Ouch!!!!

It was 23 degrees this morning when I stuck my nose out the door.  I immediately withdrew my nose from the outdoors, back into the warm house and slammed the door against the encroaching cold.  Three seconds of that was about to become painful, so I avoided it.

We get cold weather here in the deep south, just generally not this soon in the year.  It should be somewhere in the 40s and 50s, not the 20s.

We had a very cool summer this year.  It never got really hot, except for a couple of quick jabs, and we had lots of rain, which is just weird.  The earth never really got a lot of heat to absorb, so it could radiate it back at us.  The "experts" say that doesn't make any difference in what kind of year you have, but I'm not so sure.  Anyway, I've been saying all along that we were going to have a bad winter.  Just saying it though doesn't make it feel any better when it gets here.

And the first cold weather always seems to hurt worse than it does in the depths of winter.  My system hasn't adjusted and its not an instant turnover.  The first few days of cold, I never have enough layers on and I always get that bone chilling cold that you can't get rid of.

It's been getting steadily colder over the last couple of weeks, so I did get a running start.  I had pulled out my boots I bought from LL Bean when I used to live in Vermont.  They are old and worn, but they keep my feet warm and that's what counts.  I also found my heavy coat, made in Russia, (and we've all heard what the winters there are like) and have it on hand.  Gloves, scarves and mittens have all been turned out and are waiting in a basket by the door.

I'm late on winterizing the house, but I stopped by the DIY big box store yesterday and got the materials I needed to get to work.  It's suppose to warm up over the weekend, so I know what I'll be doing.

I went through the yard and picked up all the fallen sticks and made myself a box of kindling and put it on the porch.  I also pulled my little wagon full of firewood on the porch and I'm ready to light the woodstove.  The porch keeps the wood out of the house, but it's also out of the rain and all I have to do is take one step outside to grab a log.  Love it.

I have plenty of food in the house and I just got the heating unit serviced and it's working well.  Next week I've got to call and get some gas delivered, but other than that, I think I may be ready to hibernate for the winter.

I am so blessed and have so much to be thankful for.  I hope you all are having as wonderful a Thanksgiving weekend.

Giving Up

I've just about reached my toleration limit with the electronic devices in my life.  Our lives have become so complicated lately that we can't function without them.  And nowadays they overlap each other.  This is where my frustration comes into full play.

I love my blog.  I want to spend more time posting on it and letting my friends know what is happening on the farmette.  But posts without pictures are basically boring, so now I've got the computer AND a camera of some sort involved.  As time has progressed it's become easier and easier to do that.  Cords have been exchanged for cards, and wireless is the way to go.  Sure.

Seems like the easier it's gotten though, the more convuluted has become the path to get there.  You have to have the right software, the right hardware, the right accessories and a bit of knowhow to get it all done.  And of course, all this costs money, the commodity that I'm shortest on at the present time.

And if one part bites the dust, I'm screwed.  Welcome to my world at the moment.  My camera has been down for some time now and is showing no signs of coming back to life.  Hence, I have no photos for my blog, hence I have a boring blog, hence I have not been writing.  So I just give up.  I intend to keep writing, but you're just going to have to put up with no pictures, or ones that are old.

Bear with me.  I'm saving my pennies to buy a new camera, and hopefully it will be soon.

Surprises Big and Small

I have a variety of layers in my hen flock.  They lay all sizes and colors.  I get eggs that are white, brown, beige, green and even blue.  It makes for a lovely carton of eggs.

 

 



Occasionally I get a really big egg.

But for the most part, my eggs are just average side.  They would be sold in the store as large or medium size eggs.

 

 



 

But then last week, I picked up this egg in the hen house.

 

 



It looks like a normal egg, but there was something a bit different about it.  When you put it up against a  regular size egg, this is what you get.

The pictures just don't do it justice.

