Well,
As of bedtime tonight there are 7 new Wellsummer chicks in various stages of drying and curiosity existing inside our incubator.
Wait for an update in the morning!!!
Jeff
Friday, July 31, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Something brief
Hello all,
Just a brief update. We were dismayed this past Saturday morning to discover that two of Winona's 5 chicks had died. It is uncertain what caused it (did she crush them, did they not find the water, one of them might have gotten its foot stuck in the screen that is under them). In any case, we are down to 3 chicks there. Kind of a bummer.
Also Saturday Annie and I went looking for land. We saw some things we liked, and some things we didn't. We are hoping to buy a place buy the end of the year to take advantage of some of the tax breaks/low interest rates etc, but time will tell.
On Sunday we pickled, a lot. We pickled 40 pints of pickles - some sour and some bread 'n' butter. There is also a crock pot of some that are pickling in a brine.
Also had our most successful foray with making chevre (goat cheese) to date. It has close to the right texture. Each batch keeps getting a little better, so hopefully soon we'll have this something like perfected. Probably right when it is time to stop milking the girls :).
Hope all are well.
Jeff
Just a brief update. We were dismayed this past Saturday morning to discover that two of Winona's 5 chicks had died. It is uncertain what caused it (did she crush them, did they not find the water, one of them might have gotten its foot stuck in the screen that is under them). In any case, we are down to 3 chicks there. Kind of a bummer.
Also Saturday Annie and I went looking for land. We saw some things we liked, and some things we didn't. We are hoping to buy a place buy the end of the year to take advantage of some of the tax breaks/low interest rates etc, but time will tell.
On Sunday we pickled, a lot. We pickled 40 pints of pickles - some sour and some bread 'n' butter. There is also a crock pot of some that are pickling in a brine.
Also had our most successful foray with making chevre (goat cheese) to date. It has close to the right texture. Each batch keeps getting a little better, so hopefully soon we'll have this something like perfected. Probably right when it is time to stop milking the girls :).
Hope all are well.
Jeff
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
The Cycles of LIfe
Well, today is primarily a sad day here at Deerfield. Whitepaw, the oldest of the cats around has not been feeling well lately. She hasn't been able to eat, but she's really been wanting to. She went to the vet last week and he gave her some shots and stuff, and she ate for a day or so, but since then has only seemed to get worse. I took her back to the vet today, and he found a tumor on her jaw that has grown into the joint, essentially freezing her jaw shut. He said he could give her some steroids, and that might give her some temporary relief, but that he thought the best thing for her would be to put her to sleep. I called David, and he gave his consent, and so sometime between two and three this afternoon Whitepaw left this world. We had a burial for her. It was very sad, even for me who was probably the least attached to Whitepaw of the Deerfield human residents.
The other happier news, is that Winona has hatched at least two of the eggs under her, and we are hoping for more. As soon as she is no longer sitting on them (which she is still doing last we saw) we will get some pictures of the new mama with her brood. That is also exciting as it is the first time we've used a hen to hatch eggs, so we will get to watch her raise them.
Also we completed our second chicken tractor today, so we can finally get the vastly overcrowded birds out of the brooder that they have been in for entirely too long. We still need to build a couple more for when they are full grown, but this will be a definite improvement.
And so the cycles keep on going. . .
Jeff
The other happier news, is that Winona has hatched at least two of the eggs under her, and we are hoping for more. As soon as she is no longer sitting on them (which she is still doing last we saw) we will get some pictures of the new mama with her brood. That is also exciting as it is the first time we've used a hen to hatch eggs, so we will get to watch her raise them.
Also we completed our second chicken tractor today, so we can finally get the vastly overcrowded birds out of the brooder that they have been in for entirely too long. We still need to build a couple more for when they are full grown, but this will be a definite improvement.
And so the cycles keep on going. . .
