Ego-away

     I was remembering a moment somewhere around this time last year. I was overcome with the hippiest of urges to remove my shoes and ground myself in the earth as I foraged a rare blackberry free patch of forest. My thought stream was filled with wild woman imagery and inspiring quotes about being one with the trees. It was all very Lorax with a side of dryad. And then.....I stepped square and barefoot into a pile of fresh deer scat.

    Nature has a way of doing that. It inspires us. It fills us with awe and wonder! It makes us feel special and important to witness to the mysteries and secrets of the quiet places. Then it does a 180 and says "Settle down there, Euell Gibbons!" Nature reminds you who is really in charge despite all your best laid plans and intentions.

   Sometimes this ego check comes with the bitterly amusing squish of fecal matter, but other times it can be a harsher lesson. We lost all but three turkeys last year from several of these nature slaps. It's easy during those times to get angry at that damn fisher or your mom's overly excitable dog. But the harsh truth is that it's ultimately your fault. You didn't check the gate that last time despite your intuition tickling at you before bed. You didn't tighten that collar down just a notch even though you knew the dog wasn't used to farm creatures.

   Listen. Mistakes will be made. You're going to sunburn some seedlings. You're going to trust a little too much in apparently less than adequate predator defenses. Your incubator settings will not quite be up to muster. It is going to happen. The sooner you square yourself with that the more productive you will be able to be.
 
    This is not to say that you're not allowed to feel badly. or feel guilty. Actually I would encourage that reaction, but only for use as fuel. Understand first that you made a mistake, and secondly what that mistake was. Finally, understand that all mistakes have a correction. Sure, nothing will bring back the specific lives lost but the understanding of what occurred will protect you from the same mistakes in the future. A successful homesteader isn't one who doesn't make any mistakes. A successful homesteader is one who can step outside of the ego of their mistakes to learn from them.

    The cycles of nature march inexorably onward. The seasons wait for no man or woman. The best medicine a nature saturated lifestyle has for our species is the lesson of being. To learn to let go when things have not gone our way. To adapt our strategies and mindset to the current reality of what is and not to what we think it should be. Let go of that ego now and again. It won't run away, I promise! It will be right there where you left it, but letting it go will allow your soul and mind to breathe. Allow yourself to take that break. Just a little rest will have you feeling right as rain in no time.

This is not how I pictured my flock looking as we head into this summer, but my heart is grateful!

Cast of Characters

  As everything is still in the just now emerging stage as far as foraging and gardens go I thought I'd take a moment to introduce you to the current (but ever changing) flock!

Of course I've already introduced Arpee, Blucinda, and the three bronze babies. We have a good lead on some RARE heritage breed poults and will be ordering more soon!

I prefer turkeys to chickens as their health problems seem fewer and I really fell in love with their personalities. They are all very unique and individual with a really fascinating social structure.

These cuties are coturnix quail. They have been bred for centuries to be egg producing machines and some of my hens pop out multiple eggs per day. We kept four outside and four inside this winter and while we got eggs from our indoor ones our outdoor ones are larger and healthier. Coturnix quails are most often kept in very very close quarters but I have found mine prefer a bit more space and LOTS of hiding places. A few of them are very friendly and will visit with you when you are out there, but others prefer you just drop the food and leave. They are cute and make nice pets but their life expectancy is only around two years. I have not successfully incubated eggs yet despite them producing fertile eggs. I also have not yet had one try to go broody, but some of them seem to be trying to form clutches so I'm moderately hopeful? 

 Apollo and Artemis are my current breeding pair of red golden pheasants. I originally purchased these gorgeous creatures to use their molted feathers, but Artemis is currently brooding a clutch of eggs! This is something most ornamental pheasant keepers will tell you is not a possibility but I really believe it depends on the bird and conditions. These pheasants eat next to nothing and are super cold hardy. They will NOT free range though and need to be kept in covered runs. If you make sure they have lots of shade the males' colors will be brighter. These two are actually going to go live with a friend once Artemis raises her babies for a little while as we have upgraded out pheasantry!

These beaky babies are ring neck pheasants. We are also waiting on an order of melanistic pheasants which are a ring neck genetic mutation. The melanistics will make up for my loss of color variety in feathers (although the person taking my red goldens has promised me feathers so that's very nice!), but ring necks are also able to be utilized as meat birds. We plan to keep a breeding quartet though as these are also very very cold hardy, something which is vital to survival in our area. 

 An example of my feather art (find it at facebook.com/thehappyhippiehusky ). All of my birds are kept as safe and happy as I possibly can. We have grown quite a bit and learned so much since obtaining our first birds last year, but I look forward to a long and exciting journey with my birds. Our true goal for livestock on our homestead is quite a bit larger than fowl, but that is another post, and there will always be room for my feathery friends here!

