We Lost 5 Chicks Overnight

Argh!  I'm so mad! 

I've always tried to share on this blog both the good and the bad of our life here at Pure Water Hollow Homestead, even though I naturally tend to lean more toward the positive aspects.  But more often, things do not go as perfectly as planned around here.  I'm sure this is due to the fact that we are not perfect.  We just go day by day and try to do the best we can with the limited skills and knowledge we possess, making plenty of mistakes.

Yesterday evening I moved the nest box/cage where our first hen hatched out those 11 chicks.  She is still using it as the place to take her chicks in for night, and then she waits patiently for me to open it up each morning to allow her to free range with her chicks.  I guess I had not cleaned out enough of the hatching mess from 17 days ago, because I noticed that it was starting to smell pretty bad.  I decided that it would be wise to move it over a couple of feet into some fresh ground and make up a nice, clean, new nest of hay for them.  The mama seemed to be happy with the new arrangement and took all 11 of her chicks into the newly remodeled, clean nest.  I closed them up, like usual, to keep them "safe".

This morning I opened it up just like all the other mornings to let the mama and the chicks out.  To my horror, there were only 6 chicks instead of 11!  I saw all 11 go in last night, but only 6 are there this morning!  After examining the box closer I saw the problem.  These box/cages I am using for most the setting hens are old boxes that we built in 2006 and the wood is getting rotten around the bottoms in places.  They are really over-due to be replaced, but it never seems like we have the time around here to get so many other things done that I deem more important.  So, I've been making do with what we've got.  I place bricks, cement blocks, or logs around the bases of the cages in places that seem weak.  This particular cage was pretty firm and well settled into the ground before I moved it yesterday evening.  But after moving it, I guess the bottom of the box was up a bit off the ground in places.  I didn't notice a problem last night, and it doesn't look like there is more than an inch gap anywhere, but I guess it was enough, along with the weakening, thin plywood back, to invite calamity.  I believe something like a raccoon was able to reach under that back wall and pull the chicks out from under the mama, one at a time, and have a feast.  (I have a very disturbing mental image that I can't seem to shake.)  The only evidence that was left was two single, small orange legs that were lying outside the box, right next to the back wall, un-attached to any meat.

Of course the mama hen does not seem bothered by the tragedy at all, and she was going on with her morning routine like she only had 6 chicks from the start.  I guess that is one of the ways God made us humans to be different from the beasts of the field and fowl of the air. 

But it still infuriates me that this mama hen could have done her job so well, and keep her 11 chicks alive and healthy for 17 days, safe from the hawks and crows and foxes and dogs and cats and whatever else likes to eat baby chicks, only to be let down by her trust in me, that I could provide a safe place for her family to sleep.  And it worries me that this creature of the night will return, and I don't know if any of my box/cages will be able to keep a determined coon from getting a meal.  Buffy is in a similar old box at night.  Her chicks are now 6 days old and she, too, has been able to keep all 12 chicks safe so far.  (I still need to take a picture of them.)  And I have the white hen in another old box/cage that is due to hatch a clutch out in about 4 more days, and a black hen on a nest that should hatch the end of June.  (We're using an old hamper for the black hen since all the box/cages are taken.)  Coons and other critters like to eat eggs, too, if they get the chance.  I don't know if I can really keep any of the chicks, mamas, or eggs safe enough if the dogs fail in their nightly patrols.  (It was raining last night, so I don't think the dogs were paying as good of attention as they often do.)

By the way, we just pulled two more setting hens from the coop into private nests last night.  Since I don't have any more of those old box/cages, I made up the nests in old, cracked 5 gallon buckets.  We put one bucket with the hen and 15 new eggs in a small cage.  The other hen had been setting longer, so we put 7 partially incubated eggs that she had been setting on in the bucket and put the newly conformed bucket-nest into a little-used dog house.  The dog house is in no way secure from predators, but I hope it will be safe being closer to the house where the dogs most often stay.  We'll see, I guess.

I am pleased that we are having so many hens go broody this year.  We don't want chickens that have had the mothering instinct bred out of them, even if they do lay more eggs.  I want to be able to continually raise our own flocks through the years, without having to depend on ordering chicks through the hatcheries.  And since we tend to go through periods with high chicken mortality rates around here, I don't think we can hatch too many chicks.  Plus the more chickens that survive to maturity, the more meat that will be available for the family.

But for there to be future meat and eggs, I must keep the chickens protected!  That is always a challenge in this sin-cursed world that we live in, (along with the thorns and thistles).  I'm sure that God allows chickens to hatch so many offspring at one time because many of them would not survive in the wild, but my chickens are not in the wild!  I do not want to lose any of them!  Even though some losses seem inevitable, I know that I can do things better in our chicken raising operation.  Today is a rainy day, but I still plan to locate and set up our old live traps around the nest boxes, as well as see what I can do to make the box/cages more secure.

Sitting here on this gloomy morning, thinking about smelly nest boxes and dismembered legs from precious little chicks whose lives were snuffed out in the night, reminds me that homestead life is not always the picturesque scene of beauty and tranquility that is often portrayed.

Strolling Through Our Woods

After church on Mother's Day we took a nice walk around our property.  It was a rather cool afternoon, with a threat of rain and temperatures in just the upper 50s.  We had a very enjoyable little hike, even though we had to wear jackets!

 

These pretty flowers are spiderwort from Mackey Bend, Lisa's homeplace growing up.  Lisa has two big bunches here in the wild garden.  She has several other plants and flowers from her home that reminds her of her mother, but these were the one's blooming when we took the walk.

These gladolia's are from the Mary Castle homestead across the river.  Before she passed away, the new bridge came through and took away all her garden space where they were planted.  She was happy that we were able to re-locate them , along with some of her other plants and flowers, before the bull dozers came through.

  

 

Lisa calls these dewberries.  They are a type of black berry that runs right along the ground.  The berries are among the first to ripen, and are super sweet.  They are better than blackberries or even raspberries!

We have three different varieties of wood sorrel.  I think those above are called violet wood sorrel, due to the purple markings.  The flower also has a violet tint to it.  It is a tasty sour treat on a hike through the woods and helps to quench thirst.

This is yellow wood sorrel.  It does not have the purple markings but tastes the same as the violet sorrel.  There is common wood sorrel that we didn't find on this hike.  We also have several good patches of sheep sorrel around, but we didn't go to them on this walk either.  All the sorrel are high in Vitamin C, good to nibble on, and are good as a tea or to use in salads.  They also contain oxalic acid which is ok, but can be bad for folks suffering from gout, rheumatism, or kidney stones if they consume too much of it at one time. Historically, wood sorrel was used to treat scurvy, fevers, urinary infections, mouth sores, nausea and sore throats.

The above plant is one that Lisa wants to look up.  She thinks it might be Angelica or New Jersey Tea.  We haven't identified it yet.  Looking for and finding plants that she does not know is one of Lisa's favorite things to do!

 I just thought this was a pretty picture looking out across the ravine.

We are very thankful that we have a nice wooded area that we can roam around and explore whenever we feel like it!  Nature is a wonderful place to spend some time!

Taking Care of Some Beesness

We have been learning about how to run an apiary and earlier this week we decided to check on how our honey bees are doing.  We have 4 hives right now.  Two are colonies we purchased in 2011 and two are new swarms from last year.  Last year, our colonies began to swarm in March and continued to do so through the summer, so we were afraid they may have been getting ready to do that again.  This time, however, the plan was to head off the swarms by dividing the colony that seemed to be the most active and possibly ready to swarm.

Here are Lisa and Matthew suited up and checking them out.  They are looking at the hive that we thought may be ready to divide.

This was the scene between the super and the top hive body box.

These frames show that some of the brood has been capped, but we were expecting the frames to be completely full and capped.  If they are all like these, then this hive is not ready to divide.



