in our near future if the stars align and both greens and eggs arrive at the same time.

The chickens have been pulling their weight well, giving us 5+ eggs per day as of late, possibly on account of a) daylight savings time ending, and or b) the heat lamp running 24/7 in the brooder. In the case of the brooder light, I'll be glad that it's helping out the hens, because it sure isn't helping out the rooster. Darth Vader was crowing every 90 seconds like clockwork at 1:30 am, the night before last, on account of the time change and the extra light throwing him for a major loop. My neighbors are endlessly patient with us and our yappy critters, but I still feel awfully bad about it.

Our not-so-grand totals for today -
Eggs - 4

10 Days 'til Spring!

It has been a very strange Winter this year.

Not enough snow has fallen in the mountains to bank up an adequate snowpack to keep the rivers flowing happily come Summer, which theoretically means that a drought is on it's way.

I know that drought is nothing to joke about, but looking at the mud pit that is my bottomland right now... a bit of drought has it's appeal.

At the moment, it's cool but not cold, and wet-but-not-sopping outside - a pretty average day for the second week of March. The thing that keeps throwing a wrench in the works is that it has been still been dipping into the freezing temps overnight.

During the day, I get a wicked case of Spring Fever and want to fiddle in my yard and garden and plant everything in sight. Come nightfall and the steep temperature dip, I find that I'm glad that I didn't.

So far we have only planted out a half bed of peas for fear that the frost will pop back up and clobber them. I have some yellow onion sets that really should have gone in last month, but I'm still apprehensive about putting them out even now, for fear that they will freeze or be gobbled by mice before they have a chance to get themselves established. Oy.

Thankfully, I do have an outlet for my plant-fever in my grow table. We have an unheated back room with a big ol' South-facing sliding glass door that is a near-perfect location for a germination station. This year, I'm really reining myself in by only jump-starting the seeds that truly need the lead time afforded by the seedling heat mats and the grow lights. That means that I only have 4 types of seed started - Ground Cherries, Hyssop, Pimento Peppers and German Chamomile. I have direct-sewn the chamomile in the past with success, the seeds are just so small and light that they make themselves rather hard to distribute evenly, and end up growing in great clumps with large gaps between. This is my attempt at a work around for that little wrinkle.

The seeds were started 4 days ago, and when I checked them this morning, lo and behold, signs of life!

My tea-to-be! 

The Hyssop have also started popping up, and a lone Ground Cherry has sprouted. Nothing from the Pimentos yet.

Our French fry futures :)

Perhaps pushing my luck, I laid my seed potatoes out to sprout today. This year we're growing 3 types of spuds - a short-season variety (Yukon Gold) a mid-season (Purple Majesty) and a late-season variety (Rose Finn Apple fingerlings). If they manage to put on some nice sprouts in the next week or two, I'll next have to chit them and let them cure for a day before biting the bullet and planting the whole lot of them out. 

Pretty please, make up your mind, weather! Farmer Chelle is itching to play in the dirt!

Taking the Good with the Bad: Late Winter on the Farm

Saturday was the first rain-free day we've had in a while here. It seems like it has been windstorms and Pineapple Express-born heavy rains in our little neck of the woods all Fall and Winter. No severe cold this year and no snow to speak of, just endless wet.

It puts a strain on us, our garden and our critters. Trying to keep bedding clean and dry is a battle without end. Making sure that our beehives are draft-free and cozy for our little honeys is something we fret over, especially when the winds pick up.

So it seemed like a good omen - actually, a bit of a surprise - when Bill went up the hill to take a look-see at our three hives. The temperatures are still just a tad low to actually open the hives up and check things thoroughly, but observing your girls' activities can still tell you a lot about the health of the hive. Bill saw comings and goings at all three hives, a promising sign of life. Better yet, he saw bees coming in with pollen on two of the three hives, which is indicative of a happy hive, as pollen is what is fed to the "brood", infant bees.

We were pretty dumbfounded to have all three hives seemingly healthy and active, especially after one of them had the roof blown clean off their hive during one of the larger windstorms we've had this season.

Alas, if the bees' good disposition was our Yin, the sadness that awaited us in Goatlandia was the Yang.

After greeting and giving good head scratches to my goat gang, I went in search of Blue, who usually heads up the treat shakedown/scratch-fest. I found her in the goat house, looking very much like she was asleep. Our strong, sweet, sassy, irrepressibly-maternal little girl Blue, left us on an unseasonably sunny Valentines Day.

Blue was 14 years old, though we'd only had her for her last 4 years. She came to us with her little tiny buckling, Blackjack. He would be the last baby for our Bluey, and as though she knew that she'd reached the end of her new-mothering journey, she coddled and protected that little stinker to the point of spoiling him rotten. She was small but fierce.

