Remember Me?

Hard to believe that these are the cute little ducks hatched less than two months ago. Fully feathered but no drake feathers to let me know which may be boys. I suspect the one at the top of this picture is a boy. He is the biggest.  These not so little ducks are so friendly that I have to be extremely careful to not step on them. They are constantly under foot looking for a hand out. They follow me every where and love to walk down to the pond with me but rarely go by themselves. Guess they are still just babies even though they look grown up. They pretty much just hang out with the chickens. I can't tell which one is the one that almost didn't make it. They are all very healthy duckys. Good job silky moma!

Recipes and Pictures...As promised

So today was just one of those days when nothing gets done on your list because you are too busy doing other stuff that isn't on the list. I found a good deal on local asparagus yesterday and bought a few pounds. I love pickled asparagus in the middle of winter. I use it on salads, or in relish trays, and (ahem!) Bloody Mary's. You know the kind that are loaded with horseradish and Tabasco? A definite staple in the dead of winter. So today I pickled and canned the stuff using a recipe I got for pickled beans from Andree'. She made the best dilly beans ever, loaded with garlic, dill, and red pepper. I just use the same recipe for the asparagus but with dried dill and dill seed. Worked great last year. I also discovered that I had enough rhubarb ready in the garden so I made a rhubarb pie. This link will take you to the post with that recipe. 

If you are interested in the pickle recipe just send me a request. I am glad to share. In the mean time here is the promised recipe for the bread that I will be using to teach a class in a series of sustainability classes next week.

Light Oat Bread

1¼ cup warm water

1½ tsp. yeast

2 Tbsp. Brown sugar

2 Tbsp. butter melted and cooled

1 tsp. salt (preferably not iodized)

½ cup rolled oats

3 cups all-purpose flour pre-measured in separate container.

Place water in a pre-warmed mixing bowl. Sprinkle yeast on water and let set about 2 minutes. Add sugar and let sit an additional 2 minutes. Add cooled, melted butter, salt, and oats. Let sit another minute. Give a quick stir or start your mixer if using one using a dough hook. Begin adding your pre-measured flour one cup at a time. Mix until all flour is incorporated.

By Hand: Turn out onto a floured board and kneaded until smooth and elastic adding more flour 1 tablespoon at a time if needed. When dough is at right consistency, let rest while you wash, dry, and grease the bowl. Place ball of dough upside down in bowl and turn to coat all sides with grease.

By mixer: Add more flour 1 tablespoon at a time until dough pulls cleanly away from bottom and sides of bowl. Prepare a pottery type bowl by warming with hot water. Dump out water, dry, and grease bowl. Place ball of dough upside down in bowl and turn to coat all sides with grease.

Cover bowl with plastic wrap or clean dry dish towel and place in warm spot to rise until double in size. (Approx. 2 hours)

Grease a standard loaf pan. Gently press dough with fingers. Remove from bowl and reshape into loaf or rolls. Cover and let rise once more. (About 1 hour) Dough should roundly fill pan but not deflate when lightly pressed with finger.  

At this point you can sprinkle a few oats on top or brush with an egg wash (for a shiny finish) and sprinkle with a few oats.

Egg wash: Lightly beat one egg with a spoonful of water. Lightly brush the top of the bread dough with the wash using a pastry brush.

Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown.  About 30-35 minutes.

Tip: This recipe can be doubled for two loaves!

Tip: Shape rolls, let rise about a hour and bake 20 min. 

Happy baking!

The Ultimate Prepping Tool

The man surprised me with this. He has surprised me with little gifts before. Flowers, candy, the usual stuff. I was never that excited about flowers that were going to die and candy that would make me fat but I always appreciated them. I think he has finally figured out that I get excited about weird stuff like this. YA! buy me a new bird or a pressure cooker, or a great book or take me for a ride on the Harley. THAT I can relate to. Now I know his idea of the ultimate prepping tool is a motor home but that is a lot more money than a cooker and now that the kids are older we don't use that as often. So we sold ours. We will probably buy another smaller one for our selves since we like to go and we will be able to use it on what ever property we end up with after selling this one. But that will be after the girls leave for college.

I was going to can chicken soup this weekend but the directions are so confusing that I think I will look for a cook book that is a little more helpful than the manual that came with it. Braeburn apples are on deep discount at the store this week and my kids will only eat home made chunky apple sauce so I will probably start with that. Maybe even make some pie filling. What I really wanted it for was to can salmon. I have salmon in the freezer that we haven't eaten and I would like to get it out of there. It is an All American pressure cooker/canner (made and manufactured in the US) so anyone with any tips, please leave me a comment.

