7 cars, 4 moms, 30 chickens

- Tim is working on fixing Daniel and Amanda's car.
- Alice came to visit (borrowing Nancy's car).
- Dawn came to visit and met Alice. Dawn's step-mom, Stacy also came and was choked up by how much Tim reminded her of her late husband - milling away in the shop listening to music.
- Grandpa bought a new (used) car!
- Joe came to visit to pack up the truck full of fishing groceries, left for two weeks, and is now back to look at trading the Kachink Kachink for a new car and a smaller boat.
- Ariel finished the EMT training, top of the class.
- The chickens. Oh the chickens. There are about 4 crowing roosters now. They are calling back and fourth across the property to each other and one is peering in the bedroom window at me, crowing, then ducking back down again (big red rooster). They always look like they are up to no good. The other night, the big white rooster was bleeding from the head. Did a rat bite him or one of the other chickens? I was afraid we would have to butcher him just then, but it looked worse than it was and he seems to be okay now, though in the next couple weeks - as soon as there is a break in the visitors, we must butcher! Mama Ukrane is bringing her new chicks out in the grass during the days now. They are about 4 inches tall and super adorable.
- The other day, Tim let the goats out to eat the tall grass on the other side of the fence and they promptly got themselves on to the neighbors roof. The neighbor carried Esther and Tim carried Petunia back inside the fence. Naughty goats!

Alice and Dawn - Tim's moms

Dawn and Tilly - every picture is best with a Tilly!

Alice and Dawn Moms

Really purple potatoes - they came that way

Goat-pro: Esther is wearing the special camera saddle.

Petunia wishes it was on her head.

Tim working on Daniel and Amanda's car. After many, many hours, and many, many broken tools, the broken and seized parts finally came off.

When the 10-lb sledge hammer wouldn't get the last bolt out of the hole, Tim switched to drilling.

We celebrated Alice's birthday! Also Joe's birthday two days before.

Ronnie's birthday is next weekend, Joy's birthday on April 1st, and Dawn's birthday soon after.

The only parent not celebrating a birthday in this month-chunk is Rich, waiting until June.

To recap the month of March:
Alisha left on the 6th - Joe arrived on the 6th
Joe left on the 9th - Alice arrived on the 10th (Dawn 13-15)
Alice left on the 22nd - Joe arrived on the 23rd
Joe plans to leave around the 25th - Joy and Rich arrive the 26th

We were worried there that we might be alone in the house for four days between Alice's visit and the arrival of the Easter Lyons, but Joe stepped up and filled the void. Our solid streak of visitors has been continuing steadily since October and the month of April is starting to fill up with plans of visits and camping trips and chicken butchering as well. We have the luxury of seeing all our friends and family without all the trouble of traveling. We really should formalize this hostel of ours and accept that we will never be a household of only 3.

Spring Chicks and March

On Monday a week ago, the chicks began hatching under their mom. I had moved her nest box to the floor a few days earlier and rigged up a careful system of adding a small lip to the edge of the nest to keep chicks in as they hatched and some 2x4s to make a ramp in case they fell out of the nest anyways and needed back in. As the chicks hatched, Mama Ukraine stayed on the nest and continued warming the unhatched eggs with fragile little chicks under her. For the first three days, the chicks don't need food or water as they are continuing to live off the yolk like they did while growing in their eggs. I provided small dishes of food and water in the nest box for both Mama Ukraine and the curious chicks.

By Thursday, the first-hatched chicks were ready to start exploring the greater world and Mama Ukraine had to follow. Seven chicks followed their mama out of the nest and around the hen house while 10 eggs remained in the box. I took the eggs to the darkest room in my house, changed the batteries in my brightest flashlight and looked through the shells to see where the unhatched chicks were at. 6 of the eggs were nowhere near hatching - either they hadn't developed, they had stopped developing, or they were just really far behind. 4 of the eggs didn't let any light through and I took that as a sign they were full of chick, ready to hatch. I warmed the eggs against my body (human temperature just so happens to be the right temperature for eggs) and within the hour, the first chick started pecking through the shell and peeping loudly. The little pip (pip being the word for first breaking through the shell) came with me to my EMT class so I could continue warming it and elicited strange looks during the quiet moments when a peep could clearly be heard - any time I bent over the pip yelled at me from inside the shell.

