Is it spring?

Saturday was a lovely, sunny, spring-like day. I knew it was just a tease, but I got out to enjoy it anyway. The chickens were out tromping around in the mud, happy to be out where they could run around. As soon as they saw me, they rushed to the fence, thinking that I might have treats for them. I didn’t, as I had not yet peeled the carrots for my lunches. They soon went back about their business.

Treats? Have you got treats?

With temperatures in the 40’s, I put on my Wellies instead of my pack boots. I still wore wool socks underneath. It wasn’t that warm! The Wellies were also a good choice because I would be walking through water. Rain earlier in the week had left us with huge puddles in the low spots. Since we don’t keep rain gauges out in the winter, I don’t know how much rain we got. It might not have been as much as the puddles suggest. With the ground frozen, nothing soaked in. Here is the puddle by the willows. No tadpoles yet.

Puddle by the willows, with full south exposure to the sun, had no ice

All the snow was gone from the field except in pockets out of the sun’s reach.

The last bits of snow in the field

I walked to the creek where I saw evidence of a recent flood. The grasses on the bank were matted down and surrounded by fresh silt.

Matted grass and fresh silt by the creek suggest a recent flood

There were coyote tracks.

Fresh coyote tracks

And raccoon tracks.

Raccoon tracks

But no deer tracks. The creek was running swiftly.

The creek had plenty of water in it

The west trail was under water. Unlike by the willows, this puddle, shaded from the west by trees, was covered with ice. With childlike delight, I broke through the ice, my feet warm and dry in my boots.

My trail through the ice

Farther along the trail, the ice (which probably started as snow) had melted around the grass to produce artistic patterns reminiscent of stained glass.

Ice imprinted with grass designs

The south path, which is shaded on the south side and thus gets hardly any sun, still had ice an inch thick.

The south path was covered with an inch of ice

At first, the ice was close to the ground so it merely cracked and sagged underneath my feet. I was able to skate along as long as I didn’t get my feet too far away from my center of mass. As I approached the road, though, the water got deeper, and I went all the way through. This slowed me down. I had to step carefully until my foot went through the ice and the water underneath to rest on the soil. I shifted my weight to that foot, picked up the other foot, and gently planted it on the ice a little farther ahead to begin the sequence over. I was pretty proud of myself for getting to the other side still dry.

It was so nice to be outside in the sun, smelling the damp earth, and splashing around in puddles. Surely spring is just around the corner!

But no. The next day was below freezing again. The sun came up in a blue sky while I was doing the chicken chores. By quarter to nine, clouds started moving in. Flakes of snow drifted in the wind all afternoon. Winter is back. Bah.

The quest for a clean water bowl

The flu has been in the news quite a bit lately. I can’t feel smug at having been vaccinated because the vaccine missed the mark this year. It is bound to happen now and then. It would take a crystal ball to know for sure which strain was going to make it big in any given year. We had a laugh the other morning when one of the morning shows had a headline that read, “Winter causes flu.” Terry said, “It’s like that old song,” and he sang, “Whenever two or more of you are gathered in His name, you get the flu.”

It is also the season of catalogs. I got one from Premier Poultry Supplies a couple weeks ago, and I saw a “chick stand,” which was a plastic platform designed for holding the food and water for chicks so they wouldn’t kick chips in the trough. What a great idea! Plus, we could use it now for the water bowl in the big coop. After we put the pinless peepers on, we (and by “we” I mean mostly Hilda) got to worrying that the peepered hens couldn’t drink from the nipple waterer. So Hilda got out the heated dog bowl. And the girls filled it with wood chips and poop every day and night (Hilda changed it in the afternoon).

My first thought was to put it on bricks, and that helped some.

Heated dog bowl on bricks

When I saw the chick stand, that seemed even better. Hilda agreed and put in the order. The chick stand came on Friday, and I put it in the coop Saturday morning. There is a puzzling aspect to the design. The outer edge comes down to about ½” from the floor while the edge of the hole in the middle is much thinner. The obvious question is why is there a hole in the middle in the first place? Unless the food is directly over the hole, a chick could fall down in the hole and be trapped. If the food is directly over the hole, will there still be room for the waterer on the side? We’ll have to see when the time comes.

