Exactly three years ago, I started this blog. But, before that, I already had my web sites up.  The main reason that I got on the web because of my Farmstead Egg Cookbook. I hoped that having a web site devoted to the book would help it to sell and stay in print. It’s a little book, easy to miss spine-out on the shelf of a bookstore; I’d hoped that a web site would give it more presence. It’s a gem of a book – my editor, Elizabeth Beier, and her staff at St. Martin’s went all out with three-color text and full-bleed photographs. I was allowed to take charge of the photos (often handed to an art director, not the author), and hired Ben Fink, who came to my house and photographed my cooking and my hens. When done, it was exactly the book I’d imagined.

The food writer, Irena Chalmers, once said that cookbooks have “the shelf-life of clotted cream.” The Farmstead Egg Cookbook had a run a bit longer than that, but I found out yesterday that it is being remaindered, meaning it is going out-of-print. All copies in stock have been sold to a discount house. It’s the reality of the business. Very few books stay in print. Still, it’s always a sad day for the author. Anyway, if you’ve been putting off getting a copy for yourself, do it now. There are still a few in the stores and on Amazon.

Of course, one thing leads to another and many good things have come of my little book. One of them is this blog. Three years! Has anyone out there been with me from the beginning? Although the initial reason for the blog is gone, now there is a new one. Because of Tillie Lays an Egg, I have a growing community of readers that includes librarians, teachers and children. 

As an anniversary gift I am giving you a preview of my next web endeavor – GoatCam! Two Miniature Nigerian Dairy Goat brothers will be coming to Little Pond Farm in about 2 months. They were born this week at the Village Haven Farm. Here they are only 15 minutes old. Exciting isn’t it? 

It’s 90 degrees F. today. (That’s 32 C.) It’s hot. There’s no breeze. Candy knows how to stay cool. She’s stretched out in the shady earth of the compost. By the way, she loves eating old, brown leaves, even when there are fresh greens around. I think she likes the crackly-crunch of them.

The chickens know how to stay cool. They’ve scratched up the dirt in the shade to the side of the coop. This morning all seven hens and Candy were in this one spot, but when I came out to take the photo, only Coco was there. She is a very pretty bird. And sensible.

On the other hand, Scooter is not so sensible. He is a heat-loving dog, sleep-the-day-away dog. His favorite thing to do is to stretch out on the porch step, in the full sun, and fry his brains. 

It is almost the end of April and I haven’t seen one chipmunk. Around here we are usually overrun with the active little creatures. After a winter hibernating in our stone walls, they come out, eat my blueberries and keep my dogs on their toes. I keep a gardening calendar and mark when I see the first little guy. I looked back to double check what is normal. Usually they start to appear at the end of March. 

The population of these small prey animals cycles along with the populations of their predators. Some years there are chattering chipmunks teasing my dogs at every corner, and other years only a few are scampering about. But this year there’s nary a one. I’m getting worried. 

Does anyone know what is going on? I hope there’s not an illness going around, like the white fungus that is killing bats, or the mysterious bee colony collapse. Today is a warm and sunny spring day. It’d be perfect, but I’m missing the silly chipmunks. 

An average large laying hen eats 1/4 pound of feed a day, drinks about 4 ounces of water and produces 1/4 pound of manure. Chickens, like other birds, don’t pee; it all comes out in one, fairly solid, glob. Chicken poo is smelly, but a well-cared for coop and yard is not. The trick is to keep it picked up and compost the waste.

I’m rather lazy about my compost. I don’t bother to add water, or microbes, or turn it. I let the chickens and time do the work. I have a three-step system. Kitchen scraps, garden refuse and weeds go into a section of the chicken run.

You can see it here – this view is in the HenCam yard. It’s around the corner to the side of the coop and out of sight of the HenCam camera. Notice that there’s a piece of fencing in the yard. The materials to be composted get tossed behind it. The chickens can get in – there’s a foot opening on both sides, but because of the fence, despite the girls’ active scratching, the material stays in that corner. I don’t bother to chop up the stuff that goes into the compost – the chickens do that work for me. I don’t have to turn it, either. They do all of that work, too. In this photo I’m standing outside of the chicken run, in the next stage of the compost. Once the chickens eat what they want, and shred the rest, I shovel it into this next bin. Here I add the manure and shavings that are cleaned out of the coops. I also put in kitchen scraps that I don’t want the chickens to get – like coffee grounds and moldy strawberries.

These two bins outside of the chicken run are fenced to keep the material in and the dogs and chickens out. The one that I’m standing in was filled over the course of a year. In the spring, I shovel the old compost from one side to another. I’m almost done here! The really good stuff at the bottom goes into the wheelbarrow and is taken to the garden. The rest of it gets to age a little longer, and in June is used for my pumpkin patch. It always looks like a lot, but it is never enough. 

Now that the left side is shoveled out, I’ll be starting a new bunch of compost.

Look how lovely, fluffy and dark the compost is in the wheelbarrow. There’s no stinky odor. Here I am, spreading it under my Fox River Birch. Isn’t that the prettiest bark?

BTW, did you notice the yellow tee-shirt I’m wearing? It’s my Chick It Out tee from the Chicago Ridge Public Library. Read about what they are doing this month to celebrate all things chicken and how Tillie Lays an Egg inspired them, in this article in the School Library Journal.

I always teach my dogs a “trade” command, which means whatever they have, they give to me in exchange for something else. Do this right, and a puppy will hand you your expensive leather glove instead of shredding it to bits. It can be quite useful. My previous dog, the late, great, Nimbus, would drop a dead squirrel in exchange for dog biscuits (four, never less).

It ‘s not only humans who can use this to their advantage. My husband leaves his slippers inside by the porch door when he goes out to care for the chickens. Lily, my border collie/rat terrier mix, waits for him to leave and then she hides them. When he comes back, he says, “Where’s my slippers?” Lily gleefully drops one at his feet. “And where’s the other?” he says. She brings the second one and waits by the canister that holds the treats. She thought this up all by herself and it never fails to amuse all of us.

Lily has also learned to take my rubber boots and put them in the center of a mud puddle. Of course, she knows that I’ll need her help. I say, “Fetch the boots,” and she does. The “fetch” command is something that I taught her. The rest of it all comes from her inventive mind.

She is a dog, and a good trainer. Does that make her a “dog trainer?”