Playing with my food

Our little chicks that were still in egg form in This Post hatched about three months ago now. But, because of the whole "I'm growing a person and therefore quite exhausted" thing, I didn't get to tell how the hatching went, nor post photos of how adorable the little fluff buckets were (I say were because they've been going through that awkward chicken teenager phase and are not as cute looking now).

We ended up with three chicks. Five hatched but... momma hen stepped on one right after it had finished drying (this happens. Chickens are not very bright, even the best momma chickens do this). Then, momma hen got off the nest permanently in the middle of another one hatching. So, that one died too. Or it died in the middle of hatching and she got off the nest. Either way, we ended up with three little chicks.

Phillip built a pen and cage for them to stay in, so that 1) the cats wouldn't eat our chicks and 2) the other chickens wouldn't kill the little chicks. Again. Nature. This happens. It's what they do and how they establish pecking order. That, and sometimes chickens can be jerks. Like all living things.

Mamma Hen breaking apart grain for her babies

Such cute little balls of fluff!

We were hoping all three were hens. Hens have a purpose: eggs. More than one rooster around and you have fights for dominance and hens going off their laying because they're getting too much *ahem* attention from roosters (roosters tend to pay more attention to hens who are laying eggs, as, well, this would increase their possibilities of actually reproducing. Hens not producing eggs means no babies means roosters give less "attention" to the hens. Therefore, too many roosters means you have no eggs. Which was the main reason we got our hens in the first place. So, any roosters in this batch will get the ax. It is, however, a bit difficult to see what sex a bird is. With chickens though, the rooster's comb starts to develop more quickly than a hens.

We seem to have one rooster. Which, the city-girl side of me thinks is kind of sad, because he's quite friendly at this point. And, well, they're baby chicks. They're still kind of cute. The practical side of me knows though that, if we get too many roosters because we don't want to kill them, we're feeding an animal that, if anything, will give us more trouble in the long run.

This is what happens now when I bend down to feed them

Oh well. Practicality wins out. In the meantime, we're having fun giving our little chicks a nice life of leisure. Their idiot hen mother decided that two months was a long enough time to look after them and left them to roam on their own. So, they've become overly attached to Phillip and me.

I seriously love our little chicks. They're adorable and fun. If I go out at the same time each day, they'll run up and jump on my to roost on my arms and lap No pooping on me thus far... But practicality must win out. 'Tis the way of life well, nearly everywhere unless you can afford to be picky and turn food into some sort of religion.

Please oh please don't poop on my head!

We've got another hen sitting on half a dozen eggs. Tried to stop her (I'd rather have more eggs than chicks) but, she is determined. We've decided already that nearly this whole hatching will be going into the freezer in a year (home raised free-range chicken, yes please!).

We're expecting....

Chicks!

Ok, so I might have some family members and close friends who read the post title and are a little mad about the fact that I'm talking about chickens and not babies (but really people, who breaks THAT kind of news to close friends and family via a public blog post?).

Explanation:

You may remember that last year at New Years a dog killed all but one of our chickens and our two ducks (I still get a little upset about the ducks.... they were cool ducks). A few months later, we ended up taking two pullets (young hens who had not yet started laying eggs) from my in-laws. We took one beautiful black Australorp and a half Silky half some other breed of chicken we're not sure of. Phillip ended up naming them Cypher and Hawk (but we usually end up calling them by their breed or their color and not their somewhat stupid names).

The thing about some breeds of chickens is that they can be good layers (like our red Iser Brown), good for meat (our little Australorp, though they're good layers too), and good for going broody. There's also breeds that are well known sitters (once they go broody they will not leave the nest unless you force them) or good mothers. Basically, chicken breeds are as diverse as dog breeds, and depending on what you want in your chickens, you get various breeds.

Hawk, aka, the yellow/tan one, sittin' on a whole bunch of eggs.
Spoiled girl, I bring her her own dish of food and water.

Hawk has tried to go broody once before, but outside of their shed, so we had to try and move her at night (chickens are funnily calm at night) so that she wouldn't get eaten by quols. Silly thing.... She decided she didn't like being moved to safety and got off her eggs. Which... was ok since we get to eat the eggs. This is the second time she's gone broody and she's chosen one heck of a spot to hatch her chicks again. It's about four and a half feet off the ground, where our chickens roost at night. So, chicks hatch, try to walk out of the nest and.... not pretty. Phillip is building a small enclosure to put her and the eggs in, to keep them cosey (and safe from plumets to death and out idiot cats, and neighbor's idiot cats) from scraps of wood and chicken wire. We'll move her there sometime this week since she's only got maybe a week left until the eggs hatch.

Apparently the nesting boxes I make sure are full
of soft, fresh hay are not good enough.
It must feel safer to hatch babies 2.5 meters off the ground.

Another fun fact about chickens: once they go broody, you can get them to sit on any eggs, not just their own. So, since our hens have been tandem nesting the little Silky has some Australorp eggs under her as well. We also were given a few eggs of unknown type (two were probably Australorps) from my in-laws  two days after she started sitting, and chucked those under her. (Well, next to her, because to put them under her you'd probably loose fingers she's so angry if you get near her). She (and the black one for some reason started helping) immediately started moving them underneath her.

The good thing? We should end up with a few chicks of multiple possible varieties. I'm hoping for at least two healthy hens to share with people or, well, more eggs, which we also share with people. The bad thing? Our one laying hen, little black Australorp, is still basically sitting on top of the broody Silky and laying eggs. Which that dumb hen then takes under her. So... we have no fresh eggs and will end up with a bunch of rotten and un-viable ones at the end of this sitting. The little lady has already pushed two very rotten ones out from under her, but is sitting pretty on at least seven more eggs.