Pulling out a couple more frames.

Here is Lisa examining it.

These are not as full as the first frames checked.  We will check on that hive again in a few weeks to see if they get everything filled up.

They also checked on the other hive that has been most active, which was a new swarm from last year.  They looked good.  The bottom frames are getting filled up nicely. 

All the hives seem to be doing ok, even though none are ready to divide yet.  We had a very cold March, over all, this year and it seems that true Spring weather was slow getting here.  I've noticed that everything is blooming later this year, so I guess the bees are just rounding out everything later as well.  Maybe last year everything was just earlier? 

Thankfully no one was stung very badly during this expedition.  Lisa actually did some bee work all by herself a couple days earlier with no protection except the veil and did not get stung at all.  When these pictures were taken, last Wednesday, the only sting we had was a friend who was visiting.  I was up there very near the bees taking pictures and he was up there also, observing.  Neither of us were wearing any bee protection and he unfortunately got stung on the ear.  Thankfully it didn't swell much and he discovered that he is not allergic to honey bee stings! 

Californy Is The Place To Be - Rabbits, That Is

Yesterday we finally took the plunge into starting a meat rabbit operation!  We bought a pair of 8 week old baby Californian Rabbits from a neighbor over the hill and down the road a ways.  They are unrelated so they should be suitable breeders when they grow up.  The California breed is one of the best for raising meat along with the New Zealand breed.  I'm hoping to get a New Zeland doe kit from a fellow in a couple weeks and have a breeding trio in the future.

We have talked about getting into meat rabbits for years and decided that now was a good time to start.  We've been learning how to care for rabbits with our Angora rabbits and since they are doing well we decided to expand into meat production.  By the way, Snowflake, the Angora doe, thankfully was not pregnant and so we did not have a litter.  They still have their long fur, which probably kept conception from occuring, even though she was mistakenly in the same cage with the male, Wiley, when we got them.  We are not yet ready for baby Angora rabbits.  I'm not  sure we are spending enough time with the three that we have, so we are really not yet ready for a bunch more!

But, caring for the meat rabbits won't take so much time.  We'll let them grow up and have kits which we will make use of for our family table.  Rabbit meat is supposed to be a very lean and healthy meat!

We'll get pictures taken soon, hopefully.  It was a beautiful day today and it would have been a good day to take pictures with the new rabbits.  Lisa, Simon, Timothy and I enjoyed petting and feeding them this afternoon, but Matthew and Christina had the camera with them visiting friends.  When I get pictures, I'll put them here on the blog sooner or later.

Sooner or later has now arrived!  Here are some pictures of them that Matthew took on April 12th.  They had already grown some during that first week!

God is good and we thank Him for our new rabbits!

Home Butchering and Processing by My Country Boys

I am thankful for the meat God has provided for us and I'm also very thankful  for two sons who can do the butchering and processing of said meat!  The past week and a half has seen our table filled with the blessings of fresh venison, chicken and pork. 

It's been deer season and Matthew and Simon both went hunting a little, even though things have been fairly hectic around here.  I did not take the oppourtunity to go hunting this time, but Matthew got a nice doe.  He killed it Saturday, November 10th, the first day of deer season.  Simon saw a deer when he went hunting all by himself Sunday evening but did not get a shot at it.  We ate some of the venison for our Sunday dinner on the 11th and everyone agreed that the way Lisa fixed it was the best venison dish we had ever had!  She rolled back-strap slices in seasoned flour and laid out two layers of them with butter and cheddar cheese between the layers of venison and also on top.  It was delicious!

On Friday, Simon butchered two of our roosters all by himself and we had some excellent chicken-and-dumplings for supper Friday evening and Saturday.  Simon has been around us butchering chickens for years and he had butchered some before when Matthew was with him.  This time, however,  Matthew was out of town, I was still at work, and Lisa stayed in the house.  Simon dispatched both birds and commenced to the plucking all by himself, with no trouble at all!  When I came home from work, Lisa was already getting the meat into a pot.  It was a delicious meal and I didn't even find out that it was not Lisa who did the butchering until a few days later!  It was no big deal to Simon, I guess, but after I realized what he had done, I was very impressed!

