New chickens and a new barn!

Yes, I've finally managed to weasel some new birds!! These ladies came to me from a local who didn't want to deal with her chickens anymore and offered them to me. Of course I jumped for joy. Yes, they've all been named-- 2 Wyandottes-- Amelia and Wilhelmina, 2 Rhode Island Reds-- Charlotte and Emily, 2 Buff Orpingtons-- Fancy and Henrietta, and one Americauna-- Venetia. They are still very timid and don't approach me or the other hens too closely, so we firmed up the goose house (added a roost or two, a few nesting boxes and cleaned out the goosy-ness and that is where they are currently hanging out.
The geese have moved over to the large pasture with the puppies (now at 6 and 1/2 months). Tonight at 6 pm they were all resting peacefully around the shores of Largo Gallina (yes, the name for our new pond, located at the shore of Mount Gallina. Cool, huh??) Anyhow, Brantly and I went to pick up the new hens yesterday after sunset, thinking we would be able to hijack sleeping chickens. We did not know about the chicken coop they occupied.... Their set up was like a jungle-coop, and we had to unscrew portions of the coop and crawl through pallets to get these girls. These ladies may have been asleep when we got there, but they were awake and yelling by the time we put them into the pet carrier.
The barn is now in phase 3 (out of 4) and the second floor is finally going up. With a light snow this morning we were wondering if the second floor might have to wait until next week.... However, the weather warmed up a bit and the workers were able to frame up the rest of the job. Now we just wait for the roofing and hope we can beat the snows.
We started some very late winter grass on and around the new pasture. We're hoping to force out the thistles, rather than chemically kill them. We've spoken to several local (and Oregon-based) organic farmers, and have decided this is the best, if maybe slower, method of weed control. Not only that, but the geese have been going after the roots of anything that grows over there, so they will probably take care of some of the weed problem.

Barny Sharp Talons, who are you?

Yes, it's been driving me nuts. I keep thinking-- "The Chicken Bar, who mentioned the Chicken Bar??" Well, I've got "innkeeperitis, and can't remember anything (beyond this morning's breakfast, and even that is touch-and-go....)

So, put me out of my misery.

Other than THAT, we've had a GREAT late summer/fall. The rejuvenation project next door (the new 3 acres) continues apace. Today the pergola for the casita went up. We have decided to call the little house "Casa Cordova" after the gentleman who lived there alone for so many years. We think he would really like our efforts to shore-up the house and husband the land.

Speaking of husbands... Brantly went out last week and bought over 25 trees, mainly fruit trees. We have planted them all in a double row along our western fence line. They are a mixed bunch, and we are hoping to eventually harvest apples, peaches, cherries, and apricots. In addition to those trees, friends of ours-- MaryAnn and Kaseem, brought over 3 poplars and an "antique" apple tree from the Hacienda Martinez. We're very excited about the apple and have decided to baby it along in the back yard for the first year.

The dogs continue to grow at an alarming rate. We think they are about 40 lbs each, as Brantly just about gave himself a hernia loading them into the Scion today, to take them to their monthly vet visit. Schmoo has turned out to be a superb guard dog. He sleeps most of the day (drooling) and wakes at dusk to keep vigil over the snoozing birds. Sparky mainly just watches Schmoo, wondering why he is doing what he is doing. And the geese, of course, torture and bother the dogs at every opportunity.

Many thanks to our fabulous guests this month-- especially Ann Marie Trapp, who brought me (after much begging and nagging) one of her wonderful water colours. The photo does NOT do this beautiful painting justice. Also much appreciated were the new additions to my "Hen Library," provided by Flora MacDonald and Peter Kelley, and Sally and Jim Blagg. It's true, a chicken fanatic can NEVER HAVE TOO MANY CHICKEN-RELATED ITEMS!!!!!!!


It's finally cooling down here, and a great time to visit before the winter snows. I can't think of a more lovely place to be than Taos at this time of year!

Great Pyrenees, Sebastopol Geese, broody hens, more Great Pyrenees & Sid and Nancy....

Yes, we've finally gone insane over here at the Cottonwood Bed and Breakfast. Last month we bought the 3 acres that adjoin our property to the south. This month we decided to start filling it up-- with critters.


Now for the geese and Great Pyr situation as it stands today-- we have 3 new geese (or goosers, as I like to call them). We have a young Sebastopol goose we have named Snarky, and two cute mutts we have named Sid and Nancy. We had 4 Sebbies, but lost 3 of them to a dog attack. Which leads to the next new guests-- the 2 Great Pyr brothers we drove all the way to Montezuma, KS to get. Yep, Sparky and Shmoo. They are so cute and that only pictures can tell the story. We went to get one pup and ended up with two. Of course. We thought about one poor lonely puppy and just couldn't do it.

