Jackie makes friends

Sunday night, all the girls except Jackie went into the coop at dusk. Jackie was hanging around outside the coop door. I threw him/her into the coop and closed the door. I got up at 5:00 the following morning open the coop up again at dawn. Chickens don’t see well in the dark, and I figured Jackie would be safe until it got light. Once the sun was up, I wanted to be sure he could run away if there was trouble. Indeed, the hens were still on their perch. Jackie was asleep on the floor by the food.

The next day, the hens seemed friendlier, especially the Dominiques. One wonders if it was because they too were black and white. At one point, Hilda saw all of the hens in the cage we’d set up for Jackie, eating his food.

Jackie and his/her new friend, Sara

Jackie’s gender is once again in question. Since he/she came to live with the hens, we have seen no signs of aggression or mating behavior. We’ll just have to wait. Jackie seems to be developmentally delayed from being raised with the Jumbo Cornish X Rock broilers. I knew the broilers were hybrids. I assumed it was between a Cornish and a White Rock chicken, but given that they are as dumb as actual rocks, I have to wonder. All they do is eat and poop. They do peck around some in the grass, but they aren’t interested in mealworms or watermelon rinds. They sort of go in the coop at night, but we often have to encourage the stragglers to make the step up to get inside. They don’t perch, preferring to lie all night in their own wet, stinky excrement. Jackie did have enough sense to perch at night. She’s slowly getting the idea of foraging from the other hens. She can hear the “food over here” call, and she pecks around on the ground near the hens. Here’s a video of her trying to figure out what the big deal is with the watermelon rind, which the rest of the girls think is about the best think since carrot peelings. Part of her problem might have been that she had a wood chip stuck on her face, possibly up her nose. Can’t begin to imagine how that happened. I found it quite easy to walk up behind her since the feathers block her vision. She doesn’t like to be held much, but I was able to remove the wood chip.

Jackie now sleeps on the lower perch. He/she also hangs with the chicks in the shade of the coop on these hot afternoons. In the picture you will note that all the hens have their mouths open.

Jackie on the lower roost (right)

Hot chicks in the coop

We got the garlic harvested yesterday. The yield was good this year. We counted them and hung them under the deck to dry. We are getting more cucumbers and zucchini every day. The corn is tasseling. The beans are starting to develop, and the tomatoes are showing a tiny bit of color. Soon the household will be obsessed with “putting up.”

Hilda digging the garlice

Garlic hanging under the deck

We are, thankfully, coming to the end of our time caring for the broilers. Their appointment with “freezer heaven,” as Jane calls it, is tomorrow. I’m leaving for my annual week in the Boundary Waters with Jane in the morning. Hilda knew I wouldn’t be around for the round up when she made the appointment with the butcher. She and Terry will load the chickens into two cages and drive them to Walworth. Then, as if by magic, they will pick them up, plucked, cleaned, shrink-wrapped, and frozen, Sunday.

And even though we probably will raise “dual purpose” chickens next time around (they take longer to mature but are more like normal chickens, and we can keep some of the hens for layers), when I see the broilers lounging on the grass in the evening, I remember why we did it. They’ve had a happy 8 weeks with us. They were able to get outside and breathe fresh air for the better part of every day. I have the same kind of pride that I feel when looking at a tomato plant. We are raising our own food. And at the end of the season, the chickens and the tomatoes will be equally dead. Through their death, my life continues. I have come one step closer to grasping the true meaning of being an omnivore.

The broilers enjoying the late afternoon on the lawn

Bastille Day

This being Bastille Day, we liberated Jackie from Coop 2 (which Hilda now calls “the hell hole”due to its unpleasant smell) and put him up with the girls. We began by closing him in Della’s kennel with food and water. He didn’t think too much of the layer feed at first, but after a little while was seen eating and drinking. He seemed to enjoy the grass at the bottom of the cage.

Jackie in the cage

The hens ignored Jackie completely. After an hour or so, we opened the door to the cage. Jackie didn’t seem to notice at first that he was free to leave.

