roosters

Farm updates early August

August 11, 2019Jen PowellLeave a comment

Everyone is very busy around here – the garden is giving us a lot of vegetables, and showing us a lot more to come. New pictures below:

Here is some bee balm (bergamot) I didn’t know I had – I planted it last year but it didn’t actually show up / bloom till now. In the spring I had what I thought was Moldavian balm coming back, but then it bloomed into these. It is really pretty and the bees love it.

bee on the balm — Here is a bee enjoying the bee balm.

atat and downey — Our dogs, Downey at Atat (Atat is in front) playing outside. They miss Nova but they seem to be taking her loss ok.

goldendrod — Here is some goldenrod that is in my hollyhock bed / weed garden. The bees really like this as well.

We have hollyhocks again! The chickens had decimated them, and so last year I fenced the bed and planted some new hollyhocks – only a couple plants lived till this year, and now one is blooming. (The fence got knocked down a bit by snow falling from our roof, so it’s a little bent in- hence the hollyhock is actually growing through the top of the fence.)

big tomoato — A monster tomato waiting to ripen. I noticed my cherry tomatoes are starting to turn, so hopefully we’ll have some ripe ones soon.

Here is a cantaloupe, I have found there are at least two growing. I grew this kind last year and I don’t think we even got one melon. I changed the location this year and they seem to like it.

chilis — Our first peppers are getting big – these are a “Sugar Rush Peach Hot pepper.” They should be orange, sweet and hot.

Here is one of the pumpkins we have growing.

A couple of our young roosters. The one in the center – I really like his coloring so I think this is probably the one we’ll keep (along with Bertram). We have many contenders this year for “2nd rooster.” We are waiting to see how annoying they get with their crowing, and if any get really aggressive. Mean and annoying roosters don’t stick around long.

rooster band — And here are a lot of the roosters. Most of (if not all of) the chickens in this picture are boys. The gray one on the left might not be, and the buff one on the left with her head down is most likely a hen. We had a white rooster also but he was crowing incessantly and he was not on the “keep” shortlist, so we took him out last week. We now have 28 chickens. 7 or 8 boys, we think, besides Bertram. We might list some of these guys on Craigslist, but it is hard to get rid of roosters.

short corn — Here is some of my corn. This is an “Art Verelli’s” variety. I had read that the stalks don’t get very tall, and these are about 4 feet tall – so very short for corn. They already are forming ears. My other variety is a regular sweet corn variety and that one is still just getting tall, with no ears yet.

Here is one of my grocery store pumpkins (I think a Hubbard squash, actually). They were supposed to be heirloom squash so I saved seeds, and here we are.

Our summer squash are starting to be prolific. You can see our light zucchini, the yellow squash, and our patty pan squash here. I also have one plant that produces dark green zucchini.

Our watermelon is doing good – I need to make some kind of sling for this one – I’m worried the weight will break the stem eventually.

Here is a bloom from our second sunflower to bloom – I have many blooms on our first one, but this is the 2nd plant to give us a show.

A picture of the right side of our garden. The weeds have caught up with me a bit, but my plants are not being overrun, so I’m just not worrying about it unless they are. (There is carpeting in the path, that was an old rug we cut up in an effort to keep weeds out of the main path).

garden 2 — A better pic of my main garden as of yesterday.

We got hit with a big snowstorm yesterday (as did most of the upper Midwest, and other parts of the country). We probably got somewhere over 10 inches of snow, but it was very windy so it settled in drifts – some spots had no snow but in other spots there were swaths of snow that were over 3.5 feet tall. Because of the way it settled I really am not sure exactly how much we got, but it was a lot. And in mid April it is definitely unwelcome. I was looking back at old notes and realized that at this time a couple years ago I was putting my ducks in the pool outside to swim – it was 70 degrees that day. Last year I was putting in the onions. THIS year, I haven’t even seen my yard yet – there was a small bit of driveway exposed for awhile but that is all so far. This coming weekend we’re supposed to be up in the upper 40s, so this snow is all going to melt and become a big mudpile. What fun!

We also added a new rooster the other day, since my old roosters both are gone. The hens need someone to watch out for them, so I decided to look for a new one. I found him on Craigslist. He’s a Russian Orloff, and I’ve named him Bertram. The name stuck in my head when I got him, so that’s his name. It fits pretty well, actually. Here are some pics of the new rooster, and our yucky new snow:

012 — Here is Bertram, the Russian Orloff rooster. They are a very very cold hardy breed, and he doesn’t have much in the way of waddles or comb to get frostbit.

