Chicks: day 2

Here is your daily dose of chicks!

This is one of the White Crested Black Polish chicks (Stella or Sophia-I can't tell them apart yet!). She is starting to realize that she will be an absolutely fabulous looking chicken and is working on some poses for her future as a super model chicken!

Picking up chicks!

Let's be honest, I have absolutely no experience trying to pick up chicks. That is why I had to bring my wing man, Hugh, along with me to bring the right ladies home! I was picturing hundreds of chicks crammed into a small space vying for attention (and warmth) and I was kind of right.

Day old chicks, ducks, and turkeys were available today at Grain Growers in Enterprise. I went with a couple of breads in mind as well as roughly how many I was planning to take home-and of course I got a couple more than planned! They had heated tubs filled with 6-7 different breeds of chicks, one breed of turkeys and one breed of ducks. I had heard that Bovan chickens are really great producers of brown eggs and a very hardy bread of chicken-so the practical side of me won and I picked up 8 of them. Thinking about it now I probably should have only gotten 6, but I think it will be fine! The Bovan chicks were already sexed, this means that the chicks I bought should only be females. The man who worked there said there is about a 95% chance that all the chicks are females, but to be on the safe side I got a couple extra.

The other two breeds I got were not sexed, so that means there's a chance we have a rooster in our bunch. I don't really want a rooster for a couple reasons, one is that we don't want the eggs fertilized-we just want eggs to eat and the other is (in my experience) roosters are mean!! I got two Black Australorps, who are also supposed to be great brown egg layers and a hardy, good looking chicken. But of course, I had to find the funniest looking, not very good egg producing chicks and just have to take them home! White crested Black Polish chickens lay white eggs, but not very often. They are described more as a show chicken or a yard chicken-it's just cute to look at. Or as Keith just said-They freaking look ridiculous! And I got two them (I think Hugh thought I was going to get even more!)

As chicks, the Bovans are a light fluffy yellow, the Australorps are black and white (a little penguin-esque!) and the Polish ones are black and yellow with funny little 'top hats'!

I had already prepared our chicks temporary home in the megabox that I put together in the living room (I really wish we had a garage!). It's has a pretty big feeder and water dish and has a heat lamp to keep these little ladies all nice and cosy!

And now they're chirping away inside!

The chicks are super cute (as if that even needs to be said!) and so far are very loudly chirping and being crazy active, running around in the box or are passed out, sleeping quietly. 

They should be getting feathers in the next couple days, although it looks to me like some of them already have a couple. They said, since this is my first time, I'll be surprised at how big they'll be tomorrow-my little babies are going to grow up so fast!

I'm expecting a few friends over this evening to watch Chicks TV and I have to say it's pretty fun to watch in the couple hours I've been watching!

The coop of my dreams!

For the past few weekends Keith and our friend Hugh have been building me a chicken coop. Well, not just a chicken coop-it's the chicken coop of my dreams! The most awesome coop in the county and now it's almost finished!

I found the plans for 'A classy A-frame chicken tractor' and knew it was exactly the kind of coop we should have: mobile, safe from predators, easy to clean, and most importantly easy to get eggs out of. The coop design is an A frame: the chicks will nest and sleep in the top part of the A-Keith and Hugh designed removable platforms and installed egg doors, so we should just be able to open a door on either side and collect the eggs! There is a trap door to let the chickens out into the bottom of the A. This is where they will hang out most of the time, eating grass, bugs and delicious chicken feed.  It will have wheels on one side and a handle bar on the other, so we can move it around the yard-this may mean we never have to cut the grass again!

I emailed the plans to Keith in October (or so) and he kept saying that it was a winter plan, and that by February he would get to it. On Feb 1st I started pushing the project hard and by now,  March 7th it is almost finished.

This is perfect timing because the chicks are supposed to arrive at Grain Growers on March 16 AND because we already have a chick! The chick we already have is named Libby (we hope she's a girl) and hatched at hour friends house a couple of weeks ago. Their daughter Morgan is taking care of Libby until we get everything finished.

Yesterday we had a beautiful day to paint the inside of the coop. We got a $5 'oops' gallon of stain with a primer that goes on like paint-perfect to seal the wood on the inside. Hugh described the color as 'womb-like' and with two coats on, it's hard to disagree! Hopefully the chickens will feel safe and warm and produce tons of eggs!!

Yesterday was the first time I helped with the coop as my minions (flying monkeys, if you will ;) have been doing all the hard work. They had also been creatively figuring out ways to improve on the not very good plans I found and for this I take all the credit!

At this rate the coop will be completed by the time we get the chicks. But of course the chicks won't go straight inside the coop. They will be in our living room for a couple of weeks growing big and strong and staying as warm as possible! So, fair warning, if you come to our house between March 16 and April 10th (or so) there will be chicks in the house!

Creatures in the closet

It's a cold, dark night and your find yourself all alone in a dead quiet house. All of the sudden you think you hear a sound, then another...it's getting louder. You follow the sound through the house and find yourself in front of the bedroom closet. There is is again! At this point you know your options: Do you open the closet door to find out who or what is making that strange belching noise or you and your dog run outside, knowing that the homicidal maniac in your closet just ate too much Taco Bell?

