Our Guinea Mobile and some of the Herd, grazing at sunset.Postcards from Little Seed - 6.16.12
Our Guinea Mobile and some of the Herd, grazing at sunset.Our Guinea Mobile and some of the Herd, grazing at sunset.Guinea Gettin' Broody
Guinea hen gettin' broody with it
One of our guinea hens is gettin' broody these days. Actually, she’s the only adult guinea hen we have right now. For the past few days she’s been sitting on about 20 eggs tucked away in a strip of trees and vines.
For a while she was laying her eggs in the salvaged-barn chicken coop we built. We always left one or two eggs in there so she would keep laying in that spot and we could eat her eggs. Guinea eggs are pretty tasty. Very rich, lots of yolk.
One day a few weeks ago she figured out our game and said to hell with laying eggs in the coop. She was gonna find another spot. After all, her and Guinea Cent wanted to start a family. That’s cool with us, so we didn’t bother to hunt down her nesting spot. Eventually we figured she’d get broody and we’d see where she’d been hiding them.
Goat's Milk Soapmaking with Gram
Our Handmade Lavender, Lemon Verbena, and Oat Goat's Milk SoapThe first visitor on the farm from my family was Gram. My Gram has always been the "cool Grandma"... Her seemingly uncanny understanding of what was "in" with the kids (she taught High School English) was bolstered in my awkwardly bespectacled eyes by the fact that she had been a model (which my 10 year old self would have died to be). The voracious reader who always had the right books for me at the ready, was also a curious and creative person (with a great eye) from whom I inherited my interest in (ok, obsession with) minerals and exquisite details from exotic cultures.
Whenever I would visit her growing up, Gram always had a pile of good books (usually tucked into a basket with some chocolate) waiting for me and fun projects in store for us. We made Ukrainian Easter eggs, we baked, we made jewelry... Oh, she also introduced me to pine nuts! Visits to Gram's were always a treat and now as an adult (well, almost), I hoped to return the favor. I had been looking forward to her visit for weeks and trying to think of some fun things we could do together while she was here.
Click Here To See our Soaps!
I had cheesemaking, soapmaking, and a visit to The Hermitage, President Andrew Jackson's Plantation, in the cards for her 3 day visit. Obviously, I had once again failed to add the "unexpected element" of farm life into my time calculations for the weekend. When Gram arrived, our first goat shelter had just been trampled and pooped on by The Herd, and a whole day would be needed to plan and build a new one.