eating our yard

After a morning of painting, and chicken coop improvements we put together and then ate a great lunch that was mostly from our own yard.

Tomato sanwhich
fried potatoes
corn on the cob
sauteed kale, red pepper,onion and Chanterelle mushrooms

 The Kale is from the front yard
The Chanterelle mushrooms from the woods behind the house
We have potato & tomato plants growing in many different places.
Onions grow next to the kitchen
Peppers grow down in front.  So does the corn & cucumbers

Kale and Chanterelles.

For desert there is fresh fruit from the farm, peaches, cantaloupe, watermelon, canary melon, nectarines, & plums.
Because of the limited sun we get here our peaches and apples are still a ways from being ready to eat.  Most of our vegetables take as much as 4 weeks longer to ripen than the local farms.
After finding out that I am a vegetarian (who tends toward being vegan) people have asked me, "What do you eat?"  Really?  There is so much to be eaten and enjoyed.  For dinner it was burritos with beans and rice and squash and peppers in a tomato and onion sauce topped with fresh scallions and cilantro.  Really?  what do I eat?  I eat lots, and enjoy it all.

Le deuxieme oeuf

I almost missed it!  Thinking about it, it is pretty easy to tell when a hen is about to lay.  Just like any mother to be she is a bit agitated and she settles into her laying box.  I am very happy that she is using the nesting boxes.  So far one egg at one end of the coop and the second on the opposite side.

The second egg!

It is all very strange.  I still don't like the idea of taking their offspring but I also don't know any of the eggs to be fertile, even though we think Chestnut to be a rooster.

The eggs are small, about 2/3 the size of the eggs we get from our local farm.

double gates yet to be painted.

I built the gates day before yesterday and got the hinges put on yesterday.  I am pleased with the result.  Hope to paint later today.  Funny that the chickens can actually fit thru the balustrades but choose not to.

August brings!?? Egg.

This morning Betty was staying in the coup when all the rest of the girls were out foraging, as usual.  When I went to find out how she was, I saw that she was scratching around in the nest boxes and in the last box was this little brown egg.

The chickens have become hens
well, at least one of them has.
Our first egg.

In truth, I myself am not that interested in eating the eggs.  I have become less inclined to eat any kind of animal food over the years.  Eggs, if there is no rooster around to fertilize them, are not going to become animals, and are in fact just food for somebody yet, a snake, worms, plants (in the form or rot or compost), and even for the hens themselves.  So, why not people?  This starts to become something better discussed on my "ReasonablePath" blog.
So now the little garden is a step closer toward being a micro farm.
We still don't know if Chestnut is a hen or a rooster.  That bird is just larger, with more plumage and seems to lead the others.  Seems like a rooster, but I don't know.
I candled the egg with a flashlight but couldn't even see a yolk.  We gotta get more straw for the boxes and more calcium in the birds diet.

New railing

Learning as we go with the chickens.  Free range, they certainly are.  But that means that they are Free to range, but not that they have free range over all of our spaces.  Cleaning up after them is a bit tedious when they often seem to want to hang out where we are, on non grass or dirt areas.  So instead of penning them in, we are penning us in, or them out, or what ever.  Free range chickens and chicken free range seem to be important items to keep a home happy.  In the morning we can have our coffee at the table and the "girls can be within reach, close enough to make them happy, seemingly.

New railing to create a "chicken free" area.

 The funny thing was that this space seemed to be a bit small and not quite useful before I put up the railing.  Now it seems to add space to the rest of the house and makes it feel grand in size.  Strange.  I guess we needed a defining line between our space and the rest of the place.

By limiting the space with the new railing the space seemed to get bigger.
Weird.

I made the railing out of scrap material, some old decking.  I even reused the old stainless steel nails.  I decided to buy the hinges and latch (not in the picture) so that the hole thing would have a nice finish to it.  The dog has to be let in and out of the gate now, but that isn't to much trouble.  Every once in a while a chicken will decide she has to come over, or thru the fencing.  The funny thing is that once they get in they immediately start making noise, letting me know that they are where they are no supposed to be.  Between me and the dog we chase them out.  I usually have to open the gate, even though they didn't need it to get in.  Go figure.