Consolidated Kansas

[tweetybaby2005]

I thought while we where talking about Gardens that I could share what I got out of mine Sunday morning:



Half went to a friend and then with the green beans, I fried some diced potatoes w/ onions with some leftover bacon and then added the green beans at the end! YUM!

Ahhh... I'm green with envy. Next year I'll try to get a garden going...

Sunflower - That sounded like a fun day out in the field and dirt road.

Trish - Your goats are misbehaving lately. First they refuse to go in the pen after dark, now eating your tomatoes! I need to make sure my garden is fenced next year. I know for sure one of my dogs likes to eat the strawberries so fencing is a must!

Talking about feathers, mine must be molting as well. When I first saw the feathers in the coop, I thought my chickens were killed by predators. It was like having a pillow fight and the feathers from the pillow spilled every where! Eggs are few nowadays. I am hoping the molting period doesn't last very long because I need eggs! Do ducks molt as well? I also find duck feathers every where. It is bad enough that I've to constantly clean up the dog hair in the house, now I have to clean up the feathers in the coop and their enclosed foraging area as well. Even the outside area is full of feather with the wind blowing.

I bought some "Vanillaroma" air freshener and hung 1 outside the coop. Not sure if it is the right one. It is the only one shaped like a pine tree. I also bought some fly traps and got one going inside the coop. This fly trap thingie sure works. I put it in on Sunday and it was already half full by Tuesday. It is not cheap by any means but works like a charm. Too bad there are never ending flies. I will have to say that having sand in the coop did reduce the fly population but they are still there, expecially the foraging area.

Well... another hot day here and many more to come according to the weather man. Stay cool everyone!

 

[chicken danz]

Unfortunately a molt can last as long as three months or as little as a month. It varies per chicken. The red stars never stopped laying while they molted which I thought was awesome. I'll start gathering eggs to hatch my own hybrids next weekend....if the girls lay at all after the move. If not I'll have to wait until they do. I told DH this morning it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Cause there are feathers all over the yard. The ducks are molting as well.
My tomatilloes haven't gotten any size to them. The husk gets big but the fruit stays small. I'm not even sure what they are supposed to taste like. I tried one quite a while back and it was kind of bitter. Maybe I've just waited for them to grow and they went bad??
So far I haven't had any I could use and there are tons of husks on the plants. My watermellon grew around them so it's close to impossible to get to them to.
I had a couple tomatoes from my garden the other day that hadn't moisture rotted or gotten chewed on. They were a golden tomato and they had the best flavor of any tomato I have ever had. Seriously. My DH doesn't like raw tomatoes but I think he would have even liked these if you could get through his mental blocks.
I got my peachicks moved to the pen with the white peacocks yesterday. I had divided a small portion of the pen last year and put them in there. I made a roost for the pen they were in but when I got there to install it one of my white peachicks had gotten beaten down and died soon after. Why is it always the pretty ones?? So I moved all but three of them to the pen. The whites are very unhappy with me because that is the side of their shelter they like the best. I installed another roost across the pen so both sides had more roosting room. Then I moved the biggest peachick from the house out to the smaller pen. She is cowering today. I may move two more to the big pen today and just leave her and the other white one in the smaller pen for now. It won't last long but maybe I can get my turkey pen built before they start killing each other in there.
I got a fan rigged up in the house where I moved the white rocks for my red star breeding as well. The girls seemed to appreciate it a lot.
We got feed yesterday but it still has to be shoveled off today. Yuk! That won't be fun.

 

[Trish44]

Some hens will lay through a molt & some won't. My Barred Rocks always have layed right on through & I have one white Leghorn that is also, but some of the others aren't. They're eating like pigs right now too, they attacked the feed last night like they hadn't eaten for a week.

I went out to start the mowing because the grass is way out of control after all of that rain & I was so disgusted. I had told my DH earlier that I need gas & he said he would get it tomorrow so bah the mower is empty too besides the gas can. So I guess the mowing will wait some more unless I go get it myself, but I really can't lift that full gas can too well. I guess the goats will have another day of good grazing in the yard.

It must be our time for teeth to break around here. Last night we were watching TV right before bedtime & my DH was eating some raw almonds, that is one of our healthy snacks & broke a tooth right in half. So this morning he had to call to get into see the dentist himself & couldn't get in till Tuesday. Hopefully it won't start hurting before then. He jinxed himself I think yesterday when he said he was waiting for the other shoe to drop after having to buy the water softener. After his tooth broke he said he guessed he knew where the other shoe was going to drop now. Geez, this has to stop.

My Barnevelder chicks are supposed to get here this afternoon, I'm praying they get here OK in this heat. I had thought maybe the guy would wait a bit to ship them, but he didn't. I'll let you all know how they fared later.

