Greenstorm's Journal

Might as well update about the animal situation.

Solly and Thea are working great as a team all night. I put them in the front at night (the grain is all there) and Avallu in the back with the geese, Thea I put in the back during the day with Avallu so she can go in and eat and I can keep Solly mostly on her puppy food.

Avallu is getting more ok with Solly, but after two incidents where he was pretty sure she belonged only on the porch we need a little more than current levels of ok. In the evenings we often do cheese o clock, where they all see each other through the fence and get lots of cheese. I think they may have got too much cheese, so I may need a lower-fat alternative for some of these evenings. Avallu is doing well listening to commands even when Solly is in close proximity, but he's also very respectful of the fence. Solly is very wary of Avallu after the last couple incidents but has a seemingly limitless well of optimism and is coming around with enough cheese again.

I've definitely made some mistakes during this intro but I suspect everyone can be convinced to forgive me.

The geese are sleeping right up close to Avallu many nights and spending more time than usual up by the house. I can tell when there are no bears around because they go into the orchard. They've taken care of this spring's goslings well and those are now fully feathered. The orchard is pretty well mown at this point and the geese are starting to gorge on grain to fatten up for fall, they've gone from roughly a quarter bucket of grain per day for the 31 of them to closer to a whole bucket.

I have an ancona drake swap lined up for later this year, so he can cover this last two year's ducklings.

Incubator full of chicks should hatch while I'm gone. Things will be set up for mom to just plunk them into the quail shed under lights. These are mostly chanteclers but with a half dozen silkies. If I'm going to do silkies I might as well do seramas, which are the sweetest chickens on earth, but there are none to be had up here. Also Clyde the new rooster (his previous family got him as Bonnie and when he started to crow had to part with him) is doing well. He's a brahma, so he should get very big, but right now he's young and pigeon-sized with ENORMOUS FLUFFY feet. He's also smart, social, and I like him a great deal. I have not yet evicted the previous rooster from the bottom coop and put him in yet, I'm planning to do that when the chicks are a bit older, so right now he's sleeping under the truck canopy at night and hanging with the muscovies during the day. His crow is growing in adorably; I guess I have a thing for adolescent rooster crows.

The three boars have been shedding, I can scratch them with a rake and all the curly wool comes off and leaves growing-in guard hairs. I think they should move to the back to guard that entrance, though really Baby and Hooligan are the better defenders against bears. Did I mention Hooligan kinda bit me when I was stealing her babies? She didn't break skin or even bruise me, but she put her teeth on me in warning after I'd ignored her barking and other warnings. She is 100% a perfect temperament in this regard: she lets me play with her newborn babies if I'm not harassing them, catching them, and making them scream and she loves being scratched behind the ears but she can gauge situations in which it's appropriate to defend and does so with careful escalation. I'm just very impressed with Ossabaws in general, but also her in particular.

We do have at least two bears back there, one big and one small, that appear unrelated. The big one doesn't mind bear bangers, air horns, dogs, or yelling so I'm worried about what will happen come fall. Two bears in that territory is already a lot and it's only August. When bears go into their super calorie-seeking mode before winter they're less cautious and maybe it's not safe to have the pigs back there then? On the other hand the whole herd of pigs may actually be better defenders than the dogs, at least until the whole pack gels and maybe even after that.

The poor cats are withering away from lack of love and attention since I've been into the office several days the last few weeks. Also Demon is not a fan of a New Person in the house to farmsit and complains loudly when she's not around. I expect he'll come around. They continue to break down all doors into my bedroom to sleep on the bed, to my detriment.

Ducks are ducks. The anconas are in the covered area, and I want to make more covered areas for bear/lynx/raven/fox/coyote protection for the littles in future years. One broody ancona made a nest just inside the chicken house so I can barely squeak the door open and squeeze in and she will not be shifted. Everyone likes lamb's quarters weedings from the garden.

It's good? At least until the bears finish eating my neighbour's chickens and turn more attention on me.

