Staying Green

That our move halfway across the world has put some dampers on our lifestyle and our efforts to live sustainably is putting it mildly. The carbon footprint of the flight alone is frustrating. I can't recycle much of anything here because of our remote location and the lack of local processing facilities and markets for the raw material. While the Aussies are better about keeping their food close to it's natural state than the Americans - no corn syrup in everything! - and they don't seem to use as many pesticides and favor more sustainable farming, most everything has to be shipped in. Talk about an oil soaked diet!

I have lucked out on a source of eggs that makes me feel better about what they have in the grocery store. I can't get many right now, but hopefully that will change. I know a lady who lives up in Ti-Tree and teaches at a bush school where the kids are raising chooks for eggs to sell. She's got a bunch of us down here in Alice eager to buy the eggs, and the kids are excited to get more chickens to meet the demand. Yes, they have to travel 190 kms to get to me, but she has to come to town anyway to shop and see family, so it is a wash. And the price is right! At least until we get around to getting our own layers. One neighbor is a soon to retire contractor who has offered me help and scrap materials to build a coop/ark/tractor for them. And I would have plenty of people, between base folks and neighbors, happy to help take care of them when we travel in exchange for the eggs. So that is going well.

Composting is a bit of a funny story. When we first got here, I could not bear to throw away any of the food scraps we generated, after so many years of collecting them for composting. Of course, I had nowhere to put them, but I saved them anyway. Where did I put them? In the freezer! After a week or so, as I was running out of space, I came up with a solution. I took one of the boxes we had from shipping our stuff down here - can't throw those out! - and layered the scraps with shredded paper from said boxes - ditto! - and some coir mulch (like peat moss, but more sustainable). Stuck the box out under a tree and I am gonna let mother nature work her magic to get me some compost. All I should have to do is keep it moist and be patient, since I can't really turn it without wreaking the box. I have even been able to add to it as more food scraps build up and the composting ones shrink down. Once all our stuff gets here, I can use my worm composter to handle the food scraps.

One thing we were warned about in advance before getting here was that paper products were limited in selection and expensive. Good thing we do not really use much in the way of paper products, between our rags for messes, cloth napkins, cloth TP, and cloth menstrual pads! We do use some paper towels for things like bacon grease cleanup, but they go in the compost, so they end up being a source of brown carbon inputs there. We have not made the jump to cloth TP for #2, so we still need some toilet paper for that. The cool thing is that the recycled TP is actually cheaper than the stuff made with virgin pulp. Which only makes sense and I cannot understand why they charge so much back in the states.

One thing I am pretty dedicated to doing is growing as much food as I can for us. I was gifted with a whole bunch of pots soon after we arrived and I have started a ton of seeds for basic fresh salad veg, like lettuce, arugula, spinach, carrots, scallions, snap peas and some herbs. Even though I don't know if they will produce anything before it gets cold, I have some bush beans and scarlet runner beans going as well. A few strawberries are always good and I am trying some garlic and onions. We have a citrus tree in our backyard, but I am not sure what it is. The fruit are kind of lime sized and colored, but if you cut one open, it smells like an orange and is orange in color. The fruit is not ready to harvest yet, so it must be some type of orange. Whatever it is, it will give us lots of fresh fruit in a few months and that makes me happy!

Tomorrow, the base housing folks are coming to install solar PV panels on our roof. Not that it will help us financially, since the housing is provided here, but it will help our green sensibilities a ton! The house already has solar hot water as do most houses down here. Makes too much sense not to! So, those bases are covered quite nicely and are a fine addition to our normal conservation habits. Even if we don't pay for the energy with our own money, it is paid for with taxpayer money, so we will do what we can to save as much of that as we can!

OK, that is all I can think of right now, but I am sure you'll hear more from me about this kind of thing in the future.

Day Five

Today, S caught Alice the rooster and loved on him. This was a long sought after thing, as she has been trying to catch him since she got here! The girls all gave Alice some love:

We went into town to do a little thrift shopping on the Commons where many a good bargain was found. There was some loving on statues, too:

Back home, the new zipline was enjoyed:

Progress

I am making slow but good progress on the chicken coop. In case you hadn't noticed I could turn this blog into a chicken blog sooooo easily! ;-) I can't help it. I love my chickens.