 



Of course, you can't just leave an egg like that.  I had to see what was inside.  I was amazed at how hard the shell was on it.  I had to give it three really hard whacks just to get it to crack.  Finally it came apart.

 

 

 



 





 A small white with a line of yolk in it.  Actually, I was a bit surprised that it had any yolk at all.  Eggs are fascinating things.

 

 



Springy Things

I know that Spring is going to get here sometime.  It is.  I just know it will.  You'd never have guessed it by the temperatures here the last few days though.  Forty-seven degrees is just not normal for here in the first half of May.

 

 

 

And certainly not by the vast amounts of water that have landed on top of us. 

 

 

 

 

Between the two it's been dank and cold here lately, but supposedly there is a warm spell headed this way.  We'll see.

 

In reality, though, Spring has shown up already.  Many things have bloomed and it's been quiet a show.  Here's some of Spring around the farmette.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Off My Feet

I'm kicking back and putting my feet up for a few days.  Not that I don't have anything to do, but I just don't have a choice in the matter.

A while back, my toe started to hurt.  It was an ingrown toenail on the right side of my big toe on my right foot.  No big deal.  I've had them before.  It starts out with a bit of soreness on the side of the nail, but a little work with a pair of nail clippers and it goes away. Didn't work this time, however, and it kept getting worse.  In fact, it got bad enough that I developed a limp.  And an infection.  It was obvious that this was beyond my ability to handle, and I needed to hand it over to the professionals. 

So Tuesday I went to my family doctor and she sent me to a podiatrist.  My appointment was for this morning and off I went expecting him to bring me back in the next day or two to dig out the ingrown toenail.  Not so.  He decided he could take care of it right then and there.

He deadened my toe.  That was not fun.  What he did next, I have no idea because I wouldn't look to see.  It sounded bad and smelled worse.  According to what he told me, he took off the side of my nail (sound), took out the ingrown part and then cauterized the root (smell) so that it wouldn't grow back.

After it was over, I looked at the ingrown shard that he had pulled out, and it was huge!  It was about 1/2 inch long and had been growing straight down into my toe.  Good Lord!  No wonder it was hurting so badly.

So he bundled my toe in gauze and sent me home with good drugs.  I started getting the feeling back just as I got home so I took advantage of the pain killers and spent the afternoon piled up in my mom's guest bedroom snoozing away.  What luxury!  Sister is taking care of the chickens and goats, so all I'm doing is sitting around surfing the web and watching videos.  I'll have to be back up and at it in a couple of days, so I figure I'll take advantage of it while I can.

Cock-A-Doodle-Doo

I currently have too many roosters.  I have seven.  According to chicken culture, you should have about one rooster for every 10 to 12 hens.  Earlier in the year, I had about 70 hens so everything was running smoothly.  This particular group of roosters are very nice to have around.  They do their job of continuing their genetic lines, plus they are on constant lookout for predators and work hard to find the best scratching spot for their particular group of ladies.  Best of all they all get along together and I don't have to be on the constant alert for fights.

A problem has developed lately though with the loss of several of my hens.  Something went through the flock and I had a few just drop dead from God only knows what (that just happens sometimes).  I've lost a few to predators (I've got a red tailed hawk that has discovered the chicken buffet here) and then a few were lost to their own stupidity (jumping over the fence into the waiting jaws of my sister's dog qualifies in the stupidity catagory).  Their loss has thrown my numbers off.  I'm averaging about six hens per rooster now and things are getting a bit tense around the barnyard.

This is Champ, my main rooster.  He took the position of main roo with the passing of his father Red.  I haven't got a clue who his mother is, but Champ is about three years old and doing a marvelous job of keeping everybody in line.

My second in line is a black Minorca by the name of Kemosabe.  I bought him about a year and a half ago as a chick and he's quiet handsome.  His biggest downfall is that he crows all the time.  And I mean all the time, 24/7.

 

 

 

The three muskateers come next and I have to look at them really closely to tell them apart.