Blue & her little man, Blackjack, chowing down.

In the years following, Blue became Auntie Blue, the maiden aunt/foster mom to many of our kids. If a doe had quads and couldn't keep up - the kids nursed Blue. If a Mama rejected/neglected a baby, Blue took them in. Even when her infant charges were nearly taller than she herself was, she nursed them when she could, fought for them to get their fair share at the feeder, napped with them in pools of warm Spring sunlight and slept close to them in the goathouse at night.

Bluey, in all her chunky glory :)

Waiting (uncharacteristically!) patiently for head scratches from her Papa

It hurts - literally hurts - to think that I'll never hear her insistent, distinctly unladylike "EH-EH-EH-EH-EHHH!" and see her rotund little form come trotting around the corner of the goathouse, in hot pursuit of snacks and head scratches. Her sassy little spark has gone, and I miss her.

So long, sweet girl.

Frog Song

The frogs in our bog started singing two nights ago. The first night, it was a dozen or so loud individuals. Last night, the full chorus joined in. We're talking thousands, maybe tens of thousands of frogs, all going bananas simultaneously. It can be deafening if you're out in the yard when they start it up, but from inside it's a kind of pleasant white noise.

Updated 2/5/15 - now with audio disguised as video!

I decided to note when the froggies started singing their song this year, to eventually, maybe, try to determine whether or not there is any correlation between last frost dates, average daily temperature, etc.,  and when the frisky frogs fire up their pipes. ;)

Spring Seeds

Look at what the mailman brought me today!

These are the first of several shipments of seeds that I'm expecting, from no less than four different companies. The trouble with having strong preferences for particular varieties is that it seems that no one seed company carries them all. Add to that that I wanted to grow a few new-to-me varieties recommended by my local Slow Food chapter and you have... a very piecemeal seed shopping experience. ;)

This is my first order from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I'm particularly excited to try growing the Rat's Tail Radish since having tasted them at a few different local foods dinners. They look like a green bean, but taste like a mild radish. Neato! I'm looking forward to using them in a few pickling recipes this Summer.

As for the rest of our chosen varieties, so far we have planned -

*Radishes - Rat's Tail, Purple Plum and Watermelon

*Poppies - Hungarian Blue Breadseed

*Ground Cherries - Aunt Molly's

*Carrots - Atomic Purple, Red Cored Chantenay, Little Fingers

*Sunflowers - Giant Greystripe, Honey Bear

*Peas - He Lan Dou snow peas, Clarke's Beltony Blue-podded shelling peas

*Parsnips - Turga (a short-rooted variety)

*Peppers - Pimento (sweet)

*Pumpkins/Winter Squash - Small Sugar, Oregon Sweet Meat

*Beans - Robert's Royalty Purple Snap (bush-type)

*Corn - Dakota Black Popcorn

*Cucumbers - Addis Pickling

*Greens - Bear Necessities Kale

*Beets - Lutz Tall-Top

*Cilantro - Standby (slow-bolt)

*Chamomile - Bodegold (German-type)

*Calendula - Resina

*Pollinator-friendly and Cutting Flowers - Anise Hyssop, Gloriosa Daisy, Rocket Larkspur, Love in a Mist

We still want/plan/need to lay hands on the following seeds/starts - potatoes, tomatoes, hot peppers, lavender, elderberries, a short-season melon or two, basil, more salad greens, more cutting flowers, Phacelia (for the bees!), maybe wasabi and a few others that I'm probably forgetting.

We intend to really make a real go of our little farmstand this year. Let's hope that the weather and our backs hold up to our ambition!

Baby Goats!

Chardonnay has her babies on January 6th - one boy and one girl. And I was so sure that she had at least three in there! D'oh!

At 2 days old - the dark kid is the doeling, and the tan fella is our lone buckling, Cocoa.

After fooling me several times, Chardy finally, actually went into labor right around dinner time on the 6th. Farmer Bill was up the hill to feed and came scrabbling back to tell me that Chardonnay was delivering her 2nd babe. We all trucked back up the hill to check on everybody, help Mama dry everyone off, iodine their cord stumps and give them their first dose of colostrum/vitamin supplements. Chardy came through like a champ and her babies are healthy and beautiful!

And then again last night, Sidney did practically the same exact thing. Bill noticed two little new, wet babies at feeding time and came back with the report that we had two new pretty little girls.

The twinses!

Sidney and her darling doelings.

It is highly anticipated that Blue is also expecting shortly, but as she tends to be rather rotund on any given day, who knows for sure?

Three girls and a boy so far. YAY! :)

Kids?

Today I finally managed to work myself up to making the trek to the goat yard, so that I could eyeball the lassies for myself and see if I could figure out who was pregnant.

