Fall Season of Transition

One late October afternoon Rich brought only three eggs into the kitchen. In spring and summer our 15 hens normally give us a dozen beautiful eggs every day. Like so many signs in nature our chickens are telling us it is transition time.

We have lucky chickens. They enjoy good food, safe living space, and daily fresh air, sunshine, exercise and natural food. Seasons shape their lives, but even their unfortunate counterparts living in cramped cages in factory farms are not completely immune to seasonal changes of nature.

Dust Bath

When molting chickens lounge, take dust baths, and re-grow new feathers.

A hen starts laying when she’s four to five months old and stays laving for 12 to 14 months. Egg laying is tough on bodies and after a year chickens need a vacation. So hens call time out.  They shed old worn out feathers and grow new ones, rest and eat as they build back strength. After a month or two they look great in their new feathers and begin laying again – if they are fortunate enough to live in a backyard flock.

Commercial egg operations kill hens as they begin to molt and replace them with young birds. Not us. We keep our birds for at least two years. In their second lay cycle our hens give us slightly fewer eggs but they are huge with bright yellow/orange yolks in shells of various hues.

Molting is caused, in part, by the age of the bird, but declining daylight is a major factor. Nature has programmed chickens to lay the most eggs in spring. As fall’s days shorten production drops. We let our chickens enjoy seasonality. Commercial eggeries don’t.  Their unfortunate hens live in windowless buildings with lighting that simulates spring to stimulate peak production.

Declining day length triggers thousands of reactions in our world outside the living room windows.  Here are just a few things we notice:

  • Hillsboro Pond, NH

    A still day of reflection on Turtle Stump.

    Leaves of our sugar maples turn vibrant red/orange before drifting to the ground like snow. Our black, white, and red oak leaves wait a bit later until turning rust colored and shedding, although some oaks keep dead leaves all winter.

  • White footed mice, box elder bugs, and Asian beetles try their best to get into the house before cold weather settles in.
  • There are comings and goings in the yard. We’ve said “goodbye” to house wrens, orioles, grosbeaks, warblers and many other birds but are delighted to welcome back juncos from their nesting grounds up north. Hawks, geese, and even pelicans pass overhead on their way south.
  • The world sounds and looks different as humid summer air transitions into fall’s dryness. Colors are more vibrant in low humidity air, sound transmits more clearly, and late afternoon sunlight dances across tree trunks and drying prairie grasses.
  • Solar panels

    Sunlight hits our solar panels at a different angle in the fall and winter.

    We produce a bit less electricity from our photovoltaics because the sun isn’t shining as long each day, but peak production is earlier in the day than in midsummer

  • Sitting outside on a bright autumn day lets us soak in the sun’s delicious warmth but it cools quickly as the sun drops. Then, we go inside to enjoy the warmth our wood stove provides.
  • Clouds drift by and sunrises and sunsets are particularly colorful.
  • Autumn and winter constellations enchant viewers and linger into the darker mornings. Because the temperatures are mild, star gazing is pleasant.

Fall is a beauty filled season.   We encourage you to “Go outside and play!”

Sprucing Up Decks and Chairs

When we bought Winding Pathways six years ago we ended up with two old wooden decks and steel deck furniture.

View from the deck

Turkeys in yard

We love our decks and often enjoy meals there.  Sometimes we just sit on our decks watching wildlife in the prairie and woodland. Unfortunately, our decks and furniture were showing their age.

They were made of pressure treated wood. Years of Iowa weather had created many cracks, and in some places the boards were uneven. So we decided to refurbish them.

Decks are challenging surfaces. Sun bakes them, while rain and snow add moisture. Changes in temperature and moisture cause wood planks to swell and shrink.

Stain

Staining big deck

Options for upgrading a deck or treating a new one include:

  • Leaving the wood bare: This works. There’s no paint to peel. Maintenance includes tightening screws that work loose and occasionally washing the wood. Expect some cracking and discoloration.
  • Staining: Stains penetrate wood and resist peeling. Most stains come in a variety of colors and provide some protection to the wood.
  • Painting: Unlike stain, paint stays on the wood’s surface rather than penetrating.  Regular exterior paint doesn’t usually last long as swelling and shrinking wood forces it loose. Special deck paint formulations are made by a variety of companies and are durable.
  • Replacing with plastic wood. Fake wood sounds silly but many companies make deck material from recycled plastic. It does not absorb water so swelling and shrinkage is minimal. Color is within the plastic. Some types fade, while others don’t. Maintenance is minimal.   They are very long lasting but cost is normally much higher than wood.
Rustoleum Cans

Materials for restore the deck.

To fix our deck we bought a Rustoleum product called RESTORE 10X. It is an extremely thick paint designed to fill cracks and low spots. When we applied it in the fall of 2014 it looked great. Then came a tough winter followed by a rainy spring. The new paint peeled in sheets, and we were frustrated.

