Gray Day

 It’s a cloudy, dismal day. It seems like it wants to rain. Indeed, there’s a big green blob over us on the radar, but no rain is coming down. The sky’s indecisiveness makes me edgy. We really, really need rain. I cannot, however, make it happen through force of will. We can only wait.

The chickens are doing fine. Their feathers have grown back. Goldie has her magnificent hackles and beard.

Goldie with beard and hackles

I have recently noticed that Silvia has dark brown eyes. I thought her eyes would be lighter because of her white feathers. Wrong. She’s a little devil, that one. I have to watch her every minute when I’m doing the chores. She is right there when the coop door is open, ready to make an escape.

Silvia's soulful dark eyes

I had nothing else for a blog post. I went for a walk hoping for, but doubting that I would find inspiration. Everything was gray and brown. So depressing. I got all the wait to the north side of the property before I saw anything interesting. I spotted a splash of red in the undergrowth. Multiflora rose is a nasty, prickly invasive species, but it offers abundant pollen and nectar for pollinators and also has innumerable bright red, pea-sized rosehips in the winter. Fruits such as these are often good food sources, although the number of them suggested that not many animals were eating them. Some humans like rosehip tea. I am not one of them.

Multiflora rosehips

A dandelion bloomed bravely in the field. Terry says the soil has to be 50°F for dandelions to bloom. Even so, most dandelions bloom in the spring. This one was confused.

Out-of-season dandelion

Another plant that was living in its head was a little farther west. This pussywillow, another spring bloomer, had shed its bud scales to reveal the soft fluff of its flower. No doubt the persistence of warm temperatures confused it. It will be surprised if it snows Wednesday like the meteorologists are predicting.

A pussywillow living in its head

There are two kinds of Christmas trees growing in Terry’s ill-fated trial plot. Some of them are now way too big for Christmas trees.

These trees are too tall

Others have been decimated by deer. Another plan for income bites the dust. I asked Terry if he was going to plant more, but he assured me that he has some started in a more protected area. Damn deer.

These trees are too small

There is a good crop of Michigan holly again this year. The first couple of years that the shrubs produced fruit, birds ate them all. The berries are now so numerous that the birds can’t keep up.

Michigan holly

Terry’s recent activities have included putting up a shade on the south side of the dwarf Albert spruce and arbor vitae. These small trees will get sun scald in the winter if not protected.

Sun protection on dwarf Alberta spruce

In the woods by the creek, a big mushroom (8" diameter) sprouted on the side of a buckthorn stump. I think I said this recently, but it bears repeating. I’m amazed that we have any fungal fruiting bodies around with as dry as it’s been.

Big mushroom

On my way back to the house, I saw scattered patches of fur. I thought maybe it was from a rabbit.

Murder scene

My suspicions were confirmed when I found part of the white cottontail. One rabbit less. We won’t be short.

White fur from the rabbit's cottontail

The only thing left in the high tunnel is the herbs. The thyme (right) is completely out of control. If it overwinters again, I’ll have to wrestle it back with a shovel. The oregano (front right) was so beautiful, I dried more of it even though I don’t need it.

Herb bed in the high tunnel

Here it is November 17, and it hasn’t even been cold enough to freeze the parsley. Parsley is way more robust than wimpy, wimpy basil. Then there’s kale. Kale lasts forever. I keep thinking I should do something with it, but what? I planted it for Jane’s turtle, and after a few tries, even the turtle decided she didn’t like it.

Parsley and kale

No rain yet. Maybe tomorrow.

The hens get their way

 I have given up trying to train this flock of chickens. Instead, I am letting them train me. They like the molded plastic nest boxes that we put in Coop 2 during the summer. The built-in nest boxes in Coop 1 are somehow less desirable to the hens. They are more desirable to me because the eggs roll out of the boxes and into the storage area, which enables me to get the eggs without getting poop on my shoes. Way back when, we put the exit ramp in the boxes because one of the hens was eating eggs. It’s a difficult habit to break, and the best solution was to get the eggs out of the coop before she could peck at it.

When we move the hens to Coop 1 in the fall, there is always an adjustment period. Some of the hens laid in the nest boxes right away. At least one of the hens made a nest in the wood chip in one corner of the coop. Once there’s one egg in the corner, it triggers other hens to lay there. In previous years, I have tried putting bricks or pieces of wood where the inappropriate laying occurred. This year, we just gave up and put the plastic nest boxes in Coop 1. 

The plastic nest boxes

All the hens started laying in the plastic nest boxes, solving the problem of laying on the floor. 

Frankie in a nest box

The next problem was that Lucky refused to roost on the perch for the night. I could hardly blame her. I’ve been bullied by mean girls too. Lucky roosted instead in the built-in nest boxes. The trouble was that all hens poop during the night, and Lucky was making a mess in the nest box. For a time, I went out after dark to pull Lucky out of the nest box and put her on the perch. After several nights, she roosted on the perch by herself! Happy day! Except in only lasted one night, and she was back in the nest box. This week, I put screens over the built-in nest boxes. No one was using them to lay eggs anyway; we don’t have any egg-eaters at the moment, and I was fed up with moving Lucky every night. Lucky has been on the perch ever since. 

A screen over the built-in nest boxes

We are still in a drought, but we’ve had cloudy days and piddly rains now and then. I’ve kept the dust bath covered so it doesn’t get wet. Yesterday, I noticed Dottie trying (I thought) to dig a hole under the fence and make a break for it. 

Dottie tunneling under the fence

I saw other hens in that corner also. It occurred to me that maybe that maybe that was a spot that wasn’t as damp as the rest of the run, and they were trying to dust bathe. I opened the dust bath up, and Dottie was in there in an instant. By the time I got my camera, Luella had booted Dottie out and was throwing sand all over the place. 

Luella in the dust bath, Dottie looks on with envy

Silvia hung around also, eating gravel.

Silvia pecks at the gravel while waiting her turn

While I was doing the chicken chores, Terry told me to look at the sand pile near Nursery 1. It was full of pock marks, which Terry thought might be signs of birds pecking for gravel.

Pock-marked sand pile

It was a logical hypothesis, but the holes were too big for pecking and too small for dust bathing. There were no wing marks in the sand. The holes were the size a squirrel would make while caching food. I dug into one of them to see if there was a nut buried at the bottom. There was not. I examined the holes more carefully. By golly, they were deer prints. 

Classic heart-shaped deer print

I have no hypothesis for why deer would be having a dance party on a pile of sand. There were also two raccoon prints. 

Two faint raccoon prints

I’m sure there must have been more because the prints were high up on the sand pile, and raccoons don’t fly. The trail had been obliterated by the deer prints. The raccoon was looking for food, likely unsuccessfully on a sand pile. The deer? That’s a mystery. I wish I could see them dance.

My first walk

 With the gardening done for the year, I have started walking to get my exercise. I hadn’t been around the edge of the property for months. I was surprised to see a volleyball by the asparagus bed. When I got closer, the volleyball changed into a giant puffball. We don’t see many of them these days. It was especially remarkable because of the long drought we’ve had. Fungi like it wet when they sprout their visible growth.

Giant puffball disguised as a volleyball

A shelf fungus has invaded a bald cypress. Bald cypress lose their needles each year, although I have my doubts about this one growing needles back next year. A tree is often mostly dead by the time a shelf fungus can invade it. The trunk had many “shelves”, which are the spore producing bodies. Shelves are at tiny part of the whole fungus, which is now growing throughout the tree.

Shelf fungus on a bald cypress trunk

In fact, a shelf had sprouted right out the end of a broken branch. I don’t recall ever seeing that before. This tree is in bad shape.

Shelf at the end of a branch, indicating total fungal invasion

Terry’s Osage orange trees are fruiting, in spite of their small size and relatively young age. 

Osage "oranges," which are actually green

The trees are wickedly thorny, which made them valuable for fences back in the day. A bird took advantage of the extra protection by building a nest in one of the trees. I’d guess it was a small bird that could slip in and out without impaling itself.

An extra-safe nest among the thorns

In the brush that borders the creek, the skeletons of numerous wild cucumbers hang on their vines.