Stepping out

Before long, however, he stepped out and began exploring.

What are YOU looking at?

In other news, we’ve been harvesting the wild black raspberries that grow along the edge of the hay field. It’s hot, buggy work. What with all the rain, we’ve got a bumper crop of mosquitoes for the first time in several years. The raspberries are, of course, thorny, and they grow among invasive roses and stinging nettles. We pick every two or three days. So far we have three quarts in the freezer, enough for one batch of jam. You might be thinking that this is miserable work, but to me being hot, sweaty, scratched, and bitten feels like summer is supposed to. I am alive on the planet. Picking berries reminds my mother of the times she would go with berry picking with her mom, her brothers, Aunt Fay, and her cousins (Aunt Fay’s children). “My mom was really happy then,” Hilda recalls. And I will remember picking berries with my mom when she’s gone. It’s a happy time.

Fourth of July

Goodness, it has been a whirlwind of celebrations and staying up late. We picked another quart plus a little Montmorency cherries. I made a pie for our Fourth of July celebration.

Fourth of July Montmorency cherry pie

I didn’t take any pictures at the actual party. Kate, Pat, Nancy, and Jane came. Terry grilled chicken (not our own); I made baked beans, and Hilda made potato salad. Our guests brought snacks. We had tons of fun. We discovered that we could see the fireworks from Sharon, WI over the trees. We sat in the backyard late into the evening, watching not only the fireworks but hundreds of fireflies over the hay field. We are very pleased to have such a large firefly population three years after we converted the corn/bean field to hay and stopped the spraying of chemicals.  The fireflies seem to synchronize their flashing so it goes in waves. I’ve been going to bed too early, that’s for sure. I miss sitting out at night.

I had to harvest the last 6 Napa (or Chinese) cabbage because the earwigs were turning the outer leaves to lace. I had to remove the leaves all the way down to the tightly-packed core to get beyond the damage and the frass. Nasty. Earwigs are creepy, primordial looking creatures that give me the willies.

One of my goals for this year was to try making kimchi. I’ve never eaten kimchi, but the recipes read like it’s just spicy sauerkraut. What’s not to like? I found a recipe in Wild Fermentation (Katz, 2003) for a very small batch.

It starts by weighing down Napa cabbage, carrots, and radishes in brine for several hours to pull some of the water out of the vegetables.

Weighing down the vegetables in brine using my dumbells and a collander

Meanwhile, I mixed the spices. It was too soon for me to have fresh red chili peppers, so I used a smoked Mariachi chilis from the freezer. I had garlic and spring onions from this year’s garden. I had to buy the ginger, of course. Katz says to mix the spices into a paste. I threw them in the food processor.

Spice mix

I mixed the wilted veg and the paste, stuffed it all in a quart jar, and weighted it down with a bag of brine. Every morning, I poke it down to release the bubbles of carbon dioxide that have formed overnight from fermentation. After two days, I had to move the jar to the root cellar because it was stinking up the kitchen with onion smells. Not so bad in the short term, but tiresome day after day and all night long.

When it stops bubbling or after a week, I’ll call it done and give it a try.

Fermentation jar

I made a video of the morning feeding frenzy. Here’s Hilda opening the coop and the broilers running for the food. They are so heavy and bulky that they have to flap their wings to get up much speed. Jackie circles around, taking advantage of any opportunity to get to the trough. Don’t worry about him. The broilers do take a break, and Jackie has plenty of time to eat then. The other morning, I heard a pathetic attempt at crowing from inside. I suspect it was Jackie, but I couldn’t see who it was. It sounded like someone holding the opening of a balloon tight so the air squeaked as it escaped. Haven’t heard it since.

After the flood

The rains finally stopped. After several dry days, our clay-rich ground is becoming hard as a rock. I had to take a hoe to the raised bed in the laying hens’ run yesterday so they could resume their dust baths.

Here is a picture of the last of the storms moving east on June 28.

