Month old chicks
Today the chicks are one month old! We celebrated by moving half of them down to their new home in The Dell with Sheila. She rebuilt their chicken house to make it snug and safe. Three strong women, Sheila, her daughter Katelynn, and I squeezed into our henhouse to separate out the Buff Orpingtons, New Hampshire Reds, Silver Laced Wyandottes and Black Stars from the Barred Rocks, Dominiques and Araucanas. Sheila lost count as Katelynn handed them off to be popped into a big cardboard box, but when they were counted out into their new space all 24 were accounted for.
Our chicks at one month
We are left with 18 chicks, but more will move out. BJ is getting six and Kate is getting four. The rest will refresh my flock of layers. I have a good setup for brooding chicks, so I was glad to do it for the whole delivery. I think the chicks feel more secure being part of a good sized flock. Right now they are all happy with their new space. The brooding box has been upended and the chicks have more room to spread their wings. These are the flightiest chicks I have ever had. They are all layers, but will not be producing eggs until right about Christmastime. A nice present for us.
Murray McMurray Delivery
The post office called at 7:30 am to say the chicks are in! When I arrived I could hear such a chick racket I thought there must be a number of people whose chick delivery had arrived. But, no. The racket was caused by 43 chicks alone. Chicks can travel through the mail because they do not need food or water for 48 hours after they hatch.
Our brooder box
We expected the chicks this week so we prepared over the weekend. We use this square meter crate as our brooder box. When we left Beijing in 1990 my work unit paid for the delivery of a half cubic meter box that I could fill with all my souvenirs and purchases. Packing the box had to be done in the presence of a customs official, but when he saw that we only bought the painted tinware I loved, children’s books, a gong, and typical winter coats, he left in disgust. We packed no Ming Dynasty furniture or ceramics. Ever since then the crate itself has served nobly as the brooding box. Chicks needs to be kept at 95 degrees their first week of life.
The hatchery will not send fewer than 25 chicks at a time through the mail. The chicks act as their own packing material, buffering each other from the vicissitudes of travel. The chicks do not need to be all the same variety. Since three friends joined me in this order – to make up more than 25 chicks – the box holds Buff Orpingtons, Silver Laced Wyandottes, Americaunas, Barred Rocks, Dominiques and New Hampshire Reds.
At 8 pm we went out to tuck the chicks in for the night. They are all spread out, which means they are warm enough. The heat lamp, and regular incandescent light bulb supply sufficient warmth when the box is partially covered with an old bedspread. We could see that they are eating and drinking well. Not a single fatality on their journey to Heath, and they have gotten through their first day here in good form.
Harrison's Yellow
And I beg your pardon by Wendell Berry
The first mosquito:
come here,and I will kill thee,
holy though thou art.
If the Harrison’s yellow is blooming the mosquitoes will not be far behind. In the meantime I am making do with deer flies that have bitten and bitten. They are not as easy to swat and kill as mosquitoes that land and take their time to suck blood.
Wendell Berry is a wonderful writer – and poet. He bought a farm in Kentucky in 1965 and the main subject of his writings are about the beauty of nature, the agrarian values he holds dear, and the kind of good life that he believes is lived in small rural communities. I am with him all the way – and that is probably one reason I ended up in a little town like Heath.
My strategy
Wendell Berry knows and appreciates the problems of farming and rural life – which I contended with myself today. The day was spent in happy labors, planting tomatoes, three heirlooms my neighbor gave me and three Black Krim samples from Hort Couture, and Renees Garden beans, Emerite and French Gold. There were the deer flies to battle, but I was happy getting these plants and seeds in the ground. Henry dug the final garden bed, so there is still a little work to do.
I went back to the Shed Bed, finishing the weeding (almost, anyway) and planting my pathetic little cosmos seedlings. I found a piece of wire fencing that was just the right size to lay over the cosmos, just a few inches off the ground. It looks like a big plant support. The chickens can’t get under the fencing and they won’t hop on top so those seedlings are safe. However, as per my custom I then planted salvia seedlings around the edge of the bed. They are not protected by wire fencing and the chickens love freshly tilled soil. They knocked over two of the seedlings. I hope I can rescue them. The hens will not be allowed out to play tomorrow -or for a few more days.
Thank you Carolyn gail for hosting Muse Day at Sweet Home and Garden Chicago. I love to see the first of the month arrive.
Greenfield Farmers Market
Saturday I went into Greenfield to buy plants at the Greenfield Garden Club Plant sale, but also stopped at the Greenfield Farmers Market to buy beautiful lettuce from The Kitchen Garden for Gourmet Club, and I bought a pot of beautiful double white petunias from LaSalles.
Shoestring Farm Booth
The Farmers Market was full of vegetable starts, flats of annual seedlings, as well as the first greens of the season and huge bouquets of peonies from Hadley where spring has sprung to a greater degree than in Heath. Strolling among the Farmers Market booths my head is filled with fantasy visions of my own garden, equally productive and beautiful.
Shed Bed
When I got home I had to face the reality that I am still weeding and planting madly – and it is not a pretty sight. Some creature is daintily nibbling at the lettuce in the new Front Garden. That will require further investigation and thought. Somehow the Shed Bed of Roses, next to the henhouse, is incredibly full of weeds and grass this spring. I hadn’t made even one pass through when daughter Diane arrived on Sunday afternoon for a short visit. I immediately showed her the Shed Bed and we set to. She is such a cooperative and energetic daughter. I got to use my fabulous West Country Rose Gloves to prune and hold roses out of the way while Diane dug out grass and weeds. We noticed that the rose Mrs. Doreen Pike, a low rugosa with bright green foliage and pretty very double little blossoms, who had sent runners toward the back of the bed, had totally disappeared to the back of the bed leaving a big empty spot in the front. What to do? And how to handle that empty spot considering the location of the bed next to the henhouse?
Chickens! There is a fenced chicken yard, but a few adventurous birds routinely fly the coop for a day eating grass and bugs and taking ‘dust’ baths in the cultivated soil of the Shed Bed. Since I fear the dread ‘rose disease’ that spells certain doom for any rose planted where a rose lived before (at least for a couple of years) one solution to that empty space is a patch of annuals. Not good design, but functional. The problem is those chickens and their dust baths. I’m wondering if I can make a kind of cage out of chicken wire to put over the annual seedlings. The chickens won’t be able to dig them up and the annuals (maybe cosmos?) will grow up through the cage and pretty much hide it. It’s my only idea so far. What do you think?
Interior designer Charlotte Moss, writing in today’s New York Times, says she “eschews matching dishes and serving pieces.” I’m right with her. White dishes are a basic and table settings can be changed delightfully with linens and accessories, but my daughter bought me these befruited dishes for summer meals. And I always think if a chicken or two can be added to the table so much the better. Although it is hard to see the pretty glasses are embossed (I don’t know the right word) with honey bees, which are so important to the garden. I am fortunate that my son’s partner Michelle Willey has a shop in Boston; she always keeps her eye out for things that appeal to our horticultural tastes.
Charlotte Moss says flowers on the table are a must. Some of my favorite flowers are on this table cloth which is really a length of upholstery fabric left over from a love seat I had reupholstered nearly 40 years ago. Basic white dishes here, but I’ve also used pink and white dishes with this cloth. Note the beautiful handblown pink wineglass made by our neighbor Bob Dane.
Roses for teatime. What could be more delightful – especially when the view out the window is still of snow covered fields. Friends give me roses as gifts, and sometimes I find an odd rosy plate or jug at an ‘antique’ store.
We would all agree with Charlotte that serving pieces are a way to add interest, possibly horticultural interest, to the table. I had the peony printed oval platter shipped in our crate from China, never dreaming I could have bought it in many inexpensive U.S. stores. The bamboo platter was a gift and perfect for hors d’oevres. I’ve added the Italian pitcher because chickens are always a suitable and charming addition. Wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who once said he hoped he would be worthy of his blue and whites. My blue and white dishes are not of that class, luckily for me, but blue and white is almost as basic as white.
It was a surprise to me to look around my house and see how many horticultural motifs there are in curtains, duvet covers, and cushions as well as on the table. Does this theme happen to everyone, or just to gardeners?
Photo by Katherine Wolkoff in the NYT
First you need to know that I raise chickens, and have for the past 30 years. I do not look like this, although I do have roses growing in the Shed Bed, next to the hen house.
Peggy Ornstein in The New York Times today talks about “femivorism” and the part chickens play.
I did not get my chickens because I thought it was part of good parenting practice. My five children were teenagers or older by the time we got chickens, and if anything thought they were gross. The grandchildren think it is exotic and fun to go out and collect the eggs, but then they are grandchildren.