 

[Polishpal]

I'm back I was grounded

 

[Trish44]

Well my Barnevelder chicks arrived awhile ago & they are doing great! I'm so relieved, I was sweating bullets all afternoon & my stomach was in knots worrying about them. They're big healthy chicks & they're in the brooder now eating & running around. They seem to have weathered the two day trip in great shape, so I'm very happy. The guy included a little splash Barnevelder chick free & it is just adorable! I sure hope it turns out to be a hen. I will get pics maybe tomorrow when the chicks aren't so stressed. They were chirping very loudly after they got here, but I think they're starting to settle down now.

It's been just a little overcast part of the time today, so I don't know if that contributed or not but my hens have laid very well today, more like they were awhile back. I hope it wasn't just a fluke today. The Red Star hens I got the other day laid 3 eggs out of 4 hens the day after getting here, which really surprised me because they usually don't lay when they're relocated like that. The eggs were really big too, so that's great.

I went out & salvaged what I could from the veggies. I got quite a few really big green peppers & only a small amount of tomatoes. There were two yellow squash left hanging on what is left of the plant. The goats had destroyed most of the tomatoes eating the plants. They're mostly stems hanging there now, they look pretty pitiful.

 

[sharol]

Trauma today. Marlena decided it was time to move her 3 chicks into the coop with the big girls and the teenaged cockerels. They had problems with the ramp, and my head hen (Scout the Golden Campine) came out and helped me herd them in the right direction. Scout had made it clear that she wanted Marlena and her babies back in the coop and was keeping the away from their portable where they have been. It was really interesting to watch this evening. Marlena would head out to the hoop coop, and Scout would put herself between the chicks and the door of the hoop. I am hoping for the best. She has them in a nest on the floor near the pop door.

 

[cherwill]

Unfortunately a molt can last as long as three months or as little as a month. It varies per chicken.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's been over a month with mine so far.

My tomatilloes haven't gotten any size to them. The husk gets big but the fruit stays small. I'm not even sure what they are supposed to taste like. I tried one quite a while back and it was kind of bitter. Maybe I've just waited for them to grow and they went bad??

It seems like we've had a lot of tomatilloes where the husk was mostly empty. I've only been able to grow them this year and last year, so my experience is pretty limited. We get what seems like hundreds of husks, but it doesn't seem like a large percentage of those ever grow into usable tomatilloes. To me, they taste a bit like a green tomato with a hint of citrus. I usually use them in a cooked salsa. Someone here said they use them in salsa cruda, I think? If so, what are they supposed to taste like when raw?

So far I haven't had any I could use and there are tons of husks on the plants. My watermellon grew around them so it's close to impossible to get to them to.
I had a couple tomatoes from my garden the other day that hadn't moisture rotted or gotten chewed on. They were a golden tomato and they had the best flavor of any tomato I have ever had. Seriously. My DH doesn't like raw tomatoes but I think he would have even liked these if you could get through his mental blocks.

I don't know. I don't like that raw tomato taste, either. Every so often I'll try it again to see if I've changed my mind, but it's always nasty. I love them any way they can be cooked, though.

I got a fan rigged up in the house where I moved the white rocks for my red star breeding as well. The girls seemed to appreciate it a lot.

We were so spoiled for a while in June and the first part of August, we even turned the coop fan off! It's back on now, though.

It's been just a little overcast part of the time today, so I don't know if that contributed or not but my hens have laid very well today, more like they were awhile back. I hope it wasn't just a fluke today.

I hope it wasn't; SOMEONE around here should be getting eggs so they rest of us can have hope that we'll eventually get some again!

I went out & salvaged what I could from the veggies. I got quite a few really big green peppers & only a small amount of tomatoes. There were two yellow squash left hanging on what is left of the plant. The goats had destroyed most of the tomatoes eating the plants. They're mostly stems hanging there now, they look pretty pitiful.

My squash plants died quite a while back from a minor infestation of squash bugs and a major amount of rain. They rotted at the stem. We planted a couple more in hopes of getting a bit of a fall harvest. I'm getting a decent amount of tomatoes now, but they're small. They're Romas, but they look like those little cherry/pear tomatoes. We've had the most beautiful red bell peppers ever, big and thick, but the ground was so saturated that half of the peppers have rotted on the stem. Same with the eggplants. The ground has finally dried out enough that I hope the rotting will stop.

 

[chicken danz]

That's funny, Sharol. I've never heard of a chicken herder before.
I need to find a time when my broody turkey is up eating or something. It seems like she never leaves those eggs. I can smell rotten egg in there and I'd like to replace her eggs with a couple that are about to hatch....hoping to get her off of them. Like I said earlier there is only one turkey egg and the rest are chicken and duck eggs. She is actually growling and hissing when I open the door to check on her. Very serious business going on there. I thought the other turkeys were all done laying but found 4 eggs in the bourbon reds box yesterday. I'm ready for the to quit and rest until spring. They've all been molting and the midget white girls are getting their backs torn up. I really don't have a place to separate the Toms to give the girls a break.
My DH was telling me some neighbors were down at the creek about 1/4 mile from my house and found a bunch of half grown chickens there. They waited until dark and went back and caught them all. Have you ever heard of anyone dumping chickens like they do a stray dog or cat? No one else near here has chickens so they had to be dumped. And obviously they weren't there very long or the coyotes would have gotten them. That is just crazy. If people couldn't keep them they just needed to say they were free and they would have been taken for sure.
I sure didn't get much done yesterday. It was just so hot I just seemed to be moving in slow motion. I hope I have a little more energy today.

