Win #1: my parents came to visit Kentucky for the first time. In addition to paying for all of our food during their trip, my father broke the shower head in the guest bathroom. So we went out and got a $20 replacement at Home Depot. And when he hooked it up and turned on the shower…
Zing! Blinking color-changing disco shower in the guest room. I did not know these existed or this would have happened much sooner. The color correlates with the water temperature. Double win.
Also:
Two eggs in the penthouse. MAJOR victorious win.
Also: I went for a 10 (turned 10.5) mile run, 4 miles of which were in new territory (I ran there with Alison once last year, but just followed her lead). I didn’t write the new route on my hand, like I normally do…and I only got lost ONCE. And it was a minor kind of lost, not the holy-crap-Paul’s-going-to-call-the-cops-because-I’ve-been-gone-for-3-hours kind of lost. Add on to that a little bit of a change in scenery:
Serious personal win.
AND THANKSGIVING IS TOMORROW! On the docket: a 12ish mile run, a little work, a lot of family, and a 10K+ calories in mashed potatoes alone.
Just when you thought (hoped) that the chicken posts were done for the season…here comes a doozy.
Last Friday when I opened the garage door to get the chicken feed to bring out to the girls, I didn’t hear the usual “bockbockbockbock” greeting I usually get from behind the garage (the sound of the garage door opening cues them to the fact that food is headed their way.)
I walked back there prepared, as I have been every morning since we got them, to find two chicken carcasses, victim of the UGLY AS SIN possum that has been hanging out in our yard.
Instead I found the two of them, still alive, happily sitting in their coop…MUNCHING ON THEIR OWN EGG AGAIN.
GOD. DAMMIT.
So, there are a few reasons why chickens might actively eat their eggs, including protein or calcium deficiencies, not enough water in the coop, and boredom (seriously). In our case, it’s most likely none of the above, but rather an issue of not providing enough cushioning for the eggs early on, so they’d break upon landing.
When you google “chickens eating their own eggs”, the A#1 most common suggestion is: prevent it from starting altogether, because “if this (habit) goes on too long, it will be nearly impossible to break”. Wonderful. Obviously too late for that.
Next most common suggestion, after asserting that chickens don’t naturally eat their eggs and blaming the problem on “poor husbandry or management practices” (pfft), most poultry forums state that it’s generally only one or two chickens in the flock that are the culprits, and highly encourage you cull the problem chicken(s) (I had to look up what that meant.)
Well. We only have 2 chickens. No culling happening here.
A little more poking around the interwebs led me to Ten Steps for How To Keep Chickens from Eating Their Own Eggs…which was actually only 3 steps when you took into account the fact that our chickens are a.) already eating their eggs, and b.) should be getting plenty of protein and calcium in their diet (we feed them spinach and other leafy greens regularly, as well as protein-fortified feed…though maybe we will start throwing in some oyster eggshell supplements to help).
Suggestions:
Collect the eggs more often than once a day, so they’re not laying around for your bored chickens to peck at
Put used golf balls in the nest. Not only will this show them where they are supposed to lay, they will also try to peck through the golf ball and, when they can’t do it, will stop trying
Take an egg that they’ve already started to eat and replace the yolk with English mustard (had to look that up too)
I really wanted to go for the last one, but it required pretty precise timing. And I didn’t know if French’s mustard would work (English mustard? Wtf?)
We already do #1, but that schedule is dictated by working hours. So not a lot of flexibility there.
So #2 it was! We went out and found ourselves some golf balls.
We also decided to add some additional protected nesting space outside of the coop, since many sites recommend you provide plenty of nesting boxes “at least two feet off the ground and at least four feet from the roosts”. Our “flock” is so small that generally speaking, so long as we keep providing clean straw, nesting space has not been an issue for us. But all of the nests we provided were on the ground (which may be why they started laying from their perches in the coop where they sleep?) Plus the eggs laid in the coop seem to be the only eggs they go after. So, more encouragement to lay outside.
