Miss Broody's Fate

Miss Broody enjoying the outdoors

I knew it couldn’t last.

Our one hen’s egg laying spree, that is. Miss Broody’s egg production this fall had been impressive: 19 eggs in 27 days! But as it turned out, the spree was very temporary.

This fall, our area experienced weeks of very poor air quality, due to wildfires east of us. The day the really bad smoke rolled in, she didn’t come out of the coop. 

Sure enough, when I went to check on her late in the afternoon, she was back on the nest. 

Laying hens, you understand, generally lay early in the day. They'll rest for a few minutes on the nest, then go back outside. So our girl was definitely not sitting on her nest to actually get something done…i.e., lay an egg.

Missy had returned to being Miss Broody again.

The smoke might have had something to do with it—maybe she was laying low to escape the worst of it. Just like the other birds and bees and bunnies around our place had been doing for days, staying in their hidey-holes.

Still, broody was broody.

In a previous Little Farm blog post, I mentioned my dilemma about Miss Broody’s future: a feeling growing stronger by the day, that it wasn’t right to try and keep her.

Chickens, like other farm critters, are herd animals.  I wondered if Miss Broody’s enforced solitude was also making her more broody than she would have been otherwise—no other hens to hang out with.

And her being alone day after day, month after month—especially if she wasn’t eating properly—would almost certainly make her simply pine away. The coming rain and cold would only make her solitary existence even more miserable.

Unless, despite all our precautions, a bobcat got her first.

After the other three big cat attacks on our flock, Miss Broody was constantly on high alert. And as the weeks passed, I think her anxiety had become entrenched in her muscle memory. Even many months after the previous attack that killed our hen Little Britches, poor Broody still could hardly eat or drink. 

Even when she was safe in her caged run, with me right there with her, she would continually cast nervous glances around.

I wondered if the bobcat was yet another reason she went broody so frequently—it's a hen’s instinct to be happily outdoors, scratching around and dust-bathing But for Miss Broody, being outside the coop was likely too nerve-wracking.

And I had this sinking feeling that eventually, the bobcat would kill her somehow: either attack outright—or scare her to death.

I didn’t want to lose her—I’d grown quite fond of Miss Broody, especially after all she’d been through. And I’ve long felt that a little flock of hens are the heart of your homestead.

Still, more than ever, I was convinced that this scrappy little hen needed a much safer, and companion-filled place to live. But where could I possibly find a good home for a hen that wasn’t even laying?

Winterizing Our Little Hen Operation

Now that the weather was turning colder, I was growing increasingly anxious about Miss Broody making it through the winter.

Before last December’s extreme winter storm, when we had five healthy, active hens, John and I had invested in some new chicken equipment--improvements, I was sure, that would take our chicken-keeping to the next level.

Water availability for the girls in the cold was always a problem—their waterer would freeze solid. We’d bring a bucket of warm water from the house out every day, but that would freeze within hours too, even when we put the bucket in the coop.

So our first priority was keeping the girls hydrated. Off John went to the farmer’s supply store fifteen miles away. He sprung for an electric chicken waterer—it would keep the hens’ water thawed through the snappiest cold snap. While he was at it, he bought a new feeder too.

The design of this new one, made of light plastic, would twirl more freely as the hens fed, thus more evenly distribute. Our old metal feeder worked by simple gravity, and invariably the feed would get hung up in the center instead of swishing into the feeding tray. 

Add more damp and cold, with the finer bits in a metal feeder would be more prone to freeze solid, the feed would likely get hung up even more where the hens couldn’t reach it.

So armed with the new feeder, John and I thought: Old Man Winter, bring it on! We were set.

Well, guess what. The waterer failed during the first northeaster. We tried a different extension cord, and John fiddled with the wiring to the best of his ability, but nothing doing.  

We’d wasted our money: ending up with just a very expensive plain plastic bowl.

And the new feeder?

It twirled so efficiently that the screw mechanism holding it together would unscrew, then the whole gizmo would fall on the ground, scattering the feed. Then you’d have to sift through the grungy dirt in the run to find the various parts.

John put the feeder back together numerous times, tried a new screw, and a new washer, but nope. Finally, he threw up his hands in frustration and we went back to using the old metal feeder. 

In a very vague kind of way, I wondered if our failed improvements were trying to tell us something...

I originally posted "Miss Broody's Fate" in the December 2022 issue of my new Little Farm Writer Substack. If you’re interested in more stories from the Little Farm, you’ll find them in my Substack newsletter—you don’t have to subscribe to read it! 

In any event, watch this blog or my Substack for more about Miss Broody in the future!

Photo by John F. Browne

 

Yule Lads and Christmas Read-Fest!

A festival of Jenny Colgan novels!

Holiday-loving folks might conclude I have a touch of Scrooge-iness, but the commercial frenzy of modern Christmases isn’t for me.

I yearn for the simpler gifting traditions of my childhood—you’d get one toy (yes, that’s one) a pair of mittens, a few tchotchkes, and maybe a pretty new pinafore from your grandmother, and you would be, as the Irish say, thrilled to bits.

Yeah, yeah, you may be thinking. This gal is also going to claim she used to walk 10 miles to school and back every day, with both ways uphill, etc. 

But when I was seven years old, I received something even better than a pinafore: a fuzzy winter hat with ringlets knitted into it (I had a pixie haircut and ached for long curls), and I was overcome with joy.

Anyway. It seems like presents and celebrations keep getting more expensive and extravagant, and the expectations for them keep growing. I always figured this had developed over the last 30 years or so.

Then I came across some holiday musings in the classic novel Howards End, by English author E.M. Forster. Here’s what his heroine Margaret was thinking:

“…Peace? It may bring other gifts, but is there a single Londoner to whom Christmas is peaceful? The craving for excitement and for elaboration has ruined that blessing...”

And this was from 1910! Not trying to be a holiday buzzkill or anything, but I have to agree.

Simpler holidays in the U.S. may have fallen by the wayside, but not everywhere—that’s why I like to check out traditions from other cultures. The celebration that I’m totally on board with is Christmas in Iceland.

