A Farewell to Blogs

Yes, it's official. I have lost my long-running battle with excessive laziness and am forced to cease publication of Four Seasons in Vermont. I appreciate everyone who has stopped by for a look, but I really appreciate the readers who thought my posts were funny. Good-by from the North Country and happy lives to everyone!

The Great Wall of Vermont

The local masons pose in front of their handiwork.

Some of you readers are well enough read and travelled to be familiar with the so-called "Great Wall of China". Even though that wall can apparently be seen from space, I'm not convinced that China's "great" wall is all that great or can even come close to comparing to the wall we have recently completed in our yard. There are similarities however. The chinese built their wall to protect them from the ravaging barbarian hordes of Mongol horsemen. We have built our wall to protect us from the ravaging barbarian hordes from outside Vermont (New Hampshire comes to mind for example). It will also serve as a retaining wall for some flowers and shrubbery. Eventually we hope to extend the wall all around our property and then build a moat. That will be followed by the guard towers complete with catapults equipped to hurl copious quantities of Greek Fire. When it comes to home security, no excess is excessive. I'm not sure what that means but it's a motto I try and live by.

As Dumb as a Duck

The piercingly unintelligent gaze of our drake.

The ducks at their little hideaway on the brook.

The expression "as dumb as a duck" is not a colloquialism in the English language as far as I know. That is a great pity because ducks are some of the dumbest animals I have ever encountered. Cute perhaps, but their overriding quality seems to be dumbness. Our ducks, for example, refuse to go out on our 1/2 acre pond. The same pond that was the main motivation for us to get ducks. We imagined seeing the cute little creatures serenely cruising across the pond, lending a wonderful touch to our little bucolic paradise. The 4 Rouen ducks we have, unfortunately, appear to be hydrophobes. O.K., that's a little harsh. They're not afraid of all water. For example, they will splash around all day in the 2 gallon kitchen basin we used to leave out as drinking water. The million gallon pond? Not so much. They have also found a secluded spot along the brook where they like to hang out, and of course the brook is made up primarily of water. They can even float for 2 or 3 whole feet along this stretch of brook if they tuck their feet up real tight. In another sign of limited IQ, the ducks also appear to believe they are chickens. They don't sleep with the chickens, they don't look like chickens and they don't hang out with the chickens all day. But leave the chickens closed up in their run and the ducks will hang out by the gate wondering why their compadres have been singled out for such harsh treatment. If they knew what has already happened to a couple of the chickens (eaten by yours truly) they might not be so anxious to hang out with them. Anyway, we've got the darn things now and I admit they are much too cute to, how can I say this delicately, turn into 'canard a l'orange', so we'll just have to put up with them. For the time being anyway.

"Just try to ignore him."

Some alert Reds notice the intruder.

A quick strategy conference ensues.

The strategy? Ignore the snapping turtle and try to eat as much as possible. You never know.

I recently took down the fencing that was meant to keep the ducks from exploring the pond too precipitously. Tommy the turtle immediately decided that the lawn near the duck shelter was a good place to sunbathe, and for the last two days he's come up to loll around and check out the poultry. Snapping turtles can eat small ducks apparently, so out of an excess of caution, the ducks haven't been in the pond since Tommy made his first appearance. I've begun chasing him away so our Rouens can have their little corner of the pond back. After all, if anyone's going to have duck soup around here, it's going to be me.

J'accuse ! ! !

Giselle casts an accusing eye in my direction after the untimely death of her friend, Gertrude.

The ducks hasten to the safety of their shelter as I approach.

Sauve qui peut! (every chicken for herself!) the Wyandottes shriek as I saunter up.

An impromptu memorial for the dearly departed Gertrude.

Our poultry plan has run into something of a headwind. Originally we intended to eat 10 of the 20 birds we recently acquired and keep the rest as our laying flock. Things started well. The 10 Wyandottes were scraggly and a bit wild. Just the thing for roast chicken. The 10 Rhode Island Reds on the other hand were handsome, tame and two of them have just started laying. Wonderful how the stars align sometimes! So yesterday we decided to put the plan into action and butcher our first "roaster". The deal was that I would kill the bird and Catherine would pluck and clean it. (As deals go, I think I did O.K. on this one.) We identified a particularly unsympathetic chicken; I caught and killed it and proudly presented the headless fowl to Catherine. (No heads was another part of the deal on her part.) Then the trouble began. Catherine it turns out couldn't see her way clear to pluck and clean a chicken that "she knows". I'm not sure what she means by "knows" but I suppose that after 3 weeks our chickens are at least passing acquaintances and that apparently qualifies. Catherine also claims that she didn't know that "cleaning" a chicken meant removing the innards. So after beheading this unfortunate chicken I found myself finishing the plucking and doing all of the cleaning. The whole operation took just under a couple of hours. The bird itself was scragglier than we had suspected when we originally identified it. It may weigh 8 ounces, but I think that's optimistic. The moral of this story is that we now have a new plan which works wonderfully for everyone. All of our chickens now are "layers" as opposed to "roasters". As a result none of them are looking at imminent death. Catherine is relieved that she won't have to pluck and clean any of her new-found friends. And I'm happy I won't lose another two hours of my life butchering an animal that barely has enough meat on it to make a good fajita. We'll still eat chicken of course. All we'll have to "pluck" however will be the plastic it comes wrapped in.

The Chicken Slave

The grandkids preparing to help catch our chickens at the farm on pickup day.

The ladies inspect their new home.

The flock looks over the park of Chateau Poulet.

The four Rouen ducks. Much cuter than the chickens.

You may have noticed, dear reader, that there haven't been many posts of late. There is a simple explanation that can be summarized in one word - chickens. For the past several weeks I appear to be working full-time for the chickens. And when I say full-time I mean 20 hour days, 7 days a week. We picked the demanding birds up 10 days ago and since then there has been no rest for your hero. First I had to work feverishly to finish the fence around the park of Chateau Poulet, so our new residents could leave the coop without running off. My oldest son was here to help me or else I would still be working on that darn fence. Then there has been a constant back and forth at all hours of the day to feed, water and otherwise tend to the demanding flock. Toss in the 4 ducks who have their own special demands and you can understand why I'm exhausted. To add insult to injury, 10 of the birds we got (the Wyandottes) are pretty scraggly. They were raised in a very small coop and got to picking each other's feathers out. They're the black and white ones in the photo above. The Rhode Island Reds on the other hand are pretty handsome birds. All of these young chickens should start laying any day now. So far however we have seen zero eggs. Nada, zilch, rien, etc. If they don't start laying soon, starvation could well start gnawing at our innards and then the inevitable will inevitably arrive. One of those scraggly Wyandottes will find its way into our oven. Not a pretty thought I admit. But then again neither is starvation. Pray for eggs because I'm not very practiced at butchering chickens.

The Quest for Moby Trout Ends

Moby prior to a short stay on the grill.

My granddaughter caught the big one this morning in our first fishing outing of the year. Moby came in at 17 inches and 283 lbs. We bought a second freezer to freeze all the extra meat. My son also caught a good sized trout, 16 inches, and for a moment today the $382,596.76 we've spent stocking the pond and feeding the fish seemed like a wise investment. The fish were grilled and Moby (minus 280 lbs put away in the freezer) was eaten tonight. I must say, he tasted pretty good.