Speaking of new birds here is an update on the geese. The second batch of eggs were also not fertile. As I suspected both the duck boy and the goose boys are done for the year. Although the duck will occasionally perform. So both my girl geese are still trying to sit on the nest. I have done everything I can think of to discourage them but as soon as I open their gate at night they go right back and they spend the day walking around the fence line trying to figure out how to get back in to the non-existent eggs. Being the chump I am I felt sorry for them so the other day after the man had gone to work I crept down to the feed store knowing they were getting a new shipment of ducks that morning. I thought I would get some Black Cayugas because I really loved the one I had years ago. The hatchery had only sent one in their order and she was tiny. My intent was to put them under the geese but she was so small I was afraid she would get hurt or worse. So I got two Rouen because they were bigger and two more Khaki Campbell (because they are exceptional egg layers) and took them home. I tried putting them under the girls. The ladies were willing but those little ducks kept popping out from under and would have none of it. I tried until the little bugs got cold and finally decided I was going to have to raise them.

Rouen are stripped 

click to enlarge

So meet Lola and the crew. She is absolutely ADORABLE! The rest are just cute. For those who don't know what a Rouen is it is a mallard derivative and looks a lot like a mallard. I don't know what I am going to do with them yet but will probably sell them or just find them good homes since they will be pets.

I will be teaching a class at the end of the month for an organization that is putting together classes on old fashion life skills for people that want to be more self sufficient so I am teaching "Basic bread and cheese making." Because I have been asked for another recipe from a reader I will include the recipe in my next blog.  Here is the picture.

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!

Another Example of "It Takes A Village"

So call me crazy. Call me anthropomorphic. Maybe I am just reading too much into this but....

Bella, one of the female Sebastapol geese decided to set on eggs. Up to this point I have been collecting the eggs as they were laid because I read that if you got goslings the first year just count yourself as lucky since the boys are usually not up to the job. It just doesn't usually happen. It's not that they don't try. They're just not fertile yet which is probably true because I had two under a broody hen for 5 days and nothing was happening with them.  But Bella had two eggs and I had one that had not been refrigerated yet so I put that one in the nest too.

The two big ganders are standing guard just outside the gate when it's open and inside the run when they are locked up. Nothing too unusual about that other than the fact that they are working together to "kill" anything that comes near. The weird thing is that the other female, Mimi, seems to be helping Bella set on the eggs. She gets in the nest and sits then Bella gets off to go eat and walk around a bit. Sometimes for up to an hour. Then she goes back and Mimi gets off the nest and hangs with the boys or takes a bath in the pond.

This evening I went out to put the birds away for the night and feed them their usual rations. Normally they hog down the whole thing in 15 minutes. I tried to get Bella to come out and eat too but she would have non of that nonsense. About an hour later I happened to go out there and there was still food in the dishes. This alarmed me because to have food left usually means someone doesn't feel well. Then I looked in the nest. Mimi was on the nest again and Bella was eating while the boys watched. It was as if they saved it for her. Now, I know that geese have strong family ties and wild ones will cooperate when migrating by switching off flying the lead. A couple of geese will even leave a migrating flock to keep a sick or exhausted goose company until it either recovers or dies before migrating on and catching up with the pack. But this is really weird. Like I said call me crazy but this has been going on for two days so far. I don't think the eggs are viable and I would like to get in there to candle them but I will have to get past at least one of them (mom) to do that and although I have no doubt that I could but I would hate to disturb her and have her desert the nest if she had any good eggs. Guess I will just see if I get up the nerve. It would also help if it would quit raining so I didn't have to kneel in the mud!

(two days later)....
Yesterday Bella didn't leave the nest all day so when it was time to feed the geese I moved the feed dishes and water over to within about 5 feet of the nest to try and get her to come out and eat. The others ate but she stayed on the nest. She did stand up to check her eggs giving me the opportunity to see what was in there. She has 6 or 7 eggs that I can see!

I went back in to the house to continue making dinner and about 10 minutes later noticed that Bella was walking around the pen. So I went out to see where Mimi was and as I suspected she was on the nest. Ten minutes or so later Bella went back to the nest and Mimi was out with the boys again. I swear they are all doing the tag team parenting thing. This morning I noticed Mimi has made herself a sitting area just outside the nest box and is sitting with Bella. Gotta kinda wonder if she has eggs under there. I'll keep ya posted. Who knows maybe we will end up with baby Sebastapols!

Update on the baby ducks. They are growing so fast. Mother hen still fusses with them and bosses them around but they are at least as big as she is now. She finally gave up trying to get them to perch and she just perches next to the box where they spend the night. Because it is still pretty cold here I have been bringing the ducklings into the house for swimming lessons. (Alright, someone has to do it) They seem to take to it like a duck to water. Oh ya.....they are ducks. I gave my oldest the job of making sure they were good and dry before taking them back out to the coop.