Family Foraging

    Upon first meeting new people my mushroom hunting and other foraging adventures inevitably pop up in conversation and I've noticed an interesting contrast in reaction based on the gender of the person in question. Unless I am speaking to a fellow forager or other earthy sort 75% of males respond with "Mushrooms, huh? That's gotta be a trip! Harharhar..." whilst 75% of females tend to momentarily clutch their pearls in shock and gasp "But you don't let your children eat this stuff?!" I don't get irritated by this, I view it as an opportunity to hippify someone which always makes me smile.

  So please allow me to illuminate what foraging with small children is like. My two are currently six and three and accompany me on the vast majority of outings. We establish the rules of the outing every time. Do they follow the rules every time? No...not perfectly. But they try! As taxing as it can be I try very hard to leave room for excitement. I don't want to squish the enthusiasm for exploring and harvesting so I have these safety practices:

1. Eyes on little hands! Yes it means that for now I'm not going to be pulling in 10 or 15 pounds of morels because I can't keep my eyes on the forest floor 100% of the time, but I'd rather give my kiddos the freedom to explore. It's their job to learn, it's my job to be watchful and keep that learning safe.

2. Child transport devices. My six year old has matured beyond the need for such things but if the little one is having an unfocused day and is pushing the boundaries a little too far into the cart or carrier she goes! While she's in there I will hand her safe nature things to explore like edible flowers or interesting rocks or maybe a feather to look at. That way she still gets to join the fun but at a pace controlled by me.

3. I either stay on property or I bring a dog...sometimes both and we make lots of noise! Some day when my kids are older I'll be able to teach them how to walk quietly and catch glimpses of owls, deer, and foxes but right now I can think of very few things less pleasant than an unexpected encounter with a large predator and my children. Thankfully most predators want nothing to do with a pack of humans and their dogs so our noise level tends to clear wildlife away from our immediate area. I am still very vigilant though and like to stay in areas where there is a history of human activity and where I have a decent radius of visibility. I also tend to stay in cellphone range just in case.

4. There are some terrains we just don't do right now. I don't do a lot of wetland harvesting and this summer I think we might start learning about how to explore rivers safely. Water is probably my number one concern as far as terrain goes but we also steer clear of woods that are too thick with blackberries or snarly branches as picking their way through that can really zap their energy. Along with terrain comes being prepared to do multiple and frequent full body tick checks! My kids think I'm nuts because every time they scratch an itch I'm there in a split second making sure it's not a little blood sucker!

5. This is a special feature of foraging knowledge I have yet to employ in an emergency but make sure to keep locked in the brain box just in case. There are plants and fungi out there that will cause an immediate purge of the digestive system. If the child (or animal) has just popped something into their mouth and you can get to them within seconds of swallowing the finger gag thing works just fine to regurgitate it. But if your child only tells you later that they ate something and it's making them feel funny you're going to want to reach for either activated charcoal (which is a great addition to your bag) or if you're lucky your area will be prolific with a plant helper in this regard. Here our most common emetic is the speckled alder. It is so incredibly bitter that chewing on the bark will indeed make you toss all of your cookies! This will buy you time until you can get your child and a sample of the offending "treat" to medical professionals.

6. I am not shy about telling my kids why they aren't supposed to eat something. Rather than just saying "That's yucky" I will go into great detail about what exactly that plant or fungi can do to their system and in what amount of time. As long as it is delivered in a matter of fact tone it doesn't scare  them, if we're being honest it sort of intrigues my six year old. He usually wants to ask more questions about it which I find solidifies the identification and my warnings into his memory.

    Children were made to explore and investigate, they were born for adventures and learning! I believe in wild children. I believe the freedom to grow and interact with nature is the most precious gift I can possibly give my little ones. I love to watch them discover the world around them. This is how we raise the generation that will save us all. If we impart a love, respect, and understanding of the natural world to our children they will grow up already forming ideas and plans to protect our wild places. Taking the time to invest in the wilderness education of children means we are taking the time to invest in the future of our planet.

Blucinda's Babies

  If you recall from a previous post, our blue slate hen Blucinda hatched out two of her own poults last week, and they did not make it. Me being the emotional sort I was in tears at the thought of removing the remaining eggs. I couldn't stand the thought of watching her pace around calling for her lost babies. So an idea formed in my head. She had previously adopted some juvenile Muscovy ducklings. In fact she has a permanent limp from defending five of her teenage ducks from a predator. So I thought, maybe I could buy her some babies!
 
