As of today, I am back in the blue egg business! One of my Ameraucanas, which I actually was concerned was a rooster, left me this beautiful blue egg.
There’s just something about a colorful egg basket. And now I know my young flock is starting to lay!
When the puppies were first born, it was impossible to really distinguish one from the other, at least as far as four of them were concerned. Bessie was named pretty quickly, because of her milk cow markings, and there was an all black male that was quickly identifiable, but for some reason hadn’t earned a name.
They are now coming up on 7 weeks old and are a riot of activity, eager for attention, friendly, boisterous, and just a bundle of fun. We’ve got the sweet and sleepy one, the go-getter, the playful and clumsy one, the smart one, and a couple that haven’t really distinguished themselves but are plenty adorable with more energy than should fit in a body that size. It doesn’t get much more fun than going down to the barn and yelling, “Puppies!” and have six puppies and sometimes their mother come pouring out of the barn or out from under the trailers.
Over the last couple of weeks, we have let them start to explore outside and it is hilarious to watch the fat little pandas barreling full-tilt across the yard in protection of their pinecones, tumble down remnants of snow drifts, and learn the about the delicacy of horse manure.
They also enjoy terrorizing the cats, many of which actually invite the terrorizing and enjoy a playful romp with the pups. Polly in particular. It is only since the puppies have significantly outweighed her that the novelty of them is wearing a little thin. One pup is generally tolerable, but four or more is less so. But she still comes back and invites another mauling.
It doesn’t get much cuter.
I really don’t know how it happens. I blink and almost a month has gone by! Christmas was three and a half weeks ago. The New Year came and went. And we are already well into January. Where to even start? What a beautiful blur it has all been.
These last weeks have blended and melded into each other, a pleasant, quiet chaos of life on the ranch, enjoying a slow down, yet somehow never having enough time in the day for everything. My days have been filled to overflowing with the general flurry of activity that happens this time of the year, with canning and baking, sewing, writing, chickens, piano teaching, and so much more. Add to that the variety of ranch-related tasks, sorting calves, vaccinating replacement heifers, helping feed cows, pouring bulls for lice, and the delightful mayhem of six puppies, and we’ve had ourselves plenty busy. Plenty.
I have had a little extra time indoors with the blustery, chilly days we’ve had, and am thoroughly enjoying bread baking. Food independence, however little or much, happens a little at a time, and I’m excited to be contributing to my family in this way. Baby steps!
We’ve done our share of contending with winter, with a bitter cold snap that lasted a good week followed by a week a snow-scarce, wind-wicked storms. We enjoyed a warm up, with T-shirt days and bluebird skies, and now a weather shift of foggy, frosty days. We’ve reveled in the mud and the damp, thankful for every bit of moisture we get.
The chickens have been really picking up the laying, to my immense satisfaction. Brad thinks I’m weird when I say things like “I don’t recognize this egg,” but I do suspect that my new layers are slowly getting started, both due to the increase in egg production and because of a handful of eggs I “don’t recognize.” Yes, dear, you married me. It’s fun to see this next flock get going!
The puppies have been relocated to the barn, after many mornings and nights of carrying them back and forth from our dining room (where they stayed at night) down to their pen in the barn. Let me tell you, those puppies are heavy and our hill started feeling very steep and tall. The puppies collectively have a crush on Polly, and it is a frequent sight to see anywhere from two to five of them pile on top of her in a frisky mass of black and white. Now that they outweigh her, her enjoyment of them is waning, but she still comes back for more. The pups have had a couple of run-ins with Bernard, the rooster. Their little antics are wildly funny.
We’ve been reveling in a picturesque pandemonium.
Yesterday was cranberry juice canning day! We wanted to get our two freezers combined into one, and thanks to Black Hills Bulk Foods I had 22 twelve-ounce bags of cranberries in the freezer, waiting to be juiced. Now I’m down to 11 bags with 6 gallons of canned juice sparkling on my kitchen counter. Beautiful!
There is a little bit of a story behind this, actually. Ever since leaving the fire department at the end of February 2022, I have struggled terribly with sleep. Sleep issues are common in that line of work. I hoped it would get better as time went on and it just didn’t. After Brad and I got married, I could work from dawn until dusk, physical work, working in the heat, and by all reasonable estimations I should have been exhausted. Yet I’d lay awake in bed for literally hours. I struggled with restless leg issues as well. I couldn’t take melatonin, since I would have these weird, lucid dreams, so I tried valerian and Benadryl, occasionally with a small glass of wine. I tried magnesium for my legs, with marginal results. Basically, nothing helped.
