So much for the truce

Well things were fine and peaceful all day when the big girls could be in and out of the coop and the yard. But this afternoon there was a rainstorm and we put everyone back inside and the big girls managed to get between the mesh and the run wall and totally attacked the little girls. My son ran in and rescued the little girls and we got everyone separated again. I took the kids to a friends for the night and when I got back they were all in the little girls section again and were chasing them around like crazy. So I guess its back to the kennel for the little girls for a little while longer until they are a little bigger, or until I can build a full wall to keep them separate - which I guess will end up on my chore list for next weekend :(

At least I had good news in the nesting box and a surprise snack from the fig tree. Hopefully the commotion of catching everyone and rescuing the little girls from the attack won't throw off Cadbury's laying - she is the only one who hasn't attacked the little girls and she is the only one laying - so right now she is my absolute favorite. In the last 7 days she has laid 6 eggs and they are delicious. I have to say the Easter Eggers all seem to have a mean streak - so if there aren't some blue and green eggs soon and they continue to be so aggressive to the little girls - they may be headed for new homes before too long.

New home for the little girls

The little girls now have their own little house and a divider to give them some run space without subjecting them to the pecking and attacks from the big chickens. I am hoping to get them all integrated by the end of August so the little girls can start free ranging too,but they need to be a little bigger first. Their house has a little perch for them - only about 4 inches off the floor so that it is "hopping" height since Silkies aren't fliers.

I continue to get an egg a day from Cadbury and I think Amelia isn't far behind her. She has started checking out the nest boxes and cackling more like Cadbury does - so I think the time is near. I can't wait to see if I get blue or green eggs - I hope so!!

Lilly - the Silkie - is so cute - she is a little fluff ball! The only problem is that yesterday - when working on the house and dividing wall I swear I heard her trying to crow! I really, really hope Lilly does not turn out to be a rooster because I don't want a rooster but I really wanted a Silkie. I am hoping that maybe it was just a unique call that was due to her being frightened by the sounds of the drill and tools, but I guess time will tell.

Moving time for the new chicks

Sorry it has been so long for a decent update! The good news is - the chicks moved out into the coop. They are still in a little dog kennel to keep them safe from the big girls but they are out of my living room - YAY!!! The picture on the left is the day they moved in - they are in the house part of the coop. Each day when I am home I move them out either into the coop run or out on the grass - still in the kennel - but that way they can peck around in the grass and sand and start to pick up grit and get used to the routine. They really enjoy the time out on the grass. I am a little nervous about letting them all out together because since Athena (the black and white Barred Plymouth Rock) and Lilly (the white Silkie) are bantam breeds they will be much smaller than the big girls so I think they will be safer if they have a little more size before they are all together.

The big girls are really enjoying their free time in the yard. I am lucky to be able to work from home so in the morning before I get started I let them out of the coop to roam around the yard. I check them at lunch and then lock them back into the coop in the evening when I take them the table scraps (mostly just the starch and veggies). They usually come running because they are eager to see whats for dinner each night :)

I have about 6-8 weeks to go before I start getting eggs and I can't wait! Since we will average about 12 eggs every 3 or 4 days I decided I better come up with some ways to use up all those eggs so I started practicing some egg heavy recipes this weekend. I have to say the kids loved it Sunday when we had a Dutch Baby for breakfast (uses 3 whole eggs) and then home made ice cream for dessert after dinner (6 egg yolks). Of course I still have to use up the remaining 6 egg whites, but I have a few ideas - maybe Angel Food cake? Baked Alaska? Meringues? Going to try to use them up tomorrow night. I will keep you posted!

Video clip

My daughter was bored today and decided to take my new toy (iPhone 4) out into the yard to shoot a little video of the chickens. The little girls are still separated so they won't get picked on but so far everyone seems to be getting along fine. I will keep them separated for probably another week and then let them all be together. But even in their little crate they enjoy being out in the grass and being able to peck around. I have some other pictures and will try to get them posted soon - I know I am terribly behind on updates - summer vacations and chores have kept me too busy.

In gardening news I am sad to say I don't have much to report - I seem to have an uncanny ability to kill squash plants which is odd considering most people I know get so many they don't know what to do with them. On mine the stems all seem to split near the ground and they dry out and die. It isn't a beetle - I read they can split from uneven watering and we have had some periods of heavy rain so maybe that is what caused it? I'm not really sure but I planted a few more and am hoping they make it. I am getting lots of black eyed peas - now I just need to make some soup or something to use them up :) I got enough cucumbers to make a few jars of pickles before leaving for vacation and got back to plants that look very unhappy so I am hopeful that those weren't the last cucumbers I will get this year. Our temperatures are in the mid-90s so it is pretty hot - I may have to wait for a fall crop to get many more.

