Categories: Chickens, Eggs, Feed, Housing, Predators

Schloss Unsleben

Miss Pat, BD Soupski and I have returned stateside, and as I take time to pore through photos and reflect on our trip to the Old World, several things stand out in my mind.

One is the contrast between the homes and castles built in less secure ages and the modern, open, vulnerable ones in my own city. Our first part of the trip was spent in the tiny German town of Unsleben, northeast of Frankfurt and very near the city of Bad Neustadt an der Saale. We stayed in Schloss Unsleben, a walled and moated castle that has been the home of a noble family for many centuries. The current count and countess still reside in the castle, and they rent out portions of the castle to visitors.

Schloss Unsleben: view of tower and moat from the living room window

The castle, like many old homes of this size, has been expanded and changed over the years, and you can clearly see several very different (and interesting) building styles in its mix of towers and living wings. Some of the buildings dated to the 14th century! The castle lies, as many do, at the center of town directly down the street from the church. Its security lies in its fortress-like walls coupled with a wide moat. As I sat in my little tower room I wondered what sort of lives the many generations of this family had experienced. Could I even imagine what it was like to see enemy armies from the high windows? It had happened on occasion. What was it like to know your very life depended on your ability to defend the house in which you lived?

There is another very interesting wall surrounding the town of Bad Neustadt an der Saale. It is said Karl der Grosse himself (Charlemagne) had the wall built in the 8th century, and if you view it from above you find it to be in the anatomically-correct shape of a human heart. Fortunately the wall still stands, and we took a morning to walk part of its perimeter when we searched for Soupski’s old house.

While I am sure that at one time the area outside the city wall was clear of growth, we found a lovely path lined with plum trees burdened with fruit, chestnut trees full of nuts, and gardens still blessed with the last of the early autumn vegetables. Miss Pat wisely brought printouts of old photos so we could locate areas that would have changed since Soupski’s last visit, and eventually we found his old house. A few more blocks of strolling outside the city wall brought us to a place familiar to me through old family photos: the Bad Neustadt city gate.

It was around 60 years ago that little Soupski stood outside this very gate.

Bad Neustadt city gate ca. 1948 - - could that be little Soupski?

City gate, Bad Neustadt an der Saale

For me it was somewhat surreal to stand there with him again all these years later. What on earth could have gone through his mind in those moments? Did the years rush through his head like a torrent, friends and brother and sister and Mama Ski and mysterious adventures with Opa Ski; returning to the states and trying to resume American high school; military, marriage and children and retirement and suddenly, suddenly right back in this place and - - well, I guess we’ll never really know what happened at that moment, as BD Soupski, like so many other men, spoke very little of what he was feeling.

He did, however, enlighten us to the details of one of his German adventures. It was a well-known family story that as a child Soupski had once snuck into an old castle near Bad Neustadt. While exploring, he met up with the duke who still resided in that castle. The old gentleman kindly showed little Soupski around the castle, even letting him explore the old dungeons below. After spending a friendly afternoon there, Soupski hustled home before Mama Ski began looking for him.

Now, Soupski has a lot of stories. Good ones. It is one thing to hear them, and quite another to encounter proof. The proof began as we made a short hike through the forest outside Bad Neustadt. As we reached the top of the hill, we saw the grey stones of the old Salzburg castle through the trees.

Salzburg castle peeks through the trees like a hidden fairytale fortress. Is there a sleeping princess within?

The castle is surrounded by imposing walls at the top of a considerable slope, making access to the castle difficult - - especially for enemy soldiers.

Crenelated walls of Salzburg castle above town of Bad Neustadt an der Saale

However, a small boy with proper motivation and little supervision could theoretically crawl through one of these small holes at the bottom of the outside wall:

Tiny hidden passages, bottom right, lead the bold (and limber) through the castle wall

Crawling up through the hole and climbing into a small chamber built into the wall might also lead here, to the castle courtyard.

The other end of the hidden entrance to Salzburg castle’s courtyard

And to prevent further (theoretical) invasions by tiny Americans, the small doorway is now sealed with a large iron lock.

Old residence at Salzburg castle

There is so much to see and tell of our trip to Germany. It would take many more days to process the experience, and to put into perspective the places and people we met along the way. It is difficult for New World folks to understand the incredible history of Europe. While somewhat old as far as historical settlements, my town was not incorporated until the 1980s. The city of Bad Neustadt was “incorporated” in the 780s. I cannot begin to calculate all the differences in psyche a person growing up in that history must have from my own world view!