Anyway. Here are some pictures of the progress:

The window, made with a piece of scrap plexiglass found in the basement.

Here, A demonstrates the function of the nest boxes. Now to get the girls to actually lay in the nest boxes and not in the straw on the floor of the coop! I think I need to make them more private, or something.This shows the nest boxes from the inside of the coop and the roosting bars. And the feeder. The door you see a sliver of on the left has a chicken sized door in it. I plan to keep the big door shut and the little door open, except when I need to get in the coop for some reason. The food and water will be moved to inside the run and the whole run is secure, so the girls can come and go as they please.

And here is the whole shebang! A little nicer than that drawing I made last time, huh? This is most definitely the biggest thing I have ever built by myself. Well, almost by myself. My father in law was a huge help getting me started. I am pretty happy with it. Yay, me!! It is not perfect, but the chickens like it and that is what counts!!

Now to get shingles up on the roof, siding on the two outer sides of the coop and paint everywhere else. Oh, and finish the planting around the edges.

Sad Day

This morning, two dogs came into my yard and killed one of my chickens. Actually, I had to kill her after she was maimed so badly, there was no hope.

I heard dogs barking and ran outside to see what was going on. Normally, you don't hear dogs barking as my house is too far from neighbors. The dogs were barking at the baby chickens in the tractor and ran off when I yelled at them. One disappeared and the other came back all submissive, like she knew she was a bad, bad dog. She had a harness on her, so I know she was a pet. I kept yelling at the dog and frantically looking around for the big chickens. I had seen one of them down by the firepit when I came out, but did not see any then. That is when I saw the reddish brown lump across the yard. Running over to it, my heart and stomach sank when I saw the bloody feathery mess. Then I saw her breathing, but that made it worse, not better, as there was no saving this chicky. She had her eyes closed and was totally unresponsive. I knew I was going to have to put her out of her misery. Let's just say my ax was sharp enough and chickens really do flop around after you chop their heads off.

The girls came out and we looked for the other chickens. One was found easily, but the other took us a while to find. She was hiding down in the tall grass by the swampy pond. She stayed hunkered down right up until I was a foot away from her, then she got up and followed me up to the yard. I guess she was still pretty freaked out. They are both doing ok after their scary morning.

Henrietta was placed in the compost, to nourish us through future plants in the garden. I guess us humans are just not scavengers, as I cannot stomach eating an animal I did not kill. Ok, I eat animals other humans kill, just not ones that other animals kill. (Update to address Sandra's comment: I did choose the moment of death for the chicken, but I did not choose that her death should occur that day. The dogs made sure of that. I think the distinction is key.)

Tending livestock is a risky venture, I am discovering, and incidents like today's are so frustrating. It is one thing to lose a crop of tomatoes to late blight, as we did last summer, and a whole 'nother to lose an animal you raised from infancy. So sad.

In more positive news, I got a majority of the framing on the run for the coop done today. Not too much longer and the chickens will have a nice tight safe place to spend times that we cannot watch them closely. Too late for Henrietta, but such is life.

Rest in peace, sweet girl.

Le Poulet Chalet

Beatrice says, "What have we here?"

Thanks to my father in law, I now have a more than halfway completed house for the chickens! The in laws were in town and he and I had some time and inclination to take a crack at building this thing, so we did. I just have to frame out the run, roof the whole thing, install the window, build a nest box and attach it, put in some roosts and a chicken size door, wrap the run with hardware cloth and side the coop! Piece of cake after what we already did.

The run will extend out along the garage wall, past the window, and will have a special clear roof that faces south to let in the winter sun to keep them cozy in the winter. Like this:

Please excuse the rough drawing, it is not easy to draw with your finger on a laptop mouse pad! Anyway, the squiggly white lines are the clear roofing panels. I will be able to wrap the run with tarps in the winter and they will stay toasty in there due to the passive solar heating.

Other than needing more room for the new chickens, I have lots of reasons for wanting to build a coop. The tractor I built last year has been great and if I lived in a warmer climate, or had a barn to put it in for the winter and only had the few hens, I would be totally happy with it. But the prospect of having to figure out something different for the winter each year led me to wanting a permanent home. And on those days when I can't be around to watch out for the free ranging chickens, I wanted a place for them to have enough space to peck and scratch while still being contained and protected from predators. And while free range is great, sometimes you need to keep them out of your garden beds and away from a newly seeded patch of ground. I won't feel guilty leaving the girls in this coop even if it is for a few days.

