Natural experiment

You may recall that all of our hay floated to the lowest corner of the property at the end of June. And there it lay in thick mats ever since. My idea was to use the event as a way of smothering the weeds so I could begin my prairie restoration. I took workshops at the Conservation District to get up to speed on the current thinking. I learned that it was best to seed in November, and that burning is helpful in removing invasive species. Prairie species have adapted to burning by having their crowns below ground. Invasive species have them above ground and are susceptible to damage by fire.  I learned that early restoration efforts included far too much grass seed. In the absence of grazing Indian grass and big bluestem pretty much take over all the forbes. It’s impressive to see those solid stands of tall grass. It’s just not very diverse.

November came. I had to get on the stick or the opportunity to use the hay disaster as a natural experiment would pass me by. I got out my long tape measure and estimated the area as 85’ x 240’. 20,400 square feet. Half an acre. I took a deep breath and went online to a popular supplier of native seed. I found a premium seed blend, which included a hundred species and a seeding rate of 166 seed/sq. ft. It include several different grasses at less than 3% each. This blend follows the preferred strategy of just putting out a whole lot of different seeds and letting the seeds decide if the site is appropriate. The price of it took my breath away. I knew it was going to be expensive. Native seed has to be harvested by hand. Still, it was over budget. I opted for ¼ acre of the premium mix and ¼ acre of the cheaper, less diverse sedge meadow mix. The area already has sedge growing in it, leading me to believe that it may have been sedge meadow back in the day.

The seeds arrived two days later. And I was worried that I had waited too long. Now all that remained was to get the site ready by burning the hay. That sounds trivial, doesn’t it, “all that remained.” Terry, bless his heart, finally got on board with the whole restoration concept and started clearing a fire break. I finished grading the Dreaded Lab Papers early Saturday morning and went out to help. Armed with pitchforks, we loaded the wet, heavy hay into the bucket of the tractor. Terry drove the load to the back of property to dump it on the reed canary grass at the west side of the field. Meanwhile, I raked the pile together and turned the edge up so it would dry and hopefully burn better.

Terry heads off with a load of hay

The end of the row of hay we were picking up

Terry takes the last load

We worked from 10:00 until 3:50 with a one hour break at lunch time. We took a half hour break and decided to torch it. Before we got started, I worried that it was too winding. Once Terry put the torch to it, I wished the wind was stronger. It was a slow burn. Still, the north side of it, where the hay was not as deep, went pretty well. It only took an hour or so for the fire to go over the whole area. Terry stayed on to poke at the smoldering piles and be sure it “wasn’t going nowhere,” as he is fond of saying. I was back in house at quarter to six to make supper.

Terry watches the fire (I'm calling this picture "art" even though it is the result of having my camera accidentally set for no flash.)

During the burn, we thought we were getting rid of maybe 80%. In the light of day this morning, we revised that to about 30%. Oh well. I finished up my kitchen chores and hauled my sore body out to work on turning, fluffing, and stacking the leftover hay. “Make a lot of little piles,” Terry said. His point was to not get the piles too large, but it turned out that “a lot” was the operative phrase. We stacked hay until noon. Terry then discovered that he didn’t have enough pressure in the propane tank to operate his torch. So he went to town while I raked, turned, and stacked.

After the burn

Making a lot of little piles

We burned until 1:30, then went inside to shower and get ready for guests at 2:00. Terry went back out after dinner. I stayed in to help entertain and also because it felt pretty good to sit down.

Terry will continue working on it this week. If all goes well, we can be ready to seed next weekend.

Meanwhile, the girls are done molting. Egg production is going up again. Ingrid looks presentable. Ina’s beard has grown back. 

Ingrid (left) in full plumage. Ina (right) shows off her new black beard. Sara hangs out in the front.

Happy Halloween!

