Let me introduce...

   the chix...or at least the few that didn't mind having their pictures taken.
This is DeeDee. She is a Delaware and she's my buddy.

Dee likes her neck rubbed, and her waddles, and her beak, but definitely NOT her ears. She helps me with everything and is the only chick that doesn't really mind me picking her up. As a baby she had one of her legs broke. You can't hardly tell which one now. But, all the handling made her friendly to me. She's super smart, the real queen of the roost, and a lot of fun.

Sometime tho she gives me the evil eye and says "whaaa?"
This is Bubby...

We also jokingly (when he can't hear) call him Hop-a-long. He hasn't gotten used to his spurs yet so kind of hip hops when he runs or walks fast. He is our only rooster right now. And...NONE of our roosters are ever mean!

This is Dorky. She's a Dorking. She is also dorky. No - really!

When Dorky was just a few months old, she had something happen to her back (probably a rooster jumping on her). We thought it was broke. She could barely walk and when she finally did she propelled herself smacking into walls and everything. It seemed that her nerves were messed up somehow. We kept her inside for quite a while. Now she still propels herself unwillingly and plows into others. But, she is a great chick anyway and fends for herself pretty well.

This is Goldy...

Oops! Bad hair day. It was really windy when I took this pic and she was being blown over cuz her hair is soooo big. She's a Golden Polish. Can't see a blasted thing, but she is about four years old so she's doing okay with it.

And this is Spike...

Running away...
Okay, this is Spike...

Still running away...
Okay...this is Spike...

Okay...so that was Spike's butt.
Spike is a Hamburg. She is running away because we are always threatening her with death. Why? Well...she is really super annoying. She lays her eggs in the top of the barn, she has an annoying voice, she never does what she is supposed to, she is annoying to the others...etc.
For years we have said things like "Spike, why don't you go check out the worms on the road?" or "Spike, why don't you stay out and talk to the raccoons tonight?" She refuses to be tricked.
So, when I told her I needed a shot for the blog...she kept running away. Go figure.

The chix on our farm are too cool. All different kinds of heritage breeds. We have 13 right now and are gettting another 30 in two weeks. They are free-range, meaning they get to run all over the place all day long. Each have their own personalities. Some are motherly, some are smart, some are funny, some like to help in the garden...

They all go in at night by themselves and aren't a lick of trouble. We only have to feed them in the winter (November to March). They are great bug patrol, participate (as they can, except Spike of course) in the Egg Program, and help clean up any candy wrappers left by guests. And all of them are nice, none chase people even when they are chased first.
All in all, we are glad they are here. (okay...even Spike)

Stairway to...Heaven?

   Well, just a quick mushroom note...we found another 2 1/2 pounds of half-free morels on Tuesday. Yippee! (Sorry Cindy!) We are going looking again later on. We did end up selling the three pounds of the half-free to Thad at Bacaro restaurant in Champaign (eat there and taste them!) and keeping the blondes (which we promptly devoured). I also found out that what we call a "black" morel might really be a dark-morph blonde one. Interesting tidbit.
   We are also continuing to work on projects. Here is the latest...a stairway in the small barn.

   This is the small barn. Longer ago in the farm's history it was a small milking barn. The cows were brought into stalls and milked in here. Then the milk was taken to another little building for separation and cold storage. This barn was fixed up, thanks to mom, by Jim Yoder a few years ago. It was missing the east side, on the left in the pic, and leaning pretty precariously. He did a great job with it, new roof and everything.
   The little white door you can see in the picture is the mill room door. We made the mill room a while back and it has washable walls, ceiling and floor. We mill all our flours and corn meal in there. But this is the area beside the mill room...

   We want to make this area, where the work bench is, into a veggie wash room. That way we can bring the veggies in the door where Marty is standing (on the right), to the washing contraption (still need to buy it), and run it thru. The water would drain out the old dairy floor drain out the wall to the field. To the left of the post we will build a walk in cooler. We can wash the veggies and pop them right into this cooler. It won't have to be set as cold as our other walk-in so we can store root crops over winter for seed the next year.
   But, here is Will working on the stairs...