Storm clouds to the east

The day after the floodwaters receded, Terry and I took the row cover off the bush beans. I wanted them to dry as quickly as possible. Beans get an evil white fungus when they are too wet. If the fungus on one plant touches another, the point of contact dies immediately. Evil.

Shriveld upper leaf of a bean plant after the row cover was removed

The beans looked pretty bad in spots when the row cover came off. Two days later, however, most of the leaves that were as limp and wrinkled as wet toilet paper had sprung back to life. I went down the row, clipping off the worst of the dead leaves. Initially, I thought the spotty damage was due to variety—some beans were just more susceptible to flood damage than others. After several hours of contemplation and close observation (I weeded the rows as I trimmed away the damage), I decided that it was where the wet row cover had rested on the plants. The good news was that I only lost one plant that had snapped off at the base when a piece of wood that had been next to the garden floated above the bean and then sat down on it when the water went away. All the rest had apparently healthy meristems (growing tips). I am expecting a full recovery, although the beans might be set back a bit while they replace the lost leaves.

Remarkable recovery of the plant, even though I cut off the leaves that had dead spots for fear of fungus

The apples and peaches are coming along. Both are the size of golf balls. We picked two quarts of Montmorency (tart) cherries on Sunday. I didn’t get a picture because I was too tired at the end of the day to walk upstairs for my camera.

Apples

Peach

The differences between the male and female broilers is becoming clear. While it’s hard to inventory moving chickens, I think we’ve got 9 roosters and 5 hens.

Rooster--note large red comb and developing caruncles (fleshy parts that stick out of the head)

Hen--smaller comb, less pronounced  caruncles

Here is a video of Jackie foraging in the grass, the afternoon feeding frenzy (which occurs after we add a little more feed to the feeder), and Jackie hitting on one of the hens. I’m getting the feeling that Jackie is a boy. 

Washed away

Rain, rain, and more rain. We’ve had nearly 8” of rain since the hay was cut. After yet another night sleep disrupted by thunder and lightning, I was glad to see that even though the hay field was flooded (and the hay ruined), the south garden was dry when I got up at 6:30. The radar showed that we were due for a break in the rain, so I ran out to do the broiler chores. At 7:30, the weather map looked like the front was splitting and would miss us.

But no. The front shifted north, and we were hit with another downpour. And another. And another. How much more rain could there be in the world? The water kept rising. The cut hay floated downstream and piled up in the southeast corner of our property. Terry worried that it would create a dam and hold the water on the field. By 8:40, water was standing in the south garden. By 10:37, the south garden was covered by a foot of water.  

Coop 2 at 8:40--the fifth oak is surrounded by water

The tops of the plants in the south garden are still visible at 8:40. Rows of hay are still visible in the back.

By 10:37, the posts at the end of the rows are almost covered. Only the pablo peppers (far left) are higher than the water. All the hay is piled up in the back.

And there was nothing we could do but watch and wonder how long plants can hold their breath. The south garden had ALL of the corn; ALL of the squash, pumpkins, and cucumbers; ALL of the peppers, and ALL 16 varieties of beans. What if they drowned? What if the water got up to Coop 2? On the plus side, if Coop 2 started floating, at least it would be easier to move.

To our immense relief, by lunchtime the water was receding, even though it was still raining. Coop 2 and the broilers’ run stayed out of the flood. As the afternoon went on, more and more of the land was exposed. If only we can have a few dry days…

The south garden at 1:50

And at 5:00 we can see the ground again.

Also at 5:00, the flood has receded far beyond the fifth oak and the broilers.

Hay!

Well, Jackie is just getting to be the cutest thing. I suspect she/he is a crested Polish chicken. Her/his head feathers are really starting to stick up.

Jackie on the roost

The broilers are still growing quickly, eating a lot, and pooping more that you can probably imagine (certainly more than you would want to.) We may be seeing the first sex differences. Some of the chickens have larger, redder combs than others. I think those might be the roosters. I caught a picture of two of the chickens having a fight. Our hens had chicken fights every morning when they were young, so I don’t think fighting is necessarily connected to maleness. Anyway, watching meat chickens fight is a bit like sumo wrestling.