Marry HAD a little lamb...

One of the (surprisingly many) benefits to living in the middle of nowhere is plenty of land and having friends who raise animals on it.

My husband's family is friends with just such an family, and we just bought a yearling lamb from them.

The lambs were delivered to the abattoirs last weekend, and this Friday, we got the meat. Came out to about $6 a kilo for the lamb (which is what the sale price is on BBQ lamb chops at the butcher we frequent).

Not only is the a free-range lamb (not sure if there is any other kind?), raised by people we know, but it's cheap. And tasty. We ate some last night, right after I'd divided up the cuts into two-person-meal sized bags and put them in our freezer. The whole lamb, by the way, will provide us with over a months worth of meals.

Back to cooked lamb, though. Neither of us are big fans. Unless it's roast lamb. Roast lamb is fantastic. Lamb most other ways I'd had before, not so much. It's just... gamey, tough, and, well, it's lamb. But it's everywhere here (the unofficial meat of Australia I think. I haven't looked it up), so I looked up and invented a few recipes, and now we quite enjoy eating lamb (which is good since, you know, we bought a whole one).

The first night of lamb was something I have affectionately titled "Goin' on down to Egypt Lamb". Because it's made with as many leeks and garlic as I can put into it. It's a funny name if you like Bible humor.

But anywho, I chopped up some of the undersized leeks from our garden (I'll be the one planting the leeks next season. Or at least making sure it's done properly by a certain husband of mine). Salted and seared the lamb chops a bit, threw in the leeks, chopped some garlic and threw that in, and then used the chops to kind of stir the whole concoction to coat them a bit with leek-y garlic-y goodness. Put in a tablespoon or so of water, put the lid on and let them cook away.

It's delicious. Unless you don't like leeks or garlic or red meat.

*Note: I am aware that you're not meant to use the green part of the leek. But these leeks were severely undersized. And we really really wanted leeks, so I caved a bit and used only JUST a little of the green bit, right were it starts to go from white to green.

Also, those mashed potatoes were full of New Zealand spinach, also from our garden. I've taken to putting it in mashed potatoes because it's a really bitter, and sometimes it's just easier to use one pot instead of two, or adding a steamer.

AgFest

Saturday, Phillip and I went to Agfest (Agricultural Fest, for anyone who didn't understand that).

No, Agfest isn't just an Australian thing, I know plenty of people that participated in them back in the States, I just never had a need or desire to go to one, so... Anyway, living in a state that even it's biggest cities are classed as rural, I wanted to go. Plus Phillip really wanted to go so he could eat some oliebollens that are at a stand every year (they were pretty tasty).

Aside from all the farming equipment that was pretty well priced, we stopped by craft booths (though most we had seen at the Deloraine Craft Fair earlier this year, and lovely as most of it is, it's not really in our budget), and, my favorite, the dogs and horses showing off their skills. And the alpacas. I love alpacas. They make a sound like, "Meh" and it makes me think of my sister (in a good way!). And they're just so fluffy and odd looking!

Unfortunately, my camera chose that day to show it's age and start dying on me. It's at least 4 years old, my little Canon Powershot, and taken several thousand photos, so it's not entirely surprising. Oh well, it still works well enough that I won't be upgrading any time soon.

We wore out gum boots in anticipation of much mud.
They're like the four-wheel drives of footwear!
I ALMOST felt bad for all the women/girls there in pretty shoes and boots.

Border Collie showing of it's skills. Still in training, but having a blast.
It's cool how much of the herding instinct is just BREAD into them. 

Girls from a local Pony Club on their Arabians showing off some skills.
Horses were pretty stoked to be showing off, too.

This gadget apparently helps you turn sheep better for things like dipping,
crutching (cutting off their you-know-whats), and other sheep... things.

See? Adorable fluffy baby Alpaca.

What a Stud...

The other day, I went with my sister-in-law to help her check out the "neighbors" cows (the neighbor is a family friend who also maintains the land next door as well as cares for the cows on it, though someone else pays him to do it. This is the same "neighbor" as when I watched calves pulled). He put her "in charge" of keeping an eye on the cows and whatnot.

So off we went to check out what she thought was a calf in distress, and turned out to just be a cow, heavy with calf, laying down for a bit of a rest.

And, while we were there, we checked out his horses, three mares and a beautiful stallion.

Yes, yes, stallions are unpredictable and somewhat dangerous to be around. And while I was very much on guard, this boy was just beautiful. Quite the little show pony, he was. Surprisingly walked right up to us for pats, then wandered straight over to the thistle bushes, talking to his girls, for a prickly snack.

Poppies! Poppies!

Last year, during my second visit to Tasmania, I saw slowly wilting fields of poppies.

And not the lovely orange ones you see in Monet paintings.

No, these were, I was informed, opium poppies. Apparently, Tasmania is the world largest producer of opium poppies. For the pharmaceutical market. 50% of the worlds market of opium poppies, in fact. That's a lot for an island state.

This year, I was determined to get photos of them.

And yes, it is very illegal to go into these fields. No I did not go into this field. I stood on the road, in the ditch, after making sure there were no snakes.

Not that I'm up on Tasmanian law, but they have somewhat intimidating signs at intervals around the fields.

Click to see a larger version. It reads: Trespassers Prosecuted, and below that, Illegal use of crop may cause DEATH.

I've only heard one story from the in-laws about some guy they found on the side of the road near their house who had fallen off his scooter or something, high as a kite, blue lips, looking dead. Turned out that he had a back pack full of poppy seeds and had been drinking a tea he made with them. Or something along those lines.