Catching up to winter

 It's the Winter Solstice and I've realized I've not yet posted about Samhuinn at all. I had a few things kicking around I was going to write about then, like the meaning of sacrifice. After all, I see a lot of people prattling on about animal sacrifice who aren't actually involved in the raising of food animals and most of it is ludicrous.  I mean some is the idea that you can by factory-farmed meat and "sacrifice" it but one bunch actually proudly proclaims they "sacrifice" the "blood" they think is in the bottom off their packages of frozen (factory-farmed no doubt) chicken. Dearies, that's not blood, that's blood tinged water and it's a waste product. You seriously offer to your Gods that which normal people throw away? I'm sorry there's something wrong with that.

Obviously, not everyone is raising any of their own food animals so doing a sacrifice is not possible. I do believe you can do a meat offering with purchased meat, but I'm going to maintain that it really should be purchased with consideration including not using factory farmed meat for offerings. Even if YOU choose to eat factory farmed meat, consider that perhaps you want to splurge if you are buying for them. There are enough resources to find pasture-raised meat in any given area, after all. But also do on think that it is the same as sacrificing an animal you raised from infancy, that you cared for and nurtured and made sure had the best life you could provide for him. Because it's just not. It's an offering.

Lucky (left) with Pops (right) and two hens

Shortly before Samhuinn we did our chicken sacrifice, killing all but one of this year's cockerels. This did include offering the best one to the Gods. We hadn't planned on keeping any, but one little guy who had somehow worked his way into the older flock, with our older rooster, Pops, accepting him after the younger rooster, Sonny, (we don't work real hard in naming our chickens) had gone and taken over the pullets in this year's hatch. Most of the other cockerels had been separated out already, two others managed to live with Sonny okay, but this one head to take Sonny's place in the other flock. I had wanted to keep him, Aaron got me to agree to dispatch him as well, but then he escaped. Found a hole the others didn't. So I put my foot down, he might not be real big or real flashy but he was real smart so he got to live. He still lives with Pops and his hens, but we may eventually try to establish three flocks. Or not. The other factor is that if something happens to either of the other two, we have him. We seem to be calling him "Lucky" but I don't think luck had much to do with it. I think he's a bit of a con artist, but I like that about him. It's a good survival skill in the very complicated society of chickens.

I would have also liked to have written about  how things were going with the mares, but we got rain. Lots of rain. Serious ground-soaking too much mud to do much sort of rain. Which then froze the mud into nasty, hard ground.  So we didn't work with them a lot. A bit of brushing if the rain let up long enough for them to be dry, as much game playing as the mushy and then frozen ground allows. Now we have snow, well today it's turning to slush in a winter rain but I'm hoping it will turn back to snow without painfully frozen slush that resembles that painfully frozen mud. Meanwhile we seem to be settling into a nice winter routine with the four horses and the goat.

So not a lot to talk about which is why I hadn't. We survived Superstorm Sandy which actually wasn't so super by the time she got here so we were again lucky. Or, as I keep noting when others say something nasty about our weather...we found a good place, nestled here in the mountains, when it comes to storms we never seem to get the worse. *knockswood* We celebrated Samhuinn about mid-November, had a nice fire followed by a nice meal. Aaron found a 7lb turnip for our Jack, as our swede growing attempts failed (seriously we need to figure out the goat-proof fencing thing better). So this was damn nice. The meal was one of our chickens with veggies, including most of the inside of the turnip...we actually had too much from it fit it all in the clay cooker. Next year hope to grow our own but matching this size might take a few years.

Now we're settling into winter routine. The past week has been one of sadness and contemplation. And annoyance at rampant stupidity. I think a lot of my winter will be like I am right now, surrounded by snuggling dogs, trying to write and realizing I should get out to check the outside animals and the fires soon.

Sumer Is Icumen In.....

