Barter is Better
My chickens are laying like champs, which is really surprising. My flock consists of: three six year old hens, three four year old hens, eight three year old hens, and four ten month old hens. Most days I’ve been getting between 12-17 eggs. My flock of anconas are just starting to lay as well. I have four ten month old hens and I’m getting 2-3 eggs from them each day.
As a result of all this laying I’m overrun with eggs. Last week I sold/bartered five dozen, this week I did once again. Somehow I still have 7 dozen eggs in my pantry. We eat four-six for breakfast each day and Tara gets 2-3 daily as well. Pretty soon I’ll have to find a few more egg customers because these chickens just keep laying! The best thing is that most of my eggs are bartered. I trade them for raw milk and cedar lumber. Not a bad deal for either party!
Do you ever barter?
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Earning their Keep
We’ve been hearing lots of mice in the house, in the walls, in the ceilings. We were wondering if the cats were doing their job, but then on two different occasions in the past month we have found evidence that they have.
In case you can’t quite tell what’s in the photo above, here’s a cropped version. Typically they leave what we call “mouse pants” which is just the back legs. I’m not sure why this time it was just the face.
It’s nice to know their doing their job, but I’d be happy if they ate 100% of their catch. Oh well, I guess as long as I don’t have mice getting into the pantry I don’t mind picking up mouse parts every once and again. Two of our cats are not mousers at all, the other three are great. Having working animals is so nice, it’s so much easier than setting and monitoring traps! At least in the house it’s just mice that they leave, when they’re all outdoors they’ll leave squirrels and various other rodents on my front step.
Do your pets ever leave you gifts?
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Quote of the Day: Willa Cather
“There’s no good reason Mrs Shimerda couldn’t have got hens from her neighbours last fall and had a hen-house going by now. I reckon she was confused and didn’t know where to begin. I’ve come strange to a new country myself, but I never forgot hens are a good thing to have, no matter what you don’t have.”.
Willa Cather – My Antonia
This is so true, it’s great having hen in the coop laying eggs. If we get snowed in we always have eggs from the coop and potatoes from the root cellar.
Do you have chickens? Would you like to have chickens?
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Did Somebody Say Bacon?
I finally got all the bacon in the freezer this week. It certainly is a lot of work to cure and smoke so much bacon. I figured we ended up with around 40 pounds of bacon per pig. I smoked it in two batches using clippings from our apple tree out front. I used the recipe from The River Cottage Meat Book because it was our favorite last year.
This year our pigs were a different breed. Mary breeds for specific characteristics in the meat and you can really tell. She did a great job. Our bacon was much meatier than it was last year. Looks like we won’t be running out of bacon any time soon! One of my favorite ways to enjoy bacon is on a salad, with avocados and eggs – mmmm.
What’s your favorite thing to enjoy with bacon: eggs, pancakes, french toast, burgers?
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Lucky Ducks (and Chickens)
I plant a lot of zucchini in the garden each year with the goal of having lots of those giant zucchinis that no one else seems to want. For me, they are invaluable come January. You see my chickens LOVE them. If you let them get really big on the vine they become like winter squash and will store for quite a while. These were harvested four months ago.
I always save a bunch, usually 15-20 and the chickens/ducks/guineas/turkeys get them when winter storms roll in and they stay in the coop. A giant zucchini will keep the flock happily occupied for a day or two. I love knowing that they’re getting healthy vegetables in the middle of the winter.
Do you grow any food for any of your pets?
