Gracie's first egg

I got another phone call from my mother on Thursday afternoon. We had the first white egg. I had noticed earlier in the week that Gracie was doing the Squat of Maturity. I had left the coop door open for just a second while I moved the water and food out, and Gracie darted right out to the storage side. And there she squatted as if she was never going to move again. I rubbed her back with my left hand, since I had the feeder in my right, hoping to appease her. She was like a rock. I had to put the feeder down, pick her up, set her back where she belonged, and shut the door.

In spite of her delayed development with her near death experience from pasty butt on day 2 of her little life, she seems to have beaten Nadia to the egg punch. We are pretty sure the first—and the next three white eggs—belong to Gracie. She’s the one we see hanging around the nest boxes and begging in vain for action from us. Nadia remains aloof.

Gracie’s egg is very tiny and cute, although it doesn’t seem to be next to smaller-than-usual pullet eggs from the other varieties. I tried putting a quarter in for a size standard.

Gracie's first egg, left

All that was left in the garden at the beginning of this weekend was Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and kale. I left the kale plants in when I harvested the mature leaves to see if they would continue to grow. The leaves have gotten bigger, and I am going to continue that experiment. Hilda began the Brussels sprout harvest by picking the sprouts off the stalks and leaving the bitty ones at the top. Those kept growing also. We marked four of the better stalks to save for Thanksgiving as well as a couple for special friends. I went out yesterday to dig the rest. We grew a new variety called Nautic this year. They are taller than the other varieties and, best of all, have their sprouts more widely spaced and uniform in size. This is a marked improvement over the varieties that have a range of sizes from mongo on the bottom to buck-shot-sized at the top.

All that was left in the garden, from left to right, kale, Brussels sprouts, cabbages

Nautic Brussels sprouts marked for Thanksgiving with orange tape

I harvested two more of the 9-pound cabbages, one for Hilda and one to give away. I froze most of the one I harvested a few weeks ago and am working my way through another one.  There are only two left in the garden. I’m thinking of seeing how they fair in the root cellar.

The harvest--14 stalks of Brussels sprouts and two 9-pound cabbages

My nature news for today is that we have our own pair of red-tailed hawks now. Of the many things that make me feel old these days is telling my students my story about DDT and raptors when we talk about biological magnification in Ch. 47. Because DDT is fat-soluble and takes many years to break down, it accumulates in the fat deposits of animals. As a predator eats many animals from the level below it, it adds more DDT to its own fat stores. The hawks and eagles at the top of the food chain accumulated so much DDT that it interfered with their ability to put calcium in their eggshells. The eggs shattered when they attempted to incubate them. I see a red-tailed hawk nearly every day on my way into work, I tell my students, and I still get a little excited because I can remember a time when they were rare. And my students invariably look completely unimpressed. Oh well.

Red-tailed hawks are large birds. A presumably breeding pair hung out on the far side of the property all summer. I was in the kitchen one day when I say an enormous white thing (distance vision is not my strong suit) in a tree over by the prairie restoration. I grabbed the binoculars and went outside for a better look. I didn’t recognize it from the front. Only when it took off and showed me its red tail could I confirm its identity. A few days later, I was in the garden while two hawks called to each other continuously all afternoon. I couldn’t believe how long they kept it up. Most of the time now I only see one at a time. I thought maybe the other member of the pair had gone off for the winter, but I did see both of them yesterday. They do not seem interested in the chickens, which is a good thing. One often perches in the top of the fifth oak and looks at the field. I like to think they are keeping the mice and rabbits under control. Here is a sequence of shots I got Friday afternoon.

Looking for mice

Getting ready to fly after she spotted me

And we're off!

Into the wild gray yonder