Yesterday I butchered two turkeys. I thanked them for giving up their lives so that we may live before removing their heads with a sharpened hatchet. Knife work and a huge amount plucking followed.

( Pics behind the cut. (WARNING: SERIOUSLY GRAPHIC PHOTOS.) )

What a great idea. It's called a laplander stove and is made from a log that has a cross cut into one side. You shove kindling, cedar shavings or pine needles into it and voila: handy outdoor stove. I'll have to try this the next time I'm camping.

We're sitting in the airport, waiting for our flight home from Paris. Very tired. Very bored. Free wifi, ma derriere. We posted lots of photos to our facebork pages. I will cross-post many here tomorrow after we get home. Our vacation was wonderful. Relaxing. Fun. Beautiful. It sounds cheezy as hell, but every corner you turn in Paris transports you to a magical place. I couldn't have beaten the company, either. It was our sixth anniversary. I'm actually sad to leave here. See everybody on the other side of ocean. 

It's been a bit since I last posted, and not surprisingly quite a bit has happened. The little hen hatched out six of her remaining 10 eggs that she had been sitting on. I gave her a few extra days to make sure she wouldn't hatch any more before finally disposing of the dead eggs this morning.

To recap, she had originally managed to collect a clutch of some 14 eggs in tall grass behind the new coop I'm building. To keep her and her eggs from becoming a late night snack, acogswell and I moved her and the eggs to the greenhouse, where she dutifully sat for the next week or so. In that time, she had pushed out four of the eggs, leaving her with 10 underneath her to hatch. Now, six of those have finally hatched.

Sadly, one of the six did not make it. It died within the first 24 hours or so. I suspect it was underdeveloped and wouldn't have survived even if I had intervened. My neighbor grabbed the fifth chick, believing it was failing to thrive. I think it would have been fine, but, hey, she wanted it, and I certainly have enough chickens. So now it's lounging in her house in a shoebox under a heat lamp. The remaining four are doing well in the greenhouse with their mother. They're eating and drinking, and the mother hen is taking good care of them. I have them separated from the rest of the flock by some chicken wire, but the other hens and -- more importantly -- the main rooster can still see them and get close. I have found that this is the best way to introduce new birds to a flock by letting them get accustomed to each other through chicken wire. They can see each other; they just can beat on each other.

The turkeys are now a little over four months old. I can already see the largest male has taken on the role of the tom, while another smaller male is the jake. The tom has been courting one of the turkeys, which looks to be a hen. The tom is starting to strut and has even tried to get it on with the hen. They're still juveniles, though, and the hen doesn't appear to be interested in him in the slightest. I think there are two males and two hens, but I'm not sure. It's hard to tell at this stage, so I'll have to wait to see as they age.

I have video of the chicks and the turkeys, which I need to post. I should have a chance to get to it this weekend.

I planted the organic, non-GMO white winter wheat yesterday evening in the main field in front of the house. I ordered a couple pounds, but it only covered about half the field. Since I don't have a drill seeder, I had to broadcast spread it. I then disced it in with the tractor. Apparently, that's how wheat used to be planted before technology changed it all. 

I wanted to beat the rain we're supposed to get in the next couple days. It's also supposed to be warm, which will help germination, though as I understand it, winter wheat will germinate at temperatures as low as 40 degrees F. 

Depending on how it grows, I will eventually need to have a flail party. For anyone who might be interested, this is a decent article that explains how you flail wheat. I still have tons of sod that I haven't killed off yet, so I don't know how well the wheat will grow this winter. I'm news to this, too, so I will just have to wait and see how things evolve.

I also planted the organic, non-GMO chicken forage seeds, which I purchased from Peaceful Valley. This is actually for the turkeys, who are eating so much I'll have to make a special trip up to Pennsylvania to pick up more feed. I called McGeary on Monday, but since they make it all by hand on-demand, I have to wait until Friday before I can pick it up.