Yule Lads

One Icelandic tradition provides fun for the kiddies: the legend of the Yule Lads.

Photo Credit: Official Iceland website

Starting December 12 until Christmas, children leave one shoe in the windowsill each night and wait for the Yule Lads’ visit. These Icelandic trolls—there are 13 of them—come from the mountains, one troll assigned for each day.

“Sheep-Cote Clod” starts off the celebration the first night, the 12^th. And every night after that until Christmas, a troll will leave candy in kids’ shoes.

Sweets and candy are only for good kids, though. Apparently Icelandic kiddos who are naughty receive not a lump of coal, but a rotten potato. As a gardener who has pulled many a decomposing potato out of the ground, spoiled spuds are disgusting, slimy articles! You would not want to wear that shoe again!

What I especially like about the shoe thing is that there’s no room for the latest gaming console or gigantic Nerf gun. 

The Yule Lad traditions do a double-duty: their purpose is not only to leave sweets, but to make mischief! They emerge from their mountain hideaways to also create pranks, mayhem and thievery.

For instance, the sheep clod troll mentioned above harasses (naturally) sheep. “Gully Gawk,” who arrives December 13, hides in gullies, then sneaks into cowsheds to slurp up the milk.

“Pot-Licker” (December 16) steals leftovers from where else? Pots. There are actually three “Licker” lads: besides the pot-licking lad, there’s a spoon-licker and a bowl-licker too.

“Sausage-Swiper,” arriving the 20^th, hides in the attic where people smoke meat and takes sausages, and “Window-Peeper,” December 21, peeps into homes in hopes of seeing what he might steal. (Interesting, that naughty kids get rotten taters but the Yule Lads’ naughtiness goes unpunished!)

Christmas Eve Reading Tradition

While Yule Lads are all about myth, as a book lover, I love the more down-to-earth Icelandic celebration of “Jolabokaflod”—a rough translation is “Christmas book flood.” People give books as gifts, and on Christmas Eve, the lucky recipients spend the evening reading and drinking hot chocolate, preferably in front of the fire.

Does that sound heavenly or what!

Just think, no pressure to put on a big holiday dinner or party, just curling up with a good book! My husband John, who’s also an avid reader, thinks it a great idea too.

I’ve got a perfect trio of Christmas Eve reads all ready, novels by my all-time favorite author Jenny Colgan, which are all about my favorite things: books, Christmas and a happily-ever-after cozy love story.

And now that I’ve baked my usual Christmas shortbread, gingersnaps and pecan butter cookies, John and I are all set for munchies while we read.

This week’s blizzard

We’ve been snowed in all week at our place, drifts everywhere courtesy of a savage northeaster, with temperatures hitting below zero. 

In fact, it’s been too bitter out there for anything but some firewood-chopping and a quick walk—so we’ve had to forgo a leisurely tromp around our place to find a little fir for our Christmas tree.

Instead, I’ve dressed up our leggy hibiscus plant!

Improvised Christmas “tree”

Given current driving conditions, our Christmas plans with family are looking iffy. So it may be the perfect year for the two of us to try out “Jolabokaflod” and celebrate Icelandic-style!!

To everyone out there who celebrates Christmas *and* books, I wish you a merry holiday and happy reading!

Photos by Susan Browne and John F. Browne. Thanks to the Cascadia Daily News and Librarian extraordinaire Lisa Gresham for the “Jolabokaflod” tip!

RSV Natural Prevention for the Holidays

Elf on the Shelf playing poker with her pals

Here in the peaceful Foothills, our usual countdown to Christmas is great fun—I love spending it listening to holiday carols and baking cookies. In fact, I was planning to write a holiday post for today.

But this year, my countdown days are all about fighting germs! I’m helping to take care of a little family very dear to me—and everyone in the house is down with RSV/flu or whatever this awful respiratory illness is. And let me tell you, I’m awash in bugs!

There’s no escaping them: being close contact with small kids, I’ve been coughed on, sneezed on, and handled used tissues—everything that comes with the territory.

Still, one week in to being exposed to one very sick adult and three very sick kids, I haven’t caught this illness. 

Here’s my secret to virus-fighting:

A terrific brand of Vitamin C!

*Twice a day, I’ve been taking micro doses of Vitamin C—about 10 mg or so—along with 1,000 mg of Vitamin D. 

The Vitamin C is a powder made from acerola cherry fruit extract. It’s gentler on the system than the manufactured C made from ascorbic acid, which more commonly available. You mix a wee spoonful of it in 1/2 cup water. 

*Any hint of a scratchy throat, I immediately gargle with salted hot water. Kind of messy, but it gets the job done.

*I’m also a fan of a turmeric hot toddy: I make a turmeric tea with a teaspoon of the spice in a 1/2 cup of hot water, mixed with a generous spoonful of honey. This mixture will also knock down an incipient illness.

It tastes revolting, but I chug it down, then follow with an extra bit of honey to get rid of the bitterness.

My daughter swears by something a bit fancier: this toddy has a schosh of whiskey in it plus lemon juice, as well as the turmeric and honey. She adds this mixture to a mug of herb tea.

*All week, I’ve been having my usual generous bowl of plain Greek yogurt for lunch (lots probiotics for the immune system)—and please don’t judge me, but I always add a few big spoonfuls of organic maple syrup to sweeten it. I like to tell myself maple syrup is better than sugar, but I don’t always believe it!

*For dinner, I’ve been eating a good-sized serving of cooked broccoli all week for antioxidants. 

Elf on the Shelf on her zip line!

*As we all know, stress is huge when it comes to catching bugs! So when I feel any stress coming on, I start doing some nice deep breaths to counteract it. I suppose this sounds dorky, but I think cheerful thoughts too.

Happily, my sick little family is not too ill for their favorite holiday traditions…So a great little pick-me-up for me: seeing the antics of the Elf on the Shelf every morning!