Sorry for the lack of pictures - I will do my best to get some new ones posted this weekend.

Eggplant recipe

Well - this is very late being posted - I apologize for the huge lag in new posts, but things have been busy since my kids got out of school for the summer.

In the post prior to this one I had some eggplant from the garden and was looking for what to do with it and I found a yummy recipe for grilled eggplant with a grilled tomato relish. Here is how to make it:

• 2-3 small Japanese eggplants (6 inches long each)
  
• 3-4 tomatoes - Roma and/or Green Zebra
  
• 1 Tbsp roughly chopped parsley
  
• 1 Tbsp finely minced red onion
  
• 1 Tbsp Olive Oil
  
• 1 1/2 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
  
• Crumbled Feta Cheese
  
• Salt and pepper to taste

Slice Japanese eggplant lengthwise, brush lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt. Halve Roma or Green Zebra tomatoes and brush with olive oil. Grill eggplant halves until charred and cooked through (time depends on size of eggplant - for these small ones it was about 8 minutes total). Grill tomatoes until charred and roughly chop. Combine hot chopped tomatoes, red onion, parsley, olive oil, vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Place grilled eggplant - cut side up on a plate, top with warm tomato relish and sprinkle feta cheese over the top.

Here are a few more pictures of produce gathered from my garden over the last weeks. You will notice there are no plums - sadly when I was on my last business trip the squirrels (raccoons? possums?) cleared them out - not a single plum was left! I don't have any good pictures of the new little girls - they are so jumpy when the flash goes off that I had to take the pictures with my hand in front of the flash. You can see that even with that Lilly (the silkie) jumped a bit - that is why her wings are out :)

Eggplant recipes anyone?

The chicks are growing and doing well. They grow so fast. At two weeks they have nearly fully feathered wings and are showing tail feathers. All except Athena (the little black one - bantam Barred Plymouth Rock) - she has barely any feathers anywhere - she is still all fuzz. Sometimes I guess roosters feather out more slowly than hens, but also different breeds seem to develop at slightly different rates - so I am not sure which scenario is in play here but I sure hope Athena doesn't turn out to be a rooster! We had this same concern with Pouf, but right now I think Pouf is a hen, so hopefully Athena is just a late bloomer!

The big girls are really enjoying being out in the yard - but I think they are sad that I had to fence them out of the veggie garden. In this picture Cadbury is in the front (she is a Silver Cuckoo Marans), the Amelia is next and Pouf in the back (both Easter Eggers). Milkshake (also an Easter Egger) is not in this picture but she is usually right there with the other girls grazing in the grass and eating bugs. I have been out of town this week so they have been in their coop all week and I am sure they will be really excited to get out this weekend.

As you can see in the picture from the garden across to the coop the driveway eats up a lot of what could be "pasture" for the girls, but I think I have taken advantage of the space as well as I can at this point so they will just have to be content with the few little strips of grass. I am hoping to get some white clover to grow in some of the bald spots, but it is becoming clear that to give it a chance to get established I will need to fence it off or keep the girls in the coop long enough to get it going.

In the garden, I was able to pick some plums off the tree before I left - they were still a little too green but I was afraid they would fall off before I got home from this trip. I hope Friday morning I have a whole bunch of plums perfect for picking and not a bunch of plums lying in my yard! I also an starting to have black eyed peas (the long skinny pods in the picture below) and I think I will have one or two Japanese Eggplant to pick when I get home. Does anyone have some good, fairly healthy eggplant recipes you can share with me? I have not cooked with it much before so all I can think of right now is either grilled eggplant or maybe make Babba Ganoush out of it. I would appreciate pointers if anyone has them! I also had a few tomatoes on the verge of being ripe that I didn't want to find on the ground after getting home so I picked those before I left and gave them to a friend to let ripen on his counter. They won't be as good as they would be if they ripened on the vine but I figure they must be better than the ones picked totally green that they gas to turn red and then put in the stores!

Happy gardening everyone!

Sunny sunny days

It has been a gorgeous sunny weekend! I got quite a bit of yard work done and did a little harvesting from the garden. The potatoes had all pretty well given up the ghost so I pulled them up and found about 2 pounds of potatoes down in the soil - added to the pound I already dug up and I have to say I think I did pretty well for just 8 plants. I think if I plant some again at the end of the summer I might be able to get a second harvest so they will go on my "try again in the fall" list. :) I also got another huge number of tomatillos - so tonight for dinner the kids and I had some salsa and oven fries courtesy of the garden to go with our dinner.

