Quietly

After the busyness of getting ready for the holidays (see, we did decorate these houses, although Oona kind of wandered far afield from the whole "sticking things on cookies" theme), things have gotten very quiet today.

Math with a nearly-asleep dog in one's lap.

Reading with a chewing dog in one's lap.

What happens when the kid gets the camera. I had hoped to feature the knitting I was doing -- knitting I wrapped up as a gift, still on the needles. It will be done, really, soon. I promise!

When I was out making pointy mulch piles flat with the help of my inexplicably broken rake, I remembered that the chickens needed water and probably food. Look what was waiting in the nest box! The days are lengthening, but I didn't know the chickens had noticed yet.

Variation

Even the eggs vary. I think one hen must have hogged the kale scraps or gotten a beakful of bugs.

If the hens free-ranged truly, their yolks would all look that orange. Of course, we wouldn't have any vegetables from the garden, but that's the way it goes!

As far as I remember, they tasted exactly alike. Perhaps because they were beaten into pancakes!

Increasing Signs of Life

The pepper plants are blasted by the late frost, but there may be overwintering life left -- the stems aren't blackened. I'll wait a few more weeks and clip back some of the worst-hit areas. Hopefully the best peppers will get a jump-start on the season and then be joined by newly-planted ones. Turns out I do want many more peppers than I had last year.

It's time to get into the hives. Pollen coming in means there must be brood. I noticed too many ants and I'd like to split these hives early enough to avoid a May that is all about swarms. If it doesn't work? Well, I'm not completely committed to this hobby any longer.

 

Easy to see their reptile links. Eggs are beginning to trickle in, and I do mean trickle. We may have to Have Words soon.

The Anna apple is always first to break bud.

Allowing parseley to go to seed turns out to be the easiest way to guarantee loads of fresh parseley, although not succession planting necessarily.

Last year's gone to seed area -- actually, I think I took seed heads and hit the ground here. Sort of a mythical kind of sowing: "Strike the ground with the magic seed head. . ."

Cornichon choices and chooks

Yesterday it finally happened! Our February chicks delivered egg number 1, followed by another one today. They are charmingly wee.

For next year, I need to remember that I like Parisian Pickling (the rounder one) and not Cucumber de Bourbonne (pointy, and already pickled in the picture). They both taste like pickles, but I like the shape of the fat little ones. If I don't write it down, I can imagine myself staring at the seed packets thinking, "Now, which one made good pickles?"

Third time's the charm

At least that's what we're hoping this year as it's the Third Annual Alameda Bicycle Chicken Coop Tour this Sunday. Anyone local is invited -- it's a lovely day out with the kids. I think mine are planning a bake sale and lemonade stand.

At my house, just a week ago we had another tour come through, so you'd think we'd be completely ready. Alas, as I did my rounds this morning, I realized I'm going to be picking up on Sunday morning. Just a few things need moving around; stuff in the bee yard, some kid-left items, etc. I had hoped to get a bale of straw to mulch some beds and fluff the coop yard. Anyone have some locally to spare?

This group of hens is slightly less amenable to visitors than others we've had. They remind me of the scene in "Holy Grail," where the knights yell, "Run away! run away!" Maybe it's that most of them are Americaunas, maybe it's because they didn't get a lot of handling.

One of the birds is unusually handsome.

For some reason, she's a soft dove-gray. Just as freaked out as the rest of them, though.

Those massed aphids (why are they black on the onions in the winter and spring-green on the apricots in spring? Bizarre) are back on the leaves. I tend to nip them off and hand them over to the crew.

The seem to like them. I wish this garden resident on the going-by snow peas

Would move over to the apricot tree.

Harvest Monday end of February

Daphne over at Daphne's Dandelions hosts a Harvest Monday every week. Now that my garden is producing reliably, and because I've remembered to photograph what I picked for breakfast, I can participate! If you'd like to participate, head over there.

