The Serpent Siege: The End of an E(gg)ra?

photo credit: W.v.W

tonight, the war was won.

we had dinner guests this evening, and had reached that genial point when dinner is over but wine is still present and conversations flit from one subject to the next.  remembering that the chicken ramp was still down, i headed outside to put the ladies and gentleman to bed.  in the half-light of the porchlamp across the yard, i counted the birds by giving each a gentle touch.  i reached into ninja's normal corner of the nest box to count her, when i noticed she was sitting on the floor of the coop--not in her normal spot. at the same time i noticed that my fingers met something distinctly unfeathery.

could it be? i looked around at the ladies and gentleman. no one seemed particularly alarmed. bolo even sat in her regular place, which would be next to ninja, except that ninja had politely surrendered her spot to the cool coiling shadow.  was i just half expecting the snake to be there, and so had imagined that i touched it? with my bare hand? in the dark? i secured the ramp, closed the coop, and hurried inside, vowing to test my theory tomorrow in the daylight.  but when i related my experience to my companions inside, dan got up and retrieved the industrial-size flashlight from the garage.

we all marched outside, flashlight and pvc snake lasso close at hand. the chickens blinked at us in sleepy confusion as w. held the light, dan wielded the rake, and i held the lasso at the ready.  the snake was a bit sluggish in the cool of the evening, and sated by his daily egg feast.  after hay-removal and a bit of prodding, he uncoiled and started to make a break toward the back of the coop.

dan pinned his middle with the rake. i slipped the loop of nylon rope over his head and pushed the pipe forward, trapping him.  he coiled and uncoiled his 5 foot long body, very nearly dislodging himself from our double grip.  finally, he stopped thrashing for a moment to assess his situation, giving us a moment to assess ours.  w. took a turn at the rake, dan held the light, and we maneuvered into a siege position. we had left the pillowcase inside.

photo credit: W.v.W

(the chickens watched all this with varying degrees of mild interest to mild alarm. the rooster even seemed vaguely entertained.)

"d," i asked, trying to sound brave, hoping the snake's head didn't slip into the pipe and come flying toward my face, "could you please go find a pillowcase? you can check in the linen closet, the second door in the..."

"just pull one off one of the bed pillows," dan said, ever practical. d. came back with a pillowcase in short order.

at this point, the snake figured the only way out was through, and so he slipped his head up into the pipe (toward my face). dan quickly tied the open end of the pillowcase around the of the pipe, hoping that the creature would slither straight into it. this would have been successful, except the snake reached a point at which his middle was barely too big for the pipe.  thus, he got stuck--two feet of him in the pipe, the other three hanging out the end.  winnie the poo style, sort of, except longer and scalier and less cute.

photo credit: W.v.W

i reached down and grabbed his body where it entered the pipe, keeping him stuck. he writhed healthily, wrapping his tail around my arm and releasing a putrid defensive musk. at this point, we were confident that he could not escape. it was time to relocate the egg thief across the highway.

d. and w. agreed to hold down the fort as dan and i hopped in the car for the final chapter of the snake battle. i held him steady inside the pipe, his tail wrapped firmly around my arm, until we got across 183 and down a convenient side street with an empty lot.  dan untied the pillowcase, and i started to loosen my grip; the snake sensed freedom was imminent, and started thrashing anew. on a count of three we threw the snake, pipe and all, in one direction and retreated in the other.  i think i saw him slither off, freed of his pvc prison.

and so, the texas rat snake war has ended--i hope. could there be others? was that one just one of many? i respect you, texas rat snake, you are strong and nimble and quick and scary. but should you or any of your kind come back, we are now seasoned snake battlers. we shall defend our eggs and our (rather complacent, to the point of snake room-mate welcoming) flock. you will be relocated!

some final thoughts:

1) it took four grown ups to deal with this snake. Four! Grown Ups! (thanks to d. and w. for moral support, pillow case and rake support, documentation, and coming over for dinner)

2) i'm glad we didn't have to kill it. there was a moment there where it seemed like that might be the only option.  i am thankful that we were able to drive it across the highway and let it go be a snake someplace else.  catch some rats or something, rat snake!

