Way too many eggs!

This time of year (summer) the eggs are coming fast and furious!  I already posted about how to freeze eggs for use in baking over the winter.  Here is another idea.

My mother-in-law, Barb, is always trying new recipes.  She found a delicious recipe for making 12 "egg cups" that you freeze and pull out to eat individually whenever.  It's perfect for breakfast when we are in a hurry.  And since Jordan is starting high school in two weeks, we will always be in a hurry for breakfast.

Bake Ahead Morning Egg Cups

25 minutes plus freezing time

Makes 12 servings

3 oz sausage

½ red bell pepper, chopped

2 T onion, chopped

1 ½ c baby spinach, washed & chopped

9 eggs

1 T flour

¼ c milk

½ c shredded cheese

Heat oven to 350 F.  Saute sausage and onion until sausage is no longer pink.  Add bell pepper and cook for 3 minutes.  Add spinach and cook until wilted.  Remove from heat and let cool for 5 min.

In a large bowl, whisk eggs, flour and milk until smooth.  Stir in cooled sausage, veggies and cheese.

Spray a 12-cup muffin tin with olive oil.  Spoon mixture into cups.  Divide evenly to make 12 servings.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Allow to cool in tin for 10 minutes; then cool completely on baking rack.  Freeze separately and then place in a large ziplock bag and keep in the freezer.

To eat – Remove desired number of egg cups.   Wrap in a paper towel.  Heat 60-90 seconds depending on microwave strength.

Variations – Use any vegetables: mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, carrots.  Replace sausage with bacon.

How to Acquire Chickens

Apparently, all I have to do is starting thinking about getting a few more chickens and magically they appear.  Not really magically, but they came to me nonetheless.

We've had a lot of attrition this year.  The chickens are locked in their coop at night - dusk to dawn - but are completely free range during the day.  They have 4 acres at their disposal and make good use of all of it.  But that also makes them susceptible to predators.  Sometimes we find one that has clearly been attacked and other times we catch the perpetrator.

One afternoon, I came home early to pick up Jordan for swim practice.  We were very rushed, as usual, and didn't pay any attention to animals.  Jeremy got home later and went down to the barn to do afternoon chores.  He texted me at practice asking if one of the Buff chickens was dead when I got home.  Honestly, I had no idea (great farmer that I am).  Then he snapped a picture and sent it to me.

In total we have lost half the flock over the year - from 10 to 5 hens.  So this spring I started thinking about getting some chicks.  I didn't say anything to Jeremy or Jordan.  Just started thinking about it to myself.  In truth 5 hens is plenty for our family.  But I have friends at work that like my eggs.  If I got 5 more then I could keep sharing.  As it turns out 5 hens were ready to move to our house.

My daughter has been best friends with a girl down the road for the past three years.  The friends is great and they are more like sisters than just friends.  Unfortunately, the friend's parents are getting a divorce and have to sell their house and property.  The girl, with her mom and three siblings are going to move into town and can't take any of their animals with them.  They had to adopt out their dog (that was a sad moment for everyone).  And their 20 chickens would have to go.  The friend was telling me and Jordan the news. She was so sad about a few of her favorite hens, especially one she called Vivian.

Problem solved!  She need to get rid of some chickens and I needed some chickens.  That evening, her and her dad brought over 5 hens, including Vivian, to add to my flock.  The friend is over frequently and always goes visits her hens.  She picks up Vivian and they have a little hug.  I'm glad it worked out the way it was supposed to.

Here is the happy flock before bed time.

Molly vs. Lolly

Anyone who has read my blog knows that we have the best neighbors, period.  Recently we've had a run of sheep getting loose.  One of the fence lines is weak and has been breaking when the ewes rub up against it to itch their wool.  Then they push through to get that green grass.  Four days in a row this happened and each day my neighbors helped get the sheep back into the pastures.  The last day I came home from work to find Eric out with wire trimmers and fencing fixing some holes.  Thanks to him and his wife Lola we got the sheep taken care of (but not before the girls munched my new starts in the garden - grrrrr!)