Lucy was very interested in the bathing ducks

                                     

Our Radio Journalist

As most of you know our youngest was privileged to do an internship with KUOW Radio in Seattle, an affiliate of National Public Radio (NPR). The program is called Radio active and the purpose is to train future radio journalist. We went into Seattle twice a week and into the station about every other Saturday for 6-7 weeks while she learned interview techniques, writing for radio, editing and I'm sure other stuff that I don't know. She was really thrilled with the program and produced a podcast for Radioactive about a women who is creating a home for the 86 homeless students on Whidbey.

You can hear it here. http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=26317 

Go to this website. You will see a picture of 5 girls. She is the second one from your left. 

Click on either the MP3 or the download to listen and don't be alarmed when you hear a bunch of noise that sounds like static. It is their introduction then there is something about some guy and ozone that last about a minute. Her story is right after that. 

Let me know what you think. We are very proud of her. 

Sue

The Zombie Apocalypse

I love those days when the kids are all home at the same time, quite often with a friend or boyfriend in tow, and we have all settled into the living room after a good meal for a movie. I had ordered this one from Netflix and then had to listen to the man complaining about watching some old movie (1997) that we had already seen and why did I order that one. The kids took a look at the run time (3 hours) and complained about the time. I didn't say anything except I thought it was a good movie when I saw it the first time. Guess what happened? Everyone was glued to the tv! It was actually better the second time than the first for me. I think because when I saw it in '97 it was very much a science fiction flick. This time fiction was much closer to reality.

The story opens in 2013 in what was once the United States. It starts at the end of a three year period of winter where "dirty snow" has been the norm after a nuclear apocalypse and our  protagonist (Kevin Costner) plays a traveling con man performing badly done Shakespeare in exchange for food, lodging, and supplies in various settlements or villages along the way. After escaping the bad guys he ends up taking refuge in an old mail truck and strips the long dead mail carriers uniform to replace his own soaked clothing. Taking a bag of mail he eventually continues his travels using the mail to con people into believing in a revived republic of the United States.

The reason I think I like this film is because it shows several scenarios for social breakdown and what people are likely to do in such a situation. It also demonstrates the power of hope and what people are willing to believe in when the situation looks impossible. Most of all,  I realize that all the prepping in the world could not prepare for the worse. It can only make it a little easier. Being part of a sustainable community however small is the one thing that would make a big difference.

The movie does not follow the novel very close at all but is still a good movie. In this case I saw the movie first and it was probably a good thing I did or I would have had set expectations and not liked it at all. If you are looking for some entertainment, suspense, and perhaps something to think about I highly recommend this movie. Available through Netflix or maybe even at your local library. If you have already seen it many years ago watch it again. You will see more this time than you did before.

Girls Night Out Or (how to ditch your kids)

Our little mother is getting fed up with her babies, namely the ducklings. Tonight she is roosting with the other two silkie girls and I can just imagine the conversation going something like this: "Those kids are driving me crazy! They are two weeks old and they still wont perch at night and all they want to do is play in their water. I spend my whole day standing on a wet floor and trying to get them to hop out of that stinking box. Not only that they talk funny too. They seem to want to talk to the ducks and you know how I really dislike those ducks. Have you noticed how big they are already? I cover their heads up at night to keep them warm but their butts stick out. I swear they are going to catch their death. cluck cluck. "

They really do seem to be a source of frustration for her. If she is done mothering them I will take over and try to socialize them. They certainly need it since they think I am the boogy man.

I need a martini. 

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.

100% Hatch Ratio!

That's a lot easier to do when you are only trying to hatch 4 eggs. However we had to work at it this morning. My youngest went out to check on the last egg before I took her to school. We were expecting to find our fourth and last little duck all hatched out and playing with her siblings but my daughter came in and told me the egg was still in one piece and the same little tiny crack was exactly the same as the day before. She also said the baby inside was still alive. She could feel her moving and pecking but the movements were weaker than yesterday. I took her to school and came back prepared to do something about the last duck if necessary. And it was. The egg was exactly like it had been for the last day and a half. One tiny barely perceptible little crack and it was obvious the creature inside was fading. Now I know you
are suppose to leave them alone when they are piping. Mother nature knows best but I had already screwed around with mother nature by putting those eggs under that Silkie in the first place and I'm not one to stand around doing nothing. When ducks make a nest they place the eggs in contact with the ground so that the humidity is just right for hatching. These little guys were in a nice dry nest in a coop with bedding chips and under a bird that wouldn't go into the water on her own if her life depended on it. I had been putting drops of water on the eggs at least twice a day for the last week or so and I had a small piece of towel under the chips to absorb the moisture and release it back to the eggs when mom warmed it up enough. So in spite of all my efforts I was pretty sure that little one was still in that egg because I had screwed up. I took the egg up to the house gave it a light rinse with warm water and with the tip of a clean steak knife I started tapping on that egg right where the crack was. I just kept working across the egg like I thought a baby would do making sure none of the chips fell into the egg. As luck would have it her little beak was right where I thought it would be. I just kept chipping until I had almost half that egg off. It looked as if the inner membrane was dry and maybe stuck to the duckling so a few more drops of warm water helped with that.

