Chickens in the Freezer

Phil's injured finger gave us a great opportunity to process chickens, which we've considered doing for some time. At 26 weeks, a good month and a half after the hens should have started laying, we decided it was time.

We processed a hen first, to see if the egg-laying parts were developing. If they were, we were happy to leave the remaining hens and a sole rooster alive. After all, we didn't move to the country to eat store-bought eggs!

There was no development of eggs whatsoever.

So we butchered the roosters, and we butchered the hens. Phil did the actual killing, Jadon scalded, and Isaiah plucked and delivered to me. (Finally smart, I set up my eviscerating center in the motor home, where I had heat, hot running water, and music. Brilliant!)

Not a single hen had more than a collection of eggs the size of a pea (her tiny ovary).

What went wrong? Why are we facing another year without eggs?

Looking back, we had Rhode Island Reds laying last May. We introduced a group of Barred Rocks and White Leghorns from the same hatchery at that time. Immediately all egg production stopped. The Leghorns eventually began laying, but when we processed birds last fall, we killed all the others: the Reds had never resumed laying, and the Rocks never started.

We figured the Rocks introduced something to the Reds. Too bad, but that happens.

This year, we ordered Holland chicks from a different hatchery. But to have them also succumb to the same complete infertility—we wonder now if the Leghorns were carriers for some virus: they weren't affected, but they affect all others.

It's disappointing enough to bring tears to my eyes. Phil bleached the various parts of the hen hut and the brooder. But if the Leghorns were the issue, they were there all the time.

And if it is a virus, is it now on our land? Are we destined to pump hundreds of dollars into birds that will never lay, in the vain hope of having home-grown eggs? Eggs are the low-lying fruit, the easy starter for urbanites and neophyte farmers alike.

To have failed two years running, despite top quality feed, rotational grazing, all the sun Virginia offers ... as I said, it brings tears to my eyes.

On the positive side, I can, in some ways, be thankful that 3/4 of the original flock died through predation and accidents months ago. If we had 100 birds that we'd paid to keep for over half a year without eggs, that would have been a blow even more bitter. (The carcass size was not worth six months of feed.)

And I'm thankful we didn't wait longer to process.

Better Today

I've been enjoying William Zinsser's book On Writing Well lately. He quotes an author: "The reader has to feel that the writer is feeling good." And then adds, "Even if he isn't."

Ha! Clearly I don't follow that advice. Ahem.

I think my doldrums yesterday sparked several productive conversations today. We happened upon an article in our WoodMizer magazine on Timbergreen Forestry, a farm in Wisconsin. They take out their diseased and small trees on their 200 acres, and their land keeps growing more productive. One of their claims: "we put one person to work for every 50 trees cut in one year."

When I think about Phil, if we could make that work, that would be just about perfect. When he comes in from lumberjacking, he says, "I love lumberjacking!"

As I think about it, he says that about nothing else around the farm. Oh, he enjoyed laying block before he broke his finger. He likes our cows. But weeding, mowing, spraying, moving animals: he does it all with a good will. But he doesn't come in glowing.

It also felt productive to realize that I want him to be able to earn a particular amount a week. And, thus, we have an approximate income he should be aiming for per hour. If, with our cows, they won't produce that, either due to breed or forage quality or whatever, well, milk isn't a prudent product.

For some reason, I don't know that I'd thought of it that way before. Previously, I had wanted a certain dollar figure per year, but simply glommed on all the minor income streams and assumed it would all work out.

I think it makes sense to raise cows for beef, and maybe extra cow-calfs for other potential homesteads, plus milk for ourselves. And I would like to continue trying with chickens. At six months old or so, our Hollands have still not done anything productive, but we like them. And we like eating soy-free birds. It is worth it for us, if not financially, at least in quality.

Really, though, I spent some time on the trampoline with Joe and Abraham. It's impossible to jump in the sun with those two without laughing hysterically. We got our energy out, and fresh air in, sun on the skin, and happiness in our hearts.

Isaiah somehow accidentally jammed Phil's splinted finger this evening, and Phil again saw stars. It looks like broken fingers take about four weeks to heal. We'll have to come up with creative work opportunities for Phil.

Today the creative opportunity was to have Phil instruct Jadon on how to install a new truck alternator. Jadon did it, and the truck turned over.

That's pretty creative!

In the Right Place

The predicted rain did not come. Phil managed to get to the laundromat (where the machines ate $5 or so of quarters). He came home with a very tired finger.