This is just today's. Last week I might have harvested more -- I know we've had a couple of heads of lettuce from the yard. Kale is slowing down, or at least the volunteer kale in the onion bed is. This is probably attributable to the amazing aphid infestation. The cold, then hot, then wet, then very dry cycle has obviously made the plants much more vulnerable to our winter pests. That back corner is for some reason a favorite attack place -- maybe it has something to do with being under a tree? Anyhow, I either need to pull that kale or soap spray the aphids. Given what my life is generally like, I'm betting on using the kale as a trap crop in order to get the newly-planted kale big enough to resist. At least that's what I'll call it! Lazy and effective, or at least I hope so.

As I inspected the spinach, I noticed a few leaf miner eggs. Argh! The only effective control I've ever found for them is rubbing the leaves off, individual leaf at a time. Slow, and tedious when the spinach is growing almost rosette-style flat to the ground, but that's what I get for loving the same crop as those noxious pests. Today's harvest was almost five ounces of deep green yummy. It made two quick breakfasts, along with storebought eggs and vegetarian sausage patties.

Soon that aphid infested kale won't actually be going to waste any more, and the spinach won't be served with storebought eggs. The old birds are long gone, but in one of our bedrooms the replacements are peeping away:

Now it really feels like spring.

One bad egg

Any false move lifting this egg from the nest box and it would have broken wide open. The shell felt like very thin, very brittle leather. If I knew which hen had laid this parchment-shelled egg, I'd know which hen was reaching the true end of her laying life. Then I suppose the cull-or-not-cull decision would have to be made.

But I don't know, and spying on the hens probably isn't going to happen. We're probably just going to wait until all of the hens are showing signs of age. Personally, I'd rather cull the entire flock and start over with new chicks in the future versus pulling out only one hen now. Besides, that way, the flock's balance of personalities can continue to balance one another as well as they do currently.

As I've written about before, deciding to keep backyard poultry inevitably raises questions like this. I know what my decision is already, as I also know that I don't have to cull too soon. The weak-egg layer can coast a bit more. I'll up their oyster shells to help and patiently wait for the younger birds to catch up. Then they'll go on to their next stage, and the chick to hen to egg layer cycle will begin again.

Egging us on

Eric says I overschedule myself. I think it's just May with lots of kids. The past weekend was the high school Ultimate Frisbee States championship, won by my child's undefeated team. (Yay!)

This weekend, among other events, it's:


Yes, that time of year again! The kids and I have put in a good couple of days cleaning up -- tomorrow we'll be shoveling mulch -- and Eric and now Kevin have really rocked the new, fancy coop. I think everything will be ready by Sunday.

I even made art.

Sunday afternoon, I'll be standing outside, talking to whoever makes the trek around town to view chicken coops. Since I learned a little bit last year, I'm going to make and post directional
and informational signs, recruit helpers so I can get a drink or visit the bathroom at least once, and plan to eat takeout or crock pot food that night.

Being me, however, I have to drive back from a four day homeschooling camping trip to do this. I'm going to need that trip to destress from getting ready for the trip.

The weekend after next is the Middle School Ultimate States tournament. . .

I'm looking forward to June.

Not just to show off

That is, the new, shiny red chicken coop (which is almost done) is not just for showing off. The old one is pretty much in need of repair, especially the yard area. It's just not very secure nor very sturdy.

Case in point -- the gals made a run for it through a stretched-out place in the wire last week:


Conveniently, the salad garden bed is right in front of their coop.


They made the most of it. I shored up the pen, at least temporarily.

Jailbird.

Astonishing Variety

Same chickens, different days. Who knows why sometimes it looks as though miniature ostriches live out there and other days it's Lilliputian poultry? Wonderfulness.

This post brought to you by the letter "P"

Those kids. . . today they woke up to find individual yogurt/granola/fruit parfaits waiting on the table. No whining for pancakes today! I'm able to do things like this when I write a detailed menu before I go to the stores. Today's sandwich bread dough will also have to become burger buns, though, since I forgot to purchase any. Oh well, I was baking anyhow, and this way I can make teensy buns for teensy burgers. Custom cooking!


Other excitement? Well, I believe at least one of the Padron peppers, that tasted so wonderful last year, is going to pull through. I need to get out there and side dress with either some composted chicken poo or compost or something. Peppers are really heavy feeders, in my experience. I'm especially excited about this because I didn't get any started from seed, and I love these peppers.


