I’ve no time to write a blog post today. This morning I’m off to teach four classrooms of second graders all about chickens, egg laying, feathers and the science of bird poop. What great topics! I’ll be bringing a hen, of course. I can’t wait to show the kids where the egg comes out. They all know that hens lay eggs, but they’ve never actually visualized that very last step!

I love my work.

For more about my programs for children, go to my School/Libraries page. By the way, the science of chicken poop is not just for kids, and I’ll be talking about it in the Chicken Keeping Workshop scheduled one for May 31. You can sign up here.

In this part of the country, we can expect a late frost, and so tender vegetables don’t safely go into the ground until mid-May or even June. However, the rule of thumb is that as soon as the ground can be worked, cold-hardy seeds can be sown. Early in April, the snow melted off of my raised beds, and I was able to get kale, peas, carrots and lettuce in.

Usually, I seed those crops at least twice, a few weeks apart, in order to harvest over the course of the summer. But, we haven’t had any hot days to warm up the dirt. We have had a lot of cold rain. You don’t want to muck about in the garden in the muck – it will compact soil that you’ve so carefully fluffed up and nurtured with compost and a light hand. Because of that, most of my vegetable garden still looks like this:

The seeds that I did sow in early April had a pitiful germination rate. Only about half of the snap peas have shown themselves. However, the shelling peas are looking okay.

The kale is just now braving the chilly spring.

Hopefully, by next week I’ll be able to plant more vegetables. Meanwhile, the one thing that this dreary spring weather is good for is grass. I’ve sectioned off the goat pasture, keeping the boys to one side. Yesterday I broadcast timothy seed onto the other.

Not that the goaties will suffer from hunger. They get their daily ration of hay, sweet feed every other day, I bring them greens, and I hand graze them a few times a week. Look at that belly!

The goats turned five on April 26. Dr. Sarah, their vet, came and gave them their yearly vaccines. I asked if they were, perhaps, a tad tubby. She said no! They’re just right. (The feeders to the left and right of the manger are for kelp and minerals, both essential to feed free-choice for the health of your goats.)

By the way- with the warmer weather, we leave the stall door open later. The goats like being out at night. So, don’t worry if you see them out after dark.

What’s growing in your garden?

It’s been a wet spring, and I live in a town with streams, rivers and vernal pools, so much of the land is squishy, soggy and muddy. Ponds are full. On the plus side, the frogs are joyously making a racket, the birds are singing, and all around there are green things sprouting up. On the downside, the insects are coming out.

Thankfully, we don’t have the voracious and vicious black flies that are the scourge of northern New England. But, we do have biting black gnats. When I visit Tonka, he tips his head towards me so that I can rub his ears. He’s not a show horse, and so I leave his ears fuzzy. Still, a few gnats manage to bite and make him itchy and bloody.

The gnats aren’t too bad in his paddock, but when I take Tonka out to graze, those insects swarm. To protect his ears, Tonka wears a little crocheted cap.

I think that he looks quite dashing in it. When we go for trail rides, he wears it under his bridle. I’ve seen photographs from a hundred years ago, when carriage horses wore hand-crocheted fly protectors, draped from ears to tail. Those fly scrims were elaborate, tasseled and white. However, I rather like the cheery blue.

Later on in the summer, when the deer flies come out (their bites are very painful), Tonka will wear a fly mask that will protect his eyes with a flexible screen. But, for now, this little cap does the job. At night, it’s still chilly enough that the gnats recede and so Tonka doesn’t have to wear anything. Which he prefers.

I keep my two barns mucked out and clean. Inside of my coops, the air is fresh and the bedding is dry. But, the reality is that chickens poop. A lot. Hens defecate, not only when they’re running around outside, but also while they’re sleeping. The manure accumulates under the roosts and, in the case of my barn, on the beams. (Some coops have poop boards, where manure collects rather than dropping into the bedding. These still need frequent scraping off.)

In warm weather, that manure is a breeding ground for flies. Keeping the manure managed, by frequent cleaning and composting helps to control the insects. But, wood can absorb damp and enough fecal material to harbor flies, so I take one more step. After removing the manure, I spritz the wood with my homemade chicken coop disinfectant.

This disinfectant effectively kills flies, especially the tiny ones emerging from the muck. But, it doesn’t harm or bother the hens at all, as can be seen in this photo. While I was cleaning and spritzing, the chickens ignored me while they had their usual morning drama over the one and only nesting box that everyone wanted to use.

This disinfectant is inexpensive and very easy to make. It’s simply white vinegar that has had orange peels steeped in it for a month or more. It’s especially easy if you know the professional cook’s method of peeling oranges. Here’s the tutorial!

How to Peel Oranges Like a Pro:

Cut off both ends.

Set the orange on a cut end, and using a sharp chef knife, slice off the peel, including the pith, by following the curve of the fruit. Note where my fingers are – holding the orange securely, and yet out of the way of the knife! (This is the knife that I have had for 25 years. One good knife can make kitchen tasks so much easier!)

Use the perfectly peeled orange for fruit salad or other recipes.

The peels go into a container with inexpensive white vinegar, then left in a pantry and ignored for a month. (A longer steeping time is fine – I’ve let mine sit for four months.) Use peels from at least three oranges for a 2-quart container (as shown.) But, there’s flexibility to this recipe – if you’re peeling five oranges, go ahead and use all of the peels. Lemon and grapefruit peels should also work as they also contain citrus oils. (Grapefruit seed extract is also touted as a disinfectant, but that’s not the same as the oils in the peel, and I have no experience with it so can’t give advice on it here.)

When ready, it will look like this:

The citrus oil from the rinds, combined with the vinegar, is a potent disinfectant. I pour the liquid into a spray bottle and keep it at hand in the coop (labeled, of course!)

This year, I’m going to put the rinds under some rocks in a stone wall where wasps build a yearly nest. I’m hoping that this will persuade them to go elsewhere. I’ll let you know if that works!

Let me know if this tutorial inspires you to make up a batch. If you start today, it will be ready for fly season.