Across America, people are getting ready for Thanksgiving. In my house we don’t do the big family meal, with turkey and the fixings. Instead, on the weekend following Thanksgiving we have the Pie Party. It’s an event that I invented, and for my family and friends it has become a much looked forward to tradition. (If you type Pie Party into the HenBlog search bar, you can read about all of the parties from past years.)

The party is all pies. That’s it. A lot of pie. This year I’ll have more than 30 guests, and each one eats half a pie (yes, really, I keep records!) I bake all of the pies myself, from scratch. I use my organizational skills honed when I worked in professional kitchens. I have exact prep lists and have planned out the work flow. Yesterday I made 15 crusts, plus decorative cut-outs.

Baking is a combination of exact measurements and technique born from experience. I weigh out the flour.

 

But the rolling out is all about feel.

By the way, that’s my beloved

. It has a nonstick patina of butter in its pores.

I froze all but two of the crusts. Those were turned into pies, which were then also frozen. My pie crust recipe, and directions for freezing, are in this post. Some pies can be baked ahead. Some can be baked the day before. Some have to be made on the morning of the party. Some touches, like meringue, are done right before the guests arrive.

Today I go grocery shopping. I need cream and lemons. I’ll also head to a farmstand for some heirloom baking apples. (See my apple pie recipe.)

Here’s this year’s menu:

Lemon Pie, Toll House Pie (one with peanut butter chips, one with just chocolate), Apple Pie with Crumb Topping, Classic Double-crust Apple Pie, Pear and Cranberry Pie, Chocolate Pie with a Graham Crust and Meringue Piping, Chocolate Chunk Bourbon Pecan Pie, Apricot Cream Cheese Tart, Peach Pie (made with homegrown peaches), and two savory tarts: Onion and Prosciutto, and Corn and Tomato.

I’ll make doubles of most of these. And, no doubt, as I always do, I’ll worry that I don’t have enough (!) and make something at the last minute. As you can imagine, this week, blogging will take a backseat to the cooking.

What’s on your menu?

Moving animals around the farm and changing groupings and housing is always complicated, especially so when you have several species, each with their own management needs, and then each animal is an individual with his or her own personality. It was time to combine the two flocks. I did this to ease my workload in the winter. I also anticipate more deaths (it happens with hens) and I didn’t want one flock of fewer than three birds. Melding the Gems and the Ladies has gone especially well! I haven’t seen any pecking order aggression.

But, I had an additional reasons to move the Ladies. I was also thinking about Phoebe, the rabbit that lived with them. Phoebe is my second bunny to abide in the smaller coop. The first was Candy, an imperious, imperturbable lop ear.

 

Candy liked to put herself right in amongst the hens. Candy was at the top of the pecking order. I called her the Empress.

 

Phoebe is not so domineering. She’d rather keep the hens at a distance. She doesn’t join the scrimmage for the morning treats.

 

I had a feeling that she’d be happy to have the Little Barn to herself. After I moved the hens, I cleaned it out, and gave her a litter box in a spot where she was used to peeing in the chickens’ bedding. (Something Candy never did.) Phoebe immediately used it.

 

Now that I know she’ll keep the barn tidy, she has cozy pine shavings to romp in.

 

I’m not going to get another rabbit to keep her company. She’s already three years old and has never had a bunny friend. (I got her from a rescue, and she was a lone rabbit in her previous home.) But, she’s not lacking for friends. There are the goats, and us humans.

Phoebe shows no signs of missing those bothersome chickens. Now she’s waiting for snow!

 

I’ve been laying the groundwork for the Ladies to join the flock of Gems. They’ve free-ranged together. I encouraged mingling by tossing corn on the lawn.

Next, I put the Ladies inside of the coop so that they could get to know their new digs.

 

Meanwhile, the Gems were out on the lawn.

 

The next day, I cleaned out the Big Barn. I shoveled out all of the old bedding and then used a

to get the dust out of every nook and cranny. (This is my new favorite cleaning tool! Despite frequent swipes with a broom, and a once-a-year thorough vacuuming, surfaces were thick with dust. If you do this, use a face mask and protective glasses!)

 

I put down a thick layer of fresh Koop Clean. The hens love this bedding, and I knew that they’d be so overjoyed at the prospect of scratching in it, that they wouldn’t bother their new roommates.

I carried the Ladies over to the Big Barn and tucked them inside, and then I invited the Gems in to meet them on their home turf.

 

At first the Koop Clean was so distracting, that no one cared about the interlopers.

 

The Ladies went outside before anyone noticed them. For awhile they stuck together.

 

But then the pumpkin that I’d put out provided a distraction (as I knew it would.)

 

Soon, everyone was milling around. No drama.

 

At nightfall, the Gems went to their normal places on the roost, and then the Ladies climbed up and settled down.

So far, so good. I expect a few skirmished as the chickens realize that there’s a new pecking order to be sorted out, but I don’t think that it will be too bad.

Phoebe, by the way, is enjoying having the Little Barn to herself. More on that in another post!

I arrived at the stable early afternoon. It was a rainy day and the horses were all inside. There’s something so peaceful about a dusky barn. But I heard a noise that broke the mood. I’m deaf. Cochlear Implants allow me to hear. When I first come across an unknown sound, my brain can’t make sense of the inputs. I have to see the source of the noise in order to process it. Once I can do that, it usually sounds normal.

What I heard in the barn sounded like a leaf blower. Or maybe a horse in pain. Or a piece of machinery inadvertently left on. The other thing about wearing CIs is that I have minimal directional hearing. Especially with an unknown sound, I don’t have a clue where it’s coming from. I walked down the aisle, on alert.

That’s when I saw Lano, sprawled out. His eyes were open and he was making the most awful noise. I didn’t panic. I let my brain make sense of the scene.

Instead of finding a disaster, I had come across a totally ridiculous and hilarious horse.

He was snoring. Enjoy.

The molt is triggered by numerous factors. The age of the hen and the changing season are primary instigators. The poorest layers tend to molt first. Timing of the molt is also influenced by the breed. If under great stress, or ill, chickens will molt at other times of the year.

I have two Rhode Island Reds. They are the same age, from the same hatchery, eat the same food, and live in the same coop. One is only beginning to loosen her feathers in preparation for the molt.

 

The other is in the midst of loosing and growing feathers at the same time.

I have no clue why these two hens are on different schedules. It might be health, or genetics, or something else. I don’t even know who’s who! One is Ruby, one is Garnet. Garnet used to have a blue band on her ankle so that I could tell them apart. That fell off. I used to be able to tell them apart by their tails, but now I can’t compare them, being as one of the chickens barely has a tail. So, I will call the molting hen Ruby. Unless one of you has been keeping track of them?