blue-green eggs « Moon over Martinborough

Francoise and the return of the silver monster

October 16, 2011

Little Francoise the Aracuana Hen

“Kill them all,” Rick said. “We’ll start over.”

“What?!” I was horrified. “We can’t simply cull all of our chickens because they couldn’t learn how to use the chicken feeder!”

For the past few months, we’d been hearing stories from our neighbor Aussie Bronwyn about how easy her life was with her ‘Grandpa’s Feeder’ – how she didn’t have to go out and feed her chooks every day, how the sparrows never ate the feed anymore, and how even her clever young hatchlings had learned how to use the feeder.

We were sick with envy. But kill our chickens?

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22 Comments | Chickens, Neighbors, New Zealand | Tagged: blue-green eggs, chicken coop, chicken feeder, Chickens, chook house, lavendar araucana | Permalink
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Carrot cake everyone wants

January 19, 2011

Dave's carrot cake

“Why won’t you share it?” I asked Rick. We were standing in the kitchen, looking at a carrot cake recipe written on the back of a long, white envelope.

“Because it’s too special,” he answered.

“But all the neighbors are asking for it.”

“Too bad,” Rick said. “If we share this recipe then everyone will make it, and it won’t be special anymore. Besides, it’s the only cake we know how to make! And we can’t serve store bought ever again. The locals will shoot us.”

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53 Comments | Food, Neighbors, New Zealand | Tagged: baking, blue-green eggs, carrot cake, gluten free, recipe, rural, wheat free | Permalink
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Shovel and axe

February 20, 2010

Light on the far hills

I had just hopped back over the fence after visiting Kiwi Bronwyn and Jim when I saw Rick walking towards the chicken coop. He had a shovel in one hand and an axe in the other.

The evening light was bright on the far hills, but the paddock we were in was drenched in shadows.

I knew what Rick wanted to do. In fact, I’d agreed to it a couple of weeks earlier, but all of a sudden I had reservations. I certainly hadn’t expected to be doing it now, on a peaceful Monday evening after visiting the neighbors. I wasn’t prepared.

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16 Comments | Chickens, Death, New Zealand | Tagged: blue-green eggs, chicken coop, Chickens, chook house, scaly leg mites | Permalink
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Egg delivery gone wrong

November 14, 2009

Featherston station

I was carrying two dozen farm fresh eggs as I stepped up onto the train at Featherston station.

It’s not what most people carry during their morning commute, but when you live in the country and work in the city as I do, you start doing strange things.

For example, just the other week I took a bell pepper plant (called a ‘capsicum’ here in Kiwiland) to the office. It’s now growing beautifully in a pot next to my desk. Perhaps I’m on a slippery slope. Soon I’ll be taking in live chickens and setting up chicken runs in the meeting rooms.

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18 Comments | Chickens, Commute, New Zealand | Tagged: blue-green eggs, Chickens, lavendar araucana | Permalink
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Chicken blood on my boot

July 4, 2009

Aussie Bronwyn and I stood outside the chicken coop. In one hand she held a long pole with a round net on the end, and in the other hand she held a jar of Vaseline.

Lavendar araucanas: Natasha and Francoise

Lavendar araucana: Natasha and Francoise

She was limping a little from a recent knee surgery, and I felt bad asking her to walk across the top paddock to our chickens.

“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she said, throwing back her shoulders. “Now, let’s get those chooks!” She smiled broadly, as though ready for a battle of epic proportions.

Little did I know what an epic battle it would eventually turn out to be.

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21 Comments | Chickens, Neighbors, New Zealand | Tagged: blue-green eggs, Chickens, kind neighbors, lavendar araucana, light sussex, scaly leg mites | Permalink
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Strange morning at the chicken run

June 20, 2009

I’m still not quite used to the chicken routine. There were no farm-fresh eggs in my life growing up in suburban Detroit. I never had chickens on the back porch overlooking the alley in my Chicago apartment.

He ra mokopuna - fine winter day

So last Saturday it was already 10.30 am by the time I remembered to feed the chickens. It’s like I had a temporary brain blip, and for a moment I forgot I was living on a farm in New Zealand.

It was not going to be a normal morning, at least not as far as the chickens were concerned. And it was only going to get weirder as the morning progressed.

In the refrigerator there was a special treat for the chooks, and when I went to get it Rick said, “You’re so late. By they time you get out there, they’ll be dead.”

I laughed and took out the small plastic container. “Don’t be horrible.”

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18 Comments | Chickens, Neighbors, New Zealand | Tagged: blue-green eggs, Chickens, gum boots, lavendar araucana, light sussex | Permalink
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The quest for blue eggs

May 13, 2009

I just wanted blue eggs. That’s the reason I’m out here in the dark this morning, as a bone-chilling autumn rain pelts me furiously on all sides. I’m carrying a red bucket in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

The girls in a line-up

I trudge forward. Already it’s 6:15am. I have to be in the shower by 6:30 to get ready for work. I have to be quick.

Six months before, I decided I wanted chickens. But not just any chickens. I’d read about a breed called Araucana – an old South American breed that lays pale blue eggs.

Blue eggs! How fantastic! I imagined a bowl of farm-fresh, blue eggs on the kitchen counter as I chopped veggies for omelettes on a Sunday morning.

I never thought about the dark, cold mornings of fall and winter, or the icy rains.

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11 Comments | Chickens, New Zealand | Tagged: blue-green eggs, chicken coop, Chickens, chook house, city friends, gratitude, lavendar araucana, light sussex | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough