Pete & Teri’s Next Big Adventure

We recently enjoyed a delicious salad made mostly of "weeds":

Ingredients:

• Young dandelion leaves (feral)
• Dead nettle tops with their purple flowers (feral)
• Ox-eye daisy greens (feral)
• Chives (just starting to come back up from last year's planting)
• Turkale* sprouts (planted a few weeks ago in a cold frame)

Teri whipped up a lemon-garlic-olive oil dressing that perfectly smoothed the sharp flavor of the dandelion, and as soon as I finish this post the remains of the salad will be going into an omelet.  It feels SO good to start getting fresh produce from the garden again, especially since about the only effort involved was in gathering the greens!

* We planted turnips and kale in the cold frame last winter, not thinking of the fact that they are closely related and can interbreed.  Some of the seeds that resulted are now sprouting in the cold frame, but we really can't be sure whether we created an unintentional hybrid – so until it becomes clear what this stuff is, we're calling it "Turkale."  Either way, the greens should be tasty

Apologies for yet another long silence – Peter brought a lovely flu-like virus home with him from his visit to New York over New Year's, and it lived with us for almost the entire month of January. It's hard to believe that February is now almost over – seems like a lot of it has been spent playing catch-up.

On New Year's Eve day, we lost our beautiful Wedge (that's her in the photo above, back in October; the blurry girl behind her is her sister, Max). She was one of only two pullets (young hens) hatched last spring, and they had both just started laying in December. That day was pouring rain, and I spent most of it inside by the wood stove. When I heard a chicken commotion outside, I ran out to find the chickens milling about in what we loosely call the "stable" (really, a three-sided shelter that used to house the horse of a former occupant).

At first glance, I thought everyone was there, so I threw them some scratch and started to head back inside. That's when I noticed Cheepler (our former "house chicken") pacing back and forth in front of the stable and crowing – alone. Wedge was his little girlfriend, and the two of them were inseparable; she followed him everywhere. I went back into the stable and counted heads: two chickens missing. As I stepped toward the field to begin my search, I saw a black mound near a cluster of trees. I prayed it was a gopher (vole?) mound as I ran.

It was Wedge.

She was already gone; the curious part was that there wasn't a mark on her or any signs of a struggle, apart from a half-dozen soft little neck feathers on the ground a couple of feet away. My first guess was that it was a hawk – they "dive" feet first and often break the back or neck of their prey, killing or stunning them on impact. I figured that the roosters had tried to come to her aid, causing the hawk to drop her and fly away.

I buried our girl not far from the coop, in the pouring rain, with Cheepler looking on. While I was working, the other missing chicken (Baby, a then-four-month-old cockerel) crept from his hiding place and re-joined the flock. They were all pretty subdued. At roosting time that evening, Cheepler ran frantically back and forth from the coop to the field, looking for Wedge and calling. He didn't want to go in without her. I finally had to carry him in with the others and close the doors.

The next morning, just as Daks and I were starting our morning walk after letting the chickens out of their coop, the hawk was back. He/she made a few low circles over the area, seemed to decide the chickens were no longer so tempting with me and the dog hanging around, and headed for greener (or less guarded) pastures.

About a week later there was another ruckus. As I rushed out the back door, I could see that there was something with a large wingspan flying around inside the chickens' fenced area. (Chickenville includes the current coop, the new coop/fortress that is under construction, and an area around it fenced in with chicken wire. The wire does not keep our birds in – they can fly very well, thank you – but it does usually help to keep predators out. Our chickens have free access to our side of the property during the day, but inside the fenced area is usually considered their "safe zone," should they need to retreat.)

I ran toward Chickenville, waving my arms and shouting "Get away from my chickens!" As the hawk tried to fly away, he/she became tangled in the top part of the chicken wire (I guess hawks don't understand fences). The hawk panicked and thrashed about, freeing itself just as I ran up. We haven't seen it since.

Now we were left with five roosters and four hens – way too few hens for the number of roosters. The roos were supposed to become dinner (except for Cheepler and Atom, our papa roo) – we even named two of them "Soup" and "Stew" – but when the predator problems started we noticed that the roos all worked together to protect the ladies. So they all stayed, and I've been on the lookout for local people selling bantam (small breed, like ours) hens.

Almost two weeks ago now, I found an ad on Craigslist for two Sebright hens. The person was selling them because they were her only two bantams, and her standard-sized chickens picked on them.

Here are our two lovely new girls, on the day I brought them home:

These girls were used to free-ranging at their old place, but we needed to keep them locked up for several days, in their own section of the coop and run, to get them used to our coop as their new home (and to get our other birds used to the "intruders"). Once chickens have a "home base," they will return there to roost every evening at dusk.

Cheepler was smitten. He spent those first few days hanging around their run talking to them, and strutting around and preening for them.

Soon the day came to let them out. When new chickens are introduced to a flock, there will usually be some fighting as they establish a new pecking order. So, for their first time out, I waited until the rest of the flock was out in the field and closed the gates to the fenced area.

The girls relished their new freedom, while Cheepler gazed at them longingly from the other side of the fence.