I made garden signs for all my roses and gooseberries. Soon will do cherries and haskaps and apples, at least the ones I know the names of. These are signpost-style, with a stake and painted sign screwed to it. My plastic tags were not holding their marks, I guess sharpies have been reformulated, and so I lost some names that way. I lost some other names because crows and geese like the tags. So, wooden signs seem both practical in an enduring way and kind of charming. Now if only I had pretty painting handwriting, but I was not turning this into a stenciling project.

I found two more squash out there that looked pretty ripe, hiding among the weeds where they were sheltered from frost.

Josh helped me find a dairy crate full of relatively ripe cascade ruby gold cobs, so I'm calling that more of a success than I earlier anticipated. We'll be looking through the painted mountain today. The plants were definitely frost-nipped but I don't think the cobs themselves were harmed.

It's neat to be out in the corn and hear that dry, rustling noise of the leaves. Humans have been listening to that sound for many thousands of years as they bring in the harvest.

I've done a bunch of mixed pickles as documented on my preserving site, urbandryad on dreamwidth (I just keep recipes there). Basically I've done a couple gallons with my zesty brine at half strength for salt and sugar, a couple gallons with a lightly sweet brine, and I'll do a couple gallons with a salt-only brine. all have bay leaves and pepper, I forgot the garlic in the lightly sweet ones. Oops. The veg mix was largely brought up from the big farm on Josh's way from the city, it's more-or-less 1 part cauliflower, 1 part carrot, 1 part green beans, 1 part hot peppers, 1/4 part celery. The goal is a moderately hot pickle mix to eat with charcuterie, everything bite-sized.

Meanwhile Black Chunk (who has still not got a better name) had 8 piglets, and she's doing well with them. Lotta piglets this fall it seems. Ugh I guess I need to castrate, better do that while Josh is here. I will probably miss Tucker's calming presence for it.

A chicken in the bottom chicken run got huge adobe balls on her claws, they must have accumulated through iterations of mud (the ducks splash by the water a lot), dust (everywhere else in the run, it's been a dry summer), and straw/wood shavings from inside the coop. It took Josh and I roughly 3 hours to soak them (did nothing), chip away at the very edges with pliers delicately so as not to hurt wherever her toes were in the balls, and then finally pry the last bits off. I do not know why she got it and no others did. Her toes inside the balls were fine, though she did lose a fingernail by getting loose enough to shake her foot when we were part done and... you know, just don't think about it too hard, let's just say it was another weird and uncomfortable farming moment. She's good now, I gave her a penicillin shot for the one raw bit of the toe where the mud was rubbing and the toenail, I figured her body could use the help, and put her back in with everyone. She's lifting her feet ridiculously high as if trying to compensate for the weight that is no longer there, but is walking and perching just fine. Poor girl. Also I'm much less suspicious of cobb houses now, my goodness that stuff was durable. Clay soil, wow does it behave in unexpected ways sometimes.

Meanwhile I am going to keep one of the americauna roosters from my friend in town, and give another to a friend who has a couple hens and wants to let them hatch out more chickens in spring. That means 7 going into the soup pot this week, which is manageable. I've had the propane ring on the deck and that makes canning a lot more comfortable given the humidity situation in here, not sure if I'll can the roosters immediately or freeze them a bit but I'm more likely to can them now.

Asparagus planted. Daffodills, chiondoxia & relateds, and muscari ordered. These are all supposed to be vole-resistant, we'll see how it goes.

Averaged out, each year is better than the last. I'm more gracefully and assertively able to navigate my own life, my own desires, and a variety of environments. I have more faith in myself with each passing year as I continue to show up for myself more often than not, year after year after year after year.

I feel more self-possessed, not in the conventional use but in the literal meaning of the term. I am in better ownership of my self these days, and everything that comes with it.

All that said, these remain hard times. Bathtub Goose died a couple days ago. I planted a Tecumseh plum tree over them, and an Opata nearby. I miss them, they were so snuggly and loving.

