Crazy Ducks

Ducks are a wonderful addition to any small farm, especially one with an area that's perpetually wet or swampy (which seems to describe about 90% of Michigan farms). It never ceases to amaze me the way the ducks go rushing out into any kind of nasty weather; in fact, the wetter it gets, the more they seem to enjoy themselves. They even enjoy flopping around and soaking themselves in snow drifts.

A couple of other things to keep in mind about ducks: they are easily excitable, and virtually impossible to keep contained.

We've had several different breeds of duck over the years, and all of them (with the exception of Muscovies, which are genetically distinct from the Mallard-descended ducks which predominate in the USA) have been "hyper." They see a person (or dog, or anything else) coming, and they all start running in a pack, flapping their wings, and making lots of noise. This does make them fairly easy to herd, once you figure out where to position yourself. The key is to get behind them, and start them moving away from you. If the flock begins moving too much toward one side or the other, they can often be "nudged" back into line just by holding one's arm out toward the "wrong" side and/or moving that way slightly.

But if you get ducks, expect them to get loose. They're narrow and very flexible. I've never seen birds that can squeeze themselves through such tight spaces. Leave a door or gate ajar just a bit, or put up a woven-wire fence with squares larger than 4x4, and they're going to find a way through. Or if there's any kind of gap at the bottom of any portion of a fence or gate, they will find a way to squeeze under it. It's just what they do. They love to roam over a wide range, exploring and foraging --- but if you don't want them in your garden (and, trust me, if you have anything of value growing in there...you don't), you'd better put a very tight fence around it. And be zealous about keeping the gate closed. Ditto any area with fruiting brambles or grape vines that are close to the ground --- they will wipe out the fruit in the blink of an eye. Lately we've been fighting a losing battle keeping them out of the kids' play area in our back yard; the photos I posted today are of the dozen ducks that I chased out of there this morning.

The last few years, we've been raising a breed called Anconas and like them a lot. For starters, they're just plain beautiful to look at. But more importantly, they're outstanding foragers, excellent egg layers, quite cold-hardy (we didn't lose a single one this epic winter), pretty good at setting and mothering, and a reasonable size for eating. (We can squeeze a meal out of one of them for our family, but for Sunday dinner with even one other person, we usually put two of them in the Crock Pot and make soup with the leftovers.)

We like to get a straight run (unsexed) of 30 from Cackle Hatchery. The cost is about $4 per duckling, plus shipping, and that yields 15 adult females. In the laying season, that gives us plenty of large delicious eggs. We butcher most of the males when they're a few months old, but leave a few so we can have fertilized eggs (and ducklings, if a duck decides to make a nest and go broody). As with all Mallard-derived ducks, mature drakes (males) are easily identified by a curly little feather sticking up on their tail.

Anconas stay pretty productive for a few years; after that, it's best to butcher and brine them, before doing a slow roast in the crock pot. The process is similar to what I described recently for our old turkeys, but we usually brine and roast the ducks whole. Your plan should be to butcher the mature, burned-out layers while your juvenile replacements are growing in the brooder and confined pasture pens. Once they feather out, you'll have a really tough time distinguishing them from the older birds. And if the two groups mix...good luck sorting them again.

Now that I think about it, we have several excess mature drakes out there that need to be culled. I think I know what we're going to be enjoying for Sunday dinner this week...

Heaven is For Real: Movie Review

 

I recently had a chance to watch a preview screening of the new movie, Heaven is For Real, which will be released on April 16th. I read the book earlier this year, and was very pleased when I'd heard it would be made into a movie.

Here is the trailer:


The basic premise of both the book (which is a straightforward, non-fiction, documentary) and the movie (which is a fictionalized, dramatic re-telling) is this: Todd Burpo is a minister in a small town in Nebraska. His young son, Colton, nearly dies during emergency surgery; Colton visits Heaven during this near-death experience, and some time after his return begins explaining what he saw in matter-of-fact terms. Over time, it becomes increasingly clear that Colton's reports cannot be a function of his imagination --- there are simply too many details (especially about people he met there who died before he was born) that Colton couldn't have possibly known any other way.

The movie is extremely well-produced, with excellent acting and breathtaking visuals of prairie farmlands. It's a compelling story of one family's experiences coping with some really difficult times, and it's told without profanity, innuendo, or sex. There are some hospital scenes that may be a bit intense for some younger viewers, but it's otherwise safe to take your kids to. Our four-year-old, who is about the same age as Colton was, enjoyed it as much as the rest of us did and told me nothing in it scared him. Speaking of Colton: he's portrayed by six-year-old Connor Corum, and the boy did an outstanding job. This appears to be his first acting gig, and I hope it's not his last. Likewise, Greg Kinnear is excellent as Todd.