I will explore more of this trip and post a few of the hundreds of photos I took in two subsequent blog posts. As with my trip to Italy, and perhaps even more so, my visit to Germany was beautiful and life-altering. Walking along the walls of cities built in ages long past changed me and widened my view of this incredible world in which I am privileged to move.

Peaceful place: old chestnut tree and bench outside wall of Schloss Unsleben

Louis XIV and Miss Olivia Peeper enjoying the morning sun

My little banties are growing up, and I spent some time with them snapping pictures to capture their last fleeting moments of babyness before they grow up and go off to college. Seriously though, these little chicks have been such fun to raise. Bantams have personality galore, they come in a thousand shapes and colors, and they are just adorable. Let’s indulge in some shameless cuteness!

Louis XIV and Miss Olivia Peeper (above) are growing into lovely young Belgian booted bantams. While Louis is a beautiful creamy color, Miss Olivia came out a rather washed-out mixed shade of dishwater. I will never be a successful breeder, as I cannot bring myself to get rid of such a sweet young lady. I will not hatch any of her eggs when she’s grown, but she’ll always have a place with me.

Sweet Miss Olivia Peeper

Miss Olivia loves to ride on my shoulder and softly chit-chat about whatever strikes her fancy. She is the sweetest, gentlest, and most shy little bird. I hated trimming their glorious foot feathers, but since they are spending their days scratching around like wild chickens instead of caged show birds, I thought it best.

Pippin and Robin are bantam Ameraucanas in slightly non-standard colors. They are sweet girls who look like tiny juvenile hawks. They have been carefully bred for several generations by a chicken buddy of mine who is selecting for a lovely blue egg color. I can’t wait to see the eggs they lay!

Pippin and Robin the Ameraucanas

Robin and Xiu Xiu

As you can see behind Robin, there is an unusual lady in the bunch. Xiu Xiu is a Silkie, a Chinese breed whose feathers lack the barbicels that hold their shape and rigidity. Their feathers feel like soft downy fur. They are very shy and gentle, and they are very good mothers.

Xiu Xiu: there are eyes in there somewhere

Xiu Xiu is not a show quality Silkie, but she is very sweet and will do a fine job of hatching eggs for me in the spring.

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Probably the most unusual of the bantam chicks are Schmoo Belle and Betty Boop, my bantam Araucanas. Araucanas originated in South America, and they are a rumpless breed. While they look very odd, these two ladies are among the sweetest little birds you’ll find! Their color is called “splash,” which is made of blue-black splashes on a white background.

Betty Boop the Araucana: where’s the rest of her??

Betty Boop is considered “clean faced,” and Schmoo Belle has ear tufts - - curled feathers growing near each ear. Schmoo Belle likes to jump up on my shoulder and whisper the latest gossip. She also likes to come over and boss things when I am working in the coop.

Nosy Schmoo Belle always has to know what’s going on

The bantam cochins are doing well, although they sure have been broody this year! Penny Pretty is still broody and did not emerge for the photo session, but Dolly the Frizzle cochin obliged me:

Curly Dolly eyes me suspiciously

Her feathers have continued to emerge nice and curled, and she is just adorable. Cochins are another Chinese breed with good mothering instincts, and I love their low, wide bodies and their acres of fluff. And then there are the cochin bottoms - - oh dear Lord save me from the irresistible cuteness of cochin butts!

Fluffy cochin butts

I could spend all day watching the banties scratch and peck around their pen. They are like a beautiful, colorful bouquet of flowers.

The standard size birds do not particularly appreciate my interest in the smaller birds, however. Even chickens experience jealousy. My poor, bald Baby Mija never likes the attention I pay to other chickens, and when I walk over to the banty coop she always tries to get my attention by coyly walking in circles in front of me:

Poor bald Baby Mija tries to be coy

Her pitiful bald head is just starting to grow feathers back, but right now that baldness really makes her blind eye more obvious.

Dear, clumsy Baby Mija

While she will never win any beauty contests, Baby sure does lay the biggest eggs of the bunch!

It’s probably time to go, anyhow. Louis has grown tired of all the attention - - and he signals this by standing very upright and giving me the fisheye.

OK, Louis. See you later!

True to her name, young Prima was the first of my spring chicks to lay an egg. This pretty little Black Copper Marans hen is one of the sweetest little ladies, and I thought it might be fun to revisit her brief life “from egg to egg.”

It seems like just yesterday that little Prima Georgiana Darcy was just a tapping sound coming from the inside of her dark brown egg. (Oh you laugh, but giving hens silly, prissy names is one of the great joys of keeping chickens.)