The Aladdin peas are starting to fill out. Ed Hume says to keep picking so that's what we'll do. With a relatively small pea patch, it feels more tedious to shell, since there are only a handful ready at a time. We do love our frozen peas, though. They have been terrifically self-supporting, as advertised.


Here's Eric working on the Palais de Poulet. I had asked to just move the original coop, to make room for the beehives in a different place, but with the third annual coop tour coming up, Eric decided to pull out all the stops.



When the doors and nest boxes get installed, it will be only a few post holes and wire stretching away. I even think we'll make the deadline.

Pets, Products or something else?

A recent post on our city's backyard chicken list has been pinging around in my head for days. I haven't posted back because I wanted to make certain I'd figured out what I wanted to say.

The poster had some aging hens, and she didn't want to keep them because they weren't laying any more. But she had some requirements about what she wanted to do with them -- she didn't want to kill them, nor did she want anyone else to kill them.

Essentially, she was hoping that someone on the list would have a recommendation for some sort of chicken retirement home, where the very tame chickens could be petted and cared for until their lives naturally ended.


This got me thinking about many different things, but of course because I have chickens, I thought of my relationship with mine. Of the two chickens featured above, the black one is still vigorously laying, while the black and white one isn't. She's one of our original chickens, and easily six years old.

Generally, I plan to kill the laying birds once they're past laying age (and for me that is somewhere around 3-4, given my experience so far), so why haven't I killed the "old lady" up there? Well, the first six chickens we got were celebrated by the children. Loved, named, played with, and the kids asked me to promise not to kill the birds. It was a promise freely given and happily kept. These birds were pets. The eggs were secondary for the children.

The black hen? She's from iteration #3, and she doesn't have a name. She's cared for primarily by me, and she's a great layer. The kids (primarily the younger girls) do occasionally "play" with the chickens, but it's a different kind of play. For me, she's primarily an egg layer, and eventually soup.

Let me get this part straight -- I don't enjoy killing animals for its own sake. Anyone who does isn't a homesteader or a farmer, they're just in need of serious help. But I do consider myself a realist. I eat meat, after years -- years -- of vegetarianism, and neither decision was made lightly. When I kill an old hen I do so because I am not running a retirement home for chickens, nor am I treating them as pets. I'm rearing my chickens as my grandmother did on her farm: for use. They are treated pretty well (amazingly well compared to factory farmed chickens; just read Temple Grandin's Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best life for Animals to see why that is) and then they are killed when their use to me is done.

And this brings me back to the post on the chicken list. What I think got me was the inherent contradictions in this person's stance. They wanted the chickens to be treated as pets (not killed, loved), but they weren't willing to take on that role. They wanted to act as farmers, and be done with the animal when its use was over for them, without being responsible for what that meant either. This "neither fish nor fowl" (please excuse me) stance isn't morally defensible, unless of course they wanted to fund the chicken's retirement, by, say, setting up a fund for their lifetime of care at an animal rescue organization. Maybe they meant to be hard-nosed about it but found that they couldn't stomach it in the long run. And that's okay, but it's something to be very clear about.

And maybe that's what I'll post -- at least the gist of it -- because someone needs to speak up for these kinds of decisions to be made ahead of time. New chicken owners are going to have to think before they pick up the cute little fluffy layers or else people end up doing crazy things like "setting them free" with the obvious problems that entails.

Sometimes it's not a lot of fun being the grownup.

Coop Tour Report

The weather conspired with some well-placed publicity to make the second annual Backyard Chicken Coop Bicycle Tour (or the "Tour de Coop") a stunning success.

If you measure success by talking for almost four hours straight to a parade of people in your yard.

I had tried to get to coop #1 before mine, figuring I could be in the opening cohort of bikers and so just stop at my house. Last year, we'd all ridden together, while this year we knew we needed to split bikers into groups. However, as I rode to the first house, I passed people on bikes going the other way. Some of them had papers in their hands.

"Uh-oh," I thought, and sure enough, when I stopped long enough to grab my own map, I realized that Eric was going to be Mr. Chicken Coop and he hadn't signed up for that.

