A Thief in the Night

This morning I went out to feed the chickens at around 6:30 am. It was still pitch black out, and there was almost no moon to see by. As I approached the coop, I heard the sound of claws on chicken wire. Through the dark, I could barely make out the silhouette of a small animal. My initial reaction was that we'd inadvertently left a chicken out over night, and it had decided to roost on the fence for the night. I was about to grab it and toss it back inside, but something stopped me. I fed the chickens that were inside the coop, and ran back to the house to get a flashlight. Not finding one, I asked Katey to get the camera, and I went out and zoomed in on the silhouette. When I snapped the shot, this is what we saw:

We've heard that possums are pretty harmless, at least compared to the other types of nocturnal critters that we could have. They're less likely to have rabies than raccoons; they're less ferocious than coyotes; they smell better than skunks. This one was obviously interested in the chickens, but as long as the door is closed, the possum shouldn't be an issue.
We hope...

Yes, We Can

Today marked a return to efforts too long forgotten. We made our first foray into canning. Six quarts of green beans and six quarts of peaches now reside in our pantry, waiting for the Days of Grace.

Our garden this year is too meager to provide much real sustenance. We're hoping that a few tomatoes will beat the frost, and that basil will be available from our freezer instead of the $6 plastic package that we can sporadically find at the local supermarket.

The past year has brought significant change along with it. We moved, leaving behind our lovely garden and beloved chicken coop. Our old house was purchased by an industrial agricultural company, and the house, orchards, and everything else will soon join the old barn as nothing more than a memory.

It hasn't been all bad. We like our new house. The views are unparallelled. The garden, while small, provides the promise that we'll soon be raising more of our own food again. And that won't happen a moment too soon. This fall, we're expecting our first child. We hope that we'll be able to make most of her baby food.

I hope to chronicle more of our adventures (which promise to be many) in the coming year. I've undertaken the task of teaching writing to 8th grade students this year, and I intend to share my own writing with them as often as possible.

Growing Up

The coop and pen (to the right of the canoe).

In their new digs (10 days old)

Mama and one of her baby boys.

Out in their play yard (Al is jealous that his little brothers stole his pool - 2 days old)

Me and all my chicks (1 day old). They've grown out of this box.

Home.

The pictures are in reverse chronological order, but you get the idea. They're growing up so fast.

Over the weekend, we got the fence up, and almost chicken proof (still need to run a roll of chicken wire along the south side of the yard, and patch the gate). The boys moved from their first brooding box into an area that runs the width of the coop. They've graduated from liter waterers to a 5 gallon waterer. They seem to like running in and out of the holes in the cinder blocks. We're even starting to see their wattles. It's getting fun. We're probably two weeks away from letting them roam.

That's all for now.

Chicken Wings

An update is due.

The chicks have been home for a week now. As it turned out, we only got 50 chicks - we're missing the "exotic" chick that was supposed to be free with our order. In reality, we're down to 48 birds. One was lost to a tragic accident involving one of the gallon waterers; the other to the course of nature - he was just too weak.

Even with these minor setbacks, it's been great having the little peepers around. We've adjusted some things to make them happier and more comfortable, and they've been thriving. Their wing feathers are making an appearance (they're just learning how to flap them), and a few tail feathers have begun sprouting on a few of the birds.

Some wisdom we've acquired this week:

• Place the waterers on a small wooden slab, resting on top of the bedding. The chicks were kicking enough shavings into the water that it was basically impossible for them to drink. All it took was some scrap wood to raise up the water source a bit, and it's been more manageable.
• Don't put the feeders along the back of the brooding box if you can't walk around it. Instead, keep one edge near the front of the box so that it's easy to reach in and fill them up.
• Always remind yourself that these little guys are food for the winter. It would be easy to get attached to them at this point. They really are adorable, and very entertaining.

We're excited about the prospect of having laying hens next spring. We've been tossing the occasional grasshopper into the brooding box, and the ensuing action is hilarious. They all rush the bug, and tear it apart. Then, they run around the box with their little piece, while the others all try to steal it. Our garden will have fantastic protection next year.