So, now Sparky and The Shmoo are kicking it in the hen yard. So far they have bonded nicely with our 15 girls (and Bernard). They are having a bit of a time with Sid and Nancy, who would like to squeeze their little heads and rip them off. Needless to say, Sid, Nancy, and Snarky are all over in their OWN part of the yard, enjoying the new pond we installed last week.

And if that isn't enough, 4 of my Great Cochins have just gone broody-crazy. I am exhausted with pulling them off their eggs, so they are all going to be allowed to hatch. Yep, it will be chaos here in about 2.5 weeks.

Earlier in the summer we finally tackled the front yard, getting rid of the grass and installing a more "xeric" garden. Okay, so the fountain isn't exactly xeric....

So, what are you waiting for?? Come see the pups before they're 160 lbs! I've attached a few of the first pics.

Croci are blooming, new biscuit & gravy recipe & more....

It's spring! Yay! We've got dozens of purple and yellow croci blooming around the property as well as tons of tulips and irises poking their heads out. Oh yeah, not to mention The Rhubarb is back. I'm thinking we should have a rhubarb naming contest this year to finally stick a moniker on the beast....

A couple of new recipes this week-- a gravy for biscuits and gravy and a home-made mac and cheese (both with a southern twist, of course).

As much as I love biscuits and gravy (they are my favorite breakfast dish) I have never made them at the Cottonwood Inn before. I fished around online and found a good gravy recipe-- but it still had a few things missing. The biscuit recipe I use is out of the High Altitude cookbook, a great book for any cook to have. The gravy recipe I concocted reads as follows:

Serves 4

1 lb. pasture-raised pork sausage (please use only humanely raised meats, your food will taste so much better and your immunities will eventually thank you!) We use Beelers.

3 tablespoons of butter (you can use less if your meat is fatty-- Beelers tends to be a bit leaner)

6 tablespoons of flour

4 cups of milk

1 teaspoon fresh cracked pepper

salt to taste (we found very little was necessary)

1 small can Hatch green chilies (chopped up)Or fresh if you can get 'em!

Brown the sausage in a deep saucepan over med-high heat.
When there is no pink color left add the butter.
Sprinkle the flour over the melted butter/sausage mixture and then gradually add the milk-- stir briskly to keep the flour from clumping.
You can actually dump the green chilies into the milk and they will get added gradually.

Add your pepper and salt after you've added all the milk and the mixture is nicely mixed. Bring the heat up a bit and get your mixture to a boil. Let the mix boil for a few minutes until it has thickened to the consistency you like.

Pour it over your favorite biscuit recipe and fight over the left overs....

I thought this was just fantastic. Brantly isn't a huge gravy fan but even he had a biscuit slathered in the stuff.

The other comfort food we experimented with lately was some homemade mac & cheese. The recipe I found came off the Food Network website but I thought it lacked zip and catered more toward children's tastes. Here is my end result after slight tampering:

served about 6 healthy eaters

1/2 lb bag pasta (your choice of mac & cheese shapes-- I used Texas-shaped because I couldn't help myself)
3 tbs butter
3 tbs flour
1 tbs mustard powder
3 cups milk
1 finely chopped onion, medium
1 bay leaf
1 tsp chili powder (we used chipotle, but it was HOT)
1 egg
10-12 oz shredded cheese (I liked a blend of Monty-Jack and sharp cheddar, but anything you have in the fridge would work)
1 small can green chilies (or fresh!) of course
salt & pepper to taste

I've had this baked (which is nice with the crispy top) or just served it right out of the pot-- you decide how hungry you are and how long you are willing to wait.

If you decide to bake it, you can do it at 350 for 30 minutes or until desired crispyness.

Put your pasta to cook.

In a largish pot melt the butter and then whisk in the flower and mustard powder. You will be making a kind of rue. The recipe I used said do this for 5 minutes, but I think I did it more like 3. Keep it free of lumps and then stir in the milk, onion, bay leaf, chili powder, & green chilies. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Take out the bay leaf when done simmering.

"Temper" in your egg-- this means adding a bit of the sauce to the egg first and stirring and then adding the mixture into the pot.

If you are going to eat the mac out of the pot then toss in all the cheese, if not, reserve some cheese for a topping. Add this to your cooked (al dente)pasta and add your salt and pepper.