Soon it looks like I will start getting cucumbers, tomatoes and plums too! The plums are starting to turn a nice rosy color - I am betting I will have a few ready to pick in the next day or so. I am HOPING that next weekend I have enough that I can make some plum jam! I also have some eggplant starting to form and lots of flowers on the yellow squash. I wonder if I could get the kids to eat stuffed squash blossoms? Hmmmm - maybe I will try it later this week if the flowers keep coming at the rate they are now. I did get my daughter to try some sauteed yellow crookneck squash and she liked it - so that is a good addition to the growing list of veggies she enjoys. My son didn't try them - but I am hoping next time I can get him to give them a try.

I finally got some plants into the small raised bed on the corner of my patio and also potted some citronella plants and put them on my back patio. I am hoping I can keep the mosquitoes away from the patio so the kids and I can enjoy it this summer and not get chewed to bits. Even if they don't work 100% - I think they look nice - so the patio is ready for summer.

The chicks are all doing well - with the exception of the Barred Plymouth Rock that was my son's specially chosen chick. She keeps getting "pasty butt" - which means she gets poop stuck in the feathers around her bottom and can't go to the bathroom. So I have been carefully washing her feathers off about once a day hoping to help her get past it - but it has me a little worried. My son will be really upset if she doesn't make it. Other than the pasty butt issue she seems fine - eating and drinking and pecking around in the shavings - so I am hopeful that she will be fine.

New little peepers!

Our new (and final) set of chicks arrived today! It was a sad start because when we opened the box, two were dead. I think the box might have been a little too big for so few chicks, but whatever the reason, they did not make it. One was a Silkie and the other was an Easter Egger - luckily one Silkie survived. She is pictured to the left - unlike most chickens, Silkies have 5 toes instead of 4, they have black bones, skin and meat, and their "feathers" look more like long fluffy fur. They are a bantam sized chicken so they will be about half the size of a regular chicken which means eggs that are quite small - about twice the size of a quail egg if I understand correctly. I desperately wanted one - and so did my daughter - so I am so relieved that one of the two survived the trip.

We also had special ordered a bantam sized Barred Plymouth Rock - that is the kind my son wanted. I am happy to report that she also survived the trip - her name is Athena. My son loves mythology and decided Athena would be a good name - I have to say it is a pretty lofty name for a chicken, but perhaps she will live up to it ;)

The other two girls that survived the trip are two more Easter Eggers. They were originally ordered for my mom, but she has had a lot of medical issues this year and decided she cannot take them. Luckily I have a friend whose parent's have decided they would like them - so when they are big enough they will move to a new home. But for now they are in the brooder with Athena and the yet to be named Silkie. My daughter is very concerned with getting exactly the right name for such a special chicken. Originally she was going to go with Lilly which is her favorite name for all things, but she also likes Fluffers and Marshmallow - so she is still weighing the options. The Easter Eggers are also missing names - but we will work on those next. Oliver has already resumed his normal post on the back of the couch watching the chicks. He is very interested in them but seems to remember they are off limits - but I am still keeping a close eye on him just to be safe!

Everything is growing...

The chickens are still getting bigger - and the gardens are growing too. Unfortunately while on a business trip the temperatures went up and the broccoli bloomed so I had to pull it all up and throw it in the composter. The brussel sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower all followed suit - right into the composter. I have to say its a little disappointing that none of those plants produced anything - but if I look at the bright side at least I now know that I need to plant those crops in the fall - not in the spring. Lesson learned.

The cucumbers are starting to work their way up the trellis, the second planting of pole beans (center in this picture) are starting to grow, the fennel is starting to form small bulbs (in front of the pole beans) and the carrots are about 6 inches tall. I am so anxious to actually be able to harvest something it is killing me! We have picked a few snow peas but I really didn't plant enough so the kids are mostly just eating them as garden snacks. I also learned that next year I should probably plant a whole row of them and that I need a taller support structure for them than I tried this year. This garden expansion has no end to learning opportunities :)

So to reintroduce the girls - in front in this picture is Pouf - I think she is a she after all! The "blond" in the middle is Milkshake - you can really see the ruff around her chin in this pic. Amelia is peeking over Milkshake's back - her face is a dark gray and she has a really pronounced ruff that looks like a beard. Maybe Lincoln would have been a better name :) Cadbury is in the back - her feathers are silver in the center with a dark edge around each one. She seems to be the smartest of the four and is usually the first to explore a new treat. Tonight they got horned worms out of the garden - I plucked the little destroyers off the tomatoes and tossed them in the coop. The girls tore into them - a little gross perhaps - but as a friend at work said - it is good revenge!