Yes, I know that's an Old English song and not Celtic, but as part of my Bealtuinn practice always includes watching The Wicker Man (the original, of course) it's totally stuck in my head.  (This year we also watched The Wicker Tree. I had considered doing a review, but I don't think I'll bother anymore than I'll bother ever watching it again. No, it won't be part of our tradition. It was quite dreadful, although not as horrible as the remake with Nicolas Cage, and boring. I don't know if Hardy never did get what the actual happy accident that made The Wicker Man a Pagan cult hit or if he intentionally decided to just bore us to death but it was very sad and I'm not going to put any energy into anticipating his next film.   Anyway.....)

We're a couple weeks and a lot of word from celebrating as of yet. Work has begun, pastures, chickens, gardens. It's all slow but ....   We are also planning a fenced in yard and it turns out friends of ours are getting rid of theirs...so we have some chain link and some of the parts for it to use! This means we'll have a better fence than we initially were planning, only having to buy the gates and some parts and concrete. And then do the work. This will give the hounds a place to romp off leash and an area protected from the goat and the horses when they get out (which they do a lot, this spring, lots of fence work in our future there, too). We'll have some of our gardens in there, including trying to salvage some of my parents' flowers.

We're also doing a good deal more in cleaning up the entire house, making it more and more our space. This is a rather difficult thing for me, as it means going through my parents' things and changing the house from how they had it to what we need. I want to get it so that we can have company over on the A-frame side, so that not everyone who visits has to immediately deal with our crazy dog pack and to have a roomier place to sit. I also want the kitchen all fixed up for future canning and other bigger food projects. The little one in our "in-law" apartment is often difficult to work in even for what we're doing right now.

March 29, just arrived

As I noted in my last post, we got another bunch of Silver Gray Dorking chicks, they arrived safely and so far 22 of the 25 are still with us. One is tiny, not growing and seems gimpy, but eats, drinks and poops and seems enthusiastic about life so we're giving her a chance. The other chicks are not picking on her, although she does get run over when they get excited (which is all the time).

On April 16

 In the next couple of days we intend to separate the two Dorking roosters we have along with half the Dorking hens each and one with the hybrid as well. We'll see if we can get a couple hatches, hopefully brooded by the hens, out of this. We might incubate some eggs as well.  We don't plan to keep any of the males of this batch past fall, we'll keep the two roosters we have and the new hens and try to keep the lines as diverse as we can with that.

We are not going to get the Scots Dumpies this year, unless we have some radical developments which makes all this too easy and we need to get more. We now wouldn't be able to until July, which is rather late and I'd rather aim for next year. And get more experience with these guys.  I do intend to have the Dumpies some day, I really do. However, I also want a lot of things set up better, because we really want to be able to make major strides in knowing how to breed and keep the flock thriving before we attempt it. And, honestly, I love the Dorkings, they are a beautiful and quite nice birds.

April 16, our little girl next to a normal sized female

The past week or so has been chilly to cold. We had snow a few days ago and night temps in the teens. This after hot weather in March. I'm a bit concerned about a lot of our trees and bushes, as they had been budding when this hit, and some of our perennials were up and may now be done for the season early. And others might not make it this year.  Fortunately, we hadn't been fooled into planting anything outdoors yet.

We've been exploring the land a bit, it's nice to together now, as for years our schedules didn't allow. Yesterday we heard coywolf puppies not far from here while walking the fuzzy dogs. Aaron kept them with him while I followed the sound. It was distressed, although I knew I wouldn't go too close or interfere if I did find them as there is seldom a reason to. The adults were likely off hunting. They went quiet as I got close, I looked around, hoping to see an adult returning having heard them too and probably close enough to know we were there. I didn't actually look for the den, just tried to see if I could make out where there might have been more activity. I am hoping they don't feel a need to move them, as I didn't find them, and I will try staking out the area when the pups are a bit older to see if I can get any photos. I went back to Aaron and the dogs, awhile later we heard the pups again, this time a very different cry which likely indicated the adults coming back.  I love these beasts. Yes, I know that seems odd to some that a chicken farmer says that, but it's my duty to protect the chickens without harming the possible competition.

Adventures in corned beef and other foodie stuff

Beet Kvass brewing

I think we might officially be entering the foodie world. While we have been dedicated to real food for awhile, sometimes it's hard to see us in this light, but I think it's getting hard to avoid. We're also fermenting things, that's a big step in this for us. Aaron has been the one making kefir, I've just started a batch of beet kvass.

But our big adventure has been in corned beef. The past few weeks had the subject brought up a lot due to the association with Irish American St. Patrick's Day dinners. Of course, as we're Pagan it gets drowned out a bit by all the various blather on the implications of the day. As we're more Scottishly inclined, I didn't feel a need to voice in on that and our only celebration was to go to a local coffee house to listen to music (which was a nice sociable thing to try to break out hermity ways). But there were enough mentions of corned beef and cabbage that I did start craving and then Nourshed Kitchen, a lovely blog you should check out if you're interested in real food, had this post on curing your own corned beef.

The roast before

As it's awfully hard to find grass-fed corned beef on a whim, we decided to go for this. Of course, we got started rather late to do it for St. Paddy's but that's not an issue. For me corned beef is not about St. Paddy's Day or about "being Irish." It's about being a New Englander with a Québécois father. It was an important meal, cheap, hardy, filling, savory on both sides of my family. The truth is that in the Northeast corned beef isn't about a ethnicity it's about class. It's a meal of the people. Of course, for boiled dinner it's not generally just corned beef and cabbage, but a variety of root vegetables as well. Things that get through the winter, which does make it quintessentially March meal.

In the whey, salt and spices

We have a few roast cuts from our last half-a-cow, although not a brisket apparently, but figured this piece would do although a bit more fat might have been nice. Of course, before we could start the curing of the beef, we needed to make the whey. This was something I had been intending to do as it's useful stuff and so the cream cheese which is the other side of the process. This, of course, took several days, in fact a bit more than we though it might. We went by Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions for this process. We did some raw milk and some raw milk yogurt, obviously the former took

Ready to cook

longer than the latter. We skipped the celery juice as we don't have a juicer anyway and would have had to buy celery (probably not local at this time of year).

Cooking

Once the whey was separated out we put the spices and salt on the meat and poured the whey over it all. We left it out for one day at room temp but the moved it into the refrigerator for 5 (or so days, we aren't remembering this the same LOL). Then we took it out and got it going in the crockpot.

It's food!

We added turnips, parsnips, carrots and, of course the cabbage.This is, after all, not corned beef and cabbage but New England Boiled Dinner.

And amazingly it tasted just like New England Boiled Dinner!

 We still have a few meals of it. We are also left with some cream cheese for various things, as well as more whey which allowed us to start the beet kvass.

We've been taking baby steps in to a lot of this over the years, but getting more and more into it. Cooking isn't something that we've been the strongest about, but it's an important part. Especially as I've always had health issues which makes this very important to me, both the eating as traditionally as possible and the eating a lot of traditionally fermented foods.  I am one of many I know who screwed up my system through years of vegetarianism and "mainstream" food. It's amazing to me as I look at "the big 5 0" in a few weeks that I am as healthy as I ever remember being in my adult life. And this has been largely due to eating real food. Some which we raise ourselves, some which we buy locally and all of which we prepare in traditional ways.

Speaking of raising, regarding the chicken hopes I mentioned awhile back, we are still not sure about the Scots Dumpies, although if we are indecisive too long the decision will be made for this year. And I am thinking that we probably won't get them this year. But we will get them. So while we considered getting White or Red Dorkings, as there are two NH farms which offer one or the other, we decided to just stick with the Silver Grays. We are going to try to breed some of ours, but as I write this there are 25 newly hatched chicks on their way here.

In the spring a middle-aged woman's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of ....chickens

And seeds, of course, but the true obsession is on the chickens.

We've had chickens since the spring of 2001, a few months after we moved here. We learned our lesson about going through the local feed stores, having ordered a specific breed and arriving to find out all they had were Black Sex-links (Black Stars). We took them, even though we intended to get something we'd want to keep breeding and would have broody hens, which never happens with Black Stars. What we ended up with was a couple of very nasty tempered roosters, we ate the others, and some good laying hens. One of which, went broody.

