New Life (Thank You God)

In the middle of night, with my heart still heavy about beefy, I heard faint little chirps.  Our new flock had started hatching.

By morning this chick was the only one, but many eggs were showing signs of imminent hatch.  As we got ready for the morning, the kids watched one pop open and a little dark chick flopped out. 

By the time the cows were fed and the shed was clean, three were flopping around.

Now at 10am there are five little guys.  We can see cracks on most of the other eggs.  Today we will spend watching the miracle of new life.

We expected these chicks on Monday and we didn't know when beefy's day would be.  It feels like God laid out the timing intentionally.  Just as Good Friday and Easter Sunday brought death and life together, God is teaching us about it today.  Death and life are all part of the same cycle authored by God and both are full of grace and love.

Day 2

Overnight those little wheat berries sprouted.  They have little white things sticking out of them.  Wa hoo!!

Yesterday it seemed the grains were drying out a bit, so we put covers on them. Today we'll leave the covers on.  We want to keep them moist without letting them get moldy.

It suddenly occured to me that it's March and it's time to get going on our annual batch of chickens.  In the past we've bought day-old chicks.  This year we invested in an incubator so we can hatch eggs ourselves.  These are 40 eggs of Black Astrolorp and 2 Bramhas, just for fun.  They won't start developing until they get warm and they'll hatch 21 days later.  For now we leave them at room temperature.  Next Monday we'll turn it on and look forward to an Easter Monday hatch.

Our cow buying decision remains incomplete.  The older cow we were hoping to get is not pregnant.  Bummer.  Plan B is to buy a heifer who will have her first calf this fall.  

Chickens Are So Easy!

With the lengthening days, our egg production is going up.  And these are young hens so they are laying like mad.  Our record so far is this basket of 38 eggs the other day.

I was thinking how easy chickens are, and then it occurred to me that it's because I do almost nothing for them.   Our 10-year-old twins are the chicken tenders.

They love the chickens.  They take any excuse to be with them.  If a chicken escapes the pen, I don't even have to mention it, they notice and drop everything to go cuddle the chicken.  Sometimes it gets brought to the door to get its picture taken.  Here is Merifeather, a Polish Bantam that is our only roster.

In the last batch of chicks, the twins got some pet chickens.  Here is Chirp, their little white Silkie.

The twins do everything with the chickens.  If one of the chickens isn't doing well, they run out, quarantine it in a little pen, give it food and water, and have nursed more chickens back to health than they have lost.

Their love for chickens means that they keep their water and food filled, they run after them when they need gathering, and they collect the eggs.  It also means that my camera comes in with bunches of surprise pictures of chickens. 

...like this one, which at least included my daughter...

... and this one of Anya, an Arucauna, on the fence.  And then when the photos download, I hear cooed over my shoulder, "oh, they're so cute!"

So I stand corrected.  I guess chickens are some work.  They're just easy for me.

Homegrown Popcorn

Last summer we grew popcorn and we are enjoying it this winter.  The cobs were short, maybe only four inches long, and the kernals are sharp.  Our popping rate isn't as much as commercial popcorn, but it the best flavored stuff I've ever had.  We've quickly decided that anything less than three batches won't do.

Our first cheese in three weeks is drying in the pantry.  We are selling more milk and just haven't had the extra to make into cheese.  We mentioned to the kids that maybe we would buy some cheese at the store but they were unanimous, "No!!" 

My daughters are goofy for chickens.  They regularly bring up a chicken to show off.  This one is Churp, a little bantam silkie.  She's wet from the rain and they wanted a picture of her.

Perhaps...

It turns out that getting a halter on jerky was easier than I expected.  My husband rigged one of the halters we have to fit him, called him over to the gate and just reached through to put it on him.  Okay, it wasn't quite that easy.  First jerky wanted to sniff it, then head butt it, but in the end my husband was able to just slip it on.   With a gate between them, the fear factor for me was low.

We were laughing that jerky was thinking, "oh, you have jewelry for me, we'll that's different!" 

The chickens have been enjoying their time on the pasture.  They've even figured out how to get to the water. 

The egg production has stayed high and we can no longer keep up.  We offered to friends and milk customers and are already selling five dozen a week. 