*One more thing: I’m terribly allergic to hand sanitizer…so I have no choice but to compulsively wash my hands! I’m a big hand-washer anyway, but I’ve really stepped it up. Nothing fancy, just lather up with an all-natural bar soap from the Co-op.

I hope all this helps you fight all the bugs floating around. And here’s wishing you illness-free winter holidays!

New in Audiobooks: the Little Farm Series!

Just released as an auto-narrated audiobook!

I’ve been trying to be more adventuresome lately with my writing. And in the last couple of weeks, I’ve taken a leap into the unknown with auto-narrated audiobooks!

Google Play, which sells ebooks, has designed a way to create auto-narrated audiobooks...which means the books are narrated by AI voices. 

This digital narration won’t be mistaken for a talented, human narrator; AI voices are best utilized for non-fiction books But I think the voices are actually pretty darn realistic.

Creating a quality, human-narrated audiobook costs many thousands of dollars... So an auto-narrated work is an easy way to make an audiobook affordable, both for the creator/author, and the reader. 

To that end, I’ve released my three Little Farm non-fiction books Little Farm in the Foothills, Little Farm Homegrown, and Little Farm in the Garden on Google Play in audio! If you’d like a listen, here’s a link to the LittleFarm in the Foothills audiobook.

Coming Saturday, December 10 is the 2nd issue of my monthly newsletter, Little Farm Writer! You can click the link to check it out. If you like getting news and stories delivered directly to your email inbox, you can subscribe!

This newest issue features the latest Miss Broody story, "Miss Broody's Fate," and the announcement above about my new Little Farm series audiobooks. You'll find a little something for the holidays too. 

As I mentioned in my November 23 post, I'll continue to share my usual gardening tips, recipes, and homesteading stories here at the Little Farm blog. But if you like your news and updates "fresher," you'll find them first at Little Farm Writer.

I hope you'll scope it out!

Miss Broody Sets a Record, Part 2!

Well, that new development in the coop I mentioned last time...

I discovered Miss Broody was actually sleeping on the roost instead of in the nest. It had to mean a big change: her broodiness was on the wane.

 Whatever the future held for her, she had definitely set a record for the longest broody period by far of any of our hens.

 The following morning, I briefly saw her outside in her caged run, hanging out on the big leaf maple stump. She was off her nest! Now that was a reason to celebrate!

 Her outdoor play time didn’t last long, but as the days went by, she began to spend longer periods outside the coop. Then one day, she appeared in the run first thing in the morning. And stayed outside until sundown—like a normal hen!

 Suddenly, she was powering down the feed, and was scratching the ground constantly, like a laying hen ought to. Our previously languishing Miss Broody had a whole new lease on life.

 I let myself hope she would start laying again.

 Each day, when I came to take care of her, she was practically pushing on the door to get out of the run and into the yard. She was pecking at clover and other greens like never before, and still emptying her feeder regularly too.

Yet what was entirely new was her feisty-ness: whenever I opened the gate to the chicken yard, this previously retiring little girl would actually try to escape into the woods!

And she was molting like crazy. As I’ve mentioned on my Little Farm blog, molting is a normal, cyclical process: a hen loses a lot of feathers while her reproductive system takes a break. It had been many months since Miss Broody had molted, and now, there were feathers everywhere.

Piles of blond fluff all around the run. Inside the coop, I had to yard the feathers out by the bucketful. She was definitely setting another record, this time for the most epic hen molt ever.

All I could think was, who is this chicken? And what happened to Miss Broody?

After several days of marveling at all the feathers she was losing without going bald, I noticed her molting dialing down. The next time I entered the coop to clean it, there was a surprise.

A small egg lying on the platform beneath the roost! Her first egg in months! 

However, Miss Broody must have forgotten what the nest boxes were for. So I moved the egg to one of the nests, to give her a clue, and left it there.

Two days later, I found a second egg. Right alongside her first one. So apparently the whole nest thing had come back to her.

And thus began Miss Broody’s egg laying marathon… First it was two eggs in four days, then three in a four-day period. Then seven eggs in eight days!

Her eggs started out on the small side—not quite as small as a pullet egg, but little. But they’ve gradually gotten larger. We filled one empty egg carton, and we’ve started on a second. Miss Broody has never laid with this much regularity before—almost daily.

And come to think of it, not one of our Buff Orpington flock ever laid as consistently as this, not even in their first, vigorous months of laying.

With all this champion egg production, we’ve stopped calling the hen Miss Broody. “Let’s call her Missy,” I said to John.

"Missy it is," he agreed.

It’s so rewarding to see this girl living a “henny” life again. And with organic eggs running from $6-$8 a dozen at the Co-op, it’s especially gratifying to have homegrown eggs.

I know all good things must come to an end. But for now, John and I are enjoying having a happy, productive hen at Berryridge Farm! 

Miss Broody Sets a Record, Part 1

I thought our hen had gone permanently broody.

In fact, she had spent so much of her life sitting on a nest without anything to show for it that John and I named her “Miss Broody.”

For those of you new to my chicken tales, Miss Broody is our one remaining laying hen here at Berryridge Farm. I’ve written about her rather colorful young life (and those of her gone-but-not-forgotten “sisters”) numerous times on my Little Farm in the Foothills blog.

To fill you in, broodiness is a state in which a laying hen’s chick-raising instincts kick in. But instead of producing eggs, all she wants to do is hatch them. If there are no eggs in the nest, she sits there anyway—day and night, 24/7.

Now, laying hens are pretty much all about eating, snacking, and scratching the soil, searching for bugs to munch on. It takes a lot of protein and nutrients, vitamins and minerals to produce eggs!

Unfortunately, broody hens aren’t really interested in food, or even water. So as the days or weeks pass without proper nutrition, their health and wellbeing can really dwindle.

I’m no expert, but it seems to me with that kind of dedication, the hen’s hormones have sort of tricked them into thinking they are hatching eggs. 

In any event, a broody hen doesn't actually just sit on the nest—she settles her whole self into the bedding, fluffs out her feathers, and sinks her head into her chest. Eyes half closed, she'll generally act like she’s in a stupor. But woe betide the person who disturbs her: she'll rouse instantly, and squawk or even hiss at you! 

