Ten Mile Farm

Sometimes I wish I had a digital camera built in to my (eye)glasses so I would always be ready to capture a Kodak moment when it catches me by surprise. I didn’t have my camera or even my phone (which has a pretty decent camera built in) handy for something that happened yesterday, so I’ll just have to try to paint a word picture.

Our chickens are free-range, so they wander all around the yard, across the deck, and even onto the porch. They sometimes come right up to the back door and look inside Tim’s office, as though checking to see if we might let them inside. (We don’t!)

I don’t mind hosing everything down to wash off their poop, because thanks to their grazing habits, we have had very few annoying bugs this year. I’ve probably seen less than a dozen mosquitoes this whole year, and I can’t remember seeing a single cricket. Our chickens provide great natural, organic pest control, and it costs less to feed them than it was costing to pay for the not-so-natural, probably toxic chemical pest control that we had for a few years before we added chickens to our menagerie.

Yesterday, our hens upped their game, taking their pest control efforts to a whole new level. I happened to walk out onto the back porch at the exact moment one of our Plymouth Barred Rocks picked up a wiggling little snake! I really don’t like snakes at all, and the idea of a snake hatching her eggs that close to the house is a bit unnerving for me. I didn’t get close enough to identify this snake definitively, but based on past experience, my guess is it was a baby Texas rat snake. It was about as big around as one of my fingers, and was probably about 8 inches long – small as snakes go, but it was going to be a REALLY big meal for Bertha!

She found the cold-blooded little reptile in a flower bed next to the garage, where all the hens like to scratch for bugs and tender roots and shoots.  As soon as Bertha picked the snake up, several other hens tried to take him away from her – they wanted their share of that tasty meal, but Bertha was in no mood to share.  I watched for a couple of minutes as she ran around, trying to find a place where she could enjoy her prize meal alone, but the other girls were not going to give up too easily.  Eventually, Bertha ran out of my line of sight, so I didn’t see the final disposition of that little snake.  But I’m certain he made at least ONE hen happy.

Our chickens free-range across our property, scratching for bugs and worms and other tasty treats.  This photo was taken in the barnyard on a day when I DID have my camera handy.

In the past, there have been a couple of times when I was moving a stack of bricks and uncovered a nest of baby rat snakes. On those occasions, I used a stick to pick up each little snake and toss him to the chickens.  But this is the first time that I’ve been aware of the chickens finding a nest on their own.   It may not be the first time it has happened, but it’s the first time I was a witness.  Given my intense dislike of snakes, this episode gave me great satisfaction, even if I didn’t have my camera to capture this Kodak moment.

Now if you’re like my sister and you’re thinking that I should appreciate the Texas rat snake and the role he plays in keeping down the rodent population, let me just say this – in my world, the only good snake is a dead snake.  Within the first few weeks of raising our first batch of baby chicks, I found a Texas rat snake in the hen house, his belly engorged with what was clearly one of my chicks.  I killed that vile critter with my .38 revolver and felt not the least bit of remorse.

Once our hens reached laying age, one or more rat snakes stole eggs from the nesting boxes, in which I had put ceramic eggs as a snake deterrent.  Several of those ceramic eggs disappeared, and I could only hope that meant we were reducing the population of snakes one by one. But we had no evidence until recently.

Our new next door neighbor called us one day and invited us over to retrieve something they thought we would want to see.  It was a dead, dessicated snake they had found near our common fence line, still almost completely intact, with one of our ceramic eggs bursting through its belly.

You can imagine my delight! Our ceramic eggs were working and here was proof. Again, my sister was the voice of dissent, saying how the snake must have suffered a terrible, painful, slow death, either starving to death or perhaps suffocating if the ceramic egg interfered with its breathing.  Maybe it says something not so great about my character that I was not bothered by this in any way.  I was a lot more bothered to think about how it must have been an equally terrible death for my little chick who was swallowed whole by a rat snake back in 2009.  Paybacks are hell sometimes.

For now, if we were keeping score, I think our chickens would be ahead of the snakes, and I hope it stays that way.  I was thrilled to see Bertha catch a baby rat snake, and hope the other hens follow her example.  Every chance they get.

Tim and I are looking forward to a new adventure on Saturday – we’re going to an introductory class at the Round Rock Honey Beekeeping Academy.  We see bees all over our place and have been wondering whether we could sustain a hive or two.  Bees love our meadow every spring – first the bluebonnets and then the other wildflowers that bloom a little later.  Bees also buzz around our Texas sage when it blooms, the trumpet vine that blooms in summer and spreads for probably 50′ along one of our fence lines, the boneset (eupatorium perfoliatum) that springs up in so many places whether we want it there or not, and other flowers and flowering herbs in our garden.

