Let it Snow

I have lived sufficient years to know that summer is going to come to an end. Winter is coming. It will be cold again. I will wish for more layers of clothing than a human can practically wear at one time and remain mobile.

But at the moment, there are simply too many Fahrenheits running loose around these parts.

We’ve been under heat warnings and heat advisories and heat whinings for days (okay, the last part is just me). I sent this screenshot to my son the other day:

His reply? “Gross.”

The weather people tell me it is very important to stay inside and limit any outdoor activities.

I sure would like to.

I’m working on a lovely commissioned knit cardigan (Magnolia Cardigan), the first elements of the first Pemberley Correspondence, and doing more researching about fermenting vegetables now that I’ve successfully made sauerkraut.

Seriously, I can’t believe I did this. I left cabbage on the counter for weeks and then ate it. And nobody died.

Anyway, my point is that I could hunker down for weeks like it’s the deep dark of winter and hibernate happily in my air-conditioned cave just like the screaming red weather banners advise, but…

Yeah. Complaints would be registered.

In fact, it seems the more extreme the heat gets, the more we find ourselves down at the barn.

We do water checks at least three times a day. We top off depleted containers and cool off the ones that have warmed to uncomfortable levels. We set out extra ones so there’s plenty of access even when certain sheep (Georgiana, Kitty, Jane, Charlotte) decide to guard the biggest and coolest water tank, and other sheep (I’m looking at you, Lizzy) decide to topple one over for no good reason whatsoever.

I’m also making a point to go down at random times during the day to disrupt our resident stalker. Wyle E. took another chicken. And that stinker is gutsy. I was actually there when it happened, but out of sight, on the other side of the barn, up north in the new paddock where we’d just rotated the sheep. I was watching to make sure the Three Amigos (babydoll lambs Martin, Lucas, and Frederick) didn’t discover any fence gaps we’d missed and that coyote snuck into the front barnyard in broad daylight and nabbed one of the hens.

The audacity.

So now I show up and stomp around loudly at odd times, splashing water into containers I willfully clank against each other, waving mulberry branches defiantly at the villain I imagine is hunched in the cover of the trees, stalking my chickens. I’m sure I’m a terrifying sight.

Mostly I just want him to think, “Yikes…that’s weird. Maybe I’ll go for a rabbit instead.”

We’re trying a live trap, too. Coyote-sized, to go along with the proven skunk, possum, raccoon, barn cat, and chicken catching live traps we’ve already put into use. Last night was our first catch with the coyote live trap. We caught a possum. Ah, well.

I’ve learned that extremely hot days can affect chickens’ laying behavior. Apparently 70 degrees F is the ideal temperature for laying hens. Sorry, girls. You’re not going to see that for a long time.

I don’t know if the heat affects brain function for chickens like it does for me, but it may have been a factor in this incident:

I was stomping about in defiance of hen-nabbing predators when I caught sight of a chicken where a chicken usually is not. It took me a minute to figure out what was actually going on here, and I’m still not sure exactly how she got into this predicament. My best guess is she decided to burrow down from the Hay Cave (she lays there) and got herself in a certifiable fix.

One wing was outside the goat fencing, she’s mostly inverted, she wasn’t breathing especially well, it’s eleventy million degrees, and she’s looking at me as if to say, “Can we please just not talk about this?”

I found some wire cutters and started cutting the fencing because there was no pulling her through or pushing her back. After a few snips, I realized we had an additional dynamic.

This is not a svelte hen. This girl has some heft and every snip that released pressure on her body and let her slip down was putting more pressure on the wing still awkwardly positioned on the other side of the fencing.

A few more snips released the wing and I ended up lifting her up and rolling her out in a confusion of feathers and indignation.

It’s harder for me to distinguish chickens of the same breed from one another than it is for me to do with sheep. But I can now tell this Cuckoo Marans from her sisters because her souvenir from The Battle in the Barn is a bummy right wing.

She spent quite a while looking longingly up at the Hay Cave before eventually deciding, the next day, to lay her egg in the Wood Scrap Pile. (Of course, she wouldn’t even consider a nesting box.) She’s found ways to get to her roosting spot to sleep, she moves around well, and she’s foraging like a champ. She just carries that right wing a little low and loose.

I’ve named her Lieutenant Lefty.

I’m now ridiculously fond of her. Which means I’m more motivated to engage in ridiculous stomping and clattering and branch-waving behavior in an attempt to discourage hungry predators from looking at her and seeing an easy snack.

I don’t think the weather folks would approve.

Greg’s Got Questions

Thank you to those of you who participated in the last poll!

We had a tie this week.

The winning questions were: What practical (and impractical?) steps are we taking to deal with Wyle E? and What learning from Clarkson’s Farm has been most helpful or applicable to what we’re doing at Pemberley Farm?

I think I mostly covered the Wyle E. question above. It’s not pretty or dignified, but we’re trying to increase the obnoxiousness and frequency of human presence, adding more live traps, and confining the chickens who have a secure run within that space during the day. Most of the chickens free-range during the day, however, and are only locked up securely at night, so they’re still at risk from especially bold predators.

We spoke to our friend, Danielle (you really should see her chickens’ Instagram account) about our varmint woes. (Danielle is the lady Greg mentioned swapping chicken stories with when he guest wrote a few weeks ago.) She recommended a trail cam so we can actually see what’s coming and when. That may be a next step. She also told us she’s using a toy endoscope to look for hidden egg caches around her farm. Brilliant!!!

As for Clarkson’s Farm, I think the most helpful, or at least the most encouraging thing I’ve learned is that it doesn’t matter how many resources you have to invest into any aspect of farming. Some things will always be beyond our control. All we can ever do is the best we can, with what we know at the time, with the resources and knowledge available to us. But many outcomes and events are simply out of our hands.

Their positioning allows them to try all sorts of fun technological advances and animal breeds and barn setups, and any number of things that are well beyond what is accessible for many folks. But they still have to face weather, disease, bad births, and predators just like everyone else.

That may be part of the appeal of the show for me. Yes, you can play with all those expensive toys and plans, but at the heart of it, it’s still animals, plants, soil, and weather. And humans trying to make it all work together well.

This Week’s Questions

(As a matter of procedure, the poll function takes you to another page to submit your vote, so if that happens to you, you’re on the right track!)

Question 1: Yeah. Um. About the sauerkraut and “nobody died” comment. Since I did survive, just how much risk was involved last night as I was snarfing down my third incredibly delicious beer brat with that potentially poison fermented cabbage slathered all over them? I was more afraid of overeating than food poisoning but were my fears misdirected? And, to keep this a “real” question as you lovingly remind me to do occasionally, “What vegetables are you planning to not poison us with next?”

Question 2: I’ve been wondering about the behavior of the sheep around the water tank. What do you think’s going on there? Is it just guarding and maybe even a little bullying by the bigger girls? Or do you think there are other dynamics involved?

Question 3: Does each chicken keep the same laying spot or do they move around? And how long do they keep the same spot if they do? Until death do us part or just for a while?

Happy knitting,

Kiersten J