Bill thinks that they all look a little too thin, which tends to happen after a cold Winter eating past-its-prime hay. To my eye, they look in fine flesh, especially blue who is built like a barrel.

My best guess (because it is only a guess) about who's pregnant - Chardy looks pregnant, but not "ready to go", Hop is *maybe* pregnant, and Sidney looks pregnant, though not bagged up, but I did see a little discharge on her lady bits, so I don't know whether she's pregnant and getting close (though not yet bagged) or just fat and in heat.

Time will tell! Between 8 does, I can only hope that we end up with at least one milker!

Stay tuned...

Today's Take 3/14/12

You know your life has become a little odd when you have the following exchange with an otherwise friendly barista-

Barista: So what are you up to today?
Me: I'm finally going to pick up my goat...
Barista: Awwww!
Me: ...from the butcher.
Barista: *stunned blank stare*

Yep, today was the day to pick up our goat meat from the butcher shop. For a 70 pound goat, our guy dressed out to a somewhat disappointing 37 pounds. We did not keep the entrails, hide or horns, just the meat and a few bones for bone broth and dog treats.

Here's how our 37 pounds broke down-

*3 pkgs Sirloin Steaks, 1 lb, 13 oz total weight
*7 pkgs Loin Chops, 3 lbs, 5 oz total weight
*2 Leg Roasts, 7 lbs ""
*2 pkgs Ribs, 2 lbs, 14 oz ""
*2 Shanks, 2 lbs ""
*5 pkgs Shoulder Steaks, 4 lbs, 12 oz ""
*6 pkgs Rib Chops - 3lbs, 3 oz ""
*10 pkgs Ground - 11 lbs ""

As I was putting the meat in our chest freezer, I also noticed the pheasant that my husband took last November/December(?) that were never weighed and logged. There was a total of 7 1/2 lbs of meat, which it takes God knows how many pheasants to make.

So our freezer is bulking up again, with some 45 pounds of goat & bird. I've never cooked either goat or pheasant, so dinners around here might be a little interesting during my learning curve. ;)

Today's Take-

*Goat meat, 37 pounds
*Pheasant, 7 1/2 lbs
*Eggs, not yet collected

More Snow!

Good gravy, really?

We're 8 days from Spring and we woke up to snow coming down fast and furious. C'mon!

I was supposed to go pick up our goat ("chevon" makes it sound fancier) from the butcher today, but their area has more snow than we do. ARRRG! I also have some really nice looking bean and tomato starts that are not going to take kindly to this ongoing white stuff.

Andrea! Come and take your snow back to Colorado! ;)

Today's Take 3/9/12

*Stinging Nettles, 18 ounces
*Eggs, 7

Not much, but the bounty of Spring isn't far off now. :)

My Germination & Propagation Situation

On behalf of my own little self, and my daughter's elementary school, I have planted/set to root:

*5 Forsythia cuttings (Which incidentally look really gorgeous just sitting there doing their thing in one of my old mason jars.)
*5 Japanese Willow cuttings
*3 Naked Seed Pumpkins
*16 Libby's Pride Tomatoes
*1 Burgess Buttercup Squash (so far - it just popped up today)
*Innumerable Buttercrunch and Cimmaron lettuce starts, a dozen or so Red Russian Kale starts.

My lofty, highly unlikely goal is to be able to grow/root/divide 100 plants for our school plants sale, in addition to starting many of the veggies and herbs that I will eventually plant out for myself, with my deadline being mid-May or thereabouts. Can I do it? Well, as of this morning, I'm about 30+ little starts closer to my goal. :)

Our First Livestock Harvest

We decided some time ago that we were going to harvest Spike. It wasn't an easy choice. We did not get into goats for the meat, but for the milk, fertilizer, shrub-trimming and companion aspects of livestock ownership. That being said, Spike wasn't really helpful in any of those areas except for the pooping. He was ornery, mean to the little goats, constantly escaping and destroying his pen, his house, bins and cans of various critter foods, etc. He was a sneaky little tornado of smash. And so, it was decided that we would harvest Spike, rather than pass him and his many issues on to a new owner. It wasn't a decision undertaken lightly. We've been seriously contemplating it for the better part of 6 months now.

After Spike's last escape, during which he went on a tear smashing feed cans, binging on and spoiling the girls' grain (and in the process giving himself a wicked case of the trots) and just generally destroying everything that held still, we decided with absolute certainty that the time had come. The arrangements were made with the kill guy and the butcher, and today was the day.

Fortunately, the man who dispatched and field dressed Spike was an absolute pro and did a mercifully quick and clean job of it, which is a great comfort to me, knowing that Spike did not suffer unduly and was treated with skill and dignity to the very last.