I had turned some dried garlic into garlic powder: I took the dried chips and blended them, then put them through the mesh sieve and capped them in jars.

It was while I was pulsing the fine bits of garlic for the third time to make them even more fine that I realized something that should have been obvious for several years: I am struggling with the tyranny of efficiency.

No matter what I do, I am dissatisfied because it takes me longer than it takes a "big" farm. Though I liked the flavor of our potatoes last year, I disliked the physically demanding hand hilling: a "real" farm with equipment could hill it better, faster, and easier.

If I grow garlic, I hate making the beds because I know I'll have to do it again next year (pointless labor), and the weed seeds will take over. And maybe my stock is diseased, or my soil not fertile. And besides, "real" farms have specialized equipment to help the work go quickly and smoothly.

Even if we managed to cut our feed costs down so that chickens became a bit more financially viable, I would dislike raising them to sell because our processing is so inefficient. Joel Salatin can do it better, so let him!

Joel can raise pigs better, too.

I enjoyed grafting apple trees this last spring. But I can compare my 30% loss on bench grafting, and my dismal rate of "takes" on the bud grafting to the local nursery, nationally known, Edible Landscaping, where a former employee said, "I never knew a bud graft not to take."

Which makes me wonder what on earth I'm doing here?

And I wonder at Phil's lack of frustration over the process. As an engineer, he made a very nice wage. Now he has worked hard for almost three and a half years without a dollar to show for it. Anything we've raised, we've either sold at a loss or given away in failed marketing attempts.

I think I've finally reached a point where I'm sick of it. I'm angry that this is so hard. I'm angry that I feel like we have no direction. A year ago, we had our three-fold plan: fruit, limited vegetables, and dairying.

Now, our peach trees haven't done much. We think about expanding our apple planting. But blueberries require water, and our one-gallon-a-minute well is too little for that, even if our soil was good.

Limited vegetables: still haven't ever grown a decent cabbage, so I buy my kimchi and wish I could afford it daily. And my garlic complaints have been well-documented. Is there a hope for a living with kimchi and garlic? It seems dubious.

Dairying? I loved the idea. I loved raw milk back in Boulder. But we have become so unscheduled here, the idea now of even once a day milking, ten months of the year: it's like a shackle on our time. (Let alone the impossibility of finding customers: do people drink raw milk? I haven't met many.)

I commented to my mom recently that I felt like we were coming to the end of our undergraduate education: almost four years in, we were getting a handle on our life here.

But today I felt totally stymied. Worse than the beginning, because we've tried various things and they've all been found wanting.

I had gone to help Phil feed the cows in the midst of these furious thoughts. With his hurt hand, he needs a boost.

I walked back while he drove the tractor down the road, where he met our neighbors. Their car had broken down right outside our property, only perhaps a quarter mile from their driveway, and they needed some help.

Phil took the tractor over, and some time later I looked out the window to see what looked like the tractor pushing the car down the road. Why hadn't Phil simply jumped it with the van? Very odd.

It turned out that one of the rear tires had come all the way off. Not only that, all the bolts had either sheered or stripped, so there was no way to get the tire back on. Phil used the tractor forks to hoist the axel off the ground, and so, three-wheeled with the tractor acting as the fourth wheel, Phil helped limp the car to the driveway. No tow truck required.

In that moment, Phil was in the right place.

I don't know why we're stuck here in a place devoid of money-earning opportunities. I don't know why we haven't hit on exactly what suits us and this land.

But maybe I need to remember that, like the daily manna for the Israelites, we have provision for today. I bet they grew weary of not knowing where the cloud would lead them, or when they would have to move. Forty years of wandering in a small desert—I imagine they were sick of it.

But the wandering led to the Promised Land. God led them to the Promised Land. They had a destination, and they got there in the end.

I have heard that biblical patience is not the calm spirit that we generally think, but rather perseverance, holding fast until the end. In that sense, I can pray for patience.

The calm spirit kind wouldn't be unwelcome, either.

Healing

While we were grocery shopping yesterday, Phil accidentally jammed his fingers into Isaiah, including his taped finger. "I almost passed out from the pain," he said.

I suspected then that we wouldn't do much on the building today.

And we didn't.

Every time Phil takes homeopathic Arnica and Hypericum perforatum (also known as St. John's Wort), he feels incredibly sleepy afterwards. His body just needs a bit more time to heal. He had less throbbing today; tomorrow we hope for the forecasted rain. Maybe on Wednesday, he'll be ready to work outside again.