3) so much for the big mean rooster defending his hareem. what a..........chicken. oh.

4) snake musk = stinky and sticky, and unlike any other smell i've ever smelled.  noted!  that's a pretty good defense mechanism.

5) the snake fought bravely, and we fought bravely.  we have had TUF success.  now....Five! Egg! Day?

Garden/Snake

when i first started writing about our TUF attempt, it had a lot to do with coop construction...that was the first step toward ultimately becoming a Totally Urban Farm. another one of our original goals was to build and start a vegetable garden, and almost exactly a year ago, we built the boxes for it on the day we got our first egg. this is what it looked like back then:

then we got focused on the chickens all summer, and it was really hot, and then i was a science teacher for nine months (time consuming, that!), and so the garden boxes filled with weeds and turned into a chicken playground/hot dog wallow...UNTIL THIS WEEKEND.  design revamped, enthusiasm renewed, the TUF garden is within a few weekends' reach!

the 3 original 6'x6' boxes got a 2'x4' inset for easy harvest access. each inset got 2 18" square patio tiles, and the rest of the growing area (84 square feet!) got dug up and covered with hay to get all the weeds out of there.  shortly we will lay down some landscaping cloth, cover it with gravel, cover THAT with local topsoil enriched with our delicious compost, and we will be ready for a fall garden. for real this time!

this space on the side of our our house gets direct morning sun from about 9 am to 3 pm, then is shaded by the house for the rest of the day.  i'm hoping that will be enough sunshine to grow tasty tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers...we are garden virgins for sure, so this will be a learning process. just like everything about the TUF!

speaking of learning experiences: last early june we had a brush with our first Texas Rat Snake, which resulted in the snake making him/herself scarce for the rest of the year.  well, s/he is back.

and now it is more than a brush. it is WAR.  this snake has been stealing the lovely ladies' eggs for the past month, ever since the beginning of may.  "may's snake month," our neighbor once averred, and at the time i was skeptical. no longer.  i am certain that this snake is a significant factor in hampering the as-yet theoretical five-egg day.

my thought is to carefully capture it, constrain it to a pillow case, drive it across 183 and release in a woodsy area. it has probably devoured like a dozen eggs at this point!  i'll go out there, check on the birds, see the carefully crafted deep egg-nests they like to make, but they will be empty.  the other day i caught it in the act of eating one of sammo's eggs.  i made ready to do battle, but the snake dropped the egg (!) and beat it.  and two days ago, as we were putting up the chickens at dusk, we saw it curled in the nesting box.  tumblr was peering at it with great suspicion, and the other ladies were as far away as they could be inside the coop.  we made a heroic joint attempt to capture it, to no avail. snakes always turn out to be surprisingly strong and nimble.

thus, the battle of the rat snake continues, and i will update you, Dear Reader, as developments develop!  and summer is coming right up, with all its time and promise...cooking! grocery store adventures! gardening! more writing!  it's almost, almost here........

Fiftieth

this moment i sit on my back porch balcony, having concocted this adult beverage.  it's a fancy affair of orange juice, grapefruit preserves made by a good friend and traded for eggs, organic strawberries, and local vodka.  _lovely._ as is the weather, warm and breezy and greensmelling.

i won't lie to you, Dear Reader.  i've been holding out.  holding out for that most holy of theoretical days, the Five Egg Day. i've got five hens a-laying, and i really wanted to mark the Fifitieth Post with a Five Egg Day.  i also realize that april 10th marked the anniversary of my very first silly post, and i kind of wanted all these stars to align, you know?  fiftieth post, five egg day, year of TUF.   how poifect would that have been?