For me, the most unrealistic part of the story is the existential crisis of faith that Todd descends into after Colton begins describing what he saw in Heaven. It seemed almost like the kind of reaction a father would've had if his son had instead described Jesus rejecting him, or slamming the gates of Heaven in his face, or anything else that flies in the face of his own long-held beliefs about God and the afterlife. Todd's frustrations with God before this point made total sense, and seemed very natural; he was dealing with his own physical injuries, serious financial setbacks, and a son who'd been sick to the verge of death. But for the stories about Heaven to trigger a new "dark night of the soul"? That seemed contrived to me, as did the reactions of certain of the church's Board members. At a minimum, the reasons for his questioning and doubts didn't seem clear.

The book does describe Todd "yelling at God" during Colton's surgery. But the internal struggles and doubts he goes through after hearing about Colton's trip to Heaven? And the external conflicts with other members of the church? If any of those things did happen in real life (and they sure didn't "feel" real to me, given everything else the film shows us about the Burpo family and their faith), they didn't make it into the book.

But my biggest disappointment stems from the expectations I'd had going in: I'd thought the story would be told more from Colton's perspective, and we'd get to see more of what he experienced in Heaven. Certainly, there are some scenes portraying what he saw and did --- but they are relatively brief, and not terribly detailed. Screenwriting 101 says to "show, not tell," and it seemed that there was a lot more "telling" here than "showing." Also, several of the things Colton did see and experience, which were detailed in the book and shown to be consistent with scripture passages Colton had never before heard, are simply left out of the movie.

Furthermore, certain things that are described extensively in the book are treated so briefly in the movie, the average viewer might be left scratching his head. A good example: in the book, Colton told his father that Jesus has "markers" on his wrists and ankles. When pressed for details, Colton explained that it looked like someone had marked up those parts of Jesus' body with a red felt-tip pen. Todd then realized that Colton was describing the Wounds of the crucifixion --- which, importantly, Colton had never before seen depictions of or been aware of. Being Protestants, the Burpos didn't have a crucifix in their house or church. In the movie, Colton makes only the quickest mention of these "markers," almost as an afterthought, in remarks to a newspaper reporter. There is no further explanation as to what he's describing, or why this is an additional indication that his visions of Jesus weren't the product of an overactive imagination.

That's not to say this is a bad movie. It's just not the movie I thought it was going to be. You may be familiar with other big-screen feature films about extraordinary supernatural visions that certain children have had; The Song of Bernadette immediately comes to mind, as does The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima. Both of these films were told from the children's perspective. The parents' reactions, and the difficulties the parents went through as a result of the publicity, were part of the story --- but these films were ultimately about the kids and what the kids experienced. Now, imagine The Song of Bernadette re-told from the perspective of Francois Soubirous, Bernadette's father. The Song of Francois might still be a good movie --- but if you'd been thinking you were going to see a lot of what Bernadette herself saw, you might be disappointed.

My bottom-line recommendation: Whether you've read Heaven is For Real or not, do go see this movie --- and enjoy it on its own terms. And if you haven't yet read the book, make sure you do read it after you watch the movie.

Mrs. Fletcher Delivers!

Remember FletcherBelle, the massively pregnant ewe who'd "fallen, and couldn't get up" the other night?

This morning, she delivered two beautiful little ewe lambs:

For those of you keeping score at home, that's five lambs total --- all of them female. And all are doing great so far.

Spring is wonderful. Especially after a winter like the one we just had.

Salvaging Turkey Lurkey

Generally speaking, turkeys --- and other birds --- are best eaten in the same year they're hatched. We like to start a batch in April or May, and put them in the freezer that October or November. That ensures the birds are young and tender; an older bird can get tough.

We've also preferred to raise heritage breed turkeys. They're significantly smaller than the broad breasted "Butterball" turkeys you see at the grocery store, but much more interesting to have on the farm. They tend to have higher survival rates in the brooder. They can fly and roost much like wild turkeys. They're colorful. And, most importantly, they can reproduce naturally. (Broad breasted turkeys are so huge, they can't actually mate. They need to be artificially inseminated. And that's something I just don't want to have to help them with.)

