March pear blossoms

Vieni vieni candida
vien vermiglia
tu del mondo sei maraviglia
tu nemica d’amare noie
da ad anima delle gioie
messaggiera per primeravera
tu sei dell’anno la giovinezza
tu del mondo sei la vaghezza.

Translation:
Come [flowers and blossoms],
come white, come vermilion.
You are a marvel for the world
and the nemesis of all things dreary.
Give joy to the soul
through your message of spring.
You are the youth of the year
and the beauty of the world.

– Giuseppino (Italian, ca. 1600)

While it is still getting down near freezing on some nights, we are enjoying some glorious spring days here in Middle Tennessee. The warm sunny afternoons signaled the sleeping plants, who are yawning and stretching toward the sunlight. The grass has its first flush of green, daffodils cover the hillsides near old farm houses in the Shire, and when I stumble outside in the pre-dawn darkness to feed the hens, the sky is filled with the sound of birds. –Not just songbirds, mind you: my little banty hens sing to me as well, although their “song” sounds more like a group of angry jays scolding me.

The little ladies are doing well, and I believe all four of the gold-necked d’Uccles are laying now. There is a bit of hen drama going on in the coops, however, as the onset of spring has signaled two of my bantam cochins to go broody.

When a hen decides to “go broody,” she will sit for weeks on a nest in a trancelike state. She will have pulled the soft down feathers from her breast area to line her nest and expose the eggs to the warmth of her skin. She may leave the nest very briefly for food, water and a good stretch, but a good broody hen will return to her responsibility quickly. To the nest she’ll return and sit, flattened and growling like an angry pancake, pecking anyone who dares disturb her precious eggs.

Both Lucy Liu and Aunt Bea have gone broody (yes, Aunt Bea is still here, but that’s another story). Luckily for them I happened to have some fertile bantam cochin eggs from a contact in North Carolina, and both hens hatched out some adorable little chicks. Unluckily for me, I removed the chicks to stay with their brothers and sisters in a brooder, and both hens are now still broody.

Angry pancake: Lucy Liu awaits egg hatching

I seem to be on a trajectory winding ever closer to Ultimate Cuteness: first the bantam hens, then two batches of standard-size chicks, and now a batch of what may be the cutest chicks ever: bantam cochin frizzles. These chicks are bantam sized cochins, with full, round tail feathering and feathered feet. As an added bonus, though, over half have the genetic trait of “frizzling,” meaning their feathers curl. When they are grown they will look like adorable one-pound little feather balls. Be still, my heart!

At one week of age I can already tell which ones express the frizzle gene. Below on the left is a “splash” chick, who will be white with splashes of grey. Her feathers will be straight. On the right is a blue (or possibly lemon blue) chick who will be frizzled. Even his tiny foot feathers are curled!

Bantam frizzle cochins, one straight-feathered and one with frizzle gene

In between caring for chicks and hens, I am also beginning my garden preparations for the year. I spent yesterday planting herbs and roses around the banty playhouse, and I hope to begin planting vegetable seedlings indoors today - - although those who know me and my superstitions also know I will not be ready to announce my 2009 plantings until we are fully past the “jinx” stage. We will keep the same size plot we used last year, though, with some changes to the lineup to get more of the veggies we want.

As I type this I am looking out the window realizing we are blessed with another gorgeous spring day - - and I am indoors! I am going outside to enjoy the lovely weather, and I wish you all a Sunday full of sunshine and new leaves poking through the warm soil.

Thaney bored with photo session

.

For a cute video of broody hens, visit Rooster Red’s YouTube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7-HY5OV5CA .

To read about the New World Renaissance Band’s album featuring the quote opening this post, visit http://cdbaby.com/cd/tnwrband1 .

To learn more about Nightwatch Recording, a wonderful record label that supports medieval and Renaissance artists, visit http://www.nightwatchrecording.com/ .

RT holding tiny Black Copper Marans chick

By this time of year it seems that spring will never come to Middle Tennessee. The landscape is an endless wash of grey, and every tease of warmth is quickly followed by chill winds and bleak winter rain. We even had snow again last weekend, brought along on an icy northern cloud that whipped through the state in a matter of hours and left one to ten inches of white in its wake. Now, the southern winter weather is by no means a competitor for the Buffalo-Rochester winters of my early childhood, but the cold grey days add up for all of us and make us wonder when spring will begin creeping over the landscape to bring us some green relief.