Yes, green chili and chili powder make EVERYTHING better!

So, other than cooking the news at the Cottonwood B&B is that Eva (our female dog) has turned into a genuine "egg-sucking dog". Yes, it's true. At first I blamed Winston, but I was shortly put to rights when I actually SAW Eva taking an egg from the hen house and burying it in the yard. We kept wondering why she came in every night with dirt on her nose....

Post Holiday Life at the Cottonwood B & B

Wow, another month and a half has flown by. We were packed here at the Cottonwood Inn, many interesting guests from all walks of life. The skiing was good over the Christmas holiday and most of our guests found the time (and energy) to spend a few days up at the Taos Ski Valley.

Around the first of the year my Dad came to visit and we built the long-anticipated day run for the chickens. We had an interesting time working in the 10 degree weather and digging post holes in the frozen ground. Of course that activity finally answered a topic of some debate around here-- just how deep does the ground freeze. Well, not too deep-- about 3 or 4 inches in most places. This means that I have some hope for a few bulbs that got left in the ground last year. Who knows?

We were given an old barn gate by a friend and Brantly and I have spent some time trying to get it set into the frame. We're about half-way there and pictures are forthcoming.

Very cool guest Pamela C. gave us a FANTASTIC oil pastel of our bad boy Bernard. Pamela is an artist down in the Albuquerque area who found a muse in my ill-tempered rooster. Thank you Pamela, we love our new art work! Again, a photo of the painting is forthcoming....

Plums, plums, plums.

Today was the first load of Japanese plums-- over 150 lbs. picked, washed, pitted, and bagged. I won't be canning them until Monday or Tuesday. Right now, I don't even want to LOOK at another plum.

But I will have to.... A neighbor of ours (curse him) has invited us over to pick Green Gage plums (Prunus domestica italica, for you botany nerds). Of course I couldn't say no to free fruit! So, I'll be canning some of those, but I think I will also freeze some halved, to use throughout the winter for tarts, pies, et cetera.

Also coming along nicely are the pears and apples. We're on the lookout for either a cheap cider press, or some kind of communal press. If I can get my act together, KTAO-- Taos's solar radio station, the world's only-- will allow a person to get on air and beg, borrow, trade, or sell stuff and services. As a novice at apple pressing, I'd like to borrow or trade. I could trade...PLUMS in return for the use of a press!

We're having a last of the summer heat wave, as high as 90 today, and no rain in our future until Monday. That means lots of dragging the sprinkler from one part of the yard to the other. Still, we've got lots of stuff still blooming, not to mention all of the veggies I've been yanking out of the garden daily-- cukes, cabbage, yellow squash, tomatoes, peppers, Brussels sprouts, potatoes, and dahlias! Yay! I've been getting a steady trickle of the smaller dahlias I planted, nothing much to crow about in the dinner plate department, and I planted over 35 dinner plate varieties. We've just had so much rain that every bug in the universe has moved in and settled down to dinner. Oh well, next year will be all pompoms and mid-sizes.

The dawgs and chickens are all fine, and I'm working on Brantly to get a couple of angora rabbits when the Taos Fiber Festival rolls around. I know the chickens would just LOVE them....

First Batch of Canning

Well, we have finished the first grueling round of canning-- about 8 cases. Two cases of apricot-cherry jam, 3 cases of Hatch green chili jelly, and a little over 3 cases of plum marmalade made from some frozen plums.

Also have been doing some experimenting on our head roo- Bernard. No, not the kind of experimentation that involves a trip to somewhere mysterious or a large cooking pot with sage. I trimmed his VERY long spurs last night, as well as tied some old towel cloth onto them, hoping this would slow the amount of feathers he seems to remove from the backs of the hens. I had bought "Hensavers," chicken saddles, to put on several of the girls, but after one experiment on Becky, who went wild, and was also ostracized by all the other chickens, I've decided to try out just a few more ideas....

Lots of interesting action coming off Taos Pueblo land-- and across our front yard! It's that time of the year when the Taos Indians take their young up into the wilderness to teach them how to live off the land. The procession of horses, with people wearing traditional clothing, has been fascinating to watch. I even had a group last night who, when they saw our sign, asked if they were too late for breakfast....

The garden news is purple cabbage, sweet peas, squash, squash, and squash, some spinach, broccoli, & radishes, not to mention the sour cherries. I keep meaning to assemble a veggie cornucopia to photograph, but we eat it way too fast.