That's about all that is going on here. I have bad, bad poison ivy again. I think I got it when I was moving birds around. I love summer, but I like winter and fall better because I seem to get poison ivy less than. 

 I'm calling it a half day and heading out to the Charles County Fair this afternoon with the family. We're going to eat fair food, get some cotton candy, watch livestock and ride some death-trap rides.

It's nothing fancy, just a real country fair with bad food and creepy people. Sounds like fun.

I just got in from my 40-minute tractor ride back from the hunting property up the road. That's so much fun driving the tractor on the road, and I'm pissed I didn't bring my camera to document it. I'm sure I'll do it again, but driving past the cows, the horses and the farm fields on the tractor, doing about 10 miles an hour, was such a thrill.

Well, that was my lunchbreak. Now it's back to work.

Grimace. Gurmble. Mutter.

 ( Cut for those who don't give a crap about hunting. . . )

Fourteen eggs. 

That's how many acogswell  counted last night when we moved the wee hen and her clutch into the greenhouse. The transition went smoothly. Like thieves in the night, I grabbed her while acogswell  loaded up the eggs in a basket. Then we moved the whole entourage into their temporary home.

It amazed me that such a little thing could actually sit on that many eggs, or the fact that she's not even a year yet and is already broody. But she puffed herself up as best as she could and covered up all of those eggs. 

Fourteen eggs.

Really.

Man, I hope they all don't hatch.

 Anybody out there have an opinion on whether I should get the Mossberg 500 combo or the Remington 870 combo? I was heading in the direction of the Remington, but saw a nice Mossberg today at a great price that includes the scope. On the gun forums, it seems pretty much split down the middle with no one really saying the other is no good. 

Anyone have any thoughts on it?

For the past few weeks,  I've been joking with my neighbors, advising them to keep a watchful eye on their chickens and to knock the broody hens off their clutches of eggs when they see them start sitting. The last thing we need are more chickens, I say. As of now, they have a hen who's sitting on two eggs. I laughed and said, you really are Catholics.

Well, what did I find out tonight? The little black Bantam hen, which I thought was not ready to lay yet, has been surreptitiously laying eggs for weeks and has accumulated a clutch of about a dozen eggs. She's been doing it secretly in a tall bit of grass behind the chicken coop I haven't finished yet. I think she's been on them for about five days, which is far into a gestation period of about 21 days. I would feel bad knocking her off her eggs now, since they're so far along and nearly fully developed. 

So what are the two things we've learned today, children? 

1. Mind your own business. Really. Mind your business, because while you're helping your neighbor mind his, your business is quite happy to be left alone to reproduce in mass quantities that you don't want or need. 

2. Finish what you've started. Had you finished the coop by now, you would have a place to put all of these chickens when they arrive. Until you move the broody hen and her clutch, you will not be able to finish the coop.

Anybody want any chickens?

My morning chores.  I swear I hear banjos playing in the background. 

On Wednesday, I got up at 4:30 a.m. to drive up to Lancaster, Pa., in order to pick up organic feed from McGeary Grain. This time, though, I had the privilege of driving a little north to see the mill where they make the feed. Their mill is one of the oldest -- if not the oldest -- mills in the country that is still in operation. It dates back to the early 18th century and is still impressive to see.

( Pictures of the mill after the cut. . . )
On another note, the dogs that killed the chickens came back on Wednesday evening. I was walking out the front door with our black mutt named Fiona when I noticed out of the corner of my eye a blur of dogs and chickens.

Of course, Fiona saw it first and bolted quickly after the two dogs. Before I was even off the porch, she was after the black dog and chased it off into the woods. The yellow lab quickly followed behind the other with Fiona right on its heels.

For years I've joked about giving away Fiona to anyone who would take her. But she earned her keep that night, let me tell you. Not one chicken was injured in the fight with the two strays, largely thanks to her. Without even thinking, she took on two bigger dogs and chased them off, saving a bunch of chickens she would probably like to eat herself. I was pretty proud of her, and since then I've been slipping her beef tenderloin and cheese with her dinner.

