What's In My Compost Bin

I'm really proud that I keep adding to my compost bins all winter long. I realize that my bins are probably frozen solid and not doing much (I've never been able to achieve a hot compost pile), but at least I'll have all kinds of tasty layers built up over the winter. Oh, the potential!

Snow (lame), banana peel, lime peel, healthy sprinkling of chicken poop

More chicken poop (and feathers) in the foreground, grapefruit peels, carrot and grapefruit pulp from my new juicer.

Carrot shavings from last nights stir-fray, lime peel, banana peel, and yet more chicken "sprinkles"

Mangy Chicken

My USB memory card reader finally arrived in the mail, so I can now share some photos of my mangy molting hen. As you can see, her feathers were very sparse.

And the back of her head and neck was completely denuded (see below). I don't have any photos of her rump, but her rear-end and tail were also completely naked.

Amazingly enough, between the time I took these photos, discovered that my camera cord was broken, and ordered and received my new USB card reader, most of the feathers on her head and neck are already coming back in. Her rump is still naked though!

Her mood during the molt has changed pretty dramatically too. She's very spastic and runs around "like a chicken with their head cut off" to put it bluntly. I realize this is probably pretty stressful for her, so hopefully she'll be back to her old self one all her new shiny feathers grow in.

Ugly Chicken Photos Soon To Come!

I've been wanting to post some photos of my ugly chicken that's going through a pretty extreme molting session at the moment. She has lost all of the feathers on her head and neck and all the feathers on her rump. In addition to looking really mangy, she's also acting really spastic, which is pretty funny to watch. Unfortunately, my camera cord (or possibly the plug on the camera) no longer works. I ordered a USB memory card reader, so hopefully I'll be able to download all the photos on my camera pretty soon.

I guess I'm not surprised that something on the camera has broken. I've had the thing for almost 7 years (and it has gotten lots of use)

New Favorite Find

I finally finished watching all of the Tales From The Green Valley, Edwardian Farm, and Victorian Farm videos. I was a little sad when I finished watching the last episode, but they I found a new show series called River Cottage (there's actually a bunch of shows such as Escape to River Cottage, Return to River Cottage, River Cottage Forever, River Cottage Spring, River Cottage Summer's Here, etc). Unlike the previous three series, River Cottage does not recreate historical farm life, but rather discusses a variety of modern homesteading techniques and stories.

Here's a link to one of the many River Cottage shows:

All of these shows I really like are British show! How come the U.S. doesn't have any great shows like this?

Seed Catalogues Already!

I just received my first two seed catalogues for the 2012 growing season (the Pinetree Garden Seeds and the Stokes Seeds catalogues)! I hear that the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalogue is also supposed to arrive by December.

I know what I'll be reading this weekend!

50% off 2011 Seeds at Seed Savers Exchange!

Attention all you frugal gardeners out there! Seed Savers Exchange is having a 50% off sale on select varieties of their remaining 2011 seed stock. The sale ends on November 30th. I just finished ordering 6 packets of seeds. This has to be my record for earliest seed purchase for the subsequent year!


They have approximately 100 varieties on sale and the selection is actually pretty darn good (although there seems to be a overabundance of pepper varieties on sale). I don't usually buy from Seed Savers Exchange because their prices are higher (probably because their packets contain more seeds) than my favorite seed company, Pinetree Garden Seeds.


Here's what I purchased:
Bean, Golden of Bacau
Cucumber, Mexican Sour Gherkin
Soybean, Envy (2 packets)
Squash, Galeux d'Eysines
Pea, Golden Sweet


And all that for just $11.28 (including shipping)

Chickens as Time Keepers

My chickens have been producing really well this fall, despite the shortening daylength. About a month ago, I put a desk lamp out in the coop to supply photoperiodic lighting for the hens. Chickens need at least 14 hours of light per day to continue egg production in the winter. Since the photoperiod in my area is currently less than 10 hours, I have used a timer to turn the lamp on from about 4:30 am to 8:30 am.

The last couple days my egg production has been lower than normal. I went into the coop to adjust the time and increase the duration of light from the desk lamp...but found out that the light bulb had burnt out. So that solves it! The hens weren't laying as many eggs as normal because they weren't getting their usual morning supplemental light.

I swapped out the incandescent bulb for a brand new compact fluorescent, so hopefully it won't burn out for a long time.

P.S. It's funny that I'm witnessing such strong photoperiodic responses from my chickens because my graduate research happens to be on the effect of photoperiodic lighting on plants. We are basically testing the effects of different types of light (e.g., incandescent versus fluorescent versus LED) given during the middle of the night on the speed at which plants flower.