chromedome

AFAIK they're all coturnix quail in different colorations. They can be harvested for meat at around 7 weeks (less than half the time for bobwhite quail, for example) and start laying at around 8 weeks old IIRC. So that makes them pretty great as homestead birds. Not everyone has the patience for fiddling with their itty-bitty eggs, but it's not really *that* big a deal once you get used to it. Here's an article that gives the basics of quail-rearing, if you're interested (even vicariously). https://rurallivingtoday.com/backyard-chickens-roosters/coturnix-quail/

Yesterday was a "quail day." I've mentioned that my father-in-law was incubating a batch of them for us, and they began to hatch out in the early hours of Friday. We were there yesterday afternoon, and got to watch a couple of them hatch while we were there. Here's a shot of the view through the side of the incubator, with new hatchlings scurrying around on top of their siblings: Again, for context, they're about the size of my thumb at this point (a quail's egg is roughly a teaspoon, or 5 ml, in volume). Note the new arrival at bottom right. And this little guy is the one we watched hatch out, with occasional supportive pecks at the shell from the already-hatched siblings. He's pretty gassed, at this point. They bounce back quickly, though, once they have a chance to recuperate and dry off. Remember the itty-bitty quail in the box, from the pic a few posts upthread? Well, this is them now (roughly 1 month old). They're all fledged out, now, and just this morning I heard one of the males crow for the first time (in response/challenge to an adult in the main cage), so it's just about time to sex and separate them. They're perhaps 2/3 adult size, at this point. The females will start laying in another few weeks.

I made a point of taking pictures today, since it's been a while between bunny pics and I know some of you could do with a bit of fuzzy cuteness in your lives right now. I was out adding a panel of finer mesh to Hazel's cage, because her kits' eyes are open now and they'll be out exploring within the next few days. We've had unfortunate incidents of babies falling through the wider, heavier-gauge mesh that makes up the cages, but small-mesh "hardware cloth" (1/4-inch square mesh) is large enough to let rabbit droppings drop without allowing the babies to drop as well. Adding the mesh took longer than I'd expected, because Hazel - after being skittish and "hand-shy" since the day we'd gotten her - has suddenly discovered that she actually likes being petted, so while I was trying to wire the new panels in place she was bonking her head into my hand, just as a cat does. As it turns out, I may not have needed to worry about that. Her kits are freakin' HUGE! Check this out: I know it's hard to judge scale, when looking at photos like this, so here's a shot of one of Ivy's babies (a couple of days younger) for comparison purposes: Hazel's little one is at least 50 percent larger. So, while it's a shame that we lost so many kits, the survivors in her litter are reaping the benefit by having all the milk they can handle. In other news we're within a few days of our baby chicks hatching (here), and our next batch of quail hatching (at my father-in-law's place). We're not sure how we'll do with the silver-laced Wyandottes, because the eggs were held up in Ontario for two extra days by a late-season snowstorm. The silkies, at least, were local so we know their provenance and what temperature they were held at. I guess we'll see how things shake out over the next several days.

It's a beautiful day, today, so I took the opportunity to assess what survived and did not survive out in my garden. In the herb bed, the picture is much more positive than last year, probably because we had a normal quantity of snow to protect the plants. My thyme, oregano, sage and parsley all survived, this time, which was not the case last year. The lovage, mint and Egyptian walking onions all did as well, though I had no qualms about any of those. They'll survive just about anything short of nuclear winter. I also found my newly-established strawberry bed in good order, along with a few carrots that were too small to bother with last autumn. I'll let them run to seed, and then save the seed. The curly kale is still doing fine under its cover, but the lacinato kale, after over-wintering successfully, has been eaten to the stumps by some pest or other (grrr). It's too early for insect pests, I think, even at the larval stage, so I suspect rodents. On a happier note, I was surprised and pleased to see that last year's late-season planting of spinach is bouncing back quite happily. In my area we don't traditionally put out transplants or direct-seed most vegetables until mid-May or thereabouts, but I'm encouraged to see all of these things popping back up so readily.

