First real harvest

The meat chicks are now considerably larger than the layer pullets. They have developed their couch potato habits, dividing their time between lying around and eating. The layers and the turkeys run around more. 

Turkey standing at the right, meat chickens lounging on left

All of the chicks are getting wing feathers and tail feathers. Here is a Barred Rock (black and white) and the prettiest of the Americauna. We might call her Cleopatra the Second because of the black eyeliner. Cleopatra the First is going to Freezer Heaven in the fall.

Barred Rock in front, Cleopatra the Second behind her

Jane saw somewhere that a truck full of Leduc’s blueberries and Georgia peaches was going to be near Elgin last Saturday. The fruit was expensive, but we figured it was cheaper than driving to Paw Paw.

Leduc's--the best!

I went down early so we could do our shopping. One of our stops was at Lowe’s, where there was a sign above rolls of grass that said, “Farm-Raised Sod.”

“And that would be opposed to free range sod?” I asked Jane.

“Do people think they go around cutting it out of people’s lawns?” she replied.

We got to the fruit truck just before they opened at noon. There was already a big line, but it moved quickly. We were relieved that they didn’t run out before we got there. They had a lot of boxes packed in that truck! As we were paying, one of the workers was explaining to another customer that they only source blueberries from Leduc’s now.

“They’re the best,” I said, “We used to pick blueberries there when I was growing up in Michigan.”

“That’s cool!” the guy said.

Leduc’s blueberries tasted exactly as I remembered, and that is better than all other blueberries. I bought two 5-pound boxes and froze most of them for the winter. The peaches were still hard and green. I planned to make a blueberry-peach cobbler for Sunday. Alas, the peaches did not soften overnight in the paper bag. I had to use them anyway and was pleasantly surprised that they still tasted great!

And now a little rant: I only make blueberry muffins in the summer. They are a special treat. Using frozen berries makes the muffins green (due to the pH sensitivity of the blue pigment). Making muffins with out-of-local-season blueberries from halfway around the world is ridiculous for a number of reasons, first and foremost because they don’t taste like much. Fruits have seasons, people. Respect that.

Blueberry muffins should only be made in the summer

For unknown reasons, the female flowers on the zucchini developed ahead of the male flowers. If a female flower is not fertilized, the fruit stops development at about 3”. If I don’t pick it in time, it rots. I can tell which ones are virgins because the tip of the fruit is pointy, whereas the fertilized fruit is rounded. The male flowers are coming along now, and I don’t expect this problem anymore.

Last Saturday, I harvested the virgin zucchini as well as a few new potatoes and spring onions. Sure, we’d had lettuce and kale from the garden, but this was the first meal of the season that was mostly home-grown. I put the potatoes and onions in a foil pack with butter and tossed the zucchini in olive oil and salt. It felt so good to be rubbing olive oil on zucchini again. This is why I garden. Farm to table every night. I defrosted the 2 filets we had leftover from the Fourth, and turned everything over to the Grillmeister. Terry cooked everything perfectly.

Mostly home-grown food--foil pack potatoes with spring onions and grilled baby zucchini

Dinner was delicious, but the rain gods were not pleased by our virgin sacrifice. This morning a very promising storm was headed for us, but it broke apart—AGAIN—before we saw a single drop of rain.

The corn is beginning to tassel.

Corn tassel

My restored wetland is limping along. Blue vervain showed up this year.  We really need to burn it to clear out the reed canary and other invasives.

Blue vervain

We have a new feral cat this summer. Terry calls him Bart. I got this picture of him staking out the ground squirrel burrow. He’s made the rounds twice this morning. I tried to get close to him by walking slowly and talking quietly. He would have none of it. I backed off when it looked like he was going to run off. I didn’t want to interfere with his hunting. The squirrel population seems to be shrinking. Thanks Bart!

Bart, this summer's feral cat

Sunday was Game Night. In the course of conversation, Terry got started on a story from his youth that involved his cousin Harry, a few other friends, and a keg of beer. They went on a camping/fishing trip down by the Missouri River. “And Harry was being an asshole, so we burned his pants.”

“You burned his pants?”