I also like the idea of keeping them in one place long enough to actually collect their manure for the garden, instead of letting them deposit it all over the place on their own. I reckon nine chickens make at least three times as much poop as three chickens. ;-) And while I can handle a little gift left on the doorstep once in a while, I imagine several every day would get old fast. I plan to make cleaning the coop as easy as possible by doing a deep litter system. This means I will be adding straw and other bedding to the floor of the coop and run, which will both be dirt, on a regular basis. As the chickens poop and turn the bedding with their scratching, the worms will work on it from the bottom,and it will all basically compost in place. I can clean it out into the compost a couple of times a year and then use that precious resource to grow awesome food for us!

Another benefit of the coop is having access to the power from the garage. I can run a light to the coop and a heater for the water to keep it from freezing on very cold nights. That will keep me from having to get up early to bring them fresh water. I plan to make the entire coop and run predator secure so that the chicken sized door to the run can be left open all the time. That will give the chickens freedom of movement and I won't have to get up with the sun to let them out of their coop. My sister in law sent a link to a cool door idea though. My inner geek is eating that up! I don't need a door opener, but it would be pretty sweet, don't ya think?

Eggs-actly

Am I crazy for knowing which chicken laid which egg? Have I gone too far into crazy chicken lady land?

Don't answer those questions, 'kay?

I don't really want to know.

Chic

I can't give you many words lately, but a picture here and there? I can do that. My Speckled Sussex baby, looking pretty in her new feathers.

New Arrivals

Look who is here:

We got to pick up our new baby chickens yesterday! They were supposed to come in today, but we got a call from the feed store letting us know we could come get them. This was great because we had some friends visiting and they were excited to be able to welcome the babies with us.

This is J and C, holding one of the Golden Comet chicks:And here is A with a Golden Comet in front of E showing J how to hold one of the Speckled Sussex:

Happy day!

Spring Cleaning

Not really, just a new look to match up with reality around here. I might not have much to say these days, but I won't make you look at frozen landscapes anymore. Not until they return, anyway! Of course, it is not quite so green just yet, but a girl can dream. We have had some pretty gorgeous days this week and my sore muscles can attest to how much work I have gotten done outside. I actually planted a portion of my garden today. Yay for seeds that don't have to wait for the last frost to pass! Peas, arugula, spinach, radishes, and lettuce, here we come!

In between building a bigger home for my chickens (new babies coming in a week and a half!) and laying a stone walkway leading to the house, I will find some time to post about my beautiful new dining room floor.

Happy Chickens

Until this past week, we have had snow covering the ground, so the chickens have been staying in their winter straw bale house that I built around their tractor. But the other day, it was pleasant enough and the ground was bare enough to let them out to play. Boy, were they happy girls! See for yourself:

Worrywort

I'm such a good mama to my chickens. Too good. So, last night after dinner I noticed that it was getting really cold outside. The thermometer read 7 degrees F. This is the coldest it has been so far this year. And it was not even the overnight low!

I started to worry about the chickens. I had been meaning to look up winter care for them to be sure I remembered all that that they needed in the coldest time of the year, from when I read all about it this spring. But I decided I did not need to do that, I needed to get out there and do something for my babies! I got the heat lamp we got for when they were chicks and my only really long extension cord, which was not rated for outdoor use. But, hey, desperate times call for desperate measures, right? And I headed out there to give my girls some heat. Got it all set up, moved the thermometer to the chicken house to be able to keep tabs on it and headed back inside, content that I was doing the best for my little egg layers.

Back inside, I saw that my thermometer was not reading anything but 7 degrees. Hmmmm, shouldn't it have come up a bit, I thought to myself? I looked out towards the chicken house, expecting to see a red glow from the heat lamp coming from the doorway. Nothing. Boots back on and out I went. The light was out. Oh, no, maybe it was too cold for the extension cord, which by now was frozen and brittle. I unhooked the lamp and brought it into the garage to see if it would work plugged directly into the socket. No go. So, I took it inside to investigate further. When I plugged it in in the kitchen it sputtered and blew out! Damm! Now what?

