Yesterday was a pretty special day here – the chickens laid their first eggs! I was surprised since I thought we had a couple more weeks to go. Reading up on what to expect I knew the eggs would be smaller in size at first and the shells thinner – this was totally accurate. One of the eggs I am figuring got stepped on and cracked open and the other I am not sure if it was already cracked or it happened when I went to pick it up; not realizing how fragile it was. I do have a picture of both and what else surprised me was Greta the younger hen laying an egg also – unless Rosie laid both, but I don’t think they lay 2 in one day. They weren’t there in the morning when I fed them, but appeared later in the morning close to noon. Today I am still waiting and nothing has happened so far. These eggs were both on the coop floor so I put a ping pong ball (as a fake egg) inside the house in the nesting box hoping they will figure to lay the eggs there.
Light brown in color
Cracked egg
Here’s a shot of the girls (Rosie and Greta) on the roosts and ole Rusty standing guard!
Rusty the rooster has become quite loud and cock-a-doodles all day long … all day long.
A second special happening here was garlic harvesting … the leaves and stalks had started to die down so I browsed through my garlic book and it says to harvest when 6 leaves are still green so I dug up about 6-7 of the Chet’s Italian Red variety and 2 of the heads were especially big, but not all. I also dug up 2 of the Inchelium Red variety and I do remember them being smaller when planted so they weren’t as big as the Chet’s. Both these varieties are softneck which I believe are ready first and then the hardneck are ready to harvest a week or 2 later. I left my hardnecks alone and will check them in a few weeks. I was going to dig up more of the softnecks today but it’s raining.
Chet’s Italian Red garlic (softneck variety) I am going to braid the leaves together and hang to dry – 4-6 weeks is the suggested time. After this drying time we can use them to cook with or sell if we were in a farmer’s market. They will stay hanging or can be stored in a net bag … the type onions come in. I am very curious to see the differences in the 4 varieties, how each tastes different.
I took a few moments and blanched the peas I had from earlier in the week. Boiled water and added the peas for about 2 minutes and then dropped in cold water to stop the process. Vacuum sealed them with my Food Saver and popped them in the freezer!
Blanched peas
Sealed up with the Food Saver and ready for the freezer!