 

 

 

Priming

Priming the deck

Touch up

Painting small deck

Rustoleum guaranteed the product and replaced it with newly reformulated paint and primer. We applied it in late summer 2015. A year later it looks as good as new. The combination of the new formulation over a special primer seems to have solved peeling problems.

Furniture proved much easier to spiff up.  The original finish had gotten dull and some rust spots were appearing. We washed and scrubbed the surfaces and applied black Rustoleum spray paint. That did the trick with minimal effort!

Now both our deck surfaces and furniture look good as new.

  • Our review is an independent, unsolicited, unpaid blog.
Rustoleum Furniture Spray

Chair looks great with new paint.

Rich Binoculars

Enjoying the deck.

 

A Cornucopia of Winter Squash

Various Squashes

Winter Squash vary in color, texture, shape and size.

One of the most exciting times of our gardening year is winter squash harvest. Few plants are as interesting or useful. They’re diverse, easy to grow, colorful, easy to store, delicious, and can be used in dozens of recipes.

Winter squash were domesticated by Native Americans long before Columbus and with beans and corn provided a balanced diet. Although there are several species of squash all share similar characteristics. It’s hard to believe that common jack-o-lantern pumpkins are the same species as delicate acorn squash – but they are. Squash range in size from tiny acorns to massive 2,000 pound pumpkins. They also vary greatly in shape and color.

Squash are categorized as either summer or winter. Summer squash, such as zucchini or crookneck, are eaten during summer when the fruits are small and tender. They don’t keep long. Winter squash, in contrast, are allowed to mature until they are full grown and hard. They keep for months.

Here’s why we like winter squash at Winding Pathways:

  • They’re easy to grow. Plant seeds in rich soil after the danger of frost has past, keep the weeds down until the squash plants are about a foot tall, and then just let them grow. They will out compete weeds as their vines create a solid mass of leaves.
  • They’re easy to harvest. We wait until the vines die back in September and then clip off the stems with a pruning shear. We load them up in the wheelbarrow and spread them on the back deck where they continue to cure in the sunshine.
  • They’re easy to store. No canning, freezing, or drying is needed. We simply bring the squash inside before the first frost and store them in a dry cool location. Several types last for months and we’re still eating them in March.
  • They’re a delicious, versatile, and nutritious food. Squash is loaded with vitamins, omega 3 fatty acid, and minerals.
  • They’re just plain fun. Squash even make interesting table decorations.

Winding Pathways Squash Growing Tip

Every year we plant many varieties of winter squash and pie pumpkins. We can never predict which types will grow best in a given year. In some years we get a heavy crop of one type while others barely produce a fruit. Diversity assures a good crop. Many garden stores only sell a few varieties, but we hedge our bets and order seeds of many varieties. Our favorites are Butternut, Hubbard, Silver Bell, and Sweet Potato.  A wonderful source is Seed Savers Exchange. Some varieties grow to massive size, but with only two of us at Winding Pathways we stick with varieties that produce smaller squash fruits. Fortunately, plant breeders have created a downsized version of the traditional Hubbard squash and several other types.

Cooking Winter Squash

Every cookbook has winter squash recipes and Epicurious  offers more online. We usually keep it simple  and  use our squash  as a side dish with melted butter. Here are some squash cooking tips:

Opening a tough skinned squash: The tough thick skin covering a winter squash keeps it fresh for months but can be intimidating to cut. A heavy bladed sharp knife works but we have fun and put the squash on a chopping block outside and whack it with a machete! Works great. Our cousin, Marie Zieger, avoids cutting through tough skin by simply baking the whole squash. That softens it and makes it easy to slice it open. Another way of opening a big squash is to simply drop it on concrete to crack it and then pry it apart.

Cooking the squash: We place chunks in a pan and baking at about 350 degrees for about an hour or until the flesh is soft. Using a microwave is faster and works fine. Sometimes we put chunks in a pressure cooker for about 15 minutes. The pressure cooker method results in moister cooked squash flesh. Occasionally we’ll cut the raw squash into chunks and add them to winter stews.  Extra cooked squash can be put in sealed containers and frozen.

 

Scooping Squash Seeds

We recycle the seeds to the chickens.

Seeds and the tough skin:  We scoop out the seeds and feed them to our chickens. Some people remove the cords that  hold  the seeds together, wash the seeds lightly, apply a seasoning, and roast them for a delicious high protein snack. Tough skins go into the compost bin.

 We love winter squash.  Few plants are as easy to grow and delicious.

Machete In Squash

A machete is useful in cutting squash.

Chickens Squash

Chickens efficiently recycle squash seeds to eggs.

Eggs

Eggs in basket