Jeff
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Comings and Goings
First, let me backtrack a bit to Jeff's and my honeymoon in Charleston, SC in late May. Jeff and I had a wonderful time in Charleston during the big annual Spoleto Festival. We saw a stage play, an opera, a contemporary ballet, the symphony orchestra, and "The One Man Star Wars Trilogy". The Star Wars thing was a lot of fun, but the ballet was our favorite show. We walked around beautiful Charleston until our legs gave up, and then we utilized the bicycle cabs. We also enjoyed some fine dining, including taking a cooking class, in which I discovered a new appreciation for fried chicken and pound cake. We stayed at a very charming B&B downtown, whose owners took great care of us. We enjoyed relaxing on the porch reading on cool mornings and sipping wine during the evening social hour.
The newest arrivals at Deerfield are two baby guineas, which are a wedding gift from friends, who are local farmers. Unfortunately, Jeff and I have a bad track record as guinea parents so far. Our first four guineas disappeared shortly after we let them out of the small chicken tractor, that we had used to help teach them where home is. The big piles of feathers that they left behind indicates that a predator probably got them. So we're trying again, but this time we're putting them in a more secure location, hopefully. However, it would help if we made the tractor a little more escape proof for sneaky little guineas. One baby vanished from the tractor within hours of being placed there. It has not been seen or heard from since. Sniff! However, the Garrys gave us one more guinea so that our remaining one wouldn't be lonely. They are currently in a rabbit cage until we fix the tractor...or something.
Keep your fingers crossed for the arrival of more baby chicks next week! Wynona has been sitting on some Welsummer eggs for almost three weeks. Hatching day should be Tuesday the 21st. Wynona started out with a dozen eggs, but early last week she kicked out of the nest one of the eggs, which we found broken open beside her. There had been a chick developing in the egg, but maybe something went wrong with it, so Wynona kicked it out, or maybe she just accidentally broke it somehow. We also put about 15 eggs in the incubator, which might hatch on the 31st. We don't really have high hopes for those eggs, though, because the thermostat on the incubator has been pretty erratic, letting the temp go up to 104 one day, which can kill the developing chicks. Our other hope for Welsummer chicks is a Silkie/Australorp hen, who finally went broody again this week. She has 6 eggs under her. We released the Welsummer cockerel and one of the girls from the "Love Shack" after we discovered that the other girl was not well one day. It appears that she has come down with that evil Marek's Disease that killed a number of our chickens over the winter, which, I suppose, doesn't bode well for the vitality her offspring. Ack! Oh, well. We shall see.
This morning we said goodbye to Lily's daughter, 3-month old Pease Blossom. Sob! She is going to a nice new home, though, where she will have another young Nubian-mix doeling as a companion. Her new owner is a newbie goatherd, like Jeff and I were just over a year ago. She's been studying up, though, and Jeff and I shared with her some useful tips, based on our own experiences as novices in the goat world.
Here are some pictures of the first chicken tractor, that Jeff and I built. It houses the Partridge Rock and New Hampshire Red youngins that arrived here back in mid-April.
The garden is growing pretty well. The corn is getting tall. We have a thick wall of cucumber vines across from the tomato beds, and lots of cool stuff has sprouted in the new bed that Jeff dug near the raised beds. We were kind of late planting some stuff (and the lack of rain didn't help), but hopefully we'll get some gourds, melons, and squash before the end of the season.
Cheers,
Annie
The newest arrivals at Deerfield are two baby guineas, which are a wedding gift from friends, who are local farmers. Unfortunately, Jeff and I have a bad track record as guinea parents so far. Our first four guineas disappeared shortly after we let them out of the small chicken tractor, that we had used to help teach them where home is. The big piles of feathers that they left behind indicates that a predator probably got them. So we're trying again, but this time we're putting them in a more secure location, hopefully. However, it would help if we made the tractor a little more escape proof for sneaky little guineas. One baby vanished from the tractor within hours of being placed there. It has not been seen or heard from since. Sniff! However, the Garrys gave us one more guinea so that our remaining one wouldn't be lonely. They are currently in a rabbit cage until we fix the tractor...or something.
