Today we had a disagreement about what to do. Kelsie thought a bunch of things sounded like fun – but I didn’t agree. Likewise, I had a bunch of ideas of things that sounded great – but she wasn’t having any of it. So, it was with great relief when she finally acceded to one of the ideas that I proposed and we went mushroom hunting.
The Chantrelles are still out – its too cold for them to properly rot anyhow, but they are still firm enough to collect and more delicious for the time they’ve spent seasoning. We only spent about an hour in the woods, but we collected five shopping bags full of mushrooms. They are bright orange, and beautiful – at the height of their size and flavor, without any bugs in them.
After we got the first batch on the dehydrator, I set about to fry some up for dinner. Many a tasty chantrelle became a dominic fried snack tonight – complete with crispy breading and dipped in ketchup, mmmm delicious. Truly a barbaric ending to so stately an organism as our friend the chantrelle; but ending in deliciousness can’t be a sad way to go.
I just put the second dehydrator batch on, and there are at least three more yet to come. A lot of dried mushrooms will be had for Christmas this year – but there are never enough dried Chantrelles to go around to everyone that we want to share with. In truth, there are likely not even enough for our own needs in the kitchen – but better to share than to consume, I always say.
The dried Chantrelles taste delicious right out of the dehydrator, although the dried ones we made last year had a different smoky flavor because we dried them in the oven – we didn’t have Jenny’s Gift of the food dehydrator yet. Imagine what advances next year will bring…
What delicious abundance right outside our doors, for those willing to go on an adventure and find it…
Dom
Monday, November 09, 2009
Chantrelle Season.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Chickens love the weekend.
It’s the weekend, so the chickens get to roam around the backyard and eat what they will: what they can find, and what the autumn weather has still left for them. There’s a lot of green still out there, if there is one thing we have from the rain it is an abundance of green, but for the life of me I don’t know how they can turn the green that is there into an appreciable meal. But they are sure welcome to try.
“I can get to bed, but I’m really tired…” Joshua Radin
The rooster is a bit less proud – earlier this week I thought his tainfeathers were just oo pretty to lose to the rains and snows and so I asked him if he would share them with me – let me protect the feathers that would eventually be mine anyway. He agreed, and they’re in the laundry room – and soon enough he’ll grow more too.
It surprises me how well the chickens light to be in the rain. We get so much rain here in the winter months that I am glad for it, but you’d think they’d like to be a bit drier. But they don’t get that wet, and they are able to shed a lot of the water from their feathers just by shaking. And they do love searching for bugs amidst the grass.
I think a lot about steve solomon’s views on carbon in the pacific northwest garden. He feels like additional carbon won’t help the garden soil much – and in fact it will hinder your efforst to grow the crops you want to grow. The reasoning is that Steve Solomon believes that by adding more carbon you are encouraging thr growth of symphylans and other organisms that are likely to be predators of your plants; and so by feeding them you are only encouraging less potent and healthy crops. Additionally, by adding a bunch of carbon that is unbalanced (say a bunch of sawdust), you are going to rob the soil of all of its nitrogen and make all of that less available for the plants you are trying to grow, stunting their growth. This makes sense, and all of that carbon does have to bed nitrogen to get it to be decomposed. But something has to feed the fungi, doesn’t it? I actually look at carbon as a media in which to grow plants more than anything – but that is more due to its great abundance to me than anything else. And my carbon is not so unbalanced either, being chock full of delicious nitrogen as well, a veritable shmorgasboard of food for any and all comers. A couple of things I think about are worms. When steve Solomon was doing his writing about symphylans and such, did he factor worms into the equation? Because I have a whole ecology built around worms – and this nitrogen rich ecology positively thrives, and grows despite copious additions of carbon, and I think it might be that the worms favor the presence of species such that might eat the symphylans themselves. I haven’t tested that theory – but it is one I’ve put forward. Additionally, worms work through carbon so fast, something that would take months to rot naturally is gone in a relatively few days or weeks at most in my worm bin. They are greedy eaters and converters of wastes and as they thrive, so do the others in the bin, and in the summer – the plants along with them all in the same soil. Redworms are marvelous.
The little chickens are doing well. Even in the rain they seem to do well enough – huddling together when they need to, and eating a whole bunch so they can grow bigger, stronger. I think they would still like a big heat lamp; but that’s a danger I’m not willing to have out there. I knew it was going to be a bit of a struggle getting baby chickens so late – but I still think they’ll do just fine, and I look forward to seeing myself proved right.
