First Gobbling of the Virginia Spring (Blog 335)

Thursday morning, I heard my first gobble of the spring while I was tending to the chickens.  The week before, I had witnessed the return of the male woodcocks and their mating dances, so I knew the tom turkeys would be expressing their virility soon.

What does it all mean? Well, to the male turkeys and woodcocks, I supposed their vocal outbursts mean the world.  To the females they are trying to impress, I would guess it means very little.  But that will all change in short order. In a few weeks, the ardor of the males will be matched, to a  degree, by that of the females.

Edith and Mary Square Off (Blog 334)

With our heritage Rhode Island Red chickens, Elaine's task is to name the hens.  With our flock, she decided to have a Downton Abbey theme naming our hens Mary, Violet, Edith and Daisy.  In a case of the chicken yard imitating life, Mary lately has been picking on Edith, running her away from the feeder and waterer.

I can understand that as chickens have a pecking order that must be settled among themselves.  But Mary has taken to running Edith out of the hen house at night when the hens and their rooster Al are trying to fly up to the roost.  This is unacceptable as Elaine and I have to wait long minutes in the dark for Mary to stop the bullying.

Tonight, I became weary of Mary running Edith out.  So I picked up Mary, put her in the yard, put Edith in the hen house, and then removed the gangplank running to the house.

Now it was Mary's turn to panic as she was on the outside wanting in.  She was unable to fly up to the door. I let Edith become settled inside then I put Mary inside.  Hopefully, I will only have to do this a few more times before the nightly nonsense stops.

Persimmon Bread on a February Saturday Night (Blog 333)

Back in the fall, Elaine and I gathered persimmons one cold afternoon.  Elaine made cookies and bread from our haul, and we ate the cookies over the next few days or so.  But the persimmon bread we froze for a winter weekend.

There is a joy in life based around anticipation of eating good things one day in the future. So we picked this weekend to reheat the bread and enjoy the especial nature of persimmon bread - a very dark bread with the sweet taste of persimmons and the nuttiness of walnuts proving a tasty tandem. It was a very fitting dessert for dinner, but I also confess that I had some for breakfast, too.

Planning a Winter Saturday (Blog 332)

With Virginia's turkey season now over, it's time to move on to other Saturday wintertime pursuits. Tomorrow I plan to spend much of the daylight period in the hollow behind my house. I need to cut up a massive chestnut oak limb that fell, a black oak tree that was cut down, plus turn a downed black locust into firewood.

After I finish work with the chainsaw, the mall will be required to reduce the wood into servicable firewood-sized chunks. If the weather turns warm in the afternoon, I might want to still hunt for squirrels through the woodlot.

As I write this, Elaine is making venison soup and perhaps I can prevail upon her to bake a wild blackberry pie to go with it.  An evening spent with her by the woodstove and dining on this type of food would be an evening well spent.