The Great Egg Watch

First, a small update. No more bees . . . well less bees. Our green exterminator was more afraid of bees than Mike but he did is job and we reinforced with a few traps.

Now the girls are free to move about the yard and check in on Mike while he works in the office. "Whatya doin in there and where's the corn?"

I finished my first year of grad school and have been given a little time off of school. And I quit my job in order to make time for my internship which starts in early Spetember. We had my work team over to celebrate summer vacation and to say goodbye as two of us are leaving to persue school. I made "dirt cake" (left pic) - yum. And couple weeks ago we built this canapy (right pic) to provide some shade for our guests- indespensable!

Good thing i have a couple weeks free because August means it's time reap the rewards of watering and waiting. My first week off I feverishly canned. Here's the list: 13 pints pasta/pizza sauce, 4 quarts of pickles, 4 half pints of zucchini relish, 5 half pints of salsa, 3 half pints of tomatillo salsa verde, and an assortment of jams in strawberry, plum, lime-blueberry, and fig flavors. Most of this came from our garden with a few additions from nearby friends' gardens for plums and when we ran out of garlic and onions we did purchase them along with citrus. Next year we will plant dozens more onions, garlic, and maybe plant a lime and lemon tree in a pot so we can take it inside during the winter. Hmmmm . . . . Oh, I also canned 10 pints of chicken stock which has NOTHING to do with our garden as our chickens are our dear pets. Jeezles- Mike won't even eat chicken from any source in any form!

Here's my recipe for all purpose red sauce which I use as lasagna, pasta, and pizza sauce: Place one rough chopped onion and a good pour of olive oil in a large sauce pot over medium high heat. When the onion are a little translucent I add a grip of rough chopped garlic (about 7 medium cloves) and a handful of italian seasonings, and some red chili pepper flakes. After it smells crazy yummy I add the tomatoes. You can use 1 large can but with fresh tomatoes (about 7 medium romas or early girls) I blanch them first by putting them in boiling water until the skin breaks, remove skin and the stem and the core. Let it all simmer for awhile. I usually get impatient at about 20 minutes and puree it all. I recommend an immersion blender if you do a lot of soups or sauces so you can puree right in the pot without creating another dish to clean or risk cracking the glass blender with hot sauce- I still pine over the best blender I lost this way :( As you can tell this is a very technical recipe so make sure you follow it exactly! The picture on the left is grilled heirloom tomatoes from the garden being grilled for salsa.

In other news- Mike and I got the opportunity to go salmon fishing. My father was so gracious to have us and extend the invitation to my dear friend Kate who has inspired my interest in food sustainability (her grocery bill is less than $50 a month for two persons!!!). Dad took us to Astoria, Oregon and we fished just off the coast. I caught one fish and Mike caught three but we could only keep one of Mike's due to fishing regulations. While Mike is quite the angler he is not a good salt as he spent much of the day feeling sea sick. Afterall he is the only human I know who takes Dramamine for lap swimming at our gym pool. A very special thank you to my dad for taking two days out of his busy retirement life to spend some time with us and taking us out. There are yummy lox and cream cheese on bagels in our future!! Maybe we'll get pics of that later . . .

Chickens lay eggs around 20+ weeks of age. So about a week ago we unofficially started an egg watch. We certainly thought Gladys would be first with her giant comb and waddles (the red stuff around her face) but it was our newest addition of Muppet who (at 16 weeks) left a perfect antique white egg which we found after a very long day of fishing! They will get a touch bigger in the next week or so but they will always be smaller sized eggs because she is a small breed of chicken. We are just so proud of her. She even layed in the nest box right where she is suppose to. I ate a lovely egg-muffin sandwich this morning for breakfast- O.M.G!!! best b-fast ever!!!

Lessons~ 1) If your interested in knowing how to can I recommend a local extension class or thorough reading online. It really is easy and simple but there are very important rules so you don't die of botulism. 2) When chickens are ready to start laying they let you know by doing the chicken squat. This is also their way of saying "Hey big boy I'm ready for you- wink wink." Makes sense right? Ready to to mate, ready to lay, ready to have chick-babies. So the squat occurs when you go to pet the chicken and they squat down with their wings a little lithe, do a little shake, and fluff their tail up to expose the vent. It is just the cutest thing!! Muppet started doing this about a week before her first egg. 3) Chickens bathe in dirt to prevent and rid themselves of mites and other parasites. Here is a video of Elinore and Muppet taking a dust bath- they really get into it!!

Busy Bees- literally.

It's never dull on the Modees funny farm. We have lots of news to share with the garden coming into its own, chicken additions, and a few uninvited guests.

It was excruciatingly hot here this last week in the Northwest with a very long heat wave. With the chicken craze in Portland a few chickens in the area didn't make it- poor chickens don't have very good cooling systems. Our chickens all made it with lots of panting and chilled watermelon to keep them hydrated.

And what do you do when its too hot for the chickens you have . . . get another- of course! Introducing Muppet! She is a Silkie bantam breed which means she's uber fluffy and will always small. Muppet has blackish purple skin, a navy blue beak, a white mohawk, and turquoise ears (look at the fuzzy head shot and you can barely see it). She came with her name from the feed store where we purchased her and we tried a few others- Yeti, Stuffy, Poof . . . but Little Miss Muppet seemed to fit fine. When she waddles away she looks a lot like Gizmo from Gremlins.

