We have at long last declared the garden “in”. Obviously there remains weeding, harvesting and succession planting, but no more new beds will be planted. We’re startling to eat out of it, but the harvest for storage won’t really start until August. July is hereby dedicated to fencing. I did a parry in septime to stop the pigs walking through the electronet Sunday. (All pig parries are lowline. They go for the knees.) It seems to be working.

Building new raised beds for everything we want to plant is incredibly time consuming. Especially when it starts with felling a tree and milling 6×6 for the raised bed. Then add fresh dug forest loam and have to remove the rocks and roots. We really don’t have a choice though. Thin soil, poor drainage and lots of rocks pretty much require the raised beds. We’re up to a thousand square feet of them, just over half of it made this year. The potatoes and pumpkins weren’t that well treated. I turned over the soil in the old pig garden with the backhoe, and shoved them in. Not optimal perhaps, but they’re not on the compost pile.

We’ve started picking up the coffee grounds at Prime Roast again. I figure we need six cubic yards of compost just to top-dress the beds we have. We won’t get it from animal bedding and kitchen waste. After composting, the coffee should be at least a couple of cubic yards over the course of a year.

The weather this year has been incredible. The sap ran two weeks early, and the pattern continued throughout the spring. Now that it’s summer it’s less consistent. The heliopsis started last week, almost a month early. The daylilies bloomed over the weekend, probably two weeks early. However we picked the first half dozen raspberries yesterday. By the time we get a good picking tomorrow or Friday, they’ll be barely ahead of the normal Fourth of July readiness. We’ve also had a good two weeks of actual hot weather already, which is showing up mostly in the tomatoes. The potatoes weren’t doing much until I watered them, then they took off. I’m not sure what the cuke’s excuse is.

We’re eating the cool weather crops (broccoli, lettuce, spinach, pak choi) now. The cabbage and peas aren’t quite ready. We’ve also bought seeds now for fall planting of these same crops. The stores still seem to be playing catch up with the big rise in gardening.

We’ve done relatively well at keeping animals out of the garden. The horses got in once, and there are way too many chickens, but we’re way ahead of last year. As of now, it looks like we will feed ourselves, with a little extra to sell.

The ducks and the Chanteclers are both molting now into adult plumage. There are still a few ducks whose sex we’re unsure of. We’ll slaughter all but two of the boys as soon as we’re sure of everyone. The Chanteclers are still growing, but we want to pull the cockerels as soon as we can. We have one batch of Icelandics chicks that are a couple of weeks younger, but we’ll pull the boys there too as we find them.

The goslings are growing like weeds. They are so big already. We’re thinking we need to band either the goslings or the grown ups so we can tell who the babies are, come fall, as they’ll all be going to freezer camp. Whichever set we decide to band, it won’t be a fun exercise, that’s for sure. Those geese are really tame as far as gaggles of geese go, and Lisa did cuddle one and live to tell the tale, but still. They are still geese.

Icelandic Chickens are just chickens, I know. So a lot of how we care for them is just good chicken care practice. But they also have some unique characteristics.

One of the things we discovered when we first got the birds is that they are very particular about where they want to lay their eggs. When we built their coop, we tried all sorts of nesting box designs. Milk crates, boxes, half doors, placed on the back wall in the dark corners of the coop. They hated them. What these hens want are apple baskets set waist high, filled with hay. Luckily, I can get them at my local feed store for about $7 each, and they last a really long time because they are up off the ground. We just screw them to the wall and keep them filled with fresh hay.

These chickens fly. They fly really well. It is not uncommon to see them on the roof of the coop or the top of fences. It’s almost impossible to keep them out of places we don’t want them, though we’ve had pretty good luck teaching them to stay out of the veg garden by squirting them with a hose when we find them there. They are also pretty small, so fit through things like cattle panels. Thus, we pretty much let them go wherever they want, because trying to keep them somewhere is almost impossible.

They like to roost as high up as they can. We’ve placed roosts up underneath the roof ridge beams, and even when the babies aren’t even a month old yet and still getting under mama for warmth, they are up on those roosts. We try to keep as much space for them up there as we can get, because they’ll all try to fit on the highest ones, and roosts even just six inches lower are ignored and they’ll all crowd together and fuss for the best spots on the highest ones.

We’ve had really good luck with having good roosters. We tend to keep ones that can establish their own harems and take their girls into the coops at night. Ones that don’t dance for the ladies and treat them right are dispatched to freezer camp as quickly as we can do it. We keep about a 10-1 ratio of boys to girls, and find that works out pretty well. We had some who were roosting in trees and refused to move to the coop, but we won’t keep those, because it’s just not safe enough here in the land of fisher cats and really cold weather.

Speaking of cold weather, these chickens just don’t care what the weather is like. They’d much prefer to be out in it than kept inside the chicken coop. (I mean, who wouldn’t?) But neither rain nor snow nor sleet will convince them that inside is better than outside. We tend to keep them some paths shoveled in the snow to many of their favorite places, but even if we don’t, the roosters just forge new trails and out they all go.

We have found the hens to be quite reliably broody. There doesn’t seem to be a particular time of year for it, even. We’ve had broodies pop up in all seasons. They are quite good at setting until the babes hatch, and I’ve found that placing a round plastic laundry basket on top of the apple basket we use for nest boxes to be a good way to keep the rest of the hens from continuing to lay eggs under the broody so that we get a decent hatch, all at the same time.

One of the things that amazed me is that it really doesn’t matter what the weather is like when the babies hatch. With all the trouble we go to when we hatch some in the incubator and need to brood them under a heat lamp, when the hens hatch some and there is snow outside? Too bad, babies. Out we go! We’ve seen the mamas take them out in freezing rain, heavy wind, snow storms, whatever. These mighty Viking chickens aren’t bothered by weather, no matter what the conditions are.

We leave out grain, all you can eat, and we use an Agway product called Egg Producer. It’s 21% protein, and we have very good luck with it. Regular layer feed is 16% for the same price. When there are bugs and grass, however, they basically ignore it, so for at least five months of the year, they don’t cost us anything to feed. In tropical places like Keene, they will find even more free food, for longer.

In the winter, we have a light on in the coop from September to April from 4:30 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. These birds are used to low light winters being from Iceland and all, but we find them quite reliable layers with that amount of light. We also keep the water heater going so they have liquid water available. We don’t otherwise heat the coop.

If you would like some Icelandic Chickens of your very own, we are selling hatching eggs for $1 each and day old chicks for $4 each. We take a $25 deposit for the hatching eggs, then run a batch through the incubator and you take all that hatch. Drop us a line if you would like some!

I spent a lot of time this week getting a house and paddock ready for our two new Great Pyr puppies, Buffy and Faith, who arrived today. They have their own shed, and a decent sized paddock surrounded by cattle panels, right near the house. As a bonus, it keeps Bjarki in. The plan is that by the time they can jump the fence, they’ll know where home is, and be big enough to take care of themselves. We think they’re older than the advertised four months, old enough that Maggie didn’t go all “aunty” the way she did with Disa’s pups. They are clearly puppies though and we’re sure she’ll come around.

We hatched 23 Icelandic chicks a couple of weeks ago, and the woman we hatched them for only took 8. The other 15 are out next to the Chanteclers preparing more garden for us. The book says that at this age they should be kept at 80F. We kept them above freezing and they’re doing fine. There’s another batch in the incubator, bound for Oklahoma. Meanwhile, since we’re not currently selling eggs at bridge (The weather has been way too nice to give up beautiful afternoons.) we have four dozen eggs a week that need a destination.

Spring continues way early. We’re three weeks ahead of normal. So far, all of the cool weather crops are really thriving in the veg garden. The first Centauria bloomed last week, and we’re on track to have iris before Memorial Day. Unfortunately that means the lily beetles got here early too. I found the first of the season yesterday. It’s time to have a talk with the chickens. There are several volunteer trees under the flowering crab next to the gazebo. One of them is almost certainly a hawthorn hybrid. It has a few thorns ad some of the leaves are like hawthorn leaves while others are like apples. I didn’t know this could happen, and I’m wondering if maybe we let the rootstock fruit at some point.

May is ‘Get in the Garden’ month here. The last frost date used to be Memorial Day, but over the last few years it’s been more like May 15. We’re hoping that last night’s frost was the last, but we’ll be holding the tomatoes and peppers indoors for at least a week to be sure.