Keep your fingers crossed for the arrival of more baby chicks next week! Wynona has been sitting on some Welsummer eggs for almost three weeks. Hatching day should be Tuesday the 21st. Wynona started out with a dozen eggs, but early last week she kicked out of the nest one of the eggs, which we found broken open beside her. There had been a chick developing in the egg, but maybe something went wrong with it, so Wynona kicked it out, or maybe she just accidentally broke it somehow. We also put about 15 eggs in the incubator, which might hatch on the 31st. We don't really have high hopes for those eggs, though, because the thermostat on the incubator has been pretty erratic, letting the temp go up to 104 one day, which can kill the developing chicks. Our other hope for Welsummer chicks is a Silkie/Australorp hen, who finally went broody again this week. She has 6 eggs under her. We released the Welsummer cockerel and one of the girls from the "Love Shack" after we discovered that the other girl was not well one day. It appears that she has come down with that evil Marek's Disease that killed a number of our chickens over the winter, which, I suppose, doesn't bode well for the vitality her offspring. Ack! Oh, well. We shall see.
This morning we said goodbye to Lily's daughter, 3-month old Pease Blossom. Sob! She is going to a nice new home, though, where she will have another young Nubian-mix doeling as a companion. Her new owner is a newbie goatherd, like Jeff and I were just over a year ago. She's been studying up, though, and Jeff and I shared with her some useful tips, based on our own experiences as novices in the goat world.
Here are some pictures of the first chicken tractor, that Jeff and I built. It houses the Partridge Rock and New Hampshire Red youngins that arrived here back in mid-April.
The garden is growing pretty well. The corn is getting tall. We have a thick wall of cucumber vines across from the tomato beds, and lots of cool stuff has sprouted in the new bed that Jeff dug near the raised beds. We were kind of late planting some stuff (and the lack of rain didn't help), but hopefully we'll get some gourds, melons, and squash before the end of the season.
Cheers,
Annie
Monday, July 13, 2009
Annie, Annie, how does your garden grow?
The Garden is doing quite well, especially if you measure it by cucumber output. This past weekend we made 14 pints of dill pickles and 18 pints of bread and butter pickle relish (we chop the cucumbers up more, and it's a relish). A couple of weeks ago we also pickled some beets, and some sweet pickle chips (which are one of our favorites from last year).
We have also gotten enough zucchini to satisfy us at times, and the tomatoes are starting to come in - which is exciting. We are still in the ramping up stage, but hopefully soon we will be swamped with tomatoes.
Our mustard greens were a revelation. I don't think I've ever eaten a raw mustard green before, and they were incredible. It started off and I thought - hmm a green. But then within a second the flavor exploded, and it was as if I had eaten the spicy mustard at a chinese restaurant (the good kind in a sit down restaurant, not the crappy stuff in the packets). Simply amazing.
We also have some carrots, they were nothing special in my estimation - I suspect the red clay of Georgia is not the best for carrots so they don't get very big - but they weren't particularly tasty either.
We did get a lot of garlic, which is exciting. We didn't grow it last year (or as I almost put it, "We've never grown garlic before."). We have something like 15 bulbs or so down in the basement curing. We actually used it for the first time yet in some of the dill pickles.
We made two batches of cheese this past weekend. I'm still trying to get the hang of Chevre (which is what people usually mean when they say goat cheese). It seems to be consistently too crumbly - not sure why that is. Also this time I put too much salt in it (which may have led to the crumbliness, because salt draws out moisture). Despite all of this, Annie says this is the best batch yet, and she is our Chevre judge. Also tonight, for the first time ever I made "30-minute mozzarella." I gotta say, it worked out pretty daggone well. It could use a bit more flavor (which we can work on by adding another enzyme or taking the time to culture the milk), but it was good and definitely mozzarella like. I made pasta and melted it on top, and it was tasty.
I also finished building our cheese press this past weekend, so hopefully soon we can try making a cheddar. That for me is my first big cheese making goal. If I can get a good cheddar going I will be very happy. After that, probably blue cheese.