Matthew had been out of town last week doing some work at Bob and Brenda's home in Corbin and got home Saturday evening.  He was a bit tired Sunday, but he wasn't going to let a few days work 3 hours away slow him down at all.  He had butchered a number of our hogs in previous years, so I knew he was very good at it.  What I didn't know was that he would feel like butchering a 500 plus pound hog on Monday!  We had decided that we wanted her butchered, and had checked into having it done professionally again like we did back in June.  Appalachian Meats said they were all tied up this week with deer processing and could not get to our hog until December.  When I got home from work Monday, I discovered that Matthew had decided to butcher our large hog all by himself, and save us a big butchering fee!  The tenderloin from this hog was huge and even after I trimmed off all the fat we packed thick tenderloin slices into 7 gallon size freezer bags! We are going to turn a lot of the deer meat into deerburger, so now we can use some of the pork fat in the hamburger mix.  The meat from a deer is very lean, and not the best for hamburger without some fat.  We are going to go for a 80-20 or 85-15 ratio.  We will still have a good amount of fat to render into lard, as well.

I did not get any pictures of Simon with the roosters he butchered since it was all completed by the time I got home, but I took some of Simon working on the deer meat.  I did get home in time to take a few pictures of Matthew cutting out the tenderloin of the hog while it was hanging up.  The dining room table was soon covered with pork, much like the pictures of Simon with the venison, but I didn't think to take a picture of the table with the pork tenderloin.  I'm mainly wanting to show some pictures of the two butchers in the family, anyway.  They both are doing some wonderful work and I am very proud to have two such sons!  (By the way, Christina helped with the skinning of both the deer and the hog.  I didn't get a picture of her this time, but I'm also proud of my country gal!)

The People of the Mountain Homeplace : Heritage Days 2012

The Mountain Homeplace in Paintsville had their annual Heritage Days Event this past Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and we were happy to have a part in it again.  Here is the ad that ran in the paper twice a week for the past month:

This is a pretty big ad in the paper, measuring 8 1/2" x 7 1/2" and, yes, they used Christina's picture from last year as the top picture in the ad, which was pretty cool!

I am going to use this post to introduce some of the "Interpreters" at the Mountain Homeplace this weekend.  It was fun to be among them.  I'll do another post showing some of the scenery and grounds of the Homeplace at a later time.  Here are the folks who made this weekend happen:

Bobbi-Jo cooking in the kitchen:

Wanda helped in the cabin:

 

Esta Moore demonstrated old fashioned doll making:

Debbie Connelley with her 150 year old spinning wheel:

Wayne Whitaker with his grist mill:

The Bruno children demonstrated cow milking and butter making:

Betty Lemaster and Jane Boggs took care of most of the talks in the church:

Eddie Castle worked as the black smith:

 

For some reason I was more enamored with the chair maker this year compared to last year.  Terry Ratliff makes and sells his hand made chairs and other wood items for a living.  These are high quality durable chairs made completely by hand.  I think they are beatiful in their simplicity, but I doubt I will ever have a set of them unless I build them myself.  One of Terry's simple homemade kitchen chairs like the one below sells for $425! 

Here he is splitting white oak wood during a chair making demonstration.  I thought it was fascinating:

Christina spun on a spinning wheel and worked the loom:

Christina's friend, Kalen Stephens, helped in the weaving room:

 


 

Here is a neat shot of one of the spinning wheels in action:

 Lisa did most of the talks at the McKenzie Branch one-room school:

Simon worked in the barn shelling corn and telling about the animals:

Matthew could only make it on Saturday this year.  He helped out in several areas including the Sorghum press, the small grist mill, and the barn:

Here are a variety of other good shots of the Mountain Homeplace people enjoying the work and fellowship of the weekend: