More chickens?

Yep, and they are absolutely adorable! We decided to get four more to add to the permanent flock, and this will be the final fill out of egg layers as long as we live on this property. We continued the old lady name tradition, with the following ladies born on February 19th, 2011:

First we have Mildred, a beautiful Ameraucana chick that will grow to be an exotic looking bird. She will lay a pastel like color ranging from green to pink, so we are excited to see when she lays her first egg!

Next we have Beatrice, a Buff Orpington. These breed are a fluffy looking bird, with a tendency to become broody, or turn into hatch egg mode, frequently. Known to be a very sweet and gentle girl.

Then we have Agnes, a Blue Cochin breed. This bird, again, is a fluffy bird with feathers covering the legs, giving her a very cool look when they are older.

Finally, we have Josephine, a New Jersey Giant. I am excited to see this bird grow, and grow it shall! A full grown hen can grow to weigh as much as ten pounds! She is just for show, however, and we are anxious to see how big she will get. She lays a brown egg said to be pretty big, so that is always a bonus.

This brings the egg laying flock to nine now, which I think is plenty for us, maybe enough to sell some back to the Craigslist community or something!

The Chicken Process.

I love food. Trox and myself have started to take an interest in not only what we eat, but how the food we eat is produced. We began trying to grow our own vegetables over five years ago, in an apartment complex. We have never had a huge bounty of fruits or vegetables to eat, but it has always been rewarding and a great learning experience through the years.
Now living in Newberg, we find ourselves wanting to take it further, and include our meat into self sustainment on our property. Last November we purchased twelve Barred Rock chicks, and got to the long journey of raising chickens for meat!
It has been a pretty fun process so far. It has been great opening the coop in the morning to find eighteen birds flutter out and set out for the day's delicious pickings. We even constructed a brooder for them to live in, till their true feathers all came in. The garage stank for a few weeks, but soon the coop was home. We didn't name any of the birds, for fear of attachment, but we still enjoy watching them interact with the permanent ladies already in the flock, and feel their lives are lived with contentment and ease.
There is this great article, http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/cookingwheritagechicken.pdf, a little long, but it set our plan of attack for getting some meat done.

WTF!

Okay, been awhile, and a lot of things have happened and occurred that I could have blogged about extensively! Moreover, people have been waiting anxiously for another bit of my mind...The wait is over!

Chanterelle Heaven

On Thursday, my buddy Seth and I took off into the woods to go mushroom hunting. It was an awesome time in the woods with the rain coming down on us. I forgot to bring the camera, but the weather was so cool, sideways rain, and a chill wind added to the appeal of the day.
We went in search of the most tasty of fungi, the Chanterelle mushroom, and we found success at each stop, some patches were bigger than the others, but a few could always be gathered.
After a stretch, we decided to head the last miles to the coast for a beer and a walk on the beach. The walk was cold and wet, and amazing! The sea was rolling and crashing with turbulent waves, our clothes instantly wet with the misty rain coming down.
Once our beers were consumed and our bones were warmed, we set out again in search of the delicious mushrooms in the woods. Our last effort was thwarted by darkness, but we found our biggest patches of gold for the day at the last moment! Caring a huge bag of amazing tasting mushrooms home felt so good!
We set out to begin eating them instantly, and I began washing and prepping the mushrooms. It was an awesome day, and I thank my buddy Seth for taking me out there, showing me what to look for and driving us around the beautiful Oregon woods, to wonder about stuff...

Trailer Park Boys!!!

Last night we went to the Aladdin Theatre to see Ricky, Julian, and Bubbles. It was a lot of fun! I laughed alot, and we had a good time all around.

A Dirty Dozen!

We have been getting a steady stream of eggs coming in from Ethel, but also from Mabel, our barred rock hen.
We stopped buying eggs in the store about three weeks ago, and although we have been letting them build up the last eight days, we have been eating eggs, and still have a dozen! It just feels good after all the time is put in, you start to get something back.

It feels the same way with the tomatoes. All the work put in, you start to see some tasty results at the end of the season. Since this was such a short summer, I am glad we have got any to eat!

Since it seems the weather is holding on, we are getting ripe tomatoes on all of the plants!

Pumpkin Carving!

We had a great night carving pumpkins! Mine is a dragon type thing, and Trox did Captain Jack Sparrow! We had so much fun...