013 — As you can see here, he’s quite large. The hen next to him is a Copper Maran, so she’s a standard size hen. He’s probably about the size of a Brahma rooster, at least height wise. I have not weighed him so I don’t know how heavy he is. But he’s tall.

007 — He’s very nice to the hens, and they are getting along well with him. He’s ok with me too – he keeps an eye out to make sure of what I’m doing in there, but he has realized I’m the food-bringer, so I think that helps.

005 — Another picture of him in the coop.

009 — I got this cute pic of two of the ducks last week as well.

003 — Here are some deer out near the chicken fence. They cross through behind our property every evening, and they’ll come close to the fence sometimes looking for treats. They get the occasional apple or carrot thrown over and left for them to find.

002 — Here is the snow bank the other day. It was down a bit – this is the driveway-plow snowbank (created from plowing our driveway)- in winter, we can’t really get behind the chicken house. My son climbs this though and creates forts in it. Here it was on its way to sort-of melting…

022 — And here it is today. It is taller than my son with his arms outstretched. He’s just over 4 feet tall.

017 — Here is what the driveway looked like before we tried to plow/dig out cars this morning. I was worried the plow wouldn’t cut through that (where you can see to the right of the car, toward the road), but it did. The snow was really tall in spots but our plow handled it.

016 — Here was the swath of snow next to the truck – where I was standing there wasn’t any snow, because the wind had pushed it all up to the truck.

011 — Our back porch is now exactly level with the snow. The dogs walk right off the top step into the snow, as if we just have a patio out there.

Oh, so an update on my last post about syrup. I was still cooking it down when I posted that day; right after posting, I decided to put the sap into a smaller pan to finish the cooking. I chose too small of a pan, and ended up making maple sugar instead! The temperature got too high with the small pan. I thought I had made hard candy, but over a day or so it ended up crumbling. It’s quite nice in tea, but it was not what I was going for. After that day, we had some cold temps, so we didn’t get any sap for about a week. This past week (before the storm) was really decent – we were getting 1/2 gallon per day from some trees, and one tree actually gave almost a gallon per day for a few days. Temperatures dipped Saturday when the storm was heading this way, so I just pulled the taps in for this year. I ended up with about 9.5-10 gallons of sap through the week, and cooked them down yesterday:

014 — Here is the syrup!! Just about one quart (4 cups) total.

I made sure to check the temperature this time and didn’t cook it to candy / sugar stage.

Coming out of winter into spring

March 29, 2018Jen Powell1 Comment

It’s officially spring, but here in the U.P. we are just starting to come out of winter. We still have a lot of snow, although this week we’ve had decent temperatures during the day (above freezing) so the snow is melting and turning driveways into mud. They freeze at night, luckily, so I was able to go to work this morning – my car wasn’t stuck in my muddy driveway. We are supposed to get a little bit of snow this week (3 inches, I heard) which is typical. Spring is usually like this.

This winter has been really hard – we lost both roosters. Big Red died in January, and The General died just a couple days ago. They both got really bad frostbite this winter – Red had it so bad his waddles got really swollen. General’s toes got it really bad. I’m not sure if they eventually both died because of frostbite complications, but it’s possible. They both seemed to recover (and be feeling better) before they died, so I’m not sure. With chickens it’s sometimes hard to tell. The frostbite came when we had a really bad cold spell in January. The ducks sometimes make it hard to keep the moisture out of the coop as well, which can contribute to frostbite in the chickens. Roosters with larger combs/waddles are really susceptible, and both of our boys had them. We are very sad about losing our roosters. Now we have 19 chickens (all hens), and three ducks.

chickens_dorko and brown hen resized — Here is General on the right, with one of our hens a couple years ago.

copper-maran-roo — Big Red – our Black Copper Maran rooster, this picture was from last year.

Today we let the chickens out into the yard for the first time this year – there is actually a bit of grass/muddy driveway for them to hang out in, instead of just snow. The ducks found a big icy puddle to dabble in – they loved that. Here are a few pictures from today:

happy hens — Here are some of the hens out in the yard today.

chickens spring — There was really only a little bit of yard and the driveway for them to go in, but they enjoyed it.

chickens driveway 2 — Another picture of hens in the driveway.

remaining pile — This is what remains of our snowbank in front of the coop.

ducks heading home — Here are the ducks heading back home.

sap buckets — We also tapped trees this week! Usually maple syrup time is earlier in March, but we didn’t have the necessary warm daytime temperatures till this week.

sap buckets 2 — We’ve been getting just under a gallon a day of sap, with 8 buckets out.

