Replenishment

Our coldest day thus far this winter will be spent indoors.  The curtains are drawn, candles glowing and we are surrounded by movies, games, good food and the catalogs that have begun to descend upon us.  As we have had our chickens for a number of years and not added any new hens to our flock in two seasons, our egg production seems to be dropping off most dramatically since the cold weather began.  Though we will not cull any of our hens who have worked hard for us, it is time to sincerely think about adding layers to our shipment of birds this year.  As we looked through the catalog we grew reminiscent of the early days when Sid had her 'boutique' chickens for show. Though show is probably not in our avian future, she simply lit up at the prospect of a couple of Silkie chicks being added to the hen house as mascots.  Topaz was her blue ribbon winner, friend and followed us all diligently though the garden.  It will be nice to see a couple of fluffy chickens around again.

We will be ordering a couple of packages of bees this year as we have gone the last season with just the one hive.  If you recall, we did capture a swarm with one of B's bait hives last year, but we combined its population into the existing one that we had.  Though going into winter it is still robust, I do not think we are going to wait on the chance of our bait hives for another swarm.

The above photo is a little experiment that B has done this weekend after reading how to make alternative heat sources.  Those votives do a fantastic job of heating that crock into the perfect little space heater for putting up your feet on a cold day.  The promise of spring, though distant, can be felt with seed catalogs arriving and livestock orders on the horizon, and oh well planning to inseminate Mabel leaves us also with the promise of piglets not long after chicks arrive.   As we warm our little homestead it will soon be replenished with young life, and what better time to be planning it than on the coldest of days.

#100HappyDays :: Day 15

A happy spot in any day is watching these crazy fowl.  They serenade us with a cacophony of still chick-like cheeps each morning as we approach to replenish food and water.  They are quite a group and our morning and evening walks to check on everyone always reveal new and quirky behaviors as they grow.  I especially enjoy watching our goose pair.  As this is our first year with geese it is fun to watch how very different they are, the stoic way that they lord over the ducks makes me smile.

A Full Sunday

We had a warm, yet foggy start to our day.  Charles helped us get some garden work done while Sidney worked with her show Silkie.   We then made an ambitious plan for what we would do until mid afternoon when the storms descended upon us.  B went to the farm supply store to get a few things we needed to put our ideas into action.  I went about chicken duties and some weeding all while listening to the thunder slowly roll toward me, first as a very distant low growl, then as a much more present threat as the sky darkened to evening (at noon). 

So now, inside the house watching the steady rain that seems to have dominated our week,  we are doing our first processing of the season.  Our mutant rhubarb plant supplied the perfect muse to spend our afternoon.  I would be surprised if farm box families didn't see a little jar of Rhubarb Ginger Jam.

We had such great surprise this afternoon as we were ladling the jam into hot jars.  A friend of ours came bearing 2 week old chicks to share.  We split the hens between us and now have six new babies!  Since we only netted two hens out of our egg hatching experiment, this was great news.  We now have two additional Rhode Island Reds, two Wyondottes, a Burr Orphington, and a Barred Rock.  So exciting!

If you would like to see hear a little bit about this weeks planting I talked about it here and if you would like some food for thought on honeybees and the colony collapse syndrome, I talked about it here.  Now I'm off to have some of B's wonderful Asparagus soup!
 

Rhubarb Ginger Jam

20 C Rhubarb cut into 1 inch pieces
6 C Sugar
3 pkgs. 8 oz Strawberry Jello
1 12.6 oz Jar Candied Ginger, chopped into fine dice

Place sugar and rhubarb in a stockpot over medium heat and cook until softened.  Using an immersion blender, process rhubarb until desired consistency.  Stir in jello packages and diced ginger and cook until dissolved and smooth (the jello adds the color to the otherwise dull cooked rhubarb).  Process into jars and/or refrigerate.

This yielded 23~ 4 oz.  jars & 6~ 8oz.  jars

***I sifted through tons of recipes and this was one we made up of several.  The original proportion was 10 C of Rhubarb to 6 C of sugar which was WAY too sweet & before the jello.  So we cooked up additional rhubarb without sweetening and it came out the perfect balance of sweet and tart.  Unless you too have a mutant rhubarb (this recipe barely made a dent in this plant~yes a single plant), please reduce the ingredients proportionally.

15 Days In

We have a grand experiment going on. Since our rooster is no longer with us, we decided to try our luck with incubating eggs. Three years ago we made an attempt but only had 4 eggs to do it with and none hatched. This year we began with 19. We need to keep the incubator between 99-100 degrees, humid, and turn the eggs three times daily.  At day 19 we need to keep the incubator closed and stop turning, by day 21 we should have hatch-lings.

We had a scare about 9 days in where the incubator, for reasons unknown, got to 110 degrees for somewhere between 15-45 minutes. I researched desperately the repercussions and was a little disheartened to find that this may have, even for a such a short time, ruined the batch. We then began to collect eggs again over the next couple of days toying with the idea of starting over (there's a limited time frame for fertile eggs). So the day that we were making the final decision to start over, B decided to crack one of the eggs to see if there was any life. For the good or bad, there was a chick and it was alive. Unfortunately, we had to sacrifice the one to allow us to determine that the eggs were OK and we could continue on. Then, we began to notice an odor coming from the incubator each time we turned the eggs. After some research, I found that a rotten egg could spoil the batch and the last thing you want is for it to explode. Yikes, they can explode!? We learned that the eggs are porous enough that by smelling them individually you can easily tell which one is bad. B & I carefully examined all of the eggs at turning time and discovered one that was not right and eliminated it.   I now truly know where the adage, one bad egg can spoil the batch comes from!!  Now the incubator is a happy odor free place, where hopefully we'll have chicks in 6 or so days! Wish us luck!

Meet Topaz & Shade!

 Today we trekked up to Mequon, WI to meet one of the few Silkie breeders in the state, and as we found out, this part of the U.S.  We ended up with a pair one female and one... we'll see.  Due to the nature of the breed they can be difficult to sex when they are young.  They are both 2 months old and adorable. 

The breeder is the state representative for the American Silkie Bantam Club, incredibly active in 4H and was happy to give Sid some tips for showing. She also let Sidney know that her birds always show well and, any show they have been entered in have yielded 1st or 2nd place ribbons.  We learned a couple of new things right away....Silkie's have 5 toes!  Crazy to see, especially since we are so used to our little three toed flock.  Also, we learned that the roosters are very broody! 

So the little ones have been settled in, had their first baths (yes these are birds that need to be groomed) and are happily nestled in the basement.  Sidney has also already drawn templates into her 4H journal to use as introduction cards for them when they are shown. A new adventure has begun!