The Old Clucker brooded out a batch of eggs from this first flock, then later we got her to brood out some Silver Gray Dorking chicks when we decided we wanted something a bit different, with friendlier roosters and more hens who would brood. However, none of the Dorkings surpassed the Old Clucker as a mommy. She remained our go-to foster-mom through out her life (she died at 9).

We have suffered losses, disease, predators (and an improperly latched door). We got another batch of hybrid eggs for the Clucker, from a local...not a specific hybrid but a "I don't know who got with who" hybrid. We now have one hen from that batch. And we then returned to Dorkings two years ago.

We now have a few Dorkings, and the little red hen (who is actually big compared to the Dorking hens). We only had one chick make it last year, a male. *sigh* This year we hope to do better, letting hens brood and brood some eggs ourselves. But we were also going to buy another batch.

Thing is, it's already late to order Dorkings, because they are broody. Well, ours never seem to be as stubbornly broody as they describe, perhaps to balance out having a broody Black Star? But it seems the hatchery ones are. And I was considering perhaps we should splurge on another Dorking variety, especially as Aaron dislikes the big combs which are more prone to frost-bite (although this year we brought them into the heated shop). Sand Hill Preservation Center is far pricier, but is one of the few places that has other Dorking varieties. You need to order the standard 25 to keep them safe and warm on the trip, but you can't get one single variety in that number. Last time I checked I remembered it being about 6 per coloration, but now it's 15 or 10, which means we could get, say 15 black and 10 red rose-comb. The blacks have both rose and single combs. Other colorations are not available in our hoped for time frame, but this would be a good bet for us. But, yeah, pricey. $150 for 25.

We're still debating between us if we want to stick to the Dorkings, I wander up the chicken page on SHPC's site. My eye catches "Cuckoo Scots Dumpy." They appear to have started selling them just last year.

Due to how endangered this breed is, even compared to their other birds, they sell them differently than others. It's $150 for a set of 25 chicks of which at least 15 will be Scots Dumpies, more if they can do it, with the remainder being another breed of their choice. They're sold out until at least June, but on the surface it seems that other than waiting about a month longer than I might want to normally, there is no real difference to us as far as initial cost. Same price for 25 birds.

While I love the Dorkings, I admit that Scots Dumpies have fascinated me for years. I figured, however, that it would be impossible. But now that they are, I'm unsure about taking this step.

While Dorkings are not common, the Silver Greys that we have are no longer endangered. They are attainable from most hatcheries. Other varieties, which Sand Hill offer, are rarer. In NH there is Yellow House Farm in Barrington raising White Dorkings. They also have some great advice on heritage breeds.

That advice is truly needed as well. If we were to do this, or get into a rarer variety of Dorkings, we'll need to change our focus greatly. We'd need to get damn serious. Join associations! Sell breeding birds to others to get diversified local lines to later breed keep our flock diverse. We'd have to have space for a lot more breeding birds than we currently have been keeping in order to be a true preservation flock. We'd have to vaccinate as we'd have to take birds to swaps and shows.

It also thwarts Aaron's wish to have rose combs. However, despite the need to protect their combs from frostbite, Dumpies, like the Dorkings, are hardy in cold weather. To me that's more important. Of course, right now we have few enough birds that we have them in a small chicken house inside the heated shop, hence no comb freezing. If we end up with 60+ breeders we'll not really be able to fit them all in there. So different housing considerations must be made

Between all this, we're talking about a lot more than $150 investment.

Still, I am thinking this will be the future of our farm if the Zombie Apocalypse doesn't hit first. We probably won't do it this year, we'll breed the Dorkings we have and possibly get a few of something else, likely through someone local, to keep us in eggs and meat in the meantime. But eventually, yes, a preservation flock of Scots Dumpies...after all, how can I resist a breed reputed to have been "watch dogs" for the Picts against Roman's. (even if that is probably about as likely as woad, but, you know....)


Scots Dumpy photo totally stolen from the Scots Dumpy Club

Another year gone by

So, it's been just over a year since we started this blog and we're again preparing for winter. We didn't get a real hatch of chicks this year, so there has been no chicken sacrifice. I consider this a huge fail. We've been at this for over a decade, but we keep wavering in how much we bother doing.