Finally I took pity on Cheepler, and decided to bring him in to meet them. Unfortunately, the presence to two such beautiful girls was too much for him, and his hormones took over. Instead of courting them like a gentleman rooster should, he strutted right over and did the wing dance. This is the dance a rooster does when he wants to mate with a hen.

The results weren't pretty.

The more dominant of the two new girls turned out to be a warrior! She fought with Cheepler the way a rooster would. Cheepler was once again relegated to the other side of the fence.

The next day I let them out again, still within the fenced area, but this time for longer. As small and delicate-looking as these girls are (and they're smaller than our other already-small hens), they don't seem to be afraid of anything. Peter was out there working on the soon-to-be second coop for our expanding flock, and they weren't even bothered by his power tools.

I was planning for them to meet the rest of the flock that day, and really wanted them to have the protection of a rooster. So I brought Cheepler in again. This time, he was calm and gentle, courting them and offering them food. This approach did the trick; they accepted him and the three of them have now formed their own little flock.

When the rest of the flock returned to the coop, there was surprisingly little fanfare. The old girls have mostly been pretending that the new girls don't exist, Atom did the wing dance for them once or twice but didn't seem to care that they turned him down, and the other young roos have made their own passes (one of them has actually raped one of the girls) but Cheepler always comes along and thrashes the offender.

Now we just need to name these girls! (Calling them the "new girls" is getting old.) Top contenders:

* Maud and Maeve (they remind me of Irish lace, so I like the Irish-sounding names; plus, Maud means "battle might")

* Laverne and Shirley (if you don't get this reference you're too young to have a vote)

* Eliza Jane and Alice (Almanzo Wilder's sisters in the "Little House" series)

* Xena and Gabrielle (as in "Xena, Warrior Princess" and her sidekick)

And – last, but not least – approximately three weeks ago, our Molly went broody. We gave her some eggs to sit on (eight, originally, but that number was expanded to ten when others laid their eggs under her). About a week after that, Max (Wedge's sister) went broody as well. Our plan had been to discourage Max's broodiness while Molly hatched her clutch, and let Max hatch a clutch later in the spring. Those hens had other plans.

At first they seemed to fight over the nest full of eggs, but apparently they reached some sort of agreement. After a few days, they started sharing the nest. When one of them was off the nest to eat, drink and poo, the other would cover all the eggs. When the one returned, the other would move over to make room for her in the nest, and the returning hen would reach under the other and – with her beak – roll half of the eggs back to her side.

They've shared the brooding duties in this way for the past couple of weeks. Our friend and chicken mentor encouraged us to trust the birds and not separate them. She said that often, once the chicks are hatched, one mama will back down and let the other raise them. She also said she's seen clutches where both mamas stuck around and raised them together. (I'm hoping for the "our chicks have two mommies" scenario.)

As of this afternoon, two of the eggs have hatched (that I'm certain of). Two tiny black fluffy-butts with bright black eyes were peeking out from under Max's tail, watching me while I brought them fresh food and water. Fingers crossed – most of the rest should hatch tomorrow!

End note: Soup (also known as "Super Chicken") is likely to actually become soup soon. He has been guarding the broodies (a mark in his favor), but was also trying to mount them every time they were off the nest (a big mark against). He is also the one that raped one of the new girls – twice, as of today (another big strike against). The fact is that we have too many roosters for our little flock, and are almost certainly hatching more as I type. Stew (also known as "Stuart Little") gets a pass for now, as he seems to be Atom's right-hand man (and also seems to have learned proper courting behavior). Baby is still young enough that he's not yet too obnoxious.

What if we stand the notion of ownership on its head? What if I do not own the barn, but instead it owns me, or better, we own each other? What if I do not view it as my right to kill mice simply because I can, and because a piece of paper tells me I own their habitation? What if, because their habitation is near my own, I am responsible for their well-being? What if I take care of them and their community as the grandfather ponderosa outside this window takes care of me, and as before that the stars soothed me? This relationship of mutual care doesn't mean that none shall die, nor even that I won't kill anything, nor eventually be killed; it simply means we will treat each other with respect, and that neither will unnecessarily shit where the other bathes. The bees, too, stand in my purview, and so it becomes my responsibility to make sure, to the best of my abilities, that they can sustain their community. The same can be said for the communities of wild roses, native grasses, trees, frogs, mosquitos, ants, flies, bluebirds, bumblebees, and magpies that, too, call this their home. We all share responsibility toward each other and toward the soil, which in turn shares responsibility to each of us. What if all of life is not what we've been taught, a 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short' competition to see who may own or kill the others before the others can own or kill them? What if we don't need to live our whole lives alone? What if life is a web of immeasurably complex and respectful relationships? What if the purpose–even the evolutionary purpose–is for each of us to take responsibility for all those around us, to respect their own deepest needs, to esteem and be esteemed by them, to feed and feed off of them, to be sustained by their bodies and eventually to sustain them with our own?

– Derrick Jensen, from A Language Older Than Words

* * * * * *

Belated happy solstice, everyone!

Several days ago, Teri and I heard a ruckus from the field where our chickens roam. After a few seasons with poultry, you learn to distinguish mundane squabbles and triumphant “I laid an egg” squawks from their air-raid siren cacophony – and this was definitely the latter.