We’ve got all but one of the existing raised beds planted to early cold crops. We’re saving one bed with trellis for the cukes. We have given up on the “As early as the ground can be worked” thing, too. It doesn’t actually pay. If you wait two more weeks until most days are actually pleasant you only lose a couple of days growing time, and your germination is way better.

The garlic planted last fall is up and looking great, despite being snowed on and frozen several times. We’re trying to figure out why we didn’t plant three times as much. In 2005 we didn’t harvest soon enough. This time we’ll get it right (July) and save most of it for next years seed.

The chickens are uprooting onion plants left and right, which is driving us crazy. You only get one shot at onions, and we didn’t plant enough of them either. This afternoon we patched all the places the chickens are using to get into the garden, but they can still fly over the gates. Probably most of the fence as well, but the gates are shorter and flying is work if you’re a chicken. We’re hoping to at least have fewer of them in the garden.

The horseradish is doing great. Since we only use a quart a year, there should be a big surplus to split for future sale. Only one rhubarb plant survived (How can that be? It’s almost as tough as horseradish.) We’ve planted 5 more, three from Jung, two from Miller’s. The ones from Jung were perfectly fine little plants, but the ones from Miller were monster chunks of root albeit without much in the way of buds. I know which is which and we’ll how they look next year.

I remember posting last year that the purple asparagus was gone. It isn’t. There’s quite a bit of it left and we just planted another bundle of it from Agway to replace the ones the geese ate last year. The All-Male is all ferned out already, while the purple is still just shoots. We’re still getting new shoots on a daily basis. Next year, we eat some.

Today’s accomplishment was to extend the asparagus bed and plant 50 strawberry plants, 25 each June bearers and everbearers. We’re hoping the everbearers at least give us a crop this year.

We have two impossible and one hard thing to do between now and Memorial Day. Last year’s potato patch is supposed to be sweet corn this year. It’s full of grass and too many rocks to rototill. We have a place to put the tomatoes and peppers, but it needs raised beds. About six of them. And they’ll block the tractor from the corn patch. The hard part is planting 100 lbs of potatoes over in the pigs garden. We need to trench, and I think we need to trench by hand. It’s wonderful soil but there are rocks (boulders or ledge, don’t know, doesn’t matter) eight foot in diameter out there.

We have about a dozen cockerels and three ducks that are more than ready to go off to Freezer Camp. We should have done them last fall, but after doing the turkeys for Thanksgiving, I just couldn’t face another bird. So stupidly, we fed them through the winter. It’s Spring, now however, and they were just becoming unbearable to have around. Too many boys is just no fun at all. Just having them contained has restored harmony amongst the hens. We only kept two of the batch — one who got himself his own harem and made a home in one of the sheds with them, and the other one because he’s pretty and reminds me of his daddy, Keikur.

These boys are hardly worth the work, because they are all feather and no meat. But what meat there is is really tasty. Two and a half pounds is not a big bird. I tend to stew two at a time, pull all of the meat, then make stock with the carcasses.

Frank was cleaning out the chest freezer and found two from ’07 and I cooked them up yesterday. It was a perfect choice for when we needed to be outside running the evaporator. I made chicken salad sandwiches that we ate outside with some homemade bread, then did a fried rice thingie with lots of vegetables and used up left over brown rice. I think I’ll make chicken enchiladas with the remaining meat. That’s good for a couple of meals. The meat is quite tender and so flavorful.

So maybe they are worth the work after all.

I made the offer over on Facebook and Twitter. If you’d like to learn how to slaughter a bird, we’ll be doing a dozen chickens and three ducks on either Saturday or Sunday. Take home a bird, meet some of your neighbors. Contact me if you are interested.

The puppies are just over three weeks old now. They are getting so mobile! They waddle around all over the place, play with their siblings, and are starting to play with toys, too. Their tails are just starting to point upward and I’m seeing a few starting to curl. I think two of them (yellow and red) are going to have long hair like Disa. I think the purple girl is still the calmest of the bunch. Little Blue is still the smallest, but the patch on his face is just precious. Remember, if you are interested in a puppy, see the details here and contact me. If you are near me, come by to see them.

