Tomato Egg Sandwich

Best way to enjoy our first slicer this summer?  Tomato egg sandwich with a Brandywine from the garden, an egg from our chickens and homemade bread.  Yum.

The great egg experiment: Day 21

We have chicks!  After 21 days of patently waiting we heard our first peep-peeps from the nesting box the day before the 4th of July.  I was nervous because last week I found an egg that had been kicked out of its nest with a chick in it that I couldn't seem to save.  It was sad and disheartening and I didn't want to go through it again so, approaching the 21 day mark for me was a bit nerve racking!  But mother (nature) knows best and our two broody hens sat on our eight eggs for 21 days almost 24 hours a day.  I had my doubts but they stuck to it and hatched five chicks!  Two of the eggs were unfertilized and we lost the one chick last week so we were successful with hatching two Wheatens and three Easter Eggers.  They are little balls of fluff now and follow their moms around learning how to scratch, eat and drink.  It's amazing to see things like this work since most of the chicken industry has moved to using incubators as a way of hatching chicks.  Also, most keep chicks in a separate area with a heat lamp but our hen mom's seem to be up for the job and brood on them all night to keep them warm.  Here are a few pictures of our new farm friends:

Chicks all a flutter with their moms

An Easter Egger chick meeting our chick (due next month!)

An Easter Egger chick

The great egg experiment: Day 1

For the past few months we've been dealing with broody hens.  For those that don't know, a broody hen is a hen that for some reason (the daylight, the time of year, temperature, etc.) starts to believe she needs to hatch an egg into a chick so instead of laying an egg and then leaving the laying box, she'll lay and egg and try to sit on it until it hatches.  Once she does this she stops laying eggs all together.  If you take out the egg she laid, she'll just sit on another hens egg.  Eventually she may become so protective of the lying boxes that the other hens start laying somewhere else, like the coop yard or in the corner of the coop (like where we found 17 eggs one time!).  We knew very little about chickens before we got some last fall and I had never heard of a broody hen.  Turns out the breed of chicken we got tends to go broody.  Turns out there are breeds that rarely go broody.  So after fighting her to stop sitting on eggs for months now, pulling her out of the coop, dragging her out of the laying box, taking away all the eggs, putting her on her roost, we decided we had to do something different.  We were either going to cull her and buy new chicks or let her do her thing and see what happened.  Since our chickens are like pets we decided to let her do her thing.  So yesterday I picked up 8 eggs from a local farm, Wildwood Farm, that are hopefully fertilized and placed them under our broody hens.  We can't use our own eggs to hatch because we don't have a rooster so finding a place with eggs and a rooster was what we needed.  Four of the eggs are from Easter Eggers which lay green eggs:

And the other four are from Wheaton Ameraucana chickens which lay blue eggs:

Aren't they pretty?  You cannot imagine my excitement after seeing these - they are so beautiful.  I love supporting rare and heirloom breeds of farm animals and plants so to hopefully have such unique chicken eggs will be so special.  Wildwood Farm also has chocolate brown egg layers called Copper Marans but they tend to go broody so we didn't get any of those, but man are they gorgeous eggs.  See a picture of them on Wildwood Farms facebook page here.  What a neat place.  They have so many different kinds of chickens is was just educational and fascinating being there.

It was a relief to me, and to the broody hens, when I placed those eggs there.  The blue wyandotte that we have that is broody tucked the eggs closer to her body and under her wings before settling down comfortably in the nesting box.  It was like she said, thanks, this is what I've been trying to do for months!  Chickens are so instinctual and like my husband says, they aren't like cats and dogs - you can't really train them.  You can try and stop a chicken 100 times from broody but it's what she does and she won't stop until you let her.   So, I placed these eggs under our broody hens and if all goes well in almost exactly 21 days (July 4th) we will have baby chicks.  They have to sit on the eggs for 24 hours a day for 21 days in order for the right incubation temperatures to mature the egg into a chick. My first hope is that some of the eggs will actually hatch and are fertilized.  My second hope is that if they do hatch some of then are hens and not roosters.  This gives me hope.  We'll see - let the countdown begin!

How to: Make an Easter Tree

Growing up, we always had an Easter tree around Easter which consisted of decorated chicken eggs.  I wanted to continue this tradition in our house.  We are bless with about 4-6 eggs a day from our chickens.  Lewie sells some at work, but I've been saving some of the neat ones for the past few months for our Easter tree.  I didn't want to decorate them or paint them in any way because some of them are so pretty just as is.  Each one is different.  Some are white with brown speckles, some are brown with white speckles, others short and some tall.

