Kitchen Sink Collective

So, we’ve had a couple more young cockerels learning to crow, early morning. The dood’s had his eye on Jose Carreras for a couple weeks, whereas I’ve been looking more at The Genie w/ the Light Brown Hair who sports this shocking reddish muff of feathers around his neck; let’s call him Salvatore Licitra and keep up the operatic theme.

Jose was by far the largest roo. I think he weighed 8 lbs, holy poultry spurs. Beautiful gent, too. All black, big flashy comb and wattle, and very dramatic plumage. Which brings me to the point where I observe that cockerels are easy as pie to pluck, but their long feathers are a PITA when they leave quills behind. Which is all the time. Anyway, he got lots of hugs this morning, and heart-felt apologies and compliments on his dapper development. Lucy was sitting at the patio door, looking outside, watching it all. She knows that the poultry traffic cone means innard treats, eventually, and she was feeling very patient today. Pancho was having deep dreams about calling birds and moths to please fly into his mouth, snoring. Just as well, because it was pouring rain this morning.

Jose was selected because he’s gotten articulate quite swiftly. It isn’t just a muddled “urp a babooooo!” that flies out of his throat, but a lusty “fat Lucy-pooooooo!” first thing in the morning. He was the kind of roo who would roll his “R”s, frankly.

It took ages to clean him up, but he’s in the fridge now, and the cats dined on fresh innards for dinner. We’re cooking a pot of soup tomorrow while his meat relaxes another day.

This stuff doesn’t get easier over time. I’m actually glad it doesn’t. Jose was a hell of a young roo. I am salt-drying his wings in the kitchen.

Today is January 8, 2012. The temperature outside in our urban hedgesteader’s yard is 64 F. The sun is out. The laying hens are confused as hell. Pancho is confused alongside them, and the soil itself, and all the ambient weeds are having existential crises in plural.

Last year at this time, it was a rainy day. January 2011 wasn’t insanely wet, but the soil was damp enough that we had to spread tons of old corrugated across swathes of soil to keep the weeds at a dull roar. Mostly? The outside temps were cold. You know, winter-like. This meant Pancho’s visits outside to dance in and out of rainfall were brief and efficient, and we had to keep a beat-up towel on the floor next to the patio door, just to tamp our feet onto after going outside to fish him out of puddles a couple times per day. Last winter was also a season where we had to re-straw the chicken run multiple times in order to: 1) keep the ladies busy and active and therefore warm, 2) keep the floor of the run itself dry and cozy, 3) distract the ladies from the weather during their waking hours outside w/ the waterer and feeder. I think I raked out damp straw and replaced it with 1/2 a bale of fresh dry straw at least five times. The dood did this when I was getting over a cold and stuck indoors.

All this being said, it was a freakishly warm winter last year, too, a few times. In February, we had Daisy put down on a particularly sunny and warm day, for example. The only reason I remember this is that the deep hole we dug for her under the half barrels of garlic and onions was in very solid clay, we broke a serious sweat digging it, and it took forever for the soil to re-settle after we’d interred her with picked flowers, and after we’d popped a pomegranate cutting on top. It wasn’t until some torrential rain a couple weeks later that that the earth settled. The dood had a slight brain freeze, and pondered could she possibly have decomposed THAT much in two weeks? and I had to remind him about the rainfall and water seeking its level and taking the dirt with it.

Let’s be frank, 2011 had no normalish winter either.

February 2011, we ran the cultivator in the back corner, planted a beautiful checkerboard of Anasazi corn and beans. A huge checkerboard. And watered. And then, in that post-Daisy deluge which lasted days, the ground got so compacted that the only seeds which germinated grew in this dwarfish stunted state. Corn up to the knees. Beans no taller than Pancho the rain-obsessed kitten. And I might add, it took over a month for those seeds to even sprout, because the earth was so damn cold. 4 big rubbermaid trashcans’ worth of beautiful composted horse shit from the local stables, mixed with still-rotting chicken manure, and the earth was cold.

March 2011, we had an afternoon of snow in the yard, when I got home from work and was busy reinforcing the plastic covering and some recycled tarps over the baby chicken coop in the patio. Snow. I’m one of the few snow virgins I know, having never traveled anywhere to ski or snow-shoe, and here I was in my commuting rain gear with these fat clustered clumps of snow landing on my hood, arms, and shoulders, as I was fiddling with bungee cords and wire. Pancho was howling to come outside and see what the white stuff was, and the young pullets in the baby coop and run were so flustered over being feathered and sheltered, yet feeling cold, dangit.

April came, and the soil sort of warmed up. And… we just limped through the rest of the year. It is a damned good thing we don’t rely on the yard for all our food, because even the nettles had a shit year. And the edible dandelions did as well. Wild lettuce took over the yard though.

I guess the reason for this rant is I am really worried about what the rest of the year will bring. This is the second week we have unseasonal warm weather on the left coast. No freaking rain. No juicy worms for the hens to go wild eating during recess. The tomatoes took eons to produce and then rotted because of the cold snaps in December. The peppers are still standing but I have to yank them up before they rot as well. Is this desert-type weather? Cold as heck nights and warm as heck days?

Very puzzling.

We got below freezing last night. As in my spiffy new inside/outside thermometer registered a low of 31F outside, in the wee hours of the morning. I think it was around 45F in our hallway last night, and probably 52F in the living room, where the cats bunk for the night. Pancho sat at the door and sang a dramatic operetta about the woes of cold weather during dark Decembers. I think I got up 2am to let his fuzzy bottom in, where he immediately body-slammed his dad, sank like liquid between us on the comforter, and immediately started snoring, still kneading his front paws. Lucy on the other hand took advantage of his dramatic exodus, and leaped into his blanket lined box house on the kitty condo where I found her this morning, her tail pouring out.

But this isn’t about felines so much as some observations of how our hens do with cold mornings. They seriously carry on, when the weather is cold. Now, their coop gets and stays pretty toasty inside once I slide their door shut for the night. Go figure 7 fat and sassy hens packed tightly on a roost all night would be plenty warm. It gets warm enough in there that I always have to latch the door to their run so Pancho doesn’t shoot up their ramp into the coop like he was fired out of a cannon. Apparently he did that this morning and had to be lifted out of a nesting box. Kind of makes me wonder what’ll happen if we wind up raising goats in coming years. Well, aside from the goats getting annoyed at the fat little cat who doubles as a blanket to warm himself, on the sly.

Maria and Lupita have this complex call and response clucking cycle that they get into on cold mornings. They like to pack into the same nesting box, and get busy with the self-important buGAWKing. Even after they’ve both laid, they’ll sing awhile.

Geraldine and Georgina go into a huge production number, which probably relates the less than comfortable journey the egg takes from the ovary to the oviduct to the vent at long last. They’ve been laying steadily for three years now, though they tend to trade egg days now.

Ruby and Pearl, my fluffy fat one-note wonders, get as much mileage out of buh buh buh buh buh at they can. And lay the smallest eggs of the group. Even little Hazel of Cornish lays larger eggs.

Right now Hazel is on egg sabbatical. She’s not bald or freezing her comb off, but she has taken on a new cheer-leading role. She won’t hang out in the coop when someone’s pushing out an egg, but she’ll roost herself outside in the sun, and cluck in harmony.

Anyone who tells you the roosters are the biggest noise-makers in the flock has never listened to a chorus of hens laying eggs, needless to say. Even Luciano and Placido (thanks for the delicious tamales, guys) were soft-spoken compared to the ladies further back in the yard.