OMG!!!!!! THERE COMING!!!!!

CAN YOU TELL I'M EXCITED!!!! Earlier today when I got these girls off the nests for their bath and to get a drink I checked the eggs. One looked like it MIGHT have a crack but other than that things were pretty quiet. It is 7 pm and I just checked again. This time I didn't make the moms leave and go out to the pasture. I just moved them off the nest while I checked so I was eyeball to eyeball with a mom that was giving me the "what the f... do you think you are doing" hairy eyeball. I am always surprised at how calm these girls are with me. So while mom was staring at me I started picking up each egg and OMG! Cracks and holes and peeps! OH MY! I kept hearing a really loud one but couldn't figure out where it was coming from. So I moved over to the next nest (on the right) got moma off and started to look. As soon as I did an egg started screaming at me! Has to be one of Mimi's because she is a screamer too. That's why the name. Screaming Mimi. The man named her. So while moms are staring at me but being calm the boys are at the gate wanting to rip me a new one. Literally.

 They have spent most of their time sitting by the gate waiting, or, when I do get the girls off for their daily bath and drink they run up and down the outside of the fence screaming at them. Get back on! Get back on! You're killing my babies! This is why we don't let ganders' into the delivery room. So we should have babies tomorrow.

You may wonder why I am so excited. Metzer farms where I bought these lovelies said this on their web site;

Fertility seems to be a problem with most Sebastopols, along with lower than normal egg production. Fertility is adequate early in the season (and they do seem to come into production earlier than most breeds) but quickly drops off. Oftentimes we will have no fertile eggs the last three weeks of production in the spring. In 2005 we tried artificial insemination with our Sebastopol but with discouraging results. We hope to try it again in the future but with some basic changes in our methods and materials

  and last year all the eggs were a big fat ZERO so I was not expecting anything this year. In fact both girls together only laid a total of 22 eggs. Three went in the fridge for easter and one was not fertil so I tossed it after candling. The remaining 18 eggs were full of baby so pessimistic me was just wondering how many would die in the egg. I can't wait to tell John Metzer. Maybe he needs a few tips! hahaha

I will keep you up to date when they get here. If they get here. So far they sound really robust. Here's a shout out to Chuck. You're gonna be a grampa!

Sebastapols and ducks at Metzer Farms

The Unintentional Farmer

What Are You Doing In There?

This was the year I wasn't going to get new babies. No chickens, no ducks, and the geese are suppose to be difficult to get goslings from. Well I have a silkie sitting on 4 duck eggs (to go to someone else) and the geese laid a total of 22 eggs three of which are in the fridge waiting to become blown out Easter eggs the rest are sitting under the two moms. They have been setting since the  beginning of March and of course I didn't mark it down since I assumed that like last year it would come to naught. My plan was to let them set for awhile then candle the eggs just to make sure and then toss them. Today I was able to candle the eggs while the moms were out stretching their legs and taking a bath. I think I am going to have to re-think that no baby plan. Out of 19 eggs 18 seem to be well on the way to being babies. The one egg that looked, well, like an egg was just that. I cracked it open and tossed it in the garbage.









I have 4 Sebastapol geese. Two ganders and two geese. The funny part is that only one gander has mated with the one female but both females are sitting on the eggs. They seem to be getting along but I had the man build two separate nest boxes for them with a wall between so they can't see each other. However the four of them talk to each other constantly. I call them the screecher creatures. I gave the non-laying goose 9 of the eggs and they are both being very good moms.

So good in fact that when neither of them had been off the nest for food or water for 4 or 5 days I finally went in and picked them up off the nest setting them near a food and water dish. They were absolutely joyful about the reprieve. They were also a little wobbly on their feet so after a good drink and a short bath they both got back on the nest. Guess I will have to do this every day.

The boys are also working in tandem. Both of them guarding those girls. My family has dubbed them "the evil geese" but they really aren't that bad with me. Compared to other breeds of geese that I have had these guys are a piece of cake. They can be pretty scary though when you don't know them and that is the point after all.  Here they are hissing at me through the fence. I am inside with the girls and they don't like that at all!

