Locavore Living in the Summer (Blog 449)

Elaine and I have been busy enjoying the bounty of our garden and the wild berries we are gathering. Today, Elaine made three loaves of zuchinni bread, two were frozen for the winter, and we began eating the other.

So far, we have gathered three gallons of wild berries. Our goal, as always every summer, is to gather 10 gallons before July is over. Tomorrow, I will try to pick a half gallon as Elaine is planning to make wineberry jam.

We also have eight chicks between one week and two weeks old. They are doing well except they have not learned how to walk up the gangplank to the hen house when night starts to fall.

Much is going on around here.

Gobbler Seen Strutting (Blog 448)

Today, June 18 around 10:30 here in Botetourt County, Virginia, I observed a mature gobbler in strut. This particular tom is amazing to watch and listen to. He gobbled frequently all spring. I often heard him while I was walking before going to teach school.

When the season concluded, he still kept gobbling and he only stopped doing so a week or two ago. However, he is still strutting, even today near noon. I have heard birds gobbling as late as Independence Day one year, when a tom sounded off 22 times behind our house. I guess it was his own version of setting off firecrackers.

Rhode Island Red Chicks Hatching (Blog 447)

This week, the chicks from our heritage Rhode Island Red hen Mary are starting to hatch. As I write this, chick number two is almost out of its shell. Chick number one came out on Thursday. We are hopeful that the other five eggs will start to shimmy and pip soon, but who knows.

One thing we learned last September was that hatching chicks are in grave danger from the other birds. We left Mary in the hen house, and the first chick to come out of the shell was killed. We found the dead creature when we came home from being gone for the afternoon. That's why we have Mary in our basement.

How Will This Rainy Period Affect Turkey Poults? (Blog 446)

Here in Southwest Virginia, the past two days have seen rain, and the wet weather is supposed to continue for another four or five days. Right now in this region, wild turkey poults are either a few days old or are just hatching. I have to wonder how this rainy spell will affect them.

One thing in the poults' favor is that the air temperature is not abnormally cold. A few nights in the low 40s, for example, could cause widespread death from hypothermia. But most nighttime lows are supposed to be far above that. I guess we'll have to wait and see how turkey reproduction might be affected by this precipitation spell.