After going back out to gather up the extension cord, veeeery carefully so as not to crack the frozen plastic, and shut the garage door, I came back in defeated. Well, I better do that research now. Maybe they will be ok, or maybe there is something else I can do. Got online and did a search. Turns out Rhode Island Reds are extremely cold hardy (I knew that!) and as long as you make sure they have fresh unfrozen water and a draft free spot to roost, they should be ok in the coldest of weather. Phew! I was doing everything right! My babies would be ok!

And when I got up early this morning to bring them unfrozen, liquid water and a cup of scratch grains, they were fine. Just as I knew they would be. ;-)

Snowy Chicks

The other day when it snowed for the first time was also the first time our chickens had ever seen snow. They were quite freaked out at first. We saw that they were hiding under the patio table, so A and I went out to escort them back to their winter house - basically the tractor surrounded by straw bales - so they could get out of the falling snow. So, A picked up one and headed to the garden where their house is. The other two ran after her and as soon as they felt the snow on their feet, they calmed down. A let her chicken down and they all proceeded to go about exploring this strange white stuff. Here they are in the garden:

Beatrice and Henrietta, with snow covered backs and puzzled looks:

The snow is mostly melted now, but more is coming. I wonder how they will react to two feet of snow! They might decide to just stay inside!

Egg-cellent

I had to show you all the difference between our girls eggs and local eggs from the co-op. Ours are on the right, if you couldn't tell. They are smaller, since the hens just started laying, but look at that color! I have to say a batch of scrambled eggs made with eggs 100% from Henrietta, Margaret, and Beatrice is quite the sight. Day-glo orange we like to say. All those bugs and nibbles of grass sure do make the eggs taste good and they are healthier, too. Thanks, girls!

The First Egg!!!

Life being how it is, our first egg arrived this morning. Talk about circle of life...

Is it just me, or don't E's hands make her look like she is all grown up? Where did my baby go?

RIP

Rooster problem solved. Not by me, but by a fox or coyote. I did not see it, A saw and she said it ran off with his head. She wasn't sure what it was from the distance she was at. So, left with a very warm rooster carcass with no head, what was I gonna do but pluck some feathers and throw him in the crock pot? Henri Noodle Soup.

I must say I am a bit relieved to be done with rooster issues. I was just thinking earlier today about when I was going to say enough is enough with his aggressiveness? When my kid gets hurt? I could hope it was me he went after that made me decide it was time, but I could not guarantee that. It was too big a risk and I am glad I did not have to make that decision.

I am proud of Henri for doing his job so well. He protected the hens with his life and I will always be grateful to him for that. And I am proud of myself for jumping in and handling the butchering so matter of fact. I am grateful to Henri for allowing me the opportunity to practice a bit, floundering all the way. Now, I know I can do it.

I made sure the girls watched as I plucked and cut, at least a little bit. I reminded them that to waste the food would only add insult to injury. I am not sure they will actually eat the soup, but I can respect that, for now.

So, one more turn of the circle of life here on the farm. Goodbye, Henri. Rest in peace.

I know we will without the 6am crowing. But darn it, I am going to miss that sound.

Henri

Meet Henri, my rooster.


Henri -I like the French spelling of the name, it suits him better- is beautiful, loud, bossy, sweet on his girls (of which I suspect he thinks I am one), proud, sneaky, and all together male. He is fun to watch and at the same time you don't want to take your eyes off of him for fear he will try one of his tricks. These tricks involve dropped wings and tight circling around your feet, and as that seems to be a roosters' prelude to mating, it is all together disturbing. Considering the fact that I am ten times his size and a different species. I'm just saying.

Henri also likes to find tasty morsels for his girls and loudly proclaim his find with turkey-like gobbling. The hens come running to see what he has found. He does this to me as well, but I noticed that he has not actually ever found anything good to eat, he is just trying to get my attention. So that I will come closer. So that he can do his dance for me. In hopes that I will be his chicky love. Um, no thanks, Henri. I can tell the difference between a worm and a piece of string. I am on to your tricks, buddy.