I have realized that the husband isn't as into this as I had hoped...although he keeps saying he is. With me working nights and my health getting worse from it, more fell to him and often nothing got done. So I do realize that I'll be taking on most of this as time goes by and that there is a lot of catching up to do.

This year I put a lot of focus in the horse life here. Saorsa got far more regular training, and then this fall has been about getting ready to bring home his new horse, Misty. There is still work to be done in the barn, but the girls aren't much interested in the barn anyway. They're still after the grass in the lower pasture. So the first task was getting them integrated with no one getting killed. That went very well, after some trials and tribulations.

While there are aspects of having another horse that make for more work (manure management, food), they are herd animals and some issues that Saorsa has had already seem to be adjusting a bit with a new herdmate (although herd politics and hormone issues will be an on going balance). Hopefully we'll make even more progress with Saorsa's training from now on (although there will likely be a break in the degree of training over the winter, training is always happening). I am hoping that with another horse for her, I can both have more quality horse time and have more energy for other things around here.

We also lost some of our local meat sources, as the economy has been so devastating to the farmers here. So we might have to be a little less local to get sustainably and humanely raised meat for this winter...and I'm freaking a bit that we don't have it yet! There are a couple of options, we might not be buying as large a supply this year. We still have some left. It's not like we're going to starve...well, probably. The whole idea of this is that you just don't know.

Another project that still needs doing is to rehouse the chickens for the winter and in a system that will work for the rest of the year. Hopefully we'll get that underway this week and done quickly.

So, this is Hallowe'en, but not Samhuinn for us yet. We're looking to the full moon, but we'll see if we're ready then.

As summer leaves changes come

We moved here to have horses and to homestead. It'll be 11 years this year and we're not where we might have hoped. We've have and have had horses, 10 years ago I had rescued an elderly gelding I named Saoradh. I was lucky at that time as I wasn't working, Aaron was, so I was able to spend much time with him, both of us healing. Then I got a part time job before getting a full-time night watch job. At the time I got that job, he was settled, we got into a nice routine his last few months, as he was slowing down. I'd come home, we'd ride then later play with ground work.

When I lost him, I got the clear message to adopt a PMU foal. This job became a bigger issue then, for a young foal required much more energy and work. Daytime energy and work. Most of homesteading does, really, and my body knew this. When we moved here I went from being nocturnal most of my life to almost immediately diurnal...a morning person even! While the nightwatch job had it's perks as far as warrior path stuff went, especially Outlaw Warrior/Fenian workings, which I'll talk about soon in Championing Ourselves, it clearly had it's disadvantages in our over all life.

For five years I was on this schedule. Due to this, this filly Saorsa, now 4, is probably a bit wilder than I'd like, especially as she's a left brain mare who does not appreciate having to do anything that is not her own idea. She's extremely brave, never spooky, but instead is headstrong and stubborn. If I spent more time with her, perhaps she'd be a bit more cooperative. She's doing well in her training and I had no intention of backing her prior to next year, but I'm not thrilled by the lack of time I've spent.

But this all is changing now. I am leaving the night watch job, something, I'll be able to spend this fall working with her more, as well as with the new, older mare, Misty, we're adopting from Saorsa's trainer. Between more attention and a new pasturemate, hopefully Saorsa's attitude will improve a bit. Oh, I don't want docile and timid, but just a bit more acceptance of negotiation would be nice. And given this attitude, more time working things out will be a good thing.

This is a scary time, this will mean neither of us will be working full-time at the moment. Aaron is looking, but there is little out there. He'll sign up for more time with the ambulance, of course, and given the car issue (we have only one) this will give him a great chance for more experience. I will try to take some clients as a personal trainer but given the economy and the location, I'm not expecting a living out of that. I know we can do this, but not having that all important full-time job, especially as home-owners, is, yeah, a bit nerve-wracking.

As Aaron is likely to take as many shifts as he can and try to get at least part-time work, I'll be taking over as the primary "farmer" here. Aaron began taking over that role more and more as I burned out more and more from working nights, especially after he lost his job. I tried to spend my few daylight time with Saorsa or the Minis as much as possible.