Most years, we try to get a mix of heritage turkeys and broad breasted birds. A heritage turkey is excellent for a dinner and a night or two of leftovers. The BB turkeys are really too big to be practical, unless we're hosting a really large gathering, so we cut them up into pieces and freeze separate portions in gallon-sized ziploc bags. Each bag is just right for a meal or two.

Since we're not particular about breeds, we tend to get a "hatchery special" or "surplus turkey assortment". They send basically whatever is left over after filling orders for specific heritage turkey breeds. At a place like Cackle Hatchery, a batch of 15 surplus heritage turkeys will run $114, or about $7.60 per bird, plus shipping. Not bad when you consider that specific breed poults, such as Bourbon Reds, cost more than $9 per bird. (For comparison, 15 broad breasted white turkeys cost $87.75, or $5.85 per bird.)

Still...any way you look at it, turkey poults are expensive. And heritage breed turkeys can theoretically reproduce on their own. Why not keep a few hens, and a tom, over the winter and see what they manage to produce the next spring? Could save a small fortune, right?

Could. But never has - at least not for us. We've tried letting the turkey hens brood a clutch of eggs. A couple of them actually hatched, but the hen proved to be a better setter than mother; the poults were killed by something or other within days. We tried hatching the eggs ourselves in an incubator, but were never able to get the temperature and humidity settings correct. With more time and patience, and perhaps an investment in a really good incubator, we may have gotten better results. But at the end of the day, I concluded it made more sense to invest in a fresh set of hatchery poults each spring.

That left us with several mature heritage turkeys. They were fun to have in the barn, and we enjoyed watching them do their turkey antics out in the pasture. And the females did give us some eggs - at least for a few months out of the year, and for a couple of years. Then the eggs slowed to a trickle, and I realized we simply had a bunch of glorified, grain-consuming pets. And we don't do "pets" with the livestock. Time to make a meal out of them.

Given the age of these birds, I was concerned that they would be tough. So, I did a little experimenting and hit upon a solution: brine.

The middle of last week, I butchered a very old Blue Slate turkey hen. After plucking and eviscerating her, I figured we had about six or seven pounds of bird. I then "disassembled" it by removing both leg quarters, both wings, and the breast meat. All of these prime pieces went into a big bowl, and everything else (the carcass, neck, and scrubbed-up feet) went into a large soup pot.

I then used a mason jar to measure out enough water to just cover all the pieces in the bowl; it took three quarts. A standard brine solution requires one cup of salt per gallon of water, so I pulled a bunch of the meat out, added 3/4 of a cup of salt to my bowl, and stirred until all the salt was dissolved, and put the meat back in. I covered the bowl, and put it in the refrigerator for a few days. (Theoretically, I suppose we could have left the bowl out at room temperature; the salt acts as a preservative. But we had room in the fridge, and I preferred to keep things cold.)

Sunday morning, I discarded the brine solution and put most of the turkey pieces into a Crock Pot. (The remaining piece I wrapped up and returned to the refrigerator, because my daughter wanted to make turkey curry out of it later.) I added a little apple cider vinegar, a little water, a chopped onion, and seasonings --- and then set the Crock Pot on high and let it go. From time to time, I stirred the pieces around. Otherwise, it was the world's easiest meal. By 5pm, the meat was tender and practically falling off the bone. And was the perfect centerpiece for Sunday Dinner.

So, out of one smallish turkey hen that was otherwise useless, our family got (1) an excellent Sunday dinner; (2) a dinner of turkey curry; and (3) enough soup for one dinner for all of us, with enough left over for me to have for lunches for the rest of the week.

Not bad. Now, to get started on the four other turkeys still taking up space in the barn...

Sunday Evening Surprise

Lambing season is definitely upon us, and every trip to the barn now brings with it a sense of expectation. Which ewe will be in labor? Which might have even delivered?

This evening, we discovered that our pure white ewe had given us a beautiful pure white female lamb:

While mom dove into the hay with the rest of the flock, the happy new arrival stayed close by and observed the action.

Here's hoping that the rest of the lambing season goes this smoothly. Tomorrow is supposed to be 62F and clear, easily the warmest day of the year so far. Would sure be nice if a big bunch of ewes decided to deliver then.

The Last Check

One really important thing to remember, on a farm with livestock, in the spring: making that last check of the barn each night. It may be past midnight. You may be tired. You may just want to go to bed. But if you skip that last check, something very small might just develop into a very big problem.

