Around here

Around here life is moving along.  Our youngest daughter is now home for winter break.  But the week before finals we got to see a great concert by the Collegium Musicum.  Max has discovered a love of Renaissance music. And any concert with a Viola da Gamba playing has to be great.

Yesterday morning when I went out to feed a hawk flew up in front of me as I rounded the corner to the garage.  A pile of feathers led to the body of one of our Mottled Java hens.  The hawk looked like it could have been the same one who attacked a hen earlier. I guess as long as the hens are running around outside the pen they are at risk, or they are just keeping the hawk from going after the hens in the pen.

One of our hens is molting and is pretty pathetic looking.  She looks cold and could probably use a jacket, but how does one put a jacket on a chicken?

Christmas preparations are ongoing.  Shopping is nearly done and we bought our tree yesterday,  For years we have bought a tree from our neighbors' nursery down the road from the old house.  We could literally walk five minutes down the road, cut down our tree and walk it home (or use a cart depending on how big of a tree we felt like dealing with that year) in about half an hour.  And the trees have been $15 for at least the last 15 years.  We figured this would probably be the last year we would get a tree there so we picked one up on the way home. When we got it home, Alan set it in the garage while we get everything ready inside for the tree.

Even the outhouse has a touch a Christmas spirit.

It is supposed to be a rainy day here, but not yet.  So we finally got the last of the leaves raked up.  There always have to be a few trees that want to hold onto their leaves well beyond any reasonable length of time.  While raking out the vinca I found a lovely little surprise on this December day.

Still waiting to see my first snow at the new house; hopefully this month.  We also have what looks to be a great sledding hill.  Maybe while the girls are on winter break we can go sledding.

I couldn't have said it better

Sometime you read something that so speaks to where you are in your life experiences that you are amazed that someone else could put into words exactly what you are feeling. I had just such an experience while reading "This Organic Life".  The book chronicles Joan Gussow's move from her old, huge Victorian home of many decades to a smaller home on the banks of the Hudson River. Their "new" house ends up needing to be demolished and a new house built on the site, but it is the site that has drawn Joan and her husband to the location any way.

"September 27- Terrible, rainy day. No work on the house, obviously. But having just come back from Piermont, I need to reflect on the astonishing change of mood that place created. Nothing more has been done. The rain prevented work today, and prevented us from being out in the garden. But the place (was it the changing weather? There was a stiff wind off the water, and the sky kept changing, going silver and gray) just made me elated. When we got back to the car, we drove out the pier to look at the wild weather and I realized my mood was totally changed.  I have been depressed for days-partly the weather, I think, but its not only that. I simply love it in Piermont. I feel so wonderful when I'm there. It's just elating to be where you can connet so intimately with the weather every day. In this big house, we know if its raining or gloomy, and sometimes at night, when I get up to pee, I can see the moon so I know whether or not its full.  But there, you are aware of every nuance, every changing cloud, you feel the weather all the time, and its wonderful, sometimes even frightening as it almost was today with the wind driving heavy waves against the peir. We are going to live there, and I'm going to love it.

Earlier in the summer, a friend who was studying landscape suggested an explanation for the deep affinity I feel for this spot.  She had encountered in the writing of a scholar Jay Appleton the idea that two qualities in the landscape were particularly reassuring to relatively helpless mammals such as humans: refuge and prospect. Refuge for hiding out, and prospect for watching out- for enemies and food. Congers (her old house) had no prospect. We never sat out on our lawn, only on the porch, and then only "in season." I had enclosed the porch view- with a grapevine and evergreens close to the house and with shrubs around the property- to protect us from the corner traffic.  But Piermont offered us both refuge (note our reluctance to lose the shelter of the old house) and prospect of the river from the terrace and from the boardwalk.  It was not merely foolhardiness, but mammalian longing that made us buy a house we had to demolish."

I could not have written my feelings about both the old house and the new any better.  People keep asking how we could leave our old house after all the work and time we spent there.  Now I just have to give them these two paragraphs to read.

And Joan's garden has been plagued with flooding.  Here are a few pictures of her garden before and after the flooding of 2010. http://joansgarden.org/  And her little town of Piermont was devastated after Hurricane Sandy.  I hope she will be able to rebuild her garden again. 

Making lemonade from lemons (or lumber from a walnut tree)

We have slowly been dealing with all the trees that fell thanks to Hurricane Sandy, both at the new house and the old house.  We have literally tons of fire wood in ash, walnut, oak and a little cherry.  The largest tree that fell at the new house was a huge walnut tree.  The diameter was so large that just cutting rounds would be difficult, let alone splitting it.  Alan's brother knows a man with a sawmill and he has come to take away the walnut and it will be milled into useable lumber. Its great to have something constructive come out of all that devastation.

Alan just came inside with good news.  The walnut taken away was worth three 16 foot beams to build a bridge across our stream and $70.  And it is gone!

The fox

We've had a number of sitings of the fox in the past week.  He/She always is walking up from the stream, along the edge of the goats' pen, towards the woods on the north side of our property.  So far the fox has left our chickens and turkeys alone.  Although, I've probably just jinxed them.
My daughter got some great pictures of the fox hunting mice or chipmunks in the field.  It looked just like a nature film and we felt very special to be able to see the fox in action (as long as no poultry are harmed in the process).

Hopefully, the fox will leave our animals alone.  However, if we start having poultry attacks we will need to figure out something.  After much searching on the web I found out legally we will be able to trap the fox and either "euthanize it within 24 hours or release it within the same county with the owner's permission."  But only if we have property damage.  Turns out Alan's brother's property includes one acre located in Berks county so we could trap and then release the fox there.  So let's hope we won't have to buy a really large trap for the fox.

Predators!

Today was an interesting day of predators.  Our three Mottled Java hens do not like to stay in the pen and can fly pretty well, so they spend most of their day outside the chicken run.  They like to hang out under the bird feeder and clean up the sunflower seeds.  This morning I saw a lot of flapping going on at the edge of the stream on the other side of the bird feeders.  A Red Tail Hawk was attacking one of the Mottled Java hens, and she was putting up a pretty good fight.  There was lots of squawking going on as well.  When I opened up the patio door the hawk took off.  The hens hid under some arborvitae for the rest of the morning, but all of them were back to their normal activities by the afternoon.

When I went out to feed later this evening I spied a red fox moving slowly through the meadow near the chickens.  I was able to grab a quick picture, then we scared it away with a lot of very loud noise.

That;s the fox in nearly the middle of the picture.  He/She is about 50 feet from the chickens who insist on staying outside the pen every day.  I guess they need their wings clipped again to keep them in and safe.

More on the turkeys

The turkeys have been testing my patience lately.  First it was sitting on the laundry:

Then the girls decided the roof was a great place to hang out:

And sitting on the power line coming into the house is definitely not a good idea girls!

Flying was really what was getting the girls into all kinds of trouble, so on Sunday Mackenzie and I clipped their wings.  I have not seen this yet, but my husband says they are really funny when they try to fly.  They get up about four feet in the air then bank sharply to the left and end up back on the ground. The males were happy, though, to have the females sticking around them.

In other turkey news: one tom went to the butcher's this morning along with four hens from the old house.  One hen at the old house was attacked over the weekend and needed to be put out of its misery, so only four old stewing hens for the freezer.  But they finished their job at the old house, doing a nice job cleaning up the vegetable garden there.

The butcher's farm is a quintessential Mennonite farm; two buggies in the garage, well pump powered by a large windmill, and great gardens.  And the price can't be beat.  Only $2 per chicken and $3 per turkey.  At these prices I may never want to butcher my own birds again.

Update:
It was fully dark by the time I got the call that the birds were ready to be picked up.  It was dark at the farm, guess they don't have outside lights, and the path to the butchering room was between two dark buildings.  Two people were standing outside the door waiting for their birds.  As I opened the door there was a rush of warm moist air laden with the scent of wet poultry feathers.  The whole family was involved in the butchering.  The turkey and chickens were put straight into the cooler, no bags, and then he dropped in the hearts and livers.  A quick stop on the way home to get bags big enough for a whole bird and then we spent a half hour packaging the birds. Can't wait to try them.

Snow in the forecast!

I am sitting here with a cat on my lap writing this blog post secure in the knowledge that our little place is a s ready for the coming snow as we can reasonably be.  Yes, I would love to have all the leaves raked up, shredded and spread in the chicken run.  And it would be great if the poplar tree was not hanging over my garden, cantilevered out 15 feet in the air on the root ball of a large walnut tree.  But the goats have new hay and straw put away in their hay hut, fresh straw bedding in their house, and new clover hay in their manager.  The turkeys have a place to get out of the wind and snow and the chicken coop is snug as well. There is a wagon load of firewood on the patio and lots of kindling by the wood stove.

All the plants I brought from the old house are now in the ground.  The last seven Rose of Sharon shrubs were planted by the stream this morning.  And I didn't find one rock, stone, or pebble while digging the holes. I even did a few test digs in the area I want to turn into my raspberry patch and that was pretty nice digging as well. The soil here continues to amaze me.

I found a butcher for my five old laying hens who've been busily cleaning up the garden at the old house.  They are nearly three years old and have pretty much reached the end of their productive lives.  They will make great stewing hens since they have only ever eaten organic feed and garden plants and produce.  He even butchers turkeys so one of our males will go along for the ride.  Last Tuesday night two of our tom turkeys must have gotten into a fight. One of the toms was not doing well with multiple gashes around his face and neck.  Maddy butchered him, with the help of a friend, on Wednesday and he now resides in the freezer.  The other two tom turkeys had to be separated when they started fighting.  Never thought I would have to break up a fight between two turkeys!  The most dominant turkey also had to be separated from the chickens since one chicken was relentlessly pecking at his back side and he was starting to bleed.  He is fine now and enjoying having his ladies to himself.