 

[chicken danz]

Cheryl we didn't get any where as much rain as most of you. We only had a few days that we got heavy rain in the middle of when the rest of you got rain. Every tomato produced during that time has been rotting. I had ton of squash bugs which took out most of a lot of my plants. The eggplants are just starting to put some more fruit on. I've picked one decent one so far. I'm not sure when to pick those either. They sure aren't getting as large as what you see in the store. A rain right now would be awesome. My lima beans are loaded with pods but no limas in them yet. My green beans have lots of bloom but no beans forming. Last year I had blooms but it got so hot and dry I got nothing.
I wonder if I pick some of these little tomatilloes if I could make something out of them. By the pod being open do you mean the bottom of it open or does the whole pod split and open? I've not had the whole pod open. When they get to a certain point they rot. If something usable doesn't come from these I probably won't grow them again. Lots of recipes call for them but I've done without them until now.
I've learned that my birds all love radishes and radish tops. I may plant some more just to give to the birds for treats. I've been pulling out these oversized gone to seed ones and the chickens even eat the radishes. The other birds eat all of the leaves and some of the radish. who'd have thought it.
I couldn't afford it but ordered some more dutch iris yesterday. I've collected iris for years. Eventually they seem to die out here and there or loose some of their hybrid colors. But there were several new ones this year I thought I had to have. I was going to move my entire iris bed this summer but never got it done. So now I need to decide if I want to try to amend the old one that got torn up by the fence builders or just build a whole new bed. Either way it means work I am really not looking forward to. My front garden looked sick all summer but it has been really pretty the last couple weeks. I have several colors of crepe myrtle that are blooming that are just gorgeous along with a little of this and that that are late flowering. It makes me want to get back into gardening again. My back just doesn't handle it well though and I don't have a water line that is easy to get a hose out there. I wanted to put a water spigot out that direction but it is on the north and I worry about freezing.
I got all the junk metal moved to a pile so I now have an area to build my new turkey pen. I need to rake and clean up some junk out there. It had been where the previous owners dumped all their trash so there is lots of buried stuff out there.

 

[HEChicken]

Sharol, that is funny about Marlena and Scout. Isn't it fun watching the dynamics of the mothers with their babies?

Cherwill, I grew tomatillos several years ago, and we used them raw in salads and they were the most delicious part of the salad every time. I loved them. Ours did not grow nearly as large as the ones you see in the store, but they did mostly fill the husks. The only problem was some little bug got into every one of them. There was only one per tomatillo and we would have to dig it out before cutting up the fruit to put in the salad so it wasn't that big a deal. We never had enough to make salsa.

Speaking of salsa, I've been making it by the gallon the past couple of weeks. The garden is producing like crazy and keeping me busy preserving instead of being online as much as I am other times of the year. Between the tomatoes, peppers and apples our lone tree is producing, I've been trying to preserve it all so it doesn't go to waste, and that has resulted in rows of jars of salsa and applesauce on the pantry shelves - looking very pretty

.

I had to process a cockerel the other day. He had cross beak - the first one I've ever hatched and I decided a few weeks ago that I'd let him go until he couldn't eat well any more, but I wasn't going to watch him slowly starve to death. The other day I threw out some corn and I watched him try in vain to pick up a single piece of corn. He tried over and over and over....but never did get it. So I knew it was time and I grabbed him off the roost the other night, kept him in a small pen with only water until morning, and then processed him. I decided to depart from the usual soaking in the fridge for 24 hours, to see if I could tell a difference in eating him right away, so as soon as I had done removing his organs, I put him in the crockpot with some potatoes and onions and we ate him that night. I couldn't tell a difference with not soaking, so I think I might skip that step more often in the future.

10 days ago I reported a hawk attack and that I had lost 3 chicks to the hawk. Well, there really was a hawk - I saw it with my own two eyes. Also, the birds were really agitated that day - which is what prompted me to look out the window and see the hawk in the first place - but it turns out, I didn't lose any chicks to the hawk. Sadly, I found their remains yesterday afternoon. I think what happened is that the hawk DID come in the yard and was going after the small birds, and in their panic they all ran to hide. The "missing" chicks ran to hide inside a roll of wire. In panic mode they were able to squeeze in there but once the danger had passed, they couldn't figure out how to get back out. I was so distraught yesterday to find their remains and realize they probably died of dehydration/starvation over several days, instead of a quick death by hawk, and I feel terrible that I didn't ever hear them or know to look there.

It looks like the heat wave is set to continue for a few days and then there will be relief on Labor Day. I need to mow again already even though I only did it a week ago but I started the mower last night and started to pull it out, only to find that one tire is completely flat. Sigh. So now I need to find the attachment that goes on the air compressor so I can put air back in the tire. Its always something...