You can see her beak in this picture. When she started stretching  and moving I figured that was enough "help" from me and I had better put her back under her mom to finish the job so I took her back out to the coop and put her with the rest of the ducklings that were huddled under warm wings and went back to the house to get ready to take the cat to a vet appointment. Did I mention it was also 29 degrees this morning?  Any way since I had a few minutes before I had to leave I decided to go back out to the coop to see how things were coming along. That poor baby was not under mom. I don't know if the other ducklings kicked her out or what but she was out of her shell, icy cold, and not moving at all when I picked her up. I was pretty sure

This is how I found her

she was a dead duck. So I took her up to the house. I just stood in the kitchen looking at her laying in my hand and kicking myself for taking her back to the mom in the first place. Her tummy was still open were the yolk of the egg is supposed to be absorbed and I thought that too was my fault for screwing with that egg.  Then I saw it. Just barely her eye opened and she was looking at me. My first thought was she had died but then her eye moved. Quickly I turned on the water in the kitchen sick and got it warm then put her on her back, nose and tummy up and let the warm water run into my hand but not enough to get on her tummy or her beak. I just warmed her up with the water until she started moving. I yelled at the man to go get me the lamp out of the garage. He set it up while I tried keeping her warm in my hands. Not wanting to put her down on cold paper towels I just put my hand under the light. The more she warmed up the more she moved but I was still

pretty sure she wasn't going to make it. When she dried off a bit and the box and paper towels had warmed up to  87 degrees we put her under the light along with a rolled bolster of paper towels to keep off drafts. Little by little that little fighter came back.

By noon she was walking around and trying to get out of the little box I had her in. I had to tape the flaps up to make the box taller. When the oldest got home she immediately started to spoil that little duck rotten.  Putting her on her lap and letting her walk on her computer while she did homework. When the youngest got home it got worse and soon that little duck didn't want to stay in the box and would just scream her head off.

Now it doesn't take long for a baby bird to imprint on people and this one had wasted no time doing so. I went to the coop and got one of the other babies and brought it up to keep this one company and to let it know it was a duck. They stayed in the house all night so that I could make sure the weaker one was going to make it. Buy morning she was eating and drinking and so far so good. After the girls went to school I went down to check on mom and the other two babies. Mom needed a poo break so I put her on the floor while I changed the wet papers in the brooder box. What a difference in babies. The two that spent the night with mom thought I was a monster. Guess the kids will be doing some bird socializing. It's so much easier to fix a bird in trouble if they are use to human handlers.

All four babies are now with mom so I will be keeping an eye on things to make sure the littlest doesn't get bossed around. I will end with photos of mom and babies. To see larger images just click on the photos.

First Baby is Here!

Success! 

Hatching Update

Mama didn't like me invading her nest. 

My youngest wanted to go see how the duck eggs were doing after school today. I had given someone 12 duck eggs to incubate in an incubator last month and they only hatched 2 out of 12. So I told her not to get too excited that I thought we either had 3 live eggs and 1 rotten egg or 1 live egg and 3 rotten eggs because 3 looked alike and 1 looked different. (I had not candled them). We had also started out with both Silkies with two eggs each but the black one got sick and I had to put all four under the white one. She didn't mind but I had my doubts that she could cover all four of those big eggs.

When we got past the attack geese (ya the geese go after everyone but me because it's breeding season) and into the coop I took mama off the nest for a food and water break and we started looking. Damn if one didn't have a crack in it. I thought maybe mama had done it though so I picked it up and I could feel the little

You can see the raised spot in this photo that is the crack 

guy moving around and pecking. I held it up to her ear so my youngest could hear the pecking. Then said "we have at least one live one". Then we heard it peep. She was so excited. I decided to check the others and I could feel something in the second one too. When my daughter felt the last two she could feel life in them also but much fainter. So if they all manage to finish we have 4 potential ducklings on the way. Last week the black silkie had climbed back in the nest to help but only lasted a day and got off. But she will get her chance.  Guess I better go find a brooder box and light for them because we had a cold front move in today and it is suppose to get down to 30 degrees tonight. It would be nice if they were all girls. The duck eggs are proving to be very popular with my egg customers. And last night my girls and the man wanted to try deviled goose eggs with dinner. They were almost a meal by themselves.