   The upstairs, which was the old hay mow, is huge. It is all open with a very large (5' or so tall) window on the south. Gets great light! The floor is a mess and we are careful not to fall thru. But, we store stuff up there for our operation. Boxes, water jugs to put over plants, bread trays that hold squash for drying for saving seed, garlic drying area, etc. is all up there. Unfortunately we had to always climb an old ladder on the wall and hand stuff up to each other. Now...

   wha-la! We can just traipse on up there with our squash or whatever! Cool, eh? It is super great! Makes me sooo excited. I just go up and down, up and down, up and down, to get the feel of how easy it is now. Heavenly! Someday I dream of converting the hay mow to hold my loom and then have art classes on weaving, spinning, etc. ah! dreams...so many! Maybe someday!!
   Next project? We'll put a sliding door on the side wall across from this staircase. The sliding door will block off the area where we back the grain wagon in when we unload it. I'll fix the cement floor in this area and we will have a nicer area for storing our grains before milling them. We'll also begin to work on framing in the new cooler space. Keep up to date on our progress by checking back!

Mushroom Madness

   Here they are! Morels.

We went shroom hunting on Sunday. It was really nice out, sunny and somewhat calm. And, wet. Great mushroom weather. After scavenging the woods for a few hours we ended up with lots of different mushrooms, including the morels.
   Now correct me if I'm wrong, but in the picture above, on the left is the black morel, middle is half-free morel, and right is blonde morel. We found about 1 1/3 pound of the half-free all in one area near a dead oak tree. We also found these little guys...






Marty researching different shrooms

   If we aren't sure what they are, we SURE don't eat them. We looked up and learned about three or four different kinds that we didn't put on the plate. Here's one that we do know and it is okay to eat, tasting a little like watermelon but kinda tough...


Dryad's Saddle (this one is too old already tho)

   We had a great time, just walking slowly around, heads down, waiting for the big find. It is so much fun! I get the giggles every time I find one. Like a treasure hunt. The black morels were on higher ground and not all in one spot, very difficult to see as they look somewhat like nuts that squirrels have chomped open. The blonde morels were in one area around a dead elm that Marty had put some micro-rhyz...whatever...bacteria around earlier in the season. We might check around that tree again later.
   Usually we don't find that many morels in our woods. And, we have NEVER found all three kinds at one time. That is unusual in that the blondes are usually a week later (being born blonde myself I won't mention the blonde joke that goes with that comment). The dryad's saddles come out all throughout the summer after rains but are only really good when they are a creamy white after they first come out. Otherwise they are a bit tought to naw on.
   We brought our treats back to the house and fixed this delicious spring meal.

   Clockwise around...one o'clock is the blonde morel, half-free morel, asparagus, black morel, and YES! fiddleheads at 10 o'clock. With a (in the middle) delicious corn bread stuffing cake and drizzled with some kind of fancy sauce that my great cook of a husband Marty dreamed up.
   Contrary to what SOME people believe - we DO NOT sell everything we grow and harvest. Some things are just tooooo valuable and tasty to give away at any price. The morels and fiddleheads are two of those items. Maybe, just maybe, someday in the future, on a day when you catch us in a good mood, we might, just might, sell some of the morels and fiddleheads. But, only after we get ours first!



The Amazing Radiator Pig

This is Didi...oops those are the boys...

Now, this is Didi in the pic below.

She is the super tiny piggie second to the right.

