Recycled Dust & Old Neighborhoods

We had some business in Dayton this week, so while we were in town, we decided to stop at the shop and load up on sawdust. 

We know some guys that have a pattern shop.  Their trash collectors do not allow them to put their sawdust in the trash, so we told them we could help them get rid of it...  We use it in our stalls.  You know how I love to recycle!

We have to make sure we know what kind of wood it came from.  Some wood shavings aren't safe to use with horses.  And sometimes it's too dusty, so I just spread it around outside.

Looks like the dust collectors blew up before we got there!  Normally, most of the sawdust goes into this collector system:

Those black trash bags on the left are filled with sawdust, as is the door under the big funnel-shaped thing.  We ended up with seven large garbage bags full of pine dust and shavings.  That will top off our bin and get us through the winter. 

We don't keep our horses inside much.  Maggie stays in at night unless it's really warm out., and we keep her in during heavy rains.  The other two only stay in if it's icy out.  They have a run-in shelter in the paddock.  They don't let Maggie in it.

After we left the shop, we decided to drop in on a friend I used to work with.  He lives one block over from my old house in the city.  No, I wasn't a country girl until six years ago!  I loved the city then.  Now, I can't imagine going back!

 I always loved the big trees that lined the street.

 Fourth house on the left. 

It wasn't much, but it was mine!  Built in 1907, it was a DIY dream.  I left it for the burbs in 1999.  Then, after tying the knot with Mr J, we bought some old farm land outside of Xenia.  The rest, as they say, is history...

Eggszact Science

It's been almost six years since we moved onto this farm.  It's been a lot of hard work to turn it from an abandoned, overgrown corn field into a productive farm.  It's still a work in progress, but we're now reaping the rewards.  And even though we've had a lot of experiences over these six years, we're still learning everyday... especially about chickens and eggs!

A lot of you comment about the rich color of our egg yolks.  DJan, believe it or not, your store-bought eggs started out like these.  Yeah, a long time ago!  That's the problem.  The cooked eggs I'm showing you are usually around a week old.  The ones you get in the store?  Who knows.  Eggs, properly handled, do keep a very long time!  But, like anything else, over time they loose nutritional value and taste.  That's the big difference.  It takes time to go from the nest to the grocery shelf.  So, for the same reason we seek out fresh veggies from the farm markets, you should be buying your eggs fresh from the farm.

Most of the comments we get about our eggs are about the taste and the colors.  You've seen in previous posts how the brown eggs range from almost white to deep brown, some even almost mauve!  Then there are the green ones... some mint green, some sage, some olive, some aqua.  They look lovely on a tray.  Not only do they vary greatly in color, they also vary in size.

I've posted pics of the extremes, from the tiny egg I had for lunch to the one that had to hurt!  Aside from those, our eggs range from small to jumbo.  We don't separate our eggs by size the way you find them in the stores, so when we box them up, we try to mix the sizes so that each cartoon contains about the same amount.  We do, however, try to keep out the small eggs and the jumbos.  Customers really don't want the small ones.  When they open the carton, they want to see big eggs.  That's fine with us... the small ones are our favorites!

We've discovered that the ratio of white to yolk is not the same for the smaller eggs.  The yolk is a much bigger percentage in the small eggs!  When I had a friend tell me she prefers more white, I was astounded!  I thought everyone like the yolks the best!  Is there anything tastier than egg yolk sopped up with rye bread?

And the jumbos?  Well, most of them are double-yolk, and well...  you know.  Lots of yolk!  Actually, we wouldn't mind putting them in the cartons to sell, too.  Problem is, the lids won't shut!  Yeah, jumbo eggs take a larger sized carton, so we set those aside for our own use.

We've just learned there is a down-side to fresh eggs (...aside from the cost, the filth, the work, etc.)  You can't boil them!  I don't eat a lot of boiled eggs, so if Mr J or FIL have boiled any of our fresh eggs before, I don't know how they turned out.  Last week Mr J decided he wanted some hard-boiled eggs.  After the determined time had passed, we cooled the eggs down.  I always remove the shell before putting them in the fridge, so I thought I'd be sweet and remove the shells from Mr J's eggs.   OMG!  What a mess!  The shells wouldn't come off.  They stuck and pulled chunks of egg off with them.

We found out what went wrong from the resident chef at the Bengal Barn.  Something about the membrane not yet being detached from the shell.  An egg must age two to three weeks to allow air to enter and the membrane to detach.  Otherwise, you'll never get the shell off without practically destroying the egg!  So did ya ever think an egg could be too fresh?

Now Mr J has two dozen eggs set aside for Thanksgiving.  He wants some hard-boiled and some deviled eggs for the big dinner.  I've decided to split the hard-boiled eggs and lay them out on a tray like deviled eggs to show off their beautiful innards!  I'm thinking about using the double yolks for the hard-boiled.  Yum!

I mentioned proper handling...  Egg shells are porous and chickens poop alot.  These two facts combined spell trouble.  It is important to clean any poop off the eggs before storing them, but you have to be cautious in how you clean them.  If you scrub the eggs wrong, you can actually push the contaminates (nicer word than poop) through the shell!  You can't soak the eggs in water, nor can you let them sit to dry.  The water will soak into the egg.  I won't share all the details.  If you have chickens and want to know, just ask me...

Here's a cute tidbit to tie up this post...  If you feed your chickens garlic or onion, you can get flavored eggs!

Now, don't you feel eggstremely eggducated?

Yummy Eggsplanation

Thanks to the digital camera era, I can take as many pictures as I want to make sure I get a good shot...

...that is, when I remember.

Do you remember my tiny egg?

I promised pictures when I cracked it open. 

I decided to have eggs for lunch today.

 

I didn't expect a yolk, but it had a teeny bit of yellow inside.

