Another Sprout Story...

So I am totally rolling with this bean sprout garden. It takes about 4-5 days from bean to sprout, and when they are done they go into the fridge until I'm ready to use them, and I restart the garden. We eat brown rice a few times a week and the sprouts are a perfect addition. We grow just enough to use without getting tired of them, and if we do have extras, lucky for me chickens love them too.

My original plan was to also sprout alfalfa seeds. We love alfalfa sprouts but they are hella expensive at the grocery store, and now there are all kinds of cootie problems with commercially grown sprouts so I'd rather to grow my own. Unfortunately I could not find alfalfa seeds at sprouts, but they did have chia seeds. Having been the proud owner of a chia pet (classic "bull" style), I knew they looked very much alike, and if Sprouts had them in the bulk seed bin, they must be for eating. I never ate my chia pet's sprouts because I was worried about chemicals & stuff being used on the seeds and/or pottery. So I took the chia seeds and the mung beans home to start sprout gardening. What worked great for the mung beans did not pan out for the chai seeds. Duh! Of course not. Chai seeds do not settle on the bottom of your jar after each rinse, waiting to sprout. As soon as you get them wet they turn into a sticky blob, which is perfect for smearing onto a terra cotta bull but not so much for a jar sprouter. They stuck to the side, bottom and mostly to the mesh screen. Fail! Oh well. I have since learned that chia seeds are extremely nutritious without sprouting. They are better for you and have a much longer shelf life than flax seeds. You can sprout them, and some day I will, but until then we can reap the benefits by just sprinkling them onto our food. Good to know.

Tiny Little Garden...

I have been wanting to try sprouting my own sprouts for a long time. Like literally 20 years. For some reason, I never tried very hard to make it happen, but this year it made it to the "List of Things To-Do" and now I wonder why I waited so long. It could not be easier to sprout mung beans into the most delicious bean sprouts I have ever tasted. Maybe I never tried it because I figured a bean sprout is a bean sprout, and I don't buy them that often so why even go through the trouble. I was wrong. It is no trouble. I think part of it was I assumed I would forget to water them (a frequent problem in my gardening attempts), but since I kept the sprout garden right by the sink and I visit the sink like a dozen times a day, it was no problem at all. So worth it. If you even like bean sprouts a little bit, you can get into this.

 Start with some mung beans. I got mine at Sprouts. This bag of beans costs less than two containers of bean sprouts and will probably make about 20 times more. You also need a very clean wide mouth jar, a small piece of cheesecloth or something similar (I happened to have a spool of tulle ribbon about 4" wide so that's what I am using),  and a rubber band. Put enough beans in the jar to cover the bottom, then cover the jar with the cheesecloth and rinse the beans a couple of times in cool water. Drain off the water & let them sit next to your sink til it's time to water again. Keep the jar out of direct light (I just propped a Tupperware lid up against the jar to cast a little shade on it) and rinse 2 or 3 times a day til your sprouts are the desirable size. I like to sprout them until tiny leaves form because I think they look like little snakes. Once you taste these, you will never want to buy sprouts from the store again.

mung beans

it's a tiny garden!

ready to eat, or wait a couple days and get 'em nice & big

Waste Not Want Not...

I recently read an article in Whole Living magazine that informed me that the average American household wastes 14% of total food purchased, about $1600 worth for the average family! Waste of any sort is one of my pet peeves, but even my family is not immune. Of course having dogs, chickens, and our buddy Frank the tortoise helps. Between the lot of them, not much goes uneaten, including scraps that would normally go in the garbage. One item that regularly goes bad before it gets used is milk. It is shamefully common for an unopened carton of milk to pass it's expiration date here at the homestead. Milk is good for several days past the date stamp, but I could tell my family that until I am blue in the face and nobody would touch it. But luckily, I've got a solution for that. When life hands you lemons, make lemonade and when you get expired milk, make cheese. (Since it has no rennet, it's technically not cheese, but that what we're calling it.)

First, you gotta prep. You need milk and either vinegar or lemon juice, about a quarter cup per half gallon of milk. You also need cheesecloth or a very thin towel, a strainer, and a bowl to catch the whey. A thermometer is nice, but I bet you can get by without it.  Make sure everything is very clean. I usually wet the towel and then microwave it for 30 seconds or so to kill any cooties, but I'm kind of a germaphobe. Heat the milk in a heavy non-stick saucepan to about 180 degrees, stirring occasionally. Some recipes will tell you to stir constantly so the milk won't burn on the bottom, but since I hate standing at the stove and my chickens love the browned milk that forms a skin on the bottom of the pan, I don't hassle with it. It's easier to remove if you spray the pan with Pam before you start, but as long as you soak the pan a little, it will be no problem.

When the milk comes to temperature, pour in the vinegar and turn off the heat. I wait a few seconds before stirring gently to mix the milk and vinegar. You will see curds almost immediately. Carefully pour into the cheesecloth lined strainer. I put the strainer over a large bowl to catch the whey, but if you are not interested in saving the whey, just do it in the (very clean) sink. Bundle up the cheesecloth into a pouch and gently squeeze out some of the liquid, simultaneously shaping your cheese into a ball. Let it sit and drain for an hour or so. You can place something heavy on top to speed the process if you wish.

I cannot tell you how much chickens love this cheese. Even Elsa, who is Mother of the Year, has a hard time feeding this to her babies before she herself gobbles it up. You can tell she feels bad about it but she just can't help herself.

You can also make this cheese for humans, and you can use milk that's fresh. You may want to season it though with a little salt. It's very good, bland and creamy like ricotta. And there you have it. Never pour milk down the drain again!

Moving to bigger and better quarters...

The Showgirl babies have outgrown the nursery coop, and so this weekend was spent coming up with the best solution to their housing problem. They needed a bigger home, somewhere safe and warm, with a small yard for scratching and dust bathing. It would also need to be easily accessible to me because I want the chicks to be very tame, and that means I have to interact with them daily. The big bird coop fit the bill perfectly. A minor remodel and they were good to go. Since I have to haul Esther's big ass out of a tree every night and place her into a coop anyway, the nursery coop works out just fine. Lucky for me, Coco is smart and adaptable and figured it out the first night.

Everything is fine, until something happens...

Are you up do date with your tetanus booster shots? I am, now. I stepped on a nail in the backyard while trying to get Esther out of a tree and I didn't really think that much of it until I started reading about tetanus on WebMD. (Also, you should never go to WebMD to diagnose a possible illness unless you want to get the crap scared out of you. They put the most dire spin on every medical situation.)

Esther normally does not roost in trees, but some weird stuff happened at the old homestead recently. My family spent the weekend before New Year's at my Aunt & Uncle's little cabin in the mountains.  I moved the big birds' feeder to a safe & dry place and filled up the water trough and they were good to go, as they are free range birds and have dutifully put themselves to bed every night for nearly three years.  And I wasn't that concerned for the baby chicks because I knew as long as they had plenty of food & water, their Mama Elsa would take care of the rest.

When we arrived back home late Monday afternoon it was already getting dark, so the first thing I did was to go outside & check on my babies. They were, safe & sound, & just as cute as ever. I headed back to the house to help unload from our trip when I noticed Esther roosting on the fence by the quail cage. "Hmmm, why is she not inside?" Well, a piece of lumber I'd leaned against the coop had fallen over and even though it was not blocking the birds access, chickens are strange creatures who are easily spooked by inanimate objects. I picked Esther up & put her inside the coop. Coco saw me,  jumped down from her perch on top of the quail cage & put herself to bed. I looked all over for Nickie and Stella, but couldn't find them. My yard is big and has a million hiding places, so I figured they were sleeping somewhere together & went to finish unpacking.

Esther, the Easter-Egger, taking a dust bath.

The next morning when I went out to do my "bird chores", only Esther & Coco were there to greet me. That was not a good sign, since Nickie was always the first one to come running as soon as she heard the back door. I looked everywhere for the missing birds, but the most I could find was a small patch of black & white striped feathers near the side fence. Never found any trace of Stella. It is still a mystery to me. These birds slept in a coop that was left open day and night for almost 3 years, and then the very weekend we go away, something bad happens. Was some crafty raccoon casing the joint?  Esther still will not go into the coop by herself, so I have to go hoist her giant ass out of a tree every night and risk stepping on nails.

Bottom line, your birds are perfectly safe in your backyard, until they are not. And get your tetanus booster.

Hi, I'm back...

In my last post, I had just gotten a job after 2 years of trying. Nearly two years since that last post and I am again unemployed, this time by choice. A lot has changed, but mostly it's stayed about the same. I've still got my loving and patient husband, selflessly supporting me and my dreams, and our two 20something kids. Still got my chickens, my dogs, and Frank, my Etsy shop, and my blog devoted to living artfully. Still trying to be creative every day & spread the joy of simple living. It is a wonderful mission.

So let's all move forward into the New Year and make it the best one yet. I will leave you with a picture of my current project, a newly hatched flock of Showgirl Silkie chicks.

Happy New Year, Everyone!

Get back to work...

It took almost two years but I finally got a job. Hooray!! I know I should be thankful, and I am, but going back to work has made me realize just how badly I want to make my dream a reality. I had two years to make it happen and as it turns out, that wasn't long enough. Or maybe I didn't try hard enough. Maybe both. So, even though I am behind the eight ball now, I want to make it work more than ever. I miss my chickens. I miss my sewing room. Yes, it will be harder than ever to make this dream come true, but I also have lots of motivation. My boss is a very good business man. He is making his dream come true, through lots of hard work and dedication, and with lots of help from devoted employees. I want to do a good job, but if I'm going to bust my butt making somebody's dream come true, I want it to be mine. So, I will put in my time at the office, doing my job to the best of my abilities, but I'm going to make my time off count more than ever.

While I've been at work, my son has stepped in to help out with the chickens and he's been a great help indeed. I really don't know what I'd do without him, poor guy. Fortunately he really likes eggs, so it's kind of a trade off.

The Silkies finally have full run of the chicken coop. We moved the quail out into their own cage and removed the partition so the silkies are free to roam around and play in the grass. They have a lovely second story on their house, but they never want to go up there. They don't seem to like roosting like the other chickens, they just sleep in a pile in the corner of the hen house, like kittens. It looks nice and cozy, so I can't say I blame them.

Happy Talk...

2011 is off to a rough start, but I really can't complain because I've still got it pretty good. My backyard chicken flock is doing quite well. All three ladies are now laying. Shirley was the last one to begin laying. I think if Shirley were human, she would be an old spinster. She's ugly, for one, and cranky as heck. Chickens do this squatting thing if you move up on them suddenly. From what I've read, it's a submissive posture and a sign of sexual maturity meaning they are ready to breed and/or lay eggs. Nickie and Esther squat quite happily and let you scratch their back and right above their tail. Nickie gets really into it. About a week before Shirley laid her first egg I noticed that she was squatting too, only she was not so into it. It's like she has the instinct to do it, an instinct so strong that she can't help but squat, but she hates it. She'll squat, begrudgingly, but if you try to scratch her back, she bites you. I think she has intimacy issues.

the landscaping crew

My chickens have brought so much joy into my life. It's really hard being unemployed after a lifetime of successful employment. Applying for job after job and getting no positive response takes its toll on your self esteem. It is just delightful to be able to step out into my big beautiful backyard and be greeted by a happy flock. I know that they rush over to me to see if I am bringing them a treat, but even after they discover I've come empty handed, they don't bail on me. They hang out and scratch around for buggies while I keep watch over them. They know I am protecting them and that feels good. Another thing I am so grateful to my chickens for, and some people may not think this is a plus,  they have finally killed off the clover that takes over my yard every year. My husband doesn't understand what I have against the clover, but I just can't stand it. It takes over every year, smothers out all the other plants, then after a short life, dies down, leaving brown strings strewn everywhere. It looks good for about a week and then looks terrible. So, good job flock! Hopefully they've killed off the grass too, because that's another nightmare. Our backyard, or "Wild Kingdom" as my sister likes to call it, is rolling terraces, trees, shrubs, rock walls, basically random chaos. It looks cool and natural, but when the grass starts to grow in the spring, it is impossible to mow. We have to weed-whack and it's about a third of an acre back there. Patches of grass are able to grow tall and sprout foxtails. So far we've had to have foxtails removed from Lola's' nose, twice, and Gladys' ear. And it's dang expensive. But so far, my dutiful birds are keeping the grass in check. Way to go, Ladies!

Silkie Palace

 Busy busy busy!! We're all cleaned up after the flood and I finally have my sewing room back. Too bad I've been tied up with another project and haven't been able to enjoy it yet, but today is the day. I've been poring over my books looking for the next fantastic sewing project to tackle and I think it's going to be a messenger bag. I made a kid-sized one for my 5 year old nephew for Christmas and he really loved it. He won a wallet in a "white elephant" raffle at a Christmas party, unfortunately it was a ladies wallet. Fortunately he didn't know or care. He was so excited, he started carrying the wallet around with him everywhere he went. Being a ladies' wallet, it didn't exactly fit in his pocket, so I crafted a custom "man's bag" for him so he could tote his giant wallet in style.

Yes, I've been busy remodeling the duck pen into a Silkie Palace.  As you may recall, construction is not my forte'. But I did it, all by myself and I am very proud. It doesn't look half bad. It doesn't look great, mind you, but it is completely functional and secure, which is the most important thing, and the baby Silkies like it.

I am fairly new to raising chickens, so everything is unfamiliar. I can only go by what I've read (which can be quite contradictory), instinct and observation. The chicken flock has been pretty textbook so far, the ducks were vastly different from the chickens and my expectations, and the Silkies were different still. Different from the ducks and different from our first batch of chicks. The Silkies are Bantams, which means they are much smaller than regular chickens. You could tell right away that the day old chicks were very small. They ate and drank so politely, no flinging feed everywhere, no splashing in their water. Much neater that baby ducks, and even baby chicks. They peeped nonstop, even when nothing was wrong. I had doubts that they would ever be the docile lap-chickens that they were made out to be. It didn't help that one of the chicks arrived with a crippling injury. That poor baby was always crying, but sadly there was nothing I could do for her. I had to make a choice to either put Baby out of her misery or allow her to tough it out. I went with toughing it out. She has struggled and she's much smaller than the others, but she manages well enough.

Day old chicks willingly allow you to hold them and even seem to enjoy the warmth and closeness, but with each passing day they like it less and less. After just a few days on this Earth, they are less than thrilled with being picked up and make sad pitiful noises when you catch them. These Silkies were terrified of me. When I would try to hold them, they would freak out and trample the Baby, so after a while I stopped trying. It wasn't until they decided they liked spinach that they began to like my again. Now they have no problem being picked up, even Baby is cool with it. Actually, there is still one, Penelope, who hates to be held. Her nickname is the Screamer because of the awful sound she makes when you pick her up.

And now, some Silkie pictures to get you through the day.

Search Amazon.com for chickens in your backyard

And a Happy New Year!

Let's hope! So far it's been pretty much the same. I made it through the holidays without getting sick, and that was awesome, but it finally caught up to me. I woke up this morning feeling like a truck must have run me over. I overslept and was awakened by the sound of a boasting chicken proudly telling the whole neighborhood about what she'd done. Farm girls don't get sick days, so I  dragged my behind out of my warm bed and into my chore clothes. It wasn't so bad.

Southern California was hit by storms the week of Christmas, and as a result, our house got a little flooded. It rained practically non-stop for 3 days. It was a very surreal experience to see the water coming up into the patio and just keep coming and know there is very little you can do to keep it from coming into your house. We've had problems with flash floods before because of the way our house is situated, but they come and go very quickly, hence the name. But this was different. So much rain and nowhere for it to go. Our backyard was a lake. It hasn't rained in days and the yard is still soggy. We spent Christmas Eve tearing carpet and pad out of the downstairs bedrooms and hall, but at least we were all together.