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eggs

Thyme Infused Dinner Rolls (with homemade cultured butter)

 
These herbed pull-apart dinner rolls, with their rustic crust and fluffy sweet interior, possess exactly the right density and flavor for sopping up pan drippings and gravies at Thanksgiving. The dough comes together like a velvet symphony when ingredients are allowed to reach room temperature and the mixing bowls warmed before combining. The secret to the light and fluffy interior is to add only as much flour as necessary and not a pinch more.

Winter-Blues Old Bear

WinterBlues

As I lay in bed this morning under a pile of blankets – gazing through the window into the woods; watching it snow and snow and snow on a world already covered in snow; spotting a doe making her way across my vista, a lean, silent creature delicately nosing the base of this tree and that in her search for anything at all worth eating, and I thought to myself: oh how I hate New York winters. I really, really hate them. Wish I could sleep through them. Please make it stop. I pulled the covers over my head. If I stayed under here until our next vacation could the family cope? I know: snow and dark and cold are supposed to be no big deal to a northerner. I try not to mind them. But they just suck: they suck out my life force, make my bones ache. Make me wish I could stay under my covers until Spring. But the dog whined at the door and the chickens gabbled for chow so I pulled myself together and rolled out. Outside a tidy path had been laid in the snow between the coops and when I opened the door I found half the flock assembled for a meeting and the nesting box loaded: 10 eggs.

eggs

Apparently neither knee-high snow, nor plunging temperatures, nor a sun absent from the sky for five days straight could dampen this dutiful flock’s mood. Lilac the Rooster guarded the door, behavior that ordinarily earned him considerable pain and suffering in the form of relentless pecks to the head, but when a guy’s domineering ways protect a girl from the wind and makes the house warmer, well now, hens can be persuaded to see him differently.

Rooster

Three seconds after coming back inside Tigger found her ball and whined go out again. Such a stupid dog. Was there ever a morning when I felt less like playing catch? I pulled my coat back on and grabbed the camera. Why not. Why not document all the things that make winter in New York such a drag. Back in the hen yard I opened the coop for a flock beauty shot and – holy macaroni – two more eggs! Twelve in a single 24-hour period from a flock of seven hens, and a record for the Schutt Farmette. Hurray for us? I watched the fat, sausage-roll dog barrel through the snow, smiling like this was her happiest day on Earth, and had to laugh.  Then she was done; tuckered out; panting and wanting back inside for a nap. Me too. Back under my covers to wait it out. Like a grumpy, stiff, sore, winter-blues old bear. I hate winters in New York. By the way, does anyone need eggs?

sausage-running

Hawk in the Hen Yard

Monkeys before the Monolith.
Camouflaged…until it snows.

As the weather turns cold a most unwelcome visitor is transgressing the boundaries of our yard: an adolescent red-tailed hawk.  I’m slow to the window so it’s still a streak in my periphery but The Husband has seen it perch on the deck rail just feet from henhouse and high in the tree bough overhanging the hen yard. Silently sighting in our girls.
Hedwig Whoolio Mac Owlton
It is just a young thing now but what I know about young things is that they grow up fast. If a full grown hawk can carry off a rabbit a fat chicken is most certainly within its weigh limit capabilities and come winter, when easy prey are difficult for that hawk to spot under the protective blanket of snow, our hen yard will look like a free-range buffet.
Did you know Great Horned Owls are natural predators of Red Tailed Hawks? Let’s see if the installation of Hedwig Whoolio Mac Owlton precludes young Hawkeyed Joe from thinning out our flock this winter. 
Owl Sentry
Lilac The Rooster giving the stink eye

October Rose Farm and our Chicken Sensei

Bottom’s up at the water cooler.