I hope to get more progress on fences and other things to finish up the yard - but with summer setting in and vacations coming around things may have to go slowly for awhile.

Teenage chickens and veggies galore!

Pouf (on the left) and Milkshake (on the right below) are both showing really pretty coloring. It is hard to see on the picture of Milkshake, but the kind of golden caramel color around her head outlines the edges of her feathers so she has kind of what they call a "laced" pattern. We are still not sure if Pouf is male or female but I'm still thinking maybe male - but only time will tell!

Cadbury is also a laced pattern - she has black feathers with a silver outline. Amelia for all her bravery is rather dull looking - her body is mostly a kind of ashy gray with a sort of golden layer over the gray and then black feathers on her head.

She looks like she is getting kind of a ruff or beard of feathers around her chin- that may give her a bit more style! What lady doesn't look better with a beard! :)

Not only are the chicks growing but so is the garden! It has rained for a week and the garden has been loving it. The asparagus that I planted has shot up so I was able to fill in the bed with dirt around the little stalks and they are ready to just grow for a year and hopefully put down strong roots and have some I can harvest next year. The spears are so thin right now that they are about half the size of a pencil - next year they should be a little bigger. I am so excited to have my own asparagus!

The tomatoes have set tiny fruit the size of a pencil eraser (below right) and there are quarter sized heads of broccoli also forming on several of the plants. The tomatillos are loaded with flowers and are also setting fruit - that is the little green thing that looks like a paper lantern. I love tomatillo salsa and chicken enchiladas verde so hopefully I will be making some with my own tomatillos this year! I need to find out what to do about the plum tree - the branches are so loaded with fruit that they are bent way over - so I think I need to probably removes some fruit from each branch to keep the branches from breaking as they ripen and to allow the tree to put more energy into the remaining fruit. My daughter is thrilled - she was very disappointed last year when we didn't get any plums.

Moving Day!

Moving day has arrived! The coop is all stained, the roosts are in and the ladder is done. The picture on the right shows the "fully furnished" version of the hen house with paper shavings for bedding and the roosts in place.








The chicks were nervous at first but very soon after being put in the hen house they found their way down the ladder and were pecking around in the grass and checking out the dust bath we made for them (under the house in the white block area). I am so thankful to be done enough to have them outside and get my living room back to the way it was meant to be - chicken free! I still need to build nest boxes and add them, but these girls won't start laying for at least another 20 weeks so I have some time for those!




The garden is also growing like crazy and starting to really look like a garden - not just little green shoots coming up. The mesculin that was just a few little leaves poking up into the air is now nearly ready to harvest. I am hoping to harvest some of it for a family dinner on Sunday.


The picture of the lone flower on the plum tree that I posted back in early March? Now the tree is covered with tiny green fruit that with luck will ripen into delicious plums. I say hopefully because last year with the drought we had the tiny little green plums all fell off - but there are so many this year that I have hope.

I have people coming to reposition some sprinklers to accommodate the raised beds later this week and the gate to enclose my yard at my alley entrance is scheduled for next week, but right now I am just going to enjoy being done with the coop!

Wired - but not for sound

Well, not totally wired, but at least it is a start. The hardware cloth is on to the bottom half of the front of the coop. I need to cut out around the door, but figure that I can do that once I finish stapling it down the rest of the way around. So for those of you who haven't built a chicken coop before, I will share that you can't use a staple gun, not even with large staples apparently. You have to buy special "poultry net" staples and hammer them in, so of course they bend and mash and don't all go in straight. For someone as Type "A" as myself bent mashed staples are really annoying, but considering how many of them I have to put in, I am learning to give up on the idea of perfection and go with "its good enough." :) I am hoping that I can finish wiring all the way around the bottom half tomorrow, between swimming lessons and other things planned. Hopefully the top half on Sunday when I have recruited my dad to come help again.




The chicks are still growing and eating like mad and I think I have basically two more weeks max before they outgrow their new larger brooder, so I need to pick up the pace a little on the coop. The picture on the right is Pouf - I think she (he?) is funny with her (for now I will go with her being a hen) big cheek tufts and the little light colored feather "spikes" on the top of her head - almost like little horns!



The spring flowers are starting in the yard which is a nice touch of spring too - the first rose bud is on my roses, the irises are blooming, the salvia (center picture) is blooming (which will hopefully mean hummingbirds soon) and the mountain laurel with its grape candy scented blossoms (picture on the right below) is also adding color to the yard.