Over the holidays we took a year-end look at our finances and decided it might be wise to get a second milk cow.  The money we make from selling milk doesn't cover even half of our hay.  If we can rent pasture for the steers, we'll have room for another cow and the new income would help.

A decision like this will have a significant effect on the whole family so we talked about it.  Each of our concerns says a lot about us:

• the 10-year-old twins think it's a great idea and can't wait,
• the teenagers are concerned about any extra work,
• I worry about finding the new customers, and
• my husband is concerned that new cow might be mean to Christina.

When we started this adventure, it was just about feeding ourselves.  Now we've discovered what a joy it is to share the good food we grow with others.  Not everybody can have a milk cow and chickens, but we can.   Perhaps when God called us into this, God put a hole in our budget big enough to make us reach out to others.  Perhaps God has plans for the gifts of this land that extend beyond our family.

But another cow would bring added responsibility.  Are we ready?  I guess that's what's prayer is for.

Valuing What God Values

It hasn't quite been a month and pepper has grown so fast. I don't remember jerky growing this fast last year, but maybe he did.  We've already changed our milking routine because he was getting too rough.  First I milk out the front quarter and then we let pepper in for his back quarter while my husband finishes his side.

Pepper empties out his quarter so fast it can seem like he's not getting anything, but the milk froth that drips out his mouth tells us he's getting lots (that, and Christina's quarter going from firm and full to flabby and empty).

We put goldfish in the cow's water tank last summer.  They are keeping the water clear and don't seem to be having any trouble with this cold.  We were listing off all our animals, "cows, chickens, cat, and goldfish," when our 3-year-old said, "we have goldfish?!"  So out his big sisters trotted him to the cow tank.  He was a happy boy.

The chickens are really making themselves at home in the hay shed.  They have dug a tunnel that starts here between two bales.  We discovered that it winds quite a ways back, and they are laying eggs back there.  I think we'll have to block it off.  That's too hard to work to get eggs.

Monday was the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Not being Hispanic, the feast day has never meant much to me.  This year was different.  I had to go to the store anyway, so I got a dozen roses.  We set them on the table beside a Guadlupe candle somebody got us a while ago, and we told the story. It's new to our 3-year-old and he loved it.  My daughters slowly brought the pieces together, about how Mary appeared to Juan Diego, brown skinned and speaking his native Aztec, about Juan Diego going to the Bishop who demanded proof, about Mary telling Juan Diego to gather roses in December, and about everyone's surprise when Juan Diego's cloak opened to reveal Mary's image.  We talked about Mary coming to people in their oppression — looking like them, speaking their language, and telling them about a God who sacrificed himself for them rather than the Aztec custom of gods demanding human sacrifice.  So powerful. 

That is our Christianity, following the God who sacrifices himself for our salvation and then asks us to value was he/she values: 

• God values every human life, so I strive to. 
• God values the seasons, the land, and the animals, so I strive to.  
• God values justice, education, and art, so I strive to.  
• God values healthy food and sustainable work, so I strive to.  
• And God values me, so I strive to.

After sharing the story, my daughter added, "and then Mary went back to heaven and said, 'and that's how you convert a continent!'"

Living by the Weather

Beginning this evening, it's predicted to rain and snow for the foreseeable future, which means everything that would suffer from being wet has to come in.

We picked the dry beans but they look more like soggy beans.  They probably should have been picked way earlier than mid-November.  This doesn't seem like very many to me; I think we still have a lot to learn.

Keeping seeds is an important part of the sustainable lifestyle.  I'm still learning a lot about keeping seeds, but things like marigold and lettuce are easy.  You just shake them out into a bucket and them store them in paper envelopes.

Since we butchered last Friday, we haven't had a single egg.  These chickens look full grown and they are old enough to be laying, but still nothing.  Today we'll search the pasture to see if they're laying in funny places.

Christina's due to calve next Wednesday.  We've already started watching her a little closer. Her udder still looks pretty small and loose so we figure it isn't imminent.  I'm not very happy that it's projected to rain for the next few weeks, which means we'll be dealing with a calf in crummy weather.  Praise God for their dry, clean shed.

The steers came over to say hi while I was out visiting.  Look at the size of these boys!  Beefy is about 18 months old and jerky will be a year old next Wednesday on Christina's due date.

