I don’t have any interest in competing my birds at poultry shows, but I do like going. I’m fortunate to live less than two hours from one of the largest poultry shows in the country, The Northeastern Poultry Congress. Have you ever been to a flower show in the dead of winter? For which a dark and dreary convention hall is transformed with blooms, and where gardeners go to dream and plan for the growing season? Well, a poultry show is like a flower show for chicken people. This weekend, at the Congress, there will be thousands of birds to look at, a huge raffle to enter, and booths to peruse.

I’ll be there! Look for me to the side of the hall, where I’ll have copies of my books for sale. Special for the Poultry Congress, I’ll have my books of vintage photographs on sale for Half Off at $10 each. (Saturday only, and only at the show.) I’m going to bring a couple of extra chairs so that you can stop by and chat for awhile. Let me know if you’re coming. I hope to see you there!

If you are coming to this, or any poultry show, it’s important to take precautions to protect your own flock. Chickens can look perfectly healthy, they could even be ribbon winners, but still be carriers of disease. Poultry carry both viruses and bacteria in their droppings, their dander and in their breath. I’ve seen chickens with obvious cases of fowl pox (a virus that causes spots and lesions on combs) in the show cages. Use common sense. Do not wear the same shoes to the show that you wear out to your coops. Do not wear your barn coat. When you get home, wash your clothes. This is basic biosecurity. It’s a lot easier to do these days, what with our large wardrobes of clothes that can go right into the washing machine. Imagine how hard it was back in the early twentieth century, when poultry shows were at the height of their popularity. (Of course, in those days, they didn’t know about biosecurity and those coats might have been washed once a year. Maybe.)

I hope to see you at the Poultry Congress on Saturday, January 18! (I’ll be wearing a new, black winter coat, that I never wear to the barns.) For a link to the Poultry Congress site, with directions, go to my Events page.

Last summer, for the first time, I grew Black Turtle Beans. The plants looked just like climbing green beans. It took willpower to let the pods dry out on the vines, but after the leaves shriveled, there was something beautiful about the muted colors and spotted husks.

It was a chore to shell the beans, but they they felt wonderfully silky in my hands, and the plink-plink as the beans dropped into the bowl rewarded my efforts. They were the most beautiful beans I had ever seen.

The harvest from an entire tower of bean plants filled only half of a quart jar.

I put them into the pantry, waiting for the right day in the winter to make soup. Certainly, this week of polar freeze, ice and snow qualified! I didn’t need much: onion, garlic, carrots, parsley, broth, spices and one smoked ham hock. I’ve yet to find a local source for the hock, so I bought a Wellshire Farms product at Whole Foods because Wellshire Farms has decent animal husbandry standards, and besides, their ham hock is delicious. Since the ham hock is the predominant flavor in this soup, it does make a difference to buy the best one that you can.

Although dried beans look like they last forever, the truth is that age takes its toll. Older beans take longer to cook and have a grittier texture. Dried beans usually require and overnight soaking, but since my black beans were only four months from harvest, I didn’t bother. I pulled out my slow cooker; the beans would be just right after a day in the crockpot. You don’t need a fancy slow cooker. An inexpensive model works fine.

I started the soup by pouring oil into the crockpot so that it covered the bottom by a thin layer. I added chopped onions and covered the pot. This cooked on high, and developed flavor, while I prepped the remaining ingredients. Next in were diced carrots and a few garlic cloves, minced.

Beans bought from the supermarket are harvested using huge machines. Dirt and rocks get scooped up. Threshing, also by machine, separates the beans from the husks, and sifts out dirt, but not all pebbles are found and discarded before packaging. So dried bean recipes call for giving them a good washing and look over. Because I plucked my beans off of the vines, I knew that no rocks were lurking. However, I did immerse the beans in a bowl of water. Bad beans, and bits of husk, floated to the surface, which I skimmed off. I then gave the beans a quick drain in a colander and tossed them into the slow cooker. I poured in two boxes of organic chicken broth, stirred in two teaspoons of ground cumin and a touch of a hot pepper flakes (grown by my friends at Sweet Autumn Farm) and tucked in the ham hock. I didn’t add salt because I didn’t know how salty the hock was. As it turned out, no additional salt was needed. I covered the slow cooker and walked away.

Six hours later, I had soup, and it was very, very good.

I ladled it into a bowl, added some bits of meat cut off of the hock, dolloped on some sour cream, and generously garnished with minced fresh flat leaf parsley.

When I woke up this morning it was 15°F. I know what I’m having for lunch.

What with the sad news posts I’ve been writing, I thought that we could all use a charming vintage photo to puzzle over. What’s going on here?

UPDATE: the caption on the back reads: All of my family except for the chickens. Taken in our back yard about a week ago. Weston, Texas, Feb. 1930

Have you tried to photograph all of your animals, at one time? Can you imagine the rumpus if I tried to do that here? Just the thought of it makes me smile.

(By the way, take a look at that terrier. Her legs are in proportion to her body. Her snout is long enough so that she can breathe. Her eyes are large but not protruding. I wish breeders would go back to such a healthy and sensible type!)

Even with temperatures going into the minus teens overnight, I am unwavering about not hanging heat lamps in the coops. However, I do take an extra step to keep my horse warm. Tonka lives out in a paddock, both day and night. There’s a shed that he can go into for shelter from the wind. He has a fur coat, which is thick, but not as warm as my hens’ down jackets.  Although Tonka and his pasture-mate Merlin (a pleasant Standarbred gelding) might stand side-by-side to ward off wind, they don’t cuddle up like the chickens do. Some horses grow dense coats and can tolerate most any storm. Although Tonka’s coat is not as thin as that of a Thoroughbred that I once owned (she really needed coddling in winter), he does have to wear a blanket when it’s below freezing. And when the temps dip down below 0°, I dress him in this bit of horse armor:

Lest you think that putting coats on horses is a new, indulgent phenomena, take a look at this one-hundred year-old photograph from my collection:

It does make me feel less indulgent about blanketing my own horse.

By the way, I don’t know why this horse is clothed the way he is. Judging by the handler’s apparel, it’s not cold out. Does anyone know?

I keep a daily record of egg production. I found an unused, vintage chart on eBay, that I copy and use each year. For 2013 I had two up on my kitchen bulletin board – one for the Gems and one for the ladies. Today I’ll be tallying up how the girls did and reporting on that later in the week to you.

As my New Year’s gift to you, below is a scan of the chart. Click on the graphic and it will pop-up as a PDF for printing out.

I wish everyone baskets of beautiful eggs in 2014!