I am fascinated by the mysterious trend to have a backyard flock, and I can only applaud it because I think chickens can raise your spirits. I raise chickens because they are domestic, cheerful, productive – just like me. I love using big fresh golden yolked eggs in my cooking, even if they come into the house with smudges of manure. Tip: NEVER wash an egg until you are ready to cook it. Nature has given the shell an impermeable coating that protects the eggs. Don’t wash it off until the last minute.
Eggs from my hens
When people show photos of their backyard flocks they don’t show pictures of chicken house litter in use, moulting birds, or the inevitably work scarred equipment. It is not all picture perfect.
Though its not pretty, we gardeners love all that manure for the compost pile.
My hens
We usually raise meat birds as well. Even people with a few laying hens balk at that. But it raises the question, what does raising a back yard flock do for us? What does it mean? Eggs? Meat? A pretty hobby? Pets? An environmental effort? A lesson for the children?
What do you think?
There were frosts and snows here in Heath, but in between we have been having the most delightful weather. Sun and warmth are such blessings at this time of the year that every ordinary (quotidian) task brings an awareness of the pleasures of the earth. I have my morning routine, beginning with feeding and watering the chickens who are enjoying this weather even though it does not prompt them to lay eggs. I’m down to two or three a day, from the whole flock.
It is such a pleasure to be able to use the clothesline and have all the laundry smell so fresh and sweet after a day in the sun and breezes. A pleasure to hang out and bring in. Pretty soon it will not be so pleasureable. I’ll just use the dryer which is a whole different experience, but still, a pleasure when I consider the alternative of trudging out in snow and ice to let the laundry freeze on the line.
The harvest is over, and the vegetable garden is pretty well prepared for winter, but I’ve only just started on cleaning up the ‘herb bed’ in front of the house. The bed was enlarged this year to accompany the new paved entry leading to the Welcome Platform. The herb bed actually includes Black Beauty lilies, and a new Thomas Affleck Rose, as well as chives, parsley, thyme, bee balm, lemon balm, sage, black stem mint, tarragon and horseradish. This year it also included a couple of tomato plants which ultimately suffered the Late Blight. The clean up has been such a pleasure in this warm weather. The weed roots don’t seem to hold as tight, and there are no bugs. I’m not quite done and I hope the weather holds for a few more days.
And at the end of a day filled with ordinary pleasures, there was one of our extraordinary sunsets. But I still had to look forward to a comfortable and pleasurable dinner with my husband, and being able to slip between those sweet smelling sheets at bedtime. A perfectly ordinary day.
Rory has come to visit during school vacation and the chores begin. We found out the worms are not dead after all. At least not all of them, so we have to feed them eggshells to help reproduction, and squash flesh and seeds.
If you look really closely you can see a couple of worms in their last meal. We also saw very very tiny worms, so I guess the eggshells work. We are not the only ones tending a worm far. Over at
Garden Rant I just learned about this
NYTimes article and urban vermiculture.
Worms aren’t our only livestock. We have to get out to the chickens. People mostly talk about the romance of chickens, clucking cheerfully, decorating the lawn and producing beautiful eggs. But the winter reality is freezing waterers that need to be rotated, and a difficult trek to the hen house.
Rory was game, and ready to trek in the snowshoes, but you’ll notice he’s not carrying the waterer. That was me.
However, he fed them and made up a song.
My little chickens, my little chickens
Happy as can be.
Makes funny noises,
Plays around all day.
In the big ol’ pile of hay.
My little chickens, my little chickens
Making the best of time,
turning into big egglaying hens
that they are.
My little chickens, my little chickens,
Growing up so fast!
The day old Americauna chicks we got the first of June have matured and are finally laying eggs!
I have always been amazed that Auracaunas which origninated in Mexico did so well in our cold climate. I guess they have been slightly hybridized because the name has changed in the Murray McMurray catalog. We have had many breeds of chicken over the past 25 years, Rhode Island Reds, Barred Rocks, Buff Orpingtons, Silver Laced Wyandottes and even a few mysteries. These breeds are beautiful and I love having a varied flock, but I have to say that the Americaunas seem to lay well in the cold weather and they also lay dependably longer into their maturity.
I do not cull my flock. They are not pets in any sense, but we add a few new layers every spring and keep all the chickens until they die at a dignified age. Or until they get caught by a predator. We protect them as best we can, but nature is red is tooth and claw.
Chickens, Our Community, Sustainability | Pat July 2, 2010 | 
Comments (7) 