I'd worked some over the weekend to make the yard as presentable as it can be. Hadn't gotten the mulch down, nor finished the dratted brick patio, but it was cleaner than it had been. I'd even painted the coop and the storage cabinets by the patio, reducing (but not eliminating) the amount of primer-white in the yard. Put up a little teepee in front, with a sign on it, and some flowers, so folks on bikes could see this was the stop. I'd even clipped the bushes on the side so people wouldn't feel as though they needed a machete to get in back.

I'd considered making an "in" and "out" aisle for the yard, figuring there would be a need for crowd control. Eric poo-pooed that notion, so I took the path of least resistance. There were some signs up, though, that hopefully would answer some of the most frequent questions people might have -- I couldn't talk to everyone, I guessed.

Oh. My. Goodness.

By the time I got there, the first few people were leaving. I practically had to shove my way into the yard, where there was a crowd that didn't dissipate significantly for the next three and a half hours. According to the folks with the sign-up sheets, about 400 people signed up, with a few declining, and a few just picked up along the route.

It's hard to remember a lot of it. I answered lots and lots of questions about chickens, and how we rear them, and what my daily routine with them is, and why I don't have a predator-proof coop, and what we do with them when they're old, and the garden, and the bees, and the chickens' reactions to the bees, and about a thousand other things.

I generally don't mind talking to people at all.



As you can probably tell.

I did have to ask one of my children for a glass of water, and thought about taking pictures, but realized I couldn't take pictures if I was talking to people, and hugging friends who were stopping by, and answering more questions, and selling out of honey, because people asked, and finding a home for the rooster I'd taken off someone's hands for soup last week (too little for us to kill, but unfortunately old enough to crow) and talking talking talking.


Even Cat got into the act, answering lots of questions about the meat bunnies currently living in our yard. She's pretty matter-of-fact, but apparently some visitors are still shocked at the connection between dead animals and food.


They were a huge hit with the Girl Scout troop doing their own badge in Backyard Poultry.


I kind of wished the garden looked more Sweet-Peaish and less "kale going to seed," but hey, this is what one blogger called "delicious mess." I like pretty yards, but my first priority is food, so beds and irrigation come before landscaping. In a few years, when I figure out how to store the PVC pipes somewhere else, it will look nicer.

Next year, I would label plants in the garden more carefully just for this event. More visitors than I'd expected wanted to know when I'd planted some of the items. Because of my oh-so-fancy labels, I could tell them. I'd also include information about the watering system, and how the neighbors feel, and the story of the first beehive. (Partly I'm writing this down so I don't forget!) The more it would be a self-guided tour, the more I could just host.


Talk talk talk talk talk.

Out front, Eric was fielding questions about anything from rabbits as people left, to would he do it again (of course, that would necessitate him reevaluating his entire life with me), to would he watch the bikes, and telling people where to go, this side, not that side, and the neighbor yelling at him. Until yesterday, she's only yelled at me. . .

He's not what you'd call "a people person," so this was a severe stretch. Especially when I wasn't there yet. However, he rose gracefully to the situation and I only wish I could have watched him in action. However, I was talking.


Notice how close people are standing to the hives? They're on the ground behind the apricot tree. No one got bothered by them at all. I was head-buzzed a few times, and an adorable woman with really short hair had a persistent bee around her head, but she said it didn't bother her. And it didn't, it just buzzed around and around. People were remarkably cool, although I worried what kind of panic a sting would set off.

See the (sometimes unread) signs?


Signs! Right here.


A lot of people wanted to just talk. It was kind of sweet.

Access was something of a problem. Because of the beds, folks ended up sort of lining up. Some pushed past the apricot tree, but a couple of 'cots got knocked off in that process. Better pruning and me standing elsewhere might have helped.

The only negative moment in the whole day was a run-in with the woman who owns the next-door apartment complex. It's visible behind the fruit trees and hives. Apparently (and I wasn't there, since Eric was in the front) folks were laying their bikes down all over out there -- on the sidewalk, the street, and on her lawn in front of the apartments. She fussed at Eric, and then said, "I'm just going to go turn on the sprinklers." So she did, and Eric announced out back that people would want to move their bikes, and that was that. Bad karma for her.

I thought it was really sad. Here people, in record numbers, are out doing something kind of cool, on bikes, for goodness' sake, and you're ticked off because they put their bikes on your yard? It's not as though they were building firepits. Anyhow. . .

At the close of the day, I was pretty shaky. I don't know if I'd eaten, but near the end, our housemate came and told me that she was making dinner. I wanted to hug her or burst into tears, but I think I was still saying, "Yes, we do eat them. No, I don't let them out, you see, they'd destroy the garden. No, I don't notice much smell. They only take a few minutes a day, really. Oh that? That's garlic, these are onions."

Dinner was great.

Sunday, busy Sunday

I'm going to be busy this Sunday, I know in advance because this article here ran in the paper yesterday. We're anticipating quite a crowd.

And tomorrow will be busy because of my "Ohmygoodnesspeopleheretheyard'samess!" reaction.

I'll post pictures and a recap afterwards.

About the Eggs

Michelle asked in the comments about the egg totals in the sidebar -- I have a lot more than I expected.

Generally, chickens molt once a year. It's tied to shortening days and the age of the chicken. For a few weeks they lose many feathers -- we think they look like old, ratty couches. During the molt, they stop laying. All that energy goes into making new feathers.

Six of our hens were babies in April, so they're just under a year old. Two of our hens are older -- one is from our original flock, so she's at least four. The other one was a handoff from another flock; she's probably between two and three. I'm not convinced that the old ladies are laying, although occasionally we'll get an egg that seems out of sequence. Maybe that's them. The six laying hens are in full production right now. Chickens lay roughly once a day, but there's some lag, so we don't get six eggs per day. But very often we do.

Another factor in egg production is light. We don't have a supplemental light in our coop, although the roof is made of clear corrugated roofing panels. Unfortunately, it was put on "upside down," and hasn't been fixed yet. So during the rainy season I keep a tarp on it. That lowers the light some, but they don't seem to mind.

I froze eggs in anticipation of not getting any. They'll probably molt next fall, and we'll be short of eggs then, but it's not the case now. Fortunately I have friends and neighbors who take extra off our hands. It's enough to bring the cost of organic food down around what conventional would be, and my people get to eat much more locally. I'm still not sure that the chickens are an even-money proposition, but I enjoy them.

Denise's spring/summer harvest totals

As the year's last Early Girls slow roast in the oven, I'm totaling the season's harvest. I thought I'd wait until all the beds were empty, but that's not going to happen: some of the Sungolds are still fruiting, plenty of kale is going strong, and both the jalapeños and the jalapas are still producing, too.

So it looks like about 430 pounds. The biggest producers were

• the summer squash: zucchini (89 lbs 4 oz from 3 plants) and scallopini (39 lbs 3 oz from 3 plants)
• the tomatoes: Sungolds (27 lbs 15 oz from 4 plants) and Early Girls (63 lbs 6 oz from 4 plants---I didn't count the bush EGs, which hardly produced)
• the winter squash, of course: butternut (14 lbs 15 oz from 2? 3? plants) and Lakota (18 lbs 13 oz from 3 plants)
• the cucs, of all things: cucumbers (17 lbs from 4 plants) and lemon cucumbers (22 lbs 11 oz from 4 plants)
• and the greens: True Siberian kale (24 lbs 2 oz) and Lacinato (13 lbs 13 oz and counting)

Like Stefani's total, mine doesn't include all the foraged food: blackberries, huckleberries, and mushrooms. I'll keep better track of those this year. In the last week or so alone we've gathered over 33 pounds of oyster mushrooms. Yippee!

Some were quite large.


All ended up sliced and fried up with garlic and plenty of olive oil, then frozen: instant dinner starter.

I'm not a big hot-pepper fan, so today I had to process over a pound of jalapeños that have gathered in the fridge. I pickled some with tiny potatoes from the garden and carrots (all prepped on the beautiful cutting board Kevin made for me of reclaimed redwood, black walnut, and cherry).

Some I just canned with lemon juice. I'm not sure the latter is officially sanctioned; I'll let you know. Pretty, though, isn't it?

And as we prep the back bed, we've given the chickens their first field trips. They're such dirt monkeys! And they left their first contributions to the soil.