It’s mid-September in New England. The leaves are hinting at the spectacular show to come.

At this point in time, though, the real drama is at night when you can’t see a thing. There’s a chorus so complex that I have no idea which sounds come from the frogs, the insects, or the birds. I’m sure there are naturalists out there who can parse this orchestra into it’s components. (Leave a comment and let me know what you hear!) But, before analyzing it, simply listen to it as a whole. It’s a full-throttled concert throbbing lustily with life.

Having gone from deafness back to hearing thanks to science and cochlear implants, this nightly chorus is a miraculous thing to immerse myself in. Read more about CIs here.

It gets cold here in New England, but it’s even colder up in Ontario bordering a Great Lake. Last year, my friend Lisa, who lives up there, had issues with frostbite in her flock. The solution wasn’t heat, rather it was ventilation. Lisa’s partner is an architect, and so their new coop is very well designed – and beautiful!

The sloping roofs shed snow, and provide for ample ventilation via the eaves. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you’ll know how important I think that height and air flow is. This example is ideal.

There are large windows to let in the low winter light. Under the windows are screens for additional ventilation. During inclement weather, these are covered with a board that swings down and latches. There are nesting boxes accessible to the outside, a pop door going into a covered run, and a convenient full-sized door for people.

You can imagine how cozy and yet filled with fresh air, this coop will be in the winter.

I’ll be talking at length about coop design at the Chicken Keeping Workshops this Sunday at my home in Carlisle, MA. Spaces remain. Sign up here!

Each hen lays an egg unique to herself. Shape and color vary not only by breed but also by individual. Consumers of supermarket eggs don’t know this because only uniform eggs are put into cartons. But even those of us who expect to see variation in the eggs from our backyard flocks, once in awhile see a totally odd egg. This was one.

It was a tad smaller than usual. It had bumps.

I

No matter. I cracked it into the frying pan for breakfast. It didn’t have a yolk (which explains the smaller size.) I cracked in another egg which did have a yolk. Breakfast was delicious.

Those lumps are made of the same material as the rest of the eggshell, it just wasn’t put down smoothly. We’re at the end of the laying season. The hens are beginning to molt. Their systems are tired. I’ve noticed that the brown eggs are paler in color; the hens are running out of dye. Such eggs, and those with bumpy shells, and even eggs without yolks. are still fine for consumption. I appreciate them because I know that in another two months I won’t have a full egg basket, and I’ll be eating oatmeal for breakfast. Meanwhile, my hens will be resting and rejuvenating in preparation for another season of laying.

What unusual eggs have you been collecting lately?

Later today I’ll be bringing a hen to an after-school program to teach the students about chickens and eggs. Selecting the right hen for the event takes some thought. Not every chook can do the job.

Betsy was a superlative school visit hen. She is small, and so non-threatening. She’d perch on my arm and let child after child stroke her back. But, at the age of seven, Betsy has more than earned her retirement.

During my program, I show the children the vent that the egg comes out of. It’d be easy to illustrate this with Agatha, who is halfway through her molt and so has lost her butt feathers. However, this hen does not like to leave home and her friends. I don’t take chickens that stress out on visits;  Agatha will not be showing off her red bottom.

Amber is fine in the travel crate and patient with children. I might take her, if she lays her egg before we leave. But if she hasn’t laid yet (and she has been laying in the afternoon lately) then she’ll stay home. It’s very worrisome for a hen to need to lay an egg and not have a familiar nest box to go into.

Lately, Beatrix has been my go-to school visit hen. She has laid an egg this morning, and so I might just take her. By the way, that’s her “I’m laying an egg” glare. Beatrix looks far more pleasant when she is out and about.

Then again, it might be fun to take Veronica. She’s quite vocal, and chatters away while I try to teach, which the kids love. Veronica would also be a good example of what the molt is.

Or maybe I should take a classic hen. Nancy Drew would do.

I bet that the students would be happy if I left the chickens at home and brought Phoebe. (That’s not going to happen!)

Later this afternoon, I’ll post on Facebook which hen gets an outing. If you don’t follow me, that’s okay. You can simply click on the FB icon below to see my feed.

Speaking of events – I’ll be at  Let’s Talk About Food in Boston on September 27, and you can still sign up for the Chicken Keeping Workshop or the Advanced Workshop (taking place here in my backyard) on September 28.

Are you a gardener that ekes the last bean out of your vegetable patch before tidying up for winter? Do you put row covers down and nurture spinach through the winter?

Not me!

As much as I enjoy growing things (and then eating them) and being in the garden, I’m looking forward to the end of the season. I’m tired of kale and watering and picking worms off of cabbage. This was a strange year for my garden. It was beautiful but not productive. Now in mid-September, there are a few green beans left on the vines, but mostly it’s leaves. Tomatoes looked good all summer;  even now there’s no blossom rot or fungus, but tomatoes were never abundant, and I expect to harvest only a final bowlful before the plants are bare.

In a perverse way, this is my favorite time to garden. I like to rip it all up.

It’s my animals’ favorite part of the gardening season, too.

The goats don’t get any grain. Those bellies? They’re helping me to compost the garden waste.

Some see the end of the summer season with sadness. But, my gardening companions greet it with glee,

and gusto.

The chickens get their share. They find bugs on the plants, they eat the leaves, and they shred the stems. This all stays tidily in their own compost pile, which will be a soft and interesting place to scratch even as the temperature drops and the ground freezes.

Sweet Phoebe fills up on the end-of-summer bounty. I leave a few green beans in her pile because she loves to munch them.

I still have lettuce, bell peppers (although they never did turn sweet and red), Brussel sprouts and carrots in the ground. Once those are gone, I’ll let the hens into the vegetable garden to turn over the raised beds and dig up grubs. That might be sooner rather than later. It was 37 degrees this morning (for those of you who go by Celsius, it’s 3°.) I’ve a hunch that the first frost will come early this year.

Some of you don’t have this obvious ending (and relief that the work is over) to your gardening cycle. Do you take a break anyway, or are you planting your winter crops?