 And since a broody hen completely stops laying, she’s just not earning her keep.

Miss Broody is a Buff Orpington—a breed known for a tendency for broodiness. Research tells me that a hen’s broody period is supposed to last about 21 days. The problem is, the broody hens at our place had really gotten into it—often staying broody for weeks and weeks on end.

 And this summer, Miss Broody was on a hen-brooding marathon: she would just not snap out of it.

 As August wound down, despite my coaxing to come off the nest and enjoy some weeds, and putting feed and water right under her nose, she was eating barely enough to stay alive. 

I had grown resigned to her fate: this poor little chicken was going to live out her days alone in the coop, silent, pale and sickly, until she simply gave up the ghost.

 But at the end of August, there was a new development in the coop... 

Next week: Part 2--Or you can read the full story at Little Farm Writer!

Miss Broody's Latest + a New Newsletter!

Yes, that's Miss Broody behind the white text!

My hen story "Miss Broody Sets a Record" is featured on my new Substack newsletter... Little Farm Writer is where I'll be sharing news and updates each month!

While I love posting here at my Little Farm in the Foothills blog, Substack makes it lots easier for readers to share a post or leave a comment. 

You can also sign up to have my news and stories delivered directly to your email inbox! 

My first (November 2022) newsletter includes the “Miss Broody” tale, and a second story is a "look behind the book" about my new Irish novel, The Fairy Cottage of Ballydara.

I’ll continue to post here, sharing my usual gardening tips, recipes, and stories about homesteading in the Foothills. 

In fact, you’ll find the first installment of the Miss Broody story here on the Little Farm blog this Sunday!

But Little Farm Writer will focus a bit more on in-depth stories--and in the future, some exclusive content. 

I hope you'll take a look...and if you celebrate Thanksgiving, here's wishing you a lovely day!

Protecting Your Food Garden from Sudden Cold

Harvest before the soil freezes solid!

When winter hits all of a sudden, like it did here in the Foothills this month, how do you keep your food garden safe and productive for next season?

Here are a few strategies that worked for my homestead staple crops:

As November approached, I was way behind on my winter garden care—I was so busy watering from mid-summer well into our hot and dry October, that I couldn’t get to my other garden chores. And during our extended stretch of smoky days, I was forced to keep my outdoor time pretty minimal.

Still, the real winter weather wouldn’t arrive for several weeks—plenty of time, I figured, to do my usual harvesting, trimming, and mulching.  

But those plans suddenly fell apart: the summery heat and smoke came to an abrupt end with days of chilly rain—it was almost cold enough to snow. While I don’t mind working in cold weather, the rain would make it impossible to keep my hands warm.

So I had to postpone my chores even longer.

Then a new forecast came along: a blustery northeaster was headed our way, with temps down to 14 degrees.

Holy Smoke. This kind of cold could be dire for an unprepared garden.

In any event, it was very abnormal for this early in November. And on the way was a dry system; the food crops wouldn’t get a cozy little layer of snow to help insulate everything.  

All of a sudden, my delayed winter prep needed to happen ASAP. The weather website said we’d have a one-day break in the rain before the blustery winds hit.

 I had to figure out how to pack several days’ work into a few hours—and what my most vulnerable and valuable crops would need to weather the cold.

Blueberries:

On our place, the berries are our most treasured crop—and blueberries are at the top of the list. Luckily, blueberry shrubs are very cold tolerant; in fact, they actually need a good long spell of below freezing temperatures to encourage next spring’s growth.

My 17 shrubs were still well-mulched from this summer. They would make it through the cold okay.

Strawberries:

After blueberries, our second most valuable crop is strawberries. And right now, my little crop of strawberry crowns, still sitting in their wee pots, were my top priority.

Since last summer’s strawberry crop had been almost non-existent, I was really invested in getting good production for next summer, enough for both fresh eating and freezing.

Being in pots, there was a good chance the cold could damage the roots. But to transplant the crowns right before a northeaster, I was risking the plants suffering transplant shock.

Next best option: I could bring the pots into the shop, where they’d be spared the worst of the cold.

So I pulled up a pot and lo and behold: the roots had developed so well they’d grown all the way through the holes in the bottom of the pots and into the soil of the beds.

Well, there would be no transplanting these babies—the pots would have to stay where they were.

But how to keep the roots from freezing?

I raked up in a wheelbarrow-full of maple leaves that had just fallen from our October Glory tree, and piled the leaves around the pots. Then since the Northeaster would surely blow the leaves to either the other side of the yard or to proverbial kingdom come, I weighed down the leaves with short pieces of lumber.

I also had crowns in 1 gallon pots that had been planted much later, so I figured their root systems were still pretty vulnerable. I dug a shallow depression in an empty bed just south of the shop, where there would be good protection from the wind. Then set the pots close together in the shallow hole in a group, and heeled up the soil around the pots.

After adding more leaves all around this group of pots, I weighed this arrangement down with lumber too.

Okay, I had done all I could for the strawberries. Next, another berry: 

Marionberries:

Our largest marionberry is the most productive plant in the garden.

My concern was that the plant hadn’t had a chance to adjust to the cold—but that was out of my hands.

But good maintenance would help—clipping all the spent canes, and tying up the new ones. But that was a fall chore I’d left half-done. And I needed to finish it today: the high wind will whip around the spent canes with the razor sharp thorns, thus abrading the new canes.

It’s not a quick process, to measure out some string or cord, tie up the canes and not get a zillion lethal thorns stuck in the skin of your hands. But luckily I’d left pieces of cord (from tying the bearing canes up this summer) on the wire supports, and that sped up the process.

Late Apples:

Many of our Florina apples weren’t ripe until the last of October/early November. And after a bear got our last three harvests, I was determined to save this year’s for us. Florinas are excellent storage apples, so we’d be set for weeks.

Besides, the price of organic apples at the store will break the bank!

When I heard temps would drop to the teens, I knew the fruit still on the tree would turn to mush. You can bet I picked those puppies immediately! 