When I came home from class, Mama Ukraine and the rest of the chicks were back in their nest box sleeping for the night so the pipped egg went back under. In the morning, the egg was gone and an 8th fluffy chick was nestled under the mom. Still getting used to standing on two legs the littlest chick wasn't quite up to speed with its curious and adventurous siblings, so Tim babysat the chick with the heat of his computer fan and a little chick-sized blanket for the morning, then we returned the chick to its family where it is keeping up and thriving with the rest.

The orange-tinted chick on the right above and left below was the last chick to hatch, our indoor pip.

The clutch of chicks came out with a good range of color from silver and yellow and creamy white to black and grey and red. I look forward to seeing their adult colors.

We've been continuing to get about half a dozen eggs a day, which is far more than we're eating. The neighbors have been enjoying their eggs and we will be increasing our customer base for selling eggs, though we want to be sure to have plenty for all the company coming this month. Alisha will be leaving for a job in New York on Friday, the same day Tim's dad, Joe, and Roni come for the weekend. They leave on Monday and Tim's mom, Alice, arrives Tuesday, then his birth mom, Dawn witll come Friday for the weekend, then they will leave three days before my parents and great aunt and great uncle and swell uncle and cousin all come for Easter. Our house is ever full!

Where are all the babies?

Petunia technically has until March 7th to kid before I can give up all hope of spring milk for this year. Her teats are definitely bigger than Esther's - does that mean she's working on developing her udder and getting ready to kid in the remaining 10 days? Or is that just my wishful thinking and it is from being a year older, different genetics, non-kid related? I am putting off trimming hooves until I know I don't need the clippers to be sterilized and ready for an umbilical cord.

Three new chicks

Well, no baby goats to date, but at least the baby chicks are predictable, right? Mama Ukraine started sitting on the eggs February 2nd making them due to hatch on the 23rd, which was Monday. Sure enough, from under her we could hear peeping and after much patience, even saw and held the little ones!

Holding the red chick after several attempts to snatch her without being pecked by mama hen

One has a red face and will probably turn out looking a lot like Little Chicken like her big brother has, one is pretty black, and the last is cream colored, maybe to turn out speckled like one of the hens and the rooster.

The little red-faced chick from the December 1st hatch is all grown up

But now it is Wednesday and the rest of the dozen eggs that so promisingly looked full of chicks when we candled them a week ago are now over due and behind. Mama Ukraine is still sitting on more eggs than chicks. The chicks born Monday are already venturing short ways from their mom to search for food and water. She won't be able to keep them in the nest much longer and then the unhatched eggs will be abandoned. We will candle them again and see if there is any hope. It is possible to tuck an egg in close to your body and hatch it that way - humans happen to be just the right temperature.

Mama Ukraine's unhatched eggs

With these newest three chicks, we are now up to my hen-house maximum of 25. The older babies aren't looking so much like babies anymore, and one is beginning to hit rooster-puberty, indicating I can't put off butchering much longer. We are still getting about 6 eggs a day, from the same 6 hens every day, so I am spending today keeping a close eye on the nest boxes and trying to label who lays which egg. I figure if I try to mark them down for a few days in a row, I will know which hens will be joining the little roosters as fried chicken and soup.

In other news, I am finishing up my EMT class and working on my application for the South Whidbey School District after finally transferring my teaching certificate to Washington. I am also finally almost feeling better from the string of colds and flues I seem to have had. Tim is continuing to enjoy his work as an apprentice electrician, on the road to journeyman. Grandpa hosted bridge club at the house last week and is having his car fixed this week. Our house guest, Alisha, is getting ready to leave us for a new job and new adventures as we get ready for our next visitors - she says leaving has nothing to do with me accidentally locking her in the barn with the chickens for multiple hours yesterday. Tilly and I missed the last search practice, but spent Valentines night running up a hill at midnight with our survival pack and Tim gallantly accompanying us.

Tilly testing the new doggy survival bag for another member of our SAR group

Nannies and Kids?

Since we last left off, there have been some nasty flues and colds going around the island and though we've been eating our fruits and veggies, trying to stay healthy, I have been out of it for the last few weeks, and Tim is fighting off the pathogens. Speaking of pathogens, around the time Alice returned to Alaska and we fell ill, I started EMT training, learning to be an emergency medic as seen on ambulances and as friendly citizens teaching CPR to high schoolers and such. The training has been going well with a good cohort of fellow soon-to-be EMTs.

The medical experience I'd really like to have right now is delivering my first kid - goat kid that is. After being doubtful Petunia was pregnant for the last 4 1/2 months, she started showing swelling in all the right places, looking uncomfortable, showing all the vague and goat-y signs of maybe being pregnant! So I sprang into action. Not wanting to get my hopes up only for disappointment, I hadn't finished the milking parlor of the barn - mostly I hadn't built a milking stand. But with kids looking possibly imminent, suggesting a future of goat milking this spring.

With the large, borrowed milking stand out of the way and food cans stacked, there is now a nice space for kidding. I made a shelf to fit on top of the hay holder, the sink is cleaned out, fresh hay on the floor and we're ready to go.

With much help from the curious goats, I replaced the over-sized miking stand with a minimally sized built in milking shelf complete with a feed holder perfectly fitted to their food scoop.

Petunia and Esther have been practicing the milking routine every morning since we made the changes, getting ready for that lucky day sometime in the next week or month or year or two when my goats start making milk.

Just in case that birth really is soon, I assembled the Goat Birth Bag: filled with all the goodness necessary for any vetting and midwifing emergency! Going through the bag, we can talk a little about what I expect from a birth. First of all, the signs leading up to birth are super vague and unreliable and generally goat-y; things like "she may seem agitated, or more friendly. She may seem more or less active. The tendons by her tail may relax, or not. She may start producing milk and filling her utter... or not." Signs and symptoms of impending delivery can begin a month before the birth or, you know, as a pair of tiny feel stick out and give it away. Goats really aren't very obvious.

"Iodine and shot glass for sterilizing

Dental floss and scissors for  cutting cords

Suction bulb and scissors for after birth

Exam gloves and lube for intervention

Feeding syringe and bottle for baby

Molasses (1/4c:2gal warm water) for mom"

In my imagination, we will notice these signs of impending birth and notice some gooey slimy discharge, suggestive of birth, and bring Petunia into our clean and well-prepared birthing room. Once there, we will check on her every half hour, or just hang out in the barn with her, though being too close can sometimes slow labor, so checking in until things start to pick up is probably good. Eventually, her agitation should develop into the rhythmic pushing of labor and we will watch for little white hooves protruding through the amniotic sac and out of Petunia. The baby should be in the "dive" position, with feet forward and down, ancles bending down and towards mom. Alternately, baby can be in the reverse dive position, with little back feet sticking out soles up and bending up and towards mom. If any other body part but a foot starts coming out first, it should be returned and replaced (gently push that head back in a bit and see if you can persuade a little foot to come out instead). Gently pulling one foot and then the other slightly down towards mom as she pushes can help get the legs straight and streamline the process. Also making sure the feet match the head and no one is trying to cut in line is important. That would be another return and replace situation. We want one baby at a time coming out with a matching pair of either front or back feet but not one of each. If I need to manually assist, that would be the first use of the antibacterial soap, warm water, and iodine as I scrub up and coat my arms in orange for health and safety.

Once the baby is out, we try to catch her (always hope for girl babies. They make milk or eggs or more babies and don't need to be put in the freezer or altered like those boys. I think girl goats are easier to sell and sell for more too) on a nice clean towel, wipe the goop off her breathing parts, possibly give a little suction to those breathing parts, then present the still sticky and wet baby to Petunia so she can bond through cleaning. Eventually, find the time to steal the baby back, tie off and cut the umbilical cord at about an inch or two and dip in a shot glass of iodine until thoroughly coated, then stick the baby back up under Petunia, aiming for latching on to her teats and getting some breakfast.

When all the babies and placentas (never pull on a placenta!) have made their way out, Petunia gets some warm molasses water and whatever else she wants to eat while the babies nurse and everyone rests.

Maybe today will be the day! We will keep hoping.

In the other half of the barn, we have a much easier to read perspective mom. The first night I see a hen sleeping in the nest box, I mark it on the calendar and three weeks later the eggs hatch and we have new chicks. These ones are due Monday the 23rd.

I've been able to start selling eggs and am up to two every-other-weekly customers plus an occasional dozen here and there. We're getting about 5 or 6 eggs a day which is... a quarter of the way to my goal but a good start.

My friend, Alisha, is still visiting as she waits to find her next Nannying position and has been continuing to photograph, bake, love the animals, and help out around the farm. We also worked on a sewing project and finished a 1950's dress for her.

Forging aluminium

I felt this deserved it's own post, away from all the pictures of our animals, though chronologically it should be in the middle of all that. For years, Tim and I have talked about building a forge. We can work metal and wood in so many ways, but molding molten metals had escaped our abilities - until now.

After watching a few YouTube videos, Tim was inspired. Mixing 50/50 sand and plaster, Tim filled our steel bucket with a center mold holding open the space for the fire and the crucible: container of molten aluminium. At the bottom of the center opening is a steel pipe leading through the plaster-sand mix for air to come in through the bottom and feed the flames.

Once the mix set up, Tim carefully pried out the center mold and started testing his new creation. Filling the center with charcoal briquettes and forcing air into the bottom by duct taping a hair drier to the tube, the fire was soon going strong.

Tim fed our pop-can recycling into the steel bowl in the furnace one at a time and stirred with a piece of rebar.

The pop-cans turned into molten aluminium, glowing red with heat.

The first few crucibles we tried failed in the intense heat of the kiln. Finally Tim settled on placing a steel bowl over the flames, though it was cooler and slower melting than idea. In the future we hope to have a little narrower of a container for less heat-loss and hotter melting temperatures.

Once our entire bag of recycling was melted down, Tim poured the molten aluminium carefully into an empty soup can.

With a little work on the lathe, the finished product came out as a beautiful tea-light holder, with the irregularities catching the light at the top and smooth polished aluminum at the bottom. Very impressive!

Catch up. Eggs and Chicks, Goats and Compost, Visitors and Travels, Beaches and Baking

It has been a busy two weeks! Isn't it always busy? For living the simple life, we sure do keep things  busy around here. To start off the new year, I finally started delivering eggs to our neighbors! The idea is for Tilly (or a goat) to eventually do the delivering by carrying cartons of eggs in the snazzy new backpack we got for the four-legged girls.

The littlest roosters and hens are at their awkward teen stage, with feathers sticking out and colors changing. Unfortunately, the little gold chick seems set on being a rooster, though I am still hopeful it will be another of those extra-large-combed hens and we will somehow have 8 more heavy-laying hens. Mama and her five chicks (plus the three big tag-alongs from the last clutch) are spending more and more time out in the sun scratching for bugs with the rest of the flock.

Our flock is filling out the yard pretty well now with 12 hens, 2 roosters, 3 big chicks and 5 smaller chicks. Some day I hope to have 24 hens laying nearly two-dozen eggs a day to deliver to the neighbors plus my two roosters whom will need to be replaced soon for genetic diversity. Right now, we're only getting about 6 eggs a day, and the eggs are suspiciously consistent in color and shape, alluding to only 6 hens participating in the laying. I have nearly identified all the layers and it looks like the other 6 may be joining the 3 or 4 new little roosters in the freezer this spring.

Mom, Dad, Daniel, and Amanda all returned back to their homes after New Years, I took a brief trip with Daniel and Amanda down to Eugene, Oregon for a night on a special bunny mission, my friend Ray visited for a short night on her way through, Tim spent a few nights in Portland to visit friends and take a train trip, then I picked up my friend Alisha from the airport and Tim from the train station in one go and came home for a day or two before Tim's mom, Alice, joined us on the island. In the brief turn around between visitors, travels, and more visitors, I managed to finally get the barn clean! 