Today one of the two new boars plus UV and another gilt of UV's cohort are going to a breeding home. Rounding the last one up yesterday took a ton of work, but luckily the first two walked right into the woodshed. I used a bit of pig psychology for that: I let them out of the pig fence into the yard and the boar went straight into the woodshed. I let him go back out again until he and UV started wandering around together, then he led her right back to the woodshed. I don't think she would have gone on her own-- the other one sure wouldn't.

Now that I know which of the new boars I'm keeping, the other one has revealed himself to be named Oak. I am keeping the bigger-framed one, not the smaller curly one. Interestingly, all my boars have a pretty curly undercoat but I only see it when they shed their bristles so the wooly layer is on display.

I'm putting twinwall polycarbonate on the greenhouse part of the woodshed, it had been plywooded up for last winter. I'm excited to grow in that space next year, and maybe to move the tomatoes into it from my deck this fall for a couple extra weeks of growing time. The twinwall sheets are cheaper (and more delicate than) the single-wall corrugated poly panels I used on the roof. They'll need to be carefully framed so the birds won't hurt them. They have a pretty neat appearance, a little bit like a Fresnel lens, so things are slightly distorted through them.

The americauna chicks are mixed in with the other breeding chanteclers in the henhouse. They're not old enough to breed or lay, but they are well feathered and lovely.

I have several new ducks. Hans the ancona was shooting blanks, or mostly blanks: I put several eggs in the incubator and few to none were fertile. So, I tracked down a new drake who came with the name Romeo and he's in there. The next step is to make sure the ducks are not in with the chickens, since the roosters may be preventing the drakes from mating. But, a couple weeks and I can set those eggs.

I also got a trio of pekins. They are huge beautiful birds and not super smart; they're more similar in size to the Chinese geese than to the other ducks. They've blended in ok, foraging in clover at the bottom of the garden and wandering around with the geese from time to time. They're too young to lay, I believe; I may need to wait for next spring.

The last batch of quail is about ready to go outside. I'd like to set another round of quail, a round of chanteclers (since no one hatched their own eggs this year), and a round of ancona ducks. I'd better get moving because I don't want to be doing that in winter.

It has been and remains very very cold here. It's still in the single digits at night (C), we had hail yesterday multiple times, and now that the incubator is off my house is *cold*. Chimney cleaning needs to go on the to-do list so I can start a fire.

The garden is doing... ok. If we don't get anymore heat the green beans will barely squeak in and the drying beans won't go. I'm starting to get tomatoes off moravsky div and I believe stupice and one of the cherries - maybe sweet aperitif. Cabbages look nice, gaspe corn has ears but I don't know if they pollinated, potatoes are huge and beautiful, zucchini are just starting (!). Beets look great. Raspberries are beautiful bushes and I'm looking forward to the harvest next year - they were just planted last year so there aren't too many berries yet.

Rounding up the pigs for sale also let me confine the pigs in the new field field… oh dear, that's gonna need a better name. The far field? Anyhow, that means their winter area is clear and I can split it in two. I'll need to take down a spruce tree and then I'll have the pig winter field and a field for planting haskaps in. The haskaps on my deck are looking lovely, so they should be good to go in the ground next spring. I worry if I plant them this fall they'll be eaten by voles and frost heave.

Anyhow, then I need a real solid winter fence for the pigs and we'll be good. In winter I can't reinforce the fencing with electric -- I don't get a good ground through 3' of snow -- so it needs to be pretty solid. On the plus side they can't dig under the fence when the ground is frozen.

In other fencing news, I caught the bottom of my 4runner on the slip-wire gate I've been using for a couple years, tore a piece off the car, and distorted the gate badly enough that it doesn't reliably keep the dogs in or out. Given my neighbours, that's a problem. So, proper gates are arriving Thursday and I hope to put them up on the weekend. This is one of the real daily-use life-is-better upgrades since struggling to lever the gate closed a couple times a day wasn't super great.

I think the piece I tore off the car was unnecessary.

So: I'm pretty immersed in my life. It's good. Hope you are as well as you can be too.