Spinach seedlings:

Next was my fall-sowed spinach—wintered over spinach, which is so sweet by the time the leaves start growing in April, is my favorite Berryridge Farm vegetable. But as hardy as spinach is, these tiny spinach seedlings wouldn’t have had time to adjust to temps in the teens.

This fall’s crop had almost been a bust—critters had been eating the tiny seedlings as soon as the first true leaves sprouted. But I had a couple of dozen that had survived. I surrounded each tiny plant with chopped leaves for mulch, and sprinkled compost on top to weigh down the leaves.

Parsnips:

Now, onto the parsnip bed. Parsnips are another one of those crops I treasure because I can’t bring myself to pay $4 a pound for the brown-tinged roots you find at the store.

My crop was small this year—the same critters who had nibbled my spinach had also snacked on the parsnip sprouts—so I wanted to ensure it was John and me who got to eat them!

Happily, parsnips are incredibly cold hardy, but once the soil freezes solid, you can’t get those roots out for love or money. And I wanted to have a few on hand for some vegetable soup I was planning--and not wait for another three weeks to harvest any. 

As the light waned, I pulled out about a dozen. I chopped off the tops, and used them as mulch: set them on the soil I’d just disturbed with the harvesting process. Finally, I could wind things up.

By the time I was putting away my tools, the pink streaks of sunset had already faded to gray. Then I remembered the one crop I’d forgotten.

Potatoes:

Now, spuds are easy enough to find at the store year round. But the price of organic potatoes had been going nowhere but up this year, and homegrown taters are amazingly good.

We’d had another complication with this year’s crop: with our super warm fall, the foliage of half the crop kept growing into October, instead of dying back weeks before—as it should have. 

Since its recommended that you wait until the tops have withered before harvesting, most of my crop was still in the ground.

Retrieving my hand fork, I harvested one hill and managed  to unearth three nice sized specimens without spearing any.

However, the darkness fell so fast I couldn’t see what I was doing. So I had to leave the rest of the crop in the ground. I gathered the brackenfern I'd used as mulch covering the bed and spread it on those last unharvested hills. 

Hopefully, this mulch and the several inches of soil covering the potatoes would keep them from freezing.

It was dark by the time I finished. But as I went inside and started shedding all the layers of shirts/sweatshirt/jacket/hat and so on, I felt pretty positive that I could sleep easy that night: the most important plants had an excellent chance of making it through the cold just fine.

As you can probably tell, mulch is a big plus when it comes to winter garden prep! If you’d like more information, I have a chapter about mulching in my gardening guide, Little Farm in the Garden. Just click the book cover on the right for a free copy!  

New Ballydara Novel is 30% Off!

Book 7 of the Ballydara series

Four of my books, including my latest Irish novel The Fairy Cottage of Ballydara, have been selected for a special ebook promotion! 

My Village of Ballydara romantic novels The Galway Girls and Becoming Emma, plus my second homesteading memoir Little Farm Homegrown, are also part of Kobo Book’s November 30% Off Sale.

I'm especially delighted about this promo because it features the Special Edition of Becoming Emma: this edition includes two connected, novelette-length short stories, The Secret Well and The Christmas Visitor--both prequels to The Fairy Cottage of Ballydara! 

To see the promotion, visit Kobo Books, and scroll down to Fiction for the novels, and Non-Fiction for Little Farm Homegrown. 

The 30% off Promo Code is 30NOV. 

The promotion lasts until next Tuesday, November 22, 2022. In the midst of all the holiday hustle and bustle, I hope you get a chance to check it out!

Book 4 of the series

 

Included in the Special Edition of Becoming Emma

Book 6.5 of the Ballydara series

Book 2 of the Little Farm gardening books

Smoked Out, Part 2

Photo by Pixabay

Here in the Foothills of the Cascade Mountains, this fall had not been fun. Smoke nearly every day, and dry as a bone. 

Then came a fresh twist: The Smell.

In our neighborhood, a new smell drifted in, one that was actually worse than smoke—if that’s possible.

Rotting manure.

Now I don’t mind the smell of fresh livestock manure. We live in an agricultural county, and driving along the country roads, the smell often tinges the air. It may not smell great, but it means farmers are raising food!

Our neighbor, who has a small herd of cattle, occasionally spreads manure on his pasture just down the hill from us. For John and me, it’s not at all bothersome.

As I understand things, even a large amount of manure, properly managed, i.e., regularly turned and aerated, shouldn’t smell that bad.

But this smell was absolutely foul. As if a ginormous amount of animal waste had been stored in a covered pile, with no way to properly decompose, then suddenly bulldozed into the open air.

Since we’d never, ever smelled this before, I had to wonder: where in the heck was this stench coming from? The wind was from the east-northeast, so the source had to be located in the same direction.

Then it came to me. There’s a chicken operation about ¾ of a mile from our house as the crow flies, located to our northeast: a long, low, windowless animal enclosure. On my daily bikerides, the building is only a couple hundred yards from the road.

I’d never caught any unpleasant odors from the place before.

Yet, now, it made sense that this operation was the culprit. I’m guessing the chicken farmer finally shifted months of stored chicken manure out of the shed and piled it outside. Now it wasn’t the smoke that had me keeping the windows closed—it was that horrible smell.

As October wore on, John and I would search the skies for anything resembling a raincloud. Even a little shower would help: moisture that would rinse some of the smoke or stench from the air. We’d get a few clouds here or there, but nature remained stubborn.

With our area’s unusual heat, and not even a drop of rain, the wildfires a hundred miles away were still going strong.

October 15 dawned. The smell of smoke was more pervasive. You could feel the bite of it in your nose, a slight rawness in your throat. The manure smell was stronger than ever, so we knew the dreaded east wind had arrived.

The next morning, thick, gray smoke hung in the air.

John and I checked the forecast, and there was the ominous link in red: Hazardous Weather Conditions.

It wasn’t just in our county. It was up and down the entire western side of the state. Everyone, not just children or elderly, or those with respiratory conditions, but all residents, were advised to stay indoors. An keep windows and doors tightly shut.

Well, I didn’t. We’d been busy with family for a number of days, so with my usual “no guts no glory” attitude, I tended to our hen, then went out on my bike.

The mature woods on both sides of the road looked just like in the photo above: the light shone through the trees in “Buddha rays,” but instead the lovely effect created by sunshine, it was smoke.

As soon as I returned, since I’d been away from my watering routine, my baby strawberries and spinach needed a good drink.

So out I went. Thinking I was being smart, I wore an N-95 mask, and figured all would be well.

It wasn’t.

I started feeling ill. Queasy. And my chest hurt.

I’d really pushed my luck. I went inside and drank lots of water. The queasiness began to ease. But I still had an ache in my chest.

I Googled my symptoms… and it looked like I had mild carbon monoxide poisoning. I realized how stupid I’d been. I’m no spring chicken, and going out in smoke like this, I’d put my health at risk.

The next day the smoke was worse. The foothills surrounding our place had disappeared; visibility was minimal, maybe a few hundred feet at most.

And my chest still ached. So you can believe my windows were shut tighter than a high-security prison.

All the same, I feel I shouldn’t complain, or make a big deal out of it. I truly cannot imagine how bad the smoke must be to the locals who experience wildfires practically in their backyards. Or people in other states, who live in wildfire-prone areas and live in constant fear of fire.

Or worst of all, folks who have lost their loved ones and homes, their pets or livestock to wildfire.

But I was starting to get an inkling. And with this lengthy drought, and the vast amount of growth that creates fire fuel, I knew that wildfires, very rare for our side of the state, could come far closer than they ever had before.

After two days, the ache in my chest eased. The smoky days were still unseasonably warm, but nights were chilly now. The clouds of smoke obscuring the sun meant there was sunshine to warm the house.

John and I couldn’t run the heat—to operate, our heat pump system pulls in outdoor air, and we couldn’t risk bringing more smoke inside. As for running the woodstove, there was not only an outdoor burn ban on, but an indoor one.

Not that John and I wanted to fire up the stove—the last thing we wanted was to allow one more molecule of smoke into the atmosphere. So our place was freezing.

The water heater, with the same general kind of system, was already bringing traces of smoke inside the house. I couldn’t do the laundry either—the dryer vent would expose any items inside the dryer to smoke.

Days passed, and this outdoor/nature girl was feeling like a prisoner inside my own house. Hoping for a breakthrough, I would read the smoke reports online. I discovered our state’s Air Quality Index (AQI), which has a scale from 0-400, generally sits between 0-50.

This week, in our area, the AQI was over 300. Even with all the summertime smoky episodes John and I had seen since 2017, I’d never experienced smoke like this. Or had been shut up indoors this long.

I certainly couldn’t water the garden. I’d learned my lesson; not even my precious strawberry crowns were worth lung damage.

And the smoke just sat there: the air was perfectly still. No trace of life outside; the birds and bees had gone into hiding. No sign of a rabbit or chipmunk, not even the sound of a barking dog. I felt caught in a bad, post-apocalyptic dream.

Would this horrible smoke and stillness never ease?

The fifth day of extreme smoke, three weeks into October, rain was forecast. It was cloudy, but the clouds actually resembled real ones. First a little shower arrived. Slowly, the landscape began to emerge from the pall of smoke. You could start making out the outline of the foothills, then real trees.

We’d gone 11 weeks and two days without any real rain. The forecast for that day had been spot on—the long overdue fall rains had finally arrived.

The blessed rain, washing the smoke away.

Since the rain returned, we’ve had cold days with several inches of precipitation. When the rain clouds dispersed, nighttime temperatures dipped into the 20s.

It’s like we went from summer straight to winter. From wearing shorts to long johns.

As I write this, it’s pouring rain, but I’m loving it. John’s building a fire in the stove. In a few minutes, I'm going to bundle up, get the umbrella, and go for a bracing walk. And just like I do every time I go outside now, I’ll take deep lungfuls of the clean, moist air.

I’ll never again take it for granted.

Socked In and Smoked Out

Photo by Pixabay

The lack of rain wasn’t all that worrisome…

As this past summer moved toward fall, things were pretty dry. We’d had a good rainstorm in mid-July, and another one in early August.  By the second week of September, though, we had gone 5 ½ weeks without more than a brief shower.

I hesitate to use the word “drought,” when I know there are many parts of the U.S. that haven’t had a good rain in years. But around here, our 10 months of abundant rain each year and resulting lush growth guarantees an enormous amount of wildfire fuel.

Although all these dry weeks was a concern, it was September, after all. The fall rains were due any day now.

And not a moment too soon. On the eastern side of our state, the wildfires were already out of control. Yet in our county, with the westerly summertime breezes, you never smelled a puff of smoke.

Then came the first big summer northeaster, September 10. Dry hot winds blew, and brought heavy clouds of smoke into our county from the fires east and northeast.

The smoky air in our neighborhood looked a lot like what’s in the photo above.

Around here, the smoke was bad enough that residents were advised to stay indoors. But that afternoon, there came a reprieve—the wind changed direction and the smoke drifted eastward again.

Still, traces of smoke lingered. For weeks, you could see s light blue haze around the foothills. A slightly acrid smell was everywhere. And it was warm and sunny day after day after day.

I generally keep the windows open day and night during the warm months—I want to enjoy all the fresh air I can before the cold months. This fall, however, there was very little fresh air to be had.

Now and then, a breeze from the west would pretty much clear the air, and I’d joyfully open the windows again. When I was outside, I’d take deep breaths of the clear air. But those spells would last only a day or two.

Then the smoke would drift back. Sometimes by nightfall, the fallen dew would clear the air enough so I could crack the windows. Still, after an hour or two, you could smell the smoke again. John and I would have to close the windows before we turned in, so we wouldn’t wake up to a smok-filled house. 

By the time September gave way to October, our region had gone over two months without rain. The grass and weeds were burnt yellow. There was no real October color: the vine maples that always wore a reddish-orange glow went straight from green to dark brown; the same goes for the usual golden clouds of big leaf maple foliage. The leaves had simply turned dark and fallen.

