Chicken fun facts

Fun facts about chickens that I learned this week:

* Did you know that older hens lay bigger eggs? Well, they do.

* Eggs freeze if left outside in the cold weather and then they crack. You can still eat them if you thaw them out or freeze them to keep longer.

* You can tell a hen is older if her feet are scaley. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Last week Erin and I made another trip to get more chickens. I'm coming to understand that in the farming world, it's all about who you know. The woman that sold us our last round of chickens (you might recall my 'Chicken Casualties' story) knew a woman at her church who was giving away a dozen chickens (including two roosters) for FREE. How could we pass up such an opportunity after already losing three chickens in the weasel-related killings?

These chickens were beautiful and very different from our current chickens. One of the roosters had a very showy black and emerald green plume and a few of the pullets are speckled. We're hoping for some green or blue eggs this time around.

I wish I'd had a video camera when we introduced the new chickens into our crowded coop. There was much squawking and flashing and showing off and beating of wings to determine who was dominant and who was, well, hungry. Yes, our chicken house is crowded with the new crew so we'll have to begin another round of butchering and gutting. Haven't had fresh chicken in a while. Should be yummy!

In the pasture where we must walk to get to our chickens, there is a colt who has caused problems for many of us. He is very aggressive and potentially dangerous because he isn't well-trained. I was tired of being scared of this colt because I love horses and I didn't want to have to smack it with a riding whip every time it came at me. So, my sweet husband and our friend David cleared a path through the steer pasture just parallel to the horse pasture. Matthew spent a few afternoons cutting trees and brush away and then building two steps so I could hop over the electric fence to the back of the coop. The way to the chickens is not much farther now and I get to trash talk the bully-colt on my way back as he helplessly watches me walk past with the fence between us.

Plow Hollow Creek

Jasper 'trash-talking' the colt

The steps that Matthew built

In front of the chicken house

Eggs!

Our new plume-y roosters and speckled hens

Boiling a cracked egg

Neva 'reading'

Neva dancing to Veggie Tales

Cloth Diapers Musings

Today Neva made the sign for 'diaper' when she needed to be changed. It taught me to hope as I'd never hoped before (a little Pride and Prejudice reference...sorry) that Neva would be potty-trained early. I've already started looking online for training toilets.

Now, I'm not naive. She probably won't be potty-trained until she's four. But I can hope, right?

This brings me to the whole point of my musing today: I'm ready to be done with diapers.

Don't get me wrong; cloth diapers aren't that bad. I mean, they're inconvenient sometimes but in general, it's like most things: once you're in the routine, you don't think of the way things could be different.

But there are times....particularly the evenings when I collect all of her dirty diapers (and by 'dirty,' I mean poopy) to rinse out in the toilet, that I wish things were different.

I have an intimacy with the toilet that I never expected.

PS This picture is obviously old....the ground doesn't look like that and neither does Neva.

Commitments and Chickens

Last Sunday, we became members of the Mennonite congregation on the property. This was a big deal. Along with two other families and one single guy we were a part of the largest mass joining of the church in Plow Creek history. Even though we don't put our hope in acquiring more people in the pews (so to speak...we don't have any pews), I think it did give many people in this community hope in the potential for change and growth during a time of transition and restructuring.

The service was very meaningful. We had a longer than usual worship time of singing and sharing our struggles, praises and prayer requests. Then we stood up and agreed to the church commitments. After that, we had a special meal and a foot washing ceremony. Even though it is a very scriptural thing to do, I'd never done foot washing before. I wasn't sure how I would feel about it but it turned out to be a very moving way to physically enact our promise to serve each other.

Commitment can be difficult especially in this age where there are seemingly endless strings of options and opportunities for changing your situation. But Matthew and I decided that we didn't want to be drifters and that even though this is can be a challenging place to live it can also be a place of grace and fun. We are ready to give ourselves in service to the Body of Christ. I don't know how long that means we'll stay but we want to give it our all while we're here.

Matthew's work for the farm is beginning to increase again. He's been busy planning for the coming year with CSAs, markets and bees. He's starting to have trouble doing all his work in a half-day so we're trying to figure out how much longer he can watch Neva while I write part-time.

Matthew's 30th birthday was last Friday so we left Neva at our friend house, and had a date in Peoria.

