A Quiet Sunday at Home

 T'is rare to have a quiet Sunday this time of year. I often feel that the fall is the most intense and stressful part of my year. In the spring, the new warmth and light bring energy aplenty, and I start juggling touring days with my kids' activities and school. I weed the garden and plant. I certainly keep busy. But the excitement of spring plus the rest and calm of late winter bouy me forth.

Fall however is my busiest moment of the year. School starts up again. Activities must be scheduled and put into place. New arrivals are to be welcomed and integrated into our family. The house is put back in order after the summer rentals. And, to top it off, it is the time of the year that I've seemingly non-stop tours. I'm grateful for the work, don't get me wrong. But it does require some expert juggling, and infinite levels of energy to care for all concerned, and not have a house that's a wreck, an empty cupboard, nor children stranded at school till all hours. Oh yes, and happy clients.

 And so, a short and quiet day (I've a concert tonight with my choir) is a true delight. The kids are with their father, the weather is spectacular, and I've the time to care for our chickens (we've three since last March), sweep out their house and lay fresh straw, change their water, give them grain and soaked stale bread, plus some time pecking and scratching in the garden.

 Filou is now a chicken herder. From his experience herding terribly pregnant goats (a while back now...) to today's mini-escapade, it seems that his Bichon/Poodle roots have some herding instincts in there somewhere. In any case, my chickens were not allowed to amble out of the garden too far before he dashed over to them and barked/ran them back to their pen. I was at first afraid he might go after them in earnest, and then realized that in fact, they were flocking to the safety of their pen, not into his jaws. Oh... interesting, and I suppose rather helpful.

 A while back I wrote about the building of the hen house (in exchange for a tango weekend with a dear friend). But as I didn't write much last year (or at all?) I haven't shared our joy in having 3 fresh eggs daily for the past six months. And, not only for ourselves but also for my summer renters who arrived to a note on the fridge

"There are 3 chickens in the back of the garden, please give them your scraps and left overs, with some grain and stale bread from the shed. Change their water once in the week, and they'll pay you back with many fresh eggs"

They've  been a hit with us all.

All summer I've proudly shared my favorite lunch - a fresh fried egg on my toasted multi-grain bread with fresh tomatoes from the garden, drizzled over with the olive oil from Paul Pierre (retired goat cheese maker). And I enjoy it still as the tomatoes continue to ripen and enliven my cuisine, and the eggs keep a'coming.

 This weekend's bounty includes a bowl full of ripe tomatoes, a couple loaves of my no-knead multi-grain bread, and a batch of raspberry muffins. The recipe for the latter is below:

A variation of one of my standards:

3 cups semi-whole wheat flour
1 cup non-bleached sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups plus turned raw milk (this can be replaced with yogurt) or enough to fully moisten the dry ingredients
2 eggs (mine are pretty small, so maybe just one large egg)
1/3 cup cold-pressed sunflower oil
a handful or more of summer raspberries (kept in the freezer for just this purpose)

Bake at 200/400 till puffed up and lightly browned. (about 15-20 minutes depending on your oven)

Remove from the oven, let cool, and warn the kids to not burn their tongues on the raspberries!

Happy chickens lay lovely eggs.

Life and Death in the world of farm animals

All excited, I followed a mother from school to her house 45 minutes from school to pick out chickens for the Mas. JP had been with me two weeks' earlier and seen the lovely chickens from her brood hen at my friend Alison's. He'd found them quite lovely and was very interested in the price (free, with gift). So, I called, I organized, I nearly completely zapped my rendezvous -- happily she came to me in the parking lot Friday morning! -- and off I went to collect some chickens.

First of course, I had to catch them. Aie yaie yaie. I forget sometimes to what degree I'm a city girl. Oh, I can climb trees, play in dirt, shovel out a horse stall, saddle and bridle a horse, wash a dog, find mushrooms under pine needles.... but catch shy chickens? Suddenly I wondered if truly, that greased pig contest would be any easier.

At last we cornered a few in the pen and succeeded in grasping some tale feathers and pinning them down into a carton. One rooster and five hens of various colors and styles.

I was humbled and proud at the same time. I'm not completely pathetic... just a bit leery and hesitant with age I think, yet often kafutzed by my inner child.

The chickens lived happily in a large cardboard box throughout the day in the back of my car till I got to the Mas. Whereby we released them into the poullailler which had normally been fixed up by JP's helper.

Immediately the dogs were very interested. They got a wacking for their interest, and we hoped had learned from it. In any case, the plan was to keep a close eye on them and prevent damage in the time it took for us to reinforce the perimeter of the pen.

But, the best laid plans of mice and men....

The next morning, it could have been a scene from Jemima Puddleduck. The dogs got into the pen, and there was damage. We found feathers, and one dead buried a distance from the pen. I was crushed. Half my chickens were gone in one fell swoop! And the rooster too?

So, we got to work, pinning down the fence all around, to make sure no dog or fox would slip under the wire. And then we cleared all the field grasses and branches and wild vines and more from the perimeter and put in an electric fence at the height that our four legged friends would best encounter. A long morning's work. But well worth it. A few yelps confirmed that the dogs had discovered the electric charge, and their subsequent distancing of themselves from the coop vastly reassured me.

And then, is that a rooster we heard? The day was not a total loss. We found our handsome rooster and corralled him back to the coop with success. Now, perhaps another one or two has saved herself in the woods and will come back to the rooster's call?

The day before, I'd learned of the loss of the baby goats (not those we saw born, but those from the night before). And this day, the natural instinct of a few house dogs did its work on our feathered friends.

As JP told me, when you work with animals, you learn to accept a certain level of loss. It is up to us to prevent it to the best of our abilities. But we are not perfect, and mistakes occur, and nature lets you know quite quickly to wise up and do the necessary.

It still hurts though. The learning curve is a bit brutal.