Cold climate egg production!

One of these days I’m going to write about my building/energy efficiency and community building projects again, but for now it is eggs that are exciting me. I arrived back from an overnight trip to Ft Yukon (where there is some interest in chicken raising due to the high cost of AC store eggs) to find 5 blue-green eggs in the nest!! So it seems at least 3 of the girls are laying. And here is breakfast this morning:

The lighter yolk, bigger egg is a local egg but not from my hens. My hen egg is the one with the bright orange, firm yolk! Delish! Shells are strong as well, and the chickens seem healthy.

So, as I commented on in the last post, my local, energy efficient coop management seems to be working: a 40 watt equivalent 8 watt led bulb on a timer to give 14 hours of supplemented light, in an insulated but unheated coop. Alaskan grown grain (oats, barley, and or wheat) available from an automatic feeder in the coop. Unfrozen water supplied once a day. Scraps are brought with the water including crushed egg shells, table scraps including greens frozen for them in the fall, and salmon scraps (guts, backbones, skin, heads, roe, etc – about a pint to a quart a week). All for 5 hens and 4 ducks.

Little blue frozen egg!!

One of my hens laid a little blue-green egg in the nest box this morning! It was 10 F in the coop, so it froze before I got to it, but I’ll cook it today. I don’t heat my insulated coop, and the little door to their yard is always open unless it is double digits below zero F.

So cold doesn’t seem to be a deterrent to laying! Neither does my tough-love, low energy treatment: to have as sustainable an operation as possible I only feed local grain (wheat, barley and/or oats – always available) and bring them salmon and table scraps and warm water once a day. We’ll see if that egg tastes fishy since most of their protein and calcium comes from salmon!

The key is light. I got them as new hatched chicks June 15, so they are about 31 weeks old. A couple of weeks ago I installed a compact fluorescent bulb on a timer in the coop and have generally been giving them an additional hour of light a day until today. Today they will have artificial light from 4:30am to 9:30am (dawn) then from 4:30pm (dusk) to 6:30pm – 14 hours as my sources tell me they need. Yesterday they only had 13.5 hours, so that was enough for one girl! I will slowly adjust the hours to start later so the eggs don’t have so much time to freeze.

It certainly seems like a miracle that they are starting to lay! Here is the flock:
The black Easter-egger type (blue/green egg layers):

One of the three grey Easter-eggers:

Probably the lone brown egg layer – the barred rock mutt:

And, of course, the duck family:

3pm update: another little blue egg in the nest – this one not cracked from freezing!! And I ate the first egg and it was delish – no fishy at all!

A permaculture garden in Alaska – most of the year

Murder most fowl

Over two weeks ago now I perpetrated a premeditated offing. The crime scene still shows some blood spatter if you dig around in the snow. I’d spent about 6 months intending to take out my victim, researching killing and disemboweling methods. Even when I grew somewhat attached to my intended target, I counseled myself to remain distant…biding my time.

And then that fateful Tuesday earlier this month. He started making too much noise. It was time to act before the neighbors grew suspicious. I set out my knives and went to work as normal, knowing my victim awaited his fate locked in the shed.

Ok, enough Dexter creepiness…Featherfoot the rooster crowed one morning as I brought the chickens and ducks water, and sealed his fate for the day. I got home from work, set my canning pot on the stove to heat water for plucking, loaded my favorite ‘how to butcher a chicken the simple way’ website and went out to the coop. Featherfoot was gentle to the end, almost no protest as I picked him up, held and petted and cooed to him, hung him up by his feet over a bucket outside, and slit his throat with a sharp fillet knife.

Then he struggled, with what seemed to be minutes of post-mortem wing flapping that caused him to fall from his rope where I held him over the bucket, double checking the mortal severity of my slice, until he quieted.

A bit breathless from this, I then methodically dipped and plucked him and the three young chickens that the dog had offed and left one summer day. Fresh from the freezer, these tender young chickens’ skins pulled off as I worked to pluck and I let that be.

The website butchering instructions were flawless, and all went well, even with my modification of saving the tail (which I love), by cutting under it instead of over. For the young chickens, since they hadn’t been gutted before freezing, I cut off frozen necks, legs, wings and breasts, chucking the rest in the compost for food safety.

He went straight in the oven for that night’s dinner. I followed the high-roast recipe on the butchering site, but in hindsight I should have cooked him slower or frozen him first to tenderize the meat. He was very tasty, but a bit tough and stringy the first night, much more tender in soup the next day.

I’m not sure I fully feel him as gone, and I’m sure the butchering was easier since my contact with the chickens is fairly limited in the winter ( the cold keeps us all inside more). I know it will be sad to not see him out being so wonderfully roosterish with his girls in the spring. But I am very proud that I seem to be cut out for this practical farmer lifestyle. The not-unpleasant but not-appetizing sweet smell of the guts was the only slightly distasteful thing (other than meting out death) of the whole process for me. The liver was amazingly tasty though. I remarked that I would raise meat birds just for the amazing taste of their fresh livers! (yumm…with fava beans would be good!)

Rest in peace, wonderful Featherfoot…if I can say that to someone I killed and ate.