About a year ago Eric got a rescue dog Molly.  She is a golden labrador retriever and was rescued from a puppy mill.  It took her a bit to warm up to us, but she has always loved Jordan and now she will come to see me and Jeremy as well.  Although the cats don't like it when Molly comes over to our yard, Molly doesn't chase them so we don't mind when she comes lobbing over, tongue hanging out.

Memorial weekend we went on a little trip away from the farm.  (My parents come over to do chores.)  We got home Monday and promptly when down to visit all the animals.  We had just started giving oats to the sheep when Eric came over, with Molly.

Lolly following Speckles along the pole barn

Usually when Eric and Molly come down, the chickens are in their run.  But Monday night they were still out free-ranging.  Eric said, "Hi, are the birds getting into your garden?"  And then Molly took off!  She tore down the driveway, past me and after two chickens who were pecking loose oats around the pole barn.  The chickens freaked and ran behind the bard towards the thick snow berries around the creek and culvert.  I could see them flapping and trying to get away from Molly.  Everyone was yelling "Molly, drop it!"  "Molly, get back here!" "MOLLY!"  She came tromping out with Lolly, our Australorp, in her mouth.

Now Molly is a retriever and I don't know if she was ever trained to act as one, but she literally retrieved Lolly and brought her right to me (the closest human).  And it didn't even phase Molly that I was red faced and scream "Drop that chicken now!"  Molly did and Lolly took off down the creek bank squawking the whole way.

That's when Molly realized how much trouble she was in.  She headed back into the snow berries in hopes that we wouldn't be able to grab her.  But Jeremy was livid and went right in after her.  He grabbed her collar and brought her over to Eric who apologized
and drug a reluctant Molly home to spend the night in the dog house.

I went over to see if any other chickens were still in the snow berries and found Henrietta.  She was attempting to make herself as small and still as possible.  I reached down and picked her up - she was stiff, holding her wings and feet in tight.  I put her in the run with the other four, the smart ones that automatically ran into run to escape the dog.  Then we started looking for poor little Lolly.

There wasn't any blood anywhere.  Another good trait of retrievers is they have a very soft bite when getting the prey for the hunter.  But there were feathers.  I followed the trail to the last feather next to a large clump shurbery.  Jordan and I poked around calling for Lolly.  But it's hard to see an all black chicken under thick vegetation.  We looked around for about 10 minutes and then decided to give it a break and hope she would come out on her own.

An hour later we went down to check and Lolly came out.  She followed me back to the run and then let me do a once-over.  There were no puncher wounds but there were some bald spots on her shoulder and wing.  And when she tried to hop up into the coop she couldn't really flap up.  So I lifted her in the for night.  The next morning she decided to not come out.  She kept peeking out the door and then deciding to stay in.  On day two Jordan and I forced her out to eat and drink water, but she then went right back in (with help, still no flapping up).  On day three when we came down for morning chores Lolly was out of her own choice and up on the outside perch, meaning her flap came back.

Lolly feeling all better :-)

Stories from Grandma

Grandma will turn 90 in June. That's a lot of years of living and enough stories to fill two long novels. My favorite stories are the ones from when she was a girl growing up on her family's Ohio farm. We got two gems on Saturday when Jordan and I stopped by for a surprise visit.

"We raised turkeys in the pasture to have them ready to sell for Thanksgiving. Around the pasture were trees where foxes lived. The fox would come in and kill turkeys in the early morning. So my dad came up with a plan. He had Girly (that is what he called my Mom - she was a big woman) go outside and run the car at 4am. The exhaust from the car would keep the foxes off the pasture. Every morning from when the turkeys were out of the brooder until they were butchered, Girly was up at 4am running the car for 15 minutes."

"Sundays we would killed a couple chickens for dinner. My dad had a stump that he used to chop the heads off the chickens. My brother Jack would catch a bird and Dad would chop. I hated to hear that ax come down - Whack! So I would go inside the play the piano as hard as I could so I couldn't hear the chop. I just hated that the chicken was being killed. But I sure did love the tasty chicken for Sunday night dinner."

