OMG it's been a long time

It's so hard to blog after so much time has passed. I'm not quite sure where to start. First, thanks faithful reader who called me to remind me to blog and making me get off my rear and just do it already. For the last two weeks I've been telling myself I was too busy.

The farm is firmly ensconced in Autumn. The leaves are falling and our GINORMOUS Japanese Maple is a beautiful fiery red that glows in the evening sun. GORGEOUS!! I've always said that if/when we move, we're taking that tree no matter the cost. The chickens are seeing less and less grazing, but they're loving the little time they get to roam the backyard garden each week. The worms are in dire peril. Our ladies are expert worm hunters.

They also eat spiders, slugs, maggots, grubs, and whatever else they can find. After processing apples into apple butter two weeks ago, we gave them the pulp that was left behind from the food mill. They went positively batty for that.

A few weeks ago, we picked up about 60 pounds of apples and pears. With the apples, we made apple chips and apple butter. With the pears we made some pear chips and canned pear slices in a light syrup. We've some left of both that will go to apple and pear sauce this week. The apple butter I made is fricken awesome. I used the recipe from "Ball's Complete Guide Preserving Everything" that I ordered from Amazon a few months ago. I modified the recipe a little to use a tiny bit less sugar. Ball's guide is fantastic. I thought there'd be more on Allrecipes.com, but most people's recipes I've found seem too sugary, or more like for parents preserving things kids will eat. One more gripe, if I may, is that there's not even ONE good bread recipe I've found on allrecipes.com; there's only ONE good recipe in the two cookbooks I use the most: Betty Crocker's wedding edition and Bon Apetite. I NEED some more good bread recipes!!! On the bright side, I'm getting very good at the simple peasant's white bread recipe form the BC cook book. I've increased the sugar (since I use raw sugar) by 1 tsp and reduced the flour by 1/4 cup and WHAMMO it's moister and less crumbly but still has a nice stiff crust. I've yet to master moving the loaf from the greased stone I let it rise on to the preheated stone I leave in the oven without punching down the dough a little more than I'd like. That's something to think about.

Here's the apples, pears, cider and some of the implements we used to process them.

Here's the apple butter and the pear slices cooling after canning:

If you'll notice, canning and a good glass of pink wine go together splendidly. Generally I dislike pink wine, but Brian Carter Cellars Abracadabra Rose is actually quite decent. It's one of 3 pink wines I can stand and I've tried literally hundreds.

Here's Trisa cleaning the coop on Sunday. You can just see her hiding behind the sunflower stalk. Gigantor is at the bottom of the pic wondering what Trisa is up to.

I broke our regular camera a while back so I'm using my phone right now. Please forgive the low quality pics. We'll get a new camera sooner or later. This next pic is interesting.

There's two blurs that are Lucy (black blur on the right) and Kate (red blur on the right). Lucy is broody - that's when a chicken stops laying eggs and starts sitting on them. There's a reason we call people who are grumpy or who look like they just hate what's going on, broody. It's because they act the exact same way a broody chicken does. I mean EXACTLY. Lucy was just walking down the gravel path, Kate was digging for worms. Usually, nothing would happen if Lucy were to walk by Kate, but Lucy in an instant was UBER FIGHTING MAD and she lunged for Kate. Her ferocity was such (and she's a dumb chicken) that she misjudged her velocity. She went right over Kate and landed inside the coop about 6 feet away. It was very funny and I was just lucky to catch that instant on camera.

This was two weeks ago during the 70 degree weather

OK, enough fricken words already.

That's all for now. I'll blog again soon(ish),

Mike

A New Order

Last Saturday, after visiting the AMAZING Edmonds Farmer's Market, I was determined to complete the day by adding some new chickens to our flock. I got busy cleaning the coop while Michael perused the ads on Craigslist. Much to my disappointment, he discovered that many of the ads we had seen previously were no longer active. With the coop clean and ready, I couldn't give up the plan. This had to be the day. So, I joined the search and found, much to my delight, a dairy farm in Enumclaw with chickens for sale. After a quick call to the farm, we jetted out the door and began our 90 minute journey to beautiful Enumclaw.

The farm was nestled against a hill off of a long gravel road. I opened the car door and immediately felt at ease. I love the feel of country life. There's no need to rush into anything. Everyone seems to move slowly making the time to take in the sights, sounds and smells.

The dairy farmer's son raises Bantams on the side for city folk who want one or two pretty chickens as pets. He happened to have some mixed breeds available. When we entered the coop, I was a little worried. Many of the chickens looked hen pecked. We learned that the farmer had just pulled out a couple of roosters the day before. Apparently there were too many hens and not enough roosters to go around.... After looking more closely, we spotted a healthy one. Before too long we found the four we wanted: Barney, Bam Bam, Fred, and Wilma.

With these four added to the flock, we now have two flocks resisting the need to become one. If we don't put the new four onto the roost at night, they sleep down below in a vulnerable position apart from the others. I know over time, they will work it out. But, I hate the tension that comes with a disrupted pecking order.

The sociology of chickens is fascinating. Every time we lose a chicken or introduce new ones, the pecking order changes. I can't seem to find any real pattern to what makes a chicken reach the top of the order. Gentle, quiet natured Greta with her slow reflexes and tiny brain continues to rule the roost. Barney is fighting for second place. I hope she wins.

-Trisa