Squirrels

Mark and Tim collected bitternuts growing wild by our propane tank for the chickens this winter.  Mark said, "We're squirrels!"
Just so.

From what I read, our chickens will have to be seriously hungry to eat them, but free is in our budget to try.
Butternuts, their tastier cousins, will join our nut grove next year.

Kifah harvested in her garden today and brought us greens- mustard and kale which Anjali and I whacked each other with before blanching and freezing.  

Food fights?  Anjali is setting me a good example.

Then Kifah taught me that heirloom tomatoes harvested green will ripen while those left on the vine will freeze.  So we gathered two boxes full for people and another box full of imperfect ones for chickens.

I figure that even tomato seconds will be a boon to poultry in January.  Again, a no cost experiment.

Speaking of chickens, here are some gratuitous chicken pix.

 

"Brownie is a nice chicken.  He doesn't peck a lot and he crows a lot.  I hope that next spring that he will be a nice dad and protect the chicks." --Mark

" 'Come on, follow me!  I will be the goodest chicken.'  This is Regal's commercial to the girls."  --Mark 

The aforementioned 'girls' 

checkin' 'em out.

As a novice squirrel, here are some of the books I've checked out from the library at least twice:

• Root Cellaring, Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables, Bubel
• Preserving Summer's Bounty, Rodale
• Minnesota's Bounty The Farmers Market Cookbook, Dooley
• Build Your Own Underground Root Cellar, Hobson
• Recipes from the Root Cellar, Chesman