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Some from old hens, some from new.
I successfully incubated and raised up 15 new hens this year, and I’ve been waiting and waiting for them to start laying eggs. I have two customers who buy three dozen eggs a week from me, and in an effort to keep them supplied so I don’t lose them as customers in the winter (once the farmers market ends and I don’t have another outlet to sell eggs), I’ve hardly had any eggs for myself these last few months. So it was with real joy that I found my first “pullet” egg on August 9th. I had expected, based on previous experience, to find new eggs sometime around the 19th, so a few of the girls are ahead of schedule. Read the rest of this entry »
My father grew up on a farm in rural Montana in the 1930’s (he was born in 1923). He was second to last of ten children. He used to tell me stories of growing up, one of which included how, as kids, they were so hungry for something fresh that they would eat chokecherries right off the tree. While there may have been some truth to the story (it was the depression, after all), I have also met his brothers. And given that they were the kind of brothers who would put a dead fish in your sleeping bag on a camping trip, my guess is a lot of the chokecherry eating was on a dare. Read the rest of this entry »
Thelma and Louise, seeking refuge on the top of a plastic 55 gallon barrel. I put them up there with a handful of food so they could eat in peace.
We reached down and grabbed a pair last night, and butchered 13 roosters. I’m actually very proud of this. Taking the step from believing in eating local and raising your own food, to actually dispatching a living animal is a significant one. This was not my first rooster rodeo. We probably butchered our first roosters 7 or 8 years ago. But there is always that moment of pause, as you stand with a living breathing warm-to-the-touch bird in your hands, where you think, “can I really do this”? Read the rest of this entry »
Well, summer is in full swing. I’m doing two farmers markets a week. The garden is coming on strong. The weeds and grass are high. It’s getting hard to tell the chickens born this spring apart from the older hens. The ducks are starting to molt into their final adult plumage. And the turkey…well, he’s just funny looking.
I’m personally a big fan of traditional blue/purple iris, but this one is just stunning. It’s been fun to see what all the colors in the yard are. Evidently, Walla Walla had a famous Iris breeder for a lot of years, and many yards here locally bear the results.
Yup, right now everyone seems to be living in peace and harmony. We’ll see how long it lasts. No one has gotten stuck in a fence this week.
We managed to trim the feet of Elmo, the one goat who we will keep (as a gift) from my friend whom the other goats are on loan from. Elmo (recently renamed Molly) was a rescue and her feet were way overgrown. Trimming feet is definitely a two-person job, and we’ll have to do it every week for a month or so, removing a little bit more each time, until they are back to normal. She took it pretty well.
The young sheep are growing fast! Soon it will be time to ween them. Read the rest of this entry »
Yup, I grew everything here except for the garlic.
I was home for a visit to northern California back in the 1990’s, during the height of summer, and my step-mom was making ratatoullie, a French vegetable stew. Not one to eat many vegetables at the time, I reluctantly tried some, and it was a revelation. It was SO good. Nothing like vine ripened tomatoes and fresh basil to make all vegetables taste fantastic. I was sold, and have been making ratatouille in September, during the height of the warm weather vegetable glut, ever since. Read the rest of this entry »
Peas. This was early on in the nightly buffet. It got much worse.
Note to self. When running down to Walla Walla to sign some important papers, and leaving in a hurry after trying to take care of the abundance of produce sitting in buckets, in the root cellar, and still on the vine, DON’T LEAVE THE GARDEN GATE OPEN when you leave. I was gone for about 36 hours. When I returned, just at dusk on September 27th, I could SEE the deer’s ears sticking up on the far side of the flower bed. Insert many expletives later. Insert yelling at deer, who then proceeded to throw itself into the net fence trying to escape, ripping out most of the staples on that side. Read the rest of this entry »
As the temperature drops, and that unmistakable crispness fills the air, the urge to squirrel away food for the winter kicks into overdrive. Our long wet cool spring put most warm season produce 2-3 weeks behind this year, which means we’re playing roulette with the ripening tomatoes (red) vs the first frost (black).
Here’s what I needed for my set up. Taps, tubing, hammer to place taps (they don’t look like they will fit, but the tree is flexible and they do) and 5/16 drill bit (which I happened to already have).
Sometime last fall, I ran across a reference to making a tree syrup (ala Maple Syrup) from the sap of Boxelder trees. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at making maple syrup. I love the idea of a readily available free sweetener, just out there in nature waiting for me to come along. However, I figured it was a bucket list item that was going to go unkicked, as Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum), the tree from which maple syrup is made, does not grow much west of eastern Kansas. So when I heard about boxelder syrup, I was stoked. Read the rest of this entry »
A tree full of these beauties makes me feel rich!
I am living in apple paradise. How many times have I moved with boxes collected from the local grocery store, only to see “Washington Apples” on the side? Greenbluff, less than 20 minutes from my house, has a great selection of apples. We drove through one of the major Washington apple growing regions, Yakima, a few weeks ago, and saw wooden boxes of apples the size of a small cabin. Read the rest of this entry »
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