Tales from the Compost

Two winters ago I saw "biobags" at the store. Lauded as being a non-messy way to move your compost from the kitchen to the heap, I was intrigued. And the bags are biodegradable. Seemed like a great idea. I bought whole box full and used them for about three months. In the spring I moved compost heap onto the garden and found that the bags had not biodegraded. Worse, when Jeremy tried to till garden soil the pieces of bag got caught in the tiller blades. That was the end of using "biobags."

Fast-forward to today. We had about 2 feet of really great compost to move onto the garden. The compost consists of kitchen scraps, straw, chicken poo and lots and lots of sheep poo. After a couple hours of shoveling and dumping I got to the bottom and guess what I ran into. Yep, a few still-not-biodegraded "biobags." 2 years! Absolutely everything else in the compost heap was fully broken down into rich dark soil, even the straw. Stupid bags!

Also found in the compost heap while shoveling were bailing twine (I guess from the straw that got tossed in), rebar (I have no idea) and sticks (presumably from the trees above the compost). The best thing though were hundreds and hundreds of worms. Every shovel full move the little wrigglers to the garden. Woot!

Once the heap was completely moved and spread out onto the garden, I let the chickens go into the now-empty-compost and scavenge for worms. They were in heaven. The pictures if 5 of the 6 pecking away, which they continued to do for at least a half-hour. Every time I took out the camera the 6th chicken got shy and left the compost to hide out in the shrubs.

George, The Poop Head

I believe all of George's attitude comes from when she was a little chick and I thought she was a he due to her aggressive behavior so I named her George. Ever since she has been a big huge poop head! Here is an example ...

It was after dark on Thursday when I went down to feed the sheep some hay, fill the chicken feeder and lock the chickens in their run for the night. I had on a head lamp so prevent my tripping over everything. As I pushed open the barn door and the barn light, which is on a motion censor, turned on there was George walking towards me. "George! For pete sake! Why aren't you in your home?!" Knowing it could take a while to get George under control and into the run, I decided to proceed with feeding the sheep first. George just skirted around me as I pulled out a couple squares of hay and left.

It seems like an easy enough task to shoo a chicken out of a large barn door. But every time I got George going towards the door, she would turn tail and charge at me, running back to the hay. I'd get behind her and start shooing again only to be charged again. One time George came right at my ankles and I jump, kicking my right leg high, so she could run under me. And all the while the barn light is going on and off as I trip the censor.

After more than 5 minutes of this, I thought, "I've got to be smarter than the damn chicken!" Watching George I realized she was fine walking to the barn door but then turned away at the last minute. Maybe she was afraid of going into the dark? I know sheep are leery of going from the bright outside into the barn, even when following their bahhing lamb. Maybe George was just scared. So I stood still, behind a large post, until the barn light went out. Then I slowly as to not the trip the light trained my headlamp on on the barn door. George walked right over. I moved light out the door and she went out. I followed and closed the barn door behind us.

At this point George could see the run and coop, with the light in the coop shining brightly. I figured she'd head right over to join her coopmates. Instead, she walked over the where the sheep were happily munching hay and scrunched through the fence right under the mass of sheep legs. "Fine! I hope a coyote gets you!" And I went upstairs.

Of course I didn't mean it. About an hour later I went down. George was in the coop with everyone else. I locked them in for the night. The next morning I realized in all the chicken chasing I had forgotten to grab the eggs. Thankfully, all three in tacked.

Quick Frozen Egg Update

I realize I spend a lot of time talk about eggs. Tonight we called our neighbor to ask if they could watch over the place and feed the animals while we go skiing this weekend. They happily said yes. Lola use to have sheep and misses them, so she loves visiting with ours. They still have chickens and Lola asked if we are getting any eggs. Jeremy said that we were dry for about 6 weeks. We upped the amount of supplemental light to 16 hours per day and we are finally getting 1 to 2 eggs. Lola replied that they haven't gotten any for 2 months. They are going to up their lighting too and see if that helps.

