Yesterwisdom: Poultry and Freedom

Posted on January 24, 2023 by Laura Lindblom under country life, the homestead

This picture has been circulating the internet. What an amazing and simple glimpse into the mindset of our grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ generations.

“Even the smallest back yard has room for a flock large enough to supply the house with eggs. The cost of maintaining such a flock is small. Table and kitchen waste provide much of the feed for the hens. They require little attention – only a few minutes a day. An interested child, old enough to take a little responsibility, can care for a few fowls as well as a grown person. Every back yard in the United States should contribute its share to a bumper crop of poultry and eggs in 1918. In Time of Peace a Profitable Recreation; In Time of War a Patriotic Duty.”

What a contrast to today. But 80 to 100 years ago, freedom and a free people were really desired, victory over enemies and national flourishing weren’t viewed as ills, and the people in government at least had a better understanding that a free nation is made up of free people who have a level of self sufficiency and aren’t reliant on the government. And just look where we are now.

Food production has become centralized and so many of our foods are imported. Just look at the recent “egg crisis.” When the bulk of the nation’s eggs are produced by a few huge producers, what happens when those producers go under or are struggling with diseased flocks? Or when flock management becomes an issue of governmental concern (i.e. tyranny)? On top of those issues, people have been stripped of their self sufficiency due at least in part to increased urbanized living, and we’ve bred a culture that values cheap plenty (ironically now not so cheap) over quality. But then there is the weird dichotomy where people are willing to pay $5 multiple times per week for a fancy coffee at Starbucks that is consumed in ten minutes, but $5 per dozen for eggs seems like a lot to pay. Or people go to Walmart expecting and willing to pay a given amount for cheap Chinese junk and mass produced food, but go to the farmer’s market and expect to pay less for goods produced by the small grower or local business. Clearly we as a culture need a change in mindset.

So go get your chickens or buy eggs from a small farmer. Grow your garden. Go to the farmer’s market. Make food from scratch. Pick a few things you consume a lot of and figure out how make them yourself. Learn to reuse and repurpose and become less reliant on stores and big businesses. Enjoy the satisfaction of capability. Enjoy the fruit of engaging with your community. Bring industry back to the local sphere.

Back in Business

Posted on January 20, 2023 by Laura Lindblom under chickens, country life, the homestead

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!

Picturesque Pandemonium

Posted on January 18, 2023 by Laura Lindblom under country life, the homestead

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.

Seeing Triple

Posted on December 23, 2022 by Laura Lindblom under country life, the homestead

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.

Battened Down

Posted on December 13, 2022 by Laura Lindblom under country life, the homestead

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.

More Shenanigans

Posted on December 3, 2022 by Laura Lindblom under country life, the homestead

What started out as an uneventful eventful day turned into a fiasco when the new mother of a litter of five brand new puppies vanished. Just vanished.

I was going down to check my chickens and she acted like she wanted to go out. Okay, I thought, she’s been inside all day and her puppies had full bellies. So I let her out. I took care of my chickens and went to locate Pearl, who popped up from down past the shop. I did my due diligence and made sure there wasn’t a surprise puppy down there, and Pearl headed up towards the house. I was close behind her, but just needed to grab something on my way. I took my eyes off her for all of three minutes. And she was gone.

I looked everywhere. And I mean everywhere. I looked for about forty-five minutes before calling my husband, who was up north getting grain. And I kept looking. I took the ATV out and looked, as I said, everywhere. Calling, shouting, scolding, and finally melting into an angry, crying, but still functional mess.

I figured she’d had another puppy in her and went off somewhere to have it. I remembered the elk carcass a mountain lion dragged away, up on top of the ridge and north a ways, and the mountain lion scat I saw closer to home. We’ve had some good sized coyotes getting rather bold. And then the sun started going down.

If it could be gotten into or under, I looked there. And looked again. And Brad got home and we looked again. And then she appeared out of nowhere from by the house, pretty dirty and looking guilty again. We had looked under everything. Except the front deck. We didn’t even know a dog could fit under there. But she did. And sure enough, we could hear a puppy squealing, not near one side or the other, but under the very center of the deck.

So basically we had to partially take the deck apart, which was harder than it should have been, to rescue the miserable, cold little girlie, and thus the entire ridiculous and beautiful family was reunited. Everyone is warm and dry and bellies are full, tight as little drums. Four little girls and two little boys.