Now that the summer is indisputably over and we’ve a mere month to partake in the bounty and friendship that is the Farmer’sMarket, The Husband and I did what we’ve promised ourselves we would do for a long time: we visited our favorite chicken farmstead people in all of Upstate New York: Susan and Brian Underwood of October Rose Farm.
One Lucky Rooster.
Some people venture into farming with well-defined master plans, others with an inherited knack (and/or land) from familial roots. Susan and Brian Underwood of October Rose accidentally stumbled into chicken-raising when their teenage son reared a flock of egg-layers to pay for a trip to the Boy Scout Jamboree and, upon his return, surrendered custody of his 25 hens to Mom and Dad. Since then, Susan and Brian have painstakingly gathered knowledge and know-how to expand their farmstead into a beautiful, orderly, and sustainable spread at the tip of Skaneateles Lake.
Evening chores.
Rotation method.
Since product quality is necessarily tied to quality of life, and October Rose chicken and eggs are delicious, we were not at all surprised when we visited Susan and Brian to find hundreds of beautiful meat and egg-laying birds on pasture in the fresh air overlooking the Skaneateles valley. The Underwoods utilize a rotation grazing method that promotes pasture health and animal happiness. Broiler birds in pasture pens are moved to fresh grass every day; the Eggmobiles, which run a daily average of 50 pounds of eggs apiece, are moved to new pasture every week. Unlike the cringe-worthy living conditions and pollution of industrial farms, October Rose’s animals serve as the Cleanup and Renew Crew: the birds break down and scratch insect larva out of the manure left behind by grazing animals and then enrich the quality of the pasture with their own droppings. This revitalized soil enhances the grassland for grazing animals, and the cycle begins anew.
Turkeys.
It has been widely reported that October Rose turkeys are the best tasting in all of CNY, but should you wish to partake be prepared to plan ahead: orders for the Thanksgiving birds are typically sold out by June. Regularly available are plump, fresh chicken (whole, half and quarters) and fresh-laid eggs at the Skaneateles Farmers market every Thursday and Saturday, or by contacting the farm directly. I wouldn’t dream of making my chicken soup with anything but an October Rose broiler.
Eggmobile.
We’ve been customers of October Rose Farms for years. As a matter of fact, Susan Underwood – with her calm, hands-in-pocket patience – has become our Chicken Sensei. Without our weekly consultations with her at the Skaneateles Farmer’s Market we would not have dared foray into chicken-rearing ourselves. Susan has guided us through pasty-butt and broodiness and when we showed up to market a bit bummed after the unexpected death of one of our hens assured us that sometimes this just happens and, yeah, she knows what its like to regard a farm animal as member of the family.
Try having thatconversation with an industrial factory farmer.
October Rose Farm, twilight.
Watch this very fun and cool video of chicken-life on October Rose Farm.

Freedom…and Molting.

BP would appreciate it if we’d stop
bringing up the ‘broody’ incident.

The broody hen saga has come to a peaceful end. BP was emancipated after four days in confinement. She emerged a bit loopy which probably accounted for her wandering too close to the hen house and earning herself a swift and decisive reaction from her sisters as the accompanying video shows. By her second day of freedom she was far more interested in scratching for beetles than sitting in the stuffy henhouse and for one full week we enjoyed six daily eggs.
Then, The Molting.
Act normal, no one will notice. 
One of the more innocuous sisters – a little red hen so drama-free we haven’t even named her properly – has suddenly begun to molt. Molting is the embarrassing phase in the feather-rejuvenation process; while we do not speak of it in her earshot we can hardly fail to notice the feathers all over the yard or the thinning of her wings. The web says laying hens usually molt in the fall but prolonged heat can trigger it early. Until her new feathers come in we’ll politely ignore her suspended egg laying and severely declined state of attractiveness.
In the meantime, there has been much activity in the pallet garden:
Basil
Arugula blossom
Little ink caps
Leaf hopper

Emancipation Video:

