Rathbone: Eggs for Hatching, Eggs for Eating, Eggs, Eggs, Eggs

[DrakeMaiden]

I'm enjoying your journal. Glad you decided to join the forum.

When I make jam I do a test with a spoon to see if the jam will jell once it cools. You are supposed to dip the spoon in the jam and let it drip off with the spoon tilted to one side and see if you get a double drip off the spoon. Maybe I can find an image on-line to link, so you can see what I mean . . . picture worth 1,000 words and all.

Then you are supposed to be careful not to disturb the jam in the cans until they are fully cooled, so the jam jells.

ETA: Here is an explanation I found (scroll down, the drawing of the spoon is on the right).

 

[rathbone]

Big Brown Horse - Into the duck water...say no more. That was a perfect visual. Ugh!
DrakeMaiden - Thank you. The first time I made the jam I followed the recipe exactly and it turned out perfect. After that I have started trying to NOT follow the directions and my jam hasn't been jelling. By powerful deduction...I think I need to follow the directions and stop improvising.

 

[rathbone]

Last night's adventures included making no jam whatsoever. I am now out of jelly jars. sigh. They sell them here at the grocery store but they cost sooo much more than they do at Wal-Mart.

Last night's adventures included me and my sons pushing and shoving one another as we hovered over the incubator, steaming up the viewing window. All the strong chicks have hatched and I was down to the weak ones that make my heart go all lurchy. You know those chicks. They are almost always the "special" eggs that you really wanted more than any of the other eggs you put in the incubator.
I live in the desert. According to what I read I should choose mediterranean type chickens - leghorns, catalana...chickens with small bodies and light feathering (usually accompanied by flighty, erratic personalities). So of course I immediately closed my mind to those and picked the exact opposite. I like orpingtons, sussex - anything enormous and loosely feathered. You know...chickens that do well in cold places like...England. Because of course England and the Mojave Desert have so much in common. What was I thinking? I was thinking how lovely they are. I was imagining all those lovely fat chickens waddling around my yard. I have one light sussex hen and one silver sussex hen (and two light sussex roosters - who also cover the rest of my mixed flock). So the eggs I set were mostly BO hens covered by Light Sussex roos - should produce a buff columbian patterned chicken if I did my genetics correctly. But a few of those eggs, the really "special" eggs for me were the pure sussex. I had only 4 eggs that I was sure were pure sussex.
So there we were fidgeting over the eggs in the incubator. The last five had pipped about 20 hours earlier and I was literally sitting on my fingers so as not to "help" them out of their shells. I couldn't stand it. I opened the 'bator and started checking on them. One dead. Two dead. I felt sick. I picked them out of the shells and held them turning them this way and that. I let my sons hold them. The boys lifted wings, flexed toes - generally studied the chicks from every angle. We sighed together.
I put the boys to bed and I hovered alone.
My husband watched the news and then at bedtime said what he always says "shall we go to bed woman, or shall we go to bed?" "Yes" I sighed. "I will be right there." Normally I will be right there means exactly that but he knows me well. He knows that I am worrying over those last few chicks so he did what any wise man would do. "I will wait for you in bed" he said.
Those last three chicks were alive...but for how long? Would they make it out of the shell? I always feel very "damned if I do, damned if I don't". I figure they are not going to make it out of the shell and although I will probably kill them trying to "help" them...well I didn't feel like I had a choice.
And so slowly and carefully I pick, pick, picked at the shells, stopping when I saw a dot of blood. I got up and down through the night and continued picking. And finally I got each one where the head could rotate and lift out and the baby was left in its shell but with its head out. And then I went to sleep.
And this morning I found two lovely little chicks wandering around the incubator. And one chick laying limply - alive but obviously not well.
And this afternoon at lunchtime it is still laying limply in the box. It probably won't make it. Did I help them? Will I be the one who causes the weak one to die? I dunno. It is kind of like raising children...I guess you do your best and try not to feel guilty.

 

[Britesea]

I've always imagined that one of the hardest things to do would be one of those nature films where there is a baby something that is going to be killed by a predator, or where one is injured and dies slowly... you're supposed to let it just happen. It's difficult enough to just watch it on film, but to be there and not do something.... I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Nature is neither forgiving nor kind; that's why most goddesses in the old time religions had a dark side, like Kali or Pele.

Sometimes it sucks being a nurturer.

 

[rathbone]

The day draws to an end as does my work week. Yes, I have to work for a living. I have to sit in an office when I could be home gardening or gathering eggs or knitting or...best of all - spending time with my children.
And since I don't spend enough time with my children...I devote the weekends to them and them alone. I will check on "you'all" when I return on Monday. Maybe one of you will leave me a lovely tale of what you did this weekend - something to make me smile on Monday morning???
'Night all!

 

[rathbone]

Two words: vent trimming. Something I NEVER thought I would be doing. Give me any mutt chickens and they would be producing fertile eggs like crazy. But no, I had to choose fancy schmancy chickens didn't I??? Chickens with so many fluffy feathers that they are unable to reproduce reliably. And so here I am, one block off of main street, rooster clutched in one arm with his nether regions waving in the breeze, kitchen shears (no I will not be using them in the kitchen after this) carefully snipping away excess feathers as the neighbors feel free to stand on the sidewalk and scratch their heads wondering why the rooster is shrieking and why on earth I am trimming his "manly area".

 

[Damummis]

Glad to have you aboard.

Jams are a great place to start, AND THEN Wifezilla will corrupt you and you will be fermenting things before you know it. (Love Ya, Wifeie. )

Right now it is blackberry and blueberry season. Jams will be coming shortly.......

 

[rathbone]

I am definitely not above corrupting. Wifezilla seems to post a lot of interesting things I have never heard of...but that is why I am here. I am hoping to learn from all of you. So...bring on the corruption!

 

[rathbone]

Hey Damumis - I just saw a pic of you on the "faces" thread. Beautiful hair!

 

[Damummis]

Hey Damumis - I just saw a pic of you on the "faces" thread. Beautiful hair!

Thank you. Maybe one day I will get brave enough to turn around.