I bet their is other news, but I don't recall it right now. I would like to say, that I particularly appreciate getting comments, cause it helps me know people are reading and interested in this. Also we'll do our best to answer questions if you ask us. Hope all are well
Jeff
We have also gotten enough zucchini to satisfy us at times, and the tomatoes are starting to come in - which is exciting. We are still in the ramping up stage, but hopefully soon we will be swamped with tomatoes.
Our mustard greens were a revelation. I don't think I've ever eaten a raw mustard green before, and they were incredible. It started off and I thought - hmm a green. But then within a second the flavor exploded, and it was as if I had eaten the spicy mustard at a chinese restaurant (the good kind in a sit down restaurant, not the crappy stuff in the packets). Simply amazing.
We also have some carrots, they were nothing special in my estimation - I suspect the red clay of Georgia is not the best for carrots so they don't get very big - but they weren't particularly tasty either.
We did get a lot of garlic, which is exciting. We didn't grow it last year (or as I almost put it, "We've never grown garlic before."). We have something like 15 bulbs or so down in the basement curing. We actually used it for the first time yet in some of the dill pickles.
We made two batches of cheese this past weekend. I'm still trying to get the hang of Chevre (which is what people usually mean when they say goat cheese). It seems to be consistently too crumbly - not sure why that is. Also this time I put too much salt in it (which may have led to the crumbliness, because salt draws out moisture). Despite all of this, Annie says this is the best batch yet, and she is our Chevre judge. Also tonight, for the first time ever I made "30-minute mozzarella." I gotta say, it worked out pretty daggone well. It could use a bit more flavor (which we can work on by adding another enzyme or taking the time to culture the milk), but it was good and definitely mozzarella like. I made pasta and melted it on top, and it was tasty.
I also finished building our cheese press this past weekend, so hopefully soon we can try making a cheddar. That for me is my first big cheese making goal. If I can get a good cheddar going I will be very happy. After that, probably blue cheese.
I bet their is other news, but I don't recall it right now. I would like to say, that I particularly appreciate getting comments, cause it helps me know people are reading and interested in this. Also we'll do our best to answer questions if you ask us. Hope all are well
Jeff
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Long needed update
Well, hello out there.
We have not updated this in some time. I think I've been waiting to get pictures, or have something especially profound to say or something. Also we have been busy.
So to begin with on May 16th Annie and I got married. YaY!!! It really turned out to be a beautiful ceremony - after some stressing about getting the outside of the house into shape, essentially everything took place either in the house or on the porches because of the rain. Well, actually the rehearsal dinner did take advantage of the rented tent, which was nice. The wedding itself was incredibly beautiful and moving, I think largely because there were so many people we love involved - and the rain forcing us into the house made it feel very intimate. Thank you to all who gave us gifts - we are working on thank you cards (really, we are!) but again - we are busy.
An update on soap stuff. We have now sold a couple of batches of soap stuff to better for babies (you can check them out at http://betterforbabies.com/ ). We have not yet started making anything to sell on our own - but are thinking we may start with liquid product - such as shampoos and body washes and whatnot, as we don't see those being represented in our local market place.
The garden seems to be growing well. At present we are harvesting cucumbers, zucchini, and a few tomatoes. Also there is basil. We already pulled all of our beets and pickled the vast majority of them. They came out red this year, which is a nice change from last years weird white beets.
The chicks that were featured in one of the last blog posts are now practically grown. They aren't to laying age yet, but the roosters are beginning to get their voices and start crowing. We are building chicken tractors for them (movable chicken pens - we'll put up a picture sometime soon). We need to get more of them built ASAP, as right now at least some of them are vastly overcrowded. Also we have put our wellsummers (two hens and one rooster) in "The Love Shack" and have been saving their eggs for hatching. Winona, our wyandotte hen, has gotten broody on us - so she is now setting on a dozen wellsummer eggs (since the wellsummers weren't getting broody). The projected hatch date for them is July 21st I believe. It will be exciting to see some chickens get raised by a mother hen for a change, rather than us having to care for them so directly. Other than that the other chickens are laying pretty well - though not as well as they did earlier in the summer. Chickens and goats seem to both produce less when the weather gets hot - so whereas we had a few weeks of getting between 60 and 70 eggs, we are now somewhere around 50 or less I would say.
