Of Chickens, Fox, Pupcakes and Elderberry Jam

Things are pretty soggy here on the farm. We haven't seen sun in over a week. The fog conceals the bay and the lower fields. All is chill and gray. Rain is off and on, soaking at times. We can't get the crops in nor the weeds out. The grasses and weeds are growing rapidly providing cover for the strawberry blond mama fox who stalks the hens, hoping to feed her hungry kits. I feel sorry for her, but I do not want to supply her with chicken dinners. Twice she has been here, not 3 yards from the back door where the chickens congregate under the bird feeder to scavange sunflower seeds. She actually had one of the girls in her jaws and was making off with her while the squawking and feather flapping of the other birds alerted me that something different was happening in the dooryard. I looked out the window to see the fox, fowl in its mouth running past the potting shed. I ran out of the house shouting and clapping my hands as hard as I could. The fox dropped the bird. I couldn't believe it. Even more unbelievable was no physical harm had come to the bird. The fox ran off, stopped down the field to turn and look at me, and then disappeared into the woods. The little flock of 5 birds ran for cover into the elderberry grove and there they spent the rest of the day. I checked on the assaulted bird periodically. She looked stunned with a glazed stare and mouth agape and settled behind a bush while the other hens pecked the ground for worms. Later on I found an egg without a shell in the garden. It was a mess of yolk and albumen; the egg was scared out of her. Poor girl!
Our two Australian Shepherds weren't on the property at the time, but the fox has come back when they were here and he still got pretty close.

Our Aussie, Lola, turned 4 on May 17th and Frankie turned 6 on May 2. To celebrate their birthdays I made them "pupcakes" which were served with vanilla icecream. I'd share the pupcake recipe, but I don't think they much cared for them. They were made from whole wheat, carrots, banana, honey, vanilla, egg, cinnamon. Frankie took his out and buried it. Lola took hers to the woodshed and set it on the ground, looking at it and looking at me as if to say, "would it hurt your feelings if I didn't eat this?" They gobbled the icecream, though.

 The greenhouse is full of seedlings waiting to go in the ground. We have passed our usual last frost date and would normally be planting like crazy, but much of the ground is a swamp. Kate, who is doing a CSA on this land, fortunately planted hundreds of onions, leeks, peas, lettuces, and brassicas before the deluge and they seem to be thriving.  They'll really "pop" when the sun finally shines.

When life give you clouds and rain, make jam. That's what I've done this week, made a couple of batches of elderberry jam from frozen berries, to set out on the farm stand shelves when we open in June. Then there will come the strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and elderberries for eating, jam and freezing.
The fruit trees are in flower, humming birds are humming, we've eaten the season's first fresh asparagus and fiddleheads. The rhubarb is ready for cutting. All around us is nature's bounty and we are grateful!