We saw a movie(Up in the Air...pretty good) together for the first time since Neva was a newborn

(we have trouble agreeing on movies), went to Barnes and Noble and ate Vietnamese food.

Thank you Kauffmans!

One of our chickens has finally started laying eggs again. We've also diagnosed our dead chicken problem. Erin found a third dead one. It was headless in the chicken house when she came by in the morning. Her mom told her that indicates that we have a weasel. Apparently they tear off the head and suck out the blood. Hmmm...now we know why 'weasel' is not a term of endearment. We might have to weasel-proof the coop by putting wire in front of the holes. There are a lot of holes in our chicken house. This might take a while. In the meantime, we put the chickens up on a high beam at night. Oddly enough, when it's dark, they'll stay where you move them for the night. Wish I could learn to feel safe where I was moved....ooh, was that too much of a metaphorical stretch?

I don't have any new pictures but here is a video of Neva doing two of her favorite things: 'talking' on the phone and visiting her Dada

Dreams of Spring and Animals as Money Pits

Wintertime on a farm is slow but it also allows for longer vacations than many jobs. We took advantage of the slower schedule and packed up our car with dog and baby in tow. The first leg of our journey took us eight hours to Missouri where we spent Christmas with Matthew's family. Neva was happily engaged with Nana and Papa and Gigi (great-grandma) and Uncles and Aunts (and Tia Lindsey's boyfriend Jon) and her cousin Cooke. Our girl has become a fully fledged member of the toddler club. Crawling is a thing of the past and her growing sign language and speaking vocabulary has made her a source of entertainment for many a family member. At this point, her favorite seems to be the sign for 'more.' More food, more fun, more play, more music, more love and more kisses. She's pretty sweet.

The next leg of our journey took us to Texas (a 12 hour drive from Missouri). That was a long day. Our dog handled it well. Neva was not so happy. But who can blame her? We knew it was bad when we'd been driving for only two or three hours and she started pulling at her car seat straps and making the sign for 'all done.' Frankly, I was 'all done' too.

Our dreams of a warm Texas New Years were not to be. We had a day or two of weather in the 60s but after that it was cold cold cold. I enjoyed some sister and mom time and Matthew got to go backpacking with our brother-in-law. There is a picture somewhere of Matthew diving into a creek (in 50 degrees) in his skivvies.

I'm glad he finds joy.

I'm not normally a TV sports kind of person but on our last night in Austin, we mourned with the other UT fans at the sad ending to an potentially exciting game. Here's to you Colt McCoy...

We returned to Illinois and to more snow and cold. Erin told me that we lost two chickens while I was away and another one was looking a little peaked. They have also gone on strike...meaning we aren't getting ANY eggs. We think that's a combination of having pullets (the name for hens before they start laying), the cold, and the fact that our previously laying hens are dying off and/or molting (when their feathers come off...a natural and annual process when they stop laying eggs).

Our goats are looking well. We THINK one of them (Leap) is pregnant and due in the Spring. If Leap gives birth then we will have kids and milk! If not, these poor goats have been a money pit.

We dream of having a dairy cow one day but as they take a lot of work, that hasn't happened yet. So we've found a nearby farm that provides raw milk from a cow named Rosie. We bring our own containers to them and get fresh milk. The woman who own Rosie takes meticulous care of her cow and the milk and the cooling process. We feel good about the milk's safety so we've even been feeding it to Neva. Matthew finds particular joy in tasting the cream that rises to the top of our containers...again, I'm glad he finds joy in life.

In preparation for our personal garden this Spring (over which I will be supervisor), last night we flipped through a seed catalog with the joy of a Southern woman looking through a Martha Stewart magazine. It was indeed exciting...who needs People or InStyle when you've got Fedco Seeds. Oh, the beauty of the Dragon green bean variety; we will be the talk of the farm with our butter leaf lettuce, our heirloom tomato mix and our brussel sprouts. I'm telling you folks, open-pollinated okra are the new black.

Just before Christmas, Matthew went hunting with a friend and made his first kill...a cute little rabbit. I had qualms about the whole hunting and killing and cute little rabbit thing....but it has given Matthew so much joy (not to kill...he doesn't actually like that part, but to provide for his family) and after all, Pa Ingalls did it to provide for their family so it's gotta be okay, right?

Anyway, Matthew cooked it up last night in a stew and you know what? It wasn't half bad. And our biggest enthusiast was my little 15 month old daughter. She even gnawed on the rabbit leg for a while.

We're pretty set for the winter with our meat supply. We have a chest freezer full of grass-fed beef, pork cuts from a nearby farm, fish from Matthew's Canada fishing trip, and the occasional rooster. Ahh, life on a farm...I'm more of a carnivore than I've ever been in my life.

On to pictures:

I apologize to my Austin relatives that I don't only have one photo with them (with Neva and Mom)...I promise we had a great time. Too much fun to take pictures...

Sledding down the hill outside our house in Illinois

Neva with the rabbit leg






Neva and Cooke...matching outfits from Aunt Bonnie Jane


Neva and Nana

Neva and Cooke....talented musicians

Cousins with their Tia

Neva's new playpen...I promise she let herself in there.

The Missouri crew

Mom and Neva...starstruck

If only my camera work had been better...

And winter came

I really wanted to have a sound clip from Enya's winter album to go with the title of my post but alas, if there is a way to do this, I haven't figured it out.  So, go and listen to the song, 'And winter came' and think of me and my family in Illinois...because it did come.

Last week we had our first blizzard of the winter and frankly it was my first blizzard ever (that I can remember).  Two days before the blizzard, there was lots of snow already and because of the plummeting temperatures (it got down to -4), the farm team needed to mulch the strawberries.  Yes, my husband and many others braved the cold and snow to mulch those blasted strawberry fields.  My tough husband didn't seem to mind it too much.  

My most taxing duty was feeding the chickens in the snow.  However, instead of being frightened by the cold, I thought of it as a particularly frigid Colorado day and I put on my ski clothes.  I know most of you Texans love Colorado so you know what I'm talking about.  If you can just think of it as a winter vacation then you understand how to dress for the weather.  It's not so bad.  I can handle this....I think.

Poor steers...

Poor horses

Poor diapers that I foolishly hung out to dry 

because I was trying to be like Laura Ingalls

They did actually end up drying except for the snow

Poor me in my ski clothes

Poor Matthew going to work

There he is in the tractor

White Christmas?

Newsy November

I realize that it's already December and I'm only now writing about November.  When I started this blog I thought I’d be able to keep it up once a week.  I’m sorry to say that I’ve fallen back to once a month.  It seems that the longer I live here, the busier I get.  I don’t know if that’s because Neva is getting older and is  (in a wonderful way) more work, or if it’s because I’m learning how to be more productive.  I am a TV lover who doesn’t own a TV (I’m not criticizing people who own TVs or let their children watch TV because, as I said, I love TV) and a movie-lover who always seems to tired to watch movies.  

Oh and also, I’ve started my winter routine.  That’s it.  That’s why I’m so busy. 

            Since the harvest is over, Matthew has been working part-time on the farm in the mornings and watching Neva in the afternoons so I can work on my writing.  Instead of having the whole day to do my usual things, I've only had the mornings (not that I'm complaining) so I've needed to be more creative about getting the essential things done.

            I haven’t written (except on my blog and a few essays) since before Neva was born.  You know, it took me years to be able to call myself a ‘writer’ but even then I still felt I couldn’t relate to famous authors who would say, ‘you must write every day if you’re a writer,’ or ‘you know you’re a writer if you can’t NOT write.’  I guess I would read those quotes and think, ‘well, I certainly don’t write everyday and I can go long stretches (years even) without writing seriously’ so I must not be a real writer.  But I had a sort of epiphany when I started writing again at the beginning of the month.  I sat down my first day at the computer with my candles lit and my soft music playing and the words just poured out of me.  And I felt so euphoric.  I felt a renewed sense of purpose.  I knew this was for me.  And I knew I was indeed a writer.

  Speaking of authors, have any of you ever read the Little House on the Prairie books? I’m on the last one and I just have to say how inspiring and beautiful they are.  It makes me want to make cheese and churn butter and tap maple trees for their sap.  It does not, however, make me want to live on a Prairie in winter. 

            I’m told that it will be 6 degrees here this Wednesday.  Good thing we aren’t living on a Prairie. But yikes, it will be cold this winter!