Petunia was her usual helpful self, insisting on riding in the wheelbarrow even when it was stacked to the max with hay. The barn, I'm afraid to say, was long over-due for cleaning. I cleaned the chicken part half-halfheartedly just before the chicks were born, in late November, but for the goats I had been using more of an "add more hay" approach for the floors. After many trips to the compost pile, both halves were thoroughly freshened and a small bit of the excessive stash of "winter hay" for the goats was put to good use as everybody's clean bedding. 

Unfortunately (for Alisha), I dumped all the hay next to the large pile of leaves next to the large pile of compost waiting to be turned. Fortunately (for me), Alisha is eager to be such a helpful guest and offered to lend a hand on the farm. Wanting to give her the full farm experience, I thought turning the compost would be a great help. Alisha imagined it would be fun, sort of romantic. Alisha talked about someday having her own garden and compost bins. Then Alisha talked about how really there was probably enough compost in those bins and they were looking plenty full. There's a reason I dread turning the compost - it is a huge job and takes forever, with much more to go by the time you are exhausted and ready for tea--er, I mean, it's a delight! I hope you will be the next visitor so I can share the majestic transformation of waist to productive soil with you too! The chore that is always ready for someone to do.

Esther stepped up to help with our compost-turning and piling activity by packing down those leaves and that hay to make room for more. Eventually most of the waist made it, more or less, into the compost bins and we declared the work "good enough!"

I didn't only force Alisha to provide me with labor, we also got to snuggle the goats in their nice clean barn.

We taught Alisha the proper way to hold a chicken, or in this case our most beautiful and tame rooster.

Tim demonstrated the goat teeter-totter and other goaty tricks (really that's about the extent of it).

And we took the goats for a nice stroll on the beach to our favorite climbing tree. Alisha is a photographer and graced us with mountains of wonderful pictures - another reason this is taking a little longer to put together! Too much of a good thing. 

After beach walking, there was just a little more to do with catching up on trimming hooves. Ideally, I should be checking their hooves every month about, or even giving them a quick look once a week when I feed them their herbal de-wormer, but I let it go a little long and petunia missed my great hoof-trimming day, so now I'll have to keep a better eye on them and make sure those hooves are back in good shape.

Alisha also gave me a hand adding 380-pounds of food to the barn. The feed store is having a sale and it's always good to have enough food! I am trying to keep better track of how much food everyone is going through. I think the chickens go through about 25-pounds of feed a weeks, the goats go through about 100-pounds a month and Tilly (not included in the 380-pounds of feed) goes through about 20 pounds a month. These may be optimistic guesses, and winter makes for more feed going through the barn. 

Tilly is continuing to work on her Canine Good Citizen skills and practiced her patience at the store while we bought all the feed. With so many visitors, Tilly has been struggling to stay focused and calm but is improving as always.

 After the store, it only seemed fair to take the little dog to the off-leash beach near town to burn up some of her abundant energy. Alice and Alisha and I braved the wind and high tide and let the wild one run. Tilly was promoted to an "available" sheriff dog, ready to search for the lost at a moments notice, which means any time we are called, she gets to come with me - even if it is only to sit in the car and wait while I help other teams with the search. This week we got one of those middle-of-the-night calls and drove through the fog to join the team in the dark. Tilly waited in the car and we called off the search before it reached her turn, but it was nice for me to have some comforting company in the car.

The beautiful and delicious bread I baked for Tim's lunches which I have no way of working into this post but which are so wonderful and which I am so proud of I had to include. Alisha laughed at how excited I was. They lived up to my hopes and more.

After staying up nearly all night with Search and Rescue, I was exhausted, in the mood for laying around watching movies and feeling like a bit of a zombie. Alisha and Alice lept on the opportunity of my weakened state and helped out with cleaning up the house and taking care of the animals. When Tim came home from work he was in worse shape then me, having caught some awful virus that has been making its way around the island. He stumbled in the door, had a bite to eat, and joined me in a very early bed time. He's still feeling terrible and keeping to the dark and warmth of bed.