First Egg and Odds and Ends

Wednesday, October 5 and I finally have the nesting box mounted on the wall of the coop.  I know the chickens should start laying soon since they hatched on May 6th.  I've been thinking for weeks that I'd better get that box back on the wall!  Hoping to have the day to hike tomorrow, I hustled after work and got the box dusted off and hand screwed back on to the wall.  Dave sold the driver just a few days ago but a hand held screwdriver actually worked fine!  Some clean straw, three golf balls and one painted rock later and the box is ready.  I've had trouble in the past with chickens eating their eggs, such a bummer.  Fruitless, fake egg pecking seems to convince chickens that those oval objects in the box are not worth their attention. Hopefully I've gotten the box up and the deception planted in time.  I was done with my work in the coop by 6:30  but when I went to check on the brood and close the door at dark there wasn't one single chicken in the coop. WHAT?  OK Don't panic!  Where can they be? A couple hens had tried roosting in the nearby cedar tree a few times. They really do have personalities and go through rebellious stages... Sure enough all fifteen were comfortably roosting the cedar tree, ten feet from the coop but invisible as you walk by. I must have disrupted the roosting timing and tradition!  Actually, this is perfect!  I had also prepped the old coop for the the roosters as I had planned to separate them from the hens tonight.  One by one I gently "grabbed" them out of the cedar tree and either headed to the new or old coop.  They were extremely cooperative with just a little squawking as they were disrupted from the tree perch.  Now I feel ready!

The very next morning I found the first egg!  There has been one every day since.  Quite small but beautiful, perfect, brown eggs will now gather in bowls on my counter and fill cartons in the fridge as they wait their turn to be used for breakfast, lunch, dinner and treats.

My plan is to let each rooster spend a week with the hens.  They play favorites believe it or not!

The onions and potatoes sit in the garage on pallets while they dry.  As soon as the temperature drops to a reasonable fall degree and we have the time, we'll move them to the root cellar.  I just hope the onions dry enough so they will keep well throughout the winter.  The potato harvest was rather limited this year.  Is it the seed potatoes we used, the placement in the garden, the weather?  What?  They were weeded and hilled!  What should I do next year?  This gardening, harvesting and storage feels complicated when things don't go according to plan.  What should we do differently?

Winter squash, green tomatoes and a few red tomatoes await their storage or use.  The cider apples are closest to the garage door as we keep adding to their numbers with every chance we get.  Our next pressing will be on the 22nd.  But then there is another baby coming.  Will I be home on the 22nd!  This new
grand-baby could arrive any time now.  Time will tell!




My carrot harvest.  Well, carrots ideally should be slender and tapered, easy to dig, clean and store.  These are a few of my favorite carrots although they do not meet any of the above requirements.  I was able to "sand pack" a few boxes of carrots but not near enough to make it through the winter so my carrot harvest is a bit of a disappointment. Even so, it is a wonderful feeling to have all the carrots dug and dealt with, whether they are packed in sand, cleaned and in the fridge, cleaned and cut for horse treats or composted!  I've dug carrots in the cold with gloves on and in the cold rain with wet muddy gloves and a hat on and this was much better with the sun warm on my back and the calm, bug free, autumn  breeze. Aren't they cute?

Cider Hay Ride

 Bottled apple cider!  Hard cider with a little fizz added that is.

We have never done this before so after purchasing a few supplies and scraping the labels of many-a-bottle, it's the night to bottle the apple juice that's been brewing in the basement for a couple weeks. Siphoning off the juice proved to be more difficult than we thought.  After sucking down a bit more cider than I planned we finally corrected the connection and filled a few dozen bottles. Washing and sanitizing the bottles was by far the most time consuming part of the entire process.

 Filled bottles on the left and clean, sanitized bottles with 1/2 teaspoon of corn sugar (dextrose) added to create the bubbles, waiting to be filled on the right.  Notice the Seaweed Green granite?  The granite is from India and the process of picking it out took months!

Dave filled the bottles and I capped them with the handy, dandy capper snugger. It reminded me of putting snaps on kids clothes.

 So we bottled the cider until 10:30 pm Friday night.  Saturday morning I went to work at the Library, waiting for the call that Shawn Lahti.  He was coming up the shore with 230 bales of hay and would call when he was at Cascade State Park so I could head home to meet him. Shawn had no problems weaving this truck between the garage and a 3 foot drop off, inches from the well and spruce tree which protects the gas tank, and finally between the run-in and the barn door. 

 How did they get the hay up there?

Watching 230, 70 pound bales of hay slide off that  truck was impressive.  This is a very cool flatbed truck! 

Tyler and  Brandon worked for 5 hours getting the hay from Lahti Farms stacked in the barn.  Alright, they had a couple cookie breaks but they really worked hard.  I don't know what I would have done without their industrious help with this hay!  Lahti Farms, which is down near Duluth, has been in business since 1931, selling hay and straw.   In 1931 they used horses to pull the wagons hauling the hay.  Shawn had a business card with a photo of a hay wagon, his teenager father standing on the hay and grandfather as a young man standing next to the load. 

 A winter's supple of hay, oh what a feeling!  You probably can't imagine the relief I feel having the hay stacked in the barn!

 Dave and I butchered the meat birds this morning but I'll leave those pictures for another day.  It was so wonderful to go for a ride up on the ridge with my friend Vicki.  I was tired from the morning's work and nervous wondering how Zan would behave.  I just haven't ridden her more than a few times in the last month and she doesn't have that much trail experience.

 Here we are on top of the ridge with the lake in the background.  It's another world up there and the fall colors are beautiful.  The footing was not soft nor easy for my four hoofed companion but she was a real trooper and really enjoyed being out and about.

Zan would not cooperate with a pleasant look for the photo.  She would much prefer munching on the dry, wild  yellow grasses growing in any rocky depression that might hold a bit of organic matter and moisture to support their growth.

It was really a spectacular view!  Without the direct sunshine the colors were muted and calm.  It's October 4, 2011 and the colors are at their height. This is a ride I would like to repeat any time of year.