I haven't started any vegetables yet for later transplant, because it's still a bit early for most things, but we did get our mushrooms underway a few days ago. I've spoken about this a couple of times in recent years. You can buy mushroom kits consisting of a suitable substrate (sawdust, for example), which has been inoculated with spores of the desired mushroom, and maintained in conditions that encourage the mycelium to grow. The normal way to use these is simply to poke some holes and mist them, which prompts the mushrooms to fruit through the holes in the package. We've been a bit more ambitious than that. To maximize the value of a kit, you can prepare a larger quantity of substrate on your own account, and then crumble the substrate from your kit and mix the two. Some do this in baskets, some do it in ordinary plastic 5-gallon/20-liter buckets with holes drilled through them, and some do it in open beds in their garden. We've tried all three. So far the best one-season yield we've had was from the open bed of winecap mushrooms, which gave us 25-30 pounds. It didn't do as well as we'd hoped in the second year, giving us only a handful of mushrooms. It's still there, and we'll revamp it this year and hope for better, but we've also gotten another kit. This year we'll be doing all eight varieties using the bucket method, which my GF believes will give us the most controllable/reproducible results. This project is her baby, so I'm just following her lead and providing the muscle as needed. The kits are neither especially cheap nor especially costly, averaging $20-$25 ea (CAD), but with eight varieties it does add up. So establishing them as a self-sustaining presence in our garden is the longer-term goal. For context, we go through a lot of store-bought mushrooms, and ordinary button mushrooms here typically cost $3.99 for a 227g (half-pound) package. So that 25 pounds of winecaps, for example, corresponds to $200 dollars' worth even at button-mushroom pricing. When you allow for the higher price or outright non-availability of specialty mushrooms, their dollar value goes up. Our Superstore chain has "gourmet" mushrooms currently (morels, enoki, etc) at prices ranging from $8.99 and up for the same 227g size. So this year we have five buckets set up with sawdust substrate, and another three where the substrate of choice is chopped straw. We have another kit for winecaps (Stropharia rugosoannulata), as mentioned above, as shiitake, lion's mane (Hericium erinaceous), chestnut mushrooms (Pholiota adiposa) and four different kinds of pleurotus/oyster mushrooms. ...and yes, if you're wondering, we are indeed Blue Oyster Cult-ivators (Pleurotus ostreatus var. columbinus, which varies in color from a steely blue-grey to genuinely blue, depending on the strain).

I'll call this one "food science," on the grounds that it's probably not worth creating a new thread for "food-related medical stories." A man in Florida needed years to finally be diagnosed with a brucellosis infection around his defibrillator implant, and it was eventually traced to eating pork from a feral hog. https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/03/florida-man-eats-feral-pig-meat-contracts-rare-biothreat-bacteria/

I don't usually post recalls from the US, because I only subscribe to the Canadian agency's notifications, but I tripped across this one this morning in my travels. Some Stouffer's and Lean Cuisine frozen meals are being recalled due to the presence of foreign matter, specifically wood (I have questions...). https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/nestle-usa-announces-voluntary-recall-limited-quantity-lean-cuisiner-and-stouffersr-frozen-meals-due

If it makes you feel any better, I haven't seen it as low as $9/lb for quite a while out here. Pretty sure the last time I bought a few slices they were marked down for clearance, at 30% off the $13.99/lb price. That was a few years ago, already.

Yeah, you just debone the flats. I leave the wingtips on, because they make a convenient handle. Also, I love how crispy they get and I nibble them from their tiny bones at the end of the meal. It's not actually that big a deal. You just circle the "elbow" joint with your knife, scrape the ends of the bones a bit with your knife tip to get any tendons tying the flesh to the bone, and then push everything back to the "wrist" joint. A quick wrench dislocates the two bones (equivalent of the radius and ulna in a human arm), and Robert's your mother's brother. After the first few, I had it down to 20-30 seconds/wing. And I could have gone faster, if suitably motivated.

One of my clients gave me an assignment recently for an article on deboning chicken wings, because apparently there's a regional chain somewhere in the sunbelt that's getting some attention for its stuffed chicken wings. So after doing the article and the photography (not my strong suit) I froze the wings for another night. That turned out to be last night, because it was something quick and easy (since the actual deboning was done in advance), and I had errands to run in the afternoon. They were stuffed with ... (sigh) ... Stovetop stuffing mix, because that's what my sweetheart's mom used to make so it's what she likes. I'll come up with something more interesting, next time. I also frenched the drumettes, because I thought the grandkids would appreciate the whole "meat lollipop" aspect. Roasted a sheet pan of broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and mushrooms to go with, and made a garlic-y dip with mayo and sour cream. No photos, because that's a habit I haven't yet acquired (though I'll make a sporadic effort, going forward). Also roasted off a few of the quail from our freezer, a few nights earlier. Just spatchcocked them, seasoned them simply (salt, pepper, garlic, rosemary), and roasted them at high temp for 15-16 minutes. They were tasty, but the grandkids balked at having to pull the flesh from the bones at the table. Next time I'll probably "tunnel" debone them (remove the keel, ribs, etc) to make it easier for the rug rats.