We don’t know what kind of bees are around here, but we do know that they do a fine job of pollinating things for us.  We don’t want to disrupt the beneficial activity that’s already established here, but we would surely like to add a hive or two to see if we could get some honey.  So with luck, we’ll learn enough on Saturday to decide whether it’s worth the investment in equipment to put out a hive.  It would be great if we could attract honey bees that are already in our neighborhood, but if not, perhaps we can purchase some bees that are suited to this area.  I’ll try to remember to post an update after we’ve been to class.

Earlier this year, Tim found a recipe online for Crème Brûlée, a decadent dessert that we enjoy from time to time when we’re lucky enough to find it on the menu.  He prepared it once or twice exactly according to the recipe, and it was delicious!  Then one evening when Tim was enjoying a pint of Guinness at Trinity Hall  (his favorite Irish pub in DALLAS; he has favorite pubs in MANY places), he asked the bartender (also a chef) about substituting goat milk for heavy cream.  The answer – yes, you can do it, just add more eggs.  So Tim experimented to get the measurements just right – I was very happy to be the guinea pig for those experiments, tasting and comparing each concoction.

Here’s a photo of one evening’s dessert.  Believe me when I tell you that the photo simply doesn’t do justice to the amazing flavor of the contents of those two little ramekins!

So here’s the recipe that Tim now uses:

Ten Mile Farm’s “Crème Brûlée au Lait de Chèvre”

Ingredients

12 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
3 cups goat milk
3 tsp. vanilla bean paste, or vanilla extract

Preparation

Mix egg yolks and sugar with wire whisk.
Add milk, slowly and gently so as not to froth.
Add vanilla and gently mix.
Pour into ramekins.
Place ramekins into large baking dish and fill dish with hot water until it reaches halfway up the ramekins. This helps the custard to bake evenly.
Bake at 325 for 45 minutes to an hour. Custard is done when knife inserted comes out almost clean.
Cool.
When ready to eat, sprinkle top with a little sugar and place under broiler until the sugar carmelizes.
Pig out.

Tim has made this dessert when we’ve had guests, and they all agree that it’s divine! My mother had never tasted Crème Brûlée and since she’s not really a big fan of any kind of pudding or custard, and since she rarely drinks milk, I wasn’t sure whether she would like it.  She didn’t.  She LOVED it!  I think you will too.  If you try this recipe, please let us know what you think.

It’s hard to believe that we’ve already reached the time of year when we dry off our does and pair them up with bucks for breeding.  A lot of goat breeders continue to milk their does for the first few months of pregnancy, but we prefer to dry ours off before breeding, mainly because with a buck in the pen, it can be a little more difficult to get does in and out one at a time for milking.  So once we run out of the fresh goat milk currently sitting in our fridge, we’ll be buying our milk from Braum’s until the does freshen against next spring. I don’t mind the switch, but Tim really misses having fresh goat milk every day.

Tim will miss getting fresh milk every day from Cookie and our other does!

Earlier this week, I moved goats around to achieve the breeding pairs that I want for this go-round.  Our French Alpine doe Izzy and one of our Nigerian Dwarf does Peaches are now in the pen with Nigerian Dwarf buck Billy Bob.  He’s a ruggedly handsome creature who has sired 9 kids (5 doelings and 4 bucklings) in the past few years. The last time he was paired with Peaches, they produced Cookie, who grew into (and remains) one of our favorite does.  Izzy will present more of a challenge to Billy Bob, and I’m hoping that he’s able to overcome the size difference.  Before I moved her into his pen, Izzy was showing signs of being in estrus – wagging her tail and making little love calls to Billy Bob through the fence.  So if she’s really interested in breeding, she will most likely figure out a way to accommodate Billy Bob’s short stature.  (Well, short only in comparison to her.)

With those magnificent horns, ZZ Top-worthy beard, and beautiful coloring, Billy Bob is a sight to behold!

Champ should have an easier time of it, as he is paired with Elsie and Cookie, both of whom are just a little smaller than the average Nigerian Dwarf senior doe.  I’m hoping this is the year that Champ improves his record, as so far, he has sired twice as many bucklings as doelings.  As those of you who raise goats know, doelings are almost always easier to sell, and they bring a higher price.  Fortunately, Champ’s kids almost always inherit his cornflower blue eyes, so even the little boys can melt your heart and convince you to take them home with you.  Still, all things considered, I’m hoping for more doelings this year.