           We were quite busy the month of November.  At the beginning of November, we traveled to South Dakota to see Matthew’s grandparents who’d never seen Neva before.  We also saw the homestead farm that is still in his family.  Matthew’s grandmother is an amazing cook and housekeeper and cans like crazy (even in her eighties).  With great love, she also cares for her husband who had a stroke a few years ago.  To top it off, her well-used oven is spotless.  She never even uses the self-cleaning mechanism.  I came back to my own oven and was ashamed to see piles of black crust at the bottom.  I did use my self-cleaning button!

            For Thanksgiving, my entire family came to the farm.  We killed another chicken (to show them where their food comes from), cut down a Christmas tree, fed goats and chickens, sang around a bonfire and roasted s’mores, ate and ate, rearranged some of my rooms, jumped on a trampoline and roamed through the woods, ate some more, went to a Christmas festival, and had a wonderful time together.  The house felt awfully empty when they left.  I think Neva particularly felt the loss of her playmates. My mom always says that when young children spend time with lots of family, they are always harder to deal with afterward.  But they almost always make some sort of developmental leap because of all the stimulation.  That’s true with out Neva. She talked and talked after they left and she is on the cusp of walking everywhere.  

The girls

I think Neva's face is hilarious in this picture.

The whole crew at the Inn where some of them stayed.

Our little (and big) ones

The shock of the chicken killing.

Walking to Dada Walking and Signing

Signing and Thumb-sucking

Neva naming the pictures of her family (and animals)

Celebrations and Infestations

Celebrations:

Matthew and I celebrated our second anniversary last weekend (though our anniversary is actually October 27th) and Neva turned one last Friday!  Matthew's parents came for Neva's birthday (we let her have a small piece of chocolate cake which she loved) and stayed with her for the weekend while Matthew and I went away to Chicago.  I just weaned Neva so it was my first night away from her since she was born.  We had a great time and it was nice to remember how much fun we have when we travel together.  

I can't believe how fast both my marriage and Neva's first year have flown by.  My handsome giant and my little munchkin have both been such tremendous sources of joy in my life and I am so thankful for them.  Marrying Matthew was the easiest choice I ever made and having Neva was the best choice I never had to make.  God's given me two people who keep me on my toes, ward off loneliness, help me not take myself too seriously, and give me love, love, love.

On another celebratory note, my friend Erin had her baby, a little boy named Sebastian.  It's nice to have some other babies around here.  

Infestations:

I guess I shouldn't pluralize this blight, this pestilence, this plague (okay maybe that's a bit dramatic) because it is only one kind of creature that is infesting.  But the the fact is that there are many of them.  

Ladybugs are cute right?  You make kids costumes with cute little black polka dots and a red shell.  Polka dots are always adorable, aren't they?  

No! They are not!

Not when there are thousands upon thousands of these 'ladies' creeping up the outside of your walls and doors, flying into your hair and slipping through the cracks in your house to get inside.

Let's give them a less precious name: Asian beetles.

I am told they are harmless but they harm my sanity.  Isn't that enough?  They drop against the window time and time again until it sounds like there is a heavy rain outside.  I spent 15 minutes vacuuming them off my back door frame.  I could've spent hours and still not got them all.  

I am told I must get used to it.  They will leave the outside of my house at the first freeze.  But they will infiltrate the inside of my house until Spring.  

My only consolation is that they aren't ticks.  That would be bad.

Speaking of which, I got my first tick last week.  That was fun.  Have you ever pulled a tick out of your own body, its little tummy full of your blood?  Again.  It's fun.  Real fun.

Today, Erin and I mucked out the chicken coop.  Yes this is the same Erin who just had her baby two weeks ago.  

We would've been a sight.  

Erin came over just after I had put Neva down for a nap.  Erin put her son in our pack-n-play because he was asleep and we were so excited that we would be able to do this mucking sans babies.  

But it was not to be.  Our dog Jasper burst through Neva's room waking her up.  She started crying which woke up Sebastian.  

So the two of us mothers strapped our babies on our bodies and spent an hour and a half shoveling out chicken poop (the less polite word is WAY more accurate...chicken poo smells really bad) and refilling the coop with straw.  

I got five eggs today. It was all worth it.

My little Amish girl

The multi-purpose room on Blueberry Hill

Matthew and others mulching on Blueberry Hill

Dressing for our first cold snap

I just thought this looked interesting

Attack of the Asian beetles!

No explanation necessary...