Seriously, I was getting concerned about his behavior since the chickens are 19 weeks old now and close to full sexual maturity. I do not want a terror of a rooster. I would like to let them free range a bit as they so obviously enjoy it and it gives them so many more chances to eat the bugs and plants that make the eggs more nutritious for us. But if I have a bad boy rooster, I can't let them out.


So, I went online and searched for more info on what to do. I found a site that advocated picking him up to show him that I am in control, that I am the alpha rooster. And to act more like a rooster myself. I have done the acting like a rooster thing a bit and it has kept him in line, a bit. I am planning to do the picking up thing soon, as well. The funny thing is that until I went online, I was not afraid of him and had recently picked him up to put him back in the tractor. I had thought his attentions towards me were cute.


Now, I am a teensy bit intimidated by his behavior, and turned off by the idea that I have to keep him in line in the pecking order for all his life. I was hoping we could be friends.


Now, I see that my giving him special treats as I dug in the garden was only reinforcing his idea that I was a big, strange looking hen that was obviously sweet on him.


I hurts a bit to have to knock him down off his highhorse, as proud as he is. I mean, he is still my baby that I raised from a day old chick.

Not that I would hesitate to take him out if he ever hurt one of the kids, mind you. Ok, I would feel bad, but the coq au vin a la Henri would be lovely. C'est la vie, non?

Leaving On a Jet Plane

Even though I have posted like three times in the last three days, there will not be a return to regular blogging around here as I know you have all hoped. Nope, but I have a good excuse. We leave today for hotter, muggier, sandier, beachier places. Flying down to Florida to spend the week at the beach with C's family. I'll try not to have too much fun while you all wait patiently for my return, on our nation's birthday celebration. That would not be fair, after all. If I do, accidentally, inadvertently, mistakenly, have a great time, I'll console you with great pictures and fun stories when I get back. Yes, I left you last year and promised pictures and stories when I got back and I never got them to you. I'm terribly sorry and I did not want to have to admit this, but it was not because I had no fun. Oh no, much fun was had, I am ashamed to admit. It was really rather shameless, except for the shame, of course. Anyhoo, see you next week and try not to cry too hard when there are no posts tomorrow and the next day and the next day... Chin up! I shall return.

Oh! Chicken update: nobody got past my super duper reinforcements last night! Yahooo! Let's hope my brother does not have to find any less than four chickens in the tractor while I am gone. That would be a real shame.

ARRRRRRRRRRRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!

That is the sound I make this morning as I look out the kitchen door towards the garden and the chicken tractor as I do each morning to count chicken heads but today I see no chickens out and the door bent inward just enough to allow some beasty to get in to my babies so I rush out to them and find four still there all clucking to me as if they had quite a tale to tell of the night and the taking away of one of their sisters. This is the second one to be stolen from me by what I suspect was a raccoon based on the numerous footprints on the roof and all over the door that I find each morning but the first was taken through an opening in the roost for ventilation that I failed to secure to prevent just such an event as occurred. Imagine sleeping peacefully on your roost and all of a sudden a nasty little hand reaches in to your safe or so you thought little home and snatches you away to become dinner, I don't want to think about it and besides I am mad as all get out about some raccoon eating MY egg making babies and that raccoon getting the meat I was going to serve my family some day in a few years as a nice pot of chicken noodle soup so he did not just take one, now two, chickens from me he took oodles of yummy eggs and at least two lovely dinners some cold winter nights with my family and yes I see the irony as eventually I would be snatching that same chicken off her roost and slitting her throat but at least she would go fast and I would be gentle and it is just not fair.

Ok, I feel better now. Farming sucks sometimes.

Home to Roost!

Yes, I have been MIA for a few weeks around this here blog, but I have been busy. Busy building a home for my babies. Who are not really babies anymore. They still have some growing to do, but all feathered out they look like grown up chickens now. And now that they get to live outside and scratch and peck in the grass all day they are some happy girls. And one boy, who so far is a nice boy and we plan to keep him, especially if he plays nice and helps a hen go broody to make more chickens. If I want eggs and meat it would be great to have a self perpetuating system of new chicken production. And nobody raises baby chicks better than mama hen.

