I spend the winter thumbing through seed catalogs. I carefully select the varieties of plants that I nurture and care for over the summer in my vegetable garden. Although there is planning, I know enough to not expect the harvest to go as planned. The successes vary year by year. Last August the cucumbers were so abundant that I was making pickles. This year, the cucumbers have succumbed to wilt and insects. However, this year’s crops of tomatoes are the most delicious they’ve been in ages, and the carrots are sweet.

Every year I plant a pumpkin patch, and, other than watering, I ignore it. It fills with weeds. In a good year, I have enough pumpkins to set on the porch for Halloween.

This year, I put in a half-dozen butternut squash seedlings, too. The other day I went into the pumpkin garden to cut some tall grasses for the goats. I waded through weeds, and I spied some color underfoot.

I have a bumper crop of butternut squash!

But, that is not the biggest surprise in this year’s vegetable garden. The best is what I did NOT plant. Early in the spring, I spread two wheelbarrows full of compost on the goats’ pasture, where the soil is thin and nothing grows. Well, something is growing there now!

It’s my favorite winter squash, the delicata. I’m glad the boys don’t find it tasty.

This summer I finally replaced the asparagus patch (the original one Candy ate up, but that’s another story.) I planted the asparagus roots, and then I slowly filled in the trenches. I used good compost. I left it alone.

Lo and behold, the one plant I have never been able to bring to harvest, a sweet melon, is hanging off the side of the raised bed!

What have been the surprises in your garden this year?

Pip and Caper are twins. They’ve never been apart. They’re good buddies, but they’re brothers. You know how that is. Pip is as sweet as sweet can be with people. But, he’s greedy and possessive when it comes to food, and when it comes to me. If I scratch Caper, Pip squeezes between us. If Caper is eating something good, Pip butts him out of the way and claims it. Pip’s rudeness doesn’t seem to phase his brother. For the first year I though that Caper wasn’t very bright. He let Pip push him around and he often wore a “what?” sort of expression. I was wrong about his smarts. Caper is the one who figured out how to open the latches on the stall door (which are now secured with carabiners.) Caper is the one who knows how to squeeze out of a 2-inch gap in the fence. Caper does these things when no one is watching. On purpose. I once glanced over when he was finagling with a chain on the fence. He caught my eye and immediately looked all innocent and dim-witted.

You would think that Pip, being the bossy one, would control the play time. Goats do like to play. There’s the invitation with a gentle head butt.

There’s the circling around, tails wagging, hair on their backs up in a ridge.

But, Pip, like many bossy sorts is, underneath it all, lazy. Caper looks like the underachiever – he is tubbier and is often gazing off with a blank stare. Don’t be fooled. Sometimes they start the “let’s play” routine and then Pip checks out. Too much work. That’s when Caper does this: he bites Pip’s ear!

Look at the expression on Pip’s face.

Caper’s tactic works and riles Pip up.

Do you see Caper’s body language in the photo? For a goat about to be head-butted, he sure looks relaxed!

So, if all you knew was that Pip was the dominant goat, and you saw Caper being pushed around and t-boned by his brother, you might take pity on poor Caper.

Don’t.

It’s become cliche to write about how delicious fresh eggs from backyard hens are. By now you’ve also heard, (probably several times over) how the nutritional profile of eggs from free-ranging hens is better than that from chickens confined in factory-like facilities. It is also true that eggs from backyard flocks have more natural defenses against bacterial diseases, like salmonella, than eggs from the large production facilities. I’ve written about this before, and the details are in this FAQ.

There’s yet another reason why eggs from your own hens are safer, one that isn’t as well known. Eggs in the supermarket look clean, perfect and hygienic. Looks are deceiving. I read poultry industry newsletters. They’re eye-opening. One researcher, who is marketing a new system for cooling eggs, had this to say,

Traditionally, eggs are at more than 100 degrees when placed into a carton. (Eggs are put through a hot disinfectant bath before packing.)Thirty dozen eggs are then packed in a case, and 30 cases are stacked onto pallets and placed in refrigerated coolers. The eggs in the middle of the pallet can take up to 142 hours – nearly six days – to cool to 45 degrees.

He went on to state that a 2005 US government report showed that if eggs were cooled and stored at 45 degrees within 12 hours of laying, there would be about 100,000 fewer salmonella illnesses from eggs in the nation each year.

Think about that. Then, breathe a sigh of relief, go out to your coop, collect your eggs, and thank your girls.

When you think of a fair, do you imagine a two-week-long festival with country western concerts at night, grandstands and demolition derbies, tilt-a-whirl rides, cotton candy, and endless halls filled with animals and butter sculptures and fudge vendors? The sort of fair that you can’t possibly see in one day? New England has only one that is on the scale of the classic state fairs, the Big E, and although a huge amount of fun, I prefer a different type, like the one I went to last weekend.

At the turn of the 1900s, agricultural fairs were the place to learn new farming techniques, show off your skills, meet with your neighbors, and take a break from the hard labors of the farm. There were state fairs and county fairs. There were also small town fairs. A few of these still exist. One of them is in Bolton, MA.

It does have a midway and ferris wheel and monster trucks (and racing lawn mowers!), and fried food. But that’s not why I go.

I go because people bring their vegetables hoping to win a ribbon.

They show off their crafts,

and their canning skills.

I go because there are 4–H kids holding their rabbits in a tent, waiting to be judged.

In another tent there are more 4–H kids with their waterfowl and chickens.

There a few dewy-eyed dairy cows.

Rams waiting patiently with their handlers,

and not so patient sheep making a ruckus.

A few years ago, at the Fryeburg Fair, I fell in love with Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goats, which is why I eventually got Pip and Caper. I fell in love at the Bolton Fair, too, but this animal is a tad too big to bring home.

This boy isn’t even two years old. Look at those ears! He is up for adoption. He was brought to the fair by the Save Your Ass Long Ear Rescue. Not only did they have my favorite animal at the fair, but also the best tee-shirt.

You can purchase one here and support a good cause.

It’s summer. There are ripe tomatoes in the garden. The hens are hot and drink a lot of water.

One hen is broody and others are laying.

At first glance, all appears the same as it’s been all summer. But look again. There are long feathers on the floor of the coop, and there are downy feathers piling up in the corners. The molt begins.

Pearl, the Cochin, is still fluffy, but her feathers look loose, as if a passing breeze might blow them all off.

Her legs, usually hidden by feathers, are now visible.

There’s subtle signs of the molt in other hens, too. Amber, the Rhode Island Red, is usually sleek as can be, with nary a feather out of place.

Observe the feathers on her back. She’s molting.

Just like a forest doesn’t lose all of it’s leaves in one day in autumn, so too a flock doesn’t molt all at once. The girls will be shedding feathers for months. Laying will slow down and then stop. Right now I have a glut of eggs in the refrigerator, but know that the abundance won’t last. Even during a week when the weather seems constant, (hot and humid!) keeping hens makes me aware of the change of seasons and the passing of time.

For more about the molt, read my FAQ.