As for all of us this year and half has been to say the least unique and to say the most it’s been tragic for too, too many. Here it has been, not tragic thankfully, but one big old curve ball after another. Curve balls coming from a global pandemic, family situations, from personal situations, and even some farm curve balls. Explanations to follow…
This picture below was a help during one of our farm curve balls. We had, and I say had, 8 beautiful laying hens. We had Barred Rocks, an Easter Egger and some Delawares. They were out and about on the farm doing their thing happily and added such a nice feel to the farm and area around our home, not to mention filling our bellies and baked goods with wonderful eggs. We had, what we thought to be a nice tight lock on our coop, but somehow, over the years the spring tension on the lock lost some of it’s tightness and it was just enough for a mink to just barely squeeze through a crack of space on the small pop door that the chickens used to get in and out. That mink murdered every one of our pretty birds. It was, in the biggest of pictures, a small thing, but in the smallest of pictures it was a big thing. Our poor birds were terrorized in their coop by this little Minky monster. Just like that our hens were gone, and no more pretty birds meandering the farmstead and no more eggs on our plates. Well almost no more.
I had given a try at water glassing eggs about 6 months prior when we had an abundance of eggs. Using hydrated lime, also known as pickling lime, one can store eggs for easily a year! Often times birds go through slower times of egg production. This can happen when they are molting, and they are saving the protein to create new feathers, rather than creating new eggs, or it can happen when there is less than 14 hours of light in their day. Some people put a light in their coop during the times of year when there is less than 14 hours of light and some people choose to let the birds rest during the low light times of year. That is a whole other controversy that I won’t get into but we choose to use light and have eggs all year.
During times of less eggs, it is nice to have some back up eggs and that is what water glassed eggs are all about. Eggs have a natural bloom on them which means that they can be stored on the counter not in the fridge. In the U.S. store eggs are washed and therefore require refrigeration because the bloom is washed off of them. If you have ever been in a grocery or market in Europe you will not see eggs in the refrigerated section because they do not wash off the bloom. When you water glass eggs you use eggs that, to the eye look clean, and you do not wash off the protective bloom. They are put into the water with the measured amount of hydrated lime and they can be stored this way for quite some time. I am glad I experimented with this method, as we have had eggs to eat since the mink catastrophe. They are not as great for making fried eggs, but perfect for scrambled, and for baking and the whites whip up especially nice for recipes that require whipped egg whites.
These eggs will be used up soon, even while using them sparingly, almost ceremoniously, since they are our last. We were not planning on getting chicks this year, since we have plenty of our meat birds in the freezer, and because we had our 8 lovely layers, but after the mink attack I did order 15 chicks for our future layers (that is the minimum). These little chicks would give us eggs in 6 months, so I was looking for a solution to 6 months without farm eggs. Recently, I was told about the app Nextdoor, and so I got on there to see if I could possibly do some trading to solve our egg problem. Wow, did Nextdoor come through for us. I really love our small farming community. I explained our Minky situation and not only did I get heartfelt condolences, but I also got many offers of help. I was looking mostly to find someone who would be willing to trade their eggs for our grass fed Scottish Highland ground beef for 6 months until our new little chicks matured into layers. I did find someone who was very willing to make this arrangement, however, another offer came through and it was perfect. Someone replied who sells large amounts of eggs and gets many chicks each year. She had some 2-3 year old hens that were not laying everyday but every other-ish days. She said she felt terrible culling them since they are still laying, but feeding hens daily when you are running an egg business and they are laying every other day-ish makes little fiscal sense, when you have 1 year old hens that are laying daily for the same amount of feed. The eggs here at our farm are really just for the two of us and for family and friends, if we have excess, so we are perfectly happy with 20 plus eggs a week. We will pick up 8-9 of their 2-3 year old layers in mid June by trading a pound of our ground beef per bird, and we will cancel our chick order. A year from now they will become soup birds and we will work out the same arrangement with them for getting another batch of 2-3 year old layers for the next year. It’s a win win, win. The birds get an extra year to free range on the farm, the other farmer doesn’t have to cull hens that are still laying, we don’t have to tend to chicks, and our soup stock supply on the shelves will get a big boost each year. I have made a short story long, but suffice to say we have solved our problem, and gotten to know more of our farming community in the process.
This was the garden a few days ago. It was warm and sunny out. Then out of nowhere we now have freezing night time temperatures last night, tonight and tomorrow night.
Spring pictures…
The radishes were replaced with beet seeds and more spinach.
In the kitchen…
The other curve balls we will work through, we are all dealing with things we have never dealt with before and will continue to for a while. Our family and extended family are all vaccinated and it is nice to begin to crawl out of our caves and begin to meet and hug again. Every little tidbit of normalcy that returns is greatly valued and appreciated.
Incrementally Stepping Towards Homesteading 