Limpy the duck is almost back to normal. She has a bit of a hitch in her giddy-up but she is not impeded any longer, and trundles along with all of the other ducks as they waddle around the garden. The whole lot of them have had their wings trimmed, so they aren’t up on the roof any longer. But even landbound they still continue to eat all the grass they can find: and if we had any slugs on the property they’ve long since been routed out and consumed. I wonder what might happen come spring, when the frogs are out and about in force – will they be edible to the ducks, and not poisonous or will I lose some animals when they glut themselves on toxin-laden toad?
Still some mysterious yet to be revealed, I suppose.
Dom
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
I love chickens.
Well, things have been developing at the homestead. The update on the little chicks is that they are doing well. Despite the fact that the evenings seem to be pretty cold, the little birds appear to be absolutely thriving. Every morning I go in there, and they are bright eyed and bushy tailed and running around.
Thinking about it, I've been surprised that the rest of the chicken flock hasn't pestered them. Usually, older birds will not appreciate new additions to the flock and are likely to attack them. I thought we'd be okay because there are sheer numbers advantages for the smaller birds – they outnumber the old birds 2:1, so even if one of them is singled out, they can all bear a little bit of the brunt and as a whole they should be fine. But, now I think its simpler than that.
I think the reason the older birds are so okay with the new birds is those three little chicks that we've had in the coop for weeks. Because those young birds have been there, under the protective and watchful eye of their mother. So, the flock has been used to little birds running around. In addition, they've leared early on that pecking little birds leads to severe negative consequences from the momma hen. I think the 24 new little ones are benefitting from this training the flock got – sort of a protective immunity because the flock has learned to leave little chicks alone. Trust me, I'm grateful for this happy circumstance – but it isn't what I was predicting.
Kelsie has been busy marketing eggs. I think we've found a few more interested parties, so now Kelsie is more interested in keeping the layer hens for egg production than in selling the hens as I had planned later next spring. We'll see what happens, it depends. Its rather a tough balancing act for us – the draw to sell hens is pretty high (getting money to pay for feed helps a lot), but we can't have the demand for selling more eggs unless we have enough eggs to meet their needs, which means retaining more hens than we need while we look for more customers. Catch-22. I'm happy either way, and I still think I'll be able to sell each and every one of those hens next spring. Also, I plan on having the capability to breed our own baby birds at that point, so we won't have to go to outside sources for our chicks – and we'll let the mother hens raise the birds thank you very much. So far though, I haven't seen any of the Australorps go broody – so I don't know how good of mothers they are going to be for their own baby chicks. That's unfortunate, I had thought they'd be broody like our white cochins are: alas. Perhaps we'll have to get more silkies to grow up our babies for us, they certainly are good for that, going broody at the drop of a hat (or an egg). We'll see if the market I predicted for young hens pans out – and we'll see if there is a market for locally-raised day-old-chicks as well. I'd be happy either way, as long as we're selling batches of something that can help me keep the chickens in feed through the winter.
We trimmed the remainder of the duck's wings. The males are looking plenty delicious – and I'm about ready to pick my favorite and throw the rest in the freezer. I think I'd eat the ducks, they look really good. I'm happy that we got their wings trimmed so they won't do so much flying – they spent a lot of time on top of the house and we started seeing some “presents” up there that we didn't like much at all. Besides, it caused more stress for us not knowing if there would be ducks in the backyard when we let the dogs out: this is a much better situation. Kelsie did the trimming, while I held the ducks. Duck claws HURT, and are Really Really sharp. Wear long sleeved (leather?) shirts and gloves when handling ducks against their will like this.
The lame she-duck that I hurt while trimming wings earlier last week seems to be doing okay. She's waddling around and eating and drinking. I think she broke a bone in her foot or leg, but slowly it will heal: even now I see her starting to try to put weight on it. She lost some in the dominance hierarchy, but at least she isn't dead, but I don't expect her to understand that.
The garden is picked out. There aren't even any ripening tomatoes left in the beds anywhere. The worms should be working through the abundance of material I put down for them, and I just filled up the worm bit with guinea pig bedding, so they'll be able to work through that as well. That's going to be an amazing bed next year, I'm excited to see what comes out of it. We'll be adding more guinea pig bedding to the other beds over the winter, building up more organic material there and beneath other plants and trees. It is so wonderful to have this material to work with: almost worth the hassle of having the guinea pigs. I wish we had more rich material to really grow out some fat worms on: but alas we can't have everything. I can't wait until spring, when I can start planting again. I still haven't sown any winter cover crops, feeling a bit like a slacker because of it: but I wanted to give the chickens and the ducks every opportunity to root through the beds that they wanted, finding all of the bugs and growing fat before winter set in. I wish the chickens and the ducks would have eaten more of the clover that I grew for them down in the clearing. I might have to get a goat just to have them mow that stuff: but I suppose the bees will appreciate it, and their appreciation will lead to honey for me: so even if no mammals eat the stuff I'll still benefit from having put that in. I bet the bevy of baby chicks I plan on having next year will munch through it as well, but we'll have to see. Wouldn't the clearing be a great place to put in a small pond that we could watch ducklings paddling around in?