The woodlands’ understory just looked crispy.

The lack of rainfall was starting to seem like a real drought. (For west of the Cascade mountains.) As the light, hazy smoke made the dry landscape seem even drier, my anxiety about running out of water began in earnest.

Our well had gone dry our first year here, on October 6^th. The date, you can imagine, is burned in my memory.

This year, each day, I did my garden watering rotation, but only the most vulnerable crops got a drink: root crops, the late summer spinach seedlings, the tomatoes, and without fail, the blueberries and caneberries. And my baby strawberry crowns, set into little pots, needed daily water.

If I’d known how dry it would be, I sure would have planted them in much larger containers!

The asparagus have very deep roots, so I could water every two weeks instead of weekly. I could see the orchard trees were getting stressed, but I just had to let them tough it out.

Spending all my outdoor time watering, I didn’t have time to weed. Or prep any beds. No opportunities to enjoy the usual early fall pleasures of crisp sunny days or autumn showers, of chilly nights and cozy sweaters, of foggy mornings, watching the wispy fog fingers drift around the foothills.

In the garden, I would have loved a break from watering, but was hot for October: in the 70s and 80s. And still dry as a bone.

Then came a fresh twist. The Smell...

There's more to the story...so Part  2 of "Smoked Out" will appear next week!

Samhain, the Irish Halloween, Scary Reads, and other Halloweeny stuff!

Not a banshee, but a cool ghost! Thanks to Pixabay

With Halloween 2022 just hours away, the newly-released Irish film, “The Banshees of Inisherin,” got me thinking about the famed banshee spirits of Irish mythology. Although I love Irish movies, I won’t be viewing this one.

Spoiler alert for Wikipedia fans: the entire plot is online! But I’m glad I read the article. “Banshees” looks far too grisly for a lightweight like me (I pretty much can’t watch horror, gore, or violence of any kind). I’d rather consider the dark side of Halloween and All Hallow’s Eve from a safe distance.

Starting with the “Irish Halloween,” Samhain: it’s the ancient Celtic festival signaling the beginning of winter. Pronounced “shahv-nah,” Samhain begins not with the winter solstice, but with the first of November—the turning point into the dark time.

A note on pronunciation. I like to get this stuff right, and many of those in the know contend that Samhain is pronounced “sow-win.” But one Irish Gaelic expert I discovered, whose native language is Irish, swears by “shahv-nah.” So that’s what I’m going with. However, everyone seems to agree that Samhain is most definitely NOT pronounced the way it looks, i.e., “Sam-hayne”!

Anyway, Samhain sounds way more grim than the modern Halloween we know and love.

The night before Samhain, Hallow’s Eve, it was thought spirits walked the earth. Apparently the ancient Celts would dress in disguises, so any evil entities couldn’t recognize them. Communal bonfires were also part of the holiday, thought to ward off evil spirits too. On the way home from the bonfire, people would put a candle in a hollowed-out turnip to keep ghosts away.

Interestingly, the Scots used not turnips but pumpkins, and brought that tradition to the U.S.

Hallow’s Eve is more fully explained in the book Irish Cures, Mystic Charms and Superstitions, by Lady Wilde, mother of nineteenth-century author Oscar Wilde, forever famous for his creepy novella, The Portrait of Dorian Gray.

Terrific Irish Reading!

Lady Wilde describes Samhain in a far more ominous way. The night before, on Hallow’s Eve, it’s not safe for people to go near cemeteries, or even leave home after dark, or ghosts will pursue them.

(There goes trick-or-treating!)

Also that night, the dead will rise from their graves and go forth among those living. The dead can even have some kind of weird power over the living, and if they wanted, can do harm to those who are alive. And worse, “take revenge for any wrong done to them while they lived.”

At midnight, the dead will drink wine from fairy cups, and in their mad joy to be “alive” again, “dance in their white shrouds to fairy music” until daybreak.

Not my kind of Halloween at all.

Dia de Los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, sounds pretty foreboding, and somewhat similar to the Celtic Hallow’s Eve. Yet it’s actually far more cheerful than scary. As I understand this Mexican tradition, families visit the graves of those who have passed, share treats together, and revisit joyful memories. Now this is a tradition I can happily embrace.

As for more Halloween-themed reads, I highly recommend a chilling vampire novella, Carmilla, by another nineteenth-century Irish author, Sheridan La Fanu—a story that predates Bram Stroker’s Dracula by many years. You can find it, along with The Portrait of Dorian Gray, in The Oxford Book of Irish Literature. 

And famed Irish poet W.B. Yeats compiled a quite extraordinary volume or prose, Irish Folk and Fairy Tales. Anything you want to know about banshees (the fairy spirits of death and doom), pookas (a phantom fairy/goblin that can be a changeling and a trickster), and the fairy race, you’ll find it here!

However you celebrate, Happy Halloween! 

National Pumpkin Day--October 26!

Now that pumpkin pie spice-flavored food and drink items are everywhere, it makes sense to celebrate this amazing vegetable!

I like pumpkin pie spice as well as the next person--but I think it belongs best where is was intended: in pumpkin pie. Preferably homemade. And with Thanksgiving just around the corner, it's time to get serious about the pie that makes the holiday!

This post is from Thanksgiving 2021, but I hope you--if you like your sweets as much as I do--think it's worth a rerun. So here we go:

When it comes to my Thanksgiving pies, I'm a traditionalist. 

Sure, pumpkin cheesecake, or pumpkin pie with a cookie crust or chocolate somewhere in there sounds yummy. But give me the basic pumpkin pie recipe on the Libby's canned pumpkin label and I'm your girl. 

Still, I don’t follow the recipe to the letter. A few years ago, I figured out two things simultaneously: 1) evaporated milk didn't really agree with me, and 2) local whipping cream (not the ultra-pasteurized cream grocery stores generally carry) makes the most amazing pumpkin pie you'll ever eat. 

I also concluded that any given dish can only be as good as the ingredients. So for every step of the process, I try to work in one or more high-quality ingredient. 

For two pumpkin pies, I prepare two large or deep-dish pie crusts, using butter, not shortening, and organic, locally-milled flour, in glass pie pans.

Once I've made my crust, I follow Libby's recipe (with a few tweaks), with the best ingredients I have on hand.

4 farm-fresh large eggs from our own hens, lightly beaten by hand

1 1/2 cups organic granulated sugar (A few times, I reduced the sugar by 1/4 cup and substituted a little organic maple syrup and a big spoonful of local honey. But now I just go 100% sugar, as local honey has become eyebrow-raisingly expensive!)

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 29 oz can Libby's 100% pure pumpkin (I once used an organic brand of canned pumpkin, but it wasn't as well strained as Libby's, and the filling was a bit watery.)

2 heaping teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 heaping teaspoon organic ground ginger

The Libby's recipe calls for ground cloves, which I don't care for. So I use 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

I mix the above by hand in the order given, and when it's thoroughly blended, I add:

About 12 oz locally produced heavy whipping cream, more if you prefer.

The cream we buy is produced on the other side of the county, about 20 miles away. It comes in a glass bottle and is non-homogenized, so you'll find a layer of butterfat in the neck of the bottle. To use, all you have to do is make sure the cap is secure and shake it thoroughly. The cream also comes from Jersey cows, so the color of the cream isn't white, but slightly golden, which is lovely.

I gently fold in the whipping cream until everything is well-blended, then I fill the prepared, unbaked crusts. Using the reduced amount of cream instead of the larger amount evaporated milk that the Libby's recipe calls for, this recipe does make considerably smaller pies. 

I bake the pies at 350 until the middle is just about set. If you wait until the top begins the brown, the filling won't be as tender. Anyway, you can start checking the pies at 45 minutes--my pies in 9-inch glass pans are done in about an hour.

Some years back, I noticed almost all pie recipes called for pre-baking the crust, which I don't get--and never do. It seems like the crust would be so browned, all the flavor would be gone. But that's just me.

Thanks to Libby's large can, you can always double the deliciousness!

Anyway, after you take out the pies, let them cool on racks at least 1 hour. The filling may seem a bit too soft for some folks--evaporated milk makes a firmer filling. Still, the pie is so rich and flavorful you don't even need whipped cream on top!

 

Orchard Management, Part 2

Lots of bushy growth from late pruning

As I mentioned last week, John and I have slacked off on proper orchard care the last few years.

I’m not sure how it happened—sure, the weather didn’t always cooperate, and there were the usual family commitments, chicken care, or a million other chores that took precedence. But the fact remains, our apple trees were neglected.

We’d gotten behindhand in two basic ways: pruning and thinning.

Pruning is essential. Apple trees in our climate grow an insane amount each year; lots of our trees grow five or six feet each, with lots of bushy interior growth. Yearly pruning helps open up the middle of the tree—much easier when it comes to picking, for sure!

Pruning ideally should take place during the dormant season, when the tree hasn’t yet started its spring growth—in our area, February is recommended.

The problem is, we’ve gotten a fair number of northeasters in February, making it a challenge for even the hardiest of gardeners to get into the orchard!

But we can’t use wintry weather as an excuse. John and I have often not gotten around to pruning until as late as April. Or even May. And one spring, I think it was three years ago, we didn’t prune at all. The trees turned into monsters! And were that much harder to manage the following year.

Anyway, when you prune a tree in mid- to late spring, it only encourages the tree to grow even more. And you wind up with a bushy tree that is putting its energy into producing leaves, not high-quality fruit.

Pruning, as it happens, works in concert with thinning.  A bigger tree produces more blossoms, which in turn means more potential fruit. A smaller, neatly trimmed tree will naturally have less fruit set.

But you’ll still need to thin. Without it, you’ll generally wind up with a tree that will overbear one year, and the next, produce little or no fruit at all.

Thinning also will help you have larger, healthier fruit, instead of the smaller, even stunted fruit that you’ll often find on an overbearing tree. John and I have also erred in thinning way too late, in mid-summer instead of early June, when the tree has already put oodles of energy into hundreds of apples, instead of dozens.

The rule of thumb: thin your apples to keep about 5 inches between fruits. Apple trees will often set fruit in multiple clusters of three, four, five or even more apples per fruit spur. So make sure to select the most vigorous little fruit in the cluster, and remove the others.

Given this neglect, John and I have often wound up with overgrown, overbearing trees. Which has led me to suspect it may have something to do with our apple maggot problem. It seems to me that with less fruit to attract the maggot flies, Berryridge Farm won’t be such a target-rich environment.

As an aside, the same goes for the neighborhood bears! Without so much fruit at our place, maybe they’ll be less tempted to break down the fences and go on an eating binge.

Back to apple maggot: the photo below was taken the first year we found the damage. At the time, I thought it was terrible! Come to find out, these bits of brown were minor--many of our apples will now have brown tracks and some mushiness all the way through the interior. 

One chore you can do to help this fall: go through your orchard and pick up all the little fruits any tree dropped over the summer. That means less food for the maggot larvae that are living on the ground below the tree.

Years ago, I read about protecting your apples from this pest by diligently enclosing each and every apple in a Ziploc bag. At the time, I sorta cringed. All that plastic! All that time!

But as much as I don’t want to go the plastic route, I’m ready. It’ll certainly save money on buying nematodes. And maybe we’ll be able to reuse the bags.

To sum up, for our nine apple trees, here’s our plan for 2023:

1^st: We’ll prune in February, as orchardists recommend, to maintain smaller, less bushy trees.

2^nd : We’re going to take a pass on nematodes this fall. It’s been too dry to apply them, and soon it’ll be too cold. We’ll apply them only in spring and see how it goes.

3^rd : We’ll thin the fruit early—when the fruits are the diameter of a quarter—to give the tree a chance to put its energy into producing larger fruits, in smaller numbers.

Then we’ll bite the bullet and get out the Ziplocs!