I didn't want to work hard outside today.  I'm busy with other things, but the storm is coming, so we work.  Part of me resists and part of me is happy that God is setting the pace rather than the calendar.

Tomorrow

We'll be doing another chicken butcher day tomorrow, but this one is a little more poignant.  We'll be butchering the old flock, the chickens who have been with us for over two years.

My daughters are especially sad about Bennie, the rooster, going behind the barn.  They were so afraid of him, but they've made friends and spent today giving him hugs.  At dinner, one of them said, "thank you God that we could give the chickens a good life."

After he was released from the hugs, Bennie spent the rest of the day strutting among his hens. 

First thing in the morning we'll get started.  It's forecast to be 35ºF and raining.  Ugh.

Tiny Egg

We have reason to believe the new chickens have started laying.  This morning we found this tiny egg.  When chickens first start laying, the eggs are small.  As I recall, they get normal sized within a week or two. 

I wasn't expecting eggs yet.  I wasn't expecting the first eggs until late October or early November.  This is way early.  Well, we'll see what happens.  When our first bunch of chickens started laying there was one egg one day and a week later the nesting boxes were full. 

We are heavy into travel planning.  Tomorrow we will milk Christina for the last time and Friday we leave for our first camping of the year.  In the middle of trips we plan a butcher day, but if the chickens are maturing faster than I thought those plans might not work.  Hmmm.  We'll see what happens.

Uh oh, I Have To Go

A friend of mine asked about my blog yesterday.  I admitted that I'm not doing much.  With the harvest coming on, I get photos taken, the post half written, and then get pulled away and never get back to it.

This week it's peaches!  Our peach tree is still young and only produced a few fruits.  We picked up seven boxes of peaches from the local fruit stand.

...uh oh, I have to go milk...

Milking is a two person affair in our house.  My husband does one side and I do the other in the morning.  In the evening, he does one side and one of our teenagers does the other. 

Speaking of milking, Christina is officially drying off.  After switching her to grass hay, which is lower quality so she produces less milk, yesterday we switched to one milking a day.  Christina gets these last two months of pregnancy to herself and we have plenty of milk in the freezer, but it's a little strange to watch the milk go down and down.  After nine months of 4.5 gallons a day, yesterday she gave 2.4 gallons and today 2.1 gallons.  She's going down, just like she should.

But back to peaches!  For three days I cut up peaches in the morning and put them in the freezer on big sheets.  The next day they got broken up and put into gallon freezer bags.  These will be for fruit smoothies and pies.

Last night a got a batch going in the dehydrator.

Today we are canning.  Canned peaches are my daughters' favorite.  Canning fruit is so easy that we'll probably be able to get four boxes of fruit done by lunch time.

The chickens have gotten pretty comfortable out on the pasture.  The first day beefy chased them back but now the cows seem comfortable too.  My husband was working out in the pasture and got this shot of nap time in the shed.

...uh oh, I have to go pick green beans...

The Big Move

Today we did the simple act of opening a hole in the fence so the chickens could go out on the pasture.  But it's a big step.  This is what we've wanted all along — multiple species on pasture.

As soon as it was open, a bunch came through and headed straight for the manure piles. 

We wanted them out there to eat the bugs, the best chicken food there is.  There's so many bugs, it's a shame not to turn them into good egg.  We're also hoping for some thistle eating and spreading out the cow pies so we don't have to.

Our onions haven't bulbed up much this year.  We didn't get manure spread and we're seeing a big difference.  My Dad came over and seems to think these will bulb up good by fall, but they seem small to me. 

We scooped up some compost from the chicken pen which has been lightly enhanced with chicken manure and spread it over the onions.  I'm hoping the extra fertilizer will give them a boost without burning them from too much.

Fall Planting

Under the heading of "the fence saga," we put up new fence around the chicken pen.  Those adolescent chickens have been getting over the top.  Every few hours the twins have been tossing a dozen chickens back into the pen.  If they stayed in the yard, it'd be no big deal, but when they get into the neighbor's yards, the dogs enjoy them too much. 

I was hoping it would be a quick job this morning, but it took all morning to get the new wire up.  At least the chickens seems to be contained.