But of course, we've got a nice list of things that really will take both of us to do, especially as winter is coming soon. We need to add a "stall" to the run-in barn so there is more room for the girls to hang out, as well as a space to separate them when we want to work with one. I'd love to tear down the whole structure, which was not designed to house horses, and start all over, but there is that little Catch-22 that it's impossible to afford to do it now that we have the time to do it (and there was never enough coming in for us to hire someone else to do it).

We also need better winter quarters for the chickens as well. There is some work on the house that should get done to make things better for this winter. And a shooting range to build but that might not happen until next spring (and will be further discussed in Championing Ourselves most likely). And there is a lot we could do, also best done together, to better prepare things for next year's planting.

One more week and I'm home.

I also look forward to spending more time with our land here. I spent my nights in the woods, but they were other woods, not the ones that own me. Now I barely do that, locked into one campsite. I get out here sometimes on my nights off, but far less during the day. It seems that the turning of the seasons here is largely missed by me. By chance I got to see the geese giving flying lessons to their growing goslings this year, but some years I've missed that all together. I feel out of touch with this land, with it's Spirits.

And so, we'll see what this part of the journey has for us, this land and the animals, domestic and wild, we share it with in this new stage.

End of an Era at Dùn Sgàthan

This has been a real bad year for us and chickens. So I never got a "It's Bealtuinn" post up. We lost the pullet, known as Baby Bird at the beginning of May, that was the daughter of the rooster I lamented previously. We don't know what happened, one day fine, the next "we should call the vet" and the next gone. It happens. Always on weekends, of course. But as those following this might know, it was really hard this time as she was the last from that rooster. And the last chick that our Old Clucker had hatched out. They had been together still, so I felt bad for Clucky.

And then we lost Clucky too, on May 23. Unlike the loss of BB, which was tragic due to her extreme youth, losing the Clucker was hard in a whole other way. She was waaaay old, as far as we know, for a chicken. No one we know has ever heard of a chicken living 10 years. But Clucky did. She out lived all her hatches except for the one red-brown hen.

But her age wasn't the first thing that made the Clucker stand out, the reason she got her name (and she and BB and RR (Road Runner or Red Rooster) are the only chicken's we've named, although my sister named one Foghorn) was the first. She was a Black Sex-link aka Black Star, a production hybrid which never, ever, ever go broody. It wasn't what we intended to get 10 years ago, we wanted something a bit more basic-farm-bird with brooding potential but we got screwed over at the feed store with our order and it was what we got. Vicious males, which attacked us when we gathered eggs and made us not regret eating the ones we did, and females that laid a lot but weren't going to raise any young.

Except, this one black hen went broody. We weren't prepared, but got things together so she'd have a good nesting spot and she raised out a hatch. She went broody every year. She became known as the Clucker or Clucky as it's a common term for a broody hen. When we first decided to get dorkings, we got hatching eggs and put them under the already brooding Clucky. She hatched them out fine as you can see here.

As she kept outliving flocks, the appellation "Old' got tacked on too. We kept expecting to lose her every year, and every year she'd persevere. Even when a fox got in the chicken house and wiped out almost our entire flock of Dorkings, she survived. Just as she survived illnesses and this past winter's mink attack.

But she slowed down, became less sociable with the chickens she had hatched out. Kept to herself. Often not far from them, but not with them. She started showing her age, she even got white feathers although after her last molting she went all black and brown again. We felt she was too old and hadn't shown any interest in brooding last year when we were getting more Dorkings so we got chicks rather than eggs. But she was very interested in them and shortly afterwards went broody, so we got some eggs from the other hybrids we had (from eggs we bought locally and that Clucky hatched out) and only one hatched, that was Baby Bird. With only one, she was still the dedicated mama she'd always been.

And she kept on kicking along. We joked that she was a vampire...even in our sadness over losing Baby Bird, we actually almost felt it might be true! She was 10 after all, who heard of a chicken living that long?

After losing BB, she seemed fine. Okay, that sort of led to more of the dark humor musings. The weather was warmer, she wandered around outside, pretty much as she'd been for years. Over looking her domain here...this was her place. And then she took an obvious turn. She wasn't lively and she just died lying in the sun in the yard, which was hers.