Will keep you updated on our progress.

Happy Easter.....Eggs and Nesting Goose Update.

I finally got access to the goose nest and was able to candle those eggs. No babies inside. So I took the eggs into the house. This didn't set well with the geese. The girls went out yelling at the boys and they all walked around for awhile being very noisy talking about it. The girls eventually went back in looking for their eggs. Although I had pulled all the nesting material out of  the dog crate they were using (there were two) one of them went back inside, sat down and started pulling all the stuff back in. After sitting on the empty nest for a day  I decided I better go empty the nesting material out of the dog crate they were using and remove it. That didn't stop them. It just upset them. This morning and for the last two days they have been sitting in the nesting material together out in the open where the chickens can see them. They are determined.......and I feel bad for them. Although I haven't seen the ducks doing the tango lately I went ahead and placed two fresh duck eggs in front of the geese which they promptly tucked under their downy breast. Guess I will candle them in a couple days.

In the mean time in the house I scrubbed the goose eggs using soap and a plastic kitchen scrubby. They were so stained that they wouldn't come clean so I used a little vinegar with the scrubby and that took it off. My plan was to blow out the eggs, rinse them and then dye them with natural dyes made from stuff in the kitchen. I was afraid they would be stinky so I took precautions to empty the eggs into a zip lock back for disposal. To my surprise they weren't. So here is how I did it.

Cleaned and scrubbed eggs

Using a straw colored with ink I marked
a circle on both ends of the egg.

Using a dremmel I gently
drilled a hole in both ends the
same size as the straw. 

I used a bamboo skewer to break up
the yolk inside then using the straw
I blew out the insides into the bag.

Once the eggs were empty, rinsed and dried I started to color them. My favorite was the boiled onion skins which made a lovely orange. I also used curry and mustard mixed with water for yellow (I didn't have any turmeric but mustard has that in it) sweet cherry juice for a purple/blue, and beet juice for a pink. All mixed with water and a little white vinegar.










This morning my youngest (16)  informed me that she was expecting an Easter basket. I thought my girls were past that. Hmmmmm....but apparently not. She got down the Easter decorations and pulled out these eggs made some years ago when I lived on Lummi Island. They are made with tissue paper and a mixture of Elmer's glue and water. Kind of like paper mache' only on real eggs that were blown out.

Easy and fun project for the kids

I will keep you posted on the geese and their quest for a family. In the mean time have a great Easter!

Duck and Remodel Update

The sun peaked in and out all day yesterday and I took the opportunity to put the babies and mom outside just long enough to change the bed and water in their brooder box. One of the ducklings was shivering right away and I have to admit it was chilly but I thought they would get under mom. She was more interested in getting some scratch time in so babies just followed her around picking at the grass too. They were only out for about 5 minutes though because the sun disappeared as fast as it had come out. It was working up to a wind storm with another cold front coming in. So we got blustery weather during the night with some little power outages here and there. The three older babies will be a week old late tomorrow. Sure goes fast.
                                                                                                                 

I am thinking about temporarily reducing the size of my chicken flock and re-homing some of them. I found a home for one yesterday through craigslist. Someone was looking for a companion for her hen. The reason is I have come to the conclusion that I could do a better job of getting a productive flock that would fit in better with my preparedness goals. I love the different breeds but some of them are just resource suckers. Meaning eat more produce less. More on this subject in another blog.

The bathroom is coming along and I am happy with the progress. The man isn't. He wants it done now. He only gets two days off a week (and they aren't consecutive). He also has a real problem not having his bathroom. We have a powder room that would temporarily suffice for doing things like brushing teeth and drying hair but the only other showers are upstairs in the girls bath (and he doesn't want to go there) and up in the apartment over the garage which means going outside in his bathrobe. He doesn't want to do that either. So I think I need to get the shower ordered and ready to install and the pocket door too. The idea is for him to take a couple days off sandwiched around his normal days off. With four days off he should be able to get the door installed and the sheet rock installed over it and the shower with the doors installed over that and hopefully have the tile guy in to tile the two walls in the shower. He may have to use the girls shower a couple days but it wont kill him. Especially since they are usually gone by the time he needs it.

                     

 We do have another girl moving in this Thursday though. One of the kids has a friend that wants to stay with us until she and the oldest move out this fall. We will call her Em for this purpose. We love Em. She has been a friend for a long time and she is a great kid. Always helping out and jumping in to do things voluntarily. She went to a private college this year. It was her first year and she found out it was just too expensive.  She attended two quarters and is already 10 grand in debt because she had to take out a student loan to pay for her dorm, a requirement for first year students. Our oldest attended running start during her senior year of high school, attended the same junior college and lived at home her sophomore year and has a significant amount saved for this fall when she moves out. If she is accepted she will be attending the University of Washington her junior year and so far no debt. Em realizes that this is a better idea or she is going to have a killer student loan debt when she gets out of school. However she is already in debt and kind of behind the eight ball already. But living here over the next few months she can get some prerequisites out of the way and work somewhere so she can save up a little for next fall. Working and going to school full time is really hard.

So not only will the man need to use that shower but he has to do it with another girl living here. The problem is all in his head but we will just work around that. In the mean time I will be stripping the paint from the claw foot tub and looking for the shower.

Silky Mothers, Geese, and the Wrecking Ball

Goose egg,  duck egg, chicken egg

Today we got our first goose egg from our Sebastapols. I was watching from the kitchen window but didn't realize she was laying an egg because she was sitting in the open in front of the chicken coup. I should have known because both ganders were guarding her from all the other birds like she was a queen. I thought it odd but didn't see the egg until I went out to put them away for the night. I hope she figures out what a nest box is for.

Two of my three Silkies started sitting on duck eggs almost two weeks ago.  About the second day I noticed Baby Mama wasn't really sitting on the eggs. She was straddling them and trying to keep them warm but not setting. She didn't look good at all and she was extremely thirsty. She would drink and drink and then the water would just run out her mouth. She had diarrhea too. It was time to do something or lose her so I took the eggs and put them under the other silkie and mixed up a teaspoon of Epsom salts with 1/2 cup water and flushed her with an eye dropper. After two days of that I switched her to Pedialyte for a day.  Guess that did the trick because she started eating. I also rigged up a light over her perch to keep her warm. She seems OK now and not interested too much in the eggs that the other is sitting on. I was afraid she had a broken, stuck egg because her eggs shells had been getting very thin even with extra calcium. Guess she just got into some nasty plant or rotting thing that was poisoning her tiny little body. The white silkie is sitting tight on her nest and maybe it is just my imagination but those duck eggs look darker :-)

In an earlier post I told you we were going to rip out that ugly bathroom. Well we started and I am so excited. The first thing we (I) did was buy a claw foot tub. I have been looking for one for months. Every time I found one it was either more than I could afford, in really bad shape or someone would beat me to it. That's one of the disadvantages of living on an island.  I found a really great one in the Fremont District of Seattle. One tiny little chip you can hardly see and no visible rust. The outside and the feet have to have the paint removed and repainted but the inside is a smooth and shiny porcelain. A tub in that condition would probably sell for 6 or 7 hundred dollars around here (sometimes more) and it was advertised for $450 but I got it for $375. Guess that got the man moving because he started ripping out walls the next day. I helped by putting the plaster board and junk into big plastic bags and hauling them out to the garage to wait for dump day.

In between doing that I started stripping the paint off of the tub feet. LOTS of paint. Layers of green, yellow, white, black, and a primer. That took about three days of soaking and scraping and soaking again but its off. Then the man took the feet out to the wire buffer in the garage and polished them up. He is going to use a Drummel to take off the crud in the knuckles of the claws. We have been tossing around what color we want to paint them and the outside of the tub. So far yellow or light blue or maybe a warm ivory.

I also started ripping out the ugly 12 x 12 ceramic tile on the floor. The previous owner had placed it right over the old linoleum (also very ugly) so that will go next. You can see in this picture the light switch hanging in mid-air and the closet which ran along the back wall and in an L shape up to the door is GONE! Thank you so much God! Have you ever had to have your clothes hanging in a damp bathroom? Yuk! I actually had to throw away my suede belt because it was growing something. Guess there are worse things though. At least I had a closet (and a bathroom).  Now the man and I are brain storming where we want to put the tub and the sinks. The shower and toilet will stay put because of the plumbing but we are going to put in a bigger shower and probably put tile in it. (An extravagance on our budget). I think I have him talked into wood floors (real tongue and groove fir stained to match the kitchen floor which is reclaimed pine). So far the only expense has been the tub. A good friend gave me an antique quarter sawn cabinet with a leaded glass door that I am very jazzed about. It even has the saw marks on the shelves.  Although I was already using it in the old bath I can't wait to see it in the new one. It's perfect for holding towels and toiletries. I think we are going to put in a pocket door so the bath looks bigger and that along with the shower will probably be the next thing to do. But that is up to the man of course.

Here is what I have been doing in my spare time. It's a very easy, very yummy light oat bread. Gotta feed that guy to get any work out of him! ;-)

What the H$&#? My newest Rant.

A couple months ago I went shopping at my local Costco. Like most of us I like buying the best quality stuff at the least amount of money in large sizes and since I preserve food that includes vinegar. Now maybe most of you think "vinegar, not a big deal" and maybe it isn't but I use vinegar in a lot of different food not just pickles. The other day I hauled out the jug of Heinz apple cider vinegar to make coleslaw while The Man was sitting there watching me. He pointed out that just under the words "Apple Cider" and just above the word "Vinegar" the label said (in small lettering) flavored distilled. I couldn't believe it. Why would a trusted brand make an apple cider vinegar that was artificially flavored? The ingredients say it is "distilled vinegar from grain, natural flavor with caramel color,diluted with water" to get the 5% acidity. I immediately called my Bro to rage about this new deception by big food industry and to check what his smaller bottle of vinegar contained.

His said from apples. So did the vinegar at his local store. So why this? When we both looked it up the only conclusion we came up with was they are trying to make a cheaper product for mass market stores. The label didn't actually say what grain it is made of but the web site claims their products are made of corn or apples. I assume it is corn. Probably GMO corn since you virtually can't find anything but GMO corn on the market and corn is probably cheaper than apples. The web site claims that apple cider vinegar and wine vinegar are the only vinegars that are gluten free since they are made from apples and grapes respectively and only vinegar such as malt vinegar is not gluten free because they are made of grain so that wasn't a reason. I consider this a dirty trick since I try to avoid corn as much as possible. In this day and age thats like trying to avoid breathing. Go figure. So I guess what I actually bought was colored white vinegar. Hmmmm. So what is the lesson here?

1. Don't trust any company and throughly read each label! Great. That should make a two hour shopping trip turn into four.

2. Make sure what you are buying at your big box stores is what you think it is and if not COMPLAIN! Chances are they don't know it either.

I quit buying Crest toothpaste at Costco in the large 4 pack because there was so much water in it that it would run out of the tube if the cap was off. I thought I was imagining it but it happened with more than one purchase of toothpaste. So maybe there is a pattern developing here. I've always wondered how Costco could sell something so much cheaper and always chocked it up to selling mass quantities.

I'm all for being self sufficient and making a lot of our own food. However I think of cider vinegar as a simple ingredient that is to be used to make other things not something that is made up of other things. Why can't I trust a company to produce a simple ingredient without trying to make it a concoction of several other things. I have a feeling when the effects of peak oil become more noticeable  we may all be making a lot more of our own "stuff". Don't know what peak oil is. You will before long and it will be up close and uncomfortable. If you want a quick, not too in depth explanation go here and watch this video from Mother Earth News. (The link is near the end of the article.) High Gas Prices got you down? (Peak Oil) The video will be quicker than another rant from me.

Books, Obnoxious Animals and Noxious Weeds! (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly)

 Ever had a weed you hated? This is one of mine. Thistles come in two forms here and you have to be able to identify the one you are fighting with. A Canadian thistle grows in worn out soil and spreads by underground runner roots. Just for good measure it also will bloom and form thousands of seeds from purple flowers that blow away in the wind to sprout somewhere else on your property. I truly hate this plant. I have battled it for years. I just found an article on getting rid of this obnoxious weed and it makes perfect sense. Pulling the damn thing sure doesn't work. The one thing I know is you have to cut it down before it even looks like it is going to bloom because even though it is cut the flowers will still bloom and make thousands of seeds after cutting and laying on the ground. So if you have this thing check out this link.

http://www.truehealth.org/acanthis.html The picture above is of what we call a bull thistle or spear thistle. It is fairly easy in comparison to eradicate. But you have to get all of the long tap root which can be nearly impossible. Years ago I went with a friend to a garlic farm in Oregon. One of the things we did while we were there was thistle hunting. I have since used this technique to get rid of these "prickers" (my youngest calls them that when she accidentally steps on them with bare feet.) You will need salt, a cutting or weeding tool, and gloves of course. But beware! The stickers still go through the gloves so handle with care. Simply slice off the thistle at ground level then put a pinch of salt on the exposed root. Works like a charm for me. And I have had some in my front yard that are about 2 feet in diameter.  You will have to keep weeding other plants out as they come up from seeds but eventually you will see a difference and you don't have to rely on poisons which don't work on thistles anyway and can make your animals sick if ingested.

 
I love curling up with a new book. Reading in the winter time is the one thing I really look forward to and sometimes I have to be prodded out of my comfort zone by friends to read something I don't normally read but I have seldom been disappointed with their suggestions. My brother is a writer and until recently I had not been asked to read anything he had written. Perhaps he didn't want to deal with my criticisms. Ya I can be that way. However I was asked to read (and proof) a copy of one of his stories and guess what? I liked it! So much so that I read another and liked it too. I suggested that instead of dealing with agents that only want to handle a proven writer (read easy money) that maybe he should try putting one up on Kindle. After all, those agents are going to be unemployed soon due to downloadable e-books and not so high and mighty. (Ya, ya I like having a real book in my hands too but I also didn't want a cell phone and now look at me.) So he did. It took some time to figure out how to do it and the learning curve was steep but low and behold he is selling books! He writes mysteries mostly and is very good at painting word pictures. To view his stuff and reviews follow this link. Don't have a Kindle reader? Did you know you can download to your computer and read anything you can get as an e-book? Here is a link to his stuff. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_8?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=schankel&sprefix=schankel Oh and by the way. I just set up the hammock in the backyard and now when I have an hour or so I can lay in the hammock and read and still be around my animals and in the fresh air. So take an hour or two for yourself. You deserve it.

Busy days

I seem to have gotten very busy since my last post. Trying to get the garden in, raising geese and ducks, raising new chicks, dealing with broody hens, a graduating senior, two birthdays, and the work here is coming fast and furious. I'm working on the garden between rain and wind storms and temperatures that are 10 degrees below normal. The potatoes are up and need to be mounded. I am still tilling and re-tilling and pulling out the stupid grass that keeps re-sprouting.  I have some lettuce in and some peas. I am also bushwhacking nettles, and what I believe are cow slips, (a big leafy wet plant) in my spare time. I simply refuse to let them take over the area we cleared last summer.

One of the new chicks developed a scissor beak as it grew and I know a "real" farmer would have given it a good whack and been done with it. However this little girl is as sweet as can be and I am a sucker for a Charlie Brown anything. Because I am concerned that she isn't able to get enough to eat I have been making her a wet mash from chick starter and water three times a day. That seems to be working and now when I come out of the house she comes running across the yard to look up at me and ask "where's the food?" She follows me, hopping up on the table and then on me while I am making her mash. She is fearless. Everyone that sees this comical little bird thinks she is cute.