I was the only one to carve a pumpkin this year. Jane came up for a visit last Saturday, but she worked so hard cutting up apples to be juiced (we made 6 quarts worth), that her hands were too tired to carve. I sure was glad to have the help with the apples. Thanks, Jane! Terry had been working hard on the new patio (I should get a picture of that, hey?) and didn’t have the hand strength to carve a pumpkin either. He cleaned the seeds from my pumpkin for roasting.

My Jack-O-Lantern 

Sunday morning was taken up with making jam from the black raspberries Hilda and I picked last summer. I got them out to thaw on Friday, when it seemed like I would have all sorts of time over the weekend. Well, we all know how that goes. Anyway, I got to it Sunday morning. Making jam is a big, sticky mess. One forgets when one doesn’t do it often. And here’s another random thought that occurred to me: We always have the idea that the pioneers made jams and other preserves. Where did they get that much sugar? Is that whole jam-making thing a myth? Where is a food anthropologist when you need one?

Black raspberry jam

Pat and Nancy came up to help clean out the garden on Sunday afternoon. Pat really enjoyed picking bean vines off the fence. It’s an interminable job to do by yourself. Pat liked it because there were other people to talk to, and it’s always more fun to do someone else’s work.

Pat, Nancy, and Hilda strip dead bean vines off the fences

When we were done with the south garden, we had just enough time to dig the potatoes before sunset. We sure were glad to have the help. Thanks, Pat and Nancy!

Pat helps me dig taters

Potato harvest. Wounded potatoes are in the box on the top.

Pumpkins and feathers

Oh, my goodness—three weeks since the last post. I’ve been overscheduled, as usual. The last two weekends were taken up with the annual Pumpkin Open House, the first weekend baking and freezing, the second weekend thawing the baked goods and cooking. During Weekend #1, I cooked a 33-pound rouge vif d’etampes pumpkin. When all was said and done (or baked and drained, as the case may be), I had 10 pounds of puree, which I froze in one-pound increments.

33-pound rouge vif d'etampes

The inside of the pumpkin

In the last three weeks, Ingrid has grown back most of her feathers and seems more presentable. Egg production has not gone up significantly. We keep hoping that the hens will start laying more when the molt is over.

Ingrid's feathers are looking more normal. Her tail is about half its normal length.

Jackie has grown a jet-black beard. His ruff seems to be getting whiter all the time. He is, I begrudgingly admit, a handsome fellow, even if his unwanted attentions may be a contributing factor to the lack of egg laying. He hasn’t attacked either of us yet, so he continues to live.

Jackie with his black beard and flowing white ruff (neck feathers)

At the open house, a friend snapped a picture of Jackie crowing. Someday I hope to get a video of it to help you experience the sound. I’m just not sure how to get Jackie to cooperate. 

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

Poor Ingrid

Egg production is down. We spend an inordinate amount of time discussing various hypotheses. The leading two are 1) the girls are upset by Jackie’s introduction to the flock and, more recently, his sexual maturity and 2) the girls are molting. In either case, the situation is likely to resolve itself. It seems to me that Jackie and Giada have a thing going on. They are often seen strolling together in the late afternoon, taking romantic walks on the beach, and having long conversations. I have seen them in the act once. None of the other hens seem agreeable to Jackie’s advances. Interestingly, Jackie’s feathers are getting whiter all the time, especially on his head. The feathers are not so much around his face either. His eyes are clearly visible. I suspect this development is responsible for his increased foraging ability. When he first joined the flock, he pecked all around the treats, but never seemed to get any. His accuracy is much better now.

Jackie

What we have learned about molting is that it is not at all synchronous. If it were me, I’d replace my feathers in the summer when it was warm. I posted earlier that there were numerous white feathers around the run a few weeks ago. That might have been Bridget or the two fat ladies. Ingrid and Ina are molting now. Ingrid in particular looks like hell. She has but one tail feather left and has lost large patches of feathers on her wings. I asked Hilda if she thought Ingrid would be embarrassed if I posted a picture of her disheveled self on the blog. Hilda thought it would be okay. 