   I did some research and checked with my farm bird folk and sure enough! This is actually a fairly common practice even between species (such as a broody chicken taking care of turkey poults). So we decided to give it a shot. The feed store only had three bronze broad breasted poults left so we snatched them up. We will be getting more heritage poults to increase our breeding stock this summer, but we needed these babies quickly as eggs left sitting too long will rot...and explode.

   All of my research said to introduce them during the evening when everyone is getting sleepy. There was a good chance she would reject the poults or even that they would reject her. They were slightly chilly when I introduces them to their new mama so I think that helped! Not much makes a poult happier than a warm place to snuggle.

   As I carried the tiny pet crate out to Blucinda's hut the little ones began peeping their "we don't know what is happening and we are afraid" call. Readers...I wish you could have heard Blucinda answer them! She let out these heart wrenching, quavering, croaking calls. I am very anti-anthropomorphization of animal behavior but I have to say, if she were human she would have been weeping tears of joy. When introducing foster chicks and poults you are supposed to shove the babies directly under the hen but these little peepers were so excited to get out of the crate they all popped out at once! Within five minutes they were all snuggled safe and warm beneath my beautiful girl as she cooed them a turkey lullaby.

    We are now on day four and all three poults are eating, drinking, and thriving. We have since removed the unhatched eggs and some of them did contain poults that just didn't hatch. There were many possible reasons for this, the biggest being the wet conditions at one point in the hut before we fixed a previously undiscovered leak in the roof. However, as fertilization was apparently not the issue both Blucinda and Arpee have cemented their place on our homestead by producing offspring.

  We have learned so much this breeding season. We made quiet a few mistakes, but we also did some things right! But that's the whole point of this lifestyle: constant experimentation, research, and adventure!

 Bronze broad breasted poults. Great for meat production (I have named them Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter) not so great for breeding due to health concerns.

Blucinda lets me peek at the babies every once in a while.  

Then she says, "Nope! That's enough!" calls the babies under her protective wings, and glares at me until I leave haha!

Blossom Bliss

   When I walk out onto my back deck and the wind is in the right direction I can detect the wonderful, warm, sweet smell of wild plum blossoms. It is my very favorite springtime smell. This spring the mushroom season has been wierdly slow and patchy so I'm doing a lot of blossom harvesting! Some make their way into what is supposed to be jelly but is turning out as delicious syrup (I'll get it right eventually, but that's another post!), some will be dried and used for medicine or flavoring later in the year, and some become a cosmetic springtime indulgence for me! I love to extract the scent from the flowers and use it to rinse my hair. Depending on the flower the scent can last a few days!
   
      It's really really easy to do and is in fact the first step in the jelly making process as well.

First, find some delicious smelling blossoms. Wild plums tend to grow in huge patches so the risk of overharvesting is minimal, but do remember that the first spring pollinators utilize these to survive. 

Fill a glass jar thusly. Make sure you have a lid that fits tightly. There are violets in this one but those don't add much of a scent (this batch was for syrup/jelly). You can pack it as tightly as you wish, but I don't squish too many in as the scent you extract is really quite potent without overdoing it. 

Next (blogger fail! no picture...) pour boiling or nearly boiling water over your blossoms in their jar. Go ahead and fill the jar up. Put the lid on and give it a  good shake then let it steep overnight.

The next day, put some cheesecloth over your jar and strain out the liquid, and that's it! Use your blossom tea to refresh your face or infuse your hair with the delicious smells of spring.

There are many harvestable items out right now! This basket has violets, plum blossoms, dandelions, and fiddle heads in it. Go out and explore! Spring is a great time for getting to know what will be growing in your area this summer. 

Sometimes the Circle of Life is a Real Jerk

   Well...I said we'd be talking about death didn't I? Both poults that hatched out are deceased and it is unlikely we will get any more from Blucinda's clutch. I found one this afternoon soggy and stiff so it was most likely the victim of the turbulent weather last night. The other I found just a little bit ago still in the hut but this one was rather weak to begin with so it wasn't entirely unexpected.

   I don't like anything going to waste here so I borrow my death ritual from ancient Tibetan and Siberian tribes. I bring my deceased creatures far out into the field well away from the bird yard and lay them on the earth for scavengers to utilize. It is called a sky burial. The resting place for my first two tiny babies born here is under a patch of wild plum in full fragrant bloom. I think they would have liked that spot.

   Yes I get sentimental about untimely deaths. Yes I allow myself to mourn the moment, the swift judgement of nature, and the what could have beens. Yes these birds are bred to be utilized for meat for my family and so their lives are finite, just as any wild turkey will most likely wind up as someone's meal. But I believe when we can no longer allow ourselves to shed a tear for little lives ended too soon we stop taking responsibility for our potential part in it and so miss out on opportunities for growth.