Yeah for farminess.
Dom
Sunday, October 25, 2009
The last of the fall chores.
The clucks are finishing up their job of eating the remainders of the garden. Chickens rip up the beds, searching for worms in in so doing ntill up the dry parts and the remainder material that sits on top of the beds. Other chickens go after the produce – finding the remaining cherry tomatoes on the ground where they fell when I ripped out the garden, pecking seeds from the husks of overripe cucumbers and squashes. The grass and weed seeds are long gone, and I’ve even noticed them eating baby weeds and scratching up bare earth so new seedlings cannot take root next year, efficient little buggers, and they haven’t even begun to exploit the copious amounts of green foods available on our property, not by a long shot. The ducks troll through the entire backyard, and taller grass strands fall in their wake, better than lawn mowers, and theoretically we’ll get a few delicious dinners and some eggs out of the deal as well, what a bargain. And I haven’t even SEEN a slug in weeks. I actually have a mild fear for the toads next year. The toads have some poisin in them, but I don’t know if even that will prevent my voracious birds from going after them in their multitudes. Time will tell.
I picked up most of the remaining fruits of the garden and laid them to rest in the worm bin. They’ll like safely there, being eaten, and giving birth to new generations of worms. That will be the most prodigious bed for two years in a row as a result, I am quite certain. Next year I will migrate the worms to another bed, to share the wealth as it were, but for this year it will be okay. We had much less waste this year than last, not having a crappy year for growing things as we did last year. The worms won’t have quite so much to eat, and I really should get around to supplementing them with some apples, but I just haven’t had the wherewithal to go collect them this year as I did last year. It would be different if they were on our property, but its about the same as manure: it’d be great to have, but not so great that I feel that motivated to go out and pick it up.
Last night I burned the logs from the mushroom projects. These were a failed attempt, and I know what happened to them. They were just sitting around and cluttering things up at this point, so it is just as well that they were burned, and they made one hell of a fire that was a joy to stand in front of, even if you couldn’t stand to be in front of it for more than a joyful second. The minerals and such that the fire left being will hopefully extend the reach of the clover patch next year – although on that account there are no promises as the clover seems to do what it wants, when it damn well wants to do it. But fire pits seem to help, for whatever reason.
The chickens have been out in the yard more and more. I mean the backyard, but I also mean the greater yard that is the whole property. We haven’t lost a single animal, save for the raven loss early in the year. I think Kelsie is warming to the idea of seeing the animals out, and letting them work to gather their foods from the nature around us. There is certainly more than enough to eat for those willing to collect it, and scratch in the dirt a little. I think the chickens will make it through the winter just fine – and next spring we’ll let them all set a clutch or two of eggs and we’ll expand the flock a little as well as have a few more chicks to sell on craigslist.
I wish the chickens and ducks were more enthusiastic about the clover. There is so much delicious clover out there – with nothing to enjoy it much. It wouldn’t be enough to even keep a single goat occupied for too long, but it is more than enough for something smaller (maybe a pygmy goat). But the chickens seem content with the grass that’s been given to them: but the nitrogen is so tasty. Bunnies would eat the grass – but keeping bunnies outside seems problematic at best.
Enjoy the outside while you can get it adorable animals!
The flood is coming.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
The New Chicken Chateau.
Ah, how chickens make the world go round.
Over the last few weeks we've been talking a lot about building a new home for the chickens. We've hemmed and hawed. We even purchased a brand new shed that we thought would be good, although in the end it seemed like it might be better for us than for the chickens, so we won't be giving that to them.
Kelsie and I are both in the mood to save money at present, so we went ahead and picked the most economical solution. We just retrofitted some other equipment that we had around the homestead already to serve better than it was.
From the pictures you can see the result. We took the triangular chicken hut that used to be the entirity of our chicken housing, and which has since been downgraded to a nesting box in a large enclosure and added onto it. We placed beneath the chicken hut one of the chicken tractors that we built last year to move guinea pigs and clucks around the yard. We shimmed it up with some pieces of leftover wood.