Yesterday I called the sheriff's nonemergency line again to report the dogs (it's the way it's done around here -- there is no direct dispatch from animal control). The same animal control officer came again to talk to me. He confirmed that the dogs had been picked up last week after the owner had paid a fine of about $100. He also said that he told the owner he should apologize to us for letting his dogs loose so they could kill our chickens. He related the same information that he did the first time -- we can take them to animal court to get compensation, blah, blah, blah. This time, however, he added that I am within my rights to defend my property, which includes livestock. I understood what he meant without any need for further clarification, but my neighbor's 15-year-old son apparently didn't and started peppering him with questions. The animal officer simply asked that we whatever we choose to do we use discretion and make sure it's a clean kill.

I'd rather not have to do that. However, if those dogs come back, I don't see any other way of dealing with this. I recognize that the dogs are sport dogs, and chasing and killing birds is what they're bred to do. The yellow lab would actually make a pretty good bird dog, but that doesn't mean I like them killing my birds.

The owners screwed up the first time. Now they should take the necessary precautions to ensure that their dogs do not get out and kill again. If they do not take this seriously, I have no problem quietly putting those dogs down myself. As my friend in Idaho says, shoot, shovel and shut up. Or, in our case, shoot, back hoe and shut up.

Yesterday, acogswell  came home with a brand-spanking-new 16-quart canner from Presto. Tonight, canning of tomatoes will ensue. We're going to just can the tomatoes whole, rather than turn them into sauce. It looks to be easier, and then we can do what we want with the tomatoes -- pasta sauce, jumbalaya, chili et cetera. I'll be taking some pictures throughout the process.

If we could stop eating the green beans as they grow on the vine long enough to actually harvest some, then I 'd like to can those, too. I also have chicken stock I can can from the roosters I butchered.

So many options now, and I don't have to fill up the freezer or the refrigerator.

Wow. I'm getting old.

 That was two hours out of my day.

( Click for the gorey details. . . . )

Bacillus thuringiensis. Remember that for next year. "When a caterpillar eats a leaf covered with spores of the bacteria, these spores revive in the insect's gut and begin to grow and reproduce."

Much of the corn I managed to harvest had corn earworms in it. No biggie for me. I just picked them out after husking and then cut out the chewed bits. I then fed the worms to the turkeys, who gobbled them right up. But if I plan on selling sweet corn, I will have to fight these little bastards. Bastards.

I managed to harvest some corn out of the field despite it being embarrassingly overrun with weeds. It's gotten so bad, I saw a groundhog hole as I was navigating through the field. I'll have to remember to watch out for that when I take down the field with the tractor next month.

We're just going to eat what's left of the corn -- maybe can some -- because there is just not enough to sell. Moreover, what I have doesn't look good enough to sell, so it will not be making it to market. The small, crappy corn, I tossed to the chickens, who devoured it along with a few of the bonus caterpillars that had taken up residence in the ears. Ha ha, caterpillars. One minute you're lazily eating great, organic corn that someone else worked hard to grow; the next minute you're being ripped apart by fowl beasts. I bet you weren't expecting that, you little voracious bastards.

In any event, that's where we're at. More than halfway through the summer, and we have had some successes and some losses. 

Potatoes -- Total Success!
Corn -- Fail!
Turkeys -- Two-Thirds Success!
Chickens -- Success!

I remember reading in a book on sustainable farming in Wisconsin advice from one farmer, who suggested only trying one new thing a year. Well, I tried four new things this year, and I'm happy to say that three out of four is not too bad. Next year, with the additional help of a cultivator, I'm hoping the corn will be significantly better. Also, I should be able to plant even more potatoes, which makes me very happy.

In spite of the failures, I feel pretty good about things. Win or lose, it doesn't really matter. I'm just enjoying the journey here.

Anyone know of any free knitting/crochet patterns for gun cozies? Rifle and handgun. Just asking.