Friday after Thanksgiving

Yesterday, we spent a splendid day with neighbors and enjoyed our own turkey (fried), mashed Purgatory Ranch potatoes, homemade biscuits and home canned peaches (along with fabulous contributions from our neighbors).  Later in the day, my sister's family joined us.  While we love being with family, I cannot remember a calmer Thanksgiving.  It was beautiful to stay at home the entire day, let the kids run around everywhere, and not need to unpack.  We are grateful beyond measure for God's goodness to us in the past year.

Today, in the vein of being countercultural, James and a friend chopped instead of shopped.  Our Turkens, the original chicken flock at Yahweh Jireh acres, never proved to be a viable layer flock.  They laid well for a few weeks this summer, then quickly fell off.  For the last four to five weeks, we haven't gotten a single egg.  They are expensive to feed through the winter for so little yield, so the eleven hens were butchered today and are already nearly frozen in the freezer.  One rooster is left, and we are hoping to incorporate him into our freedom ranger flock, so maybe Darkest Winter and Soup will not try to kill Toeless when she joins their coop.

I definitely enjoyed spending the day with friends we rarely see, and am grateful to have one more task complete for James before hard winter hits.

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Evening Chores

Garlic!

Whew!  We made it, with more garlic than we've ever attempted before.

After the kids and I pulled mountains of weeds (mountains... I can only do so much when I'm nauseous!), James graciously tilled for us.  Since the soil in this section, although full of fabulous earth worms, is over some hardpan or rocks, it would have been difficult for us to plant in such a timely fashion if he had not tilled.

Russian Red

 We chose five pounds each of Russian Red and German Extra-Hardy.  Actually, I wanted Music garlic, but it was sold out and German Extra-Hardy was the substitute.  Maybe it will work well for us!

Laying out cloves for the girls to plant

 The boys and I spent the better part of several hours separating cloves, so the kitchen was rather garlicky smelling, but it was better to do that inside than out.

My garlic planting helpers

And the garlic made it in the ground!

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

A Day

Eggs.  We love eggs.  Averaging almost a dozen a day, I think I need to freeze some for the winter.

 Poor, outcast Toeless.  She's alone in the old turkey coop until her battered head heals.  She wants companionship, but I don't want her to die.

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Chickens

Ah, chickens.  I spend a lot of time thinking chicken, in case you didn't know, as I am the main tender of the coops.  James builds and moves, I water, feed, check for eggs, clean, pester James to add straw, and watch for sick chickens.  Somehow, however, James usually picks up on sick chickens first.

Take Toeless, our current hospital chicken.  She is an Easter Eggers pullet from the "Green Whale" coop. Recently, James and I both saw her laying awkwardly on the ground.  The next day, her head was pecked into a bloody mess.  We rescued her, isolated her inside a crate in the main coop, and fed and watered her well.  Our hope (my hope, really) was to rerelease with the others. It's worked before.

Not this time.  After four or five days of isolation, she was healing nicely and in good spirits.  We had noticed one of our Plymouth Rock chickens was muttering threats at Toeless through the door, but hoped for the best.  Alas, despite our caution, Toeless was a bloody mess within hours.  My mom helped me rescue her, and now we have to decide where she can live.

As an aside, she's called Toeless because, as a chick, her middle toe was partially severed.  We separated her for several days, and she reincorporated into this same coop in May with no problems.

Our current choices are to let her become a free ranger with the other two, but they have attitude problems and are bigger, so I fear for her life.  Also, I don't want a big free ranging flock, as they get picked off by predators and poop on our front sidewalk.  We may add her to our juveniles, who are less than eight weeks old, so she would be the dominant hen.  We'll let her heal thoroughly before we make any decisions, I think.

I'm also canning and preparing for baby, but these are my chicken thoughts these days!

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Turkey butchering, in two spells, means six turkeys in the freezer, most of them almost 20 pounds.

 Chickens love watermelon rinds, and they're a nice treat on a hot day.

 We ventured out to the state fair, where we were sure to check out the birds.

The poor chickens and guineas were so stressed out, I'm not sure I would ever want our birds to be displayed.  We also lucked out and caught a sheep shearing demonstration.  Much fun. 

Every year, James and the kids ride the ferris wheel.  I don't.  JoJo was angry that I didn't this year, but this mama can't handle the coming down. 

In the mighty winds Monday, we lost a large branch of this silver maple.  It didn't damage the deck, praise God, but it's one more mess for James to clean up, and he's busy!

Finally, someone had to get stitches in his eyebrow.  What happened?  That's an excellent question.  To the best of my knowledge, he tripped and nailed his face with duplo. 

James is currently renovating the white whale (chicken coop) for our junior flock, as they don't have an enclosed shelter currently, and last night the low was 43.  Chilly!

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

As the Sun Sets

JoJo loves books.

Tomorrow, these turkeys will be in the freezer.

First day of preschool.  Craziness.
And this kid is HILARIOUS.  He wore this shirt because he wanted to make his classmates laugh.

Found outside today.
The wind is mighty.

Beauty is...