Eggs!!!!!

WOW! I guess I must have counted months wrong because we just got our first eggs! I didn't see any when I put the girls away last night, but this evening when I went out there were TWO little brown eggs! I am thinking that maybe they are from Cadbury - our Silver Cuckoo Marans (in the picture below). Marans are supposed to lay dark chocolate brown eggs. These are not very dark, but I understand that Marans egg color darken as the hen matures. Eggs also typically get larger as the hens mature - so while these two eggs are pretty small we can expect larger ones as the months go on.

If they are both from Cadbury, she must have laid one last night when I put them into the coop for the night - and maybe the other one today sometime. I didn't see either egg when I let them out this morning, so maybe I have two girls who started at the same time? I honestly have no idea how to figure out who laid them! The Easter Eggers will hopefully lay blue or green eggs, but sometimes they also lay brown eggs so these could be from one of the "EE"s. Any chicken people out there who can guess at which breed these came from? One looks like it has a stripe around the middle and is darker on the ends than the center. You can see that in the picture above. I included the quarter so you can judge the size better.

Is it dorky to be SO excited over eggs? :)

Mmmmm Fredericksburg peaches

In addition to the chicks moving out, I got a few other things done over the last few days. I finally got the kids out to Fredericksburg to pick some peaches. Those of you who aren't from Texas who have never had a Fredericksburg peach may have had delicious peaches in your lives, but there is nothing like a peach from the Texas hill country! We picked close to 13 pounds of peaches in just under 2o minutes. It was a hot day so the fast results were fine with me! I am sorry to say I did not take a picture of the cobbler I made - I was so amazed with it that we dug right in and didn't think about pictures until after the fact. I will share the recipe with you though - it was so easy it is amazing.

• 4 cups sliced fresh peaches
• 2 cups sugar (divided)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 stick of butter
• 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups milk

Preheat the oven to 350. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together into a bowl. Stir in 1 cup of the sugar and set aside. In a medium sauce pan, combine the peaches, 1 cup of sugar and the water. Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. While the peaches are cooking put the stick of butter in an oven safe casserole (I used an 8x10 casserole dish) and put it in the oven. When peaches are cooked remove them from the heat. Stir the milk into the flour mixture and combine thoroughly. When the batter is combined, remove the hot casserole from the oven - being careful not to burn yourself. Pour the batter into the hot butter - DO NOT STIR. Spoon the peaches over the batter and drizzle on about a cup of the cooking liquid - DO NOT STIR. Put the whole thing back in the oven and cook for 35-45 minutes or until the batter has puffed up around the peaches and has turned a golden brown. Remove the cobbler from the oven and let cool about 10 minutes and serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

I have seen this recipe called "floating peach cake" and "canned peach cake." It was so good that I really want to make it again but knowing the peaches won't be available for long I decided to can my own in cobbler recipe portions :) So the three jars in the picture at the top will be used to make cobbler in a month or two when there are no more fresh peaches available. Somehow I think that when my birthday rolls around in November I will make myself a cobbler for my cake :)

I also made the nesting box for the chickens over the weekend. It is in the garage for now - until the new chicks are out of the kennel and then I will move it into the hen house. There are two nest boxes - chickens share so two should be enough for 6 chickens. I also had enough black eyed peas to make some ham hock and black eyed pea soup and I got a nice squash from my only remaining summer squash, a cucumber and a few small cloves of garlic. I may plant a few more squash but it is pretty hot here now so I may need to wait until late August or early September to get the second harvest planting started. I may try starting some in my living room in a few weeks and try moving them outdoors when they are a little bigger.

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!

Straight from the garden

Just a few pictures today - along with the recipe for tomatillo salsa that I made.

• 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
• 1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro
• 1 cup chopped tomatoes
• 1 cup chopped tomatillo
• 2 large carrots
• juice of 2 limes
• juice of 1 orange
• salt to taste

I like to chop all the veggies in the food processor - it is quick and easy that way. If you like it spicy - add however much chopper jalapeno you like!

Tonight we had the left over salsa before dinner and then with dinner we had a few yellow squash sauteed with a little caramelized red onion - both from our garden (harvested over he weekend), and we had a cucumber tomato salad with basil and a little feta on top. I also made pasta with garlic and olive oil - the garlic also from the garden!

I got a whole rainbow of tomatoes tonight - green zebras, chocolate cherries, a few romas and a yellow pear, along with a cucumber and a few plums!