First Day of Frost - November 23, 2015

Last night was a good night.  We had a potluck supper at church to celebrate Thanksgiving a little early.  We always enjoy fellowship meals at our little country church!  The church provided the meat, which in this case was pork tenderloin stuffed with smoked sausage and the traditional fried turkey. Everyone brings their favorite side dish, cabbage roll casserole, corn maque choux, dirty rice, along with a full range of pies, cakes, etc. that are sweet enough to put you into a diabetic coma.

Our preacher pulled out a well-worn Bible and read to us from the Book of Philippians about living the Christian life and being thankful for what we have, especially our great salvation!  We lined up and fixed our plates with delicious food and then sat down to fellowship with our brothers & sisters. We enjoyed the food and each others' company and finally proceeded home with full bellies.  We did not go to bed hungry, that much is true.

We woke up to the sound of roosters crowing, ushering in a new day at a little after 5 a.m., and we walked out to the barn to milk Daisy and Rosie.  We walked in silence and heard the soft mooing of Daisy as she woke up from her slumber and followed us to the barn, eager to be milked to relieve the tightness of her udder.  I looked up at a beautiful sky, illuminated by millions of bright stars.  It didn't take long to feed the chickens, mix up the feed for the cows, wash the cows' bags and milk them. Then it was on to feed the dogs and then feed the chicks in the chicken tractor.  They are growing quickly.  I'll post a picture in the next few days to show you.

As I walked across the pasture with a bucket of Chick Grower, enjoying the peace before a busy day, I noticed something glimmering in the moonlight.  I bent over and touched the grass.  Yep, a layer of frost, the first one of the season, covered the ground.  I googled the Average First Frost date for our zip code and it showed November 10th.  This year we're almost a full two weeks later.  I like to note this in order to protect sensitive plants that we have.

Image Credit

The fall frost means that any additional growth in the pasture will come to a halt and while the cows have been continuing to eat on the pasture, over the next few weeks, their nutrition will come increasingly from the hay that we have stockpiled to help them make it through the fall/winter.  The frost also means that our green bean harvest will come to an end, along with that of the basil and peppers.  I'll cover our lettuce to protect it until we're able to harvest and consume all of it.  As the nights get colder, I'll bring the sensitive houseplants into the garage.  They are still somewhat protected from the frost by a canopy of live oak limbs.

One other thing thing that the colder weather also means is that I'll need to set out some traps and try to catch predators that attack our flock of laying hens.  With the onset of fall/winter, the prey of predators must be increasingly hard to find and they resort to eating our animals.  Just yesterday I was walking around the perimeter of our pasture locating a place in our electric fence where it was grounded and saw this sad sight!:

Thou Shalt Not Kill!

One of our Barred Rock laying hens fell victim to a violent end last night.  She was intact except for her head.  This method of attack appears to be the calling card of either a possum or a raccoon.  When I find something like this, I always think to myself, "If you're going to kill the thing, don't waste it! Eat it all!"  It won't be wasted by me.  I picked up the poor old girl and buried her in the garden where she'll grow some nice vegetables for us next spring.  I sure will miss those nice eggs she laid, though.

Composting a Laying Hen

I'll pull out the cage trap that I have and bait it where I found the chicken.  The predators are creatures of habit and will return for more and in doing so, will make a fatal mistake.  I'll then compost the predator in a hole right next to the laying hen. Preparing for the change in seasons takes planning and adapting.