What a cold fall we have had so far! The calendar says it isn’t winter for two more weeks and yet we have had one official snow day already – only 7 inches – and plenty of cold, damp weather. For that reason, we had to take advantage of any days that allowed us to get out into the fields to finish up the beds that still needed our attention.

We finally got the garlic beds planted about 3 weeks past the normal Halloween target date. Officially, garlic should be planted after the first heavy frost but our frost was so early this year that we had to wait a bit to find a decent day.

Dave spoils me by helping to prep the beds in advance with some added compost and a bit of tilling so that when I find a window of time, all I have to do is hoe the rows for planting and separate the bulbs into cloves to plant them. This year we placed our order for our favorite hard neck garlic variety, German Extra Hardy, in the early summer and took delivery in October from Seed Savers’ Exchange.

The trick to planting garlic is that it needs to be rotated on a three year basis meaning it cannot return to the original site until the fourth year of the rotation. The catch here is that since it occupies its spot in the garden for at least 8 months of the year, it is very nearly a ‘perennial’ and it takes some thought and commitment as to where to put it. Thank goodness we have plenty of space and are willing to cheat just a little bit on the ‘rules’ as we put the garlic back in the beds it occupied only three years ago, albeit with plenty of re-composting. Much ado about so little? Here I am after planting one of the beds last month. After placing the bulbs in the 4″ deep troughs, we covered it all with soil and then a healthy spread of straw. Ditto for both of the strawberry and asparagus beds which were cut back and winterized as well.    I owe readers an update on the chickens as they always keep me on my toes. As I entered the coop recently one morning I found a Buff Orpington chicken who was still up on her roost and acting oddly. She was in a crouched position and continually craned her neck and head to look upward at the ceiling. I instantly recognized this as “star gazing”, a condition that can afflict a chicken for several reasons, none of which are generally curable. Of course I took a quick video of the poor girl.

I immediately consulted my books and online resources about star gazing as I knew this  was a serious condition that most experts consider irreversible in a chicken this age. (Young chicks can get thiamine injections and often recover.)

I found that most of the time this behavior is a result of Polyneuritis or a later stage of thiamine deficiency (B1) which can be caused by poor diet or alternatively a lack of proper metabolism of a proper diet, resulting in anemia followed by star gazing which is technically a “retraction of the head due to paralysis of the anterior neck muscles, resulting in the chicken losing the ability to stand or sit upright.” UGH!

I was pretty sure that I was feeding these chickens a very proper diet of expensive foods designed by Purina and others so I doubted that she had any overt deficiency unless she suffered from another condition that caused her to be anorexic or eating poorly and thereby resulting in vitamin deficiencies as stated above.

I read that it can also be caused by a knock to the head…some chickens have softer skulls than others…which causes a temporary neuritis…go figure. But of course I isolated her quickly – as she would not have survived the pecking order of 24 other flock mates – and made sure she was warm, fed and watered as I retreated to decide what to do with her to ease her pain and to figure out just how I would cull a chicken from the flock.  Lo and behold, after several hours of TLC, she rebounded and looked entirely normal again and hardly worth reporting here except that I spent half a day doing extensive research and am now and a bit wiser in the science of raising chickens! This was nearly a month ago and she continues to prosper in the flock.

Did I mention how much these chickens are spoiled? Besides their Purina sourced “layers” feed, they get a few special treats every couple of days, one of which is an Omega 3 sourced supplement. When I say the word ‘Omega’, they actually get excited as they know what is coming!

Coulter loves to come home from pre-school these days and help Nana in the kitchen with meals for his family and at 3.5 years, is turning into a very big helper in the kitchen as he is eager to measure, smell, taste and experience the entire preparation from start to finish. Of course he samples wonderful foods on the other end as well!  At nine months, Willie is on the move – crawling and climbing – and even though his parents wish he would sleep a bit more, he entertains us no end.The Christmas season is upon us bringing some extra special joy into our lives as last week we had a small and unexpected package arrive in our mailbox from our Virginia Beach Brotemarkle cousins. Intrigued, we opened a small box that included some edible delights and a lovely note from Cousin Michelle.

Back story here: My cousin John and his brother David (aka The Smokey Brotes) are avid “BBQ-“ists or ‘grill guys’ or however they may identify themselves. Anyway, as they were off to an annual BBQ competition last spring, I sent them a box full of honeys from our farm…dark, light, spring, summer…you name it for their grilled or marinated meats. Well, I loaded quite a bit of extras in the box and I learned that John’s wife, Michelle was delighted with the surplus since she makes Baklava every year (16 years running so far, I think) for a very large Christmas gathering of friends.

So our wonderful box of treats was a sampling of her special baklava made from our Seven Oaks honey! So crisp, nutty and sweet, it was just perfect as I must admit to personally taste-testing to my heart’s delight! Many thanks to Michelle for thinking to share with us!  We spent this morning, as it has become our family tradition, at the local Christmas tree lot with the Wards selecting trees to decorate for each of our homes. This cold but sunny morning caused us to quickly select our trees while Coulter ran around burning off extra energy.  We dashed inside the makeshift trailer to pay our dues to the Kirkwood Optimists and continued the lovely conversation with our salesman, Bob who drew from his wallet a special greenery of his own to share with us.

It turns out that he is a photographer with a special eye towards 4 leaf clovers and must be an expert in the subject as he saw my willing interest in his art and expounded no end with the name of each variety. Noting my appreciation for his craft, he gave me signed photos of his “Clover Art”, each with a species name in both Gaelic and Celtic form. His name is Bob Cullis (friends call him Soft Old Bob) and he regularly donates his signed art to local charities which are auctioned at a premium price!

Call me Soft Old Nancy since after returning to the farm,  I headed right back to the tree lot with a jar of our honey and proudly told Bob that this was a little gift from ‘our bees to his clover’. Two strangers spontaneously hugged and the Christmas spirit of giving was upon us.