"Photoshop: Just Because You Can, Doesn't Mean You Should." (It was never an actual marketing tagline, but probably should have been...)

Worth noting, for anyone who has any old-fashioned ideas about privacy, that in 2 weeks Alexa devices will start sending everything you say back to the mothership (until now, you've had the option to limit the devices to "local processing only"). https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-on-march-28/

This is anecdotal, so it's definitely not "science" as such, but this still seemed the best place for it to my eye. It's comments from the spouses of those on GLP-1 agonists (semaglutide, etc), on the changes they've seen in their partners while on the medication. It paints a mixed picture, in many ways. I'll note that one of my stepdaughters had bariatric surgery a year ago, and has experienced some of these things as well, despite having gone the route of surgery rather than medication. Basically the loss of food as a social/comfort thing, which is not negligible. https://www.elle.com/beauty/health-fitness/a63460440/ozempic-side-effects-spouses-interview/ That said, the evidence of broad health benefits for these meds is mounting rapidly, and should never be overlooked in any discussion of the pros and cons.

So my unofficial counts proved to be a bit optimistic. That initial count consists of me putting a hand into a nest box full of lively, wriggling babies, and mentally doing a quick "2, 4, 6..." as I fumble through them. When we do the "official" count it's both of us, with my GF pulling them out one by one as I hold out the front of my hoodie to receive them. The final count proved to be 8 kits for Ivy's litter and 7 for Hilda's, to go with the 7 survivors from Hazel's litter. So we lost just about 50% of our kits, with 22 surviving and thriving and 21 falling by the wayside. That's higher than usual, but - again - all of our does this year were first-time mothers. Hopefully they'll do better the second time around. With all of the melting and re-freezing we've had here of late, what had been a footpath through knee-deep snow is now a sheet of rippled ice surrounded by patches of bare soil and a layer of grainy, dirty late-season snow. It was pretty treacherous, so I had to walk ahead of my sweetheart and scatter driveway salt for us to walk on. I joked that sadly, it wasn't yet the season for rose petals (she says she forgives me).

Just a quick update to this post, since I'm supposed to be writing an article about the use of social media in policing (because freelancing is a really variable gig...). Sadly, none of the hypothermic babies survived despite our efforts. That was a blow, though not entirely unprecedented. Then the next afternoon, during my routine mid-day check on the new arrivals, I found that Hazel had somehow managed (in the course of being in and out of the nest box and fussing over her infants) to create a divot* right in the middle of the nest box, leaving nearly half of her babies literally out in the cold. Those, too, didn't make it despite rescue efforts. In the past we've had these incidents with new mamas, but they were less painful because we typically had 6 to 8 does giving us litters, staggered a week or so apart. With only 4 does, it hits a lot harder. The silver lining, such as it is, is that both of the brown does gave us really large litters. Hazel's litter, on the final count, proved to have been 13 kits, of whom 7 still survive and are lively and flourishing. Hester's ill-fated litter was a whopping 15 kits. If they're both better-grounded with their next litter (as is usually the case), we'll do well with them. On a more positive note, Ivy and Hilda have both now had their litters as well, and those are doing fine. Ivy gave us 10-12 kits, pending a final count (probably this afternoon), and this morning my rough count was 8 to 10 in Hilda's litter. *It occurs to me that this probably needs a clearer explanation. Each nest box is 20 or so inches in length, which is just right to be a snug and cozy shelter for a Flemish Giant (they're large bunnies). We give them straw and/or hay to serve as their basic nesting material, because in the wild they'd harvest their own dried grasses for that. Then, just before giving birth, they pluck copious quantities of fur from their own undersides and use that to make a warm, soft, fuzzy pocket in the middle of the nest box. That keeps the wee kits warm and cozy while mama hops out of the nest to eat, drink, stretch her legs, etc. In Hazel's case, her fussing divided that pocket into a 75/25 split, with most of the protective fur staying with the 7 survivors and very little left to protect the unfortunate 5.