Wild cucumber skeletons on the vine

The red maple forest turned yellow rather than red, then all the leaves blew off. Maybe it will be red next year.

The mostly leafless red maple forest

The river birch and bur oaks have lost almost all their leaves. The apple trees are still hanging on.

Leafless bur oak, right; naked river birch, back left; apple trees still green in front

Our bees disappeared in September along with the honey. We had pulled a few “supers” before the exodus. We spun them down on a warm day and got a big bowl of honey.

Over 10 pounds of unfiltered honey

I filtered it through an impeccably clean soil sieve

Filtering the honey

And poured it into 12 canning jars. The last jar was only ¾ full. Still, it had to be a good 10 pounds of honey. Terry suggested taking next year off, since we probably have a lifetime supply.

So many jars of honey!

Jane came up for our annual Halloween burn on Saturday. I invited others, but it was a busy weekend for everyone. Jane wanted to make pumpkin sugar cookies (contain no actual pumpkin). Jewel had Halloween-themed decorative sprinkles on sale, and we had to try them out. There were two kinds of jimmies, black sugar, orange sugar, and mixed ghosts, pumpkins, bats, and green circles (ectoplasm? Snot?).

Pumpkin sugar cookies with decorations

“The bats look like mouse turds,” Jane remarked. So did the black jimmies. 

After lunch, we went back to the fire ring. It was a perfect day for a fire. The wind was just strong enough to keep the fire burning, but not so strong that it lit the whole woods on fire. Good thing, as dry as it’s been. Terry started the fire with gasoline and a lighter. Whoosh! In a few minutes, we removed our coats and moved our chairs back to keep the knees of our pants from burning up.

The fire

There is a half-dead box elder near the fire ring. Various parts of it have singed our burned outright over the years. The wind was blowing the heat in that tree’s direction. “I’m surprised that tree hasn’t caught fire,” I said to Jane. “I thought it would.”

Half-dead box elder tree near the fire ring

As I continued to watch, however, I saw smoke rising from the side of the stump. I said, "Wait. It is on fire. Or there's a squirrel over there having a cigarette break."

Smoke rising from the stump

I got up to inspect it. Sure enough, it was smoldering. I called to Terry, “This tree is on fire. Should we be concerned?”

Smoldering center of the dead part of the tree

“No,” he replied from a distance. “It’ll be fine.”

After he walked over to where I was standing, he changed his mind. “Oh. Yeah, you’d better put that out.”

“On it.”

I got the water sprayer and went at it. The smoke was coming not only from the part that I could see but also from a deep crack. I gave it a good soaking as far down as I could manage. We didn’t see any more smoke.

Spraying down the fire with water

Years ago, Terry carved a chicken with his chainsaw. As time passed, the chicken developed lichens and cracks. Terry moved it to a stump by the fire to await its eventual incineration. Jane thought it looked like an ancient statue, Chicken God of the Fire Ring.

All hail mighty Chicken God!

We put on as much brush as we wanted to get rid of. When it burned down, Jane and I returned to the house to do a jigsaw puzzle while Terry stayed back to turn the fire and be sure “it wasn’t going nowhere.” 

It was a beautiful and relaxing afternoon.

Ready for winter

 It is not clear to me how I ever had time for a job. It is the end of October. By now, the semester would be in Week 11 of 16, and I have just finished the list of things I needed to do outside to get ready for winter. I have washed the pots and trays, cleaned the greenhouse, and pulled the spent vegetables from the garden. The landscape cloth is rolled up and stored, as are all the drip irrigation lines. I put the strawberries to bed by covering them with straw and row cover to keep the straw from blowing away. The garlic is planted and similarly covered with straw and row cover. How did I do all that when I only had weekends? (I miss my mom. She helped a lot.)

Two raised beds of strawberries (foreground), Brussels sprouts and garlic in the main garden.

I am done with apples. I have dried apples, made and canned three batches of apple butter, and cooked gallons of applesauce. I started the applesauce process with modest intentions. I made enough for my needs and told myself that I’d done the last batch. But there were so many apples! I had the thought that I would share and made one more batch, definitely the last. The apples were just too good to let rot, so I made a third last batch. I mean it this time.