“Yeah! He deserved it! See, he caught 30 walleye, while the rest of us combined only caught 6, and he just wouldn’t let it go. When he went to sleep, we burned his pants. It was hilarious! So he went around the rest of the weekend in his long johns. We called him Long John the rest of his life.”

 I think it is important to remember that alcohol was involved. Also, that these were young men. Women would never leave for a weekend with one pair of pants.

“But he was telling the truth about the fish?” I asked.

“Wull, yeah! But it just was because he had the best fishing hole.”

“My point is,” I clarified, “that is if he was telling the truth, his pants should not have been on fire.”

The game went on. At one point, Terry was treating us to a drawn out stream-of-consciousness regarding his next move including a statement that just didn’t make sense.  

I pointed out the logic error of his premise, but he clung to it tenaciously.

“He’s just being an asshole,” I said.

“We’re gonna burn his pants!” Pat said. And we dissolved in laughter. I had to wipe my eyes. For the rest of the evening, I was overcome by giggles at regular intervals. I suspect this phrase may enter the lexicon of my social circle. It’s one of those phrases that makes it impossible to have a serious argument. At some point, someone is bound to say, “I’m gonna burn your pants!” And that will be the end of it.

Turkey poults

I checked on the robins last Friday. Both of the chicks took off out of the nest when I got too close. I felt bad for disturbing them and wondered if they could fly well enough to get back to the nest. After I took a picture of the one that landed on the patio, it took off and flew just fine all the way to the orchard. To my knowledge, they have not returned to the nest.

Robin fledgling from the nest under the deck

Faithful readers may remember that meat chickens cannot have feed at night. They have been bred to eat, and if they have food available 24/7, they gain weight faster than their legs can support them. This leads to lameness. They do get hungry by morning, however. Here’s a video of the feeding frenzy after I put the food in Saturday morning. They don't all catch on right away, but it doesn't take long for word to get around.

Last Tuesday, Mom and Dad were having breakfast out and saw an advertisement on the restaurant bulletin board for turkey chicks. We had talked about doing turkeys last year but held back for a couple of reasons. One, I read about blackhead disease, which kills turkeys but does not affect chickens. I was unable to find out what the risk of chickens carrying blackhead disease was in our area. Second, to order turkeys to be shipped, we had to get 15. Otherwise they get too cold in the box. What would be do with 15 turkeys?

Hilda called the number on the flyer and talked to Dale. Once he found out we wanted to raise the turkeys with meat chickens, he said that would be fine.

“We’d like two,” Hilda said.

“If one dies, the other will go crazy,” Dale said. Not sure if this was true or if Dale was a good salesman.

“Three, then,” Hilda replied.

We needed to get some 28% protein feed. We were giving the chicks 20%, which was as high as it comes at Tractor Supply. 

“Where do we get 28% feed?” Hilda asked.

“From me,” Dale replied.

We went to Darien on Saturday to pick up the poults (the proper name for baby turkeys). Dale’s farm was disorderly in a pleasant, lived-in sort of way. We admired a small brick building outside the house. Dale told us it was a smokehouse from 1845. The family of the original owners had a story written by an ancestor about Native Americans stealing meat from it back in the day.

We picked out our poults from an incubator illuminated and heated by three incandescent bulbs. The poults were six days old and about the same size as our five-day-old chicks.  I hoped that would prevent fights. Dale provided a Honey Nut Cheerios box to transport them home.

Poults-in-the-box

We pulled over to the barn to get a giant bag of 28% protein crumbles (small bits as opposed to the larger “pellets”). Hilda waited in the car with poults on her lap. Dale explained that the feed was self service. Cash went in an envelope, and the checks could go directly into the slot on the side of the box.

“Be sure to write down what you’ve taken on the check or on the envelope. Sometimes people write down one thing and take something else. I have to call them to tell them they got the wrong feed.”

We came right home and put the poults with the chicks. Everyone seemed to get along just fine.

Meet and greet--two turkeys, left with dark heads and long necks, introduce themselves to the meat chicks huddled in the corner at the right.

In the first six days, all has gone well. No one has died or gotten pecked. So far, so good. 

Didn't take the turkeys long to find the food.

Fourth of July, cont.

