this video shows my daily, afternoon experience for the last several weeks. what fun it is to finally get to touch our bantam hens, who are much too speedy and cautious for me to catch and hold under normal circumstances!
this video was filmed about a week ago, and since then we’ve had some developments in those nest boxes… but more on this later. in the meantime, watch the video below and check out our technique for collecting eggs from underneath broody hens.
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Now that summer is rolling in and temperatures are quickly rising into the 90’s during the afternoon, a dog needs a way to stay cool and keep from overheating. While Emma and I can hang out in the carport porch and sip on iced spearmint tea, Bolt, our 1 year old black lab/boxer/? dog has to find other ways to avoid the hot NC sun.
He is somewhat of a wuss when it comes to hot weather and can often be found hogging the floor fan, or nestling right up to the AC vent to stay cool without a second thought for those of us “downwind.” However, when he is outside with us none of these options exist. So he has to be creative…
Take this bush for instance. It sits smack dab in the middle of Bolt’s outdoor area.
A lone bush in our side yard, the area where Bolt hangs out outside.
Notice anything interesting about it? No? Let’s get a closer look…
It’s Bolt! The shade of this bush is the perfect place to beat the NC heat!
Hahahahaha! This bush is Bolt’s preferred hideout from the summer sun, and where he can most often be found when the thermometer dips above 83 degrees. Here he can snooze in the shade, roll in the dirt, and quickly ambush anyone foolish enough to casually walk by his bush (and scare the pants off me as I walk by with headphones in).
This got me thinking about how to make his bush an even better summer getaway and design it specifically for a dog’s summertime needs. Number 1 is shade–and any shrub or bush will do the job–but maybe a plant like rosemary, with anti-insect properties would take this up a notch, not to mention provide great herbs for the kitchen. What about planting some nice geraniums around it to help repel mosquitoes, the vector of heartworms and annoying itchiness. Maybe some pennyroyal, or fleabane to combat fleas, and some chicory in case he feels the need to fight some internal parasites.
I think this would be a really cool permaculture design project, and is definitely something I am going to think more about. Let me know if you know of any other plants that would fit well in a dog’s play area. But for now, you can find Bolt enjoying the shade and solitude of his bush, waiting eagerly for the cooler temperatures of fall, or for us to turn the AC on and bring him inside.
in yesterday’s post, jason mentioned our newest version of our savory venison stew. one of the ingredients that really made the stew a success was our homegrown garlic scapes!
just as we harvested chamomile the other day, we also harvested our garlic scapes. not only are the scapes delicious, but they must be cut in order for the garlic bulbs to grow larger and into the garlic bulbs you imagines when thinking of garlic. jason explains why this in the case in the video below, and shows you how to go about cutting those garlic scapes! enjoy!
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Tonight we ate dinner out on the porch and watched the fireflies. We ate a version of our savory venison stew, but this time I added a bunch of our freshly cut garlic scapes, and a couple of sweet potatoes from last year’s garden.
Venison stew with sweet potatoes and garlic scapes
It was dark out when I took the picture, and we ended up eating out of plastic tuppeware to save on dish use, but it tasted great. The garlic scapes added a great flavor to the broth, and the sweet potatoes were delicious with the tender venison roast. A green pepper, white onion, a healthy splash of red wine, beef broth, and some sage and oregano rounded out the soup, and made for a great meal out in the cool Stokes County air. Yummm!!
we only had a small crop of chamomile this year… mostly because the seeds we planted last year never germinated and stayed in the ground until they came up this year! although our chamomile patch was small, we are still excited to make some chamomile tea out of the flowers.
this video shows just how easy harvesting chamomile can be!
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I love mulch. It makes me smile when I see a bed or fruit tree covered with a thick layer of mulch. Mulch hold in soil moisture and reduces irrigation needs, protects soil microorganisms from temperature extremes, blocks weeds, and slowly adds organic matter by breaking down and feeding the worms.