It really does feel like the end of an era, the end of The Old Clucker's reign. We had only been living here six months when we got the chicks she was one of so it's like she was always here. We knew her, we were used to her...she lived so long it really did feel like she'd always be a part of this place. It feels weird that she's not out there somewhere making sure all is right with our land.

Springtime circle of life, we hope

The handsome rooster and the black hen in this photo are no longer with us. One of the brown hens actually left us a couple of months ago, having died of illness, but RR (Road Runner or Red Rooster) and the black hen were killed just a few days ago by a mink. While we have made peace with the tiny ermine shown previously, the mink were kept away primarily by the ease of finding other tasty critters. When there is any opening in the pond at all, they are there eating crayfish. They've not bothered to venture nearer. This past week, however, following the only really significant snowfall we've had (it snows steadily, but no big dumps this year until now), apparently access to crayfish or other food became scarce. S/he invaded the shop where these three, RR and one brown and one black hen, along with the Old Clucker and Baby Bird (who were loose in the shop, not with these three) lived. S/he killed the black hen, and mortally wounded RR. From what Aaron saw, RR probably attacked the mink, not the other way around, after s/he attacked and killed the poor hen. Sachairi went after the mink, got a bite on the nose but it seemed to have escaped (I heard this at the side of the house, then heard it after their tussle). We brought RR and the three hens into the house, keeping them in dog crates. We tried to keep hope for RR. But the next night he died. I feel I should have put him out of his misery sooner, but we were so hopeful. I suppose if I had killed him I'd then have wondered if he might have made it if I let him try. There are times you know, but there are times you don't. I try not to get too attached to the chickens. We don't name most of them and mostly the names they get are sort of default. Lots of "brownies" and "blackies." Most of the males are called "supper." Some are special, though, but even their names are descriptive. Clucky got "named" because she's broody and she's lived so long, broody chickens are called "cluckers" or "cluckies." Baby Bird got named because she's going to be Clucky's last to raise, and she's a big baby. Actually, she's pretty small, but she's still a baby, remaining with Clucky. When we breed her to the Dorking rooster this year, she'll not stay with the flock but return to Clucky for as long as Clucky lives. Clucky's ten this year....so it may not be for long. RR got named because when young he was plain and brown and looked a lot like a roadrunner. He also ran a lot as we had another, bigger rooster at the time. He then grew into Red Rooster. He was gorgeous and personable, a well mannered rooster who treated his flock well. And gave his life trying to defend it. He's Baby Bird's daddy, which hen was her egg mommy we don't know, but the Clucker is her hatch mommy....but due to various circumstances, we never got any other chicks out of the flock. I had hoped to this year, both with this last two hens and some of the Dorking hens. I really liked this rooster, it breaks my heart. I have his genes in Baby Bird, but ..... I realized that the remaining brown hen was with him until the mink attack. I checked and a hen can remain fertile for about 10 days after being breed. I'm hoping. She's older now, not laying every day and she skipped the first couple after the trauma. In fact, we're surprised she started laying so soon again, but she has. We got an incubator. We're hoping. True, due to her age and the fact we don't know when the last time they might have mated was, this may not work out. Due to our inexperience incubating, it may not work out. But we're going to try. Just in case. Because, like making the choice not to kill him, to not do so will be to constantly wonder if it might have worked if we tried. Life and death are a constant part of this path. Sometimes you get to choose when those things happen, but not always. Not often. And so we hope. We hope that following this unplanned death we shall have planned life. But hope is all we have.

Gettting this started ---preparing for the winter

I'd been thinking of doing a blog to record some of our activities as we try to get a bit of a restart on our homesteading. We didn't get as much done this past summer as we hoped. We have a wood furnace coming in, but it looks like we won't get our solar panels up until next spring. We never did agree on a tractor to buy, so a lot of work we need it for didn't get done.