All is not lifeless and asleep, though: all across the countryside tiny new lives are arriving, harbingers of the coming season. In mid-February I made my third visit to Bonnie Blue Farm to witness kidding season in all its glory. The weather made its usual ups and downs during my stay, but nothing stopped the lovely ladies from their business of bringing tiny newborn kids to the farm.

Kidding season is a busy time for a working goat dairy. Along with the daily tasks of milking, feeding and caring for fifty goats; creating delicious, fresh cheeses and getting them to market comes the added responsibility of tending to new mothers and their young. But before the kidding comes the waiting . . .

Sugar waits for her goat kids to be born

Goat does do not always cooperate with their scheduled due dates. They also do not coordinate kidding times with other farm tasks. This means plenty of watching and waiting, and just when you think things are going to quiet down - -

“Mind if I nibble on your ear?” –Healthy young Nubian twins

Surprise!

I was fortunate to witness the births of two sets of beautiful Nubian goat twins, each with one buckling and one doeling. Luckily, both births went quickly and uneventfully. As any farmer can tell you, though, things do not always go smoothly, and farming with animals has its share of tragedies. Like Life itself, though, Bonnie Blue Farm moves through the beauty and tragedy of kidding season in its own mysterious rhythm, and even suffering and death have their time and season.

Young Saanen doelings in motion

The Jenotopia household has been full of excitement as well: we have tiny chicks hatching in new incubators, and we now have two brooder cages of babies basking and playing under heat lamps. The little fellow in the top picture of this post came into the world on February 26 with a tiny peck from inside his dark brown egg:

Marans chick pipping, February 26

As chickens approach Day 21 of their incubation, they will move into hatching position facing the large end of the egg. During this time they pierce the air cell at the end of the egg, and you can begin to hear them peeping from inside the egg! Next comes the “pip”—the chick makes a sharp peck in the shell itself and samples outside air for the first time. Usually the chick rests for several hours while it converts to pulmonary respiration and finishes absorbing the last of the yolk sac.

When it is ready, the chick will then start “zipping” the shell by making a line of pecks at beak level, turning inside the shell and continuing the line until it can pop the bottom of the shell open in a heroic effort that exhausts all its energy.

Tiny newborn Marans chick lies exhausted after hatching

The tired, wet chick will rest again and then begin to crawl around and learn to use its tiny muscles. A few more short hours will find a fluffed chick wobbling around looking for its siblings!

Our new chicks have already grown quickly, with the first batch of Ameraucana chicks over three times the size of its week-younger French Marans neighbors.

Lovely group of buff Ameraucana chicks at two days, February 21

The chicks will begin growing feathers on their tiny wings first:

Tiny wing feathers already beginning to grow at four days of age

And in another week we may be able to start telling the difference between the pullets and cockerels (girls and boys). The Ameraucana females will lay blue-tinted eggs when they are all grown up, about five months of age or so. Whether they are male or female, though, they are sure to be beautiful!

.

I have seen forty spring seasons come and go, and no matter how well I think I understand the ebb and flow of Life I continue to be astonished by it. The act of witnessing the miracle of newborns entering this world still renders me a little child – tongue-tied, helpless, awestruck at the precious fragility and amazing resilience of tiny lives taking their places in the Great Circle. I am humbled by the Miracle whose spark I still cannot explain, though I have read hundreds of thousands of pages of science and math and philosophy and religion.

I enjoy my great privilege of welcoming these little ones into the remains of another Tennessee winter, and I know that very soon now the daffodils will unfold in the front yard, and the first tinge of green will creep across the landscape. The rest of the migratory birds will return to build nests, and the night air will be filled with the sound of frogs at the creek. The chicks and kid goats will scamper and play and grow, warm summer will be here before I know it, and that sweet rhythm of Life will roll on in its beauty and mystery while I hang on, childlike, and enjoy the ride.

.

What? . . .

If you would like to know more about where I purchased my Ameraucana eggs, please visit talented breeder and regional Ameraucana Breeder Club Director Jean Ribbeck at http://home.sprynet.com/~rribbeck/ .

If you would like to read more about chickens, have questions about poultry health, want to find other poultry enthusiasts, or wish to find rare or unusual birds for sale, I highly recommend the wonderful Backyard Chickens Forum, http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/index.php .

If you are in Tennessee and would like to find out where to find award-winning Bonnie Blue Farm cheeses – or perhaps even visit the farm and stay in Gayle and Jim’s lovely guest cabin, visit http://www.bonniebluefarm.com/ .