Time for heat

I turned the heat on yesterday. Even though it’s not gotten hugely colder lately (still in 30′s F during the day, teens at least at night), there was a nasty wind from the north that I could feel pushing cold air in through my outlets and such. It was getting to 58F in the apartment, which felt fine for a time after coming in from outdoors, but felt pretty chilly after coming downstairs from dad’s apartment (which is in the 70′sF, mostly due to stack effect, a little due to intentional heating).
Here is the front of the plex in the blowing snow:
And the same view 2 years ago:

Snow and moose and ducks

Finally finished the coop, and cleaned up the yard a bit. Just in time, because it snowed last night. We woke up to a pretty white blanket on the yard, and a couple of young bull moose skirting the edges of the property. They wanted in, you could see it, but James and Caesar and the improved moose fencing (psychological barriers of rags tied on twine across the drives and above the fence) kept them walking on. Mostly it was James making noise when they tried to come over the one weak place.

Here is a view inside the coop toward the south facing window, the vent is up high:

And here is a view to the chicken door to the north, we meant to paint it all white inside, but that was tedious! The OSB sheathing soaks up a lot!:

We did get the floor and lower couple feet polyurethaned for easier cleaning. Here is a view to the back of the shed and the open door to the coop:

Still some work to be done to sheath the outside of that wall over the insulation. The coop is made of hoarded scraps and bound-for-the-trash lumber, plywood, OSB, rigid foam, fiberglass batts, desk drawers (for laying boxes), and the old door I replaced on apartment 2.
Then this morning we went to purchase/ pick up the ducks – a drake and 3 female muscovies. Here they all are in the coop yard – ducks and chickens were introduced at the same time to try to eliminate territoriality. So far things seem ok – the boys protect their girls from any incursions from the other side, just some clucks from the chooks and some whistles from the ducks:

This is where we weren’t going to go!

This is Featherfoot.

If you remember, we got straight run (unsexed) chicks in June. We knew the boys were going in the pot, so we didn’t name any of then. At one point a dog got 4 of them. We consoled ourselves that those were probably all roosters (pretty sure that at least 2 were). The 3 bodies we found are still frozen in the fridge awaiting cooking. We successfully avoided attachment – except to Featherfoot.

He was a cute little runty fuzzy black chick – the only one with feathers on his feet. Since he became an early favorite, we reminded ourselves frequently that he was probably a boy. Not because he seemed to be, but as emotional protection. We would slip and call him Featherfoot, and then remind ourselves not to. We were very relieved when he showed back up after the dog rampage. He definitely started to get a bigger comb and wattle then the rest, but his body still looked very hen-like and we sorta hoped against hope that he was just a big combed breed of hen.

No such luck. There is no crowing yet, but it is painfully obvious that we have 5 hens and one rooster. He is shiny black with some iridescent green and has recently developed some pretty cream colored hackle and saddle feathers. His tail is getting long. He is beloved by his hens and quite the gentleman. He is also the tamest and the easiest to hold. It seems so right to see him out with the girls.

But this is the city. I have half a mind to get him de-crowed, and I’m not too concerned with the cruelty of that (I think he’d rather strut amongst his girls, indulging in his roosterly duties quietly than simmer with the dumplings) but even if anyone in town does that it is a risky, presumably expensive procedure that may not make him quiet enough to pass city standards. So he’s probably dinner. But it does seem a shame. It seems the flock should have a rooster, and he seems like such a good man to have around. It’d be neat to hatch out chicks someday too. Sigh.

In other chicken news, the winter coop is almost ready for them (I know I said that last time, but now really!). Just need to gate the outside run, finish the automatic chicken feeder, and seal the floor with polyurethane – they should be in by Friday. Probably going to acquire some Muscovy ducks by then too…at least the drakes will be no problem, noise wise!

What’s the ginkgo guild?

Well, it’s mid-october. The chicken water was still frozen on top after work at 6pm yesterday, despite the bright blue sky and warm-feeling sun. I really need to bring in the rest of the turnips and the beets before the ground freezes them in!

I’m almost done with the winter chicken coop (about 8′x4′, ~8′ tall, R-11 walls and floor, R-20ish ceiling, a small window and high vent on the south, a small closable door on the north into the yard; there will be 2 nest boxes and a perch or two – all built into the back of an existing shed). The garden is almost cleaned up and mulched for winter. The 3 bee hives all starved to death, at various times throughout September – there just weren’t enough sunny, dry, warm days in August to collect stores. I’m saving the Warre hives (they lasted longer than the bees in standard Langstroth boxes), but probably just trying sugar beets next year. Honey bees do not seem to be a low maintenance permaculture animal up here in Alaska. I’m happy some people are doing well with them here – gathering lots of honey and having overwintering success, but I think I’m good with the plethora of native bees that wend through my garden all summer. It was very instructive to watch the honeys work and build comb and swarm and kill drones and such, and I have a ton of pretty bees wax now, but it’s just not sustainable to keep shipping them up from California every spring.