but nothing is ever perfect, which is exactly how everything should be.  the ladies and gentleman have the full run of the yard now every day, and seem absolutely thrilled.  we will occasionally leave them in their orignal run for a day, which they dearly loved at one time, but now they spend the whole time in there looking exasperated, as only chickens can.  so these days they are pretty much as free-range as it gets for a Totally Urban (chicken) Farm.

i can't believe i ever thought
he was a girl.

tumblr, while nearly intolerably loud, appears to be a fine czar of the yard. he is vigilant and watchful, and often puts on a showy, strutting, clucking display for the benefit of his hareem.  all the ladies have accepted his leadership at this point, and he seems to do a good job of attending the whole flock while devoting some individual attention to each hen.  i know that sounds ridiculous, but i swear he takes them on dates.  and he makes a variety of strange dinosaur noises: various forms of alarm or annoyance, surprise, his odd clearing-the-throat-while-howling crow, and the occasional elongated string of rythmically delivered clucks punctuated with bwak-KAWS turned up to 11.  i have decided this particular sound is the chicken mantra, actually....they all do it, though tumblr does it at a spectacular volume, and when they are at it, it is unstoppable. bok bok bok bok BWAK bok bok bok BWAK KAW bok bok bok BWAK etc.  happily, it doesn't happen THAT often.

the ladies have discovered that the yard is large and harbors many delightful nooks and crannies for surprise egg laying.  i have had an easter egg hunt every day since easter, and now i completely understand where the tradition originates!  why lay 'em in a logical place like the coop nesting box when you can lay them in grassy corners, between slats of leftover lumber, randomly on the ground...

so i sought to create some cozy egg-laying spaces in the exciting (to chickens) area under the porch/balcony in the back yard, with the intention that i could facilitate fun egg-laying practices while somewhat reducing randomness.  we also stashed the haybale dan brought home the other day under there, since we have graduated beyond the $4 bag of hay days (and the bales are only $15!).  we logically put it in the wheelbarrow, which we logically wheeled into the under-porch area for easy coop access.  WELL.

the very next day i discovered this very ILLogical egg placement.  spurning my delightful boxes, ninja and sammo laid their eggs right smack dab on top of the  haybale!  i guess no one ever accused chickens of being especially logical.

today, however, i found two eggs nestled in the big blue box.  twitter and pearl seem to get it.  oh well, as long as we're getting two and three eggs a day, i don't much care where i find them.  the ladies take turns being the super egg champion!

sometimes we get weird ones.

bolo

sammo

pearl

ninja

twitter

per usual, i have been enjoying some delicious egg dishes...

poached eggs perched over quinoa over refried black beans over organic salad greens, drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette....fast and fabulous!

migas (scrambled eggs/leftover salsa/bottom of bag tortilla chip crumbles) and toast!

more soon, Dear Reader, i promise!  because i have many more pictures of food and adorable pets to blither on about.  i can hold out no longer.  

and yet-the theoretical Five Egg Day  awaits.

Spring Break!

with the spring comes warmth and rains, so trees begin a-budding
and fowl, freed from coop constraints, go merrily a-mudding
to seek and ingest grass and seeds with eager scratch-and-pecks,
while drunk on pollen from the weeds are slow-flying insects.

the sun climbs back from southern climes a little more each day,

giving light for longer times, inspiring hens to lay.

finding four eggs in the nest is common happenstance;

the rooster preens his feathered breast and struts his mating dance.

the coop was scrubbed, vinegar-spritzed, and stuffed with brand new hay,
we held a household/closet cleaning blitz the other day.
springtime zephyrs whistle by and tease all windows open;
out the doubts of winter fly to make way for new hoping.

yesterday's experiment was mini pita bread.
puffed pocket bites were what i meant to get; i got instead
a kind of tender flatbread, small in size, and good with dip--
i cannot escape hummus and its culinary grip.

and that's the word from 'round the TUF. happy spring break all!
here's hoping hope and weather hold; we'll spring it up 'till fall!