In the mean time I have 4 other birds that have decided to go broody. Two silkies (of course) a bantam light Brahma and a black astrolorpe. I think I have cured the bantam and I am working on the black one. However both Silkies want desperately to be moms. So I bought 4 more chicks. Two for each hen. The black Silkie is a natural mother and didn't mind being moved from her original nest to a dog carrier on the table and instantly tucked each Buff Orpington chick under her. The white Silkie was a little more difficult. She wasn't about to give up the original nest and had a fit so I moved her to a carrier after dark and let her settle in over night before adding the chicks. She is now a good mother of two silver laced Wyandots. The chicks are giving her a hard time since they want to explore their nest and she wants them under her wing. I don't think I will ever brood chicks under a lamp again. Giving that job to the hens is great.

Now the man thinks I'm nuts and I have too many animals. Isn't he the one that was saying I needed more layers to keep up with the demand for my eggs? Since I still don't have housing for my geese I guess I better not push my luck.

The geese and ducks are now 9 weeks old and fully feathered so they are staying outside at night in a predator resistant enclosure. That makes my job a little easier because I don't have to clean up the coup after them every morning. The fenced pasture is up and usable for now and handy to have during the day when they need to be out but I am anxious to get it finished with a real gate and nest houses built. I love my geese and one in particular seems to like me. My youngest named him Sebastian. He likes to be on my lap and gives be goose hugs around my neck. Ok. So I am nuts.

Our oldest graduates from high school so we have announcements to get out, pictures to pick up, parties to plan and registration for college. She is in running start this year which means she did her high school senior year and college freshman year at the same time so she will be going into college as a sophomore next fall studying marine biology. Right now she is in crunch mode to get everything done.

Our youngest has her sweet 16 coming up first week of June. That is a special birthday so I am trying to decide what to do about it. We have a tradition of giving our girls a real ring on their 16th so I have to go shopping. I hate to shop.

The man also has a birthday. He wants heated riding gear for the bike. That means a trip to Olympia about two hours south of here (after the ferry) to visit the company that makes it. We will be taking the car for that. I am not riding that far on his Harley in what will surely be rain.

How about a recipe? This dessert starts out as one batter and separates during baking into fluffy cake hiding a creamy layer of lemon pudding. Try it!

Lemon Pudding Cake

1 Cup granulated sugar divided (3/4 cup and 1/4 cup)
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/8 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
2 tsp. fresh lemon zest
1/2 Cup lemon juice
2 Tbls. butter, melted
2 large egg yolks
3 large egg whites (room temperature)
Confectioners sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350. Coat eight 4-6 ounce oven proof ramekins or custard cups with cooking spray. Place in a baking dish and heat a kettle of water for a water bath.

Whisk 3/4 cup sugar, flour, and salt in a medium bowl. Add milk, lemon juice and zest, butter and egg yolks. Whisk until smooth.

In a clean glass bowl beat egg whites on medium speed until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and continue beating until stiff and glossy. Fold the egg whites into the batter (it will be thinner than other cake batter and it's okay if a little lumpy). Evenly divide among the prepared ramekins.
Place the roasting pan of ramekins in the oven and carefully pour in enough boiling water to come almost halfway up the sides of the ramekins.

Bake the pudding cakes until golden brown and the cakes have pulled away slightly from the sides of the ramekins, 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer the ramekins to a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. Dust with confectioners sugar and serve warm or at room temperature.

Garden days

Yesterday we had a day with sun! So I took the opportunity to work in the garden getting one of the 4 sections ready for planting this weekend, we hope. I had two rain showers while working but they were light and I didn't melt. All my birds helped. Including the mom and chicks. The chickens got busy scratching up
bugs and loosening the soil. The geese were just plain cute and wanted to eat every weed I pulled up so they were in my face much of the time. The ducks ate slugs.
 What can I say but thanks. It was fun and it was looking good when we quit but I still have a little work to do before I can plant that section. Today it rained so much and was so cold I had to leave the geese and baby ducks inside. Some places north of here even had snow and the night time temp is suppose to be in the upper 30's.