Chick stand with a big hole in the middle

Meanwhile, the dog bowl sits nicely in the middle. At first the girls were skeptical. Would they stand on the platform? If not, could they reach the water? I thought maybe they could, but no one stepped up to demonstrate while I was watching.

The girls regard the new platform with suspicion

This morning, however, I saw them drinking from it. They can reach the bowl without standing on the platform. Furthermore, there were no wood chips in it.

The peepers do seem to be helping. The feathers are growing back on Blanche’s back.

Blanche with new back feathers

Dorothy is sporting the beginning of tail feathers as well, I think. It’s hard to tell when they are so small.

Dorothy's tail feathers may be growing back

I have mentioned that Hilda shovels the snow from around the coop door. I offer the following photo as evidence that chickens will, in fact, walk in the snow. This shows a trail from the coop door to the shade shelters, which they have been using as dust baths. All it takes is sufficient motivation.

Chicken tracks in the snow

Cat sitting

January. Ug. You just never know what to expect. 52°F Thursday morning; -3°F today. At least we got rid of all the snow for a couple of days. Hilda remarked that she appreciated having no snow and frozen ground as she could go check on the chickens without putting her boots on. We are supposed to get more snow tonight and into tomorrow. The first flakes are swirling on the biting cold wind already.

I don’t hate winter, but it’s not my favorite. So many layers. It seems like I can fill a whole laundry basket with the clothing from a single day. And we have six to eight weeks before we can reasonably expect nice weather.

Not much shaking here this week. I’ve had to declare a moratorium on baking until I 1) eat all the stuff I’ve already made and 2) lose the holiday poundage. I love to bake in the winter. It heats up the kitchen and provides the carb-laden and/or slow roasted comfort foods that cold weather seems to demand. Bread, muffins, oatmeal nut bars, cookies, cakes, pot roast, meatloaf, braised chicken, baked squash….mmm.

Classes begin on Tuesday, and I am loathe to go back to work. I love my job, of course, but somehow not working always seems better than working. Soon I’ll be rushing around every morning to get out the door promptly at 7:15 with my tea in a sippy cup to drink on the road. No more lounging in my jammies with a steaming mug. Sigh. Still, it isn’t as hard to go back for spring semester as it is for the fall, when the garden is still in full swing, and there’s so much harvesting and putting up going on. Now there’s nothing really to do but sit around the house. And bake.

Jane has gone to Florida for a month with Jan. I’m feeling bereft without one of my major pillars of emotional support. I don’t begrudge her. She’s retired and deserves to have a vacation where it’s warmer. We are taking care of Skippy in her absence. I send her pictures every day so she will remember how cute he is and how much we miss her. I am including cute cat pictures in this post because I don’t have anything else photo-worthy.

Skippy stays in his extra-large kennel when no one is at home. When he’s out, he spends most of his time on my lap. He still has not warmed up to Terry, which is too bad because it is hard to type with a cat on your lap, and I would get more done if Terry could take him now and then. 

Skippy not being helpful as I try to type

I’ve had to put him in the kennel now so I can get this post done without being pestered.

Sometimes he likes to lie in the valley between my legs.

Down in the valley, valley so low

Sometimes he curls up next to my arm.

So cute!

Sometimes I am just a bath mat while he washes his face.

Bath time

When Terry lets him out and I’m not home, he tends to sit on the chair under the table where it’s safe.

Hiding under the table

And that’s all for next week. I’ll try to think of something more exciting for next time. Don’t hold your breath. It’s winter.

Sausage making and pinless peepers

The sun came up just as the supermoon was going down on Tuesday morning. It was pretty coming up the night before as well, but I resisted the urge to photograph it over an empty field. I thought it would look better behind the river birch.

The supermoon going down Tuesday morning

Tuesday was sausage making day. The subzero weather continued, and Terry had the idea of putting up a table outside to chill the meat before grinding. Unfortunately, Terry thought I was going to put the meat out even though I had told him I was going to town for a haircut. I’d cut 39.5 pounds of pork off of 5 shoulders and into strips the previous afternoon so it was thoroughly chilled in the refrigerator. Close enough. We put it outside as soon as I got home to chill while I washed my hair and Terry finished puttering in his shop.