Half-naked Ingrd

My first thought, as always, was that she was about to die. I picked her up to see if anything was growing back.  I had never given much thought to how feathers grow. It turns out that they emerge from a shaft and look a bit like a paint brush. 

New feathers look like paint brushes as they grow in

I look forward to watching their development. I hope they grow in quickly so she can get back to laying. Hilda has taken to joking about who will collect “the egg” today. Indeed, we have many days of only one.  We are hoping that one or both of our hypotheses will turn out to be correct. A third hypothesis is that the girls are just getting old and may never lay as many eggs as they used to. Have we seen the last of six eggs a day?

The beauty of the earth

I see more natural wonders than I did when I was young. I’m sure it’s not because there are more natural wonders. I think I just pay attention now. I can stand quietly and watch patiently. Or my threshold is lower. In any case, I was hanging out with my old Girl Scout buddies on Jane’s deck Friday evening when I saw a hummingbird moth. I have since identified it as a white-lined sphinx moth and learned that sphinx moths are divided into hawk moths (which swoop in a hawk-like manner) and hummingbird moths (you can probably figure that out). The moth was busy drinking nectar from Jane’s black and blue salvia. Jane went all out with the black and blue salvia this year, having learned how the hummingbirds loved it last year. The sphinx moths love it too. Jane sees them all the time, even during that day, which is unusual for moths.  I grabbed Jane’s camera and headed out the back door. As my eyes adjusted to dusk, I saw another, and another, four, seven, a dozen, flying all around me. I could only remember ever seeing one of this kind of moth before in my whole life. Now I was surrounded by them. A little miracle to end a very long week. The beauty of the earth takes my breath away.

White-lined sphinx moth drinking from black and blue salvia

My weekend was two whole days long this week for only the second time since the beginning of August. I’ve been over-committed. Pat and Nancy came out Saturday afternoon to help with the harvest and make sauerkraut. We started in the south garden picking tomatoes, peppers, and dry beans. All hands were on deck to pick apples out of three of the apple trees. A fourth tree was equally loaded, but we ran out of bushel baskets to put the apples in. We had to be very careful of wasp-infested apples. It wasn’t just the windfall apples either. Wasps had hollowed out nests in apples that were still hanging on the tree. I remembered words of wisdom I learned in childhood—never put your hand where you can’t see it.

Left to right: Nancy, Pat, Terry, Hilda

Tree loaded with apples

Wasps devouring a windfall apple 

Terry labels the apples

Total apple harvest so far

In the north garden, we harvested the cabbage, which did very well this year. We had to cut the harvest short as it was getting on 4:00. By 5:30, we had the sauerkraut in the crocks. We should have kept track of how many 5-pound batches we prepared. It had to be 5 or 6, plus an extra pound. An extra pound makes us do math. If 5 pounds of cabbage gets ¼ cup of salt, and there are 16 tablespoons in a cup…

The cabbages were really nice this year

After our sauerkraut was stowed in the wine cellar, and Pat and Nancy’s was in their car, we settled down to the olive dip and Bugles that Nancy brought, cherry tomato salad with  basil and fresh mozzarella that was leftover from my Girls’ Night Out Friday, and champagne to celebrate Pat’s birthday. Appetizers were followed by margarita pizza (to use up tomatoes and the rest of the mozzarella) and chocolate cake. A good time was had by all.

I recently read Coop by Michael Perry. In his reminiscence of his childhood, he recalled standing with his parents outside the barn at the end of the day when they had stacked the last bale of hay for the year. They would all be thinking, “No matter what winter brings, we’ve got the hay up.”

As we march through the harvest of each fruit and vegetable as it comes into season, I say that to myself a lot. And this weekend, I’m thinking that no matter what winter brings, we’ve got the sauerkraut up.