And so, Paul built this:
That’s from the chicken’s perspective. In reality:
A sky high penthouse. The really hilarious thing is that Michelle (the one you can see inside the box) literally ran up the ladder and got to work making a nest as soon as Paul finished it.
Morning walk with the Dud. Enjoying what’s left of the fall leaves as the morning frost becomes a daily occurrence…
As I mentioned, a few weeks ago we were hit with the cold part of Frankenstorm. No snow, but forecasts of temperatures in the low 30s with high winds prompted Paul to further winterize our chicken coop.
Ha, right. I wish. Coops like these make me feel a little (or lot) inadequate.
As you might remember, a few weeks ago we took our coop from “summer” coop:
…to “winterized” coop:
Then we had the egg problem, prompting us to further insulate:
Then 2 weekends ago, the storms arrived. With what we had, we did what we could to protect the girls from the icy winds predicted over that weekend.
Yes, there it is. Our winter chicken palace.
As you can see, we (read: Paul) pretty much just boarded the whole thing up…in a very stylistic manner. The only part not completely boarded up is at the end where the feeding trough is, making it really dark inside. Doesn’t seem to bother the ladies, though. They’ve both been laying earlier in the morning and NOT EATING THEIR EGGS! Score.
This turned out to be good timing, seeing as how on Sunday, after a cold, cloudy morning that seemed to be bordering on snow flurries, it started to thunder and lightning. Then this happened:
Big, fat hail. Wtf. Fortunately the girls were safe in their fortress. Here’s to hoping that’s the last of the coop updates till spring.
By now you’re most likely familiar with the chicken coop.
Newly winterized, obviously.
We had built it with two perches: one high, one low. Turns out Michele really liked sleeping on the higher perch, while Romy prefers the lower.
well hello there michele
Michele would also lay her eggs first thing in the morning from up there. And often times, despite our best efforts to avoid this by piling hay underneath the perches, the egg would land on the hard ground and break open. And, if the shell cracked open far enough, they would eat it.
Recently, though, the chickens have realized that they can actually peck through the shell if it isn’t already broken and enjoy eating what would otherwise be their own young.
In addition to the fact that the only reason we have chickens is to produce eggs for US to eat, this is gross. It needs to stop.
The good news is the chickens are dumb enough that they don’t realize that the other egg that Romy lays in the corner of the coop is also an egg, and they leave that one alone. And based on the fact they regularly try to run through the chicken wire that surrounds their coop to get to their food, even though they’ve had to walk through the door every day multiple times a day for the past 5 months, we figured their long-term memory can’t be that stellar.
And so we concluded that all we needed to do was prevent them from eating the egg laid in the coop for a few days in a row and they’d forget that they liked eating eggs at all. And our problem would be solved.
We considered putting a net under the high perch to catch the egg, but I had images of a chicken trying to jump up to the perch and getting caught in the net and finding a strangled chicken dangling one morning. No go.
Solution:
This weekend we nailed a piece of plywood over the top perch, completely blocking off the second level, and filled the above cavity with straw, simultaneously preventing anyone from laying off the top perch AND providing additional insulation for winter. Boom.
We also ripped out the old perch and put in a longer, stronger, better bottom perch for the two of them to share.
Paul went out there this morning and found both of them huddled together on it. He also managed to rescue the un-broken egg before they got up and tried to eat it.
Spike’s duvet is out. We had our first frost this week. You know what that means.
Harvest time!
This year wasn’t a spectacular one for the garden. I blame the extreme summer heat and, largely, neglect on my part. But it wasn’t a total bust.
Things that took off this year:
The basil. Holy cow, the basil. Granted, we did start out with quite a few basil plants.
All of those tiny squares along the left side are little basil plants. Like the edamame of last year, Paul planted basil in pretty much any empty patch of dirt he could find around on our property. Unlike the edamame, these plants did not get run over with a lawnmower. And they EXPLODED. Big beautiful leaves. We put it on everything.
Anyway, enough about the basil. Next up:
Compared to our other crops, tomatoes did relatively well. We got a few batches of about 30 tomatoes, though they were all pint-sized, misshapen Roma. Oh well, lesson learned. Next year we need better variety.
Other herbs that survived include the rosemary:
The oregano:
And, comeback herb of the year goes to…
PARSLEY! I know it doesn’t look like much, but you should see what he looked like in August. Way to go, buddy.
Finally we have the beets.
Though these were ready to go last year in July, we haven’t given up hope yet.
Things that just couldn’t hang:
Kale fail. Something is eating it. Our cilantro, string beans, and like 3 kinds of peppers that we planted all met an early death as well.
And, of course, our lawn corn.
It grew taller but, much to Paul’s chagrin, stopped at that height and has yet to produce any corn. Again. Corn Fail #2.
The oregano and rosemary is relocating to inside the house for the winter, with the hopes that it’ll get enough sun and Nerlens won’t eat them (he’s already started eating the small tree we have growing by the front window.)
Supercat the Tree Eater
Next year we’ll give the veggies a little more love.
Another successful year for team Jim Beam Me Up. Another unsuccessful year for the Spock ears I always want to put on the vans.
This year we had a runner drop out, but it turned out to be OK because JEN GOT TO RUN WITH US!
She was so excited.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Bourbon Chase, it’s a 12-person, 200-mile running relay along the Bourbon Trail across Kentucky that goes through all of the major distilleries.
Runners are broken up into 2 vans of 6, with each runner running 3 legs over the course of the trail.
The morning started out with a little rain, a 9:30am meeting, followed by a bourbon tasting at Jim Beam.
The only way to start an endurance event.
This year we were in Van 2, so had a few hours to kill before Van 1 finished off the first 6 legs. So we checked out the distillery…
…then we hit the road, where there was a lot of this.
Lunch options were limited, and we had 2 people in the van with dietary restrictions. We settled on a Mexican place in Central Kentucky.
I know. We almost changed our team name to Team Gringo Diarrhea mid-race.
From there is was off to Makers Mark for the first Van 1/Van 2 handoff.
The sun kept fighting to break through the rain, and we checked out the mash.
Ryan was the lucky first runner from our van. He took off around 5pm.
We ticked off the legs one by one…
…and ran off into the sunset.
Then it got dark.
And during leg #9, the rain came back with a vengeance.
Poor J. The rest of us spent a good 10 minutes in the van debating how important it was that we all be out on the course to cheer her into transition.
Traditional evening wear looked something like this.
coal miner? runner?
Plus a few blinking lights.
We wound our way through the dark Commonwealth.
harrodsburg, kentucky’s oldest town, 4am
Until, after a lot of running and minimal “sleeping” in the van, I ran the final night leg into the sunrise…and the Four Roses distillery which, along with coffee, bagels, and hot chocolate, has the most delicious bourbon of all.
Then, while van #1 ran the next six legs, we crossed some bridges…
…past Wild Turkey and into Versailles for a deeelicious country breakfast.
People also took the rest time to start rolling out our stupidly stiff legs and familiarize themselves with the beauty that is Biofreeze.
After that, it was over to Woodford Reserve for the final exchange from Van #1.
As Ryan made his way up the massive hill that comes out of Woodford, the sun came out.
And it got hot. But beautiful.
The remaining runs were through horse country.
Jen ran the final leg into Lexington. The way it works is both vans go to the finish line and the whole team waits for the final runner, then everyone runs across together, cheering, while the announcer announces the team name, and it’s very festive and a very big deal.
Well. Jen ran so fast that our team wasn’t even at the finish line yet. Apparently the announcer was like, “TEAM 507! HERE COMES YOUR RUNNERRRRrrrrr.” And she ran across the finish line. Alone.
Fortunately, there was free bourbon to comfort everyone after the team fail.
And all was well.
finish line photo op
Thanks goes out to Jen for making the flight all the way out here, J & Ryan for inviting us on the team, the peeps in Van #2 for only being mildly stinky and making 30+ hours stuck in a van a non-negative experience, and George for organizing another glorious weekend in bourbon country.