Spring is on its way, luckily. I’m glad to see this winter mostly behind us.

Wonky Top

September 27, 2015September 26, 2015Jen Powell2 Comments

One of our roosters is Wonky Top – named because of his ridiculously huge floppy comb. He’s about 5 months old, so he has some growing to do – we are wondering if his comb will continue to get more hilarious as he matures. I will need to coat his comb and wattles in Vaseline all winter to protect them from frostbite. (I will need to do that with all three of my roosters, and maybe a couple of hens – larger combs don’t do well with our winters).

He’s a little skittish with us. If we need to pick him up for anything he is extremely hard to catch. But he seems to be a decent rooster. We still have all our boys separate from the hens for now, but we will be combining them before wintertime. He is mostly nice to the hens, besides trying to mount them all the time – I have seen him protect the hens from the other two roosters before, and I’ve seen him do a bit of a dance up to different hens – maybe he’s attempting to woo them a little.

We’re pretty sure he’s a Golden Cuckoo Maran rooster. Maran hens (at least a few different varieties) can lay dark brown, chocolate shelled eggs. I am hoping that in breeding him with my non-Maran hens, he may pass some of those genes down to a future hen. Otherwise I will eventually want to buy some Maran hens. I would love to get some multicolored eggs (chocolate, blue, olive) – The hens we currently have lay varying degrees of browns, whites, and cream colored eggs.

Farm updates Early August

August 4, 2015August 4, 2015Jen Powell2 Comments

I haven’t posted in over a week, because I went to California to meet my new niece. Before I left, this was my garden (taken on 7/23/15):

Here was my garden just before I left for vacation.

I came back less than 7 days later and my garden had exploded:

There is a pathway here, somewhere. The calendula has fallen over into it, because the squash plants are pushing it over, I believe.

My tomato plants were separated by the aisle, and they have decided to join hands. I had to re-separate them (it didn't work very well - I'll have to tie them up more). — My tomato plants were separated by the aisle, and they have decided to join hands. I had to re-separate them (it didn’t work very well – I’ll have to tie them up more).

I have tomatoes! They are getting pretty big, I didn't even see any fruit starting before I left. — I have tomatoes! They are getting pretty big, I didn’t even see any fruit starting before I left.

My tinier tomatillo plants are getting large now, and one has flowers. That gives me hope that I will have fruit this year. The largest plant has had flowers for awhile, and just keeps growing.

My Black Eyed Susan Thunbergia through the corn/sunflower jungle. I have some regular Black Eyed Susans and calendula planted between the corn, and those are getting very tall also.

One of my tall sunflowers. Just taller than me right now, and starting to form a flower.

I have peas! These need a couple more days and then I will pick them, there are several on the plant so I'm excited for a decent pea crop this year. I only got a few pods last year - the plants really faltered. — I have peas! These need a couple more days and then I will pick them, there are several on the plants so I’m excited for a decent pea crop this year. I only got a few pods last year – the plants really faltered.

My cucumbers are getting flowers, and growing well. I hoped for more, but not all my plants took - I ended up with three plants. I love making pickles. — My cucumbers are getting flowers, and growing well. I hoped for more, but not all my plants took – I ended up with three plants. I love making pickles.

My beans are going crazy, climbing to the top of my tree-poles. I wonder how tall they would get if they had all the room they wanted. I have tiny beans forming all over my plants.

The chickens are doing well. We had planned on starting to cull some roosters when I got home. A couple on the shortlist have redeemed themselves for now. We culled two on Sunday – one was getting very aggressive and had pecked my son, and the other was picking on the rest of the big roosters. We will need to take out a couple more before winter, but the ones we still have are behaving better. One of our youngest roosters, Wonky Top:

Here is Wonky Top. My husband named him, because of his goofy comb.

