California - Northern

[capayvalleychick]

Cheryl,

I'm nowhere near Half Moon Bay, but if you are, that is the best place on earth to find everything pumpkin!

My patch is very small and simple this year, so unless you are in the area, it's probably not worth a long drive. I was trying to lure Ron out here, since he's in the same county.

I do have several varieties of special heirloom pumpkins for culinary use, so yes, you can find a pie pumpkin!

You can email me to make sure I'm home or for directions, I usually am here. This weekend coming up is the Hoes Down harvest festival at Full Belly Farm, so I may be there for part of that weekend.

Dawn, if you are driving through Yolo County, on Hwy. 16, we are about 30 miles northwest of Woodland. I do have some fun pumpkins for carving, also.

Kim

 

[cherylcohen]

Oh cool, got it... sounds like you have a nice place, fun! saw the most amazing pumpkins at the heirloom show and yesterday at the eat real fest in oakland-wish I had more room I'd love to grow them

 

[capayvalleychick]

Quote:
You could grow one Small Sugar pumpkin plant for your chickens. That wouldn't take too much room and your chickens would thank you!

The pumpkins at the heirloom show were awesome. Did you see me there with my Dexter cow, Guinea Hogs etc. in the sheep barn? I was the Star.Rose Ranch exhibit.

Enjoy your sail!

Kim

 

[cherylcohen]

AH YES that's you??? I think I talked to you! Fabulously fun those piggies were incredible

 

[ronott1]

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Hi Kim,

Sorry I didn't make it to your place last weekend. I hope the Hoes Down was fun.

I wound up picking up two Barred Plymouth Rock Pullets from Laura. She lives on Road 29, close to Davis and the Yolo county Airport. She bought a 25 pack of brown egg layers from McMurry at Easter and decided she only wants to keep the dark brown egg layers. She has a very nice French Black Copper Moran Rooster there and some FBCM Pullets(not laying yet). One of my new chickens laid an egg that afternoon!

I will post some pictures when they are all happy together.

And I will try getting to your place this weekend if you will be there.

Bye,

Ron

 

[capayvalleychick]

Quote:
That's ok. I ended up having a crazy busy weekend.

House full of family, we went to the Hoes Down, and then friends showed up on Sunday. We went to the sausage making workshop, then sat out in the yard, drinking wine. They were admiring my Dorkings, which are usually shy with strangers. The chickens must have known that they were being talked about, because they came right up to my friends and were eating peanuts out of their hands.

Congrats on the egg and your new Rocks! Let me know how you like them, that's one of the breeds that I'm interested in.

I will be here this weekend.

Kim

 

[ronott1]

Quote:
That's ok. I ended up having a crazy busy weekend.

House full of family, we went to the Hoes Down, and then friends showed up on Sunday. We went to the sausage making workshop, then sat out in the yard, drinking wine. They were admiring my Dorkings, which are usually shy with strangers. The chickens must have known that they were being talked about, because they came right up to my friends and were eating peanuts out of their hands.

Congrats on the egg and your new Rocks! Let me know how you like them, that's one of the breeds that I'm interested in.

I will be here this weekend.

Kim

>>>>>>>>
the Hoes down sounds like fun! I make breakfast sausage--sometimes I grind my own pork and beef or pick up a pound of ground pork from the store. My recipe scales by pound of meat. You can put in quite a lot of different spice in the ground pork and play around with fat content to get what you like. I add the spices and then fry a small sample. If I did not get enough salt or something in it, then I can adjust. Sometimes I buy a 5 bound pork Butt roast and make a large batch. If I have trimmed some fat off of a beef roast or tri tip I save that and add it to the sausage. Today's pork from the store is very low fat

I have also made Chorizo but have not gotten into the casing stuff.

My 12 year old daughter wanted the Barred chickens--she likes the way they look. Growing up, we had RIR and Barred rock chickens. We probably had the Rhodbar chickens that Cheryl mentioned on the Bay Area Forum(not here, though she sometimes posts here too...). I don't really remember what the chicks were--it was going on 40 years ago

I just know that the Plymouth Barred Rocks were the mothers. I like them so far and the first egg was 1.6 ounces, close to what I am getting from my RIR chickens. They are three weeks younger than the RIR's and look like they are a bit larger.

One of them is still adjusting to my routine. The second night(Monday) she was roosting on top of the coop, so I picked her up and put her into the coop via the door. The next morning, I lifted the roof and she jumped up to the edge and jumped out. She seems to think the roof is the way in and out. It took her a while this morning to come out of the door, but she did.

They did not do well yesterday in the coop. That was the first in the coop rainy day for them. I am going to re work the nest boxes starting this weekend. I am going to add a front board so the eggs don't get kicked out. It has a 2x2 at the bottom now, but I will change it to a 1x4 like the small coop has. I am also going to work on making the nest box a roll out type

hopefully it will work.

Ron

 

[ronott1]

I have some pictures of the new chickens. They are Barred Plymouth Rocks. I got them from a Lady in Davis. They came in an assorted chicken pack from McMurray's and were hatched at Easter time. They are both laying eggs.

The one on the left hasn't been named yet(My Daughter's Boyfriend is supposed to name her. It will probably be an Oakland Raiders name...) The one on the right is Lilliah.

This is Lilliah with two of my BA's. The white on them is from when they helped me paint the Coop.

They are getting along fairly well. Yin and the others sometimes run them off, but no real pecking. This is Yin and Nameless.

I converted the nest box on the big coop to make it a roll away nest box. I just have to get them to use it. I added a front board and put the dividers back in tonight so hopefully there will be eggs in there tomorrow. Today two of them laied an egg in the big coop and five of them laid there eggs in the little coop

Silly Chickens!

 

[capayvalleychick]

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They are beautiful! I love Barred Rocks.

Kim

 

[cherylcohen]

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SO PRETTY