Pat, Nancy, and Jane joined us for the afternoon and evening. We started our afternoon throwing snap-pops on the driveway, eating Bugles with Nancy’s olive dip and Hilda’s caramel corn, and watching Terry light snakes with a propane torch. He wasn’t going to mess around with the charcoal lighter this year! Here is a group picture.

Back row: Nancy, Pat, Jane, Terry; front row: Dad, Mom, Me

We toured the garden next. One upside of the continuing drought is that we have, for once, been able to keep up with the weeding.

West end: pumpkins and corn

East end: onions, potatoes, tomatoes (which look bedraggled from the drought)

We dug one of the garlic bulbs for Nancy.

Nancy's garlic

For supper, Terry cooked beef filets on the grill.

Beef filets on the grill

Pat presented me with a Happy Birthday wine glass. We missed game night in June, and this was a late celebration. “And whoever’s birthday it is that month, they get to use the special glass,” she explained. What a fun!

Happy Birthday glass

When it got dark, we watched the fireworks in Sharon (at least the ones that cleared the trees) and the fireflies. Another great day with friends.
p.s. Finally we got some rain overnight!

A good rain at last! Boy, we needed it!

Happy Fourth of July

 I got up at 5:30 this morning to bake a cherry pie.  I had to start early because I also needed the oven for baked beans, which take 6 to 8 hours. If I’d thought it through, I would have done the beans overnight.  I got the dough rolled out and put in the filling. Next came the nerve-wracking part—getting the top on straight. While still on the counter, I usually cut steam vents (“innies”) in the middle and at the cardinal points. I use the cut out shapes to make decorative “outies” in between the steam vents. Well. I missed in a big way. There was no going back. I’d pre-cooked the filling, and it was sticky and still warm. As soon as the top crust hit it, it started to melt. There was nothing to do but patch up the short side and arrange the outies so it looked like I had meant to decorate it that way all along.
It will probably still taste good.
Happy Fourth of July!

Asymetric decorations. Call it art.

Babies everywhere!

We were waiting for the call from the post office Tuesday morning to tell us our chicks had arrived. I heard the phone ring upstairs at 6:20 a.m., and was sure that no one else would be calling at that hour. I heard Hilda say hello and then burst into laughter, which made me think it wasn’t the post office. “I answered the phone and all I heard was ‘cheep, cheep, cheep,’” she told me when I went upstairs.Good to know the post office workers have a sense of humor.

Normally we get our chicks earlier than this. All the chicks in the order have to be shipped together so there are enough of them to stay warm, and the combination of breeds we ordered was not available until this week. After we thought about it, it seemed better because the nights would not be so cold. In a bold change of protocol, we put them right in Coop 2 rather than in the garage. So far, we like it a lot. Even though we are suddenly in a cool spell (and still NO RAIN), the chicks seem to be doing fine and have a lot of room to run around.

In addition to our usual meat chickens and Americauna (which lay the green-blue eggs), we are trying Barred Rock this year. This is a Barred Rock chick.

Barred rock chick

Here is one of the Americauna. There is also a brown and yellow one and one that will probably be pure white, like Lizette. The trouble is that she looks just like a meat chicken, so we won’t know which one she is for a few days, when she will be half the size of the other yellow chicks.

Americauna chick

When I let the chickens out Wednesday morning, they were surprised by the cool temperature. After their lap around the run, they decided that was enough of cold feet and huddled on the windbreak.

Shoot, that ground is cold this morning!

The baby 13-lined ground squirrels are out and about. Here’s a group of them (I counted 10) standing like meer cats by their burrow. This is too many ground squirrels. Where are the feral cats when you need them?

Ten baby ground squirrels

The orioles have been feeding their fledglings at the jelly feeder. It’s a bittersweet moment for us. We’re happy they have successfully reproduced, but this means they will be gone very soon. Summer is going too fast.

Mom oriole feeds a baby as large as she is

We have a male rose-breasted grosbeak who thinks he is an oriole. Here he is eating grape jelly.

Confused rose-breasted grosbeak eating the oriole's grape jelly

And being challenged by an orchard oriole. After the first confrontation, they shared the feeder briefly before being chased off. Competition for the jelly is fierce right now.

