Getting Ready for a busy season

The loft is getting to be like a backyard hoophouse with all the seedlings coming along in the windows. We have too many roma tomatos already and not enough brussels sprouts. I'll have to buy some pre-started brussels from one of the growers around here and bawl out Johnny's Seeds.

We have to spray them daily at least once and we continually keep trying to find more pots to transplant more growing seedlings.

My 8 chicks are coming along and are now almost 6 and 5 weeks old. Hopefully they will replace any grown chickens who develop problems throughout the coming warmer months. I've got them in an old cow trough with a brooder light over them.

Dad continues to mentally go down hill each day. He reads the paper all the time now. I doubt he has a clue what he is reading but at least it occupies him for awhile. He asks so many questions now and yesterday was insistent that his mother had just died and my mom and myself had to pull our weight now that she was gone. She died in 1961.

It is becoming tougher now to deal with his fantasies and keep him from becoming frightened. I like to look at old pictures of him when he was young. They help me remember what he was like. He is no longer able to think clearly now.

This picture was taken on their honeymoon at Groton Pond in Vermont in June of 1948. I used the photo for a class project and tinted it using Photoshop. I hardly knew what I was doing at the time but I still like the photo.

My father was an energetic man and age did not go well with his character. He liked to stay busy most of the time and that is how I remember him, burning brush, cutting wood, building stone walls, talking into a microphone at the radio stations he worked for, and outside all the time. He never watched much TV or sat for long periods. He had an uneasiness that my sisters and I all inherited. I think sometimes that is why I have a tough time helping him now. There is not much I can do but sit and watch and try and converse with him from across the table or try and distract him from some crazy notion that he won't let go of.

I think the chicks and the seedlings help us forget what is going on with my Dad and concentrate on new growth. I'll try this summer to work with my Dad and still find time to have a farmers market stall in Corning, raise a few meat birds for the Fall and keep the house and grounds outside looking good. Its alot of work but I love eating my own home raised food. Hopefully with some good weather and some help, we can have it all.

The Henhouse

My chickens may not be the best layers that ever graced a backyard operation but they at least try and keep me and my neighbors in some eggs. Right now the yolks are a very bright orange and make a simple omelet into a mardi gras of colors if I add cut chives and sun dried tomatoes.

We added another section to the hen house recently with big windows that let in the light. I kind of hoped they'd lay a few more eggs but the addition made little difference. Then I invested in some temporary poultry fencing and strung it across the yard. After they had been free-ranging for over two weeks, they were positively dejected with the new fence. I never knew hens had attitudes about their habitat.

My Dad is somewhat intrigued with the hens. He asks sometimes about the eggs and how the chickens are doing. Then later he wonders where the eggs came from. At least the chickens make for a limited conversation with him now.

I love walking this time of year. The soft greens and yellows are lovely and give at least a semblance of peace. Spencer enjoys his walks in the sun with me through the fields and woods close by. He's no longer a wild and crazy weim that dashes through the swamp and chases everything in sight. The geese are passing through this area now and land on the pond for a few hours. He watches them and they keep their beady little eyes on him. Both parties pretend not to notice one another too much but the tension is discernible to anybody.

Li'l Besterds!!

We put them out tonight in the barn and up in the loft. On the storage site. I wanted to put them up in the straw but with the heat lamp going and that little guard protector, my mother ops for the storage area free from straw. Not that it would matter.

The house was becoming thick with their dust. Ah... nasty li'l things they are...but so damn cute.

So I will say a prayer that the chicks survive the night inside a steel cattle trough covered in pine shavings and a gore-tex tarp over a couple of plastic planks. I put the water way up on a tower I made out of old bricks so they wouldn't stop up the water system with all that pine shavings. And then under the heat of the 75 watt bulb, I gotta hope they stay at least at 70 degrees body temp. Then I'm reading about this bacteria...begins with c 'osis of some kind that comes from their shite. The chances of getting it are high in my circumstances. I'll have to investigate anti-biotics for them just in case. I hope too I don't burn the barn down. OMG. This sucks. I could'a had a V8. Chicks looked fine tonight. Hope tomorrow they will still be there within an intact barn.

So thats why Denis I have to get a few more or at least try. You want to gurantee some good layers and as time goes by, the older layers lay less so I would have to cull some of them. I had to kill a chick (well chicken) that I raised last week. It was very had to do. She was such an outcast and the rest of them were picking at her more and more. It was best to send her over the chicken rainbow bridge.

I'm also going to get 12 meat chickens. They are called Freedom Rangers that sounds like something Hugh Jackman played in. They take over 12 weeks vs the nasty, stinky mutant cornish x's that are born mentally challenged but taste real good. The Freedom Rangers can be pastured and are said to be the best tasting chicken. They are an old heirloom breed and forage well and cost not so much to raise.

I will try the Freedom Rangers and hopefully they will survive my mistakes. I'll say more prayers for the barn tonight.

Springtime and all the fun it brings

Early Spring around Western NY has a remarkable effect on me. I start freaking with the amount of work coming at me. I have way too many project lined up by the time the snow melts and the ice breaks from the pond.

I've pulled out all the stones from an old walkway my Dad built and now I can't find the right limestone to use as a grout between the stones. I've called all over the area and I'm still looking for crushed limestone. I can get plenty of river rock but no limestone.

I count the days by the flowers that are out now. The wild daffodils come first, then the lilacs, then the tulips as I clean out my composter, clean out the hen house, arrange the started tomatoes and peppers in the upstairs windows. The days are counted by whatever cut wild and partially wild flowers arranged on the kitchen table.


My rooster, "Earl the Pearl" is as horny as a goat as the weather moderates. If one of the brahma hens comes up to me for a treat, Earl sneaks up from behind and jumps her. Its a show of power I guess. He annoys me but I love his crow in the morning.

I have bought 8 tiny chicks that are now smelling up my bathroom and shrieking every time I try and take a shower and trip over the brooding box while trying to get to the toilet. They watch me with averted heads as I brush my teeth. Hopefully by late this week the weather will warm up enough to put them in the barn loft. We will all be happier then.

I have attended seminars and workshops on chickens and I still have much to learn about getting the hens to lay eggs and to understand that roosters are not sentient beings.

I cleaned their hen house this week and spread the manure and straw at the back of the garden for next year. It had all turned to a fine powder over the winter that had a sour smell that permeated the air as I shoveled the stuff into the back of the gator. But it does look nice spread around the back of the garden. Hopefully it will make for some good soil next Spring. The hens love to "help" me dig out the manure from the entrance to the hen house. I find worms in the soil as I dig and the hens wait for the shovel to lift like they are watching a magic act. They dive for the worms and I have to wait until they are finished examining the area for more worms and return to watching me dig.

They have been "free-ranging" for a few weeks now as the grass greens up. Their egg production has been way down because they are far more interested in the grass and the worms than in the mundane job of laying eggs. But when they lay them, they are wonderful to taste and see. The eggs are now bright yellow like mustard and have a light creamy taste. I love to make an omelet with them and put them in pretty dishes. The dish in the picture was my grandmother's. She got it from a little boy when she was a school girl. He had a sandwich wrapped on it for lunch one day at school and my grandmother Irene was attracted to the little painted cupids frolicking naked in the center. She somehow convinced him to give her the plate. Its cracked and chipped but still its fun to remember her telling me about the little boy and the plate.