So now, with garden projects winding down, I become, characteristically, super motivated to plan and dream and peruse online nurseries. I really probably shouldn’t plant any more trees, but I think, on paper anyway, I could squeeze in 10 more plus some espaliers along the house? With the Summercrisp pear having born such delicious fruit this year, and the plentiful cherries and berries, and the apricot and hazelnut and such all still alive and looking well (despite a quick and circumspect moose pruning last Saturday that inspired my dad and I to get the fence repaired and upgraded), I’m dreaming of some more exotic additions – ginkgo biloba, american persimmon, quince, guomi, autumn olive, medlar, mulberry, asian pear, heartnut, chestnut, oh my! Many of these would be very questionable in this zone, and would have too short a season to fruit, but the only thing I’ve lost so far is a couple of grape plants and a plum I grew from seed, so I’m emboldened to try and stretch the boundaries. Not sure I can still afford to gamble on $500 worth of bare root trees and assorted vines and bushes and other perennials though (that’s what my wish list shopping cart is up to at One Green World right now).

I’ve also been re-devouring Toby Hemingway’s Gaia’s Garden, and thinking of guilds. I’ve got some half completed apple guilds (apples with currants and strawberries and red clover under, and a ring of tulips – need some comfrey and umbrel herbs and such), and Toby lays out a walnut guild that I could try with the heartnut if I purchase that. I also looked up some ecology of red elderberry online. Even though there is plenty of it around to wild forage and make my winter cold season syrups from, it’d be nice to have some in the yard. These are plants I have found they form communities with: choke cherry (maybe use another prunus sp.?), service berry, rose, red alder, conifers such as spruce, mountain ash, various ribes (currants & gooseberries), phlox, snowberry species (in the honeysuckle family, so try honeyberries?), oregon grape, oak, bedstraw, maple, birch. I already have spruce, rose, black currant, mountian ash and birch in my front yard, so this seems like a perfect place to add in some elderberry (maybe I’ll try a black or blue elderberry since I can find red in the woods here), and a few of the other members of a guild. Alder would handle some nitrogen fixing, the low growers would provide living mulch and all the trees would provide fall leaf mulch. Plenty of flowering plants to attract pollinators. Maybe need some yarrow or cow parsnip or other umbrel flowers to attract beneficial predatory insects? There are also tall trees, smaller trees, bushes, and midsized herbs in the list above, but maybe something really low for ground cover and something rooty for that zone, and some vines? And I’m definitely tucking fava beans everywhere next year!

Apples and potatoes

We got a light frost in the grass the night before last, then last night it was enough to kill the squash leaves, but not the tomato that was up higher off the ground. Today we bought about 25 pounds of apples from a local orchard. The orchard has outdoor and greenhouse varieties, all non-pesticided. We got drop apples at $2/lb for applesauce, typically tart outdoor varieties for pie, and a variety of the best apples I have ever eaten from the greenhouse ($3/lb) for fresh eating (pictures of some below – honeycrisp, ambrosia, and gold sentinel are amazing!)

Then we all harvested potatoes from my 18 sqft bed. I started these with badly sprouting holdouts from my winter eating stock. There were red and yellow and blue (I think some Yukon gold, German butterball, red fingerling, and others). We’ve actually been digging and eating potatoes from the bed for over a month. Probably easily 20lbs worth already. I weighed them today and we got another 40lbs even! That’s a very decent yield.

In other news, James put the window in my chicken coop to be, and the chickens are doing well. My dad and I completed the stucco on the foundation insulation foam. That’s about it – gotta go make applesauce before bed!

Autumnal abundance and dearth

The leaves are beginning to yellow a bit, and last week the blueberries from out Rabbit Lakes/Peak 2 way were almost over ripe.

This is a time of plenty and of lack. We are losing warmth, but the garden, despite another year of sporadic attention, is full of turnips and potatoes and some other less abundant delicacies (gooseberries and fava beans and pears and such)… And chickens and bees. My new part time job leaves me more time and more relaxation, even in the face of much less money. But enough to live simply. I’d much rather have the time and need to make a mashed turnip and greens casserole from the garden than have to go out to eat because it is late and I’m too exhausted to cook. This all local salmon, new potatoes and peas (thanks dad!), and broccoli dish was even better than going out anyway!

Unfortunately, I feel I could use even more time. Some plumbing things popped up last month and I had water dripping from my ceiling twice – both times it turned out to be minor (tightening the sink faucet and the shower drain in unit 1), but a bit of time. Also the unit 4 dishwasher pump went out, so I’ve ordered a decent energy star dishwasher from Sears. Could have gotten a used dishwasher from the Restore for much less than the $517, but I’m hoping the less than 3 gallons of water per load will pay off. Currently my yearly water bills are more than gas or electric bills! Not to mention the gas for heating the water.
And the to-do list goes on: put the T1-11 siding up around the south entry, finish off some other exterior siding bits, build the winter chicken coop, harvest honey, harvest veggies and put the yard to sleep, finish tiling the bathroom, paint and trim the living room, a million more projects for energy efficiency and needed upgrades. Basic housecleaning. The usual! I know partly I need to relax and know that things will get done, and no one but the annuals are dying, but it would be nice to get to a point of more conclusive rest. Which is how we northern folk get to actually looking forward to winter every year, despite the brief, fervid summer!