It's suppose to be warmer and sunnier this weekend so I am still planning to put in lettuce and peas. So much for growing your own food. The only thing growing here is the grass and weeds. Peas are normally planted by March 15 and supposed to be planted when soil temps reach 50 degrees. That's not happening this year so I am doing something else. Emma kitty has her own idea. Maybe I should take the hint. But instead I am determined to prove my brother wrong and get a crop out of that cold garden. I have saved paper towel and toilet paper rolls and I am now cutting them into 2 inch section to plant the peas in. When they sprout and it is warm enough I can plant them in the garden and still get peas before it gets too warm for them. It's a lot of pea plants to have in the house though. I am just doing one package

(about 120 peas) that way. I will start the rest in the garden later and maybe get peas over a longer period. I checked the potatoes that I put in a couple weeks ago and they are sprouting and getting leaves. I'll be mounding soil up around them and building the straw walls in their raised beds before ya know it.(see "Fifteen days and Counting)
The geese are still growing by leaps and bounds. They are starting to get their pretty white feathers but they are still very soft and cuddly. The man named one of them Mimi because she startles easily and screams like a girl. It's cute but I wish she wasn't such a scaredy goose. Sebastian (if he is a boy) is a snuggler. He likes to be picked up and snuggles into the crook of my neck and falls asleep. People that saw them a week ago and then saw them this weekend can't believe how big they are. They are very gentle birds so you can't help but like them.

Guess I better get back to work. Can't sit around all day blogging when I have gardening to do.

Little Mother, Big Babies, Cold Spring and Rhubarb

My broody hen is proving to be a terrific mother. She is a Buff Orpington and I love that breed. They are good egg layers, lay well in the dead of winter, and are gentle friendly birds. They do seem to go broody too often for my taste but I just keep taking them off the nest and separating them from any thing that even resembles a nest for a couple of days and they get over it. I find there is a lot of information about brooding chicks artificially and very little about hens that brood chicks naturally. So far I recommend letting a hen raise chicks. You save a bundle in electric bills cuz mom keeps them warm. That 250 watt light has always put a spike in our bill. The mother also takes care of introducing the babies to the rest of the flock. A definite advantage. You do need a separate area that is dry and shielded from the elements where the family wont get bothered by the rest of the flock. I am using a dog crate located in the other half of my coup. I guess the down side of it is the chicks will be less people friendly but I am making a point of handling them to see if that makes a difference. And she lets me because she has been handled by me since she was a chick. Sure she still puffs up like a balloon and even gives me a peck once in awhile but then sometimes she doesn't seem to mind at all. There are a few things you have to do with a hen that is setting tight on a nest. Make sure you get her off the nest once a day to eat, drink, and do a poo and watch to make sure they do because they will try to get right back on.They will set until there is nothing left of them and even if you get them to take a daily break you will

Mom showing babies how to take a
a dust bath. 

find that they lose an alarming amount of weight. Even after the chicks have hatched (or you have slipped chicks under a hen in the dead of night) you have to get her off the nest once a day. She wont leave the nest until she thinks her brood can or will follow. That takes a few days.

So in a previous blog I mentioned that I was going to try sweet potatoes in the garden this year. However, everything I have read about growing them says you have to go to a lot of effort to warm up the soil in northern gardens before hand. This wouldn't be a problem normally except we are having the coldest, wettest spring since 1954. I am having a problem just trying to get the garden ready for peas and lettuce. We even had two days of snow (it didn't stick around long) last week. So maybe next year. I have started tomatoes even though my pessimistic brother says I won't get any of those either. I will prove him wrong unless our "Climate Change" (AKA-global warming) dumps a blizzard on us in July.

My goslings and ducklings are growing inches every day. I now have behemoth birds with downy fur that still can't be turned outside in the cold wet weather. Even though they are big they have no protecting oil coated feathers yet and get easily chilled when wet. It's a good thing they don't jump or perch on the side of their box or they would be out of it a long time ago. This box is at least 2 ft. high and they are still peeking at me over the top. I let them out for a romp and some grass mowing in between showers but it hasn't lasted very long.

