Our chickens roam our little place eating all day and scratching away all the duff from under the Lilacs and other bushes. They are a lot of fun. I like how they run especially. It’s funny. Today I found 7 eggs in the coop. Our chickens are now just 6 months old. As far as I can see it is the Australorp hens only.

I haven’t been really taking a good look around the coop in the morning, and darkness hits just as I get home from work. I’ll have to check every day now. Fresh Eggs can’t be beat, plus I’ve been feeding them for 6 months, it’s their turn.

The hen has been laying an egg a day for about 7 days. Hen’s lay an egg a day. When there are “enough” eggs in the brood, she’ll incubate them, but not until then. I take an egg a day, the hen keeps laying an egg a day, we’re all happy.

I am excited to taste the difference in these eggs from other we have been given and buy if necessary. If you feed your chickens more flax seed and other high omega grains, will your eggs be richer in Omega’s? If you give them certain foods, will the egg’s taste different? Over the next few years as we have eggs, we’ll experiment with this. It’ll be fun!

It’s super great to find your first eggs. It’s exciting really! Check out how Chickens Lay an Egg: http://www.afn.org/~poultry/egghen.htm

Last year in March we had a warm spell for about 3 weeks. It was so nice. It felt like summer was just around the corner. Our apples, plums, pears, and a few other trees even began to blossom. That changed in April. Winter came again and froze most all blossoms off the trees. It was down to 25 degrees farenheit again in a matter of days.

Spring came again in May, this time sticking around and morphing seamlessly into Summer. The ground had defrosted and the Apples began to really show their color. The Apples, of all our fruit trees, are the hardiest. We had the most magnificent apple harvest from 6 of the 10 apple trees, grossing about 200 pounds of organic apples. Two of the Pear trees even gave us 30 pounds of amazing fruit. Thanks to my wife, we have a winter supply of apple sauce, apple and pear butter, and halved pears.

Waiting for the freeze

This fall we are trying a different approach that we hope will work. We have collected leaves and needles from all over the yard and will use it for mulch around the fruit trees. We don’t have quite enough for all of the trees, so the “weaker” trees are getting it first.

Before we mulch the fruit trees, we are waiting for the ground to freeze well. We will then rake the mulch piles around the trees, leaving a few inches around the actual bark of the tree. We are hoping this will “lock in” the cold frozen ground until it is absolutely summer. From what we have read, you can prolong winter this way and have your perennials begin to grow when frost is no longer as much a threat. In theory this will work for the fruit trees also.

December 2007 Fall Weather

So far we have had 1 good rain. The first few days of December were cloudy, then the other night it rained all night. It was nice to have the rain pounding on the metal roof. You seem to go numb from it and just fall asleep. It’s been freezing the ground fairly deep, however, it’s warmed up again. If the weather folk are correct, I’ll be mulching the trees here by Christmas.

Check back for an update to this post in Spring of 2008.

This is a powerful song from the words of Haile Selassie.

“…until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned: That until there are no longer first-class and second class citizens of any nation; That until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race; That until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained; And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes that hold our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique and in South Africa in subhuman bondage have been toppled and destroyed; Until bigotry and prejudice and malicious and inhuman self-interest have been replaced by understanding and tolerance and good-will; Until all Africans stand and speak as free beings, equal in the eyes of all men, as they are in the eyes of Heaven; Until that day, the African continent will not know peace. We Africans will fight, if necessary, and we know that we shall win, as we are confident in the victory of good over evil…”

H.I.M. Haile Selassie I Speech to the United Nations (excerpt)
New York City, NY  October 4, 1963