To make our egg tree I simply made a hole in each end of a raw egg then blew out the egg by blowing through one hole.  We cooked with the egg I blew out then I rinsed the empty egg and saved it until I had enough to add ribbons.  To make the ribbon attachment I cut several strands of ribbon and taped the two ends to a toothpick I cut in half.  Then I rolled part of the ribbon and tape around the toothpick and put it in the top hole of the egg.  Once the toothpick is inside the egg I let the toothpick slide up the egg until it stuck.  When done right the ribbon flows out of the top of the egg making a perfect hanger.  I gather some branches from our woods and used a mason jar with glass beads to make the tree.

Our Easter tree is a simple reminder of spring and how thankful I am of our chickens.

Our first egg!

It was a Christmas miracle!  We got our first egg from our chickens.  It was a total shock.  We had almost given up that we would get eggs - it seemed like it would never happen.  We were out closing the chickens in and I had to go in the coop to check the water and there is was sitting in the center of the one of the nesting boxes.  A perfectly oval white-speckled brown egg.  That was Christmas Eve and on Christmas we got one more egg so we were able to eat our first chicken eggs on Christmas.  It was pretty neat.  I made bacon cups with them - line bacon in muffin pan, bake until crispy, crack egg in bacon cup, bake again until done.  They were very good.  Other then the egg event, we had a really nice Christmas.  The girls got hot oatmeal breakfast from Santa:

and the boys got wet food (their favorite):

Six new feathered friends

Lady & Goldie getting a drink

We have chickens!  We went to Wisner Farm in Dandridge, Tennessee and picked up six hens yesterday.  We got two of each breed:  Goldenlaced Wyandotte, Bluelaced Wyandotte and Dominiques.  Wisner Farm is great.  They started with 500 plus pullets this summer and sold them to locals to raise their own hens for eggs.  When we were there they had less then 150 left.  They also have geese, ducks, turkeys, peacocks, and roosters.  In fact, we put a deposit down for our Thanksgiving dinner when we were there.  If you are going to eat turkey for Thanksgiving, I'd rather be eating a Wisner Farm turkey then a store bought one.  These turkeys have a huge 1-2 acre run, feed on pasture and all natural gluten free feed.  As do the chickens and other animals.  It is hard to go there and not get excited about chickens.  They raise mostly heritage chicken breeds; breeds that have been around for ages and even some that are endangered.

 

 One of our Dominiques

 

 One of our Bluelaced

From reading about chickens and doing research what I've learned is that when the corporate farming movement happened in the 1930's cities started to outlaw backyard chickens and the egg and chicken industries started growing but only used a few breeds - that way meat and eggs were always consistent.  So all these unique backyard breeds like the Dominique started to become rare.  It was really neat to be with so many different kinds of chickens at Wisner Farm.  It was hard not to leave with more then six!  The six we did bring home though seem to be pretty nice.  They don't mind too much to be picked up, they all forage very well, and so far are pretty quiet.  I have already named two of them; Lady & Goldie.  Those are the two Goldenlaced.  Lady seems to be the biggest out of all six and has gorgeous feathers.  Goldie is of course the most golden of the two.  The others don't have names yet, but I'm sure they will.

The coop is mostly done.  The fence is up - it is about a 25x25 foot yard around the coop - enough for the chickens to walk around and keep busy.  The outside of the coop has snake wire (also known has hardware cloth) around the bottom of it and it is partial buried to stop anything from digging its way into the coop.  Lewie put a nice lock on the human door so it can't be opened by an animal.  We still need to put some roofing on the nesting boxes just to protect it more from the rain and eventually I'd like to paint the whole thing, but for now, it serves its purpose.  We got pretty lucky with this chicken coop and also tried to reuse a lot of what we already had.  The basic structure came with the property so that was very helpful.  We also found a bunch of t-posts on the property and old fencing so we recycled that, the plywood, the gate, a few 4x4s and 2x4s.  Really all we had to buy for this coop was the feeder, waterier, a few more 4x4s and 2x4s, screws, nails and snake wire.  It is always nice to use what you have and it saved us a lot of money. 

Lady

My guide through building a chicken coop and raising chickens has been Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens: 4th Edition (Storey's Guide to Raising Series) which is by far the best chicken book.  She answers every question you could have about chickens and it has helped us with everything from dimensions for the pop-hole door to what kind of feed to get.  I also had help from my cousin Carla who, along with her husband, owns nine chickens. 

Our chickens should start laying eggs with the next month and I'll be sure to keep Off The Map updated with any chicken news.