Orchard oriole challenging the grosebeak

Hilda has wanted some blueberry bushes as long as she has lived here. We don’t have the right kind of soil. She planted two in a raised bed with soil amendments. This year was the first harvest.

Hilda's blueberry bush

Not enough for muffins yet.

This year's harvest

First week of summer

It happened again this morning. The radar showed a lovely dark green and yellow blob headed right for us. The forecast was for a steady rain through 11:00. But about 9:15, it all just disappeared. Again. At least this time we got half an inch. The last several fronts have broken up without a drop. We are grateful for what we got yet frustrated by what could have been and wasn’t. Terry says it is because of cold air masses from Lake Michigan. I think the sky just hates us.

The garden is doing well. Hilda and I took the row cover off the peas, beans, and Coles on Saturday. The peas and kale look spectacular. I struggle with how to use kale. I put kale chiffonade in a pasta dish last night, and we liked it. I’ll try that strategy again—slice thinly and put it in other things. It’s a super food, after all.

The peas--no blossoms yet, but the foliage looks great.

Kale

The beans look good also, although they are full of weeds. I know I am being unreasonable, but I always think, “Damn it! I weeded them once already!”

Beans--and weeds

I do hope we have weeded the asparagus for the last time. We’ve finished harvesting and let the stalks grow so they can store up energy in the roots for next year. Hilda and I sweated for 4 person-hours in the hot sun pulling out the sedge and thistles one last time and then mulched them heavily. When we were done, I was filled with a sense of pride for a job well done.

Asparagus, weeded and mulched

Terry is trying a new variety of blackberry this year. It’s called Chester, and it is blooming already, giving us hope that its fruit might be ripe before the frost. The most interesting thing about it is that the flowers are a pale purple.

Chester blackberries

The grapes are doing well. If we can keep the birds away from them, we should have plenty of grape juice for next year.

Baby grapes

And while we’re on the subject, I went out Friday morning to pick cherries again. There were three robin fledglings inside the bird netting and NO cherries. We need to figure out a different system.

I took a walk around the property to check on the wild black raspberries (not ready yet) and noticed that the restoration area now has spiderwort growing in it. I didn’t see that last year.

Spiderwort

The robins under the deck are growing up. Here is a picture I took with the mirror from a week ago Saturday (June 20).

Baby robins a week ago

And here is a picture from yesterday. I have only seen two little heads stick up so far. Not sure if that third egg hatched yet.

Yesterday

Summer is going by fast. Up until last week, I was going to bed at my usual time (8:00) and reading, even though it was still light out. I realized that this was stupid. I was missing out on one of the parts of summer that I most love.  I started sitting out on the patio to watch the sun set and the sky grow dark. The hummingbirds like to come to the feeder at dusk. I wait until the fireflies come out. That’s what summer is about. Fireflies and hummingbirds—just seeing them makes you happy.

Father's Day

I got up early this morning to make caramel rolls for Father's Day. Hilda took pictures with the caramel rolls closer to us, but I didn't notice they were out of focus until I put them on the big screen. Oh well. Dad is the most important thing, anyway.

Dad and me with caramel rolls in the corner of the picture

Hilda and I spent the rest of the morning picking cherries. Terry and I tried to put a net over the tree a few weeks ago. We were only partially successful at deterring the birds. It wasn't perfect to begin with, and a storm Tuesday night didn't help (although it did bring us 1.6" of much needed rain). Hilda picked all the cherries she could reach from the ground and starting pitting those while I finished up with the ladder. We got a little over a quart--just enough for a cherry pie on July 4.

Cherries

Terry and I got the sign installed inside the posts last week.

Terry's sign

The asparagus harvest is over. We have let the asparagus grow so it can store energy in its roots for next year. When I was out cutting thistles (I have far too many thistles in my life!) behind the asparagus patch, I noticed that the stalks were a-buzz with bees and bumblebees. Most remarkably, said insects had their leg baskets packed with bright orange pollen to the point where I wondered how they could fly. It was amazing to me that these seemingly insignificant flowers would be such a significant source of nutrition for the bees.

Bee with full saddlebags on asparagus flowers