On a whim back in November, unrelated to my sleep issues, I got some fresh cranberries at Sam’s and made up a batch of juice, and enjoyed adding a quarter to a half cup of it to a glass of water to drink, hot or cold. After a week of doing this, it occurred to me that I had slept well every night, and the only thing I had changed was that I was drinking cranberry juice. Long story short, I did a little research and found out that cranberries are a natural source of melatonin. Over the last 6 weeks, since adding cranberry to my diet, I have had the best sleep I have had since February.
I used a recipe from the website Practical Self Reliance. She shares a method of canning cranberries and sugar in water, and a method of canning extracted juice. I chose the latter method.
This is an unsweetened cranberry juice, although sugar can be added if preferred. It takes roughly 4 12-ounce bags to get a full 7-quart canner of jars.
The basic method is as follows:
1. Simmer approximately 3 pounds cranberries in approximately 4 quarts water. Simmer until the berries have popped, about 10 minutes, and lightly mash them. Strain off the juice, pouring everything through a cheesecloth-lined colander.
2. Add cooked berries back to pot with approximately 2 quarts of water. Again let it simmer for about 5 minutes and mash the berries. Drain off the juice.
3. Add cooked berries back to pot with approximately 1 quart of water. Simmer for about 5 minutes and mash the berries, and drain off juice for the last time. Discard the pulp. It is pretty flavorless at this point, but my chickens loved it, especially after it had sat for a couple days and fermented a little…
4. Pour hot juice into quart jars with 1/4 inch headspace. Wipe rims and seal jars hand tight. Process for 10 minutes in a water bath canner – adjust the time for altitude.
For each of the rounds of juice extraction, I used a little extra water just to make sure I’d end up with a full 7 quarts. If you’ve done much canning, you know the frustration of being a cup short of having a full canner of jars!
I love adding the juice to cold water for a refreshing drink or hot water for a delicious tea in the evening. And I have loved the sleep I have gotten since I started adding cranberry to my diet on a daily basis! Enjoy!
I’ve shared a number of pictures of Amelia and Madeline (Mia and Maddy, as I call them for short), also known as the Blue-Eyed Banshees, and in case anyone was just dying of curiosity for the next chapter in their story, I felt I should give an update.
Mia and Maddy have settled in as best friends with Polly the Kitten, and their little cohort is known affectionately as Polly and Pals. They have survived this cold snap just fine using the buddy heat method and greet me at the door every morning, eager for their breakfast.
Yesterday morning I went out to do chores and fed the cats as usual on the deck. Polly and Pals as well as my old cats, Ember and Cinders, generally get in on this meal. I had to pop back inside for a moment to get hot water and the fermented mash for my chickens and as I walked past the cats, I did a double take. I looked hard and then looked again. There was an extra cat. No, there couldn’t be. Yep, it was. It was Mia and Maddy’s feral big brother.
I quick grabbed my phone and tried to call my mother-in-law, and when she didn’t answer I called my father-in-law. “Laura!” came the standard greeting from the other end.
“Dave! Does Starla know where her white cat is?”
“No, she doesn’t.”
“Well, I do! He’s eating breakfast with my cats! I thought I was seeing triple.”
Turns out they hadn’t seen him in a few days, since before the storm blew in at the beginning of this week. Either he hitched a ride under or in a vehicle from their house to ours, or the crazy thing walked six miles through bitter cold coyote territory to our end of the ranch. Wild.
All of South Dakota has been gearing up for a major snow event, since the meteorologists first started talking about the potential a week ago.
For ranchers in drought-stricken parts of the state, including here, predictions of moisture can be pretty disheartening, since the outcome seems to always be less than hoped. We watched as this storm seemed to drift further south and tried not to get our hopes up for any significant moisture, but we were still a little disappointed when at 3am there was little to no snow yet.
Well, it has blown in, and we are just trusting God for His provision of the needed moisture over this winter, and praying for safety as the temps plummet and the wind kicks up. There isn’t much snow yet and it seems to have let up, but this is supposed to be a multi day snowstorm, so it should keep coming.
We have plenty of water in case of power outages, have oil in the lanterns, and are thankful for a working generator. Brad brought the calves closer yesterday and into the timber, and now the order of the day is just keeping critters fed and watered.
My usual entourage of cats had no interest in chicken chores this morning, and stayed snug in their cat house, looking pretty miffed. Except for Polly. She darted inside and since she’s getting a little daily doctoring (and will keep me company while I work on some projects inside…) I didn’t feel like stripping down to go catch her. And she really is good company, even if rather obnoxious.
The chickens needed a fair amount of coaxing and a makeshift windbreak before they’d set foot outside. My footsteps had already drifted in when I trudged back up the hill to the house.
But those cold, blustery, blizzardy days make for the perfect opportunity for finishing some Christmas presents, doing some mending, photo editing, a couple online webinars tomorrow, and getting a start on my Christmas cookie baking.
There’s always something!
And so we’re battened down.
Song Dog Journal 