This weekend, we'll be cleaning the box out, putting down fresh shavings. The big project will be erecting a fence out of an old dog run and sections of a pig fence, and then running chicken wire around the bottom.

Pictures to follow.

51 Little Chicken Nuggets

They're here, finally.

I got a call yesterday at 7:34 am from the Mission Post Office. The chicks are here. On my lunch break, I drove over to the PO and collected a cardboard box containing 51 chicks. I brought them back to school (much to my students' delight) and gave them some food and water.

They're so freaking cute.

After school, I loaded them into the car and drove down to the ranch store for some last minute supplies. Katey and I cleaned out the coop a few days ago, and we found a waterer, but one isn't enough (those chicks drink a gallon and a half in 12 hours). I picked up another heat lamp, a waterer, two feeders, and 3 cubic feet of pine shavings.

When I got home, we set up their pen (a 3x4 enclosure with rounded corners) inside the coop, laid down 2 inches of shaving, filled the waterers, hung the lamps, and put some feed in and around the feeders.

We dipped each chick's beak into the water as we set them into the pen to make sure they knew how and where to get water. I think I checked on them 6 or 7 times last night before going to bed.

When I stepped outside this morning, I wasn't prepared for the cold. I had a moment of panic - what if they all died in the night because of the cold? What if some rodent or snake was drawn to the heat lamps and devoured them all? They're so helpless...

Not to worry. All 51 alive and well this morning.

As I came back inside, I noticed that our garden is starting to fade. I picked 5 zucchini, and observed that I should probably harvest the butternut squash this weekend. I'll cut the rest of the basil and make a batch of pesto this afternoon. There are only a handful of tomatoes left. We may get a few more, but it's September. We'll have our first frost soon.

For all of our panicking, the garden did well this summer. We have winter squash put up. Several quarts of pesto, and several gallons of tomato sauce are in the freezer. Katey will be freezing some of her famous chocolate zucchini bread before we go back to school on Tuesday. I'm proud that we were able to reduce our dependence on the industrial food complex, if even just a little bit.

And come October 23rd, we'll have chickens in the freezer, too.

A Pot of Gold...Peeled and Seeded

When we were in Sioux Falls I picked up a new cookbook, Alice Waters's In the Green Kitchen. It's a collection of techniques shared by a number of different chefs rather than a collection of recipes, but there are also a few recipes that go along with each technique.

Our garden is starting to kick into overdrive. In the last ten days, we've harvested around 20 pounds of tomatoes. Last night, we started doing something with all of that glorious red fruit.

Charlie Trotter's contribution to the book is peeling and seeding tomatoes. We took his simple tomato sauce recipe and converted it into a soup. Now that school is starting, we're trying to get back into the routine, and a few quarts of soup in the freezer is a step in that direction.

This weekend, marinara sauce.

Garden Renaissance

The garden survived! The grasshoppers did their damage, and we haven't gotten rid of them, but so far (fingers crossed) they haven't developed a taste for tomatoes, zucchini, or our ripening winter squash. They're even leaving the basil alone!

Katey and I spent a week traveling to Michigan to have our second reception. Along the way, we saw some beautiful things: we made stops in Duluth, Amnicon Falls State Park, Camp Baldy, Palms Book State Park (home of the largest natural spring in Michigan), Petoskey, and Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore. It was a fantastic trip.

We ate out at almost every meal - and we're feeling it now. Getting back to our simple, garden-based diet is a welcome change. When we got home, we were greeted with about 40 ripe tomatoes, several LARGE zucchinis, and a couple of ripe potimarron squash. We also harvested our potatoes and onions.

Last night, we had a vegetarian meal with a few friends. We had white beans with garlic, pureed and served on a crispy flatbread, fried zucchini pancakes with diced tomatoes, peppers, and onions on top, spaghetti alla carbonara (minus the pancetta), and a salad with homemade buttermilk ranch dressing. All in all, pretty good.

On a side note, we're now making our own butter. If we only had a cow...