our homestead: free range babies

  




For about a week now I've been allowing my ducklings to free range in the yard with the rest of the flock.They get to go exploring through the tall grasses, munching on an assortment of bugs, slugs and grass seed, they can dig around in the dirt in the sunflower patch by the coop and can warm their newly developed little feathers in the sunlight with their dad and aunties. Before, I had them living in the "Duck Nursery": the lower level of the coop with a little fenced in outdoor area, keeping them safe from predators and any grumpy adult birds. I figure they are finally big enough to fend for themselves in the wilds with momma duck close by. I am very happy about this: I want my ducks to be able to eat a diverse, vitamin-rich diet of greens and insects while getting as much exercise as they please. This is how ducks are supposed to live. It's an ethical priority for me. 

I am expecting two more clutches of ducklings to hatch either at the end of July or at the beginning of August. I'm debating as to what age I should allow the upcoming ducklings to free range. This first year of raising ducks is pretty experimental. I'm learning all about what works and what doesn't. I have a feeling I could let my ducklings run about the yard with their mom earlier than  I've waited with my first set of ducklings. My main concerns with free ranging are flock dynamics and predators. With my first hatching, I lost a duckling to being trampled by its elders. Ducklings are so tiny and delicate when they first hatch- much smaller than the ducklings one would see for sale at the Cenex in springtime, thus keeping the ducklings separate from the rest of the flock at the start is pretty important. This is why I created the "Duckling Nursery". I have a feeling that if I still housed the ducklings separately, but allowed them to free range, there would be less of a chance of the little birds getting picked on since the flock would have so much space to roam. 

In regards to predators, I live in an area full of open, grassy cattlelands. For this reason, we have lots of feral cats and raptor birds. Today, as I headed outside to harvest garlic, I didn't see my little duckling herd or their mom. Usually, I'll head out and they'll be ambling after me as I've been dolling out lots of strawberry treats lately (they go buckwild for strawberries- check out the second photo below this paragraph!). I started calling after them and saw their mom peek her little head out of a shaded wood pile underneath some thick evergreens. My first thought was that they were hiding from something, and sure enough, I looked up just in time to a see a large eagle slowly gliding by in the air. Good girl! Hiding her babies away from that eagle. I hope the rest of my ladies will share her survival instincts. I'm pretty sure if a cat tried hard enough, it could drag one of my ducklings at their current size away. A smaller duckling? For certain. I guess living with the uncertainty of predator attack is part of free ranging. I'm always sure to secure my birds up at nightfall in their coop, but threats still exist with daylight. 

I have been playing with the idea of training, Banjo, my little shepherd mix to herd my duck flock. He's the perfect size to be a duck shepherd after all. Everytime I head out to work in the yard or whenever I put the birds in for the night, I am sure to bring him with me. He's been growing more and more comfortable with the flock...dare I admit that he's actually a little bit afraid of them when they are all together. The ducklings will rush me in the afternoon, looking for treats, and Banjo will jump back from them (because he's always by my side). It's really funny. I'd love it if I could train him to round up the birds for me. Luckily, he doesn't trust cats and does an angry "snake" dance whenever he's near one where he'll bare his little teeth and wiggle his long torso back and forth. His war dance doesn't quite work on our cats, who enjoy hunting him like ninja assassins at night, but it seems to work on  neighborhood cats who find themselves in our yard. 

our homestead: good things from my week

1. Bienenfreund flowers in full bloom. Seeds from Uprising Seeds of Bellingham, WA.
2. Collecting German Chamomile flowers for winter sleepy tea. Seeds from Uprising Seeds.
3. My mystery duckling. Hatched between clutches.
4. Nesting in my palm.
5. Visiting my parents, Flying Tomato Farm, at the Thursday Snohomish Farmers Market.
6. The "Uglies".
7. Flying Tomato Farm offerings.
8. My niece, Sofie, searching for flowers under an old apple tree.
9. This is what summer is all about.
10. Our homegrown raspberries.
11. Making berry soup with Sofie using raspberries and pie cherries from our backyard.
12. The first of our tomatoes: a Pink Brandywine/Black Prince cross.
13. My tomato jungle.
14. Sunflowers growing taller and taller in front of the bird coop.
15. Spyder Munggins in "outer space".
16. Ghosty Cupcakes taking a front porch snooze.
17. Me and my loyal sheppy, Banjo.

our homestead: photos from my week

1. Honeysuckle blossoms
2. Orange poppies in bloom
3. My noble eagles (4 of my 5 sweet chickens)
4. My shadow, Banjo the shepherd mix
5. Wild roses in bloom
6. A wild rose up close (can you smell it?)
7. One of a handful of minky gray ducklings I have...I wonder what they will look like later
8. El Pato- used this to make sweet potato enchiladas

our homestead: a winter walk on the slough

I took my boys, Oswald and Banjo, out for a dusky walk on the slough today. As I headed down a ridge and looked below, I noticed my woodcutter neighbor now has three small brown pigs in a pen made of wood pallets. These pigs are replacing the giant pig that used to lounge in this pen. As I continued on, another neighbor's cattle (most of them are black but there are a few shaggy long-horned ones) were out grazing by the road, moo-ing at us as we passed. Me and the pups walked all the way to the river, to have our path crossed overhead by a triangle of swans, followed by my neighbor driving down the road on his red tractor.  He was heading over to feed the cows and they all came and swarmed him as soon as he entered the gate to the field. Oswald, Banjo and I relaxed on the river bank for a little while, watching the water slowly move past. We always look for otters peaking up when we come down here...saw two last time. Didn't see any today though.

our homestead: goals and non-goals

Here are a few small scenes from our garden this year:

Our garlic patch 

Celery growing in the greenhouse

Sugar snap pea blossoms

Potato blossoms

One of our many sunflowers

With 2012 just around the bend I thought I'd take the time to write about some of my "homestead" non-goals from 2011 and some of my goals for 2012. I borrowed the idea of non-goals from my sister-in-law, Rachel. You can read her post from her blog here: Nickel Images goals and non-goals. Non-goals are things you might have accomplished or enjoyed or are motivated to continue. Here are my non-goals from 2011:

1) I started my own tomato plants on my windowsills in the wintertime and saw them through harvest.