One of the things I look forward to in the spring is rhubarb pie. I have a type that is pink all the way through and sweeter than the green kind. I make jam and freeze some of it raw for winter and there is never enough. If you aren't a fan try this recipe. It will change your mind about rhubarb. The secret is the egg. You may need a little more sugar if you are using the green type of Rhubarb.

Rhubarb Pie
4 cups rhubarb, in bite size pieces
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup flour
dash of salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Make a double crust pie pastry from your favorite recipe. Mix sugar, eggs, flour, salt, and cinnamon and toss with rhubarb. Put filling in pie crust and top with second crust or lattice crust. Place pie on a cookie sheet to catch drips. Bake 450 degrees for 10 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 and bake 30-40 minutes or until fruit is tender when tested with a fork. If crust browns too quickly cover lightly with a piece of foil.  This makes a great cobbler too. Just omit crust and use a crumble type topping before baking.

No Room at the Coup

First day after delivery by the post office

At the time of my last blog I had just received my order of Sebastapol geese and ducks and since then they have kept me running. I made the comment to The Man that I didn't remember this much time and work when I got my last order of 12 geese years ago. Then I remembered that my gander, Zeus, had taken the whole bunch and raised them himself. I had taken the little guys outside on the second day I had them and Zeus just marched in and took over and I never had to worry about them after that. (See my profile picture with Zeus) He raised all twelve and didn't lose a one of them. Zeus had a thing for me anyway so probably thought I had hatched out the babes myself. At any rate the 4 geese and 4 ducks that I have are running me ragged. They play in the water (no matter how I have it set up to avoid this problem) and soak all the bedding (which I have to change at least once a day). Maybe I was wrong about that diaper thing. Because I have been playing with them to get them to imprint on me  they scream their stupid heads off when they can't see me.  I can hear this all the way to the house. They also are growing amazingly fast.    

one week old

   I swear the geese are an inch taller every time I go out to the coup and that is several times a day. I take them outside for an hour at a time, weather permitting, and they follow me all over the yard. I have to be very careful not to step on one. The ducks are not as friendly but the geese want to be held and snuggled and are very curious about everything. The ducks just want to mess in a mud puddle. Being the momma duck I can't let them do that quite yet but I have taken them into a warm bath tub of water for a little swim. 5 minutes seems to be the limit then I spend 55 minutes drying them off  with paper towels and a heat lamp so I can take them out to the coup again. Ya! I guess I'm busy. I love them though. They are so much fun.

You may be wondering why there isn't any room in the coup. A week after I got the geese/ducks the feed store called to let me know my order for 6 chicks were in. I set up another box under the heat lamp and went to get them. My original plan was to let my broody hen have a chick or two. She had been setting on an unfertile egg for at least 20 days at this point so I put a chick under her and took the egg. She seemed baffled at this but willing to keep the baby under her wing. She also kept sitting in the nest so because I was concerned the baby wasn't getting any food or water I started changing it out with another chick every 12 hours and letting the chick that had been on duty eat and drink. She was showing no sign of getting off the nest. I finally decided she was stupid and put all the chicks back in the brooder and took her out to the chicken tractor to try and break the broody habit.  She fussed and clucked all day and that night I had to put her back in the coup so she would be safe from predators. At this point I had two large boxes on the eight foot table with various babies, a broody hen under the table on the floor with food and water, a flock of chickens in the other half of the coup doing their roosting thing with two out of the three silkies that were trying to go broody perched on separate perches. Any extra space was taken up with supplies like chick grit, chick food, extra water, a carry box for taking the water birds out for a stroll, fifty pound bags of layer pellets, 2 bales of bedding chips, scratch, light bulbs, poultry dust, assorted animal pharmacy items, an egg gathering basket, two portable dog carriers, etc. All of this in an 8 X 12 ft. building.

Last night I went down to check on every one just before going to bed. That stupid hen had found her way to the top of the table and climbed into the box of chicks. She sat on all six of them all night and is very proud of herself. This morning I moved her and the chicks to the dog carrier under the table along with food and water. She and the chicks seem happy so I guess I will just keep an eye on them.