The Inglorious Incarceration of Little Miss Broody Pants Day 2

BP’s sisters keep her company.
When I consulted the web for advice about how to remedy my broody hen problem I was surprised to find just as many articles bemoaning the fact that broodiness cannot be inducedas articles explaining how to cure it. As it turns out, the brooding instinct has been bred out of many chicken varieties in order to increase egg production. Most hens have no interest in sitting on a clutch for 21 days, nor in protecting any resulting offspring. A broody bird, on the other hand, will sit stubbornly until she perishes or her eggs hatch, or until she is coaxed out of her broody state by other means.
Which brings us to our ‘problem’ hen.
Day 2
An Apology Tomato
Little miss BP survived her first night in lockdown and accepted, though somewhat reticently, my early morning Apology Tomato. To my surprise, the ladies were far less forgiving. They threw me resentful looks and hovered near her while making little clucking noises, clearly upset by her continued confinement.
“It’s one thing to lock her up for a minute to teach her a lesson about sharing,” I heard one say, “but to keep her in there all night? Who knows what else these people are capable of!”
Not the proper time, I’m guessing, to mention to the flock our plans to buy a chest freezer in the fall.
But the whole episode was overshadowed by the arrival of Hen House 3 which The Husband rolled ceremonially across the lawn on a garden wagon. The hen yard erupted into an excited frenzy.
Hen House 3
HH3 is The Husband’s Coop de Résistance. He not only constructed it in a single day (recall the weeks long Château de Ferrières ordeal?), he managed it without a single trip to the hardware store AND without taking any measurements (which may explain why it ended up a tad gigantic for the three little hens it was built for).
When I brought the Silkies out to see their new home, attitudes in the hen yard cooled.
“Oh for crying out loud, it’s for those things?” the ladies grumbled. They assembled in the dirt near BP for huffy afternoon dust baths and to compiled a list of our deficiencies. In other words, things returned to near-normal.
Dust bathing with BP
Though not entirely so: when we closed the Silkies up in their new coop at dusk BP was in her fluffed-up brooding pose making the endless puk-puk-puk sound a mother hen uses to sooth her clutch.

Mark my words: there will come a day when this behavior results in much rejoicing.  In the meantime, I’ll probably have to make a lot of Apology Tomatoes.
To be continued…

The Inglorious Incarceration of Little Miss Broody Pants Day 1

BP sitting. Again.

There’s been a major upset in the hen yard and it’s called Little Miss Broody Pants: The Cranky Hen. For a week she’s hogged the nesting box entirely for herself and has disallowed egg deposits to the point where the Ladies have had it up to their combs with her nonsense and started pecking out her feathers. Extracting her from the box threw her into a full-on tizzy and letting her sit meant the other hens were laying eggs all over the place. Not to mention the danger of Little Miss Broody Pants becoming dehydrated [or starving] while she waited for a clutch of unfertilized eggs to hatch.
This was becoming a problem of diabolical proportions.

Day 1
According to World Wide Web the best way to snap a persistently broody hen back to her senses is to completely eliminate the opportunity to nest. No bedding whatsoever for at least three days. I bee-lined to the nesting box and took a hard look at Miss Broody Pants.
“You’re not going to like this but it’s for your own good.” I told her.
“You’re upsetting my children,” she replied.
Little Miss Broody Pants, in the clink.
I unearthed the dog kennel from the back corner of the garage and parked it under the maple in the hen yard. A stick through the bars for a roost; an old plastic dish zip-tied to the sidebars for water; a flowerpot to the other side for chick chow. I returned to the nesting box.
“You don’t have children,” I said and scooped her out before she knew what hit her.
Word of Broody Pants’ trip to the slammer spread through the flock like wild fire. Hens came running from the farthest regions to gawk. Even The Dog stood outside the fence with her mouth hanging open, horrified by the reappearance of that old kennel and unable to believe what I had just done.

Gathering ’round for an impolite gawk.

Broody stood motionless in her cell with her beak high. “You can’t keep me locked up forever,” she whispered, defiant. “My people will mobilize.”

“I wouldn’t count on it, BP. I’m afraid you burned that bridge days ago.” I walked sadly away while the girls made loud snarky comments about restored order and how long overdue it was for certain hens to learn their place in the yard.

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen…

  
   To be continued…
















Sixty Dollar Eggs

The Winter Coop is bird-worthy at last. Two weeks in the making. Five treks to Lowes. Twice to Ace. A few [dozen] modifications to the original blue print.

The upkeep of chickens can be a harrowing endeavor.
In the process of the Winter Coop’s construction my husband and I learned we may be “chicken people” – thus ordained by the nice girl behind the Ace counter who chattered fondly of birds she once raised and a ‘chicken mansion’ her brother constructed and reportedly still improves upon. Yeah, we know the feeling.
But our ladies — my word, such a racket! Bigger, warmer, safer, drier…not a single new-coop feature could impress our finicky flock. They bickered and fussed and turned huffy, indignant shoulders toward the new windows and fancy nesting box. Impossible to please, these.
But tomorrow’s Thanksgiving Day forecast calls for snow. Though our ladies refuse to thank us we will nonetheless sleep soundly this holiday eve knowing our climate controlled, temperature-monitored, easy-access coop is nothing if not a striking force against any New York squall. Bring it.
And in the morning we will feast with gladness on our eggs. The current cost of acquisition: sixty dollars a piece.
Happy Thanksgiving!