May winnings

I haven’t been entering too many contests - at least not like I used to, mostly due to lack of time.  But apparently you don’t need to enter a lot of different place to win!

I think this is the third time I’ve won the Crochet Partners “Recycling” contest.  Every week I answer a question about crochet – like “what is your favorite yarn to work with” or some other random question.  The “sponsors” (other people like me that volunteer to donate items) pick a random number for the winner (they don’t get to see the answers beforehand).  In the past I’ve won yarn and patterns.  This time I was given a choice between two books or two calendars.  My Amazon.com wish-list already contained some of these calendars, so I decided to request those.   365 patterns from Crochet Pattern-a-Day 2007 Day-to-Day Calendarand another 365 from Knitting Pattern-a-Day 2007!  I could be busy for a while!

 

The other winning took me completely by surprise.  It came from a blog called Project Foodie.  I just recently found the site because of all the contests they were holding – and now it’s one of the many on my RSS feed list. 

I received a book called "Baking" by James Peterson.  I never would have thought I needed another cookbook / baking book – but this particular one is awesome!  The cover states “350 recipes and techniques, 1500 photographs, one baking education”.  (It’s interesting to note that the Amazon version has 300 recipes and 2000 photos.  Hmm.)  The book starts with the simplest how-to’s on making cake, pastry, cookie, breads, and custards – and eventually works it’s way up to fancier versions of those recipes.  Now I just need to find what other recipe books to get rid of so I can fit this one in the cupboard!!

Anyone else win anything lately?

May chickens

What are you looking at?!?

 

I would have thought by now we wouldn’t have much to show you about the chickens on a weekly basis – but they are still growing!  I just can’t seem to keep up on taking pictures and posting.

A few weeks ago we bought some leg bands to help us identify individuals among the breeds – we have red, blue, and “no bands”.  We lucked out that for those breeds where we have more than 3, half of them are hens – so we can still tell the difference.

 

Every night, at least once a night, Dave sets up a lawn chair inside the chicken run and plays “perch” … as in he becomes the perch and the chickens sit on him.  His legs, his lap, and sometimes even his shoulders.

 

He’s developed some favorites – birds that come around every time he sits down, and fortunately the VERY friendly ones are hens!  Here are our three sets of hens:

Henrietta – she’s the smallest and lightest colored Buff Orpington. She has also been the friendliest.  She loves to come and “talk” to Dave to tell him about her day.  She is a jabber-mouth!  

(That’s “Retta” behind the rooster in the picture.)

Blondie – another Buff Orpington hen.  One of the BO’s that we leg-tagged lost theirs, so both Henrietta and Blondie are without tags, but fortunately Blondie is slightly darker than Henrietta so it’s easy to tell them apart.

Babs – a Barred Rock hen.  I think these are still my favorite as far as looks (but then again I picked them!)

 

 

Faith, Hope and Charity

The Silver-Laced Wyandotte hens. They’re named but we haven’t determined who is who yet.  Their feathers are extremely soft.

 

 

We’re also pretty sure we have one extra hen. She’s a White Rock like this (except this is a rooster).  She’s smaller than the other two and doesn’t have much for a comb or waddle.  I’m hoping that one is a hen – that means we’ll have white eggs among our colored ones!

We’ve discovered that the breed we thought might be Dark Cornish includes a couple of different breeds.  The one on the left has more of a solid brown “stripe” on his feathers, and the one on the right is more brown speckles (click on the pictures for a larger view). 

We’re still not completely sure what they are – but they have the most beautiful, iridescent feathers.

And of course, there’s Ludwig.  I have to include a picture of him because he’s just so gosh darn CUTE!  His “hair” is really getting spiky (hence the name Ludwig – as in Beethoven).  It’s very hard to get a decent picture of him because he rarely stops moving.  He’s been a lot smaller than the rest for quite a while, but just in the last week he’s really shot up in size and has almost surpassed the “runt” dark (Cornish?) that we have.

Oh, and the chicken with the attitude at the top?  That’s a Brahma.  There are three roosters – they like to fight among themselves and with others, and they just look M.e.a.n.  We’re not going to be sorry to see them go.

Chickens – week 9?

I think this is week 9… I’ve lost count.  There isn’t a lot of news regarding the chickens themselves – they keep growing each week, developing their own identities and some are becoming Dave’s pets.  They think he makes a great perch.