Our new fruit trees are looking good. These peaches on a tree we planted just over a year ago are ripening up.

Tomorrow our flood irrigation comes, so today we cleared out several beds and put in a bunch of seeds for a fall harvest.  I've never been very good at planting for a fall crop, but many of our spring vegetables didn't do well, so I'm motivated to grow some more.  Today we planted carrots, shell peas, snow peas, parsnips, lettuce, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, turnips, beats and kale.  (wow, I need a rest after typing all of that).  The next few weeks will require our diligent to keep them moist while they're germinating.

Fencing

When I've read about people living off the land, they always seem to be building fence or mending fence or moving fence.  I'm beginning to understand.

We ran new fence for the chicken pen.  Our chicken pen was too small for so many chickens, and we'd like to enlarge our orchard, so we finally got around to moving the fence.  We've been planning on it all season so we just let the weeds grow, and boy did they grow. 

You can clearly see the line of the old fence after we moved it.  The chickens swarmed into the weeds and are happily doing them in as fast as they can.

With the chicken pen up against the pasture, we have the option of making an opening and letting the chickens into the pasture.  There can be a lot of bugs over there, the chickens' very favorite thing, and very healthy for them.  When the little chicks get bigger, we'll probably do that.  Maybe they'll eat some of the flies!

Extra Milk

My teenage daughters suffer from lack of iceberg lettuce.  I prefer Romaine and leaf lettuce, but they like the pale white stuff. I don't think there is any way to grow iceberg in Idaho, but we can grow head lettuce.  It takes a long time to develop so there's really only one crop.  These were planted in April and are just now ready.

We are getting the fencing redone around that weed patch to let the chickens in.  It will be fun to see how quickly the chickens demolish those 4-four high weeds.  One of the little chickies watched the work from the branches of a tree.

One of our milk customers is out of town this week so we had extra milk, which we're turning into extra cheese.  Yesterday I made a parmesan.  Today it sits in a brine to salt up before it goes into storage for ten months.

The day before that I made a cheddar.  Today it dries on the shelf, getting ready to be waxed and then age for 2-6 months.

Today I'll make another cheddar. 

We were big cheese eaters before we got Christina, but now with the best tasting cheese we've ever had, our cheese really doesn't last long.  It takes me a while to make cheese — two hours of stirring plus about four more of being around — so I won't let the kids eat it as fast as they want.  It seems to me that a cheese should last longer than the amount of time it took me to make it.

Eggs?

I haven't had much luck with carrots, and I love carrots so I really want them to do well.  They don't come up much and those that do often die when they're little. But my Dad told me a trick.  He said to lay a board on top of them after planting and leave it there for about a week.  Then prop the board up so it shades the bed for another week or two.  I sure hope it works. 

He said you can start carrots right through the hottest part of the summer this way.  So we tried it.  The irrigation water came in and soaked the soil well.

Our egg production has dropped.  It used to be about 8/day and now we're down to about 5/day.  With kids eating scrambled eggs every morning, that just isn't enough.

Production went up with the longer days but then it started declining.  Maybe our chickens aren't getting enough to eat.  We feed them grain, kitchen scraps, and weeds out of the garden.  Maybe they're not getting enough calcium.  We give them back their egg shells and occasionally a little extra calcium.  Maybe they've gone into a molt.  I don't understand molting well and there isn't much I can do about it.  Or maybe they're getting old — they are two and a half years old.  I can't do much about that either.

But we can deal with food and calcium.  We got a big bag of crushed oyster shells and a bag of commercial chicken feed.  We'll see if it helps. 

Chicken Coop

Having chickens means dealing with a dirty coop once in a while.  I read about a "manure management plan" that made sense to me.  You clean out the coop in the spring and leave it alone for a year.  We can do that!  The idea is that the manure will build up over the summer and compost a bit in the winter, providing some heat in the coldest months.

Today was the annual coop cleaning.  My ten-year-old twins took turns going inside the coop and scooping everything out.  It was dirty work, but they did a great job, don't you think?

They spread several inches of nice clean straw after they were done and it was like a brand new coop.

The old manure is on the compost pile now, cooking away for the next year when it will be wonderful on our garden next spring.