Val's SS journal- Fair food! Yea!

[valmom]

Well, the ravioli is drying! It took a long time, and my pasta kept drying out and was getting a little unworkable at the end so I just made linguini out of the last pieces.

The ravioli maker is a little metal form on stubby legs with 12 holes in it and a square zig zag around each hole. Put the pasta over the holes, and poke it down into the holes with the plastic piece- it looks like a half-round ice cube tray. fill the depressions with your stuffing, put another piece of pasta on top and roll over it with a rolling pin to seal it and cut it along the zig-zags. Dry it a couple of hours and freeze what you don't eat (is what it says in the directions). I'm anxiously waiting for dinner!

 

[valmom]

This is what the pasta maker looks like:


And my haul of pasta today:

 

[valmom]

Yea! I finally got an agreement on getting chicks! WOOT!

My SO tends to get...um... attached to our animals. So, she didn't want to get any baby chicks to supplement our 6 hens who are 5 and 6 years old now (And not laying all that much) because of the trauma of the fighting to merge 2 flocks- which really has to happen because the chicken fortress isn't really very amenable to subdivision. But, using the argument that 6 hens reallly can't keep the coop we have warm over the winter (especially this last winter) has added weight to my arguments. New hens would add to the body heat in the coop next winter. So, I can add 6 chicks to our flock! I am so psyched. I have integration plans that involve a large dog crate and an x-pen for dogs in the chicken fortress until the young hens are big enough to hold their own after they go outside. They may not integrate until almost winter, but I am hopeful!

I want to get some more Easter eggers like we have now- they are great girls and I love the blue eggs. Well, one lays brown eggs, but that's OK. I am looking forward to hand raised babies who are more social than the girls we have now.

Obviously, any chicken integration tips would be greatly appreciated!

 

[valmom]

Well, it is finally sunny, warm and I have a day off! So, it is time to start the garden. I have been itching to start, even though it is still too early, really. But, I had the tractor out putting hay in and moving muck away from the dirt lot and I decided it was time to put my "compost" pile in the garden spot I have used before. I also put up my bean towers and put in the beans- Jacob's Cattle and Indian Woman both for drying. I hope it isn't too early for beans! I figured it is a raised bed without the sides on it

My garden spot with nice new dirt on the top:


My compost- except for the fact that it is rocky it is great dirt.

 

[TanksHill]

Looking good!! You could always screen the dirt if you really want the rock gone.

g

 

[i_am2bz]

Keep your eye on the frost date, Val - I recall one year I planted my tomatoes Memorial Day weekend (i.e., end of May), & we had a frost on June 1st! Killed 'em all & I had to start over. As if the gardening season in VT isn't short enough! (I lived in Chittenden Co.)

Keep us posted on the chick integration!

 

[valmom]

I have thought about screeening out the rocks- I have several designs in my brain using hardware cloth and 2x4 or plastic pipe to hold it. (I actually made a stall sifter the same way for manure). The problem is, the rocks are a lot heavier than manure! That, and it sounds like a lot of work.

I hear you about the frost date around here. I really shouldn't be putting anything out until June, but I get so impatient! I NEED to get started on something! Thankfully, my tomatoes and hot peppers are still really small in starter cells and I am just putting them out to harden them in the sun. I can still carry them inside for cold nights.

Anyone know anything about beets? I am leery about starting them inside since they are root veggies, but I don't know how early I can put seeds in the ground. This is my first year trying them.

 

[valmom]

How cute- and right outside my slider to my living room! My MIL got us a live Christmas tree this past year- except that it is an Italian Stone Pine (whatever that is) and isn't zoned to live outside in New England. So, it is staying potted and living outside in the summer and coming in to be a Christmas tree every fall. A little sparrow has decided that it is the coziest tree for a nest- it is very prickly. She has 3 little blue jelly bean eggs in it.

 

[valmom]

Oops- she just moved off the nest- she has 4 eggs in it.

 

[keljonma]

What great pics!!

Sounds like your dog crate plan is good for integration. It will also be good if you have a broody hen. You could use the crate to break her broodiness or you could use it to put fertile eggs under her and have more hens!

I will tell you this story, but what it will tell you is that chickens at our place our a cosseted lot!

We used our mudroom as a hatchery and isolation infirmary. So we brought our broody hen, a nest box, and eggs from our flock into the mudroom and Lou hatched the eggs inside the house.

We waited until the chicks were 2 to 3 weeks old before we let Lou and her chicks out into a fenced area off the mudroom where the rest of the flock could see them but not touch them. Lou also mothered some adopted chicks (in the same manner) when the eggs she was sitting on did not hatch.

Then when the chicks were about 6 weeks old, Lou was ready to go back to the barn. So we gave the chicks total access to the flock. They moved into the barn. There were some of the usual pecking order squabbles, so we kept a watchful eye to see how the new additions were getting along. There were few problems.


ETA: Here is a pic of Lou with her first 2 chicks in the fenced area off the mudroom.