Winter. Break!

i always look forward to this time of year so hard. school's out for a restful moment, some nights get down to freezing, people put up lights and make plans and give presents.  and make food!  the days blend into a warm and fuzzy blur, and round about december 28th i have the following thoughts:

1) xmas is already over? whoa!
2) the YEAR is nearly over? WHOA!
3) what all just HAPPENED??

And that final question, my dear reader, i hope to answer here--mainly for myself, though i deeply appreciate all y'all out there who pursue a mild interest in the various TUF antics.

now for starters, let's push all the holiday warmth and romance aside and talk chicken issues.  i spend a fair amount of time discussing the cute and fluffy aspects of urban chicken keeping, and haven't had to explore too many ugly or less desireable topics so far.  until the foul Fowl Pox!

that's right, people get chicken pox, chickens get fowl pox.  it's a virus spread by mosquitoes that is also communicable between chickens, so it gets the whole flock.  it causes little gross dots on your birdz. (here's more info from the backyard chicken peeps, if you are interested.) they can only get it once, thankfully (just like people chicken pox! ......what?) and it isn't too bad and goes away after awhile.  but it was GROSS, and it caused the ladies to be less lay-ful.  which was really just as well, because the good people at callahan's recommended we do a round of tetracycline antibiotics to prevent secondary infections.  and, of course, when they're on the antibiotics, you don't eat the eggs!  fowl pox is totally the worst!

anyway, we are recovering, and egg production is coming back slowly but surely.  all the ladies look better than ever, and seem to frantically enjoy the sunshine we've had for the past couple of days.  i'm sure there will be a fancy chicken photo shoot in the near future.


on to more pleasant things:  my 31st birthday came and went delightfully, thanks to my amazing family and friends. the most TUF-related treasure i received was this MARVELOUS ceramic egg tray! it fits perfectly in the egg compartment in the fridge.  i love how the eggs look in it!

this year the TUF hosted our first xmas banquet, gathering family from near and....well, mostly near.  san antonio and austin o'neils and camerons were present, and our brother-in-law-to-be braved the long and squishy drive from houston.  the normal TUF living room was transformed into the Banquet Hall, and we were a merry bunch, all 8 of us!  i made ugly-but-tasty cabbage, roasted carrots, mashed potatoes and cloverleaf rolls; our auntie brought a green salad, grilled asparagus and bread puddin'. gwen brought key lime pie, killer cheezcake and the cameron traditional Christmas Salad. and dad--oh holy night!--brought the Beef Tenderloin.  the wine flowed like.....um, wine!  the bread was broken!  seconds were had! deliciouscity ensued!

image credit: jb o'neil

and gifts and hugs and kisses were exchanged, as befitting a proper xmas.  but then, after all the anticipation and cooking and present-hiding and aromas and unwrapping, it's over!  december 26 comes, and everything goes back to normal.

....except not QUITE, ever, here on the TUF.  we happened to have a pheasant thawed on this weeknight-after-xmas, and some organic butternut squash.  that's right, a pheasant!  ha! why not!

we treated it just like we treat most birds headed for the rotisserie, as discussed before...rubbed and trussed, and rotisseried for about an hour.  this time we stuffed it with half a squeezed-out lemon, a carrot and some garlic cloves.

i threw the giblets in a pot with some water, more carrot, the other half of the squeezed lemon, some spices/garlic and a frozen leftover roast chicken...um...carcass (sorry) to make a quick broth for gravy.  i know, totally ridiculously un-necessary, but it's a pheasant, it should have gravy. i don't know why.  it smelled DELICIOUS.

while the bird roasted and the broth bubbled away, it was time to deal with the two tiny butternut squash.

dan cut the tops off, hollowed out the bulbs, and diced the flesh to stuff back in the center later. the shells went in the oven first, at 350 degrees, for about 15 minutes.