Three of the chickens are very, very cold right now… in the freezer.  Last Saturday, we butchered the Cornish Crosses.  (They look mad – do you think they knew what was in store for them?!)  It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  This time I just helped pluck feathers and offered moral support for the rest.  But I should be able to help out more in the fall now that I know the procedure.  When fully dressed, they seemed much smaller so we began to question whether or not we should have culled them so early… until I weighed them.  Two were 6.2 lbs and the third was 7 lbs.  That’s a CHICKEN, ladies and gentlemen!  This was only after 8 weeks of feeding!  Most store-bought ones are in the 3-5 lb range - and that’s most likely with water added.  They were getting so big that they hardly stood anymore – they’d waddle over to the feed or water and plop down to eat or drink.

Dave finished the shell of the chicken coop last week and thanks to some friends, it is now in place.  Definitely not portable – unless you happen to own a forklift!  He had a couple days off this week from work so he played farmer (wearing his bib overalls, of course!):

1. Painting the “barn” – the chicken coop is barn red with white trim.
2. Mowing “hay” - cutting the grass on the neighboring property.  He does that so it doesn’t encroach on our grass. Plus, he is bagging half our clippings (rather than mulching) so the chickens get some fresh greens / bedding.
3. Planting crops.  When we moved the coop in place, the tractor and run were shifted over several feet to be in alignment. That meant we had a nicely fertilized area which Dave tilled and planted sweet corn.

Dave really wants to have the chickens free-ranging, so he has been testing that idea by letting a couple out at a time to see how they react.  For the most part, they stick pretty close to the run by the other chickens.  Our biggest problem is Charlie.  We put him on a leash and brought him close to the free-rangers.  He seemed like he was about ready to snap at a head, so we backed away.  If he just wants to chase them, that’s fine – but we’re still concerned he might decide his duty is to eliminate the “enemy”.  We’ll keep working with him slowly to see how this goes.

Mild spring = bountiful harvest?

I cannot believe how beautiful the weather has been the past few weeks! We finally got some rain last week (which we needed) – but otherwise we’ve had lots sunny days in the mid-60’s.  It has been too nice to stay indoors for any length of time.

Our garden is already in place and loaded up with goodies.  It’s painted in the same barn red as the chicken coop. 

We’re trying out a square-foot garden this year. It seems too small to hold everything – as it’s only two 4’x8’ sections, but they say you can fit a lot more in a small area doing it this way.

I have planted peas (pole and bush), corn, lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, onions, scallions, leeks, cabbage, beans, radishes, carrots, marigolds (pest deterrent), dill, basil, parsley, cilantro, fennel, beets, sunflowers, and cantaloupe. All I have left to plant are the tomatoes, bell and hot peppers, and winter squash – which are hardening off this week.

The corn and sunflowers are there primarily to give the pole beans and peas something to climb on.  Underneath the “poles”, is where the vines will go (squash and cantaloupe).  I planned some areas for shorter-season plants (e.g. lettuce/spinach and radishes) next to areas that might be taken over later in the season by plants like the tomatoes and peppers.

Last year we added some more plants to our strawberry beds to fill it out a bit more.  Based on the number of flowers we’re seeing, we should have a good crop.  Our rhubarb (left) is already at the point where I could harvest (this picture is a couple weeks old).

Two years ago we planted our apple trees.  The first year we saw one apple.  Last year, one tree had several apples – but the Honeycrisp had not a one.  All the area orchard trees are in blossom already … and we’re seeing nothing.  Hopefully ours are just late bloomers, because we really want to see some apples this year – from both trees!

Mid-summer last year we picked up some plum trees on clearance. Since it was past spring, we missed seeing the wonderful, highly fragrant flowers that they produce – so it was a delight to see and smell them this year.  With all those blossoms and the dozens of bees we saw buzzing around, we hope they are well fertilized so we’ll see some plums this year!

The grape vines are surviving - just.  We figure they’ll start producing about the time we decide to move!  I have really wanted to plant a blueberry bush – and may still this year; but that will take a couple of years before we see a harvest.

In addition to our own plantings, I’m hoping we have a good crop of wild black raspberries again this year.  Black raspberry jam is like gold in our household – it’s tough to find in the stores, so if we can make it, so much the better.  The only jam that disappears faster is strawberry… but I think that’s because we look at BR jam as a special treat.

We also have blackberries and gooseberries on our property, but we haven’t done anything with those yet.  We only had one good year for morel mushrooms – the year after the oak tree fell over; unfortunately we haven’t seen any since.

What’s growing in your yard?