Wonky’s comb has been straightening out. He has straightened out too – he was going to be one of the first we took out, because he didn’t get along with anyone – he was really skittish, and he fought with everyone. We had separated the roosters from the hens for awhile, and he would get picked on by the bigger guys, and then escape. Each time we caught him and put him back with the roosters, he would escape again, and then evade capture for most of the day. I finally put him in with the hens. He stayed there while I was on vacation. When I got back I thought my roosters were bored being over in their side (we had them in the grassless side because it was easier to get them in at night), so I put them with everyone again. Wonky then asserted himself, pretty much saying “you’re on MY side now!” and he wouldn’t take any flack from the big guys. Now he doesn’t seem so skittish, and he’s getting along with everyone better. So we have decided he can stay, for now. I suspect he’s a Cuckoo Maran – I really wanted some Marans (the hens can lay darker brown eggs ) so if possible we may keep him for breeding. We will see.

I was planning on keeping certain roosters based on looks, for breeding purposes, but we are starting to cull based mostly on their behavior, especially toward us. Our big Black Langshan rooster was one that we took out this weekend, since he flew up on my son and pecked him in the chest. That was the deciding factor for him. We were planning on keeping at least two – I read that if you have 3 or 4 they can get along better than having just two. We’ll just have to play it by ear with them.

The chickens are enjoying their outdoor shelter – we allow them in the coop anyway, but this shelter was already in the part of the run that I have them in right now, so we left it (it’s a little large so we’d have to disassemble it to remove it) – they have learned they can go on top of it. That puts their heads only about 6 inches from the top of the fence. They have not seemed to figure that part out yet though – I was worried they would jump out but nobody has so far.

My chickens having fun sitting on their outdoor shelter. — My chickens having fun sitting on (and in) their outdoor shelter.

Garlic, and silly roosters

July 6, 2015July 5, 2015Jen PowellLeave a comment

I LOVE garlic. I had never grown it before, and last year I decided to give it a try. In the early fall, I bought some organic garlic heads at the grocery store, pulled the bulbs out and put them into the garden. This spring I saw them growing, and they’ve grown really well. I read that you dig the garlic heads up when the leaves start yellowing. I noticed the last few days that they were yellowing, so I pulled them up today.

They were a decent size, I believe most of them were the same size as the heads I grew them from. I cleaned off the dirt with a paper towel:

My garlic after brushing off dirt — My garlic after brushing off most of the dirt.

I read that you should leave them to cure for a few weeks with the roots and stems still attached. I put them all together in a bunch and they are sitting outside in a shady spot on my porch, where they’ll get good airflow but not get any sun at all. I have them hung up; I wasn’t sure if my friendly neighborhood squirrels and chipmunks would try to eat them. I’ll have to keep an eye out and make sure nobody tries to steal them. Once the leaves dry out completely you can cut the leaves and roots off. Then you can store them for later use, and save more of the bulbs to grow new garlic for next year. That’s my plan, at least right now. We’ll have to wait a few weeks to see how they taste. If they are good, I’ll grow them again. The original heads I bought had a good flavor, so hopefully these will too.

Here's my young Buckeye rooster — Here’s my young Buckeye rooster

One of my young roosters is very goofy – he’s kind of aggressive. More in-your-face every time we’re in the coop. He has been very friendly since he was small, but now he’s always underfoot. It’s like he always needs to follow me to see what I’m up to – as if he’s worried I’ll do something to hurt the hens or him. He likes to peck my pant legs. He bit me the other day, but that was because I was trying to pick him up, because he wouldn’t go in the coop at night. He seemed to be helping me round up everyone else to get them in, but then he wanted to stay outside. I went to grab him and he bit my hand. I got mad and just picked him up and put him inside. I’m not sure what we’ll do with him yet. I need to let him mature a bit and see how this personality of his develops. If he gets more aggressive, he’ll have to go.

For a while I was hoping he was just a very assertive hen, but he’s massive, and the other day he started mounting some of the hens, so it’s now confirmed. I believe he’s a Buckeye, and they are a rare breed from Ohio. We’ll see. I just have so many roosters! I have confirmed that three of my six “teenage” chickens are roosters. There are two more that I’m pretty sure are but they haven’t mounted anyone yet – they are just starting to get long tail feathers now though, so I’m 99% sure. I have one hen out of that batch, my little Speckled Sussex. Then in the smaller chicks I have at least one, possibly 3 or 4 roosters (out of 8 chicks). We are planning on keeping 2 or three roosters through the winter, and we’ll have to decide what to do with the rest. We haven’t picked the keepers yet; I want to see them in all their pretty rooster glory first, once all their feathers have come.

My tiny u.p. farm

Attempting to live off the land in Michigan's Upper Peninsula