The outside water got turned off two days ago. Around here if you think, “Oh, it’s lovely weather, there’s plenty of time to leave the convenient spigots on” what you’ll have are frozen and broken pipes and a very big repair bill. When the crew comes and blows out the lines, I know it’s time to prepare the coops for winter.

We do take a risk and leave the outside spigot next to the back door on until it’s freezing during the daytime. So, for now, I have a hose stretched out to the barn. That will be turned off by November, and all through the winter water has to be hauled from inside of the house to the coops. After years of doing that daily, it finally dawned on me that I could have a heated water tub in the barn. Now instead of carrying water daily (and getting sloshed in all sorts of weather) I fill it up once a week, and I pick a day when it’s not freezing rain or snowing! Yesterday I got the big tub and the goat’s heated water bucket down from the loft and gave them a good scrubbing.

Yesterday’s nice weather also prompted me to do another important pre-winter chore: wash the windows. Sunlight in the coop is essential for the hens’ health. It also encourages them to lay winter eggs. The windows were coated with barn dust and the light coming in was dull. I have to say that I don’t like washing windows. It’s a pain of a job. I didn’t worry about streaks, but I did what was necessary.

Now the hens will be able to sunbathe even during the worst that winter throws at us. I also took a broom to the cobwebs. Dust and cobwebs are reservoirs of disease. When chickens stay inside, their respiration and manure causes dampness in the coop. Cobwebs hold onto that, and the germs. A clean sweep before the bad weather hits is preventative medicine.

I also swept the storage area and cleaned up and corners that mice might want to hole up in. Mice eat chicken food and are also intermediary hosts of parasites. They’re cute, but I don’t want them sharing space with my hens.

The goats are ready for winter, too. They’ve grown their furry coats. They say that they need a layer of fat to stay warm and to please feed us animal crackers.

Don’t believe them! However, I will be giving them more hay at bedtime. For goats, digesting food acts as an internal heater, so going to sleep with full bellies keeps them toasty during cold winter nights.

If you are in the area, stop by the Chelmsford, MA Agway on Saturday at 11 am. I’ll be talking more about Preparing Your Flock For The Winter.

Since the Popover recipe was such a huge success, I thought I’d share this variation. Toad In The Hole is British comfort food at its best. It’s simply browned sausage with popover batter poured over it. I rarely eat pork as I can’t condone the practices at the production facilities. However, I do purchase pork sausage from local farmers who pasture their pigs. The pigs have very good lives and good food. The end of their lives is as important as their daily care. The pigs are taken to a local slaughterhouse where they go from the truck to the processing stage with no wait. Animal agriculture is an integral part of farming here in New England, where we have rocky pastures. Pigs make use of land that can’t be farmed in other ways. In any event, the sausage itself is fresh and delicious, and in a recipe like this, with few ingredients, each one has to be special. If you can’t get good pork sausage, there are some regional and national brands of organic chicken sausage that can be substituted.

Toad In The Hole

2 eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour|
1 cup lowfat milk
¼ teaspoon salt
1 pound sausage
1 to 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium red onion, sliced
1 long stem fresh rosemary

1. Whisk together the eggs, flour, milk and salt. Refrigerate while doing the next steps.
2. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. If using uncooked pork sausage, put 1 tablespoon of oil in a 9 by 9-inch baking dish (2 ½ quart casserole.) If using a drier, precooked chicken sausage, use 2 tablespoons of oil. Distribute the onions in the pan and add the sausage. Bake until browned, turning several times (large pork links will take 20 minutes total.)
3. Carefully remove the pan from the oven (the fat might splatter) and pour in the batter. Lay the rosemary on top. Return to the oven.
4. Bake until browned and puffed up, about 25 to 30 minutes. Like a popover, this will collapse.

4 large servings, leftovers can be reheated for breakfast

Lily sleeps in a crate. If let loose in the house, she paces to protect us from burglars, raccoons, distant trucks, falling branches and coyotes. No one gets any sleep. When Scooter was little, he slept in a crate, too. Then he told us that there was absolutely no way that he was going to continue to sleep in that box. Not that he wanted to be a watchdog; he wanted the cozy comfort of the couch by the fireplace.

He sleeps through everyone waking up, having breakfast, and the boy catching the school bus. Lily goes outside and checks the perimeter of the property. Scooter sleeps.

While I work at my desk, Lily watches out the window. She checks for UPS trucks, loose dogs, and hawks. Scooter comes upstairs. He doesn’t check for anything.

Finally, he deigns to go outside. He pees. It’s cold. His feet are wet.

He comes back in. Scooter has a snack. He’d prefer steak but he gets kibble.

Scooter goes back to sleep. This time he is on the living room couch.

I take him for a walk. He struts. He prances. He hates his harness.

We come home and he goes back to sleep.

Sometimes in the afternoon, he gets the zoomies and the two dogs play. But if anyone should be on the couch watching television, he drops everything and plasters himself to their side.

Around eleven pm, when we are all either in bed or heading there, Scooter decides that we should be rolling his ball down the hall to chase. Play time! Lily ignores him. I ignore him. Scooter gives up. He makes a big scene of arranging his blanket just so. He goes to sleep. Goodnight, Scooter.

I started this week doing the quintessential New England activity. A friend came over and taught me how to make Concord grape jelly. I live next door to the town of Concord, where that variety of grape was invented and so named, but, this is the first time I’ve ever made jelly, or canned anything! It’s now cranberry season and I have a basket of local pears on my kitchen counter. I’m thinking that will be a good combination. Have you canned anything this week?

I bought a huge 48 star flag at a country auction. After washing and airing it out, I hung it in the the hallway. It will remain there long after this drawn-out election season is over.

We were invited to a neighbor’s annual cider pressing and pig roast. We drank his homemade hard cider and ate and ate. I brought popovers. I baked them in a sunflower patterned muffin tin. Look how charming they came out!

The Gems finished their pumpkin.

Buffy rebounded from her last health crisis. She’s behaving like her old self and she’s part of the flock. But I notice her having difficulty getting up on the roost at night. I think that this will be her last winter. Of course, I’ve said that before and she’s proved me wrong. Meanwhile, Betsy is molting. Her tail is gone. New feathers are erupting on her neck. She’s feeling quite sorry for herself.

The weather was glorious. Stepping outside was like stepping into a gem-studded kaleidoscope.

At the end of the week the weather took a turn towards winter. Freezing temperatures were predicted for Friday night. I harvested the last of the green beans and gave the vines to the goats and chickens. I brought in the lone, small zucchini and a few tiny peppers. The ground was white in the morning. The zinnias died.

But a few raspberries remain.

Today it has warmed up a tad. It’s raining. This is the most dangerous time of year for chickens – much more so than when it is dry and freezing. They get wet and cold and that brings on respiratory disease. There’s mud so they can’t dust bathe (which is why I give mine a tub with sand and food-grade DE in their run.) Most of the hens are molting. Florence looks like a discarded feather duster. Here she is eating the green bean vines in the compost pile.

Not everyone is molting. Amber, the I never go broody Orpington, continues to lay!

Candy is waiting out the weather. She’s already wearing her thick fur coat. She knows that winter, her favorite season, is right around the corner.