the chicken and the egg

Soon it will be time to decide whether to add a new group of chicks to the flock.

At the moment, there are only five hens here. The two Buff Orpingtons (one seen above) and the Black Jersey Giant are a few years old now. The Rhode Island Red and the little brown hen are almost a year old. I bought them last autumn to bolster the winter egg supply. I've never added half-grown birds to my flock before, so I cautiously kept the newbies in the barn with the goats for a couple of weeks to watch for any health problems.

The Rhodie in quarantine.

The brown hen began to lay as soon as I brought her home. Her eggs are a very pale green. I've always had brown eggs, so the first light ones were a bit of a novelty. They were also sporadic and very variable in size, but since this was a pullet just beginning to lay, it seemed likely she'd soon settle down into producing a daily egg of consistent size. But she didn't. Instead, she went into a deep, long moult in November, and didn't lay another egg all winter.

The brown hen in moult.

Then all three older hens also decided to take the entire winter off. So for the past four months, the Rhode Island Red has been the only working hen on the place, cheerfully presenting me with a lovely organic egg almost every day.

Thank you, Little Red Hen!!

To recap:

I've been feeding five hens organically all Winter,

in order to have one egg daily.

I am not going to figure out how much those eggs have been costing me,

but it's been a worthwhile expense.

Apart from the value of having fresh, organic eggs in the larder,  

they have also provided a reliably joyful moment

in each dark morning of this bitter Winter.

There's a special pleasure in picking up a warm, newly-laid egg

and holding it in your cold hand for a moment

before continuing on to a series of very cold chores.

Thawing the frozen gate latches. 

Breaking the ice in water buckets.

~~~

Plus, they're pretty. See? 

In the past couple of weeks, the brown hen has just begun to lay. But again, not every day - unless she is laying some of her eggs outside the Poultry Palace. I've had hens try all sorts of places: under a lawn chair on the screen porch, behind a shovel in the goat barn, on top of a tall stack of hay bales...I'll let you imagine how I discovered that last location.

So this morning I kept all the hens in the Courtyard for a while, to encourage laying inside the Palace. Shortly before noon, there was a lot of the sudden, exuberant hollering that some hens do to announce the recent achievement of an egg. Since I didn't recognize the voice, I was not surprised to find a pale green egg in the nest in the Palace, right next to the daily brown egg from the Rhodie.

Here it is:

Do you think this is what was meant by the recipe

that called for "one and a half eggs"?

And in case you may think I just have freakishly tiny hands,

here are the two eggs side by side:

Oh, little brown hen.

 I do wish you would try to pace yourself.

~~~~~~

harvest time

For the past few weeks, I've been combing at least one, usually two, and occasionally three goats nearly every day. Remember Acer the Early Bird? He's done. The others are all in various stages of releasing the fiber on different parts of their bodies. This can go on for weeks, and once you see the signs, the only way to know if a particular goat is ready to be combed on a particular day, is to gently comb a little and see. If the comb feels stuck, no combing today. But if there is a slight but yielding resistance, you know that beneath the concealing topcoat, cashmere is gathering into a roll of near-weightless fluff in the teeth of the comb.

That's it.

That's the cloud harvest. 

Here's how it works:

Once a goat has released the cashmere undercoat, one of two things can happen. 

First, the cashmere may gradually fall off or, more often, be vigorously rubbed off on fencing and trees and the edge of shelters and the tips of horns. Either way, it's gone. 

What's that on your horn, Sambucus?
"I had a ITCH!"

And what's that on your horn, Lily?
"I blame Bui! Seeing her scratching made me itchy, too."

A blend of topcoat strands, bits of hay and old leaves,
muck, ice, and, oh yes, cashmere.

So the first scenario results in lost cashmere, period.

The second thing that can happen: cashmere fibers can be released from the skin but then be caught in the topcoat. As soon as this happens, you have the perfect conditions for combing. And there is no time to delay: it doesn't take long for some of the cashmere to become matted into clumps or tags, making the fiber useless. (At least, as far as I know, it's useless. If anyone knows how to salvage tiny fibers of cashmere from dirty, felted, matted clumps, please let me know! Like spinning straw into gold.)