Ok, on to the tractor. Here is the whole thing, set up next to the garden:

Above the open grass area is a roosting box on the left and a nesting box with two nests for laying eggs on the right. You can see the two openings for the nests, which are blocked off right now since nobody is old enough to lay any eggs yet.

This view shows the door to the roost. They get up there just by flying up to the bars I put there for them. They also like to hang out up there sometimes.
This is the access door for the food and water containers. The rocks are holding some mesh in place to discourage digging predators. The other three sides have it in place already but I have not added it to this side because the door construction didn't allow for me to extend the mesh down. I will staple some in place soon because moving it around could get annoying and it won't be as effective until it is attached. I plan to leave the tractor here next to the garden for a while and let the chickens dig it up as much as they like since this spot will be a future flower/herb/medicinal plant bed outside the fence for the veggie garden. Otherwise, the tractor will be moved to fresh grass every other day or so. This will keep the grass from being over-fertilized and over-scratched, and provide fresh bugs and grass for the chickens to dine on.

This is a view of the sliding door to the nesting boxes. It is all set to go for when the girls are ready to lay. Which is what this whole adventure is really about - farm fresh eggs!

I had fun piecing this tractor together from what wood I had on hand, pretty much. It was a challenge to do the design not from pie in the sky materials but what I had in front of me. I like it better that way. In some ways it is harder, but I actually find it easier in ways. Easier to limit the possibilities and just go with what works, here and now. Of course, it ended up looking like I pieced it together from what I had on hand! But I like it. And so do the chickens.

Funny story. I now know why no one ever says "smart as a chicken". The first night came and none of the chickens had figured out how to get up to the roost. Being the mother hen that I am, I gently picked them all up and placed them one by one on to the roost inside the box (the roof comes off to make that task easy, not to mention cleaning out the box). I figured if they woke up in the morning light and could not figure out how to get down and out of the box, there was no help for them! So, first night went well. C even woke up to pee in the middle of the night and snuck out to check on them! Next night, the dusk was falling fast and little rooster starts up a distress type call, trying to do his job of protecting the flock. He knew it was time to find shelter for the night, but that is where his help ended. I went over and tried to show them the way back to the roost to no avail. Each one I put up there would go right back out again. C told me to let them alone and see what they would do. Eventually they all made it in, but not without a lot of worrying from this mama hen. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they will figure it out tonight!

UPDATE: All six chickens made it into the roost tonight without my help! It only took 'em four nights!

Farmer?

Hey, I am on a roll! 4 posts in four days!

When one buys a house with 8 acres of land and decides to attempt to grow a large portion of the food they need, possibly selling any surplus, you could call that person a farmer, right? Small scale farmer, for sure, but still a kind of farmer. I totally expected to get to the point where I call myself a farmer, after I had all the gardens and trees and all in and we were harvesting enough produce to need that farmstand at the end of the driveway.

Turns out I think I am getting a taste of a different kind of farmer, the animal raising kind. We now have in our care:
4 gerbils
2 cats
1 rabbit
and 6 chickens.

I went from caring for one cat who you rarely saw, to being the caretaker to thirteen creatures. Every day, we have to feed, water, clean up after, and give love and attention to them all. The girls have been great helpers, doing their share of the work, and pitching in to help me do the rest.

I am not complaining about the work. I am just starting to feel that my life has changed in a profound way. I am now a farmer. I am not yet getting anything much out of these animals, but I have to put in the time and effort anyway. Things like vacations will now require a big effort to make sure the animals are well cared for when we are out of town. The budget is impacted with the food and bedding needs of these animals.

Soon, we will get some fiber from Stella, and then the chickens will lay eggs for us. The cats already provide mouse population reduction duty, and the gerbils turn cardboard into compost carbon/brown inputs (and tiny amounts of poop!). There will be other animals in the future, too. A pig each year for the freezer sounds nice, C thinks a goat for milk would be good, and some chickens for meat could easily be added to the mix. And somewhere in there, we will be growing a significant percentage of our food. A few years from now, we might even make some money from all this farming!

Oh, I forgot to mention that all of the animals we have now are female, so with me and the girls, girls out rank boys in this household 16 to 1! Poor C. We told him we need to get a bull to balance things out! Maybe one of the chicks will grow up to be a rooster and he won't be so outnumbered. Of course, that rooster will have to go, so...