Rain at last

We are all inside today, taking advantage of the eagerly-awaited rain to catch up on our indoor tasks. There's nothing like a six-week dry spell to make a day like this seem like the most beautiful day in the world.
My life continues at a breathless pace. I've spent the day so far frantically putting the last video clips and rubrics into my online class's Unit 3, which opened this morning. I hope I've got everything now. At some point today I will go into the kitchen to deal with produce. Sometime today I need to get out to the garden to get peppers so I can make and freeze stuffed peppers.
I have only two pictures to share with you today. The first is part of the squash/pumpkin harvest. The part not shown is a vast number of Jack-Be-Littles and Baby Boos, which filll up the other half of the trailer. These miniature pumpkins are very cute.

Pumpkins, butternut and delicata squash

While I was picking the dry beans last week, I came upon a navy and orange caterpillar. A quick Google search suggests it might be some kind of tiger moth. I thought it certainly must be a Bears fan. As it happened, the Bears did win that day. I don't have any omen for today's game, but I might have time to catch a little bit of it while I grade papers.

Navy and orange caterpillar

Hens don't crow

If I don’t get something posted tonight, it will be another week (or more) before the next opportunity. This is the time of year when I have the most intense retirement envy. My job really gets in the way of the harvest. I spent all day Saturday and Sunday either in the garden picking vegetables or in the kitchen washing, blanching, peeling, pickling, roasting, canning and doing all the other tasks associated with “putting up.” Yesterday I ran the dishwasher twice and washed every pan in the kitchen three times. Today I spent updating course materials for Unit 3 of my online Plant Science course. I didn’t get as far as I hoped, but at least I could sit down. Jane joined us for a Labor Day supper of charcoal-grilled hamburgers, potato salad, and corn casserole made from the very last sweet corn. Sweet corn, done. Check.  And peach pie with the last of the Rich Haven peaches. The Hale Havens and the remainder of the Rich Havens have been eaten, given away, frozen, canned, dried, or pickled. Check.

Two weeks ago, Terry mentioned that he had seen a beautiful red flower down by the creek. Could it be that one of my cardinal flowers had survived the flood? I hadn’t seen any sign of any of the native plants I’d tried to establish on the creek bank when the waters receded. Hilda and I walked down there Tuesday to see it for ourselves. And indeed, it was a cardinal flower!

Cardinal flower

Jackie crowed twice on Thursday. He hasn’t crowed since, but crowing even once is definitive. Hens don’t crow. Also, he’s taken to pursuing the girls with increasing ardor. Now that he’s got some heft to him, they aren’t ignoring him quite so much. “You’re not going to make me get rid of him, are you?” Hilda asked me.

“Only if he starts attacking us when we go into the yard,” I replied. He’s been amazingly docile for a rooster, so much so that before the crowing incident, I was pretty convinced he was a hen. So we’ll see. Meanwhile, he becomes more beautiful every day as his grown-up feathers develop. His wings are nearly white now, with the feathers delicately tipped with black. His crest, formerly pure black, is accented with white. Most remarkable is that his feathers shine with an iridescent green when the light strikes him just right.

White accents on Jackie's crest

My best attempt at capturing the iridescent green on Jackie's back and tail. Can you see it?

A couple of weeks ago, I had an overnight at Jane’s house because I had a doctor’s appointment in Elgin at the crack of dawn. That evening, Hilda couldn’t find Jackie when it was time to close the coop for the night. She looked and looked. Not in the coop. Not in the yard. She finally looked up, and there was Jackie on the ridgepole of the coop roof. “Did you take a picture for my blog?” I asked when she told me the story.

“No,” she said, “I was only concerned with getting him down.”

Did she call Terry to help? No, she did not. My 82-year-old mother gets out the ladder instead. Dad got a long pole and between the two of them, they got Jackie off the roof and into the coop.

“So this morning, Jackie had her wings clipped,” she concluded (this was before his gender was known). Terry held Jackie, and Hilda cut the tips off his flight feathers on one side. That’s all it involves. It doesn’t hurt the bird. It’s similar to clipping a nail. The effect is to throw the bird off balance so it can’t get any height. Maybe he’ll get big enough that it won’t have to be done again. All of our hens are too heavy to fly anymore.