When did Halloween happen?

So I'm getting ready to put together a blog post before we leave for Massachusetts this weekend (wrestling tournament for my younger stepson) and I find this among the unposted photos:

And this:

And it occurs to me that I haven't been paying attention to the days flying by.

Here's the deal. There's work, there's a little writing, there were about 30 bushels of apples (that's 65 pounds per bushel), the animals, the house, the family, knitting (mostly for Christmas, not for sharing here, as the recipients read this thing) and so it goes.

The blog is the place where I make note of all the small but special parts of my life that I otherwise might not notice or appreciate, and the fact that I haven't photographed or posted much just shows that things are, as I suspected, slipping past me. I think I need to slow down a bit.

I have one photo that sort of sums up my daily routine:

Laundry and turkeys and autumn sun. Could be worse.

Oh, there are goats.

Don't be fooled by the innocent look. They hop the fence whenever they feel like it and raid the chicken coop feeder.

Speaking of chickens, meet the new girls.

It's hard to get good poultry group photos, as they jerk around a lot. These hens are egg farm rejects I intercepted just days before they were sent to the great cat food can in the sky. They've had one year of laying so they're probably about 18 months old, and technically they're "spent," meaning having molted once, they won't lay every single day. Two bucks each, and I've been averaging 1-2 eggs a day from them as a group. (Short days = few or no eggs.)

Anyway, institutionalized chickens aren't the healthiest looking things (which explains the pale-yolked, fragile-shelled qualities of supermarket eggs). They're scrawny, their combs are pale and floppy, their beaks have been trimmed (although these girls' don't look too bad), and they stink to high heaven.

The first couple of weeks, they didn't dare venture outside the coop. But now they're starting to, and you can't get a still picture.

(That's ice from the waterer there.)

Their combs are standing up now and they're acclimating to life on the outside.

They are very talkative, more so than my homegrown birds, and very curious. They have quickly come to associate me with food, and Flora, the lightest one above, runs right to my feet whenever she sees me. It does my heart good to see them peck the ground, run around, roost, and enjoy natural chicken behaviors, most or all of which are denied battery-farmed chickens. Of course, they could end up as fox food, too, but then again they'd already be dead if I hadn't snagged them.

The turkeys are growing, but once again will be spared from the Thanksgiving dinner table by my softie husband (a wild turkey hunter, wtf?). Next year, he swears.

Two of them insist on roosting outside (the white one is hard to see on the left, but the other is above the turkey house).

And of course, there is always Milo. The most affectionate killer cat ever.

We're heading into the holidays, not typically a mellow time and weatherwise not conducive to colorful  photographs. But picture me knitting away as time permits. I finished my handspun sweater but can't bring myself to photograph it until I rip out the cowl neck (itchy!) and the not-so-clever garter stitch raglan seams (stretchy!). If the weather had been colder, it would have been done by now.

I'm up for "Crock-Pot Friday" at work tomorrow, so I'll be up to my eyeballs in beef stew and dinner rolls tonight. 

Have a good weekend. Pet your cat.

Comments

[Carole]

You're coming down here this weekend? Do you have any free time to get together? I'd love to meet up, even if it's just for a cup of coffee.

[Becky in VT]

As if my kitties would let me forget to pet them...

[Abby]

Happy to hear from you again! I used to work in one of those "automated laying facilities". A few years later, we moved to the country and I raised my own flock of chickens. It never occurred to me to see about getting spent hens from my former employer. What a good idea! And I'm sure it generates good poultry karma.

[jessie]

Oh, Carole I would love to. But we're going to Springfield, not Bridgewater. If we do get down your way I will definitely let you know!

Jessie

[Renee]

I really enjoy your real-life posts and all the farm animals and goings on. :)
Happy knitting and enjoy the end of fall. Christmas will be here soon!!

[jessie]

I know, right? Mile is very demanding of attention, and very exacting that it be done correctly, or there will be bloodshed.

Jessie

[jessie]

The transformation those birds make, just learning how to walk around, is something to see. Dust baths? It's a beautiful thing. :-)

[jessie]

Farm life is good and rewarding but I have so much going on lately I haven't really been getting the most out of it. I'm learning that harvest time is hard, even on a small scale, and I hate to say it but I'm looking forward to the winter days when I can't go outside but have to stay in and knit!

[martha in mobile]

I never thought that the facility layers would look so ratty! I'm gonna tell my big fat hens how lucky they are (as they munch kitchen scraps and yard greens). Good on you for giving them a bit of the chickeny life, however long it lasts.

[gayle]

Good for you for providing the 'retirement home' for the hens! They'll be perfectly good layers for you, no matter what the battery people say.
Milo is such a sweetie - too bad you need a full kevlar suit to pet him...

[Judi]

If you are interested in chickens, check out this Australian farm shrimani.com

You are living my "farm fantasy", well except for having to have a day job too, and I love be able to visit.

[donna lee]

I once had a cat who liked to "play" by grabbing our arms and biting. She never really hurt anyone but you had to be careful.

I feel like the holidays are just behind me waiting to jump out and say "surprise!".

[Sylvia]

Glad the new girls are thriving -- that story would make an excellent children's book -- perhaps your daughter could illustrate it? One time I took in some hens from a failing farm, and they brought chicken lice so we had a real mess. Caveat...

I always tried to have a handful of older girls in the coop. Yes, they don't lay quite as often as the youngsters, but the eggs can be extra large and I found the flock was emotionally more stable with the mix of ages. Nobody's going to lay well if they all freak out every time a bird flies overhead. The older birds were unflappable and the few times everybody really did need to flee into the hen house, the old ladies helped the rooster herd the younger fluffs through the door.

None of my girls lasted beyond three years, but they had a lovely chicken's life.

That quantity of apples boggles the mind. Wow.

[jessie]

They're especially friendly, which cracks me up.

As for the apples, we put 33 gallons of cider in the freezer (including some we gave away). What's funny is that we had friends here picking more than we could ever use, even when we weren't home. We'd get home and find all these boxes on the porch that other people had picked. They took a few, but they could have taken more!

[trek]

Beef stew!

Leave it to me to be most excited over the warm dinner...

[Kristen]

I'm happy for your rescue chickens. Our 8 girls started laying in September and the short days haven't slowed them down.

[jessie]

The younger ones sometimes go all year that first year, although the one I have now isn't...

[Lynne S of Oz]

Busy busy busy!
We'll be able to have chooks at home! Yay! We were given money (birthday present) to build a chicken coop years ago and then we moved here. Can't have chooks in a rental apartment.