From The Guardian, a look at a small non-profit working with manufacturers to taste-test meat alternatives. Best quote is about the director: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2025/mar/06/plant-based-meat-taste-testing

This analysis contains links to some underlying statistics from the US government, if you care to dig in. https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/hatching-a-conspiracy-a-big-investigation

Well, then. First litter of the year, first emergency of the year. I start at Hazel's cage at feeding time, simply because it's closest to the door, and found a litter of about 10 kits inside (the first count is just a rough "fumble through the mound of fur" estimate), but one of the little guys was off to the side rather than in the main pile, and coldly immobile. I set about reviving that one in the usual way (described earlier in this thread, IIRC), by holding it in my cupped hands and huffing my warm breath on it until it started to warm up, and then tucking it inside my shirt so I could carry on with the feeding. Then I moved on to Hester's cage, and found... an entire litter of cold kits. Apparently she'd pumped them out, then hopped out of the nest box and left them to their own devices. So I hustled through feeding and watering the rest of the bunnies, then loaded them into my hat and brought them inside. They're currently on a shelf in my office, wrapped up in my GF's electric blanket. Hopefully as they warm up, some of them will revive. Once they have, I'll put them back into Hester's next box for a little while and see if she steps up and gets over her new-mama confusion.

I always joke that the "Madness" part is that it's the time of year when a Canadian fan on a Canadian sports site has to scroll past two pages of US college ball to get to the hockey coverage...

I think it really comes down to the end result you're looking for. If you broil fresh broccoli, you're probably looking for it to be lightly charred but still tender-crisp. You're not going to get that with frozen. I've cooked frozen broccoli in my oven fairly frequently, because we do love our roasted veg. In my case I'll usually do them at 400 or 425 (conventional), or a bit lower with convection. I'd thought perhaps convection might be better at dispelling the steam from the broccoli, but honestly I don't see much difference one way or another. In our case I always cook the broccoli until very tender, regardless of cooking method, because my poor sweetheart has had all of her molars pulled over the past few years because of recurrent problems, and still gets sporadic infections in her jaw. So no tender-crisp in our meals, because chewing is hard at best and painful at worst for her. If you can live with that, frozen broccoli works fine. I *have* found that some brands do better than others (presumably because of how they're processed?), but you'll have different brands where you live so there's nothing to be gleaned from my experience.