I assume, back in the day when everyone had chickens and other farm animals this was a common enough discussion. Who's laying, who's lambing, what's working, what's not. But I don't have a lot of people to chat it up with, so I relish checking in with other hobby farmers or urban farmers [many of those in Portland].

Anyway, back to my eggs. I'm getting low on my frozen eggs. I only froze a dozen last fall partially because we found a stash of 13 hidden in the barn and partially because I was skeptical that it would work. It did and the results are Ok - good for baking, but not good for much else. Even in baking the yolks don't incorporate well. Then I read on another farm blog that if you mix the yolks in with whites before freezing it's better. Of course, I don't have enough eggs to think about freezing extras, but I thought I'd share the idea while I have eggs on the brain.

And the List Gets Longer

Once canning season is over and the garden is cleaned up. Once the chickens stop laying so much and the lambs are sold. Once the days get very short and the temperatures cool. I loose all motivation to do anything, at all. This is the lost time. When we just make sure the animals have food and water and don't worry about other things that needs to be done. Lost time lasts through December. And it's pretty wonderful. We actually have time to do things like go for a walk or sew or knit.

But right about Christmas, just as December is coming to a close, we start to make a list. Not the "making a list and checking twice" kind of list. A all-the-things-that-have-to-get-done list. And it grows daily. Here is the list as of tonight:

1. Clean the chicken coop! Seriously it is getting gross and the poor chickens have to spend a lot of time in there with the cold and dark and rainy.

2. Rake the leaves. All the leaves came down in October and covered the ground. And there they have stayed. If we don't get them up soon the grasses underneath will start to die.

3. Clean out the sheep stall. The straw/poo lasagna is about one foot deep at this point. Getting it all shoveled out leads to ....

4. Put compost on garden. The sheep stall lasagna and all the goodies from the compost bin need to be layered onto the garden. The heat and nutrients will really get the bacteria and worms going.

5. Down a tree or two. We have a couple trees that have gotten big enough to really shade the garden. It's time for those to come down.

The best part of starting the list is that I'm really looking forward to it. My job is all computers and meetings and cubicals and elevators. I have to carve out time to move around. But starting after Christmas home is all about hard labor and using my body for what it was made to do - work, I'm mean really work.

Update - Frozen Eggs

A couple weeks ago I froze a dozen eggs to preserve them for the winter. The eggs were found inside a large hay bin in the barn. We had no idea how long the eggs had been there, thankfully it's been cold outside; I decided that we should do more than just put the in the fridge with the fresh eggs. So on the advice of a coworker, I froze them - two per custard dish, yolks and all. Yesterday was the first time I thawed and used some.

I had forgotten until Wednesday morning that I'd need 4 eggs for the pumpkin pie. I do have 4 fresh eggs in the fridge, but this was an opportunity to test the freezing-eggs idea. I took out two custard dishes with two eggs each and put them in the sink with a couple inches of water. Within an hour the eggs were thawed, but weird. The yolks, while no longer frozen, weren't runny like normal yolks, they were more solid-ish. Usually, when you break the yolk with a spoon it spreads out. These once-frozen-now-thawed yolks kind of broke apart. Thankfully I had to use a hand mixer to beat the eggs anyway. The yolks were broken up into bizzillions of little pieces. The white were plenty runny and mixed in easily.

The other thing that threw me about the thawed eggs was the color of the yolks. Our chickens are free-range and dine on bugs, grasses, anything out in the yard, so their yolks are a brilliant yellow-orange color. The eggs went into the freezer with that bright color but they came out pale yellow with darkish, brownish spots - like bruises. They also smelled like frozen eggs, if that makes any sense.

At that point Wednesday morning, with non-runny, discolored, pale, "smelly" eggs I was starting to question whether they would work at all for baking. But I decided to press on with the experiment. I added the pumpkin, canned milk and spices and poured the filling into the pie crusts. Into the oven they went.

The pies baked up nicely. Good color, good consistency. The height of the pie seemed a little low, but it could be because I was 1/3 cup short on canned milk and substituted regular milk. Thursday we heated up the pie and served it after dinner. The flavor was great. My grandma said it was the wonderful. Jordan went back for seconds. No one knew or would have guessed the eggs were frozen.

We also used the frozen eggs in the potato rolls and those turned out great too. So I guess freezing eggs, thawing them and using in baked goods works out well. Next summer, when we have more eggs then we can handle, I'll freeze a bunch.

Homemade Chicken Broth

Picked up some locally grown whole chickens at Battle Ground Produce to make chicken broth. It's really easy if a little time consuming, but the flavor is so worth it! Here are the directions:

Put 3 whole chickens, with the skin on, and the giblets in a very large stock pot. Fill pot with cold water. Add a couple onions, quartered, 2-3 whole carrots and 2-3 celery stalks. Add 2 tablespoons salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper, 2 teaspoon dried thyme and a couple bay leaves. You can add other herbs if you want. I used rosemary and celery seed, a teaspoon of each.

Bring to simmer slowly. Simmer until the meat is done and the legs are loose in the socket. Remove pot from heat and take the chickens out. Let the broth cool a bit, so the fat rises to the top. Skim off the fat. Use a slotted spoon to scoop out the veggies. Bring back to boil.

Sanitize the jars.  pour the broth through a juice strainer into each jar leaving 1/2 headspace - you'll probably need two people for this step. Pressure cook according to the directions for your pressure cooker.  Or, if you don't have a pressure cooker, freeze the jars. Makes approx. 20 pints.

When the chicken is cooled, shred the chicken meat. I like to make chicken enchiladas with some of it. The rest I freeze to use later in soups or tacos or soup or chili or whatever you like.

Tip - My coworker, who is an amazing cook, just sent me a tip. Add 1/2 c of white vinegar at the beginning. The vinegar draws calcium from the bones into the broth. Jessica swears you can't taste the vinegar in the end. Since I'd already made this batch of broth, I'll have to try it next time.

Update on tip - I've added vinegar every time since Jessica gave me the tip.  You can't taste it at all.  Not only does it help get the calcium from the bones into the broth, it improves the color too.

Freezing Eggs

A coworker of mine, who has three hens in her Portland backyard, shared a neat idea with me. A couple months ago, when the eggs were still plentiful, I was chatting with Chris about how unfortunate it is that we have so many eggs in the summer when it's too hot to bake and not enough eggs in the winter when I love to bake. Chris said, you should just freeze your eggs. Really?! Freeze them?! Chris assured me that as long as you don't try to fry them, it's the perfect way to save the summer supply. I didn't do it though. I didn't freeze any. I sold all our extra eggs.

Then, as I have been complaining about for weeks now, the chickens all molted and we ran out of eggs completely. Thankfully they are laying again but only one to two a day ... or so we thought.

Today Jeremy and I were doing some chores. We trimmed up sheep hooves. We added straw to the pole barn. Jeremy also raked up the hay that gets dropped as we carry squares to the sheep. All of sudden, from in the barn, Jeremy yelled "Momma, get in here!" Oh lord, what's wrong. I started imagining a rat's nest or dead raccoon. Jeremy said, as I walked in to the barn, "I was going to put the hay into the bin." The bin is where all the racked up hay goes, so it was a 3/4's full. "Check out what's in the bin."

I hesitated, not want to see anything gross. It wasn't gross. It was 13 eggs. 13!! Now, I had done a thorough sweep of the barn a few weeks back just to make sure we weren't missing any eggs. I'm sure I checked in the hay bins; well, pretty sure. I piled the eggs in my upturned sweatshirt and took them to the house.

One by one, I cracked them into small custard dishes. Checking each to make sure it was fresh enough to keep. Out of 13, only one had cloudy whites and an odd odor - that one went to the compost. Then I poured two eggs into each dish, put lids on and into the freezer then went. We'll see how well it works to freeze, thaw and then bake with the eggs. If it does work, I will make sure to freeze a couple dozen next summer so we don't run out in the winter.

