Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

[Britesea]

At one point in my life we were very, very short on cash. I discovered bugs in our oatmeal, but we didn't have the money to replace it, so I used it anyway. I just poured the rolled oats into a pan with water and the bugs all floated to the top, where I could skim them off. Then I continued to cook as usual. That was 40 years ago, and I ain't dead yet! I do prefer my food to not be bug infested though, lol.

 

[wyoDreamer]

I have used pasta that had weevils in it once - I had nothing else available to eat in the house and I didn't get paid for 3 days. I poured the pasta shells into a colander and picked the good pasta noodles out and put them in a plastic container. I rinsed the noodles before putting into boiling water to cook. Noodles and butter for breakfast for 3 days. College kids, what ya gonna do.

 

[baymule]

Our frost depth is surface, gone by mid day.

 

[Britesea]

Well, Spring is busting out all over. We don't have any frosts predicted for the next 10 days, but I'm gonna hold off on my tomatoes and peppers etc until June 7. Which, incidentally, may herald our broody hen coming out from under the house with some chicks. I sure hope so.

We incubated a few eggs earlier, and got 8 hatchlings out of 9 eggs. They are now at the gawky teen age stage and eager to be allowed out of the nursery coop to roam around with the adults, but I want to wait just a little longer so they can handle any cold snaps. We usually keep them in the fenced coop yard for a couple of weeks, til they get the hang of coming in at night. Usually we have to round them up the first week or they will just roost any old where- and with all the owls and eagles in our area, that just isn't a good idea.


All my spring-planted crops are growing well, but the lettuces are the only ones I can pick right now. I do have a couple of baby tomatoes coming up on the tomatoes which are still in the greenhouse.

 

[Britesea]

Thank you all for your suggestions! I do have a couple of mid-sized dog crates but wasn't sure how many would fit- I'm more worried about them not letting me catch them. If I was given enough time to prepare (such as a few hours of Level 2) I could probably round them all up. If I had to, I suppose we could throw them into the travel trailer and just figure on spring cleaning afterwards, lol. I hope that I will never have to evacuate, but living where I do it's a very real danger every year. One thing I had figured was that if I was only able to grab a few, not all of them, a rooster and 2 hens would be enough to build the flock up again. Also, there have been several stories here of people having to leave their animals (everything from horses to cats) behind, and the animals were able to survive either unscathed or with very minor injury, and were waiting for the owners when they came back.

 

[Britesea]

Our new rooster (incubated this spring) Has been dubbed Placido Domingo. He managed a SEVEN-note crow this afternoon.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Ive never had a nice rooster. I have one now that was part of Marans black sex links. He has a barred pattern, was black as a chick, so snuck in the group. He is already being bad, striking at the feed can and starting to be a pain. Freezer camp is on the horizon.

Have you tried schooling him in acceptable behavior? All my roos go to behavior management class, starting with the very moment I know they are boys. I always keep them arm's length away, don't let them eat until the ladies have eaten. Depending on their behavior, they may get daily or (whenever) training in the following lesson: The coop is mine. The hens are mine. The grass is mine. The chicken run is mine. The feed and water are mine. Basically, it all belongs to me, including the little patch of ground the cockerel happens to be standing on at the moment. He must yield space and life needs/wants/desires to ME. So, I will chase him with a little switch (tapping his tail feathers, or smacking the ground around him) I will herd him away from feed/water/girls, until I decide to let him approach those resources. Yielding to me instills passive behavior in him. When I am choosing next year's roo, I keep an eye on the grow out pen, and look for a youngster who starts warning calls and especially tidbitting behavior towards the girls (and even other cockerels) at an early age. It's also helpful to let the old biddies train those young cockerels. I might put a young "contender" into the chicken run all by himself, and let the biddies go a few supervised rounds with him.

 

[Britesea]

@milkmansdaughter that's great that your son cares about others like that. I know most people have historically helped others during a disaster- our instructor calls them "SUV's" (Spontaneous Untrained Volunteers) but it's so much more valuable if you actually have some training.

Oh yeah, @Mini Horses - Murphy loves us, doesn't he? We got ready to install the window and couldn't find the screws... wasted time searching for them and finally found where they had fallen out of DH's pocket onto the floor in the bathroom. By that time, of course it was raining.

I did get to spend some time in the greenhouse transplanting things from their peat pots into 4" pots. Now that the weather is warming up a bit everything is perking up nicely.
I also found a "volunteer" valerian in one of my raised beds. I had bought a small potted seedling last summer at the Farmer's Market and when I brought it home I put it out in the garden where it would get water and sunshine until I could get to it. Well, you know what happened-- I forgot about it. Over time, the roots forced their way through the bottom of the pot and into the soil beneath, and now I have this sturdy little plant with a cute little plastic collar around it, lol. I hope I can dig it up and transplant it successfully...

 

[Britesea]

I did manage to get the second bed filled and planted, and one of the new big veggie beds is built and hardware cloth installed and awaiting soil and plants. We went into town during the hot part of the day to pick up a few things and got another pick-up load of soil. I got a beautiful 8-prong manure fork for my Mother's Day gift-- I think it will really help with turning the compost pile. I also picked up a big sack of basil on sale, and now I have 12 1/2 cup sized jars of pesto in the freezer (just the right size for making a pasta sauce or spreading on a pizza)

DH was going to grill some chicken thighs for us, but he hurt his back getting the soil out of the truck, so DS stepped up to the plate. That plus some more asparagus and a salad of baby spinach and baby lettuces made for a really nice Mother's Day meal.

 

[Britesea]

Went over to the mid valley yesterday (2 hours one way) for some shopping that we can't get in our neck of the woods. I stopped at a nursery I had just heard about, and found a Witch Hazel and 2 different varieties of English Hawthorn that I couldn't say no to. I'm especially happy with this Witch Hazel because this variety (OzarK) supposedly blooms from February to April. That should catch the earliest appearances of the wild bees in March and April. Since we don't keep bees (DH is allergic so it just doesn't seem like a good idea) I want to encourage as many wild bees as possible. Besides the flowers for food, I plan to set up a bee watering station using one of our old chicken waterers, kind of like this

Today I'm not feeling real great... I'm losing the battle against another cold. Huh; after no colds for several years, I end up getting 2 in one month.
Anyway, I got my Delicata squash and Dar cucumbers moved out to the garden. The weather forecast for the next 10 days is highs in the 70's and low in the mid-to-low 40's, so I think I'm safe, although I will still stand ready with my frost cloth if needed.

I'm gonna go take a short nap. See you all.