We put the bunting up for Flag Day.

 

We were careful not to disturb the resident in the corner. The bird was still laying her daily egg, and so not sitting on the nest keeping them warm. Photos could be taken.

It’s a phoebe’s nest.

 

The goat boys ARE useful! She lined the nest with their soft fur. I think that this is the prettiest nest that I’ve ever seen.

 

The eggs are so tiny. I set a penny in for you to have an idea of their size. This didn’t bother the phoebe. Later in the day, she came back and laid another egg. There are now six eggs and she’s setting.

I don’t let wild birds nest in the coops (or my deck!) but high on the front porch is fine with me, and it’s a safe place for her. Phoebes eat insects. I’m happy to have her in residence. I’ve read that the phoebe reuses her nest year after year. I’m sure she’ll be refreshing it with goat hair each season. The boys have plenty to offer!

Pip and Caper are wethers – which means they’re neutered boys, and that means that I have to be careful what I feed them. Unlike pregnant and lactating does (female goats), the boys don’t have high energy needs. If fed too rich a diet, they are prone to urinary calculi. If they got into a bag of chicken feed, they could die. The bulk of my goats’ diet comes from second cutting grass hay (not first, not timothy, not alfalfa.) What looks coarse and unpalatable to us is good for them. They also eat fresh forage, from grass to leaves, to briars to herbs (and my roses if they could get to them.)

To make use of this forage, their digestive system is complex, and much of its success relies on good bacteria that digest the roughage for them. When that goes off-kilter, they can bloat from excess gas. It’s painful. It can be fatal. To function properly, this system needs a periodic table worth of micronutrients, from copper to iodine. Far-ranging wild goats might be able to find this in the soil, but my goats cannot. I supply them with two supplements: goat minerals and kelp.

 

These are offered free-choice, and that is a challenge. Goats, being goats, climb on and take apart everything. They are also fussy eaters who will turn up their noses at a minerals with a small damp clump in them. I ended up purchasing these dispensers. There’s room for two goats to eat at one time.

 

Although, of course, the goat boys are sure that the side that the other brother has is the best!

 

Once in awhile, the goats do get a treat. This jar contains peanuts, goat treats and black licorice. It is tantalizingly out of their reach.

 

 

Two treats each (that’s all, boys!) for standing on the stumps.

Yesterday, my good friend, Karen Pryor, stopped by for what has become an annual June event – making Jam. As a teenager she developed a love of making jelly. There’s something both scientific and magical about transforming only two ingredients – fruit and sugar – into something so delicious. Like everything that Karen does, she takes something that can seem daunting, and turns it into something doable and worthwhile (if you’re not familiar with her work, take a look

.) Karen brings her special . I provide the jars.

This year, we made strawberry jam made from fruit purchased locally at Verrill Farm. Their berries have that ripe, just-picked flavor of fruit grown for what they taste like, not how well they ship. So good!

Watching the process of the sugar liquifying and the fruit gelling is ever so satisfying. As is eating the results. Jam needs to be served on something, preferably some sort of bread, with good butter. So, before Karen came, I mixed up popover batter. As the jam boiled, I put the popovers in the oven. Like the jam, the popovers were easy as could be to make.

 

Perfect Popovers from the HenCam

3 eggs
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup milk (1% to whole is fine)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon melted butter

1. Coat a popover pan with non-stick spray. You can use a muffin tin, but the popovers won’t have the classic cylinder shape or rise as high.
2. Put the eggs, flour, milk and salt into a blender. Puree. Scrape the sides down a couple of times to make sure that dry flour doesn’t remain in the corners.
3. Blend in the butter.
4. Popover batter is best if it has a couple of hours to rest in the refrigerator, but you can use it right away. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Pour the batter into the popover pan.
5. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes until risen and golden brown.

makes 6 popovers

Each week I field numerous private queries about ill hens. It’s nigh on impossible to come to a conclusive diagnosis in person, let alone via back and forth emails, but it’s always helpful because using clues from comb color to behavior I can help decide on a course of action. Sometimes it becomes a question of whether the animal is suffering. Chickens don’t express pain the way that we do. A listless hen that doesn’t eat can starve to death before you realize that she is that far gone. Deciding when to euthanize is very difficult.

A useful diagnostic tool is the simple scale. A hen that doesn’t eat will quickly lose weight. Conversely, a hen that has fatty liver disease, tumors, or internal laying, will collect weighty masses in her abdomen. Over the course of a couple of days, if there is a weight change, it will give you insight into what is going on inside of your chicken.

Or, you might just want to weigh your rooster for the bragging rights!

The Beast lives in this little pond.

 

Twelve years ago, she was the size of a small goldfish. Like these.

 

But, the Beast is a koi, and they can get big. Like this.

 

When we built the pond, I bought a few small koi. Some died for reasons that I don’t fully understand (water quality?) but most were taken by Great Blue Herons. You have to be a savvy, wary, smart fish to live more than a decade. You also have to eat a lot.

The Beast and her minions are fed

. Like chickens, they are omnivorous, so along with eating vegetable matter, they’ll eat insects, larvae, and even tiny fish. The Beast especially likes the algae growing on the rock where the water cascades down. On sunny days, it is tantalizingly our of her reach. She can’t risk exposing her body to open air and hot sun. But when it rains, she lifts halfway out of the pond to get at the slimy green stuff. Smart fish.