Danger from the sky threatens the tiny residents of Oz

It was inevitable.

The first day I walked out to the new Banty Playhouse and saw a row of tiny chickens waiting for me on the front porch, that song from the Wizard of Oz sprang to mind: “We represent the Lollipop Guild . . .“. Not the Lullabye League, mind you; these little chickens may be ladies, but lullabye certainly does not apply to them.

The Lollipop Guild: tough and incredibly cute, all in one pint-sized package

No, the little gents with tough faces and pug noses shuffling along are the ones I think of when I see my little feather-footed chickens who don’t really know they’re small.

Naughty munchkins all in a row . . . plotting how to take over Oz ~ er, Jenotopia

The mini chickens are all settled into their playhouse, so Hen Mama has a bit more time to visit with them and enjoy their antics. I have had people ask me, “Why bantams?” Standard-sized chickens are surely sufficient for the average egg-eating chicken owner, and they are plenty entertaining. Then there is the issue of cracking two to three bantam eggs for every standard one in recipes. Why, then, should I bother keeping smaller birds?

Well good golly Miss Molly, just take a look at this face:

Tempting the wild beast with treats

Bantam chickens eat less than standard-sized birds, and they are easier to keep clean than standards. Their size makes them somewhat easier for children to handle. More importantly, though, bantam chickens are just plain adorable. They move faster than standard-sized birds, they tend to be more active than standards, they come in hundreds of shapes and colors, and their little personalities are sweet, curious, friendly and precocious. Wading into a flock of these bouncing, peeping little munchkins is gooood stuff after a long week at work.

All the gals currently in the Banty Playhouse are feather-footed breeds. Besides having an entire flock with cute, fuzzy feet, the more practical side of the coin is that keeping birds with somewhat similar features helps prevent them from picking at whatever is “different” from the other kids.

Most of the girls are still pullets, meaning they are not yet old enough to lay eggs. Egg-laying usually comes between four and six months of age, depending on breed, time of year they were hatched, and other factors. The four gold-necked Belgian d’Uccles are pullets, but as they are approaching egg-laying age their combs are getting larger and redder. One is even starting to “pose” when I speak to her or pet her, which tells me she may be very close to lay ~ perhaps even in the next week or two.

Gold-necked Belgian d’Uccles in the foreground, and bantam Chinese cochin in the back

Penny Pretty is not quite so close to laying, and she is also going through a bit of a molt (seasonal feather loss) ~ so her face and comb are lighter pink:

Penny Pretty, a bantam Chinese cochin pullet

Even though I am cleaning up lots of fuzzy grey feathers from the coop floor, Penny is still fluffy and huggable. Unfortunately, she does not like to be hugged. She does like to sit with you ~ or on you ~ and enjoy your company, though. Just no squeezing, please.

My secret love: fluffy cochin bottoms

.

Sharing a snack: Lucy Liu and two Gangstas

In the picture directly above, you can see two of the gold-necked pullets and Lucy Liu, my black bantam Chinese cochin. Lucy is already laying, so her little curled comb should appear red ~ but as she is my nosy girl, her face and comb are usually covered in muck and food crumbs. Lucy is also a Ninja chicken, and at dinner time I have to be very careful to hang on to the feed cup. When I walk in the coop, a sudden black blur flies through the air and Ninja-kicks the cup out of my hand. She is also known to grab snack bags and run off with her stolen goods ~ and if you ever see a cochin run with those fuzzy slippers, you enter a whole new dimension of cuteness.

Lucy Liu the Ninja chicken: beware the flying kick

Now, this munchkinlike cuteness is all well and good, but as munchkins know, Oz is not without its dangers. February is just unfolding, and January had its share of hard weather. Those animals who do not have a Hen Mama to feed them are finding food scarce, and those who prefer meat are wandering ever-closer to Munchkinland for a look.

A distant speck in the sky . . .

. . . quickly emerges as a beautiful and fierce predator looking for lunch.

Lord Red-tail has visited several times this winter, usually around mid-day. He circles and hovers, possibly wondering what birds are doing living in such fine, color-coordinated quarters. Dame Edna is often the one to call attention to his visits, dependably sounding the alarm and ducking for cover if the larger girls are free ranging in the yard.

This winter we also have a juvenile Cooper’s hawk who does not approach from high in the air. He watches from the trees or flies lower between the pines to sneak a peek at the ladies. He is still young, though, and he always gives away his position with his distinctive peeps.