we sauteed the chopped up fruit from the necks and bulbs for a moment, to soften and garlic them up before replacing them in their native gourds to finish cooking.  then dan decided that these squash had faces.

without further ado, the squash guys were carved and stuffed with more of themselves and some shredded cheddar, much to their apparent displeasure.  they finished baking while the pheasant, rice and broth turned, boiled and bubbled away toward dinner.  everything cooked for just about an hour.

though FAR too much food for even us totally urban farmer types (ha!), it turned out to be an amusing and deliciously fancy dinner.  note to self: no matter how tiny you think it is, ONE BUTTERNUT SQUASH is all you need for two people!  just one!  see how grumpy they get!





anyway, new culinary and farming adventures await in 2012....new egg layers!  massive compost production! the fabled garden?  who knows!  i can't wait to find out. and i also hearby resolve to try not to let so many weeks go in between posts again. it results in long and blithery posts like this one!

as always, Gentle Reader, thank you for your time and attention.  stay tuned!

November Random Ramblings

remember this?  these two tiny chicks?  back in june i regaled you, Dear Reader, with pictures and anecdotes about our brand new fuzzy fluffy chicks, and wondered who they would become and what they would look like.  not surprisingly, they became grown up chickens.  it has been fascinating to see their progress, and i look forward to their first egg probably toward the middle of december!

tumblr now!

tumblr then...

twitter now!

twitter then...

tumblr has grown into a very fancy chicken, her feathers a riot of shiny greens and subtle yellows, bright oranges and dark reds.  twitter has matured into a lovely soft-plumed blue marans, with the rather odd dual effect of being an attractive bird and looking a bit like a buzzard.  they aren't quite full-grown yet, but they are truly coming into their own as full-fledged (literally!) members of the TUFlock.  i can't wait to see what their eggs look (and taste!) like.

speaking of eggs, sammo/bolo/pearl/ninja have been laying like gangbusters, and i was able to create a whole mess of delicious egg salad finger sandwiches for a recent family dinner party.  there is something quite satisfying about hard-boiling a slew of home grown eggs!

the laying ladies have slowed up a little with the time/season change, it would appear, but i'm sure they'll be back to normal eggliferation soon.  i deeply appreciate their contribution to our household and, indeed, my psyche: one recent tuesday night, i was feeling a bit sorry for myself after a hard day at work.  it seemed that nothing could lift my spirits, that i was glued to the couch by the potent adhesive combination of lonesome and lazy.  then, i had a sunny side up idea...

...that i promptly made into huevos rancheros!    the evening was saved by the chicken(s) and the egg(s).  amazing how home-made good food can change one's perspective in an instant.  another case in point: dungeness crab and asparagus, prepared by TUF chef dan one recent evening in which we had the fortune to eat together at home...

granted, no eggs here....only my FAVORITE seafood item, and one of my FAVORITE vegetables.  i'm just going to go ahead and say a few things about dungeness crab: 1) it's better than lobster 2) it's better than any other crab, including king crab 3) it's one of the most ethical seafoods out there.  (that's right, i said it's better than lobster, cuz it is!  and it's cheaper!  why are you not eating it right now?  why am i not?)

Spot, helping make copies

handy Hairelena

in other news, it's thanksgiving break!   i have so much to be thankful for, and so much to look forward to.  the science class pets, Hairelena and Spot, have come home for the break, so they have added their ranks to our veritable home zoo.  other members of the household have barely noticed the newcomers, preferring to focus on the recent addition of a new fuzzy blanket to the living room couch:

or hope that something awesome is going to fall out of the sky:

at any rate, the holidays approacheth, and my favorite time of the year is upon us.  an important school long haul is over, and we are settling into our new schedule. last night i woke to the sound of Big Rain, and today was coolish, sunny and windswept.  this week there will be family, friends and food...more on that, and other adventures, to come!  november on the TUF in the ATX!  i am giving thanks!