The chickens, and by chickens I really mean Gladys, had a little difficulty accepting her into the flock. I guess I just thought I'd bring her home and Mike and the girls would fall in love with her and welcome her with open wings. Wrong. Day one- Mike loves her but is a little irritated with me for showing up with yet another chicken. Gladys pecks her many times hard on the head and bites her bumper tearing out a few feathers. Day two- Mike gets on board and falls in love. Gladys chases her around the yard and nips her until she flees to the highest perch in the coop. Never mind that it's 105 degrees and heat rises . . . all that insulating fluff- oye. Day three- Gladys won't let Muppet leave the coop upon punishment of chasing. Day four- Muppet is allowed to leave three times and makes it to one small section of the yard where she manages to share a breakfast of worms and dirt with the two big girls. In the evening we left them for a dinner party and when we returned Muppet had finally been let into the hen house and there they all slept in a row on the perch- awe. I guess Gladys finally figured out that the humans brought Muppet home and as Chicken-Gods and Giver-of-all-Chickeny-Goodness she better get in line!

Felix loves his chickens! He got into a fight with a neighbor chicken defending the girls- yeah, he's finally earning his keep.

The little girls are growing very slooowwwllly. We were hoping to have complete integration and chicken harmony in a week or two but they just aren't big enough . . . maybe next month. Until then the garden is sectioned off into the back orchard area for them, the veggie garden for humans only, and the rest of the yard for the three big girls.

The garden is really flourishing! The tomatoes are turning red, little sprouts are forming on the brussels, I found a zucchini the size of my calf yesterday, and all the onions and garlic are out of the ground. Here are pictures of the few strawberries that the slugs left, some corn we planted late, my proud cucumbers, and some apples that will be delicious in the fall!

The newly planted fall garden is sprouted with baby bok choi, broccoli, carrots, and napa cabbage. One thing that is not growing well are the darn fennel bulbs and kale. I've planted three times, 24 seeds each time, and only five have come up. Even the kale was planted twice and here is the only survivor out of five seeds. Any ideas? At least with all this heat we have managed to grow okra (left row in the middle picture)!

One more adventure- with chicken and veggie stability I set out to clean a few parts of the yard where we had put excess soil, straw, and general crud. Well boy did I start in the wrong place. One second there was a buzzing in my ear and then ouch! I discovered a huge underground yellow jacket nest. Stung three times, I ran into the house where I found two bees in my hair!!! Heebeejeebees!!!!! Chickens eat dirt and with cats and veggies we opted for an organic extermination method. While pricey (2x) it uses an organic/ safe/ non pesticide foam to smother the hive within a day and kill the queen= no more bees. The exterminator arrives at 7 am tomorrow- can't wait.

Lessons~ 1) don't put a hoe into a yellow jacket nest. 2) Scavenger yellow jackets are the only bee/ social wasp that has no beneficial insect qualities. They do not pollinate but rather eat rotting fruit and meat while randomly biting and stinging those who get in their way. By late summer they are aggressive so don't mess around and call the professionals. 3) chickens definitely have a pecking order. This is determined through subtle and violent ways. Any new addition or loss causes a disturbance in the force. The way we opted to go about chicken integration is place them in the same coop at night when everyone is sleepy and blind (chickens can't see in the dusk let alone dark). Then we stood by at dawn scolding any pecks to show we were the CHICKEN DEITIES. Then we just had to let them work it through pecking and chasing. Luckily there was no blood but it can happen- the worst stories involve scalping . . . (shiver). 4) Chickens don't have sweat glands and so their only means of cooling is through their waddles, feet, and combs. When it gets crazy hot every degree helps so here is a list of things that will each reduce the temp by a couple degrees: put the coop in shade, have plants around the coop, hose down the area, place frozen water bottles to perch or lay on, place a box fan to blow out the hot air, give frozen or chilled treats like watermelon to hydrate them, put ice cubes in their water, and/or in worst cases spray a mist on them or dunk them in cold water. When they get distressed over the heat they take a dust bath to get moist soil in between their feathers and onto their skin, pant like a dog, slow to a stand still, and finally at the end keel over.

Lost Blog Post

Okay so it wasn't really lost- we just got busy and forgot to post. The upside is how amazing the yard has grown!!! You don't notice it day to day but then you take a picture and realize the zucchini plant looks like its from Jurassic Park!

So the baby chicks are growing. We aren't sure if Mable is really a maybe . . . 90% sexing accuracy my tushy. We just might be 2 for 5 on roos. We will just have to wait and see.

In other chick news we introduced our four-legged niece Morgan the golden-doodle to the girls. Morgan loves them! So much so that she broke her leash and attempted to retrieve Elinor. All chickens are fine and healthy but Elinore looks ridiculous with a bare bumper. Nicole may never live the incident down with our neighbors who all rushed out to see when she started screaming bloody murder and all they could see was a pile of fluffy feathers and a pair of shaken sisters. Ahh the adventures- eh Tiff?

(hmmmm... what did our beloved Morgan have in mind??)

We got our first tomatoes, grilled some zucchini, and the walla walla onions work great with the cilantro in salsa! The hanging tomatoes have been a little underwhelming but our number of plants make up for what they lack in proliferation due to our skipping watering and fertalizer. We filled 4 more beds with dirt and started some fall and winter planting. Look for asparagus to be planted next spring- yummers. The raspberries and blueberries are delicious first thing in the morning but we'll have to wait until next year for enough to do jam. The first few plums are juicy so if anyone has ideas on what to make with plums I'm all ears!!!

Lesson: Rain Barrels - most rain barrels have some sort of opening to the outside world and because of this, mosquitos show up, lay eggs and before you know it, West Nile is on your doorstep. The organic fix to this actually quite easy, simply buy some feeder goldfish and put them in the barrels - they eat the eggs and the mosqituos, just don't let the barrels run dry!!