The sky hunters don’t just appear in the daytime: just the other night RT surprised an owl taking a mockingbird 20 feet from the Banty Playhouse. I am sure the girls heard the commotion ~ and as I have heard Owl calling at night in all seasons, I know he hunts here regularly.

As chicken keepers know, these little birds are relatively defenseless against most predators. Stories of flock loss through predation are very, very common. Our answer is shoring up security through strong coop walls, reinforced vent and window openings, predator-proof fencing, and defense against digging intrusions. Keeping a sharp eye out for entry attempts is also a good way to stop problems before they start. A few simple precautions like this help protect my munchkins from sky-borne dangers (we have water buckets for witches, too) ~ so I have more time to enjoy my little friends and their extra-large cuteness.

.

Ah, Munchkinland . . . I can hear it from my kitchen window.

A House of Leaves: beautiful twisted cedar branches in a canopy overhead

Gwell yw ystafell a dyf.

O daw meinwar fy nghariad
I dŷ dail a wnaeth Duw Dad,
Dyhuddiant fydd y gwŷdd gwiw,
Dihuddygl o dŷ heddiw.
Nid gwaeth gorwedd dan gronglwyd,
Nid gwaeth deiliadaeth Duw lwyd.

~ Dafydd ap Gwilym, 14th c.

The finest house, says 14th century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, is soiled with soot. Much better it is to be in a living cathedral of birch trees, sunlight and nightingales ~ in a house of leaves.

The woods behind BD and Miss Pat’s house are a wonderful and mysterious place ~ a place just ripe for something strange and fantastic to happen. Mixed deciduous and evergreen trees provide a canopy over smaller redbud, young oak and knots of honeysuckle; fern-laced paths lead to dry creek washes or small, moss-covered cedar glades.

Tangle of cedar and hackberry

Several years ago during the first winter after I arrived back in Tennessee, my young niece and nephew went walking with me along the forest paths. Shortly before the small, open wash where an old, lightning-damaged cedar stood, they discovered a mysterious little dwelling: beneath the gnarled, moss-covered branches of an enormous old cedar tree was a small hut fringed in cedar branches. A small doorway through grey lichen-covered hackberry branches led to a round room with a softly-swept dirt floor. Tiny twigs, moss and leaves filled the chinks in the branch walls, and cedar logs provided small seats. The children were delighted to find “the forest house,” and they wondered aloud about who might have built it.

After we played in the forest house for awhile, my niece crouched in the clearing and quietly considered the newly-discovered place. “We should give the house a name,” she said at last. “How about Old Father?” My nephew nodded, and I told her the name was well-chosen, and that it was a fine thing for a house to have a name.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon building a small fire pit in the clearing near the forest house and where we roasted imaginary hot dogs, traced the map-like patterns of worm-carved logs, played settlers and Indians (fierce battle, the Indians won), learned how to tell direction by the position of the sun, wrote our names on the Lightning Tree with old pieces of charred wood, made bird calls to find each other on the trails, and we even tracked and hunted an “elk” with improvised spears. I was touched by the way my four-year-old nephew tripped his way through the woods; his mind was going in a million directions at once, and it was generally not going in the same direction as his feet! He ran and twirled in circles down the wide path, shouting, “Look, Auntie Jen, the moon is following me! No matter which way I go, it’s following me!” I laughed to remember the visual trick of distance for which we as adults are so used to accommodating. To him, no matter which way he ran the White Face was peeking at him through the trees, matching his every move.

Suddenly a whole flock of tiny sparrows flew through the clearing like a soft breath and landed in the branches of the Old Father cedar tree. There they sat for several minutes, chirping softly and watching us with tiny beaded eyes. My niece watched them quietly from inside the forest house, and my nephew even paused from his twirling. After a few moments my niece declared that this must be a good sign for the new forest house, and I agreed.

Before we returned to civilization, I took a comb from my hair and left it at the entrance of the forest house as a token to the mysterious residents. I told the children that if there was something left in its place, it was a time-honored sign that we were free to use the dwelling. In the weeks ~ and years ~ that followed, the children have found many tokens there from the forest people, and they always leave some small gift in return. Feathers, small beads or coins, and strange rocks and shells are collected from the flat rock at the house’s entrance in return for gifts of food, mirrors and combs, or even treasured toys they think the forest people might enjoy.