Terry hooked up his trusty grinder that was made by a friend of his in Mandan, ND. The guy was known as “Tinker”, and this contraption has a formerly hand-cranked meat grinder hooked to an electric engine with a drive shaft.

Terry grinding sausage

Hilda and I worked on the mis en place for four batches of Italian sausage. The worst part of that process is pulverizing red pepper flakes and fennel in the coffee grinder. Even though I waited several seconds before opening the grinder, I still maced myself every time. We were all sneezing and wiping our eyes and noses at the end of four batches. The pepper/fennel mixture, salt, and pepper went in pinch bowls. While I was macing myself, Hilda measured parmesan cheese into larger bowls. Then we chopped garlic and parsley. The red wine was easy enough to measure as we needed it for each batch.

Hilda chopping garlic

Italian sausage seasonings mis en place

When the meat was all ground and in the extra refrigerator, we started measuring out 3.5 lb aliquots. Hilda and I mixed while Terry got his stuffer going. The stuffer is made of cast iron. I’m sure it’s an antique. He filled the hopper with two batches at a time (“That’s perfect!” he declared) and slowly turned the crank with his left arm while feeding the casing, liberally lubricated with oil, over the sausage mixture.

Terry turns the stuffer with his left arm while guiding the sausage with the right

The finished coil of sausage--Terry twisted into links after all the stuffing was done

After the first four batches of Italian sausage, we made three batches of bratwurst, which was easier because there were no fresh ingredients. The only prep other than measuring was grinding nutmeg. Yes, there are some surprising spices in bratwurst—nutmeg, ginger, dry mustard, and coriander—but it comes out tasting exactly like bratwurst and not at all like cookies (which I normally associate with nutmeg and ginger).

We weighed the remaining ground pork and found we had enough for three more batches plus an extra 14 ounces that I just put in a bag for the freezer. It’s nice to have a little ground pork on hand. Because Hilda and Dad don’t eat many brats, we made three more batches of Italian sausage. More chopping and macing.

At the end of the day, we had 35 pounds of sausage. The last time we made sausage, Terry did not hear me when I told him I’d gotten the pork and bought an additional 30 pounds of it. I can assure you that 35 pounds of sausage is a much more reasonable day’s work than 70. I didn’t think we would ever see then end of that sausage! Plus by the end of the day, as fatigue set in, the links became longer and longer….

We set the packaged links outside to quick chill for an hour until the sun went down. I then moved them to the freezer. And that’s that for this year.

Sausage packed for the freezer quick chilling in subzero temperatures on the patio

In other news, the pinless peepers and the associated SNAP plier tool (according to Murray McMurray, the supplier, “The pinless peeper MUST BE installed with the SNAP plier tool.”) arrived Thursday. The idea is to block the chicken’s view to the front, which is supposed to keep it from pecking at other chickens. They can still see to the side and below, so it does not interfere with feeding. We hoped.

I was up early Friday morning researching how to use them. It seemed that only the offending hens needed to have them. Whew. I wasn’t looking forward to doing all 12 chickens. There was consensus that the peepers would fall off after a few months. Some said the hens would, in that time, be broken of pecking. Others said they would quickly revert to their evil ways and the only way to cure it was the stew pot. I am guessing it depends on the breed.  The smart alecks glue googly eyes to the front of the blinders. Search “pinless peepers” on Google Images if you want to see pictures.

I figured out how to use the SNAP plier tool to separate the two prongs of the pinless peeper. Now I just had to find the nares (nostril holes in the beak) on the chicken.

Hilda held the chickens while I did the installation. I mentioned last week that I had seen Juanita in the act of harassing other chickens, so she was first.

Juanita sports her pinless peepers

We did the other two Black Stars as well, since behaviors seem to be strongly associated with breed and they didn’t seem to have any bald spots. We also did the one Americauna who still looked good. It is a strong indicator of guilt—in the chicken world, it is peck or be pecked. The peepers did not interfere with eating scratch grains. 

Juanita stepped right up to the scratch grains

The Americauna was pecking around the water dripper. I was confident she would figure it out, but it would be nice to see it for sure.

Two other hens adjusting to the peepers

Juanita had thrown off her peeper by this morning. I wasn’t surprised, since she was the first one. I got better with practice, and the reinstallation went smoothly. Hopefully she’ll still have it on tomorrow.