We mulch with leaves, sticks, paper plates, coffee grounds, palm fronds, and any other organic material we can find. But recently, we scavenged a bunch of wood wool, or excelsior, and this wood byproduct makes awesome mulch.
It’s basically shredded aspen wood used as packing material, and it’s some of the best mulch we have ever used. It looks good, stays in place, and is easily applied around vegetable plants. We’re in the process of putting it on all of our raised garden beds, and if there is any left over, we may put some around our fruit trees also. I love mulch.
Join us for this episode of Kids Wondering as we meet a snake friend that we found while digging a hole in the yard!
Be sure to always ask an adult before handling any snakes that you see in your yard… They could be venomous!
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Kids Wondering… Remember, always speak with a trusted adult before picking up your own snake pals!
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although this title is goofy, i assure you that our awesome carport is not!
since the weather is steadily warming up and we had a few 90 degree days this week, we have again begun to use our carport like an extra room of the house. last year we did the same but it wasn’t nearly as decked out with awesome places to sit and cool contraptions!
we have a long, wooden handicap ramp that was here when we bought the house. it comes off of the kitchen door and ends nearly at the edge of the carport-porch. there is also a gate that opens from the side of the ramp into the main area of the carport and right beside a door where we have our chicken food and the stairs into the basement. we have hanging baskets attached to the the railing of the ramp with a bunch of cool plants in them.
a view of the carport.
the rest of the carport is one big open space! we have a wooden chest that holds planting equipment and also acts as a seat, an older table where we sometimes do planting or potting, and an awesome patio table that my dad found for us in someone’s junk pile by the side of the road. we’ve also got a handful of comfy seats surrounding the table and a hummingbird feeder directly above. what a view!
our planting and relaxing tables!
plants abound in the carport-porch, as they do in the yard and gardens. there is always a flowering bush in bloom that we can see from our awesome carport and at night we cut on our string of christmas lights… very romantic and dim enough that the bugs don’t flock to the light source!
the snowball bush that we can see from the carport.
since the eaves of the house are wide, you can almost always catch the shade from our relaxing table. i also recently hung a little handmade bird house that my father crafted from the natural hole in a hollow tree and an antique, iron bell that is so loud you would not hear a jet engine over the ringing!
our awesome, iron bell. dinner’s ready!
this is why we love spending time outside in the carport-porch! sometimes we plug in our box fan if it is really hot or to keep the biting insects away and sometimes we plug in our computers and work on posts like this one. other times we sit and watch the sun set over our land and trees, while bolt runs around or hides under his new favorite bush.
watching the sun go down through the trees.
one thing is for sure, though: our carport + two glasses of wine = one amazing, relaxing, and beautiful time!
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We got some much needed rain today here at Kuska Wiñasun Homestead, more than an inch and it’s still coming. Rain plays a role in the type of chores you can get done on a homestead, and today I spent most, but not all, of the time indoors, starting some more plants from seed, and potting up some small seedlings that germinated a while ago.
My planting station in the basement; potting soil, containers, root knife, and an iPhone for watching documentaries on Youtube.
Many of the perennial herbs that were planted in the middle of March (elecampane, marshmallow, and feverfew to name a few) were a bit crowded in the small pots they germinated in and so I transplanted them into larger containers so as not to stunt their growth. I noticed that while these plants were slow to germinate, they had well developed root systems much larger than I expected for seedlings that looked so tiny. I also planted a few things from seed that we are very excited about growing: Monkey Puzzle Pine, St. John’s Wort, Ashwaganda, Blue Bean, and Lovage.
A healthy elecampane seedling, a great medicinal herb for lung and digestive problems.
By this point it had been raining for a while, and our garden swales were starting to fill up. I noticed that they weren’t filling up evenly, and figured that it was a great time to get the hoe out and start leveling the contour paths. The small amount of water, about an inch or two, made it easy to find the high spots and then scrape that soil to the low spots. Then it was just walking up and down the swale, seeing how deep the water was at different spots and filling in with clay as needed.