She emerged from her shell first on that cold February 26 and sprawled on the floor of the warm incubator, exhausted from the ultimate challenge of pecking her way out of the hard shell.

When she was finally rested, she set about helping her two brothers out of their shells. She pecked and pulled bits of shell to help them breathe, she peeped to encourage them, and when they finally broke from their shells she spread her fluffy little body out beside them while they rested from their effort. I have never before or since seen a chick appear to help other chicks hatch!

Two days later Prima appeared in a photo for this blog, perched quietly in RT’s enormous hands. While many black-colored chicks have white down, the light fluff is shed as they grow and they emerge as black adults.

Prima had distinctive markings around her eyes, but she also carried herself differently from the others and was much more placid by nature. The boys were sweet, but just a little more naughty and rambunctious.

Below we have Prima in our Easter Sunday photo session, then at 17 days of age. Female chicks will generally have smaller combs, even at a young age, and they will remain yellowish in color until they are nearly mature. The ladies will also have tiny or nonexistent wattles, the red flaps of skin that grow beneath the chin. Boys will have more prominent, reddish combs, and the wattles will begin to grow earlier. This little face is all girl:

My Black Copper Marans were the sweetest and most interactive of the chicks. They grew into an extremely awkward but very dear bobble-headed vulture phase that was precious! Below, Prima displays another “tell” of her gender: she tends to crouch instead of standing very proud and upright, especially in new situations.

And at last by around ten weeks my little vultures had grown into their first set of feathers. Here is young Prima (below, left) with her brother, enjoying a nice May afternoon outside with the other teenage chicks. Brother has already grown some of his copper coloring, and by this time the comb and wattle differences are very prominent. Prima would grow several more weeks until her head coppering would become noticeable.

And finally, just a week shy of five months old, Prima laid her first nice brown egg. It was a bit more speckled than the one from which she came, and it was about the size of a bantam egg. In the coming weeks the eggs will become larger and the color will even out.

And while the lovely poetic story of a hen from egg to egg is nice to share, I also have some comparative egg photos for those more scientific by nature. Here is Prima’s first egg compared to Dame Edna’s grown-up egg:

And another of Edna (top) and Prima (middle) eggs with a bantam egg (bottom) from Penny Pretty the bantam cochin:

Watching a tiny chick emerge from an egg - - or watching any creature being born - - is an awe-inspiring miracle to witness. Enjoying the privilege of caring for my little charges as they grow and mature has been a challenging, joyful, and humanizing adventure that is adding something to my life I had not anticipated. These little feathered friends provide me with great joy even as they provide food for our table on a daily basis. I would be hard-pressed to find a better or more useful pet for my suburban home.

Little Prima has grown from a tiny handful of fluff into a beautiful, copper-touched beauty with almond-shaped eyes right in front of us. I do not think I could ever lay my hands on another store carton of eggs, because now the story behind the egg is more important to me than ever before.

Beautiful prickly pear blossoms - - but watch those sharp spikes!

June is in full swing here in Middle Tennessee: as I drive through The Shire in the mornings, the landscape is awash in the kind of gorgeous, lush green that used to make my eyes hurt when I arrived on visits from dry, golden California years ago. The fields and sprawling yards are overflowing with flowers of every color, but in early to mid June the beautiful deep orange of our native Tiger lily dominates the color palette, accented with the delicate white, politely bobbing heads of Queen Anne’s Lace.

Delicate Queen Anne’s Lace

I have always loved the Tiger lily, and adding to its beauty is the plain fact that it’s a useful edible plant. Every part of this lily is edible, and you can find something of use in every season. The flowers can be picked clean of pistil and stamen, rinsed clean and eaten as they are or used as small wraps for other foods like fresh, cool tuna salad. Somewhere in my recipe collection are directions on using Tiger lily blooms to wrap a dish that was baked. The roots may be harvested in winter and eaten rather like potatoes or other tubers. For those interested in keeping land that will sustain you, the Tiger lily is a great choice—and it will naturally spread each year all by itself.

In a small corner of my yard sits an old bucket with a prickly pear cactus I dug from the yard to save our riding mower tires (and our feet!). This is another great Tennessee native plant that yields edible parts; the flat pads of the low-growing cactus may be peeled and prepared in much the same way as green peppers. My preference is to peel and chop them, sauté them lightly in a pan with a few veggies and incorporate them into a nice omelette as I used to have at a dusty old cafe in the dry California Salinas Valley many years ago.

Despite a late start this year, the vegetable garden has taken off. We already have more zucchini than we can possibly eat, and the crookneck squash is just starting to ripen. I imagine I’ll have to dredge up some creative ideas for preparing it this summer so we don’t get tired of it too quickly! The tomatoes will be late, but there looks to be plenty of fruit. We did not use the cages this year, so it remains to be seen whether the deer will take more than their fair share.

Young Louis XIV is growing bigger by the day - - and how about those lovely feathered feet?

My beautiful, rare booted bantam chicks are growing by the day. I have learned from experience now that self-hatched chicks are just friendlier than any I could buy from elsewhere. Having them imprinted on me—and handling them every day—makes for the sweetest, most trusting little chickens! The booted bantams will ride around on my shoulder, and my favorite little cockerel Louis XIV likes to just ride around with me all afternoon as I work in the yard. He rules from the throne of my shoulder, chirping away at all the other birds and issuing orders about his little kingdom. His father was quite a handsome fellow, so I expect great things from my little monarch. His namesake lived a long, productive life with plenty of female company, and I hope for the same for my Louis.

My young Australorp cockerel gives me a sideways glance as he struts on by

The first of my two black Australorp cockerels just went with his pullet to live at a lovely farmstead nearby. As much as I’d love to keep the last one (young Mick) as a young husband to my Dame Edna, I’m afraid that my suburban neighbors would not love him as much as I do—so off he will soon go to live on a farm in the country. I did not realize how hard it would be to sell off my chicks! I am so fond of them all, and I know each of them as individuals. This makes it quite difficult when the time comes for them to leave. This was the original plan—to gain the experience of hatching, to keep a few pullets for myself, and to sell the rest—but while moving along smoothly, the plan stings a bit. We’ll see how I feel about this next year.

Aunt Bea terrorizing half-blind Baby Mija: who knew short chickens could be so mischievous?

The rest of my girls are doing well. My three young hens are growing faster every day, and they spend their afternoons strutting around the yard like tall, sleek supermodels in a clique-ish huddle. Squatty little bantam cochin Aunt Bea still terrorizes my now-huge Baby Mija for some inexplicable reason. As little Bea breezes across the yard I can just see the look of horror on Mija’s poor, half-blind face; Bea seems to sense this, and she deliberately moves toward Mija just to get the chase going. The sight of a squatty, feather-footed bantam Cochin running across the yard after a full-grown chicken is something that must be seen to be appreciated; I really must get the video camera out one day and capture it.

Favorite, simple grilled summer supper

There is plenty of yard work to be done at this time of year so the place doesn’t start looking like a Heironymus Bosch painting; however, the extreme, unseasonable heat has made things slow going. Temperatures here have been in the mid to high 90s already, and nights are not much relief. By mid-afternoon on the weekends we are usually tapped out and ready to sit in the shade (or inside!) with a nice cool glass of Pinot Gris and just talk about yard work. RT will fire up the grill, and just to keep things simple we go to our old fall-back summer supper—steaks and fresh veggies, lightly salted and peppered and thrown right on the grill. Simple and no fuss.

One of the great early summer treasures here in the South are the sweet, delicious peaches. The real-deal peaches around here are only available for a few weeks to a month, and they are savored for the brief time they’re here. After our supper the other day, I whipped up one of my favorite peach desserts to enjoy out in the shade. I learned this recipe from a crazy pastry chef I used to know, and its delicious richness combined with the freshness of in-season fruit is absolutely spectacular.

Rich, sweet Amaretto Sabayon over fresh Georgia peaches: Heaven indeed

I started with fresh Georgia peaches, first washed and dried then carefully sliced into bowls. The Amaretto Sabayon was whipped up in a double boiler I made by using a stainless steel bowl over a pot of simmering water. We used fresh eggs from the hens, of course, and when the lightly foamy concoction was ready we spooned it over the peaches and sprinkled with some of our own freshly-picked blueberries. Perfect! I placed the “recipe” here on my website if you’d like to try for yourself.

Every season has so many beautiful things to savor, whether food, wine, good company, beloved animals, mysterious plants or any of the other million things I can think of that I so enjoy experiencing. What a treat to move through this world exploring it with all my senses! On warm June days like this, it feels like a (hot) playground custom-made for me.

Lovely Echinacea blooms in the patio garden

Does a chewed rose smell as sweet? You bet it does!

“These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.”

- Emerson, Self Reliance

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Spring 2009 in Jenotopia has been an unpredictable whirl of torrential downpours, office drama, dozens of chicks, busy family schedules and occasional chaos. Like the flooded earth outside, I have not found enough time for the quiet reflection needed to adequately absorb events and respond in a natural and meaningful manner.