It’s not winter yet, but this weekend it was officially cold out. Early morning temps dipped down to the mid-30s. Yes. 30s. I volunteered at a race on Sunday morning, about 45 minutes post-race start it was still 37 degrees outside. I was not-so-secretly thrilled that I wasn’t riding on the bike soaking wet.
So aside from wrapping your tiny dog in blankets, what else do you do when the weather gets cold? Winterize your chicken coop, of course.
Above is the summer-time chicken coop. But after some hard work…
…BOOM. Winterized Chicken Coop.
I know, we should consider quitting our day jobs.
Paul and I spent Sunday afternoon constructing this masterpiece. We debated putting some more insulation on there, but eventually decided that the chickens are plenty insulated as long as we can block most of the wind from howling through their little coop. We’ll see if the roof survives the first real storm.
The girls, however, apparently love their new abode, because one of them gifted us with the MOTHER of all eggs yesterday. Remember how our normal eggs are so big we can’t close a regular egg crate when we put them in there?
Well. This happened yesterday.
That poor chicken.
It was a weird shape, too, almost a perfect oval, instead of having an obvious top and bottom. No idea why that happened, but I’m going to say it’s the new roof + all the spinach we’ve been feeding them lately. Unless an ostrich snuck in there yesterday and dropped it off.
In non-chicken related news, Bourbon Chase starts tomorrow! I’m driving to Louisville tonight to pick up Jen from the airport because she joined our team last minute and is very excited about the Burgoo Festival. I don’t think she’s ever tried squirrel before. SUPERRR FUN! Hopefully fun enough to make me forget that I’ve only run once in the past 3 weeks. Yeah.
Location: Powell County (about 50 miles east of Lexington)
Distance: Choose your own adventure (our choice was ~5.5 miles round trip)
Entry Fee: $0
Last Sunday Paul got really amped to go for a hike. So we got up nice and early, dropped Spike off at daycare (Marsha), and headed east into Powell County. Which is dry. So no post-hike beer.
You may remember our last real hike in Kentucky, which pretty much turned me off to hiking here forever. I am a fan of hiking (see: origin of this blog), but round here it takes some serious convincing that we are going to a heavily populated area with absolutely no hunting within a 100 mile radius for me to go. Turns out Natural Bridge is like the HOTTEST tourist attraction in Kentucky outside of Derby, which was enough to convince me we wouldn’t be confused for deer.
After a post-drive bathroom break and some superior mullet spotting at the Hemlock Lodge, we headed out on the Original trailhead, then veered off onto the Hoods Branch Trail (the trip from the lodge up to the bridge ranges anywhere from .75 miles-4 miles.) Our mishmash route was about 3 miles to the top.
This site is adjacent to the Red River Gorge, so the rocks started getting pretty cool pretty quick.
I can’t really speak to this personally, but apparently rocks like this are a rock climber’s dream.
…so of course Paul started up with this.
the whole. hike. up.
We eventually “climbed” our way up to the bridge…
…where the final stretch to get up to the bridge must prevent about 85% of the state’s population from actually experiencing the view from the top.
It is a seriously tight squeeze, I felt a little claustrophobic going through. I am genuinely curious if anyone’s ever gotten stuck before.
We got to the top and it was…
…completely void of any barriers to keep people from falling off.
This made me nervous.
After that it was back on the trail…
…with a quick stop at the chair lift station to buy some more water from the two teenage kids in their John Deer hats sitting there drinking Ale 8 and listening to country music.
Best job ever.
Then it was down, down, down.
The “stairs” really were that steep.
And…back to the car! Then, of course, a stop by Miguel’s, the climber hangout, for full pizza with potatoes, mushrooms, and kielbasa.
Holy crap, delicious.
Fun, short hike, nice views, worth the trip to see one of the Seven Wonders of the Commonwealth.
Zing! Blinking color-changing disco shower in the guest room. I did not know these existed or this would have happened much sooner. The color correlates with the water temperature. Double win.
Rambulatory Ambulatory 