We had someone out from the USDA office to help us apply for the High Tunnel grant program. If we get it, we’ll plant peppers and tomatoes, but mostly peppers. I’m from El Paso originally, and there just aren’t good peppers grown up here. I’m determined to change that! Combined with the tomatillos and onions that grow so well here, that’s chili verde enchilada sauce right there. I love that stuff. Frank’s been looking with longing at what we’d be able to get and we are planting it up in our heads already! At our size, we’d get 48 feet by 20 feet high tunnel. That would grow a lot of peppers!

I’m itching to start seeds, but suddenly our fences are falling apart all over the place. We have got to spend some serious time fixing what’s out there really quickly, and then sugaring season feels like it could come early this year. The sheep are looking quite pregnant, as are two of the sows. I need to figure out where the ducks and geese are laying and get some hay back in the sheds so they’ll lay there. By this time last year, I was having duck eggs to bake with and goose eggs to poach.

We had such a Spring-like day today. It got all the way up to 40 °F, with big blue skies. We’ve got well over a foot of snow still on the ground, but it got all smushy and heavy, full of water. The pathways are starting to look grungy. Wow did all of the critters like it. The horses were running nearly all day. The fact that they got a new bale today had something to do with it, but not all. The turkeys were quite, well, Randy. They decided if it was spring, it was party time! The ducks and geese were mounting each other in puddles of snowmelt, a little not-quite-freezing snow pond. I forgot how x-rated we are in the Spring.

Doing the chores in the morning is such a fun way to start the day with weather like this. I wore my bathrobe, a hat, and boots. No coat! Not three or four layers of everything. Everyone is happy in the mornings anyway, but especially when the weather is nice. I took little snippets of my chores on the camera video thingie. I kept having to put it down because critters wanted to be pet instead of video taped. (George, Danny, Maggie)

We got some well-needed things done today. Got the chicken coop cleaned up a bit, new hay in the baskets, timer fixed, roosts rearranged. We are going to need another coop this year for sure. We have too many for the size we have. They don’t all even stay in the coop anymore, and are starting to spread out into some of the other shed. I’ve got to stop that if I want those eggs. They are all molting, and look so scraggly! But they still remain troopers, heading out into the snow everyday. They hang out with the mammals, mostly, or in the hoop house greenhouse. Speaking of which, I need a door on that to keep them all out when I start bringing plants out.

I had a really good day with the dogs yesterday. One of the big pigs went walkabout, headed up the driveway toward the house, all calm as can be. I saw her from the kitchen window, where I’d been canning stock and rendering lard. I ran outside, and Bjarki boy was waiting at the gate. He’d seen her. I told him “put her back” “make her go home”, and he went right to her. She saw him coming and scooted right back down the driveway. The whole thing probably took less than 2 minutes. He was so proud of himself!

Frank went to put Danny to bed in the evening with the dogs, came back in and said it wasn’t working, that Danny thought it was way too early. (It wasn’t.) It’s getting lighter in the evening, and we are waiting until serious dusk to put him to bed. But he’s getting frisky and obnoxious lately. He runs and kicks, spins and jumps — I won’t go! You can’t make me! It’s a serious challenge for Disa, who’s quite pregnant and bitchy lately. I went back out about 15 minutes later, and both Disa and Bjarki were great. I got them to separate him from his mama, headed in the right direction, and they worked really well at Mr. Bratty Boy, and we were all quite efficient.

(Just like we now know exactly what “being goosed” means, how big a goose egg is, what a wild goose chase is, what busy bees really means, we’ve learned exactly what “bitchy” means. Sudden, irrational bouts of insanity. Thank God Maggie didn’t eat her. I’m really having to keep Disa away from the other two dogs, here at the end of her pregnancy. Wow. Also? SO CLINGY.)

Have you noticed we put up a page for selling the soon-to-be Icelandic Sheepdog puppies? Email me to get on the waiting list. Tell Frank we really want a puppy cam please!

(Let’s not think about the times it’s not like that and we all get the scenic tour of the paddock through the deep snow, both laughing and cursing our Danny-boy.) Good thing he’s so cute! (and will be yummy. Happy critters make yummy critters!) Sometimes he’s really good and goes to bed all by his lonesome. Maggie walks along behind him. She’s really starting to understand all the routines, and loves them. She, too, can tell time. They all can.