Update - Freezing eggs totally works!  But the yolks have a strange consistency when frozen and thawed.  What works best, is if you whisk the yolks and whites together before freezing. Then pour into the small custard dishes and freeze.  One custard dish equals roughly two eggs.  The thawed eggs work great in baked goods and pies, but not scrambled or in an omelet due to the weird consistency.  You can't tell at all in baked goods.

Ugly Duckling, I Mean Chicken

She is molting something awful. At this point she looks more like a porcupine than a chicken. But the feathers are filling back in.

How Long Can This Go On?

This weekend we are having a party for Jordan's 9th birthday. Jordan and I are going to make her cake. We found this fun recipe that uses Pepsi cola as the liquid and sugar. (Jordan's grandma works for Pepsi.) Jordan is pretty excited - soda cake!

But making our own cake brings up a problem. Cakes need eggs. You may be thinking, if you have read my blog before, you have chickens so you must have eggs. Actually, right now I have 3 eggs in the fridge. 3! And we haven't gotten a single egg from the chickens for 5 days. 5 days!

Before we got chickens, I did my due diligence and read a few books about chickens. I learned that chickens molt in the fall, sometimes loosing nearly all their feathers. When they molt, they don't lay. For the past two weeks our chickens have been molting.

How long can molting keep going?!

I'm getting anxious here. I was eating an egg every day at breakfast. I really, really miss my over-easy, fried egg with fresh sea salt and cracked pepper over a buttered piece of whole wheat, seedy toast. I almost broke down and had an egg this morning. But then I won't have enough eggs for the cake.

I was telling this to a coworker, who had asked how my chickens are doing. After I finished ranting she said "Why don't you just go buy some?" Ok, true - I could go buy some eggs. I could even go to the corner produce market and buy local, farm-fresh eggs. But I won't. I just won't! I have my own chickens!!

After tomorrow, if the chickens don't lay, we will have no eggs. Which means, not only that I can't have a fried egg over buttered toast, but we can't make muffins (a lunch staple at our house), we can't make pancakes Sunday. So maybe I will run down to the produce market and pick up a dozen. Maybe.

Egg Stash

For the past week we have been only getting 2-3 eggs per day. Considering we have 8 chickens and in the summer they should lay nearly every day, we should be getting more like 5-6 eggs per day. So we have been on the search for where else they have been stashing eggs.

The chickens have a large area open to them during the day and many locations that seem secluded enough to serve as a nest. All around the compost bin is thick brush with open areas underneath that seem like a great place to lay. But we also have rats that live in the compost, so any egg laid nearby would probably be eaten. Then there are the snowberries around the creek. Lots of good hiding places under the snowberries. I have used the handle of the hoe to poke around looking for eggs and not seen any. So that brings us to the barn.

The barn is closed every day to keep larger animals out. But there are plenty of spaces around the bottom big enough for a chicken to get in. And the barn is dark and cool with lots of nooks and crannies. Perfect nesting. Jordan and I check under the shelves, behind the tractor - places where we have found eggs before. But for the past week, nothing.

This morning I went down for the ritual feeding and decided that the grass in the pasture is low enough that the sheep could use some hay. We have an open bail from feeding Francis and Sue while they were in the barn bonding. I went to grab a couple squares and sitting between the open bail and towering stack of the rest of the winter hay were 6 eggs.

So now, every night, in addition to checking under the shelves and behind the tractor, we get to check the hay. Maybe it's time fill the gaps around the barn.

Lilly Foot

On Tuesday we came home to an open gate. Anyone who has livestock will agree, that an open gate is a bad thing. Fortunately, this particular gate only fences in the chickens. And chickens do always come home to roost. All eight of them were out and about. Three were down the driveway pecking around the roses. Two were in the shrubs behind the house. And the others were MIA (but I figured they couldn't be far).

