Choir Practice

Rabbit

This was an incredible dish Tucker served last month: Sous Vide Rabbit Loin with Eggplant, Spatzle, Fromage Blanc, Zinfandel, Lavender and Black Pepper (photo stolen from Tucker's blog)

Harry Potter, Mystery Rooster

We need your help. Can someone out there tell us what breed Harry Potter is? McMurray's Hatchery likes to toss in an exotic chick with every order, and Harry (so named by my kids when he was three days old) is clearly the odd man out in our flock. Based on his size and behavior, we're assuming he's a dude, and we're also assuming he's not a New Hampshire Red like the rest of them. We could be wrong, of course. Please reply to this post with your ideas. Thank you!

November Onions

Punkins...yum

Thanks to all of you who allowed me to snatch your retired Jack-O-Lanterns off of your porches this morning. The chickens will be feasting on these all week.

Worms

 Last month I bought some composting worms from Uncle Jim's Worm Farm, and they've been munching leaves and multiplying in a bucket in my driveway ever since. Sunday we brought a pile of them out to the hens to see how appetizing they would be. Answer: very. It didn't take long for every last one of them to be gobbled up by the chickens. Abby and I then decided to turn the soil a little, just to see if there were any worms near the surface.

The girls have never had so much fun, pecking at clods of dirt in search of worms. When one would pull out a big, juicy one, she would dart around the pen trying to wolf it down before the others could steal it from her. Everybody wins (except for the worms, I guess): the girls get a protein-rich treat while expressing their chicken-ness, the soil gets a good tilling, and it's highly entertaining to watch.

Halloween at the Hen

The kids love handing out treats at the Red Hen.

Archie came along, too, and he was starved for attention, as usual.

Archie Meets the Girls

This is Archie, our new West Highland Terrier, now eight weeks old. Here he is introducing himself to the Red Hens. He is only 3 lbs. and looks like a tiny stuffed animal, but he did not hesitate to mix it up with the girls on Saturday. They all got along pretty well.

Here is another shot, from this afternoon, when I got a second row of organic garlic planted.

Our little girls are growing up so fast!

Our chicks have undergone a tremendous growth spirt. They're now about eight weeks old, but looking like adults.

Their diet of overripe fruit and vegetables (along with some scratch grains) seems to agree with them.

Red Hens Under Attack!

It's been a scary day in the garden, for one young chicken especially.

Today around lunchtime a W&L biology class was walking up to the garden when they saw a Red Tailed Hawk swoop in, snatch one of our chickens, fly upwards, then drop said chicken to the ground. The students rushed to the chicken's aid and found that she was basically fine. A bit freaked out, maybe, but fine. They returned her to the flock.

So this afternoon Abby and I rigged netting over the entire chicken pen and did our best to reassure the girls-- who were clearly skittish-- that everything would be fine from now on. Abby tried to give each one  a hug, with limited success.

Here she is knitting the net together with wire.