One of the mysterious Forest House scrolls

As mysterious as the forest house was, though, perhaps even more mysterious were the scrolls of bark the children found on some paths nearby. Rows of silver runes spelled out strange messages, and after some investigation it was discovered that RT possessed a translation key for these Elder Futhark runes. My niece and nephew set about with the translations and finally discovered the names of the residents of the forest house: Cirdan the Bowman and Vanimelde the Fair. They also found other teaching rhymes about the animals in the forest, and it appears that Tolkien was also fortunate to have forest people living near him.

The years of enjoyment the children and I have had in those woods will remain in my mind always, and hopefully in theirs as well. When I was a child I learned that no matter what happens in the regular world, when we go into the forest we return to a place of beauty and mystery and the quiet rhythm of peace, a place where the world is much older and wiser ~ and in the old world, anything is still possible.

Moss-covered cedar log at the woods’ edge: things are always more interesting when you take a closer look

.
To learn more about the great Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, visit a website where translations of his work are still going on: http://www.dafyddapgwilym.net/

.
To learn more about Futhark runes, you might just visit the topic on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rune.

You might also visit http://www.sunnyway.com/runes/meanings.html for a basic description of the meanings of the Elder Futhark runes.

For a description of how the rune barks were made . . . you will have to find the forest people and ask them yourself.

.

Garam masala-crusted chicken with basmati rice

The time right after the holidays is a time ripe with promise: a time for me to reflect on what worked for me in the old year and what didn’t, and a time to think about where I am going and what I want to accomplish in the months to come. The dark of the year is also a perfect time to open some space in my life for different patterns of thinking and acting and being, and one of the most powerful ways I have found to help this process along is to change my routine ~ to spice things up a little. This lets my mind walk a little different path than its worn old wagon trail, and I never cease to be amazed by the surprises that emerge when I simply step out of the same old habits.

While it’s too early yet to see just what surprises lie in store for me in 2009, I am already stepping out of old habits just a bit to get the ball rolling. Instead of staying at home yesterday doing the housework I knew I should get done before I head back to the ol’ day job next week, I took Miss Pat’s invitation to go to lunch in town at a relatively new Ethiopian restaurant. The food was delicious, and our host was just the most delightful gentleman. I am always most impressed with those brave souls who, like my ancestors, risked a great deal by starting a new life in a foreign country. I am even more impressed by those who manage to navigate the business license and health department red tape to open a business here!

In any case, our lunch inspired me to start thinking about spices and ingredients I have woefully not used in years ~ and these thoughts led us to visit an international market near the restaurant so I could pick up a few goodies. The garam masala struck my fancy, and I figured this might be the seed of something delicious this weekend. I love the warm, sweet spiciness of garam masala, and it’s one of those delicious spice mixtures I really should use more often. The combination varies a great deal depending on where you are and where you purchase it (or what your personal preferences are if you mix your own), but the mixture generally includes some arrangement of coriander, cumin, ground ginger, red chili, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaf, nutmeg, and perhaps other spices. When heat is applied to the mixture through cooking, the beautiful perfume and flavor of the spices is released and the effect is heavenly.

While recipes featuring garam masala can often include thickened sauces, I decided to start with a simple garam masala-crusted chicken. While my imagined meal was to be cooked over an open flame, we ended up using the oven since the weather here is not cooperating today. This morning RT split two small (3.5- to 4-pound) chickens in half, and we rubbed the chicken down with the garam masala-oil paste and set the chicken in a pan in the refrigerator to marinate for a few hours.

Pretty ladies relax with their herbal body masques ~

When we couldn’t wait any longer, we cooked the birds until the outside was good and crispy. I dug out the long-unused rice cooker and whipped up some fluffy, delicate basmati rice ~ and I steamed some soft, fresh flatbread from the market as well. A nice cucumber and tomato salad with plain yogurt is a cool foil for the warmth of the spiced chicken, and you could also fold the flatbread over and enjoy the whole thing as a wrap for lunch the next day. While I added some fresh-ground spices to the garam masala to my own taste, you may find the basic recipe for this garam masala-crusted chicken here on my main website.

The sky was Wuthering Heights-dreary today, but we happily stayed inside and enjoyed our warm crusty chicken with its pungent spiciness. While I might have tried a Grenache with this chicken if I had planned ahead, I found that a nice 2006 Chianti Classico stood up beautifully to the warmth of the spice without losing a bit of its sour cherry fruit or structure. I love it when a new path works out!

.
You may find a delicious family-recipe garam masala from my very favorite spice merchant here:

http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/p-penzeysgarammasala.html

.