But we have gotten back into chickens and we've made steps to get our animal products that we can't raise ourselves locally. We've been buying milk and eggs, while waiting for our new girls to grow up, from Baum Farm. We have a freezer pig coming from a co-worker of mine, as well as half a steer from another local farmer. Our half a lamb isn't all that local, coming from our friend, Jenn, who will be butchering it herself in a class out a couple of hours or so from here in Vermont.

The same friend and her husband came out here on October 9th for our chicken sacrifice. After one of our 25 or so Dorking chicks had died on us and a couple of others got caught by a fox who visited while we were away (and who I caught snoozing on the porch next to the pen, with the chickens right up near that part of the fence also snoozing, one of my first days home), we were left with 12 cockerels and 10 pullets. This is along with the four hens and one rooster we've had for awhile, and the one pullet chick one of those hens, our 9 year old clucker, hatched. Of course, a farm, and hens, can only handle so many roosters, so our plans was to keep one Dorking boy. Another one is going to go to our friends.

This year we had killing cones and an automatic defeatherer, courtesy of a local farm group. The cones were helpful but I have to say that I NEVER want to do this again without the defeatherer. Seriously, what a difference! Because the plucking was always the most time consuming...the time when we felt all our grandmothers looking from The Other Side laughing at us.

Aaron gathered up 10 of the cockerels, leaving the two who were actually hanging more with the pullets than the others. Both the ones left are good looking birds, good size, feathering, five toes (actually they all had the five toes Dorkings are supposed to have, which is a first for us) and, apparently, more courtly and friendly with the girls. Which is important, we don't want a rooster who the hens don't like. Choosing the actual sacrifice, the bird for the Gods was still difficult, as they were really all fine and healthy. Just two were a bit undersized and "chased" looking...the lowest on the pecking order.

As always, I'd been stressed over the killing before we started. It's not a fun thing, it shouldn't be, as far as I'm concerned. It should be hard. But it's also very spiritual for me. I did the sacrifice first, which also allowed me to connect fully with the Goddess I serve, and the four of us took his body up to the temple area.

With 9 left we did three, then took them to be scalded (to loosen the feathers) and put in the defeatherer. Um, didn't really dunk them long enough so it took a bit longer and we had to hand pluck those quite a bit. BTW, while it's a wonderful thing, it's kinda gruesome to watch. I fully beheaded the chickens (we kill by cutting the throat) first, which made it less gruesome than some of the videos of these things we watched the night before (as we hadn't used one before we wanted to see one at work first) where the chickens still had heads. They were clearly dead, but not so obviously so which made it look worse.

The next ones we dunked longer and it worked better. After doing the next three, while our friends continued to clean them, Aaron and I killed the last three. This made the process much faster. Working with others is a big plus compared to just us, so I'm thinking we might consider that next year, when they have their first mixed hatch (they got pullets this year), maybe we can spend a day helping them and they can spend a day helping us.

After a bit of haggling, we sent them home with two of the processed chickens. They wanted to only take one, but agreed to take the second on the grounds that she'll cook it for us sometime when we visit. Damn it! I should have made them take THREE and have her cook two for us. ~;p (She's an excellent cook, a professional foodie, even, The Leftover Queen) One of the two remaining boys is theirs, but they wanted to wait until they got things set up a bit more rather than just "throw him to the girls" with the way things are set up. So they'll get him when we get our lamb from her. Works out well.

Um, as long as the fox doesn't come around and one of the boys throws himself at it.

The other will be a second rooster here...we'll be breeding some pure Dorking, but also some hybrids with our red rooster with the Dorking hens and with this guy and the hybrid hens to give us some bigger eggs.

I just finished eating some of the chicken soup that we made from the remains of the first chicken we ate. Our pullets are becoming hens and we're getting eggs now, although still supplementing from Baum Farm for the moment. I'm starting to feel like we really are getting back into this. There's no reason why we should be buying any more meat from far away sources again, or any at all for another year.

So next year as well as doing this again (well, not buying chicks but breeding our own) we intend to get moving on our vegetable consumption. We did get local veggies all summer, but didn't do so well in getting in a garden or with getting into preservation so we're a bit stuck as we're going into winter. We're still getting some local carrots and lettuce, though. But next year, we'll do better on that.