A lot of fiber is being lost this year, despite the goats' excellent efforts at growing it, and my diligent efforts to collect it. It's due to the variable weather; especially, the wet and the bitter cold that came "after" Winter. Some of the goats suddenly started dropping fiber during a very wet period, and you really can't comb a damp goat. Then after a brief taste of warming weather (when I combed daily), it suddenly got terribly cold again, with ice storms for added drama. Lily and Tsuga had just begun to shed, but as long as the fiber was trapped in the topcoat, it was doing its real job of keeping the animals warm and healthy. So I left it there, and hoped it wouldn't be ruined before the weather changed and it could be harvested.

A lot has been ruined, but some has been salvaged!

And the combing isn't over yet, by any means. On and on and on.

For example, this is what LeShodu looks like right now:

You can bury your icy, numb fingers in that fiber,
and in seconds, you'll feel the heat
radiating back into your hands. 

And this second picture gives you an idea of what she looked like

at this same time, two years ago:

This is all topcoat. She looks like a black bear.

LeShodu is the original source of every bit of cashmere on the place.

She is the Matriarch of the herd, 

and considers herself very much 

The Boss of Them

It's a big responsibility,

but she is up for the task.

"That's right, I'm in charge.
Now, I believe I requested carrots...?"

~~~~~

birthday boys

Happy 2nd Birthday, Acer and Betula!

Hard to believe it was two years ago today.

Two years since your Mama looked at the calendar and said,

"Well, it's pretty cold, and it's really windy.

But it's the 150th day, and the sun is shining, so...Tick-tock!"

Two years since I knelt on the ground,

cutting my fleecy scarf into custom-fit Goat Coats,

hastily stitching them up with scrap yarn and my kitchener needle.

Born To Dance

Acer

aka The Maple Man.

aka The Gentleman Goat.

Betula.

aka The Birch Boy.

aka You Betcha!

And today...

Hard to remember a time when these handsome boyos weren't part of the herd.

~~~~~

overthinking, underdeciding

Dear Readers:
I've been trying to work something out for a couple of weeks.
I've avoided writing about it because it may be very dull reading.
But I can't seem to write about anything else, so here goes!

Your thoughts and suggestions are most welcome.

~~~

I may be taking a little trip.

Flashback: For most of my life I have loved my rare opportunities to travel, always on a shoestring (think "hostel" rather than "hotel") and usually wearing a heavy backpack half-full of cameras. I was never good at "vacationing" but I was always up for a project...a portfolio of habitat images, research for an article, scientific field work, learning a new skill.

Now it's been four years since I've spent a single night away, which seems impossible even as I type the words. It's been five years since I've been on a plane! That was when a work trip took me to a committee meeting in Yosemite. And when the work was over, I added a few days to the journey and spent them alone in Sequoia.

It was a precious, revitalizing time.

I hadn't realized that I needed revitalization.

But I really, truly did.

~~~

Now, then.

Some time ago, I mentioned to my Physical Therapist that I had stopped going to the theatre. In previous years, I had perfected my Summer Shakespeare System: in the morning, drive two hours to Lenox, get a motel room, do a lot of stretching. See a matinee performance of one play. Take a walk, have a bite to eat, keep moving. See the evening performance of a second play. (Ask the person in the next seat who stole my little inflatable back cushion during Intermission to kindly give it back! Too funny.) Spend the night in the motel, with long soaks in a very hot tub. Next day, catch a matinee of whichever play is on (seeing one of the plays twice - what a luxury!), then drive two hours home, with one long stop midway to stretch and walk about. I could expect several pretty grim days after one of these jaunts, but it was worth it.

Apart from the physical issues, the experience was perfect.

Shakespeare is the Sequoia of theatre for me.

