Surviving Minnesota!

[Rhetts]

Hello all! I'm up in Duluth, just starting with this whole chicken thing! We've got an Easter Egger that we adopted, a few years old, and we are treating her bumble foot with the help of our awesome vet. And our others we raised from chicks, still only 12 weeks old. Turns out our Polish-Polly/Paul is a rooster... Not allowed in city limits, if we get caught. (Anyone want him??) So then we also have a BuffOrp:Buffy, Black Australorp:Astrid, Black Sexlink:Blackie, and Barred Rock:Opal.

Wow! I am impressed you found a vet to help with chickens. I went through a Heck of a time a couple years back trying to find ANYONE to help without luck. Total bummer at the time.
Polish roosters are so funny looking with their crazy do!

 

[lilmynx13]

Time for confession since I have been gone... I have bought chickens.. I answered a ad in the paper and then went and grabbed 3. One beautiful blue Ee. One big fluffy buff orpington And one silver laced wyandotte. I tell my self they are for eatting the apples that fall off my trees. They have a purpose and they are all pretty. Even my lowly Amish chickens ( production reds and cinnamon queens) to my crown glory a blue laced red wyandotte. They have a purpose. ... perhaps I will need more. I don't think my husband would kill me... They eat excess garden produce and apples right..

 

[jerryse]

Morning . Any sign of the cockerel BC ?

 

[MNChickMom]

Good Morning all,
Busy days here.....I'm sending my oldest to 7th grade....the big kid school where you shuffle from classroom to classroom. (Yes Mom is in denial.....and child is totally ready for the change.)

The contractor is scheduled to come price out digging a water line from the house to the coop/hatchery on Saturday morning. Last weekend we cleared some trees to start making room for the addition to the coop/hatchery. Unlike the overly ambitious Jerry, we will be using lumber from the local lumber yard.

In my years of dropping trees I have never seen a tree bounce and kick back....well on Saturday I saw just that. We chained the tree to a skid loader so I could ensure the direction of the fall, while my husband notched and cut it. The tree was a dead pine tree. Just as he cut through the notch it bounced nearly 2 feet straight up and started to kick back towards him. I hit the throttle for all the mighty John Deere skid loader had. I left a few ruts in the soon to be tore up lawn and the tree fell half on the chainlink dog fence. We decided to quit cutting for the day after that experience.

I sold a couple of Easter Egger mutts that I hatched out to a kid and his mother, who moved here from Texas. They are very interested in 4H as Mom was a former 4H'er, so hopefully we can keep these young kids interested in Poultry!

P.S. Anyone caught shaking rain sticks or doing rain dances will be shuned by the people of Central MN. (I know I should never complain about too much rain....but baling hay stinks this year with all the rain. Should be an interesting harvest. Maybe the local Cooperative will have their best stuck pictures. Winner receives bragging rights and a gift certificate to their store.)

Have fun and be safe this weekend!

 

[lvie]

BC - your Dad . . . . thoughts and prayers since early this a.m. With you and your family.

 

[Rhetts]

A question to Jerry or those that are canning the tomatoes.... You said you used blender first then used the food mill to take seeds out. What is a food mill? I was thinking about using that Sauce Master tool. Are they the same thing? I apologize for my novice questions.

 

[bobbi-j]

A question to Jerry or those that are canning the tomatoes.... You said you used blender first then used the food mill to take seeds out. What is a food mill? I was thinking about using that Sauce Master tool. Are they the same thing? I apologize for my novice questions.

I use a Saucemaster with fresh tomatoes. It works great and does the same thing as the blender/food mill method. Sauces the tomatoes and spits out the seeds and skin. A food mill (if I remember right - I don't own one, but have seen them) is basically an aluminum cone with holes in it - like a cone-shaped strainer - that you put your fruit in, then use a wooden pestle-type tool to mash the (cooked) fruit through the holes while skin and seeds stay in the container. OK food mill users, how'd I do? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[jerryse]

A question to Jerry or those that are canning the tomatoes.... You said you used blender first then used the food mill to take seeds out. What is a food mill? I was thinking about using that Sauce Master tool. Are they the same thing? I apologize for my novice questions.

I use a Foley food mill . The cone shaped one has been around a long time . I do not remember its name . Then there is the Squeezo and Victorio strainers . The Foley is a oldie but a goodie . Easy clean up .

 

[jerryse]

Ralphie must have fenced himself in . Somebody go let him out .

 

[BantyChooks]

Ralphie must have fenced himself in . Somebody go let him out .

Or he's sick again. Hope he can recover a bit more soon.