Jordan said "Mom, we did shut that gate this morning, right?!" I said "Yeah, I remember locking as we left." Jordan, "So how did it get opened?" Me, "I have no idea."

The two of us investigated the gate, but there were no clues. Then we noticed that Lilly was limping, badly. Jeremy was just getting home, so we waited for him before tending to Lilly. As we were walking down, Eric (our neighbor) came by and said "One of your sheep is limping." We told him we knew and were going to see what was wrong. He said, "I was worried that she had a broken leg or something. So I jumped in to take a look and didn't see anything wrong." Gate mystery solved. Eric had opened the gate to get to the pole barn and Lilly. The chickens were probably all down in the orchard so he didn't think to close the gate again. We thanked Eric for looking in on Lilly.

Even with a bum foot, Lilly as hard to catch. Normally she is a calm animal. I suppose that having a injury was making her skittish. Finally Jeremy grabbed her and I started in on her foot. After clearing the dirt and trimming some hoof, there didn't seem to be anything wrong. No hoof-rot, no cuts, no broken bones - nothing. I went a head and trimmed up the rest of that hoof and we let her go. Strange.

Jordan and I went up to make dinner while Jeremy finished up the rest of the chores. When he came inside he announced "I am the chicken whisperer." "How's that?" I asked. "All the chickens are back in their run." That is actually amazing since it was still early, a couple hours from sunset and the chickens were scattered all over the property. Jeremy wouldn't give an details, preferring to keep his skills a secret.

Update on Lilly - She continued to limp for a couple of days but by the weekend was walking normally. Maybe she sprained an ankle.

Not Foster Farm Chicken

This is a cute little song about free range chickens. I'd like to point out, in case it's not completely obvious from the video, chickens are actually omnivores and have a varied diet including grass, bugs, nuts, berries, kitchen scarps (if they are lucky).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bactTPjpenw

I think the phrase should be changed to "You are what you eat ate." The healthier the animal, the healthier the one who consumes it.

Pick a Peck

I was standing on the back deck, waiting for the BBQ to heat up and enjoying the scenery. The garden is finally showing green shoots. Two hummingbirds were flitting around the rhododendrons. And to make it better, I was sipping a nice Merlot. And then I saw it - chickens headed for the garden.

Typically the chickens are prevented from getting to the garden by a huge gate we keep closed during the day. The chickens have plenty of yummy food in the orchard and along the stream. Tonight Jordan and I went down to feed the animals, which requires opening the huge gate. It was earlier than normal because we had my sister-in-law coming over for dinner. I opened the gate and Jordan warned me "The chickens will get out." I said "No, they'll go into the run when you throw scratch in." Guess what - scratch means nothing when you have untapped fresh grass and associated bugs to munch on. The chickens ran out and headed up the driveway.

Up the driveway is the official yard part of our property. It's the manicured, landscaped, typical euro-yard. That is a great place for the chickens. They can't do much harm in the yard. Sneaky buggers went all around the yard and then down to the garden.

All those tender little veggie starts. Peas, carrots, beats, corn. All about a month too late because of the crappy weather. I freaked and ran into the house. "Jordan, grab your flipflops! The chickens are in the garden!" And out the door I ran. Sprinted down the stairs with Jordan close behind, trying to slip her flipflops on while running. I grabbed Pearl and we started to herd.

People talk about how hard it is to "herd cats". Try to herd chickens sometime. We were both hunched over waving are arms, saying "Shoo! Go on! Get out of the garden!" Then "Jordan, George! Get George! Now Henrietta! I got Speckles!" Finally we got them back behind and shut the huge gate. Garden safe again, we walk back up to the house and went back to getting ready for dinner guests.

Pearl The Interactive Play-Thing

Went down to feed the animals this evening and noticed that Pearl, the friendly hen, was in the pasture with Junior, the ram. Very strange.

First of all, the chickens are relegated to the "orchard" and although George, the mean hen, frequently gets out onto the driveway, mostly the hens stay in the orchard. Both the sheep and the chickens and the pigs have access to the pole barn. So I think what must have happened is that Pearl squeezed her way through the fencing that separates the sheep's section of the pole barn from the chickens' section.