Taking advantage of some summer rain to work on the garden swales.
This was pretty fun work in the rain, and I felt like a rice farmer in China working on his paddies. The combination of a steady, rhythmic rain, and the watching the water slowly creep along the swale as it became level was very relaxing.
So today was a rainy day not wasted. Some inside chores, and then some outside ones made easier with the help of the rain. We can also thank the rain for watering in our garden, filling up our ponds, keeping our shiitake mushroom logs moist, and charging up our forests with a much needed soak.
beginning a few months ago, we noticed that about 5 or so of our standard hens were starting to go bald in very concentrated spots on their backs between their wings. my first thought was that the hens were picking at each other and eating those feathers, but after watching them i realized that i hadn’t seen a single hen pick at the feathers of another (except once when a hen got mad and chased another one, grabbing at her tail feathers). i also didn’t see how the chickens would be interested in eating each others’ feathers since they receive great supplements in their food that should prevent them from wanting dine on feathers.
so, i decided to look into the issue a little more and learned that the bald spots were the fault of the rooster, rex! once i read this, it made sense, of course!
one of rex’s favorite ladies–do you see the pink bald spot between her wings?
apparently, when young roosters get close to reaching full maturity, they pick out a couple hens that are their favorites and shower them with attention (you know what i mean, ya’ll). as they get older, they start to spread their attentions out over the whole flock so no hens are losing all of their feathers or getting too scratched up, but when they are young there is a risk that if their spurs are too sharp they can actually cut up the hens they really like.
after reading this, i made sure to look closely at the balding hens to see if they were cut at all… and they were not. but still, some were a little raw looking, which made up 1/2 of my mind when later…
rex actually attacked me with his spurs!
this happened about a week ago when i was feeding everyone. i noticed that rex had been a little bit more “pushy” and “prancey” lately but thought that if i didn’t get in his space too much he would leave me alone. untrue. once i turned my back and was walking to the back of the chicken pen where i dump out their food scraps from my school kids, he jumped up in the air and spurred me in both legs, right around the knees. he didn’t get through my pants to my left leg, but he did with my right. his spur didn’t go in very deep but it went through the pants, punctured my skin, and made me bleed.
of course i felt like killing him/crying after that but only managed to yell at him and throw the food scraps all over him in revenge, which he ended up liking very much.
the flock enjoying their new spot in the grass. rex is in the foreground, keeping himself between me and his hens.
since then, i’ve decided that as soon as we hatch out some more roosters i’m going to eat rex in a soup. in the meantime, we’ve clipped rex’s spurs. this is the choice that was easier to make since noticing the bald spots on some of the hens. i pinned down rex in a net (and felt awesome doing it!) and my dad nipped off the sharp ends of his spurs with handheld hedge nippers. he didn’t make any noises of pain (since the spur is a bone and the process didn’t hurt) and the end of the spur only bled a tiny bit and then quickly dried. now he can’t actually puncture me if he jumps me again and he shouldn’t scratch up the hens as much.
which leads me to the third type of chicken i want to talk about: a broody chicken! we have three hens who are trying to sit on nests/eggs right now and a few days ago we officially labeled their eggs (marking them with pencil) and let them stay on their nests! one standard is sitting on 7 standard sized eggs, one bantam is sitting on 2 bantam eggs, and another bantam is sitting on 2 standard eggs and 1 bantam egg. i’ve placed a piece of cardboard behind their nest boxes so that the sun doesn’t shine in on them and make them too hot.
two bantams sitting on eggs.
an unlikely duo: a bantam and a standard.
everyday i’ve collected the fresh eggs out from under the three hens (much to their chagrin) but left the eggs they’ve been sitting on. we hope they will remain broody and vigilant! if all goes well, we might be meeting up to 12 baby chicks as early as the 26th of may. cross your fingers for us!
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