We looked over, and there were several crows flying in tight circles about fifty feet up. We ran, shouting, with Daks racing ahead, but the few seconds warning wasn’t enough. Two black missiles began a rapid dive side-by-side while we were still a hundred feet away.

The chickens’ shrieking grew even more frantic, and the crows disappeared behind a blackberry bush. A moment later, as the dog arrived on the scene, they flapped back up empty-taloned.

Perhaps the dog helped, but most of the credit goes to the chickens themselves, who had sought cover under the brambles. The one remaining chick was hidden in a bush with his mama just a few feet from where the crows must have grazed the ground, frightened but unharmed.

I started to contemplate shooting a crow (yes, we would eat it). They’re very smart birds with a complex language, and I expect that the word would get around among the local crows pretty quickly. I even went so far as to save a freshly dead rat as bait. I’d have to set the rat out in the field and hope for a diving attack, firing just as the bird grazed the ground to be sure no stray pellets ended up in a neighbor’s sheep. I didn’t get around to it yesterday, and put the rat out for the vultures to clean up. Always more where he came from.

This morning as Teri and I took a walk in the orchard, we saw three crows chasing each other above the field, doing loops and Immelmann turns in a tight formation…no, wait, it was two crows chasing a reddish hawk! I had read that crows will team up to drive off raptors, and felt fortunate to see it so close.

Had I successfully frightened off or killed the crows, the hawk could have claimed our field, and he’s a far more dangerous predator, one that might well have been able to target adult chickens.

It’s yet another iteration of a very common lesson here; nature is mind-bogglingly complex, and any interference on our part is likely to have unforeseen consequences, both for us and for the environment in general. I might still consider shooting an individual bird that develops a habit of preying on our chicks, but overall the crows are likely working for us more than against us.

It brings to mind a story I heard on the radio not long ago listening to an interview with author Terry Tempest-Williams. In the 1950s on a Navajo reservation in Arizona, the federal government decided that a vast area of marginal grazing land was being decimated by prairie dogs nibbling on the roots of what plants managed to survive there.

In their typical worse-than-useless manner, the feds declared that they would exterminate the prairie dogs from the area. Navajo elders disagreed with the plan, saying “If you kill all the prairie dogs there will be no one left to cry for the rain.” The men from DC dismissed this as superstitious nonsense; surely there is no connection between prairie dogs and rain!

The plan went ahead. With poisons and guns, they succeeded in eliminating the rodents from a large area, just as they had previously done with most of the bison and human natives.

Without the prairie dogs to loosen the soil, it quickly became rain-shedding hardpan. The already sparse vegetation died of dehydration as the rainwater failed to penetrate the ground, instead running across the desert to cause flooding and erosion problems.

The Navajo elders didn’t just warn us what would happen; they laid out the exact mechanism in language a little too poetic for the bureaucratic mind to comprehend.

We – and She – will almost always be better off in the long run if we stay our hands when tempted to actively interfere with nature’s balance. We need to listen and watch and research, and remember that one of science’s greatest strengths can also be an Achilles heel – the practice of weighing only very literal and quantifiable data while ignoring other types of knowledge that are encoded in “folk” wisdom or which can only be learned through direct, subjective experience.

1 dog
1 cat
7 goats
12 chickens 11 chickens 10 chickens

Something has been picking off our 8-week-old chicks. The first to go was the only girl in this batch — she disappeared on Monday. We heard a commotion — the ladies tend to make a commotion after laying an egg, so at first we thought that was it — then I thought maybe I should go check on them. They were all clustered under a group of trees and seemed a little jumpy. I counted: 11 chickens. I counted again. Then I noticed that Molly had only two babies hanging off her wings (ok, they don’t really hang off her wings — but it’s the closest thing she has to apron strings).

We searched as well as we could but couldn’t find even a trace of a struggle, so we’re thinking hawk. The birds all seemed a bit more wary the rest of the day, and at nightfall the remaining 11 were all present and accounted for. Tuesday was uneventful, though we still had some nervous birds.

Well, yesterday, Peter was home alone. He heard a commotion and ran out to check (sound familiar?). He found the birds clustered around their coop area (usually they free-range our side of the property during the day; most often they are to be found out in the fields), and again acting jumpy and nervous. He counted: 10 chickens. This time it was the biggest and prettiest of the two boy babies.

Now Molly has one baby left, and I’m worried that once the easy pickings are gone this guy will start in on the teenagers and adults. And while I’m really sad about losing the babies, I’m way more attached to the adults (our first chickens ever) and the teenagers (who were also born and raised here on the farm, and who have lived long enough to develop personalities — chickenalities? — and become more like pets). Plus, I’ve promised Molly that I’ll do whatever I can to help her keep her last baby.

So, the chickens are now under house arrest for the foreseeable future. They are not thrilled about it. Most of them are confined to the coop and two attached runs, and the two lowest-on-the-totem-pole cockerels are in the chicken tractor nearby (to keep them from being picked on too badly in a space where they can’t really get away). The runs are covered so they can’t fly out, and — more importantly — a predator can’t fly in.