There is a fun group on Flickr called A Day in the Life of …, and four times a year at the changing of the season you are supposed to take five photos that illustrate a day in your life. Today is my eighth time participating. (I have a collection of all of the sets here.)

Today started by finding out that the horses were out. Frank was headed out to turn the tractor on, to get it to start warming up to see if the hydraulics would work if it was warm. I was watching him go out the window when I saw the horses. Oops! We knew they were going to need a new bale of hay today, and a fence came unstapled off of a tree at a corner, so out they came. Their water was also frozen, had come unplugged, so it’s not surprising that they wanted our attention. Still, that’s not the best way to start the day.

Normally the start of the day involves lots of Maggie cuddle time. She is so happy to see us in the morning, and wants lots of petting and cuddles, from the people and the pups. It’s very sweet. She goes running up to each of us in turn, giddy with excitement. She has this little sound that is almost like a whine, but it’s very cute. She and Bjarki in particular have this huge love fest that I just love to watch.

Dealing with the horses made me late to milk Elly, and she did not approve. She’d even wandered out of her shed so that she could be sure I heard her bellowing. Oh, yes, Elly. I’m pretty sure the whole village now knows I am 15 whole minutes late to milk you! The nerve. She is the crankiest darn cow when any part of her routine is interrupted. It’s a good thing Danny’s moo is still pretty quiet, because once she gets going, he loves to join in.

It’s so nice that her milk volume is going back up. That balage really seems to be the key. We gave them a new bale of it today, but we probably could have even pushed it another day. No one had even started complaining yet, and that’s a full week on one bale, which is sort of amazing. I should have made cheese today, since I didn’t yesterday, but my day was just too busy. Tomorrow for sure. (I think I might start looking for another raw milk customer, since one of mine moved away.) Her milk is so good!

Warming up the tractor for about an hour did indeed get the hydraulics sort of working. (Frank is also going to change the filter to see if that will help.) We brought a new bale of dry hay down to the pigs, and boy were we popular. They love hay. The both eat it and bed in it, and they are so big that they move the bale around to wherever they want it. (I never guess right.) Looking at Albus next to that bale shows just how big he is. He’s huge! He’s well over three feet tall, and probably six feet long. It’s a good thing he’s so friendly!

After we got everyone fed and watered, the Icies and I went to town for errands that seemed endless. We stopped at the food bank, to load up on vittles for the pigs. We bought hydraulic fluid at one place, a filter at another. We picked up newly sharpened chains for the chainsaw. We went to the butcher for more raw food for Maggie and bones for all the dogs. (I was so hoping our stuff from the other butcher would be ready so I wouldn’t have to buy any, but it’s not ready yet and I am so concerned about feeding Maggie enough that I didn’t want her to even go just one day on kibble alone. She’s still a growing girl and underweight.)

All of the evening chores are pretty much a repeat of the morning ones, except that everyone already had hay. We do calf rodeo, and I was going to have Frank video it again because the Day in the Life of … group has a video group as well, but Elly saw me coming and drove all of the sheep to the far corners of the paddock and the dogs went nuts because moving sheep! Chase them! Oy. So sorting all of that took forever and was far more of a fiasco than it usually is.

My last chore is to check on the chickens. Egil always brings them all into the coop when it starts to get dark, so all I do is make sure they still have food and water, check for eggs, add hay to the baskets as needed, and close it up for the night. There’s something wrong with the timer in there that controls the lights that Frank’s got to fix, and I need to check tomorrow to see if the spot I put the water heater is level enough that it doesn’t pour out overnight. I love my chickens. They are one of the easiest critters we own, and I love all the fresh eggs. I made a fat bomb of an ice cream the other day with browned butter, milk, cream and egg yolks. It is absolutely divine!

So that’s a day in my life. Today felt harder than usual, with a down fence, critters out and a misbehaving tractor. It was windy and cold, so being outside in that for hours and hours has made me more tired than usual. Still, I love my life.

We got the first real snow of the season overnight, about four or five inches. We have lots of critters who didn’t know what it was. Danny danced around on tiptoes for a while. We doubt Maggie’s seen snow before, since she was from way down south, Tennessee or Mississippi. The ground under the snow is so muddy, soaked with all the rain that we’ve had lately. It’s just really a mess out there.

Of course, we are as ready for snow as we always are, which is not very ready at all. We haven’t finished the fencing where the pigs will over-winter, and I haven’t figure out where the horses will stay, either. We worked out there all day today, running fence in the snow, hoping that it melts. It always snows a couple of times and then melts before staying snow-covered for the rest of the winter. Well, not always, but usually, and it’s going to happen this year. Right? Right.

I love my hardy Icelandic chickens. I know lots of people who have chickens that basically shut down for the winter, stop laying eggs, and who don’t go out in the snow. Not these guys, though. They were a little shocked by the white stuff when we opened up the coop this morning, and a few of them tried to fly to warmer ground, which didn’t work very well. But then Egil headed the charge out the door. Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go! These Icelandic chickens are used to low-light conditions of winter, and the cold weather, so just keep on keeping on.

There’s half a bushel of brussel sprouts that’s been sitting in the pig trough for three days. We collect all the leftovers from the local food pantry. It’s amazing what they get donated. It’s good that we have many species here to eat them. Different species have different tastes, and different tolerances.

Last winter they were twice hit with literally a ton of expired tofu. Both times we got over half of it. Our pigs will eat 25 pounds morning and evening. Any more will sit. I’m still trying to figure out why anyone had a ton of tofu at one time. I do not believe that all the grocery stores and restaurants in Cheshire county sell a ton in a month.

[We've also had yoghurt hits. Everyone likes it, but emptying four ounce snack size Greek yoghurts into buckets is spectacularly boring, and financially compares unfavorably with working at McDonalds as a way to get pig food.]

Every species has different tastes. The pigs are omnivores. They’re big and eat a lot, favoring calorie dense foods: dairy, meat and grain are their favorites, in that order. We have very tame and friendly pigs. Neither of us has any qualms about going into the pen and giving the boar a scratch. We will not, however, get between any of them and chocolate frosting.

Pumpkins and squash are yummy. Potatoes are not good for them unless cooked, and they know it. They’ll eat one or two raw potatoes, five pounds of baked ones. Other vegetables are tolerated, except the cabbage family. We’ve seen them carefully pick broccoli out of the food trough and drop it on the ground. Broccoli is not food.

Chickens are also omnivores. They like some salad with their meat. Grain is okay, but not to be compared with an earthworm. They and the dogs split the pork products we get, since we won’t feed that to the pigs.

Ducks are omnivores. They like some bugs with their salad. Grain again is okay, but they would really like greens, the way the chickens would really like bugs.

Geese are herbivores. They graze. No interest in bugs, and they will eat hay, although they can’t live on it as they can green plants. They will come running for watermelon, and give the sheep an argument over it, which is uncharacteristic.

Ella Mae is an American Milking Devon, one of ‘the cows that browse’. Her breed survived here in New England because they can come through a hard winter on poor hay and brush. We give her good hay and all the brush she’ll eat. Her treat is Wonder Bread, given to her by her previous owner. She still recognizes the wrapper and comes a running. She doesn’t like most of the things she should, and keeps Danny from eating them either.

The sheep will eat almost anything green. Except brussel sprouts, which is why the pigs have the ones that started this essay. We chose the breed because they eat like goats. Unfortunately, they also treat fences like goats do. They like fruit, they love grain. It’s bad for their digestion, and makes them junkies. They use the twinkie defense constantly for fence busting and breaking into the grain stash. In Iceland they get fish meal in the winter. We stopped giving them grain because we don’t like the way they act on it. They like pumpkins and squash, but have trouble eating them even if we smash them first. (Ruminants have no upper teeth. Horses do, but are not ruminants.)

The horses are grass princesses. A few leaves for variety, but must have hay or grass. If we worked them hard they would need grain, but loafing about, hay is plenty. Carrots and apples are appreciated, but a cuddle and some affectionate words are almost as good. Lisa says they will also eat brussel sprouts. I’ll try them next time we get some.

We did compost lemons and limes last holiday season. No one but people will eat them. I canned a bit of juice and really enjoyed the lemonade last summer. This year, I invested $14 in a Walmart citrus juicer. Lemonade. Margaritas. Mojitos. Eat your heart out critters.