It actually looks bigger in the skillet than I thought it would; although it is just a 6" skillet.

The other egg was twins.  I love double-yolks!

Yeah, I know it's a lot of butter.  Doesn't the little one at the top look cute? 

Well, not as cute as a baby chick, perhaps... but still kinda cute.

OK, I promised you an eggsplanation.  To make a short story long...

We had four hens to start with.  Once they started laying we had four eggs everyday.  Then we got the babies.  (Check some of my April/May posts.)  This fall, they began laying.  But we only get around thirty eggs a day, with almost fifty hens.  I thought maybe lots weren't laying daily, but intermittently.

A friend was over last night and offered his theory.  Some of our hens probably hadn't started laying yet, and this was most likely a first egg for one of them.  He hadn't seen one quite that small, but said that a lot of times the first egg will be a lot smaller than the others.  That's a relief!  If they all started laying these Cadbury sized eggs, Mr J would starve!

Another Day on the Farm

I've posted lots of egg pictures recently, but I couldn't resist posting a couple more...

Remember the really HUGE egg?  Well, here is its opposite:

I've seen eggs smaller than this in a robin's nest, but from a chicken?  I'll have to take a picture of it frying to show you later...

Maggie has been doing something strange lately, so I called the vet and arranged a farm call.  Yes, some doctors do still make house calls! 

This is Dr. Brett, Mr J and one very dirty Maggie Mae.  Luckily Dr. Brett had good news for me.  She has a skin fungus (a very simple remedy) and she has old-timer's...   Yes, she's just old and having a few problems that just come with the age.  (eightyish in people years)

Maggie has lost a few teeth, and it is more difficult for her to chew her food.  The strange habit she has developed is just a symptom of her food not being chewed well enough, and getting stuck in her throat.  It is time to make a major change to her diet.  She'll no longer be tossed flakes of hay while corralled with the other horses.  I'll chop grass hay for her.  She will also get soaked alfalfa cubes and more senior feed, perhaps in a mash.  Plus it's time to up the calories to add fat for winter.

Horses, just like people, have different nutritional needs as they age.  It's a bit more work, but it means better health, and perhaps a longer life.  Maggie is definitely worth it!

Farmer's Market Challenge

It's time again for the Farmer's Market Challenge hosted by Squirrel Queen at The Road to Here.  The purpose of this challenge is to raise awareness for purchasing locally produced foods. Be it fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meat, or any related items we want to know what's available where you live.

I have too many posts on our garden crops to link here.  Please visit my earlier posts to see all the goodies we grow for ourselves.  This year we didn't sell any vegetables, since we planted a lot more variety of vegetables.  We only planted for ourselves and to give away.

This is the harvest edition.  All our crops have been picked and stored for the winter.   We have enough green beans and corn in the freezer to last until next fall's harvest.  There are also many bags of shredded zucchini in the freezer.  Mr J uses it to make his special bread.  We gave away most of our Tabasco chili peppers.  It was our first year for growing them and sweet potatoes.  Mr J built a rack in the basement to store the potatoes.

 Danger:  Intense Heat!  We don't use a lot of these...

 

 

 Our fruit harvest is small, but tasty.  The trees are still young.

 

Even though the leaves are mostly gone and the garden is tilled under, we still have home grown food.  Our hens are laying between two and three dozen eggs a day!  These we do sell.  We hope to make enough to pay for the feed.  The green eggs are popular with the kids.  They are super yummy!

We are blessed to be able to grow so much of our own food.  We know our hens are not shot up with all kinds of hormones and antibiotics.  We know our vegetables aren't tainted with pesticides.  Our fruit may have spots from bugs, but I know it won't make our grandchildren sick.

Today, farmer's markets are gaining in popularity.  Almost everyone lives close enough to one to enjoy fresh organic fruits and vegetables.  I encourage you to take advantage of these markets.  And don't just buy enough for dinner, but enough to freeze or can.  It's not only a healthier choice... it's a tastier choice!  Fresh without chemicals is always better.

Please visit Squirrel Queen's blog to find other posts on the fall harvest.

Leftovers of Autumn

This weeping cherry is clinging tightly to its last few leaves...  I think it's almost as pretty bare as it was in peak color!

(Click on any photo to enlarge.)

The colors in the sky that day were dramatic.  Keep your sunshine...  I love the drama!

 

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

Cris, you wanted to know if they provided an answer...

Could it be that they were 'egged on' by their feathered friends?

Perhaps a better question is...

...why didn't the chickens cross the road?

Should I tell them the car is parked?

Do we need a chicken crossing light?

Sadie doesn't seem to care about the hens running loose.  They're starting to ignore her, too.  And yes, DJan, these are the same chickens that wouldn't go out the door!

As for who cut the hole in the fence?  Mr J himself.  (Lille, he says the J stands for Jenius,too!)  The chickens have scratched their area so much that a lot of the grass is gone.  Even though they walk around in their own poop, it seems chickens do not like mud!  We let them out to give them plenty of roaming space.  They return to their coop at night, like always.

Mr J was worried about Sadie and the cats...  What would they do to his chickens?  I laughed!  "Don't you mean, what will the chickens do to Sadie and the cats?"   Sadie does occasionally leap just to make them scatter.  She does that to the cats sometimes too.  She thinks it's funny.

The cats...  Well, the chickens aren't small anymore.  Benji is our best hunter.  She's responsible for the headless bunnies that show up in the barn.  We watched her sneak up on a couple of the hens yesterday.  She got within three feet of them...  They let out a squawk and flapped their wings at her.  She shot off into the woods!  I have a video of Squeaky walking up the lane as a hen is walking down.  They passed each other without turning their heads! 

I guess there's enough room for all.  Maybe we should all learn a lesson from them.  And the lion shall lie down with the lamb.