 

 

 

 

Pigeon is up next but he was being very camera shy the day I was taking pictures and went and hid.

 

Last but not least is the Lone Ranger.  He's at the bottom of the pecking order which makes no sense as he is the largest rooster I have.  I'm guessing that he's about 10 to 12 pounds and he outweighs even Champ.  He doesn't push his weight around, however, and always lets the other roos have precedent.  I worry about him hurting some of the hens, but his personality has saved him from the stew pot so far.

 

 

 

 

 

I keep thinking that I need to get rid of some of them as I'm down so many hens, but this is such a good crew of roosters that I can't bring myself to do it.  I've got so many chicks coming on this spring that I keep hoping they will continue to get along well until I can replace the hens in a few weeks.  Wish me luck.



Bubbling Away

I've always been a fan of saurkraut (it's the German in me).  When I was a kid we ate it fairly regularly with sausage (another German staple) and it was just a meal I took for granted.  Things changed over time, though, and I realized we weren't eating kraut and sausage as often.  For one thing the kraut tasted funny, off a bit.  It wasn't the kraut of my youth, tangy and spicy with an earthy scent that blended with the sausage.  Now it was sharp and bitter and tended to clash with the taste of the sausage.  I  just figured my taste for these things were changing and over time gave it up altogether.

Then one day, I was reading an article on saurkraut and I discovered back in the 70s/80s companies that were making kraut transitioned from the old way of fermenting cabbage to make their kraut to simply dumping shredded cabbage in a vat of vinegar and letting it sit until the cabbage wilted, then canning it, labeling it kraut and sending it out the door.  Took a lot less time, hence cheaper, and they could get more out the door in a shorter amount of time, therefore more profit for less work.

Soooo...for several years I just went without saurkraut.  Since I've moved back home though, I've been wanting kraut and since I'm doing the "from scratch" thing nowdays I decided to give it a go on my own.  I wasn't expecting much, but figured the worst I could do was make some unique chicken food.

Ever since I saw one, I've been wanting a fermenting crock, so Sister got me one as a present.  This particular one is Polish and I have to admit it looks a lot nicer than the German ones.  The German ones are very utilitarian (imagine that, Germans-functional!) but not as artistically done as the Polish ones.

 



So I got myself a head of cabbage, and then decided, Why stop there?  I added sweet and hot peppers, garlic, onions and carrots.  I figure if I'm going to ferment, I should ferment in a big way.

 



 So I chopped it all up, mixed it with the required amount of salt, packed it into the crock, sealed the whole mess up and waited.

 

 



One thing I love about this crock is that it has a water seal lid.  Once you put the lid in place, you pour water in the small lip around the crock opening and it seals the lid on.  No air can get in to cause bacteria growth and it cuts down on the spoilage enormously.  (as long, of course, as you keep an eye on the lid and don't let it go dry)  The lid will occasionally burb however as the cabbage begins to ferment and outgasses.  That little bubble popping through the water tells you that everything is working as it should and all is right with the world.

So after the crock is packed, it's a waiting game.  The recommendation is two weeks minimum, but you can let it wait much, much longer if you've got the patience (I don't).  Longer waiting simply gives the kraut a tangyier bite, but won't hurt or ruin it at all.

So I waited, and waited, and waited.  Finally the two weeks arrived and the lid came off.  Oh my!  Was this stuff ever good!  The cabbage part was so much of my childhood coming back to me, and the other veggies were just a wonderful add on.  I'm especially fond of the carrots.  They are still crunchy and have a salty, sweet, soury kind of flavor.  I have to admit to not being overly impressed with the peppers and think I will leave them out in the future.  And since it is fermented food, it has tons of good probiotics in it which make you feel all good inside.

So now the pot is going non-stop and we'll be having kraut for forever.  It's super simple to make and just about any vegetable will ferment in there.  The problem is making the last batch last long enough to get the new batch through the initial fermentation.  I see more crocks in my future.