I attempted to make some more raised beds for garlic, but when I looked at the tens of thousands of hay seeds, I grew so discouraged. Maybe we need to just grow a cover crop to suppress weeds.

I've been experimenting with garlic powder. I first tried dehydrating full cloves, but that was ineffective: no visible change after 24 hours. So I have been peeling cloves while reading to the boys for the last month, and yesterday I cut up slices of garlic. It took forever. I finally broke down and bought a food processor. Even if I only use it for slicing garlic, I think it will be worth it. And maybe I can use it for sauerkraut, too, someday.

RICES for Joints

The weather, as predicted, turned colder, so though the sun was out, it was still in the 40s. We started off the day admiring yesterday's progress.

Phil experimented with the mortar: rather than a 1:3 cement:sand ratio, which is in the approved range, he tried a 1:2 cement:sand ratio. And oh, was he disappointed he hadn't tried that before! The mortar was "stickier," and he felt it was much easier to use. (For myself, tooling the joints seemed a good bit more challenging, so I am less of a fan. Except I do appreciate anything that helps Phil work better or faster.)

Phil has to build up the corners again. We had debated initially whether to build them all the way up or to do what we did in the end: build about halfway. I am so thankful we opted for the halfway. Because the wall is built up around the scaffolding, Phil has places to stand. The scaffolding itself doesn't seem quite so rickety: if there's a wiggle, the wall is right there to support us, rather than a 10' drop onto a concrete corner and protruding rebar.

I don't think Phil had to reset a single block as he built up the corner to the ninth block of 12 (counting only the 10" blocks, not the foundation or crawl space ones).

He was just about done with the mortar when our neighbor friend from yesterday stopped by to bring us a deer (already gutted! what a sweet thing!). We have a block and tackle, and Phil went to get it out of the woods. He had to jump to grab it, and somehow he tweaked a joint on his right hand. Once the deer was safely hung in the big blue barn (yay for the high ceiling, and how thankful to have cold weather!), Phil came for homeopathy. I went with him to do the last four blocks, and he was groaning with every one.

After lunch, I told him what I had learned about joint injuries: they need RICES: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation, and Support. We didn't Ice it, but he did run it under our water for some time: that's extremely cold at this time of year. He taped it to the next finger (Support and Compression). We cleaned up for the week, fed the cows (those lovely cows), and headed in to clean and bathe (my tasks) and Rest and Elevate the hand (his tasks). Somehow, that took up the evening.

In this, the fourth calendar week of laying block (in which, by my reckoning, Phil has actually placed block 14 days), Phil did a record 180 blocks, for a running total of 588. I guesstimate that's about a third of the total.

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

What a great day today! It may be the last time this year with weather in the 60s, and we took advantage of it. Phil did a full bag of mortar, and built up a corner a bit: 55 blocks, and done as the sun went down.

Jadon made chocolate chip cookies, as he does regularly right now. Isaiah noticed I had dried some mint leaves, and he has been eager to try to make mint chocolate chip cookies ever since. Jadon let him have a half batch. They figured out how to cut the mint into pieces (clean out the coffee/herb grinder), and somehow came up with a quantity to add.

They were really good! Happiness for us all.

It was the second fun experiment in two days. I had frozen some small hibiscus calyxes, and made a "cranberry" sauce. Wow! It was perhaps a bit sweet for my taste, but I can't wait until next year to grow more hibiscus: I might make that "cranberry" sauce, with reduced sweetener, weekly.

And speaking of food, a fun party trick: hold your hand up and look at your left pinky. Is it below the top knuckle of your ring finger? According to a local chiropractor, 95% of people with that short pinky have a gluten intolerance.

I checked our family: the boys and I all have borderline pinkies that touch that knuckle, barely below or barely above. Phil's pinky, though, is significantly above that knuckle. (Phil has no wheat issues at all.)

And in other news, Phil and I were discussing our cows yesterday. Phil was looking at our grazing schedule, and realized that if we had had about five cows, we would have had sufficient forage to support them through the winter. Fourteen cows, though, is too much for the land.

And the shortage will perpetuate: if the land, increasing in fertility, could support ten cows next year, assuming we have a perfect birth rate, we could have 23 cows by the end of next year. We're looking at always having to buy hay.

We talked at length: what cows are the priority to keep? Which animals have the best body conformation? Which do we think will have the best production?