We have nearly finished cleaning up the yard and gardens after weeks of heavy rain, and it is already clear that this gardening season will be very different from last year. Last year’s breathtaking cascade of roses has been replaced with thin, defoliated bushes and piles of brown-tipped, early-rotting blooms: those plants that escaped black spot and the Old-Testament-style host of insects had their blossoms spoiled by still more rain. Our vegetable garden was planted three weeks late, simply because the heavy rain made the ground like chocolate pudding - - too heavy for tilling and planting.

The chicken coops and runs were plagued by dangerous mold from all the rain and humidity, forcing daily cleaning with bleach and lots of shoveling. Even the brooder chicks felt the effects of the weather, being forced to stay indoors instead of playing outside in the health-giving sunshine in the afternoons. I had some initial trouble locating buyers for some of my older chicks, resulting in a bit more crowding than I would have liked. And most unfortunate of all, we had to put down two chicks for unrelated issues, one for severe deformities and one, tragically, for illness related to his digestive system.

My beautiful Skye - - tragically lost to us

Dear, sickly chick begs the question of why there is suffering among little ones

I write all this only to say that now that I have time to reflect on the season’s happenings, I find a general current of dissatisfaction underlying my perception of things. When I look around and see chewed roses and mucky gardens, sick pets and stressed families and piles of paperwork and a messy house, I realize I am comparing these things to an ideal I have in my head - - an ideal of perfection.

So what is perfection, this thing at the source of my unease? –And more importantly, can I have it surgically removed?

A Western philosopher could take the predictable route through Aristotle, through Thomas Aquinas and others who follow and interpret the concept of perfection through religious lenses as it relates to mankind and his environment - - and his God. Mathematicians, chemists and those of the scientific ilk may take refuge in quantifications of perfection that may be calculated or measured. Perfection in art further complicates the philosophical picture, now elevating the question to throbbing Jenotopia headache status.

I will reserve the headache-inducing philosophical arguments for my unfortunate family and nearby friends, then, and suffice with this: I finally realized I have perpetuated my own sense of unease and dissatisfaction by maintaining a personal idea of perfection that is flawless, spotless, glossy, improbable, and not in keeping with the glorious, overgrown chaos of reality in which I live. In my mind’s eye I saw velvety, flawless roses in a beautifully-manicured garden; weather that responded to my every whim; customers who called when I wanted them to and purchased my birds without question; a house that magically maintained itself; and a family that constantly read my mind and did whatever I wished. By maintaining this exercise in fantasy, my eye became trained to miss the unscrubbed uniqueness and beauty that is all around me!

Remember those chewed roses I mentioned? They sufficed quite well for the bees, and in the mornings and evenings their heavenly perfume still fills the air when I am out in the yard.

The soppy, late vegetable garden? We tilled and planted it just fine once the rain ended, and we now have lovely brown rows of earth with all sorts of vegetables peeping out and blooming. The soil texture is now the best it has ever been.

New rows of plants and sleeping seeds: late but still viable

The moldy, wet chicken coops? They are drying out, and the hens come out and flap their wings in hearty satisfaction when they see the morning sun rising behind the maple trees.

The overcrowded chicks? My handsome, noisy young roosters have all been sold off to live with their own harems of lovely ladies, and I have three beautiful young pullets growing into very fine laying hens. Fall in Jenotopia will be chock-full of blue and dark brown eggs!

Nick struts around . . . in the kitchen??

We miss you already, Big Rosie

Farewell, Apollo and Daphne

Pretty young pullets

And my family? They are as loving as ever, and those who need to are stepping in to support those in need. The children are growing into beautiful adults, we adults are learning what is important in life, and we are all growing wiser and more appreciative of each other.

And how about that job? Back at the office my paperwork ebbs and flows but never really goes away, but as I watch friends and acquaintances struggle with layoffs and life changes while I enjoy abundance, I realize just how fortunate I am to remain insulated against many of the changes going on in the world around me. I have goals and dreams for the future path of my life - - but while out in the garden on a sunny Saturday morning snipping plants and enjoying the sounds of the girls clucking away, I am filled with the silent knowledge that in its own funny way my life is complete right now - - in all its unvacuumed, bug-chewed, feather-strewn glory.

What is perfection, then? I won’t presume to argue with the great philosophers or mathematicians or spiritual leaders, but for me perfection is that which is sufficient unto itself. It lacks nothing: it is harmonious, a state of completeness. It is not a static, unchanging ideal: it reflects the beauty and power of the objects and individuals I encounter - - all of whom are complete, yet ever-unfolding into their unique potential.

I am looking forward to another perfect summer.