The third last batch: Six pints + one cup applesauce with
applesauce pot and food mill to take out the lumps

I can’t say for certain, but I think Lucky laid her first egg on Saturday. It is larger than the usual first pullet egg, but smaller than the average hen’s egg. Another indication was that we had two green/blue eggs in one day, which we haven’t seen since Goldie and Silvia started laying again.

Putative pullet egg from Lucky, upper left, with hen eggs for comparison

Speaking of, Silvia is looking good, having grown back her beard feathers since her molt.

The newly-feathered Silvia

In other signs of fall, the corn has been harvested across the road. I’m not sure what they were doing yesterday other than making a lot of noise and filling the air with dust. They took the corn the day before. Terry thought they were picking up stover (the parts of the corn plant that are not the ear).

Cleaning up the cornfield across the road

The milkweed pods have dehisced, a fancy word for “split open.” Milkweed fluff is everywhere. And milkweed seedlings will be everywhere come spring.

Dehiscent milkweed pods

Terry has decorated the front entrance with his pumpkins, Michigan holly, and Osage orange fruit. It looks very festive.

Home-grown seasonal decorations

Happy Halloween!

Eggs at last

 While the rain drought deepens (no rain for a month now), the egg drought seems to be over! Our two Ameraucanas, Silvia and Goldie, have resumed laying blue eggs, and we are getting two to four eggs a day again. Lucky still seems to show no interest in transitioning from pullet to hen.

Three eggs, including a blue one

We’ve had frosts the last two nights. The cold temperatures are supposed to make Brussels sprouts sweeter. They have been slow to develop this year, perhaps because they are not fond of heat. Some of them are finally taking off, and I plan to harvest some this afternoon.

Long-awaited Brussels sprouts

Others persist in being slackers. I have no hope for them, as the lateral buds are showing no signs of developing. I planted two varieties, but performance did not sort out neatly as one variety being consistently better than the other. I am perplexed. I might be planning them too close together.

Underachiever

I started cleaning out the north garden. The tomatoes and tomato cages are out. I’ve pulled up most of the drip lines and some of the landscape cloth. It’s dusty work with the ground so dry, but it’s better than doing it in mud. I meant to have it all cleaned out by now, but I was distracted by applesauce and apple butter. So many apples.

Partially cleaned garden

I won’t have to trim the strawberry leaves before I cover the beds with straw this winter. The deer have done an excellent job of that.

Deer-trimmed strawberry bed

Two of my tomato plants in the high tunnel are living in their heads. They refuse to acknowledge the coming of autumn. I got sick of picking/processing tomatoes weeks ago, but Terry refused to give up. He says he is still picking red tomatoes, which he is finding homes for. He must be doing a good job, as I haven’t seen any that are taking on any color at all. Conventional wisdom suggests that tomatoes need a longer day to ripen.

Tomatoes in the high tunnel that won't quit

Last year we had a giant evening primrose that got as tall as the tractor shed. I expected lots of primrose in that area this summer, given the millions of tiny seeds that primrose dropped everywhere. My flower book says they bloom from June through September, but they obviously did not read the book. They did finally appear at the end of September. Like the tomatoes, they are living in their heads. It does not seem that the seed pods will ripen before the killing frost. Hard to say, though, because it’s supposed to warm up again in a couple of days.

Late blooming evening primrose

We don’t have much fall color here. The trees along the creek are mostly box elder, which merely turn brown and shrivel up. The red maples are still green. We do have one sassafras tree, which I think is from a seed collected from the big sassafras that grew in the yard of my childhood home. It’s a good story, anyway. This tree is brilliantly red (mostly).

Sassafras tree

Sassafras has three kinds of leaves. I learned them as “mittens.” The mittens can have one thumb, two thumbs or no thumbs. Our tree has mostly no thumbs or two thumbs. It was hard to tell, though, because there has been a lot of nibbling.

Zero- and two-thumbed mitten leaves

I really am going to finish cleaning up the garden this weekend. Really! It will be no fun at all if the ground freezes. Also, I’ve got to get the garlic planted. Time goes so fast.