Chickens « Moon over Martinborough

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

Stacking wood for winter

May 8, 2009

Last weekend Rick and I began stacking wood. Since our house is heated with a woodburner, we’ve come to associate a nicely stacked wood pile with security and comfort. So it’s satisfying work.

The woodburner that keeps us warm

We’re like two bears, hunkering down at the end of autumn.

John, our neighbor, once told me, “Wood makes you warm three times. Once when you cut it, once when you stack it, and once when you burn it.”

Winters here are nowhere near as cold as the winters I grew up with in Michigan and Minnesota. There’s no snow in Martinborough.

Even so, these winters are damp and wet and at night the temperatures plummet. Mornings can be frosty. It’s not unusual that we make a fire in the evening and again first thing in the morning, but by noon we’re often opening the doors and windows and eating lunch out on the deck. It’s not a bad winter life, really.

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5 Comments | New Zealand, Woodburner | Tagged: Chickens, firewood, hayshed, log splitter, satisfying work | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough