Holiday prep begins

 At the very end of November, I decided that I’d better dig out the last of the Brussels sprouts and move the chicken fence before the ground froze until spring. I may have mentioned before that while the Long Island variety of Brussels sprout germinated well, they didn’t do diddly for sprout formation. One of the last four was so puny, I tossed it in the compost. The other three were harvested. It will be a pain to prep them, but I hope it will be worth it.

The last stalks of Brussels sprouts

Once I got the stumps dug out, I started moving the fence. Here’s where I started, with the raised beds outside the chicken run.

Before: raised beds outside chicken run

I have to start moving posts on the other side to make room.

Fence moved to the inside of the run to make room

Once that’s done, I can lift the fence over the beds and put the posts in again. The idea here is to let the hens eat the weed seeds out of the dirt as well as give them a nice place to dust bathe, should the ground ever dry out. They had been having a lovely time digging through the mud and then kicking their eggs with their muddy feet.

The beds inside the run

Terry came out to help position extra posts to keep the fence straight and taut. He is more particular about it than I.

Terry installing extra posts

I thought the hens would be out scratching in them immediately, since we were done working on the fence by 3:00. It was a cloudy day, however, and they had all decided to go to roost early. Slackers.

Roosting at 3:00, for heaven's sake!

The last week of November was crazy busy for me with meetings every single night. I was not enthusiastic when Terry proposed that we go to the Victorian Christmas in Sharon, WI on Friday. When we first went, it was a lot of fun. The town ladies made big vats of sloppy joe mix, steam tables of hot dogs, and pies of all sorts. Terry loves sloppy joes. I can eat them in a pinch, but they don’t appear on my list of things I enjoy eating. We went last year, and it was a bust. We went later than usual. I don’t know if they ran out of food or never had any in the first place, but all we could find to eat was chicken noodle soup from a can and doughnuts. The main attraction of the evening is supposed to be the horse parade. The horses and carts are decorated with lights, and they promenade along the streets around the main part of town. Sometime in the last decade, a large nearby stable closed, and the parade has been pretty lame ever since.

“I’ll make you a deal,” I proposed. “I’ll make you sloppy joes if we can stay home.”

Terry asked me to Google it anyway. The Historical Society had disbanded, and the event had been taken over by the Chamber of Commerce. Begrudgingly, I agreed to go again. I made the sloppy joes anyway, and we ate before we left. Good thing, too, because there were no steam trays of hot dogs. The Coffee Cup Café was doing a land-office business. Terry walked in for a moment to see what was on the menu. From the way he smelled when he came out, he didn’t even have to tell me it was fish fry.  More of the shops were open late. We went into an art gallery and an antique store. There were many booths of crafters on the sidewalks or in a big, heated garage that was otherwise empty. It was not clear to me what its function was in everyday life. It didn’t seem like anyone was buying very much. Craft shows are a dime a dozen this time of year. There were also vendors of crystals, herbal tinctures, and odiferous handmade goats’ milk soaps. No, thank you.

I forgot my camera. I took some bad pictures with my phone, which was more the fault of motion and darkness than my phone. This is the Sharon Christmas three. I knew we would be too late for the Christmas tree lighting, but I have never understood what the big deal is.

Village of Sharon's Christmas tree

The horse parade had not improved any. In a dramatic turn of events, the hay wagon bearing Santa came first.

Santa!

That was followed by a handful of pony carts,

Example of cart pulled by 2 very small ponies

A 6-pony team,

6 ponies and a cart

And some mounted riders.

Mounted riders

The end. At least it wasn’t very cold. The Chamber of Commerce has its work cut out for it to get this festival back on its feet. I suppose we’ll have to go next year too. Hope springs eternal.

We put our tree up on December 4. Terry says it has “more character” than our previous trees. Evidence suggests that this is code for “fewer branches” or perhaps “totally branchless on the back.” Two trees were growing close to a larger tree with light on only one side. With their genetically programmed economy, they self-pruned all the branches that weren’t earning their photosynthetic keep. Terry had to cut them out anyway, so why not use them as Christmas trees? We got one, and Jane got the other.

The cats were intrigued. Banjo sat under the undecorated tree as if he were a Christmas present.

Banjo under the tree

It was easy to decorate the tree. With so few branches, we didn’t have to agonize over ornament placement.

Decorated tree

I carefully put the tree skirt around the bottom when we were done decorating. It was not possible to get it to lie flat. Bingo got it into his head that there had to be something interesting underneath it.

Bingo explores; Banjo supervises

Surely there must be something under there!

Banjo comes around to check on progress

Bingo worked at it until it was completely off the tree.

Tree skirt on the move

He sat on it regally for a while,

Prince Bingo

Then pushed it next to the rocker.

Maybe I'll just hide for a while

At 8:00 p.m., the usual night-night feeding time, everything was back to normal with both boys starting at me from the coffee table.

Get off that chair and FEED US.

Yesterday was the momentous day I had been waiting for since mid-October—irrefutable evidence that all the Golden Wyandott pullets were laying. Here they are, five brown eggs from five brown layers. The tiny egg on the right is probably the first pullet egg from the last hold-out. The giant egg on the left is from one of the old girls and may have two yolks. (Ouch!)

 

At long last, all of the Wyandotts are laying!