  I'm already planning for next year's hatching season. Step one will be better nesting areas. I'm toying with the idea of hauling in natural brush or maybe even planting a low bush or two. We have our eye on a trio of Narragansett turkeys which are my very favorite so hopefully that will increase our hen population. For meat this year I think we will purchase some broad breasted poults.

   I will also be upgrading the incubator as the only hope we currently have for successful chicks of any kind are the red golden pheasants under their mama Artemis. I still believe bird butts are the best incubators and make for strong bird babies but as we can see from this spring it's always good to cover your bases.

  But that is in the future. Tonight we are sad and will allow ourselves to be sad. Tomorrow will dawn and I will have tales of morels (fingers crossed!) and plum blossom magic for you. Rest well, little ones. There are many hungry mouths to feed during spring in the forest, your physical shells will not go to waste.

Get Out of the Way

   Yesterday was an Ultimate Tomato day!! Our first baby bred and born here appeared. Yes, that's right folks! Arpee has produced offspring! Blucinda has not left the nest for even a minute yet so I think more will be making their way out of their eggs today. Meanwhile the incubator eggs are not looking very hopeful though I still have a few days to make that final call. 

  This brings me to something we discover anew as each season unfolds. Humans unnecessarily complicate natural processes so often. We throw this that and the other fertilizer on plants in neat little rows to accomplish what scatter planting and mycorhizal fungi can achieve. We second guess the natural instincts of our animals and become helicopter moms to our chickens (side note...we don't have chickens, people keep asking me about my chickens?). We apply human logic and emotion to animal interactions and behaviors. 

   We lost our other blue slate hen this spring to predators and it was 100% my fault. She laid a sizeable clutch under a tree just outside of our yard. "Well that's not safe!" I thought with my human brain and removed the clutch and put a decoy "egg" where I thought would be a safe place in the turkey pen. Blucinda decided to take over that spot but Blusephine was having none of it. She wandered farther into the field and selected a tree about 100 yards away from the turkey yard. Well obviously that wasn't safe either so this time I took her four eggs and put them into the nesting area I had chosen. She apparently was tired of this game and took off into the woods to find a place I wouldn't mess with and...well...that was that. 

   Now during all this moving around and finding of eggs Arpee the tom was ALWAYS with Blusephine. With my human brain I equated his constant presence with concern, that he was accompanying her so he could keep track of his flock. After her final disappearance Arpee started going into the hut where Blucinda was brooding. I started noticing more slate gray feathers than there should have been and even a couple of crushed eggs! So I looked up whether or not toms should be kept with brooding hens. 

Big.

Fat.

Nope!

   Turkey toms will continue to try and mate with the females on the nest often crushing the eggs and sometimes even killing the hen herself. This explained Blusephine's wandering behavior. I was actually putting her nest in immediate danger rather than possible eventual danger and she was trying to tell me. 

   So we built Arpee a bachelor pad and I sat down outside of Blucinda's hut and promised her I wasn't going to mess with her. Eventually she rolled a few dud eggs out and I cleaned those up for her but that was it. Even on snowy sleety icy days I trusted her and her instincts, and look how well she did! With no other female turkey to show her how to do it and actually she herself was hatched in an incubator somehow she still accomplished this staggering feat of stamina. 

    Currently we also have a red golden pheasant named Artemis sitting on a clutch of eggs. Both breeders I got my red goldens from said there was no way a hen would ever sit her eggs. It has now been over a week and I have not seen her leave her post even once. She is not a cuddly bird and she startles up when anyone gets too close, but for the sake of those eggs she will huddle in and stare me down now if I approach the nest. She's not leaving that spot! So I will trust her as well and patiently wait to see if she keeps at it. 

  The coturnix quails are another bird that I have been cautioned over and over that they will not brood eggs but I'm beginning to doubt that. Yes, the majority of the eggs are just popped out and sit where they drop but Liam (my awesome bird loving six year old) has now discovered three or four eggs grouped together three times. They get nestled into a little cup shaped depression in the straw and have a few pieces of straw covering them up. This seems like nesting behavior to me so the next time I see it I'm going to leave them alone and see what happens! 

   I'm going to get out of the way. I'm going to apply this to so many other areas in my life. How many opportunities have I worried away? How many discoveries have I limited with my intrusions? Most importantly, when has my meddling interrupted the growth or exploration of another being (be it human or not)? 

   The message in the cautionary tale of Blusephine the turkey is this: when our best efforts are just not panning out, when something just doesn't seem to be clicking I believe this is a message for us. A message that reads simply "get out of the way."