Obviously, you choose option one and what do you find?? Active fermentation! Look! It's moving. It's alive. It's alive... It's alive, it's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, IT'S ALIVE! You look up and OH NO! It's a yeast starter with an insatiable appetite! The experiment has come to life and is trying to escape captivity. Luckily, the Mad Scientist contained it with a blow off tube.


In never before seen footage, we see the Mad Scientist working on one of his creations in his dark laboratory.


For what we are about to see next, we must enter quietly into the realm of genius-well maybe we're not at the genius realm yet. The first experiment titled 122710 Breakfast Stout was a moderate success. The Mad Scientists notes on the matter are as follows: Minimal carbonation. Very dark brown color. Very small head w/o much retention. Minimal lacing. Sweet, caramely, slightly roasty aroma. Thin-medium body. A bit flat. Roasty, bitter, caramely flavor. Virtually no hop. Continue to condition. Open weekly. (What incredibly hard conditions the Scientist is working under! The poor thing having to repeatedly taste the beer!)

The next experiment named 010811 Pale Ale will be ready for testing just in time for the Super Bowl and next named 012211 St Patty's Day will be ready for test on (yup, you guessed it!) St. Patty's Day!

We have created a monster, and it will destroy you!

It's kind of like camping...

Keith and I woke up on Saturday to a new year on the calendar and no water in our house. Initially we were not worried, our pipes had frozen once before and that was resolved in about an hour. This time we're not so lucky.

Here's our set up: we have a pump house over the well where we get our water. Not very wisely this about 200 meters from our house. To battle frozen pipes, the pipes in the pump house are wrapped with heat tape that has been on since November. There is also a space heater in the pump house for really cold snaps-like the one we were having last Thursday-Sunday. We had the space heater on in there starting Thursday night and everything was fine until Saturday morning. What changed? No one seems to know.

We checked under the house and nope, those pipes are not frozen either. I don't see how they could be because besides the insulation that was down there, we now also have a space heater running under there too. According to the plumbers we are out of luck-something between the pump house and our house is probably frozen and there is really nothing we can do.

This means showers at friend's houses (thank you!!), filling up water everywhere we can, melting snow to fill toilets, and washing clothes and dishes are at the very bottom of the priority list!
During this time I can't help but this of all the great places we're lived-my favorite post-apocalyptic hellhole that didn't have potable water and I almost burnt down in Winslow or our place in Alexandra with icicles on the inside of the bedroom windows while I had to hand wash clothes with a broken hand. Why should here be any different!

So, right now living here is kind of like camping, but with cable and heat. One of these days things are going to change and we will live in a sweet pad that has reliable (potable) water and heat-what crazy demands, I know I'm being a diva!

Assistant (to the) Brewer

For Christmas Keith got a bit of a brewing kit and yesterday evening seemed like a good time to start brewing! Along with all super cool equipment, Keith got a recipe kit for brewing a Breakfast Stout, which is described as a cross between an Oatmeal Stout and a Sweet Stout with a coffee-like flavor-yup that sounds like breakfast! It was a little hard to pick out a brew that I know I won't like, but I don't doubt that there will much more beer to come!
As prep, we watched the DVD on how to brew-this was pretty great since I had pretty much no idea how all this works. It seems brewing is all about keeping everything clean and taking time to drink a beer while the brew (wort) is on the stove.

My job as assistant was pretty easy-just keep stirring! While I like to think of myself a little more like Dwight, the reality is that as an assistant, right now I am much more of an Igor right now-if only I had that great outfit! :)


After the barley and oats seeping, malt and lactose added, then the hops added and boiled, it was time to chill the wort as quickly as possible-it is suggested that you create an ice bath in the kitchen sink. Really, with 30 degree temps and snow on the ground, I don't an ice bath was necessary! Now we wait for fermentation to take place. With the yeast added and the wort hanging out in a warm dark place (Keith's closet), we have two weeks before we bottle what will hopefully, actually be beer! After that we still have two more weeks to condition the beer in the bottles-so we will have really no idea if it's any good for about a month. At this point we know that the original gravity is extremely close what the recipe says it was supposed to be-we have our fingers crossed!

Now, Keith has been seriously bitten by the brewing bug-I can't wait to assist again! Updates to come!!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Wallowa County!

Yesterday was our Christmas, since Keith is on call today-he may be delivering a Christmas baby at some time today so it's a good thing we did our presents and dinner yesterday. Speaking of presents I'm writing this blog post on the most awesome present-a Mac! It is so amazing to have a fully functioning computer again!

Of course BJ doesn't care about any of this-all he wanted to do yesterday was open presents-he started with his, then moved on to ours. At least he waited until Christmas to start opening everything!

We've been enjoying our awesome view this winter, although it would be a little nicer if it snowed a little more before Christmas!!

Of course all these pictures are just from around the house, since I'm still not traveling very far-but thank you Gil for reminding to get off my butt and take some pictures! I think this may be a long month of hobbling around in the snow, but hopefully my knee will be 110% pain free and all of this will be worth it!

We want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and happy holidays! We've had an amazing Christmas and want to thank everyone for such thoughtful gifts and cards. We hope that we can share our winter wonderland with you some time soon!