This would have been no problem if the ewes had still been on the pasture attached to the pole barn. But last weekend we moved the ladies over to Eric and Lola's pasture and put Junior where the ladies' were. Junior assumes anything in his general vicinity, that isn't grass or secured down, is a playing-thing to head-butt around. He has made short work of a non-nailed down hay trough and broke Lola's arm. So Pearl must have looked like the best interactive play-thing of all time. He'd get to chase her before smacking her across the pasture.

When we came down, she look frantic to get out. She was trying to squeeze through the fence and hopping up and down. Problem is that I can't go in to get her because then I become another interactive play-thing for Junior and I value my intact bones. The solution was that Jeremy would distract Junior with oats and attention. Then I would reach through the fence and (now imagine what this looks like) lift Pearl with one hand as I high as I can. Then reach through the fence with the other hand. Transfer to the high hand, then lift her up as high as I can and transfer again. It took 4 transfers to get her to the top. Thankfully, she seemed to understand that I was helping and didn't flap. Just as I was gingerly trying to lift Pearl over the top, Jeremy yelled "Junior's on his way Mama!" But I got her out before feeling the brunt of his blow. Pearl cuddled into my chest and cooed. Whew!

Missing Chicken

This morning we drove down to the barn to conduct our normal morning chores. I fed the sheep oats while Jordan tossed scratch to the chickens and pigs (yes, the pigs like chicken scratch). Then Jordan opened up the chicken run to let them out and I counted, as I always do to make sure that we are starting out the day with the correct number of animals. But this morning I only counted seven chickens - one was missing. And worse, upon closer examination, it was Pearl!

Pearl is the nicest chicken of all time. She follows us around and likes to be pet and held. She is the perfect animal to introduce "city kids" to farm animals.

A coyote or opossum better not have eaten my Pearl!

Sometimes a chicken will get broody and decide not to leave the nest boxes, so that was my first check and no one was in there. Next I checked to see if Pearl was being lazy and sleeping in. Nope, the coop was completely empty. Jordan and I looked around for signs of a struggle. Nothing. Last I decided to try the barn. The chickens like to go in there and scratch around the hay bails. As I opened the barn door Pearl can walking out.

She looked like she didn't get any sleep. Sort of ragged and blurry-eyed. Kind of pale, if that's possible. She chirped a quiet "thanks" as she made her way back to the run, right up the ramp and into the coop. I can only imagine that she flopped down on the roost the way I do on my bed when coming home after a late night of wine and friends.

What probably happened was that when Jeremy opened the barn the night before to get alfalfa for the sheep, the chickens went in. He always shoos them back out, but it would be easy enough for one to be behind the tractor or stack of pallets and not be seen. He must have closed the door with Pearl still inside pecking away.

This evening Pearl is back with the group and looking much more rested. Since we have a farm-sitter coming for the long weekend, we'll have to double-triple check that no one gets locked in the barn before we leave.

Oh What a Relief It Is

George, our hen, has been escaping every day. When we open the gate to the run, all the hens head out. George runs down to the orchard, which is where the gap in the fence is (or I should say, where the gaps in the fence are). Problem is that once she is out, she can’t figure how to get back in and therefore can’t get back to the coop where the nest boxes are.

Tonight Jordan and Jeremy went down to do the night time chores. Naturally, George was out, presumably for most of the day. They let her back in, via the driveway gate, and she made a bee-line for the run. She went right into the coop. Jordan was gathering eggs and George was sitting on them. As Jordan reached in to get the eggs, George pecked her so hard she left a blood blister. Then George ran out of the coop. Next she did this strange chicken-dance - prancing about with wings raised a bit and feathers on the back of her neck standing up. She headed back up the ramp to the coop and an egg popped right out of her - bloop. She couldn’t even hold it to the nest box. Must have been a huge relief to get that out. The egg broke as it rolled down the ramp.