2) I had a hoophouse built and was able to grow lots of tomatoes, celery and cucumbers in it.

3) I learned how to brew nettle tea for my tomato plants.

4) I completed another farmers market season selling produce for Frog's Song Farm. Every year I learn more and more from the markets in regards to the business of farming. This year I was also able to sell a lot of my farmers' produce at our local co-op, granting them another outlet for their labors.

5) I grew so much this year! Peas, potatoes, turnips, spinach, beets, kale, garlic, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, celery, brussel sprouts, sunflowers, marigolds, sunchokes, corn, pumpkins, winter squash and more.

6) I canned jams and fruit butters and made lots of pickles, using homegrown or market procured ingredients.

7) I saved lots of seeds from my garden for next year's garden, acclimating these plant varieties to our area.

8) I established more planting beds in my yard.

9) My husband and I finally brought home the second dog we'd been talking about getting forever. We love our little Banjo and Oswald's quality of life has increased now that he has a playmate and snuggle buddy.

10) I ground my own cornmeal from corn I'd grown and dried myself.

11) I learned how to make soap with my mom. The old-fashioned, saponification-of-oils-with-lye-and-six-week-curing-process-style.


And on to the fun part! My homesteading goals for 2012:

1) To establish rows of interesting berry plants including: goji berries, honeyberries, gooseberries, lingonberries and hardy kiwis. We have already pre-orded three goji plants, due to arrive in April. We'll probably have to build some sort of trellis...but that means I can also throw a few more hops into the yard.

 2) To raise a small flock of chickens, perhaps a duck or three, in the spring. I grew up on fresh-from-the-backyard eggs and nothing beats the flavor. I'm still lucky enough to be able to bring home eggs from my mom's house, but I'd like to learn how to take care of my own hens.

3) To grow even more than 2011! This year I really want to learn how to grow broccoli, cauliflower, fennel and leeks, and  melons in the greenhouse. I've also already ordered red brussel sprout seeds...it'll be fun to see how these turn out. Joe has his heart set on doing a giant lacinato kale patch too. I'm also looking forward to seeing how my saved tomato seeds fare.

4) To grow a massive sunflower patch. Why not? I saved so many sunflower seeds this year that I just might have to grow a big plot of sunflowers to nap underneath. I want it to be so big that you can see it from the road below my hill.

5) To make more soap!

our homestead: merry christmas

Photos from our family Christmas shoot

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone! I thought I'd post some of our family Christmas photos we had taken this year, including photos of our furbabies, Oswald and Banjo. These photos are the work of my sister-in-law, Rachel, of Nickel Images. You can check out the rest of her photo projects at the Nickel Images Blog.

For a while there we were living in a land cloaked in a thick fog, as you can tell in the photos. My husband and I took our photos on the train tracks I used to sneak down to play upon when I was a kid. I'd leave coins on the tracks and come back later to find them smashed into smooth roundish disks.

Anyway, hope everyone is staying warm and spending time with loved ones and may the eggnog overfloweth in your mugs!

our homestead: preparing my painted mountain corn for meal and seed

I spent a good portion of the morning shucking and stripping the colorful kernels from a bunch of dried ears of 'painted mountain' corn I grew this summer. To strip the ears, I used a few different methods. I picked kernel by kernel off with my hands, ran a butter knife down the center of each kernel row to loosen them, and twisted my palm around a few ears to dislodge the kernels. Eventually, I ended up with a big bowl of loose kernels in hues of indigo, periwinkle, gold, pearly white, garnet and crimson reds, blush pink, warm black, mandarin orange and more. I set aside the black kernels and the pastel-colored kernels to plant for next year. I also hand selected a few fun color blends to gift to gardening friends this Christmas, such as a "Sunrise Blend" (reds, oranges and pinks), a "Norge Blend" (red, white and blue) and a "Blueberry Blend" (blacks and blues). I then packaged these blends in brown paper envelopes with their planting instructions.

Painted Mountain corn is very special because it is an older, hardier native corn with its own gene pool (meaning it's not a mass produced hybrid or GMO corn). This corn comes in a multitude of colors, hence its name, and I've read that these rich colors have high antioxidant values. This variety of corn is good for fresh eating (although it has a different texture than sweet corn), for making hominy or for grinding into flour or meal. I plan to grind the leftover kernels (the ones I'm not gifting or using for seed) into cornmeal later today. I don't have grain grinder yet, so I'll be experimenting with my food processor and coffee grinder to see what I can produce.

Oh, and I thought I'd post a recent photo of Banjo. He was napping under the table on his blankey the whole time I was seeding my corn. He's about 3 times as big as when we brought him home.