Still Life with Chicken

It was an eventful week in the Appleyard universe.  The Silver Appleyards are a heritage duck that was popular in the 30’s.  Almost nobody breeds them anymore, and as such they are listed as critical by the ALBC.  They are quite large, grow fast, and are fairly regular egg layers, so good for both meat and eggs.  I bought a breeding pair last year from the Holderreads, one of the world’s most respected duck breeders, and lucky for me, within driving distance of here.  I tried to name them Bob and Alice, in typical geek fashion, but Kyle insisted on renaming the male “Bill”, which did suit I suppose.  Last year I put 4 of their eggs under a broody chicken and hatched 3 more females and 1 more male.  This winter we lost Bill to probably an owl, so Bill’s son became the new Bill.  A couple weeks ago Alice got a nice nest built up and began sitting on it, but sadly this past weekend we lost her to an owl as well.  I’ve started locking the remaining Appleyards up at night – which has been surprisingly easy.  But, Tuffy – another Appleyard female – got broody about a week after Alice, and before the Owl Incident, and is sitting on a nest so buried in the brush that we can’t get a fence around her.  Unlike a chicken, you can’t move a broody duck – so if we move her we have to accept that she won’t be hatching any eggs.  Considering the loss of Bill and Alice, we really want Tuffy to succeed, so we are going to leave her there and hope for the best.  Tuffy got her name because she was born with a non-breed-conforming tuft on the topish of her head. Ideally, we wouldn’t breed her. But, from my perspective, she appears to have a favorable trait that I’d like to keep – the desire to sit on eggs and make more ducks. So, despite her lack of conformation, we will probably save some of her young and allow them to breed next year. I guess everyone’s got their own priorities when it comes to breeds. My priorities for the ducks are: large, tasty, generally takes care of themselves, and can breed naturally.  The other Appleyard females are now laying in the pen at night, so I will probably start letting a nest accumulate in there in hopes of convincing another one to set.   I’m also going to set a “broody chicken trap” in the chicken coop and see if I can’t catch one of them.  I just pile up a bunch of fake eggs in one of the nests and then if a chicken has the broody instinct, it might just convince them that it’s time to get serious.  We’ll see what happens.
I got out into the garden last week for a few hours. Planted a bunch of potatoes and a few leeks. I am running out of room in the upper garden. I might have to expand. The weeds are a nightmare right now. I’ve not been up there since last year. The blueberries are simply buried in weeds. I spent about 3 hours weeding the blueberries and only got about 1/2 way done. The peas I planted in February really desperately need weeding – but there was no time.

Today was the first weekend that I’ve been home in over a month that has had decent weather. I spent the day weeding the lower garden and trying to get caught up on some planting. I planted Chiogga beets, early cabbage, broccoli, a spring lettuce mix and some bok choy. I also harvested some of the spinach that I’d planted in the fall. Planting Spinach in the fall works out really well – even though you can’t really eat it by the time winter comes, it stays alive all winter and gets a head start, so there’s actually something growing in the garden in April that is ready to eat. I invented a pesto recipe to use up the spinach – it’s a seasonally appropriate pesto, so no basil in it.

4-6 cups washed Spinach

2-5 cloves of garlic

1/2 – 3/4 cup olive oil

1/2 to 1 cup of walnuts

1/4 tsp salt, and pepper to taste

Put all ingredients in food processor and process till smooth. toss with Pasta and crumbled feta cheese.

In other news, Mrs. Whitey the white Muscovy duck decided to get broody again while I was out of town. She decided to put her new nest inside the chicken coop, underneath the nest boxes. This is a pretty safe place as far as I can tell – the biggest danger is that chickens will decide to hide some eggs on her nest. Chickens will hatch in only 21 days, but Muscovy ducks take 35 days. Alice the Appleyard has got a nice nest going too – although up to now she’s not shown any signs of wanting to sit on it.

I planted my Peas on presidents day. I also got a flat of leeks and onions started in the laundry room. I planted 3 kinds of peas – well 2 kinds and some beans: Fava beans, petite pois, and sugar snap. I planted all of these things in my upper garden, even though I was planning on keeping my gardening efforts contained to the lower garden this year due to an impending remodel project. I justify it because the upper garden is really nutrient poor and needs some major help. All these peas fix nitrogen and break up the soil, so it’s good for it.

So here’s a pea description for those of you who don’t know any thing about peas other than they come in the freezer section in a bag labelled “green”.

Fava beans are big starchy things – almost like a lima bean or a butter bean. They grow in 6-8 inch pods, and like cooler temps. Most people plant them in the fall – or very early spring. I tried planting them in the fall last year and they all died over the winter, so I’ve decided early spring it is. You can eat them fresh, or if you let them dry you can grind them up and make falafal or yummy bean dip or what have you.

Petite Pois are itty bitty french peas. I’ve never grown them before, but the seeds were adorable. You have to shell them. I think the French really know their veggies, so I can’t wait to try them.

Sugar snap peas are great for lazy people who don’t want to shell peas. You can eat the pod as well as the peas. They are super sweet. Unfortunately, they didn’t freeze well for me – maybe I’m just incompetent.

I always imagine that there’s this animal communication network out there, where word of new sources of food would travel fast. Or that they are some how all communicating, Borg-like, so that when one animal discovers something tasty, or scary, or whatever it is that occupies animal thoughts, they all get the message. For example, I’m pretty sure that CoyoteNET has gotten the message about the all you can eat turkey buffet at our house. Similarly DeerNET knows about the yummy apples that are always on the ground around various trees in the fall, and of the wonders of the upper garden after I let the fence fall down. They still are knawing on the stumps of the kale and collards that they ate up over the winter. My guess is that the message went out on the NET this weekend that I planted something, and I think they are probably checking every day to see if any sprouts have emerged. So, I guess this weekend I better get that fence picked up before the shoppers arrive.