   Didi is our Amazing Radiator Pig. She is tiny as you can see partly because she is from the third litter (the larger girls in the pic are from the second litter). She is also just small. And, very curly. But the small part is the important part of the story that caused the whole problem.
   Last Tuesday it rained. Many days lately are rainy. And, the pigs were out on pasture in the old tomato area which has some white clover in it. Our pigs are total pasture pigs, no grain or feed and just hay in the winter. So, springtime is when we move them onto the new clover. They do pretty well eating the clover, until it rains. Then the clover becomes a huge mud hole.
   I went out in the early eve to move the cages and say good night. Boys first as they were closest, all fine. Then to the girls and...no Didi! I saw the larger girls in the mud, mucking toward me, but no Didi. Then I saw her. All the way at the back and half in the mud just lying still. I climbed in.
   oops. I was wearing some boots that came from someone much larger than me, boots two sizes too big and slit halfway down the back also. I got stuck! I couldn't pull my feet up without the damn boots coming off! Finally, struggling, I got to her and pulled her up out of the mud. She was limp. I struggled back to the front of the pen and yelled YELLED for help. One boot came off and was lopped over in the mud and I was balancing with the pig on the other foot with my sock foot on the cage, trying to figure out how to get out.
   Marty heard me, thank goodness, and came to help. I took Didi up to the house and put her in the tub, thinking I would just start some warm water on her to get the mud off and see if she was okay. Her eyes were open and a little responsive, opening wide when worried and then drooping again. So, I knew she was in there. I started lightly pouring warm water over her along her neck and back, warming her up. She was freezing. She never moved. Every now and then I would lift her and let the water drain, still no movement but a widening of the eyes again.
   After a couple hours Marty found me. He didn't know where I had taken her as he had set out to get the cages onto some more sturdy grass areas. By then Didi was somewhat cleaned up and warmer, but I didn't know what to do. Every time I quit with the warm water she would begin to shiver and breath raspy. She had closed her eyes and was just lying there. I didn't know how much mud got in her mouth and nose, or in her lungs. So, I just kept the water going to keep her warm. I was exhausted by the time Marty found me and wondering if we should just put her down. It wasn't looking too good.
   But, we decided to wrap her in a couple of old towels and lay her on the radiator. She was tiny enough that she fit on it perfectly. Marty pumped up the heat in the house and she was staying warm. But, she was still rasping and not looking good. We considered just putting her down, but decided to give her the night and see how she was in the morning. Unfortunately, in the morning and for all the next day we would be in Chicago delivering. So, we had to decide by morning what to do.
   I got worried she would roll off the radiator if she woke up, so after a couple of hours on it when she was good and warm I moved her to the floor in front of it. She laid there and didn't move, sometimes opening her eyes, and sometimes rasping a little. We left her for the night.
   At 4am, my usual thinking time, I got up and checked on her. She had scooted herself around and out from under the towel, nose still under the radiator. She made a little grunt. Hm. Good sign. So I left her again. And, of course, Petie was concerned (he is very sensitive to others' needs) and he stayed outside the door the whole night worrying away about the radiator piggie and keeping watch.
   At 6:30 I checked again and she grunted more and was moving a little. I opened the cabinet and when the door squeeked she grunted more. Then Marty came into the bathroom and she popped up to see him. Weird! She appeared fine! She started trying to eat his socks. I got some wheat berries in a little water with a dash of milk and she gobbled it up, grunting for more. Whew! If a pig eats, it is okay!
   We still didn't want to put her out in the cold so kept her in the dog kennel all day. Mom came and checked on her and moved the kennel near the hall radiator when Didi looked cold. She fed her and the piggie gobbled that down too.
   The next day we took her outside and put her in a small cage while I cleaned out the kennel. She ate some grass, laid in the sun, and just grunted like normal. Now she appears fat and fine. We put her in with Pea (in the pic on the far left) and they are doing great now.
   That is how Didi became our Amazing Radiator Pig

Catching up

   We are finally getting some good rains, every other day or so. We went for so long without enough rain that we were beginning to worry. Now if we could just get some heat! Everything is just poking along. This is definitely the "shut up and wait" part of the farming. Last year we were harvesting green garlic the first part of April and this year it won't be ready until next week...maybe. One good spurt of heat and that would help. We were able to get a lot of things in the ground, now just to get them to grow faster. Come on Mother Nature...work with us here!
   So, the last couple of weeks we have been playing catch up on some projects (aside from dealing with the surprise ducklings and other surprises like that). We did get the wood shed for the syrup done and it looks wonderful!


The proud new owner who doesn't
have to duck his head to get in.




Remember the pic on my previous blog of the
"exploded shed"? This is the new one from the same view.




Looking at it from the east. We can unload
right into it. The little door is on the right side.
The syrup house is also to the right.

   That was a major project. We haven't finished working down at the syrup house yet, still some clean up to do. It was postponed while we were getting the fields tilled and planted. We are still working in the woods however, harvesting crops. Yep, more wilds! Visit our website for a little write up about our "wild and weird" crops. We are now harvesting grapevine, wild onion, and wild blossoms.    
   With a few wilds like the grapevine and onions, and a few regular crops like radishes and mustard greens, we are able to get enough orders together to head to the city of Chicago this week. It will be our first visit since syrup season and we are really looking forward to it. It is a nice day away from the farm, good visiting with our friends, and the whole day energizes and inspires us to try new crops.
   Our friends in Champaign at Bacaro restaurant (http://www.bacarowinelounge.com/) have been getting some of our wild goodies the last couple of weeks. So if you are down that way, drop in for some great food. They are located downtown Champaign on Walnut street. Don't forget to try their fantastic wine selection also!
   And, opening soon on Neil Street is Destihl Restaurant and Brew works (http://www.destihl.com/). We are all excited that they are able to finally open the Champaign restaurant. And, we wish them a huge success! Great people, great beer, great food.