My restaurant, back in the day, was located in a small hotel owned by a "semi-retired" couple who'd moved down from Montreal. The husband was Dutch, and had been a child during the war. Times were very hard then in the Netherlands, especially during the last winter of the war. Most of you Stateside won't know this, but but the RCAF spent much of the winter of 1944-45 dropping not bombs, but pallets of food, over Dutch cities (and facing the same AA fire, and night fighters, as the bombers on combat missions). Those drops helped keep the Dutch from actual starvation, though many were still malnourished. Our troops also liberated most of the Netherlands during that final year. The upshot of all this (and the fact that the exiled Dutch royal family were honored guests in Canada through the war) was that the Dutch and Canadians enjoyed a special bond after the war*, which is why the husband moved here as a young man in the 1950s. He explained to me once that during those hard days, his mother made a dish that was everyone's favorite. I've forgotten the details, but I believe it was something potato-based (probably the equivalent of the Depression-era "soup" of hot water, ketchup, and as many crushed-up crackers you could scrounge). His mother wasn't able to make it on a really regular basis, but it was a favorite within the family and they looked forward to it whenever she could get the ingredients. After the war, when things had gotten better and they were able to buy groceries as needed, they were sitting around one day talking nostalgically about this dish. So they wheedled Mom into making it for them. It did not live up to their recollection of it, not in the least. He explained ruefully that hunger is, indeed, the best sauce. *For the 150th anniversary of the modern-day Canadian state, in 2017, the Dutch bred a special tulip in red and white that bore some resemblance to our maple-leaf flag: Circling back to the main thrust of this thread, nest boxes went into our four does' cages yesterday afternoon. They required a degree of repair, because after the autumn disaster with the stray dog I'd left them sitting out to bleach in the sunshine, and our grandson began playing with them one day. Young boys' play, as most of us know (or remember sheepishly) is often rather destructive, and the nest boxes were very much the worse for wear when I looked at them the next day. So we had A Serious Talk, and hopefully won't need to have another (he's a good kid, and was genuinely chastened). The two brown does, Hester and Hazel, were bred a day before the other two, Hilda and Ivy. We should see litters from them the first two within 24 hours, and then a day later for the other two. Hester in particular has been showing a very typical late-pregnancy nesting obsession, gathering up her hay in mouthfuls at every feeding and then looking around for a place to arrange it. As of this morning all four of them have shaped the hay in their boxes (I wasn't able to buy straw this past fall) into suitably cozy nests. Usually they'll line the nests with fur anywhere from 1 to 3 days ahead of time, though we've also seen them line the nest and then give birth all in a matter of hours. At this point only Hilda has begun that process, and half-heartedly at that, but I'm not reading too much into it. I expect there'll probably be fur in the nests when I go up later for the evening feeding. The first litters of the year are always exciting. We've learned something of our rabbits' personalities, by now. Hester and Hazel are still skittish and hand-shy, though they'll both tolerate an occasional stroke of their forehead (which seems to be a favorite caress with rabbits in general). Hilda is much more approachable, and will happily have cuddles. Ivy (the sole survivor of our original breeders) was very affectionate when she was little, but since "the incident" that killed her littermates, she has been very skittish and unsociable. Vimes, the black buck, has gotten over his initial wariness, and will accept some petting and stroking. But Carrot is the real charmer in the group, a natural-born snugglebunny. His cage is the last I get to as I work my way around with the food and water, and by the time I get to Vimes' cage next door Carrot will be bouncing around excitedly in his cage, for all the world like a pup at the SPCA who knows it's his turn next for a walk. When I open the door he greets me by bumping noses (aka "bunny boop," "muzzle nuzzle") and then leans into my hand for scritches and cuddles, exactly like the big mastiff does in her rather larger way. It's rapidly becoming clear that Carrot will become a house bunny once he's done his duty by our bloodlines here. In other news, we have hatched out a couple of dozen baby quail, so the bunnies are not our first spring babies. Here some photos, to give you some idea of how quickly they grow. When first hatched they're about the size of my thumb; in the next photo they're maybe the size of a hen's egg (3 days old), and in the more recent photo (a week later) they're the size of... I dunno, a yellow mango or a mid-sized songbird?... and mostly fledged out already. This picture's not as good, but the feeder base is 5 or 6 inches in diameter, for scale: ...and one bonus pic. The little man may be hard on unattended nest boxes, but he's very gentle with hatchlings. We'll add a few females from this hatching to our permanent flock, just to top it up to the optimal number for our cage size (too few or too many, and they fight or get territorial). The remainder we'll try to sell either by the bird or as a "starter flock" or two for anyone wanting to begin breeding their own quail. My GF has a quote for purpose-built quail cages like ours at wholesale pricing (minimum order 6), and hopes to sell a complete starter kit of a cage, a male and a half-dozen females at a nice markup. We now have a second batch of quail eggs in the new incubator, at her dad's place. He hatched some for us last year, and quite enjoyed watching the wee birds grow, and was keen to do another hatching this year. Our older incubator is now brooding a batch of chicken eggs for us, divided between Silver Laced Wyandottes to join our main multipurpose flock (sample image of the Wyandotte here:)... ...and some silkies, who will more or less be pets for my stepdaughter and the grandkids. Not sure what coloration these ones will have, but here's a sample image of random silkies: (Their nickname is "furry chickens," for obvious reasons.) We've also bought a new enclosed run for our chickens, with a frame of steel poles and then a mesh cover to protect them from terrestrial and avian predators. I can't set it up yet, because we still need to clear away the last of the debris from the swimming pool we'd ripped out, and that's currently still frozen to the ground. Once we have it set up, with a McGyvered entrance from the chicken coop as well as the main human-sized door, they'll still be able to get out and do chicken things, but will no longer have the free run of our entire property. That will make life a lot simpler, and reduce wear and tear on my garden, as well as making sure they can only lay eggs within a tightly constrained area (no more irritated hunting for illicit nests). Also we'll be able to go back to leaving the mastiff outside during the days again, which will restore our previous status quo of having minimal wildlife encroaching on our property (and also means that any future stray dogs will be met with extreme prejudice). Spring is almost here! (appearances notwithstanding)

In my neck of the woods home-raised eggs sell for $5/dozen, perhaps because I'm in the country and a lot of people have chickens. As of my most recent shopping trip, the price of supermarket eggs has risen from $4.69 to $5.03 (?) at both Sobeys and Superstore.

The good news: researchers have developed a method for perfect soft-boiled eggs. The bad news: you spend a half-hour fussing over them. https://www.nature.com/articles/s44172-024-00334-w

Google outdoes itself...