Hanging out in Coop 2. The one in the back has a few black feather on its back . In violation of the don't-name-what-you-eat rule, I call this one "Spot."

Chicken fight--there are two chickens in the picture. The one with its back to the camera has its wings down.

A neighboring farmer cut the hay on Thursday. It was beautiful. While we were having a lovely beverage on the deck at the end of the day, he came to rake it. It hasn't stopped raining since. Alas. Turns out that cutting hay is even more effective for bringing precipitation than getting your car washed.

Raking hay

I took the row cover off the cabbages yesterday. Cabbages are so beautiful when they have been covered. They are all so perfect. They were too big for the row cover, though, so it had to go. The leaves were getting deformed. Within moments of the removal of the light fabric, a cabbage moth was checking out the cabbages for egg-laying sites. The worms will not be far behind. It’s more fun picking them off since we have chickens to feed them to.

My lovely, uninfested cabbages

Napa cabbage ready for harvest. 

We got cherries this year! We had just a handful of the White Gold cherries (like Rainier or Queen Anne), about three apiece. Hilda and I picked 13.5 ounces of Kristin sweet cherries, plus what we ate while we were picking. I had cherries with my lunch today. It is very exciting to be getting fruit from the orchard this year!

Our cherry harvest. Delicious!

Perfect weather!

I am thoroughly enjoying these glorious days of June. Cool at night while sleeping with the windows open; comfortably warm in the afternoon; rain on a regular schedule. Lovely. My very favorite time of year.

Jackie and the broilers are settling into their new space. I put the feeder 10 feet or so away from Coop 2 to force the chicks to get some exercise. I went down to see Jane Friday afternoon to do my shopping and have Girls’ Night Out with my old friends from the Girl Scout Office. When I returned, Hilda reported that the chicks didn’t like to be out in the sun. She watched them dash out to get food and dash into the coop. So she put the food in the coop. “They were starving!” she said. “They acted just like they do first thing in the morning.”

One look at those fat chicks should be enough to assure her that they are NOT starving, but she’s gone all soft. I’m personally very pleased that all of our chicks are still able to walk. That’s the danger, you may recall. If fed too much, they outgrow their legs. Watching them run is hilarious. They can hardly be called athletic. But the point is they do run and flap their wings besides. It develops flavor.

Saturday I set about building a shade for them. I got a piece of fence from the “boneyard,” as Terry calls his collection of odds and ends, a piece of landscape cloth, and two posts. I whip-stitched the cut ends of the landscape cloth to keep it from raveling and attached it to the fence with cable ties. Done. And the chicks liked it. They did hang out in the shady side of the feeder more than in the sun.

Hanging out in the shade

There’s no dust on the perch in the coop anymore. Someone has been up there. I haven’t seen who. I’ve got some pictures showing the odd physiology of the broilers—heavy breast meat; fat, red, featherless buttzles, and enormous feet. Jackie’s head feathers are standing straight up.

Fat, pink, naked buttzle

Look at those huge feet!

Jackie next to a buxom coop-mate

Our June cooking project was Ragu alla Bolognese from America’s Test Kitchen. The recipe called for six meats. We skipped the chicken livers. I defrosted ground beef and bought pancetta, mortadella, ground veal, and ground pork when I was shopping with Jane on Friday.

Other than the shopping, the recipe was pretty easy. After we cooked the meats and chopped vegetables, we put in the chicken and beef stock and red wine, and left it to cook for an hour and a half. 

Pancetta, mortadella, beef, veal, and pork

Plus chicken stock, beef stock, and red wine

I made pasta to serve with it. And it was good. I made a salad with lettuce and radishes from the garden. The harvest begins.

Ragu alla Bolognese with tagliatelle and fresh garden lettuce and radishes 

This morning for Fathers’ Day I made pecan caramel rolls. Need I say more?

Pecan caramel rolls for Dad