Of course, increasing grazing land would be another option. We have a few neighbors we could potentially ask, though that's not a priority at this moment.

So we felt extra blessed today when one of those neighbors stopped by. We chatted about hunting, and the wildlife he's seen up in his deer stand (besides deer, he's seen an enormous bear, a coyote, a bob cat). Suddenly, the neighbor said, "Are you looking for new grazing land? We should sit down and talk about that after hunting season ends!"

Isn't that marvelous!

Thanks Giving

The last month or so, I came to realize that I have needed a change. When I go out to plant or work in the fields, I constantly ask, “What am I doing here?” I am filled with hatred: for not knowing the right answer, for all the failures of the last three and a half years.

I take those failures and grimly think, “I’m still here. I endure.”

But it was the fragile endurance of a brittle bone, always ready to snap.

Last Saturday, I headed out to prepare beds to plant garlic. Phil, recovering still from his illness, came out and asked what I was doing. "Nothing. Fighting despair."

What was I doing? Finding dozens of roots in a few square feet of soil. Debating whether my time would best be spent earning money, reading to the boys, preparing beds for garlic. And then I would think about how important right intentions are, and I would think, "No plant is going to grow well in soil that I am actively hating."

I quit then.

What makes me angry? I came to this place, expecting the earth to accept me, to nourish and sustain me. I was excited to be with the earth, to live with my family in a productive natural environment. I expected to have to build soil, to plant and tend.

But it has felt at times like a malevolence pursues me here, turning my attempts to ashes; transforming my hope to despair. Why would we lose so many lambs? Why would only perhaps a tenth of the peppers sprout? Why would my first ever swarm have the queen die, so that I had no perspective? It's like all the mistakes possible happened to us at the first, and so, because we had no perspective on proper lambing, or swarming, or planting, we had no way to realize that what we were attempting wasn't working.

I hated it. It is all failure; everywhere I look at our efforts, I see the ugliness of man. Plastic. Wire. Debris. Nature itself remains beautiful and fascinating; it's just what I touch here that is not.

Last Sunday, I picked up a book I've had for several years, The Lost Language of Plants. The premise of the book is that people throughout time have known that plants have wisdom to impart, but that our modern culture not only doesn't believe, but thinks those who hear from plants are crazy.

(Whatever you think of the premise, and there are certainly things in the book I don't agree with, I'm not willing to discount this immediately. The Bible speaks of the trees of the field clapping their hands, and Jesus says that if the people did not glorify him, the stones would cry out. That's clearly not a declaration that stones think, but I think it leaves the possibility open.)

Reading somewhat at random, I came across an exercise in which you imagine yourself as a child, and have a little imaginary conversation and give your younger self a hug. I longed to do that, and so I did. I sat out under the trees, in the dark (with the hungry-for-attention dogs nudging me every few seconds). And as soon as I imagined little blonde, curly-haired Amy, I was overwhelmed with compassion, as little Amy was so sad. “Nothing I do is ever good enough.”

I sat and cried. Is that not still the way I feel at least weekly?

And yet, as a mom, I can see that Jadon, my mini-me, feels that way about himself sometimes. But what an amazing child he is. I have so much compassion for him: his failures are so tiny compared with his triumphs and abilities. Why can I not have compassion for myself?

In my imagination, as I hugged little Amy, I said, “Let’s be kinder to ourselves.”

I have heard that same comment repeatedly from friends over the years. I've written about it here. But I couldn't really grasp it until I could see it as both a parent and a child. What a load lifted.

That night, I went to bed and prayed for sweet dreams.

Within two minutes, I was plunged into my worst recurring nightmare, in which I am on a boat with my children and one falls off and drowns. It's a horrible dream, and I always wake, heart-pounding, horrified and sick.

But because I had just had that little interaction with my young self, I could suddenly see where that dream was coming from. The worst possible accident from parental oversight. Nothing I do is ever good enough, and maybe it will result in the death of my child.

I said, "God, I don't know how to deal with this! It's too heavy a load! Be with me in my fear!"

My heart rate immediately calmed, and I slept with sweet dreams, and woke cheerful in the new day.

I went and planted garlic that next day. Maybe only about 300 more cloves. But you know, each of those might be a gift someday. Maybe not. Maybe they will be shrunken and disappointing next May or June. But maybe not.

How wonderful to have no more hatred. To just be with the plants. With my family. To be present in this place. To worship God with a full heart. To ask for guidance. To expect wisdom.

To be thankful.