Fall Simmer

I love Fall

Simmer garlic, onions, peppers and squash...

Vegetables picked before I let the chickens out at dawn.

Shush don't point to poultry there's feed in the lower garden.

You'll find it strange if I tell the names of the chooks.

Dixie is a speckled Sussex. She's first. 

Dixie leads a chick band, though she isn't the largest or a rooster. 

Dixie is the daughter of my neighbor's male from his rogue visit.

Yesterday I picked the last pumpkins up from the raised beds, 

they stand guard outside the front gate. 

Chickens will eat pumpkins before Halloween if inside.

Last night coyotes yelped and hollered at three A.M. 

With mag flashlight in hand, 

I went out to have a meeting with them.
They know I have a shotgun.

"Want me to drive down to the barn and settle this?" I yell.

They gather, silent. No snickers about my nightgown.
Answer came from Dr's barn in the canyon where 

puppies cry and the big dogs growl.

Ursula Major and Minor point towards

solar lights in the valley below. 

Glow shares from stars to crescent moon,
platinum against a cloudless dome.

Coyotes look up with me in that moment.

The pack's paws crunch on ash leaves,
scattered on rocks, now become softer.

Coy wolves leave without argument. 

"Try luck with bucks grazing in the oak grove," 

I whisper to their long gone tails. 

Copyright October 8 2016 Caroline Gerardo

Recipe:

3 garlic cloves cut very fine

1 whole onion (type you have) chopped well

1 bell pepper chopped up (more coarse than the first two)

1 carrot chopped fine

saute above in cheap olive oil on medium about a tablespoon of oil

1 cup chopped squash - you pick the type - but peel it

add squash to saute and cook a minute

add 2 cups vegetable stock or chicken stock (don't tell my chickens about the stock)

tablespoon thyme leaves yes not teaspoon

1/2 teaspoon oregano

tiny sea salt to taste start with 1/4 teaspoon depending if stock is salted then none

tablespoon of soy sauce

hot peppers to taste (this amount and type up to YOU)

Allow to simmer

do you have a hot soup blender? use it to cream half the soup

You don't have a soup blender then use your fork best you can

If you like creamy add 1/2 cup greek nonfat yogurt at the end just as you serve

slice basil in threads and place about a tablespoon on top

Yummy soup is ready

Happy #NationalFarmDay

My neighbor's pen

Mother Hen DIY Coop

Chicken Momma

OR Chooks Chookies Kooks and Me

Hatched the baby chickens.

A recent summary of my ranch adventures:

Lost one pullet to pasty butt. Spent three days and nights feeding her drops of vitamin water on the hour. Did you know Siri can learn the names of your baby chickens? This is helpful with an alarm at 3 and 4. Created Kleenex tissue life-safer to keep sick baby from flopping on her back, and the long process of cleaning her bottom. She died.
Next the vicious murder by grey squirrels. I now hunt bushy tails. Two squirrels poked holes in babies and tore one apart.
Horrible deaths, lost sleep and oh my, I’m a Mother Hen.

My house is next to the Cleveland National Forest. Mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, raccoons and other predators stroll on my driveway. There are two existing chicken coops. One is oversized and the other smaller one I'm adapting into Fort Knox.

The nearest hardware store is a forty minute drive away. First, I purchased chicken wire. After securing three rolls to the coop and play yard, I learn it is not strong enough to withstand hungry predators. I plan to use recycled materials. Chain link fence pieces, left over siding and a couple metal posts were found on Free-cycle. Five rolls of welded steel wire, 4 X 4 lumber posts and twenty varieties of wire I bought at Home Depot.

Country Living is not photo shooting my ranch for the coop. Painted houses with picket fences and screen windows would be torn apart by animals in a moonlit evening. The play house that your daughters grew out of is not safe enough for my hens. A raccoon tears through plastic.

"Raccoons eat plastic zip ties." I told the handy orange Apron at Home Depot.

Rolls of wire are to connect walls and ceiling for the play pen. I need to stitch the wire together and have no gaps.
"This ook wire with the nice package cutter is perfect." Orange apron tells me.
This product stinks. The cutter doesn’t trim the wire. The spool hogs the ends. Then when you just need a little a long center piece sticks out of the cardboard. As you ease the piece out to cut the rope becomes tangled in under layers. Send "Ook "frustration packaging to your enemies. Let their hands be torn bloody while they pull for the next piece. I never return purchases. Have you waited in line to face the humiliation of being asked why something doesn't work? Ook sucks, see the holes in my hands.

Another trip to Home Depot.

“Do you have metal zip ties?”

Strange facial expression from Orange vest guy.

“Perhaps in the electrical department?” he answers.

“I know metal conducts electricity. I am searching for cable ties that come in packs of 100 or more…”

“We don’t have anything like that, what are you using them for?” Frowny face from Orange vest.

I explain about the coop. He gives me the crazy lady bored face.

"J clips, hog rings, loxit rings and matching pliers?" I say as if speaking a foreign language.
Okay Orange County isn't the farming capitol of California anymore... Time for a real drive.

I make a third trip over the hill to real farming hardware stores.  Grangetto's sales person complements my cowgirl boots. They have barn owl boxes (next project) rainwater retention and grey water systems. I'm smiling. Next stops Tractor Supply and Kahoots.  


When I am finished I will post images of the darling Spanish Style Chicken High Security Vault and the shoot that opens into a play yard.