The last time Cookie was paired with Champ, they produced this beautiful little doeling, Cookie Monster.

Last on the list will be Faith.  She’s just 9 months old, so I’ll wait until January to put Harley in the pen with her.  This is the little pair we bought this past spring specifically to start raising a line of Nigerians that are registerable.  Strictly speaking, they’re old enough to breed now, but I prefer to wait until the doe is at least a year old to be sure she’s mature enough to make a good mom.

So with no milking to do for the next few months, it’s a mostly a matter of feeding all the goats and keeping them sheltered once winter gets here.  There are a few other preparations to make, but since I don’t have to spend time milking every day, I can use that time to get ready for winter and for next year’s kidding.  It seems distant now, but cold weather will set in eventually.  Before then, I need to give the barn a fresh coat of paint and whitewash the inside of all the stalls.  I found a recipe for an old-fashioned whitewash made with hydrated lime, salt, and milk, so that’s what I’ll be trying.  When I get to that project, I’ll be sure to post the recipe along with some photos.  For now, it’s time to sign off and go feed before it gets dark.

Kidding season this past March brought us 8 healthy Nigerian Dwarf kids, and as we do every year, we put them all on the market for sale to new homes where they could be loved and pampered.  This little guy is Dread Pirate Robert, a flashy buckling who was the first one to be reserved for purchase.  That deal fell through, so we listed him for sale on CraigsList.  Other than being just a kid, Pirate looks just like the kind of goat that Norma was looking for to breed with her 6 does.  She called to ask me if I had any adult bucks; she was especially interested in one with blue eyes, and she needed one on the small side, since her does are small.  Turns out, I had the perfect buck for her – Captain Jack Sparrow, who is a half-brother to Dread Pirate (same dam, different sire).

Captain Jack Sparrow is an extremely handsome blue-eyed buck who was born here on April 6, 2009.  Even though both his dam (Snow White) and his sire (Champ) are solid white, Captain Jack is full of color – very flashy even by Nigerian Dwarf standards, and this is a breed known for its flashy coloring.  I had not planned to sell this handsome guy, and have been happy with the results of his first two seasons of breeding.  In 2010, I bred Captain Jack with Alice Blue and she produced blue-eyed twin doelings, then in 2011 I bred him with Alice again and also with Cookie.  Both does produced blue-eyed twins, one doeling and one buckling in each pair.  But I thought that Captain Jack would be much happier at Norma’s farm, where he would be the only buck with six does to keep him happy.  Here, Captain Jack was just one buck among several, and because he’s related to several of our goats, he could be allowed to breed with only one or two unrelated does each year.  So as much as it pained my heart to do so, I decided to sell Captain Jack.  Norma and her family came to pick him up on September 3rd, and even though it has only been a month, I miss seeing him every day.  But I’m convinced this was the best move for him.  I hope that early next year, Norma’s six does will be delivering lots of beautiful, healthy kids thanks to Captain Jack’s efforts. And if I’m lucky, maybe Norma’s daughter-in-law Anna will post some photos on our Facebook page.

By the way, Dread Pirate Robert is still available for re-homing with a family who needs a friendly young buckling.  He was born here on March 1, 2011.  At 7 months, he’s still a bit small to breed successfully with an adult doe, but he’ll get there soon enough.  For now, he’s mostly a spoiled baby who has no trouble getting his share of feed and hay even though he’s much smaller than the adult bucks with whom he shares a pen.  Pirate’s belly is fat as a puppy who hasn’t been weaned yet, so there’s no doubt he can hold his own in a contest with the big boys.  If you’re looking for a handsome herd sire to bring some color into your herd, you can’t go wrong with this little guy.  If you’re interested, call Lynnette at 214-616-6961.

It’s hard to believe that I haven’t made time to post anything here since FEBRUARY! In my last post, I was wondering whether the ice would ever melt.  For much of the past four months, I’ve been wondering (1) whether it would ever rain again, and (2) whether we would ever see an end to the 100+ degree days.  Clearly, this has been a year of extremes when it comes to our weather.  As it turns out, we broke records this year, both for the cold weather in the early part of the year AND for the extreme heat and drought in the summer and early days of fall.  We actually had a temperature of 101 this past week, the last week of September, when temperatures would normally be almost 20 degrees cooler.

Since my last post, much has happened BESIDES crazy weather.  In March, our Nigerian Dwarf does delivered 4 sets of healthy, beautiful twins, and we bought our first registered kids – a flashy black and white doeling named Faith and a handsome black and brown buckling that we’ve been calling Harley.  We sold all but one of our kids – we actually planned to sell ALL of them, but one sale fell through, leaving us with a flashy buckling named Dread Pirate Robert, for whom we hope to find a new home soon.

In the midst of all this kidding, we also brought a new pup into the mix, a Great Pyrenees who is growing up to be a Livestock Guardian, protecting our goats and chickens from potential predators like coyotes, hawks, and even a few neighborhood dogs who occasionally break out of their fenced yards and come looking for a tasty chicken dinner here at Ten Mile Farm.

Spring also brought our first aqua/blue chicken eggs.  I bought three Easter Egger chicks who were born on November 1, 2010, and they matured into lovely hens.  Five Silver-Laced Wyandottes born on the same day are producing lovely brown eggs.  Our current head-count is 6 Barred Plymouth Rocks, 5 Silver-Laced Wyandottes, 3 Easter Eggers, 2 Rhode Island Red hens, and 1 Rhode Island Red rooster.  Sadly, we lost 2 Rhode Island Red hens and 1 Rhode Island Red rooster this summer.  I think the heat is what killed the hens, because there was no obvious sign of illness or injury.  Mr. Big was my favorite rooster – much nicer disposition than Big Red – and he died of bumblefoot in spite of my best efforts to treat the problem.  He and I spent many summer evenings on the back deck, soaking his feet in a hot epsom salt bath.  I gave him penicillin injections and did minor surgery on his foot, trying to remove the infection.  Mr. Big was really a sweetheart through it all, but in spite of his cooperation and my best efforts, the staph infection was finally too much for him.  I hated to lose Mr. Big, but at least I can rest comfortable knowing that I did my best for him, and for the other chickens as well.  I kept Mr. Big confined to a nice big cage where he had room to move around but was not subject to being attacked by Big Red, and this confinement helped keep the others from becoming infected.  I watched our flock closely for weeks and have never seen any signs that others are developing bumblefoot.  I keep an antiseptic spray handy and use it occasionally as a preventive measure.

The extreme heat and drought was just as hard on our garden as it was on the animals, so we finally gave up and let it go fallow.  Now that we think the 100-degree days are finally behind us, we’re just starting to plant a small fall garden.  I’ve decided that I’ll stick to container gardening for the fall, just to be sure that I can keep them watered adequately since the drought continues.

And now that it’s fall, it’s also time to start pairing does and bucks up for breeding again.  I’ve been waiting for the heat to break, because the bucks are so vigorous in their pursuit of the does in heat that there’s a lot of running involved, and I was worried that heat exhaustion could be the result rather than successful breeding.  So over the next few days, I’ll be moving goats from one pen to another, and within minutes, I’ll probably be humming that old song “Love is in the air.”

Check the photos below to see a recap of what’s been going on here at Ten Mile Farm since my last post.

Last week, we had something like 4 days (Tuesday – Friday) of SERIOUS winter weather – temperatures in the low teens, never rising above the freezing mark, rain followed by sleet and ice and finally several inches of snow.  Then Saturday arrived and the sun came out and temperatures rose to the low 50s.  We enjoyed more of the same on Sunday.  Yesterday and today have been sunny, and with temperatures again in the low 50s.  Each night, temperatures drop back down to freezing again. On Saturday, icicles turned into mini-rain showers, and snow melted in most places, leaving behind a sandy, dirty residue.

So why is it that today, after almost 4 full days of sun and reasonable temperatures, we still have ice in some places?  Below are photos I took just a few minutes ago.

Our weather forecast calls for more rain and “wintry mix” tonight and tomorrow, with the high tomorrow possibly not getting above the freezing mark.  So it’s a pretty good bet these bits of ice and snow aren’t going to be melting for a few more days.  This is so atypical for Texas.  If you didn’t already believe that global warming was real, surely seeing climate changes like this first-hand would have to make you stop and think.

Years ago when I worked for a Fortune 1000 company, I moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, about a thousand miles north/northeast of my hometown of Fort Worth, Texas.  Lucky for me, the HR woman who was responsible for helping me get settled was a fan of Tex-Mex food and introduced me to the only place where it could be found in Fort Wayne.  La Margarita was a small family-owned restaurant operated by a man who had moved to Indiana from Laredo, Texas after visiting Fort Wayne to attend a funeral.

After first having lunch there with Pat, the wonderful woman who worked in HR at Lincoln National Investment Management Corporation, I quickly became a regular at La Margarita and enjoyed their delicious food at least once a week, sometimes more often.  With every dinner, they served a small bowl of soup as an appetizer; they called it simply “Mexican Potato Soup”.  As long as I lived in Fort Wayne, I could run down to La Margarita any time I wanted a bowl, but when I moved back to Texas, I had to figure out how to make it for myself.  Don’t get me wrong – there are PLENTY of great Tex-Mex restaurants in North Texas. But I haven’t seen Mexican Potato Soup on anyone else’s menu.

Since it’s a simple dish, it wasn’t hard to figure out how to make it.  Here’s my version:

Mexican Potato Soup
(Inspired by La Margarita, Fort Wayne, IN)

INGREDIENTS

Potatoes
Onion
Tomato Sauce
Salt & Pepper to Taste
Optional: Ground Beef or Beef Bouillon Cubes

Quantities of all items depend on how much soup you want to make.  Is this your main dish, or will it be an appetizer, as it was at La Margarita?  During the cold weather last week, I used our 4.5 quart dutch oven to make a batch that had enough soup for 2 people to eat 3 meals. I wouldn’t call that 6 servings, because we had seconds.  For that batch, I used 6 small-ish Irish potatoes and about 1/3 of a big yellow onion, plus 1 small can (8 oz) of tomato sauce and 2 extra-large beef bouillon cubes.

DIRECTIONS

Wash the potatoes and onion.  If you prefer peeled potatoes, that’s OK; if not, it’s OK to leave the skins on.  Cut the potatoes into large chunks (but not so large as to be difficult to eat).  Dice the onion.  I do this by hand because I don’t want my onion pieces to be too small, but if you prefer little pieces, then by all means, put that slap-chop to good use!

Boil the potatoes in plenty of water.  You’re going to use the water as the starter for your soup, so don’t skimp just to make it boil faster.

Once the potatoes are tender (how soft you cook them is a matter of personal preference), add the diced onion and continue boiling at a slightly lower temperature.

Optional: When the onions appear tender, add beef bouillon cubes and allow to dissolve thoroughly.

Optional: If you want to make this your main course, you may want to literally beef it up. Brown and scramble a pound of ground beef as though to make tacos. Drain off the grease and add beef to soup.  (If you have dogs, don’t be afraid to pour that warm grease over their dog food. In moderation, it’s not likely to clog their arteries, and it’s said to help make their coats shiny.)

Add tomato sauce and stir well.

Salt & pepper to taste.

Personally, I prefer my Mexican Potato Soup to have only the slightest hint of beef flavor, so beef bouillon is my choice. But my husband is a meat & potatoes kind of guy, so he likes to add ground beef.  Another good option is to make tacos or burritos for dinner, and put a small amount of the beef from that main dish into the soup. We have also added Mexicorn for a little variety sometimes.  Obviously, this is a simple soup that you could modify to satisfy your own family’s tastes.

We like to serve this soup with one of the following:

• * Warmed (but still soft) Flour or Corn Tortillas (We warm ours in the microwave, using a paper plate on the bottom and a wet napkin on top to keep them from drying out.)
• * Toasted Flour Tortillas (Cut into strips and toast in the oven; on our oven, we use the “Broil” setting”)
• * Hint of Lime Doritos

Give this a try the next time you’re in the mood for soup but you don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen.  When you do, we hope you’ll post a comment below and let us know how you liked it.

Texas weather has been unusually cold this winter.  We’ve broken records for low temperatures and most successive days of low temperatures.  Wednesday’s weather report said the average high for that date was 53 and the average low was 36. Compare that to the actual temperatures Wednesday: a high of 20 and a low of 13.  BRRRR!!! And it was colder in some outlying areas.

One of my friends described it like this: Texas has apparently broken off the shelf and is now drifting toward the Arctic Circle.  It sure feels that way!

Here are a few photos of the ice we’re dealing with this week at Ten Mile Farm.  We hope you’re staying warm and can enjoy these photos with a nice hot cup of coffee or cocoa.

Mornings like this one make me wonder how farmers in northern states manage all year long. I guess they’re better prepared for the extreme cold than I am – in mind and body, as well as in equipment and planning.

