First, let me apologize for my absence. I got sick on December 28, a mere cold supposedly, but it laid me low for two months. And being old, I also had visits to my GP, urgent care, the ER, and the dentist for one thing or another in the last two and a half months. The result was that my energy has been sapped and my garden neglected. It has been all I can do to just maintain our four hens, and keep up with composting chores.
It is spring, and three out of four of our chickens are now laying. We are awash in eggs. I devil some of them, make 5-egg frittatas and 6-egg German pancakes, and even freeze some of them for use during the winter when my hens stop laying. (To freeze eggs, break them into a bowl, then break the yokes and mix them slightly with a dash of salt. Pour the eggs into a small Ziploc bag, squeeze out the air, and freeze them flat. I freeze them four to a baggie for our winter scrambled eggs. Or two to a baggie for use in baking.)
But how did my new hen surprise me? Well, I thought Princess Aurora, my white hen with black tail and wing feathers, was an Americauna (or however that is spelled), and I was expecting her to lay blue- or green-colored eggs. Nope. They are light brown.
Back to the internet I went, where I figured out that Princess Ariel is a Light Sussex breed of hen. They are a nice meat and egg breed, although we don’t eat our chickens. Our spoiled girls get laying pellets, and a daily feeding of scratch to give them something to do, plus mealworms and an assortment of seasonal organic greens. They have a nice enclosed cage that keeps them safe at night, plus an open run for daytime use. They have a good life, I think, plus a very generous vacation and retirement package.
The Light Sussex is a friendly breed, and Princess Ariel seems very people oriented. She tries to follow me as best she can inside her cage and run, always interested in where I am more than where her fellow hens are. I suspect that she associates me with getting fed, and that she is more food focused than the others, but who knows.
Despite my neglect of the vegetable garden, the fruit orchard is providing. The number of lines this year is astounding. These are Bearrs limes, which turn yellow and fall from the tree when ripe. This is about a third of what is on the counter now, awaiting squeezing and freezing.
It is also navel orange season. But we have rats in the yard, and they like oranges too.
Sadly, the rats got more than half of my orange crop, and it wasn’t a particularly large crop with year. I did manage to trap one in a snap trap, but I haven’t been diligent about my trapping.
The rats also ate ALL of my snow pea crop as soon as the seeds sprouted, all of the bok choy and komatsuna, and all of my Lacinato kale. It seems that they don’t like leeks, so I do have a dozen leeks that are nearly ready to harvest. I have given up on my winter garden and am about to plant my summer garden of tomatoes and bell peppers. Unless I give up on that too before planting. Between being constantly sick, and the ongoing rat problem, I am pretty depressed about gardening. Encouragement would be appreciated.
With rats, birds, possums, and pests, it is hard to get a crop these days. A changing climate isn’t helping either, what with weather that is too warm, too dry, or just unpredictable. But I keep trying.
And so my garden and I struggle on. Best wishes for your spring garden!