That was certainly true a couple of nights ago, when the "last check" revealed two newborn lambs. I didn't mention it in the post, but the outside door to the sheep area had been left slightly open. One of the lambs had tottered through it, and the mother was urgently trying to call the little one back inside. The other lamb looked ready to totter outside as well. Of course, it was dark and cold, and neither newborn had any idea what she was doing or where she was supposed to be. I retrieved the lost lamb, set her inside, closed the door as far as it would go, and used a snow shovel to bar the remaining opening. Had I not come to the barn, both lambs may have frozen to death outside.

Another example was a cold night early last spring, when we had baby chicks brooding under a heat lamp. One of the cats had accidentally knocked the cord out of the socket. I noticed it during my "last check," and got the lamp plugged back in before the chicks froze.

Last night, the issue was again in the sheep pen. One of the ewes has been looking extremely pregnant, and ready to deliver at any time. She's crazy big. Swallowed-a-washbasin big. And when I peeked into the barn last night, she was laying down and thrashing her leg in a strange manner. Thinking she may be in active labor, I hustled to take a closer look.

And discovered that she wasn't in labor at all - but in a more dangerous situation. She was flat on her back, panting and grunting, trying to roll over so she could get up. Because of her enormous size, she simply couldn't do it. I wasn't sure how long she'd been stuck like that, but if she spent the night that way she'd likely have been dead in the morning. I grabbed her, rolled her over, and she scrambled to her feet as she joined the rest of the flock. I caught her again, confirmed she was fine (and not in labor), and then wished all the animals a good night.

That particular ewe is from a long line with a tradition of having "-belle" as a suffix to their name. One of our very first ewes was named Maybelle, and all of the "belles" are descended from her. Maybelle died last year, in lambing, at an advanced age, and we still miss her - but with the naming tradition, she still lives in a sense. Anyhow, we'd had trouble coming up with a name for this ewe...so we'd just been calling her plain old "Belle." Last night, I finally decided on a name that would fit:

FletcherBelle.

Best Roost Ever?

With both Michigan and Michigan State playing this evening in the Sweet Sixteen, even our chickens seem to be getting into the spirit of March Madness. Check out the place one of our Buff Orpington hens decided to roost for the night:

Yes, it helps that we have hay bales stacked up to within a couple of feet of the rim. But this is still the first time I've seen a chicken actually roost on the hoop.

The basketball hoop is in the cavernous upstairs part of the barn, and in the summer (when there's less hay blocking it), our kids enjoy shooting baskets. It's like having a huge gymnasium to run around in.

Most of our poultry lives in the downstairs part of the barn, which has a much lower ceiling and tends to stay significantly warmer. For whatever reason, though, we always seem to have a few rogue birds which insist on finding a way upstairs. Once there, those birds are extremely difficult to extract. At night, they find crazy-high places like this (and the rafters) to roost. During the day, they usually see us coming and scramble way up out of reach on top of the hay.

We'll catch her someday. She's way overdue for the soup pot, and I think she knows it. Chickens may be dumb, but they're not stupid.

Spring is Back! (And so am I...)

Where has the time gone? One thing led to another, and the next I knew...the blog had been dormant for two years. Thanks to all who sent messages encouraging me to post again, and my apologies for the length of time it has taken to get back in the saddle.

What's been happening? After my last post, in the spring of 2012, professional work more or less took over the rest of that year. As a public opinion research consultant, presidential election years are my absolute busiest time --- and 2012 turned out to be even busier than usual. In addition to voter microtargeting, and analyzing survey data, I am also part of CNN's election night decision team; we're the ones who decide when to project a race for a particular candidate.

Then, shortly after the election, we got big news of great joy: Mrs Yeoman Farmer and I were expecting a baby. However, the pregnancy turned out to be a physically challenging one for MYF, which meant the rest of the family needed to come together in supporting her and picking up a bigger share of the farm work. The garden was scaled back, as were the numbers of livestock we were raising.

Our new baby girl was due in mid-August, but couldn't wait to join the fun. In mid-July, more than five weeks ahead of schedule, she decided it was time to get moving. At 7am on a Monday morning, in the car driving home from the airport after a wonderful weekend trip visiting friends and family in Seattle, I got the call from MYF that her water had broken. Once back at the farm, I whisked MYF to the hospital. We spent the rest of the day there, undergoing tests and observations, until the medical team decided Baby Girl needed to come out by emergency Cesarean.