Chicken Coop - Day 3

 The finished french doors (human entrance)

I only took a few pictures today because we worked all day.  Lewie was amazing as he felt under the weather but pretty much finished the chicken coop today.  He finished up the french doors, the nesting box, the snake wire around the bottom of the coop and the gate to the place.  With our chickens scheduled to be picked up later this evening, I made sure they had a roost inside, bedding (ours are getting pine wood shavings - you know, the kind hamsters get - can you say spoiled chickens?!) and of course feed and water.  Then, we are driving an hour away to Danridge, TN to meet our new feathered friends and hopefully leave with some.  They will spend the night in the coop and hopefully tomorrow when they are less stressed they'll get to explore their new front yard.  I'll post pictures tomorrow of the new arrivals.

Finished the snake wire around the coop and finished the gate

Chicken Coop - Day 2

Chicken coop - Lewie working on the French doors

Today was all about finishing the doors on the chicken coop.  Lewie finished the pop-hole door, the human french door and the nesting boxes.   I wasn't much help, but I did finishing laying the t-post so today we can put then fence up.  We didn't run into a whole lot of problems other then the nesting boxes taking a lot longer then we thought they would.  Lewie and I both agree though that if we laid eggs, we would love to lay eggs in our nesting box, it's pretty nice!

Pop-hole door - open

Pop-hole door - closed

 Working on the nesting box

Chicken Coop - Day 1

 

Dog shelter 

What it looked like when we bought it

Our new house came with this building just up from our barn.  The original owner was using it as a dog shelter and when we moved in it was just being used for storage.  Lewie and I took one look and thought chicken coop.  We have wanted chickens for a long time but haven't ever gotten any because we haven't been in a permanent place.  When we were in Magdalena, New Mexico we were lucky enough to have a few friends that had chickens and always seemed to have fresh farm eggs.  Once you eat fresh farm eggs it's hard to go back to eating store bought.  So, this weekend we starting construction on our chicken coop because this week we are picking up six chickens!  The coop is mostly already set up for us, but we did need to reinforce the floor, improve the human entrance, build a pop-hole door for the chickens, build the fence around the coop predator proof and build some nesting boxes.  Yesterday, I spent most of the day mainly cleaning up the area, like moving a brick path to make room for the fence, and getting nails out of recycled plywood we used for the floor.  Lewie worked on the pop-hole and also planning out the nesting boxes.  Today, we plan on finishing the pop-hole, nesting boxes and maybe finish the fence.  Eventually we would like to have free-range chickens but we'd like to fence in our whole property and we haven't gotten there yet, so for now they will be fence-range.  Our chickens will have a nice big area to run around in and all the breeds we are getting are good at foraging so hopefully they'll enjoy being in the woods as much as we do!   Follow the break that says "read more" for more pictures of our work on the chicken coop yesterday.

 Before: dog shelter

New Mexico Green Chili Breakfast Tart

Today the Egg Show was taken down at Bear Mountain so I celebrate the end of the Egg Show with a New Mexico Green Chili Breakfast Tart.  It was a great month having the eggs around and it was a lot of fun.  This recipe is courtesy of Lori Scholes, aka Buckskin Cate, who wrote the recipe for a book I have called, Magdalena Trail Drivers Cookbook.  It is published by our local cowboy action shooting club.  I highly recommend this cookbook - it full of all sorts of goodies and treats and yummy recipes.  You can buy the book at The Market Place in Magdalena which is Lori's store.

New Mexico Green Chili Breakfast Tart
by Lori Scholes

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup butter
3 eggs
1/3 cup Pinon nuts (Pine nuts)
1 1/2 cups cream cheese
1 1/2 cups of cheddar cheese, shredded
8 oz green chili, chopped
1 Jalapeno pepper, shredded
1/4 cup red bell pepper, roasted and chopped
Sprinkle of red chile flakes


Sift the flour and cornmeal into a food processor.  Cut the butter into cubes and add to the food processor.  Blend.  Add one egg and continue to blend into a small ball that is workable to press into a crust.  Press the ball of dough into the bottom and sides of tart pan.  Prick with a fork to ensure crust does not break while baking.  Bake at 350* for about 25-35 minutes or until a pale gold color.  Remove from oven and set aside.  In a mixing bowl, blend cream cheese and 2 eggs.  Add the green chile and roasted red bell pepper.  Add the jalapeno shreds (to taste) and the red pepper flakes (for color).  Add cheese.  Once blended, spread the mixture into the tart crust.  Scatter the Pinon nuts over the top.  Top decoratively with chiles of your choice.  Place in oven and bake at 350* for 20-25 minutes or until the center no longer jiggles when shaken.  When done, remove from the oven and let set for 5-10 minutes before removing rim.  Serve in pie-like slices with a dollop of sour cream and garnish of red pepper.  Can be served hot or cold. 

