First (only?) snowfall

Thumbs up for the first snowfall. Yayyy!

 

And given the low temperatures I was feeling bad for the chickens so I kept cooking up warm treats for them. Porridge or scrambled eggs with veggie scraps mixed in. I love mixing up meals for chickens- a bit of 3 year old fun.

Our heating also decided to break on Friday when the temperature outside was a lovely -16C during the day. Coincidence only- it was an internal part on the boiler and wasn't due to the low temperatures- unlike two sets of friends whose pipes froze and started spitting the toilet contents back out the way they had gone in. Poor things.

So we played outside in the snow and then wrapped up warmly, shut doors and curtains to keep the warmth in and then swapped beds to sleep one big person with one little person. The landlord tried and failed to fix the heating so we got up in the morning to a freezing house. One's of life's simple little adventures :)

Brendan "writing messages" on the radiator as we wait to pay before leaving. 

Pain au chocolate as big as my head? No problem.

We headed to our favourite breakfast place, arriving as it opened to find that it hadn't heated up yet, so we kept our warm clothes on while eating eggs, toast and croissants and drinking hot chocolate, coffee and hot ginger apple juice. Brendan pinched a pile of little notelets from the waiter and spent time writing messages and drawing wee pictures, when he wasn't running around the cafe with his brother, that is.

The day was then bright and sunny and photos from a walkabout deserve a blog post of their own:) Oh, and the heating was fixed that afternoon so we didn't lose any fingers or toes, which pleased Brendan given his fear of frostbite. I'd like to say it is an irrational fear but unfortunately I'm to blame... Last week we found ourselves looking at gruesome photos online of frost bitten fingers and toes. This is just one example of my increased use of scare tactics to encourage obedience, in this case keeping gloves on when it's -10C outside! Not proud of this but occasionally these things just come out of my mouth before I can stop them :)  When Brendan started the car last week I said some scary things about car crashes. We won't be looking for pictures or you tube clips of those, that's for sure.

Having trouble with the new blogger update and can't work out how to get the photos where I want them- so this will do for now. Lovely snowy photos coming next.

Chicken

I've just put the chickens to bed and their little house is looking decidedly roomier now that there are fewer of them. Earlier tonight we bid farewell to the rooster and one of the Malines hens, and both are now in the fridge.

The experience overall was a good one, and one we'll certainly remember. The farmer (can't remember his name) killed them both after admiring them and saying they were healthy, good looking birds. I felt tears welling at one point and held Steve's hand but I had to let go and concentrate.

Then Steve and the farmer totally hit it off and they seemed like the best of friends, especially once Steve donned the bloody jacket and plastic apron and got stuck in de-feathering the second chicken. Meanwhile, his wife, Madeleine, and I took the first up to her kitchen and she showed me how to 'process' or prepare it (I need to learn the lingo in English because all this was done in French.)

Then it was my turn... I got the rooster. I had worried I'd be a bit queasy but not at all. I loved it and the whole thing just felt so right. I won't give any more detail here, but we'll be writing about this so we can reread it before the next time.

Steve was in his element listening to and asking the farmer about his life and land. He even accepted a cigar when he was offered- a part of the experience and a special occasion I guess!

Anyway, here are a few pics from the last couple of weeks.



This could be the first layer. I can't believe I used to think of chickens as ugly birds, I don't know what I was thinking.

RIP

Although the ladies may miss their man for a bit, I like to think they may appreciate not being chased around and pecked at constantly, and will soon get used to not having him around. I think the pecking order lower down is pretty much established but, after the rooster, the two white ones seemed to be on a par but I guess one may re-establish herself as the boss now? It will be interesting to see how it pans out.

So the next couple of days will include a lot of sitting with and watching them and, most importantly, cooking and sharing a very important meal with friends.

Our first egg!!

Our very first egg was laid this morning! This will hopefully be the first of many and was a very exciting moment in our house, and I think it's safe to say that Steve and I were even more excited than the boys:)

We took it straight in and fried it up to share. Brendan was a little concerned about it's small size but I assured him that they will get bigger once the hen gets into the swing of things. I hope I was right there because I really haven't a clue.

This is sort of a symbolic event and a big deal for us. At a time when we are slowly moving towards a more simple and earth friendly way of living our lives, these first eggs just put us more firmly on that track. And tomorrow Steve and I will learn how to kill and prepare our own chickens. I'm half thinking that once we've eaten the first one, we should just never eat a bought chicken again... but maybe we're not quite ready for that. Buying local, free range chickens will do for now, until we have more space to keep some more in a few years time.

Need to find some new egg recipes now!

cluck cluck

I'm astounded by how fast these girls are growing. I'd heard about it of course, but actually seeing a visible difference from one day to the next is just incredible.


Check out the feathery feet on the Malines!

Brendan is still more attached to the littlies. No wonder- they're a lot less flighty (these are the ones that each had a wing chopped off - NOT by us but by the farmer before I knew anything about it) and as they are younger their beaks aren't as developed yet either.

We put them out in the chick pen for a couple of hours each day, less if the temperature is on the cool side. We had to start covering the hole in the top as they started to jump out.

We also let them run around a bit too but they really don't like to stray far from familiarity and run around the outside of the pen trying to get back in! They do enjoy scratching around in the soil though.

We can easily tell them apart now and their personalities are beginning to show through. This one here pecked my finger yesterday. It didn't hurt at all but it made me jump. Those beaks are getting pretty big and sharp :)

I'm collecting some photos of the garden so I'll do a garden tour sometime soon.

Dinosaur world

One morning last week, in the hour we usually have between eating our porridge and walking Brendan to school, I offered the boys some TV time while I "got stuff done". I rarely do this these days because it always ends unpleasantly with Brendan getting very upset when it's switched off. But on this particular morning he said, "ummm, okay, how about that dinosaur one," pointing to the Walking With Dinosaurs video in the "give to charity shop" pile.

An hour later he was so engrossed in creating a dinosaur world that I just couldn't tear him away and take him to school. So we had a home day. We spent hours playing dinosaurs. Or at least Brendan did. I spent a little time playing dinosaurs and lots more time playing with Tadhg while trying not to make it obvious we were letting Brendan play alone. We have a sort of rule in our house: all toys belong to everyone and we have to play together. But sometimes Brendan loves a bit of time undisturbed by his pesky little brother. I try to let him have that time without making a big deal about it but it isn't always easy. Man, can they fight!

Brendan has totally taken to the chickens. He is such a good helper, making sure they don't fly out of the little box while I clean out the big box, refilling their food, breaking up their woodchip bedding, carrying them one by one (or two little ones) to their run outside and counting them about ten times a day to make sure they are all still there.
This whole chicken business is making me daydream a lot more about living on a farm. I look around and see Steve digging another veggie patch, Brendan watering the garden and Tadhg sitting in the chick pen with eight chickens running around and I think of the future... wondering what it holds for us :)

Some recent goings on around here.

We saw this group of people outside our local bar as we headed to the market on our bikes last Sunday. The young ones were running about or dodging their mothers who fussed over them and sorted their outfits, while the adults were inside, presumably having a wee drink before they did whatever they were about to do. On the way home we heard a band playing a block or two away. As we started planting all the plants we brought home from the market we kept hearing the band in the distance until I couldn't take it any longer and had to take the boys out to find them. We walked slowly through the local brocante (car boot sale without the cars) until we found the band emerging from the bar at the local football club around the corner. The boys were each given an orange by a young person and then another two or three each by some very drunk men dancing about and having a wonderful time. The whole scene was hilarious. The band struck up but sounded terrible- they had all been drinking for a few hours by this point, although it was still only noon.
We found out later from our neighbour that this is the normal labour day celebration, although we still don't know what the costumes are all about.

Here's Steve and Tadhg buying some seedlings for the garden to add to the ones we've grown from seed ourselves. More on the garden later.

Brendan and I went to our first formal(ish) homeschool activity. One of the homeschool group parents organised an owl pellet investigation. Brendan was the youngest but he still got something out of it. We've been talking about owls for the last few days and the tricky topics of animals eating animals, death, raising farm animals etc. The major find in our owl pellet was a complete rat skull. So Brendan insists CouCou must not go outside so she isn't eaten by an owl.
And when it comes to our chickens, we are allowed to eat them all except JJ, the littlest one which Brendan has claimed as his very own.

So much for not really wanting a trampoline :) This one was in the garden when we arrived and the boys love it and are on it almost every day. And it does funky things to their hair. Lots of fun.

The chicks have moved to a bigger brooder box and are going outside for a while every day now. They love running about and fighting over every little bit of bare earth they come across for a quick dust bath. I'm amazed at how their instincts are so strong that they know just what to do without having a mama bird to show them. Incredible.

Chicks

An exciting day today as we welcomed our first chicks!

One of my colleagues gave me the phone number of a little farm where she buys her chicks. I went to pick up 6 black Marans today at their lovely little farm about 10 minutes from our house. I actually came home with three 8-day-old black Marans, three 13-day-old Coucou de Malines (related to Marans) and two 13-day-old Light Sussex. That, you will notice if you were paying attention, adds up to 8 birds. Oops.
I did ask for only two of each but he added two extras for free and I was too soft to reject them :)

This is one of the three "coucou de malines". Which I think is a type of Maran. They are beautiful grey speckled hens which are really bred as table birds but are so beautiful I couldn't resist.

The boys have been so gentle!

Here's one of the younger black Marans. They are a lot smaller and fluffier- I think we are going to be surprised by how quickly they grow. These lay dark chocolate brown eggs. They seem much more fragile than the others but I'm hoping it's just because of the age difference and they aren't actually weaker in any way. Brendan is particularly besotted by these wee ones, I think because the bigger ones can already flap their wing feathers a bit and these littlies are bit more timid.

And here's Tadhg with one Sussex and a Maran.

So maybe we'll have a regular chicken diary entry on here. I'm off to sit with them for a bit before going to bed. They're not the cutest little things but they really are funny and totally tug on your heart strings.