Overnight, we had first rain, then sleet, then a sort of pelletized snow.  It’s white like snow, but it’s in perfect little tiny balls – kind of like some of the styrofoam pellets used as fake snow in store displays during the Christmas season.  I’ve been a goatherder for more than 5 years, so when the forecast calls for weather like this, I know to take certain precautions.  I make sure the goats have plenty of straw for bedding, and stock up on both feed and hay to be sure we don’t have to make a trip to the feed store when the roads might be bad.  I turn the heat lamps on in the hen house and do what I can to block the wind for goats and chickens alike.

But every time we’ve had rain or sleet, there has been one small precaution that I have forgotten to take, and it always proves to be a BIG headache for me.  That is, I never remember to remove the snap hooks from the gates to the goat pens.  Our gates have U-shaped latches, and some of our goats are clever enough to lift the latch with their nose.  To keep the goats in the pen, I use snap hooks that prevent the latch from being lifted up.  I’ve tried putting the open end of the snap hook in the gate latch, but the goats have figured out that with enough maneuvering, they can knock the hook to the ground, open the latch, and graze in my yard (or depending on the season, my garden) to their hearts’ delight.  So I use the spring-loaded end in the gate latch.  When we have cold temperatures but dry weather, there’s no problem.  But when we have rain then ice, it doesn’t take much to freeze the snap hook into a closed position.

This morning I went outside knowing that I would have to feed the animals and break the ice on the water, so I put on an extra layer of clothes.  Cotton pants plus sweat pants.  Sweatshirt plus turtle fleece pullover plus jacket.  Glove liner and gloves.  Plus a wrap that covers my neck, ears, and head.  With a fresh bale of hay to feed and a hammer to break the ice, I was ready.  Or so I thought.

Because I had forgotten about the problem with the freezing snap hooks and had thus not removed them from the gates last night, I was forced to do battle with them before I could get inside the goat pens to do anything else.  I tried using a screwdriver – trying to wedge the tip in to get a little leverage to pry the spring hook open.  No luck.  I tried banging the hook with the handle of the screwdriver, thinking maybe I could dislodge the ice.  Didn’t work.  I tried thawing the hook with a butane lighter.  No good.  (Actually, the lighter, which works in the house, won’t work in these sub-freezing temperatures.  Anyone who knows more about physics than I do, please explain.  I could walk from the gate to the barn, and the lighter would work, but once I walked back outside – no flame.  It would spark but not catch, making me wonder if there’s something about the properties of gas in general or butane in particular that prevents it from being flammable in sub-freezing temperatures.  It wasn’t a problem with the wind, which was brutal, because I was using a folded pie plate to make a good shield.)

The whole time I was trying to get the first snap hook open, several of the goats were making noise to be sure I knew they were waiting, not so patiently.  One or two of them would step out of the stall for just a minute to impress the urgency upon me, but then they would go back to the warmth of the stall.  I, on the other hand, was left standing in the punishing wind for 10 or 15 minutes, with my face and hands getting increasingly stiff and numb.  Finally, I used a pair of needle-nose pliers to break each hook.  I put the nose in the opening and forced the little spring-loaded barrel out to the side, which cracked the metal.  So both of these hooks will be useless now.  But at least my destructive solution allowed me to get inside each goat pen.  I gave everyone plenty of hay and broke the ice on all the water troughs.  Then I checked on the chickens, who were segregated into two huddles – youngsters in one and mature birds in another.  In spite of having two heat lamps inside, the thermometer in the hen house registered just 26 degrees.  I would be worried, except there are two separate watering stations in the hen house – one for the chicks and one for the adults – and neither of those was frozen.  I’m thinking the thermometer must be just a little too high to benefit from the heat lamps.  But if the water wasn’t frozen, apparently the temperature at the ground level is a little above 32 degrees.  Plus, with all my layers of clothes, I actually got a little too warm for comfort while I was cleaning up the chicken poop this morning.  Still, with the extremely low temperatures forecast for this week, I’ll be watching the chickens closely to be sure there are no signs of frostbite on their combs.

I was born in Fort Worth and have lived in Texas most of my life, and this is the coldest weather I can ever recall.  It definitely rivals the cold I experienced during those few years when I lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  But that’s 1,000 miles north, and cold weather is expected there.  Which brings me back to my original point – I don’t know how farmers who live in northern states tolerate such brutal winters with temperatures that stay below freezing for weeks and sometimes months on end.  My hat’s off to them for mustering the fortitude to live happy lives and keep their farm animals safe during such harsh winters.