It is so good you'll make one every week!  I hope to add more posts soon, I've been very busy with spinning class and work.  Don't give up on me yet though - I have several posts about Mother's Day coming up!

Guinea Hen Egg Frittata

I made a frittata with my guinea hen eggs!  It was yummy.  Here's the recipe:

Guinea Hen Egg Frittata

• Five guinea hen eggs plus three chicken eggs (you can substitute by using 6 chicken eggs) - whisked together in small bowl
• Lots of sage
• Cayenne Pepper
• Sea Salt
• Cumin
• Paprkia
• Cilantro
• Pepperjack cheese
• One medium sizes potato cut into thin slices
• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped

Preheat oven to 450*

In a large skillet (we use cast iron), saute the onions in olive oil and add all the spices - adjust amount to your own taste.  Cook until onions are soft and add potatoes.  Toss and then cover, cook for 3-5 minutes until potatoes are soft.  Season again if necessary.  Transfer onions and potatoes to plate or bowl.  In the same skillet add a little bit of olive oil and add whisked eggs.  Let set over medium heat for a few minutes until bottom is cooked and the top is still not set.  Add onion and potatoes mixture on top the eggs.  Place in oven and cook for 8 minutes or until egg is cooked all the way through.  Take out and sprinkle with pepperjack cheese.  Slice into pie shaped pieces and serve warm.

I really like frittata's now.  Of course, I just used what we had in our house but you could use mushrooms, spinach, peppers, goat cheese, etc.  The possibilities for a good frittata are endless.

Fresh from the farm

Today the cook that I work with, Cathy, gave me guinea hen eggs!  It's pretty fitting since the egg show is this month.  She has two guinea hens and she brought in five eggs for me!  Guinea hens are good for this area because they eat snakes and centipedes - both of which we have a lot of.  The eggs are very cute and about half the size of a chicken egg.  Two guinea hen eggs equal about one chicken egg in a recipe.  They are a slightly different shape too - smaller and more round then a chicken egg.  Cathy told me that they are mainly yolk and therefore have more egg taste then a chicken egg.  I can't wait to look up recipes for my five eggs!  Look for a post soon on something made with eggs!

The Egg Show

Ba ba Barbarian Egg

Egg in car by our postmaster, Greg

The Egg Show has started!  It isn't a contest or competition - just a display of art work on eggs.  There are many great eggs this year and lots of creativity.  The town really comes together for this community event and it's neat to see people of all ages participate.  Here are some of the ones I like:

A Pinneggle

Robin's Eggs Cupcakes

My mind is on eggs.  Spring is in the air and we've had spring visitors lately like the Mountain Bluebird and soon we'll see hummingbirds again.  The Egg Show starts this week and things are gearing up at the Bear Mountain Gallery.  Kids have been coming in with their eggs to show and all I can think about are eggs.  So on my day off today I decieded to make Robin's Eggs Cupcakes.  I got the idea from Recipes 4 Us and put my own twist on it.  They are so perfect for spring, aren't they adorable?

For the cupcakes:

Marble Cupcakes via Martha Stewart Cupcakes


For the icing:

1 1/2 sticks of butter, room temp
3/4 cup confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon cocoa powder

Mix these together until smooth.

I used a Wilton 199 frosting tip and with a piping bag made a 'birds nest' on every cupcake.  Then I sorted my Cadbury Mini Eggs so I had just the blue ones and topped each cupcake with a few. 

Happy Spring!

Blank Egg Canvas

I received my first eggs today to decorate for The Egg Show - 2010 Eggsibit.  They are ceramic eggs that are the size of about two chicken eggs and very intimidating.  I have until April 1st to decide what I will decorate them with and complete them for the Eggsibit!  The Egg Show is a local event that happens every spring headed by the local egg artist, Yvonne.  I am pretty excited about it because last year we moved here right as The Egg Show was ending and I didn’t get a chance to make one.  In one sentence, The Egg Show is a celebration of art on eggs.  Visit The Egg Show’s website for more information:  www.theeggplace.com  It runs the month of April Wednesday-Sunday 10:00-5:00 at the Bear Mountain Coffee House and Art Gallery.  Now that I have my eggs by brain is racing with ideas - fabric, paint, pencil, clay.... I have no idea what I’m going to put on my eggs but I will add a post when I am done!