Yowza
The other morning I went out to collect eggs and found this ginormous beast. I know exactly who laid it, our oldest lady. She’s five or six years old, I’m not exactly sure which. That’s the beauty of having older hens in your flock, you fewer eggs from them, but they’re usually bigger.
I wish I had grabbed a pullet egg so you could see them side-by-side. I also should have weighed it as well, but I didn’t. It was cracked right into Tara’s bowl atop kefir and she gobbled it down.
Do you ever find jumbo eggs in your coop or in the eggs you get from a local farm?
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Sidekicks
This is what we see from our kitchen window every morning:
These two turkeys of ours have become my sidekicks. They wait for me to come outside every day and follow me around while I work. They sing their sweet little songs and are highly entertaining! Turkeys are definitely birds that we love having around.
We’re fairly sure that we ended up with two hens, so I’ll be looking for a tom with hopes of having a breeding trio next year. Or maybe one of them will go broody and I can put some fertile eggs under her. I’d love to end up with a small flock of Wishard Bronze turkeys that can raise their own young each year. This is one of the best parts of having a little bit of land, experimenting with new birds has been a lot of fun!
If had space for lots of animals what would you have on your farm?
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Relearning the Old Ways
Atavism [at–uh-viz-uhm] noun – the reappearance in an individual of characteristics of some remote ancestor that have been absent in intervening generations.
found while reading The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens
Yesterday we spent the day butchering our pigs. They were slaughtered last Saturday and hung on our back porch during the week. Neil came back yesterday and we cut, ground, salted, and packaged up the meat. We got them almost 100% processed. The only thing I have left is one type of ham brine to mix/boil. That’s quite a feat, last year I spent an entire week working on this process.
As we worked I thought about all the older people I have met recently that have told me about how they remember slaughtering hogs when they were kids. My grandfather’s wife was one of those people. She spent a long time telling me about how they used to raise 5-6 hogs each year to feed the family (she had a lot of brothers & sisters). Back then they grew food because they had to, now we do it because we want to.
Have you experienced talking to people from previous generations about their memories of growing/raising their own food?
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Leafless Trees
This time of year I’m always on the lookout for bird nests. With the leaves off the trees they’re easy to spot. I walked by this spot a million times in the summer and had no idea there was a nest here. It’s only about 2.5 feet off the ground.
I also loved seeing that the little bird used shredded paper from my compost pile along with birch bark. I have not idea what kind of bird built this beautiful nest, I’ll have to do some research to see if I can figure it out. Or perhaps one of you can give us the answer.
Bird nests are truly amazing to me. I could never build something so intricate with 10 fingers and birds manage to build them with their beaks. You can be I’ll be keeping a keen eye out for more of these little beauties. This one might be cut from it’s perch to put on a shelf in my office.
What do you like most about the trees being leafless?
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Extra Spring in Her Step
Terrible T is a winter dog, which is understandable with the thick double coat. Once the weather dips down into the teens she’s a completely different dog. It’s like she’s a puppy again with boundless energy.
She rolls in the snow and has a GREAT time. I can’t take her on hikes in the summer, she’s simply too hot. Now that the weather has cooled down we’ve been taking hikes in the afternoon. She had a grand time sniffing deer trails, peeing on fox scat, and rolling in the snow. I can’t blame her, I love the cold as well. Back when I was a runner I much preferred running when the temperature was below 30.
Do you like the cooler weather?