The goats are doing well it seems. This is probably the most newsworthy part of this email - we now have one less goat. A friend of mine had a barbecue for July 4th and thought it would be a cool idea to serve a goat for it. So (avert your eyes if your likely to get teary eyed) Chevy (which is short for Chevron - french for goat meat) was taken to the slaughter house on Monday among tears (from Annie) and "moist eyes" (from me) and a fair amount of vocal protest (from Chevy and Hoppy). If I get a chance I'll write more on this later, but I'm trying to do a bare bones update right now just of what has been happening.
I'm sure there is something I am leaving out. but to find out what it is you'll have to stay tuned for the next exciting update of the deerfield follies (which I promise won't be so far away in time as this one was.)
Hope you are all doing well,
Jeff
We have not updated this in some time. I think I've been waiting to get pictures, or have something especially profound to say or something. Also we have been busy.
So to begin with on May 16th Annie and I got married. YaY!!! It really turned out to be a beautiful ceremony - after some stressing about getting the outside of the house into shape, essentially everything took place either in the house or on the porches because of the rain. Well, actually the rehearsal dinner did take advantage of the rented tent, which was nice. The wedding itself was incredibly beautiful and moving, I think largely because there were so many people we love involved - and the rain forcing us into the house made it feel very intimate. Thank you to all who gave us gifts - we are working on thank you cards (really, we are!) but again - we are busy.
An update on soap stuff. We have now sold a couple of batches of soap stuff to better for babies (you can check them out at http://betterforbabies.com/ ). We have not yet started making anything to sell on our own - but are thinking we may start with liquid product - such as shampoos and body washes and whatnot, as we don't see those being represented in our local market place.
The garden seems to be growing well. At present we are harvesting cucumbers, zucchini, and a few tomatoes. Also there is basil. We already pulled all of our beets and pickled the vast majority of them. They came out red this year, which is a nice change from last years weird white beets.
The chicks that were featured in one of the last blog posts are now practically grown. They aren't to laying age yet, but the roosters are beginning to get their voices and start crowing. We are building chicken tractors for them (movable chicken pens - we'll put up a picture sometime soon). We need to get more of them built ASAP, as right now at least some of them are vastly overcrowded. Also we have put our wellsummers (two hens and one rooster) in "The Love Shack" and have been saving their eggs for hatching. Winona, our wyandotte hen, has gotten broody on us - so she is now setting on a dozen wellsummer eggs (since the wellsummers weren't getting broody). The projected hatch date for them is July 21st I believe. It will be exciting to see some chickens get raised by a mother hen for a change, rather than us having to care for them so directly. Other than that the other chickens are laying pretty well - though not as well as they did earlier in the summer. Chickens and goats seem to both produce less when the weather gets hot - so whereas we had a few weeks of getting between 60 and 70 eggs, we are now somewhere around 50 or less I would say.
The goats are doing well it seems. This is probably the most newsworthy part of this email - we now have one less goat. A friend of mine had a barbecue for July 4th and thought it would be a cool idea to serve a goat for it. So (avert your eyes if your likely to get teary eyed) Chevy (which is short for Chevron - french for goat meat) was taken to the slaughter house on Monday among tears (from Annie) and "moist eyes" (from me) and a fair amount of vocal protest (from Chevy and Hoppy). If I get a chance I'll write more on this later, but I'm trying to do a bare bones update right now just of what has been happening.
I'm sure there is something I am leaving out. but to find out what it is you'll have to stay tuned for the next exciting update of the deerfield follies (which I promise won't be so far away in time as this one was.)
Hope you are all doing well,
Jeff
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