Elevating the hut like this should help it last longer, and we've effectively doubled the square footage of inside area that is habitable by the animals during the rains. We plan on keeping this new area well stocked with hay throughout the winter, and it should go a long way towards making a good home for them. Winds aren't so much a problem out here - as their entire area is well tucked into the woods where the wind would have trouble blowing, and other than getting potentially snowed in (we'd help them out!) I think they'll use it throughout the winter.
Off the side of the structure I built them a little veranda. The tarp above the coop hasn't been keeping things as dry as I would like, and I worried about their food getting wet. The new veranda consists of a suspension of pipes and a board, over which is places a heavy-duty aluminum framed skylight. These skylights have been obtained from Builder's bargains - and I have found them extremely useful for any number of tasks, most especially keeping heat into spaces during the winter - anyhow - this one will be sitting here and keeping the food dry as well as giving chickens another place to huddle when it gets wetter. The suspension is strong enough to hold up even when there is a foot of snow, and the skylight is heavy enough not to blow away even in our heavier storms. Plus, it looks cool. At first Kelsie was skeptical of my idea to add this - but after we put it in, it was her favorite part.
Over the last couple of days we've been able to see it in action - the hut has still been used for egg laying (we were worried the chickens might not bother to climb the steps to reach their new area), and the hutch below has been occupied each night by the mother chickens and babies, claimers of the best real estate in the run.
We have another of the chicken tractors, and I think it likely that before the winter is out, we'll convert the other tractor into a similar hut that could be used by chickens or ducks in another part of the run. These structures should serve well, and the price is right, and as long as we take better care of them, the should give a few more years of service. They were, after all, built with wood that was at the end of its life to begin with.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Why Ducks are better than Chickens for the PNW homestead
While the ducks were out tonight, we made an interesting discovery: not only can the ducks fly, but they can fly well. After getting up on the fence, a couple of the male ducks (who seem to fly the best) decided it would be a good idea to fly up to the roof of the house and sit up there the entire time that peaches and chubbs were doing their business. It was fun to think about having roof ducks; but I suppose it’s a dangerous situation with us not being able to predict the presence or absence of the ducks in the backyard: so, time for wings to get clipped.
Speaking of the ducks though, the more I think about it, the more ducks seem to be a better farmyard bird for the pacific northwest. Please forgive me if I work this up a little, but it just seems so obvious to me after raising both that I’d like to lay it all out.
First, the ducks don’t mind water – in fact they love water in all its forms, ponds, little drips, waterfalls, anything – just spill a dish of water on the ground and they love it. It rains a lot here, enough said. As for the rain though: it doesn’t bother them the way it bothers the chickens – ducks were made to get wet, and they’re prepared for it. Their little feet are made for getting around in muddy conditions and they are able to seek out food even under muddy circumstances. They don’t get all soaked and pathetic looking down to the down like chickens do when it rains: and here it rains a lot.
Because it rains a lot here, we’ve got a lot of slugs. Anyone out here knows that slugs are a big problem for a lot of PNW gardeners. Not for those lucky gardeners who have ducks, however. Ducks LOVE slugs – and I mean love them, they will eat them until their bellies are full or their faces are too covered in slime to continue. If you lived in the rainforest, I think you could easily raise a small patch of ducks on slugs alone. Here, we don’t have quite that many slugs, but the ducks HAVE enjoyed every one of them that I could catch throughout the summer, and could easily have eaten ten times more – they’ll go out and search for them, and would rather eat a slug than your garden produce.
Ducks don’t crow. Male chickens, necessary for the perpetuation of the species, aren’t good for much else and they make a tremendous racket. Drakes don’t crow, so you can still have all of the little babies ducklings without the alarm clock at 3 in the morning in the middle of summer.
The ducks seem better ate foraging: they are better prepared to consume grass because of their bill shape, and they relish fresh greens much moreso than the chickens do. That being said, growing them in a subsistence fashion should be much easier because getting nitrogen from plant sources is relatively easy for gardens in most locales.
Ducks lay more eggs than chickens, the eggs are bigger, they are better for baking. Ducks will routinely lay 350 eggs a year, and while they don’t lay them in the same place as steadfastly as their Indian cousins, they are much more regular about it.
All in all, for the pacific northwest gardener, with conditions of high rain, limited nitrogen possibilities and lack of easy subsistence crops nearby like feed corn or wheat from a neighbor ducks represent a more hardy and more easily fed subsistence animal that is a pleasure to keep and more suited to our climactic conditions.