Unfortunately, the job had to be done early in the morning, and near the front of our property, lest our other goats see/smell the goings-on and become unsettled.

This meant that everything took place within view of the road, and may have been witnessed by some unsuspecting passersby.

Having been in this very same situation myself as a child, I can't help but feel badly for anyone having to see that first thing in the morning.

In spite of us having formed something of a callus when it comes to the less pleasant aspects of farming, like culling, harvesting and euthanizing our animals, chalking it up to being part of the reality of growing-your-own, it is still hard when that moment comes that you must make the final call about whether an animal lives or dies. We never take it lightly, and we never feel good about it, but we recognize that as stewards of livestock, whatever their intended function may be, end-of-life decisions are part of the package.

And so we said goodbye to Spike today. We pray that his spirit is free and at peace, that what remains of him here on earth will nourish the families that it feeds, and that my children will take from this experience an appreciation for the circle of life and the sacrifices made along the way.

Sometimes navigating this simple life feels extraordinarily complicated.

The seeds that I started a week ago tomorrow have finally begun popping up! Well, some of them have. About 50% of the tomatoes have sprouted, and a handful of each of the red kale and buttercrunch lettuce. The Cimmaron lettuce and naked-seed pumpkins have yet to do a thing.

I've also been underwhelmed by the progress of my eggs in the incubator. Having lost the incubator's thermometer, I feel like I may have erred too far on the side of caution in keeping the eggs from being overheated. I keep nudging the temp up in tiny increments, lest I go to far and kill the potentially developing embryos. Uhg! I popped an unused kitchen thermometer in the incubator today and am checking it every few hours to see if I can get the eggs up to their magic number of 99.5 degrees. Still not quite there yet. I'm wondering then, if these eggs are still viable? I guess I'll keep candling them and keep my fingers crossed for any signs of progress.

Once the 'maters and lettuces are sprouted and no longer in need of the seedling heat mat, I think that I'll be starting more pumpkins and possibly some beans as well. I'm shooting for a very lofty goal of donating 100 plants to our school plant sale! Only time will tell if I can pull it off.

Spring does seem to be creeping in, as the chorus frogs and woolly bears foretold last week. The temps are slightly up, no hard frosts overnight, but still a fair bit of rain. C'mon sunshine - we need you bad right about now.

Ramping Up for Spring!

It was a very productive 4-day weekend for us. Lots of downed trees cut and stacked, more goat fencing put in, chicken coops cleaned, 3 trays of veggies started and 42 eggs put in the incubator. And I am POOPED!

We also carved out a few hours this morning to go birding with our friends J & F for the Great Backyard Bird Count. We saw a whole mess of water birds, as we did this year's count at Capitol Lake. Our stats, per Liv's notes-

*Scoter - 1
*Seagulls (Glaucous Winged?) - 22
*Song Sparrow - 2
*Mallard Ducks - 8
*Bufflehead Ducks - 6
*American Crows - 19
*Grebe - 1
*Red-breasted Merganser - 1
*Belted Kingfisher - 1
*Robins - 9
*Gadwalls - 2
*Great Blue Heron - 1
*European Starlings - 5
*Greater Scaup - 1
*Lesser Scaup - 8

We also saw some Cormorants fly over, but couldn't i.d. the type against the bright sky. Livy girl was in bird nerd heaven!



It was a nice end to a crazy-busy 4 days. :)

Trees Without End... oy!

We are still cleaning up from the MLK Day snow & ice storm. We had limbs and branches come down from our apple & plum trees that we dealt with right away, but it was the few dozen Alder trees up in the pasture that made the biggest mess - the one we're still cleaning up.

On the up side, we all got a decent little bit of exercise today stooping, slogging and chucking wood around. We'll also have enough firewood for next Winter and then some, which is always nice.

I'm so proud of my Livy-doo, who is growing up to be a very considerate and hard working girl. She helped her Papa load and haul firewood for close to 7 hours today! For her, getting to drive the tractor is the main attraction to working with her Pop. Anything to gets the kids out there and helping out is worth it's weight in gold to me. ;)

Better late than Never

I finally started some seeds, about 2 weeks later than I'd planned. I'm starting some for us, of course, and as is becoming my norm, starting some to donate to our school plant sale as well.

As I only have three seedling heat mats, I was only able to start three flats today, one of lettuces & kale, one of tomatoes and one of "naked seeded" pumpkins. Next week I'll start some beans and squashes, I think.

It's been a little frustrating figuring out what to start now and what to wait on. I started the lettuce & kale now because I can set it out just as soon as it becomes established. The 'maters and pumpkins are supposed to take 3-4 months from sowing to harvest, which would put them at the blooming phase when the May plant sale rolls around, if I manage to keep them alive in the ensuing 12 weeks.