My Physical Therapist was sad that theatre had become Another Thing no longer on my agenda. She told me that the dry climate of Arizona often brings great relief to people with joint issues, and perhaps I might want to consider returning to the Southwest?

Flashback: Back in the Jurassic period of my life, I spent a lot of time in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. I enjoyed visiting the desert, but I loved the mountains of Colorado. In fact, I was just wandering through Colorado and I stayed 7 years.

My PT's recommendations always carry weight, and I thought long and hard about testing the idea. So last year around this time - after the risk of frozen water pipes and before kidding season - I tried to find a critter-sitter. No luck. Soon it was a moot point, as kidding season began. Then gardening season. Then it was suddenly Autumn, and I found someone! Pat came and met my crew, and had a very nice way with the animals.

But she wasn't interested in minding anyone else's animals in the Winter. 

"Why, Pat?"  LOL.

Fair enough. I'll wait.

Four months later, although there is still plenty of snow and the ice is thick on every hazardous pathway, the end of this challenging Winter is in sight. Once again, there is a narrow window of possible travel time, and now I have someone I can trust to look after the animals. The timeframe is bookended by Pat's availability (beginning April 12) and my need to be back for kidding prep and seed-starting (early May).

So...

this is the long-awaited Big Chance!

And yet...

I am stuck, my friends!

I am so wide open to the idea of travel after this long hiatus,

the range of options that pop into my mind is dizzying!

This dizziness is counterbalanced

by limitations which I do my very best to ignore in daily life

but which I would be a fool to ignore in the planning stage of a journey.

Unfortunately, I am a fool.

Maybe writing about my repetitious train of thought will lead to a good decision?

Maybe you can help?

My Train of Thought visits three stations:

First Stop: I ponder how to best get from Point A to Point Elsewhere, when being in one position for any length of time is so difficult. Rent a car, so I can stop as often as needed to either walk around or stretch out in the back? Look for short or non-stop flights? Trains? Take some sort of "tour" such that I am not responsible for any aspect of transportation, and can spend time in a zero-gravity position whenever I choose? And about the time I realize I've just spent four hours online researching travel by boat and imagining the thrill of watching unknown riverbanks drift past my eyes from the welcome relief of a deck chaise, it occurs to me that a journey of any kind may be totally unrealistic... Woo-ooo-ooooooh! All Aboard! The train is leaving this station!

Second stop: no journey at all? But how could I waste this rare opportunity to leave the animals in good hands and refresh my soul with travel? The easiest thing would be to just get the first cheap flight to anywhere, and GO. Wheee! I know how to do this! Let's see...I've long imagined spending time in the southern Appalachian region. Or wouldn't it be fantastic to head for the Sierra Nevada again, because it already feels like a place where I could take root? But if I'm going 3,000 miles, why not just get a non-stop across the sea while the airfares are "low"? I've never been to England or Scotland...how can that even be possible? Must go there - this may be my last chance! Or to the green, green Azores! Spain, Italy...or maybe revisit France? Or Portugal? Or... Quick, back on the train!

Third stop:  WHOA! The original point of this operation was not to run off on holiday, it was to experiment with the effect of a different climate on my baseline pain issues. Won't I be wasting that chance unless I go somewhere with a moderate, dry climate, and lots of trees? An area I might potentially be able to relocate to, in order to improve my quality of life? Which brings my mind back to thinking about pain, and...wait a second, doesn't that station look familiar? Oh! It's where we got on! This train is on a loop! Chug-a-chugga-chug-a-chugga....

~~~

You see what's been going on in my little squirrel-brain lately.

Overthinking.

Underdeciding.

It's the bane of the squirrel mind.

"Shall I go forward? Backward?
I seem to be stuck on this fence,
but it's not very comfortable here!"

Any thoughts?

Suggestions?

Destination recommendations?

Oh, and if anyone has personal insight on the "dry climate = reduced joint pain" scenario, I would very much appreciate hearing about it.

Thanks so much.

~~~~~

wordless wednesday

~~~~~