Baby Girl is doing well and thriving now, but there were numerous complications that kept her in the NICU for nearly a month. And then she needed heart surgery in October. I will write more about some of these issues in future posts --- but for those interested in a general overview of what we went through, I recently had an article published which describes that roller-coaster. Thanks to the skills of some truly amazing medical professionals, and the prayers of countless people all over the world, Baby Girl is expected to live a long and very happy life.

I don't want to dwell too much on the brutal winter we're now finally emerging from here in the Upper Midwest. Suffice it to say that this was easily the worst winter I've personally experienced in my 45 years. The snow that fell before Christmas is still out in our pasture. Our hay field finally became visible again last week, as did our lawn. We expect cold winters in Michigan, but what made this one so difficult was its relentlessness. Usually, we get an arctic blast and some snow --- and then a few days where the temps go above freezing, the snow melts, and it's merely "cold" for a little while before the next storm passes through. Those periodic thaws are the stepping stones that make Midwestern winters tolerable.

This year, we didn't get a single thaw for the entire winter. All the snow that fell...stayed. And no one knew what to do with it. We shoveled and shoveled our driveway, but soon had walls of snow high on both sides. Our church, and many big shopping centers with large parking lots, have enormous mountains of plowed snow that have now turned into stubborn icebergs. We joke that kids will still be sledding on these things in mid-May, when it's sixty degrees out.

Today it's in the forties, and is expected to stay above freezing all the way into next week. Our whole property is rapidly turning into a mud bog, but I'll take that over the snow. It's unclear when things will dry out enough to allow planting, or when the pasture will revive enough to turn the animals out on it. This year, it seems that all bets are off. So, we're taking things one day at a time. I'm just glad we put in a larger-than-usual supply of hay. And firewood.

We had several goat kids born over the course of the winter, and are now enjoying an excellent supply of milk from the does. Surprisingly, despite the bitter cold, almost all of the kids survived. We lost a  couple of them, but for the most part were able to keep the barn buttoned up tightly enough to keep them from freezing to death. I also discovered a very useful tool for winter kidding: a blow-drier! The mother goats usually get the kids licked off to dry them, but in the dead of winter...a nice warm blast of air from a hair drier gave some much-needed assistance. Also, getting the kids thoroughly warmed up means their bodies are less stressed. It seems to have helped a lot.

But the true heralds of spring are the lambs. And our first ones were born last night! I went out to the barn a little before midnight to make my final checks, and discovered that one of our mature ewes, Conundrum, had delivered a set of twin females. Both were on their feet, but pretty wet. I tried to give an assist with the hair drier, but Conundrum objected loudly. Given that it wasn't terribly cold last night, and that our Icelandic ewes are outstanding mothers, I decided to butt out. And, indeed, they had a good night. Both lambs were dry and dancing around this morning.

I'll leave you with some pictures of them (note the snow shovel used to block a gap in the door -- there's a stubborn chunk of frozen dirt that's preventing the door from sliding all the way shut):

Notice the black one was even climbing all over Mom:

It's good to be back and blogging again. I promise the next post will take less than two years to go up!

Every Other Day Now

Our unbelievably good, summer-like weather has continued; we topped out in the eighties today! On March 21st! And there's no sign of a letup. Things are supposed to be really nice all the way into next week.

Fortunately, the sheep are continuing to take advantage of the warm temperatures by delivering their lambs now. (Obviously the deliveries are timed by the gestation period and not by weather, but it's a very fortunate coincidence.) The third of our ten ewes lambed this morning; she had male and female twins, but the male was stillborn. The female appears very healthy, and by late afternoon was already out and exploring the barnyard.

And, much to her mother's consternation, had also figured out how to get on the wrong side of the fence that separates the sheep from the goats:

With a little intervention from the Yeoman Farmer, things were again put right:

Mother and lamb are happy.

And so is the whole Yeoman Farm Family.

Spring Keeps Coming

Early lambing continues on the farm, as we had a wonderful early-morning suprise in the barn at chore time:

The lamb is a singleton, and she is HUGE. By the time I arrived, she'd been on her feet and licked nearly dry. She's the first lamb ever born to this particular mother (a name for whom we have yet to decide on), who was herself born very late in the spring of 2010. Last year was a little too early for her to lamb, so she seems to have "saved it up" and given us a really nice little girl now.

I managed to catch this shot of the three generations:

Mom is nearest, nuzzling her lamb. Grand-damme Biancha is in the background, chewing cud.